The United States government has been accused of failing to read growing public concern about the future of the country’s atomic energy programme, as the crisis at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant continues to unfold.

Although President Barack Obama has ordered a review into the safety of U.S. plants in the wake of the Japanese disaster, he has continued to reaffirm his commitment to nuclear power as “an important part of our energy future”.

However, a new survey released this week by the nonpartisan Civil Society Institute (CSI) found a majority of U.S. citizens back moving away from nuclear power.

The poll of more than 800 people showed 53 percent of the respondents would support a freeze on new nuclear reactor construction, in favour of renewable technologies such as wind and solar.

There was also majority support for ending additional federal loan guarantees for new reactors, and eliminating the indemnification of the nuclear power industry from most post-disaster cleanup costs.

“The survey findings suggest that Americans would like to see the brakes applied to more nuclear power,” said Graham Hueber, from research company ORC International.

“This goes beyond the simple gut-level question of whether nuclear power is supported or opposed,” he added. “When Americans are asked about their views on specific policy questions that go to the future of nuclear power, there is majority support across the board on every question for moving away from greater reliance on this power source.”

In the 2012 budget, President Obama has requested an additional 36 billion dollars in loan guarantees for new reactors in the U.S., to add to the 104 already in operation across the country.

Against the backdrop of the unfolding disaster in Japan, where engineers continue to battle against nuclear meltdown, environmental advocates have questioned the U.S. government’s unwavering commitment to atomic energy.

“The fact is you’ve got these nuclear power companies that have very concentrated and effective lobbying campaigns,” Tyson Slocum, director of the Public Citizen’s Energy Programme, told IPS.

“A perfect example is the Democratic National Convention to be held in the summer of 2012 to re-nominate Barrack Obama as his party’s nominee for president. You have a nuclear power utility called Duke Energy that is fronting 10 million dollars for that (convention). You don’t see that with solar or wind companies.”

While nuclear companies in the U.S. have attempted to re- label atomic power as a clean solution to global warming, green groups say the recent public polls supporting alternative technologies should be the catalyst for a renewed debate about transitioning from nuclear energy.

“Clearly, Americans don’t want their tax dollars used to support the expansion of dangerous and unnecessary nuclear power when we have clean renewable energy that we can deploy now,” Jim Riccio, nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace USA, told IPS.

“We know that investing in real solutions like energy efficiency and wind and solar power would reduce emissions faster, create millions of jobs, and wouldn’t put communities at risk of the inherent dangers of nuclear power. How long will President Obama and some in Congress maintain their deference to nuclear industry lobbyists in the face of this widespread opposition?” he asked.

Pam Solo, founder of CSI, said while Obama has long been a proponent of nuclear energy as a way to reduce coal-based greenhouse gases, public concern about the risks was mounting.

“There is increasing momentum for energy efficiency and off- the-shelf renewable technologies, which can, over time and with concerted leadership and planning, replace these dangerous and unsustainable energy choices,” she told IPS.

“However, the Obama administration has made reducing CO2 [carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas] its primary objective at the expense of leading toward an energy path that could protect communities, the environment and people’s health while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Solo said.

“It is going to require a willingness to step outside the influence of the coal, oil and nuclear energy lobbies. Right now, the policy debate is really held hostage by special interests,” she added.

In Japan, the death toll from the recent earthquake and tsunami has risen past 9,000, with a further 13,500 people still missing. However, international media attention has largely been focused on the stricken nuclear plants

According to Slocum, in light of the events at Fukushima, the U.S. government’s continued commitment to nuclear power amounts to hedging on public safety.

“They’re just assuming that the risks are so small as to not be a major consideration,” he told IPS. “But we think the risks given the implications of a disaster are too great to ignore.

“The Japanese are arguably the best prepared to deal with earthquakes, yet they failed to adequately plan for the impact of a tsunami,” Slocum said. “This demonstrates the difficulty in planning for both the ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ that impact nuclear reactors from natural disaster and terrorism.”

Last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission launched 14 special inspections in response to “near misses” at U.S. nuclear plants, a figure the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) says is a cause for concern.

“While none of the safety problems in 2010 caused harm to plant employees or the public, their frequency – more than one per month – is high for a mature industry,” said David Lochbaum, the director of UCS’s Nuclear Safety Programme.

As Japan continues to battle the threat of nuclear meltdown in the wake of Friday’s devastating earthquake, lawmakers, environmental activists and the nuclear industry in the United States are squaring up for a heated contest over the future of atomic energy in this country.

Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee, one of the 104 nuclear reactors across the U.S. Credit: Photorush/creative commons license

With the U.S. counted among the world’s biggest producers of nuclear power, debate is centring on Washington’s ability to handle a similar disaster should it occur.

There are 104 nuclear reactors across the U.S. – 35 of which are boiling-water reactors of a similar design to the troubled models in Japan – and policymakers such as Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey are now questioning their safety.

In a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) dated Mar. 11, Markey raised fears about the resilience of the nuclear power plants, several of which lie on or near fault lines.

Of particular concern, he writes, is a nuclear reactor design – manufactured by Westinghouse and currently under review by the NRC – which has reportedly failed seismic shock tests.

According to Markey, a senior engineer at NRC charges that the AP1000 reactor’s shield is so brittle it “could shatter like a glass cup”, under stress generated by an earthquake.

The congressman also highlighted concerns about the U.S.’s ability to respond to a nuclear disaster, following recent revelations that the Environmental Protection Agency, the NRC and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been unable to agree on which agency would lead efforts to address a reactor meltdown.

Markey has requested a thorough investigation into safety regulations in light of the events unfolding in Japan, where authorities reported a further “huge explosion” at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on Monday, triggering fears of a serious radiation leak.

A 20km exclusion zone remains around the plant and local media have reported radiation levels rising in Ibaraki, between Fukushima and Tokyo.

However, the Japanese government has been playing down the threat posed by the ageing reactors, despite requesting urgent assistance from both the NRC and the United Nations atomic watchdog.

Back in the U.S., the Barack Obama administration has moved to reassure the public over the safety of its nuclear plants, brushing aside calls for a moratorium on nuclear power development.

President Obama has already requested an additional 36 billion dollars in loan guarantee authority for new nuclear reactors in 2012. If authorised, this would make a total of 54.5 billion dollars in nuclear loan guarantees.

And industry lobby group, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), has also attempted to stem rising concerns over the future of nuclear energy.

In a statement on its website the NEI said it was too “premature” to draw parallels between the Japanese and U.S. nuclear programmes.

“Japan is facing what literally can be considered a ‘worst case’ disaster and, so far, even the most seriously damaged of its 54 reactors has not released radiation at levels that would harm the public,” the group claimed, reiterating advances made in nuclear energy production in recent years.

“Until we understand clearly what has occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants, and any consequences, it is difficult to speculate about the long- term impact on the U.S. nuclear energy programme.”

However Linda Gunter, from the anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear, called for greater transparency from the country’s nuclear lobby and the Japanese government.

Gunter told IPS the partial meltdown at the Fukushima plant should serve as a wake-up call to those advocating nuclear power.

“Even if you get away from the safety issue, which is obviously front and centre right now because of what’s happening in Japan, and you look at solutions to climate change, then nuclear energy takes way too long to build, reactors take years to come online, they’re wildly expensive. Most of the burden of the cost will fall on the U.S. taxpayer in this country, so why go there?” she said.

“And the possibility of it going radically wrong, the outcome is so awful that morally you can’t justify it,” she added. “The reliability of nuclear power is practically zero in an emergency when you have this confluence of natural disasters.”

In Japan, where up to 10,000 people are feared to have perished in Friday’s tsunami, the nuclear concerns are compounding what is being described as the country’s worst disaster since World War II.

In light of this, Beyond Nuclear and other anti-nuclear organisations are calling for a complete phase-out of nuclear power plants and stronger investment in green energy.

“We have the technology now to go to 100 percent renewables and efficiency,” said Harvey Wasserman, editor of the www.nukefree.org website and author of “Solartopia! Our Green-powered Earth”.

“But the corporations have huge investments that would be threatened by rendering coal, oil, nukes and gas – I call them ‘King Cong’ – obsolete,” he told IPS. “They also fear the installation of an energy system that can be community- controlled rather than corporately monopolised. So it’s ultimately a struggle between rich and poor, corporations and communities, and technologies of death versus those of survival. ”

Other experts stress the dangerous connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation.

“The already oversold ‘nuclear renaissance’ is definitely over,” said John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and director of the U.N. Office of IALANA, the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.

“Every nuclear reactor produces spent fuel containing plutonium, which with chemical processing can be used in weapons,” he told IPS. “The weapons-nuclear power connection must be part of the reassessment of nuclear power.”

“Undoubtedly the disaster will give rise to renewed demands for truth-telling by the nuclear power industry and its regulators. That same demand should be extended to nuclear weapons establishments in the nine countries that possess nuclear arsenals and the many countries in nuclear-weapon alliances,” he said.

The five “declared” nuclear powers are the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, while the four “undeclared” nuclear states are India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

*Additional reporting by Kanya D’Almeida.

By Andrea Lunt and Kanya D'Almeida
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2011 (IPS)

Women from grassroots organisations all across the globe arrived in New York this week for a five-day summit dedicated to bolstering female and community- based representation at all levels of political decision making.

Following on the heels of this year’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Grassroots Summit on Women’s Leadership and Governance, hosted by the Huairou Commission, attracted individuals from a range of institutions, spanning village healthcare advocates, to international scholars.

The event offered a chance for participants to share local success stories and challenges, while creating a platform for grassroots organisations to strengthen their partnerships with entities such as the newly formed UN Women.

Jan Peterson, chair of the Huairou Commission, told IPS the women were challenging traditional decision-making structures at both the country and global levels.

“For all of this time policy makers and academics and other NGOs have made the agenda for grassroots women, for what leadership they need,” Peterson said. “But in this case grassroots women leaders themselves are saying ‘Hey, we’re here, we can speak for ourselves, we can analyse ourselves, and we can organise how we want to move in partnership with others, but we need to get our own voices together first’.”

The pair represented Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), a community organisation that facilitates ties between grassroots women and district-level health officials to ensure better access to healthcare for the poor.

As part of its work, SSP mobilises grassroots women into aptly named Self Help Groups (SHG), which monitor community needs and act as “decentralising” links between issues on the ground and policy making at the top levels of government.

Today SSP’s combined operations work with more than 300,000 families across India.

Dange told IPS their organisation was a successful example of how community leaders were stepping up to have their voices heard. “Before decentralisation there was somebody ruling from the top and people following that,” she said. “Now because of decentralisation, grassroots women are contributing to who is making the policy… But we still have challenges. We are a big country so we have to continue to fight for a space at the state and national level.”

Fellow summit participants who had travelled to New York from 22 different countries echoed the Maharashtrian women’s struggles for political participation.

Representatives from Papua New Guinea, South Africa and Tanzania acknowledged that while their struggles on the ground may differ – responding to the particular manifestations of patriarchy and the specific shackles of the free market across the world – the overall goal of women’s empowerment knows no borders.

Everywhere women are united in their fight for economic justice and political representation.

Speaking on behalf of the Maasai Women and Development Organisation (MWEDO), Espupat Ngulupa stressed the fact that Maasai women are one of the poorest and most marginalised groups in the world. Maasai women struggle daily against the leash of male dominance – they are in dire need of swift political change, and are dedicated to etching out spaces in which their voices will be heard.

Piyoo Kochar, a representative of the International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics (iKNOW Politics), highlighted the fact that her organisation’s objective is to bridge cultural, linguistic and geographical chasms between women around the world via an online, multi-lingual forum dedicated to improving women’s access to resources and information.

“We are keen for women to share their experiences and build collaborative knowledge,” she said. “Already we have 9,500 members, constantly sharing skills… We believe in the cross-fertilisation of strategies, relying on a network of networks that already exists at the country, regional, district, local provincial and levels.”

Today, there is a greater need than ever for platforms like iKNOW’s website. Kathy Karapa Tom, the founder and executive director of Widows Orphans Deserted Association (WODA) in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, discussed her struggle for equality in a country that is home to 800 languages and millions of slum dwellers.

“I work with women whose husbands have passed, and though this is a tragedy it is also an opportunity for us to break away from the control our husbands have on us, and organise around providing education, food and love to our children,” Karapa Tom told IPS. “We are the victims. We are the ones who work and suffer. We know what is best for ourselves, so we need to form our own organisations.”

“It cost us twenty dollars to register our organisation with the National Council of Women, a branch of the government,” Karapa Tom added. “In order to do this, women sat in the marketplace for hours and sold their produce and their fish so they could earn a little extra income.”

“It is a struggle, but we do it, we succeed,” she said. “We are more than cooks and baby factories. We have human rights and skills and potential and we will realise them.”

Although her message was powerful, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the uphill climb ahead of most women. Emily Tjale, the director of the Land Access Movement of South Africa (LAMOSA), is fighting alongside farmers and peasant women to reclaim their ancestral lands in South Africa.

“We started our movement in 1989, just before Nelson Mandela was released from prison,” Tjale told IPS, adding that the battle for land is a war against the post-colonial bureaucracy of ownership papers and title deeds – a system most farmers are unable to navigate.

Despite her exhausting work, Tjale remains convinced that any lasting national or international changes have to be guided by women’s voices from the grassroots. “Without roots, the tree will not stand,” Tjale told IPS. “Without a firm foundation, nothing you build can last.”

Excerpt:

By Andrea Lunt
NEW YORK, Feb 14 2011 (IPS)

More than 200 years ago, one of the United States’ founding presidents, Thomas Jefferson, famously remarked: “Every generation needs a new revolution.” Today, his words are more relevant than ever, as young people across the world mark 2011 as a year of change.

Boaventura de Sousa Santos Credit: Courtesy of Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Judging by the recent uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and the strong turnout at last week’s World Social Forum (WSF) in Dakar, Senegal, activism is alive and well.

For a wrap-up on this year’s WSF and some insight into the recent uprisings, IPS spoke with Boaventura de Sousa Santos, author and professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

Q: What were the highlights of this year’s WSF? A: In spite of organisational difficulties, this was a successful WSF for various reasons. First, Africa’s problems and Africa’s contribution to the world were at the centre of the WSF, precisely at the same time as the people in Cairo celebrated liberation and showed new ways of struggling for it. This focus on Africa became a source of inspiration for the U.N. International Year for People of African Descent, just beginning.

Second, an unprecedented amount of time was allocated to convergence meetings among social movements aiming at jointly planned collective actions.

Third, the renewal of the WSF is definitely on the agenda. The objective is to allow for political demands to be advanced globally in the name of important sectors of the WSF – without compromising the inclusive nature of the world meetings every two years – and to strengthen the self- education and training across national borders.

Q: From Marxism to La Via Campesina, social movements have changed and evolved over the years. What do you think is the most successful approach to making real change in the world? A: Tunis’s and Cairo’s uprisings are showing that a paradigmatic change in oppositional militancy is under way. If until now the central question for progressive politics was how to articulate progressive parties with progressive social movements and NGOs, the new central question is how to articulate progressive parties and social movements, on one side, with unorganised citizens, on the other.

The latter, mostly young people, whom the organised civil society viewed as apolitical, brainwashed by mass consumption and mass media – in sum, lost for social causes – are showing that real change in the world occurs when a threshold is reached beyond which politics becomes equated with human life and human dignity.

Social movements have not reflected on the conditions, times and spaces of such threshold for the simple reason that they didn’t believe that such a threshold existed. For them, being organised meant – and still means – to be on the right side, and being unorganised, on the wrong side.

The real change in the world will occur when multiple Cairos will occur synchronically around the world, all different and all similar. The newest social movements will focus on their relations with the unorganised society and on the intercultural translation that will make possible insurgent transnational aggregation without global homogeneity.

Q: What can we learn from the recent global financial crisis? A: That capitalism is becoming more destructive than ever by squeezing more labour from workers that have a job and more subservience from those that don’t, by resorting to wage theft, by destroying all remnants of the social contract, by silencing, through the financial crisis, all the other crises – energetic, environmental, intergenerational, civilisational crises facing humankind.

We also learn that as long as the crisis is being “resolved” by those that caused it, the destruction will continue. At least, until when many Cairos emerge around the world, based on different grievances but united in the same struggle for social justice and democratic accountability.

Q: Do you think there is the possibility that the U.N. could be strengthened as a world parliament? A: We should struggle, not for spatially inflated forms of representative democracy, but rather for sub-national, national and regional articulations between representative and participatory democracy. In some cases, these two forms of democracy should be joined by communitarian democracy, as stated in the Constitution of Bolivia of 2009. In other words, we need demo-diversity as much as we need biodiversity.

Q: Neoliberal policies prioritise money, profit and the free market as drivers of development. What does “development” mean to you? And what, as a worldwide community, do you think we should prioritise? A: The concept of development emerged to legitimate its opposite: underdevelopment. All of a sudden the vast majority of countries of the world were labelled underdeveloped and the label reached much beyond their economies. Underdeveloped were also their institutions, their laws, their cultures.

The way out for all of them was to follow the path of the very few developed countries, that is, to obey the rules set by the latter for international relations at all levels. Concomitantly, the possibility of multiple modernities was precluded and modernity became, by definition, Western modernity. Indeed, the other “other” of development was not underdevelopment but rather socialist revolution.

Development is at heart a Cold War concept. Having this in mind, it is almost impossible if not self-defeating, to try to conceive of alternative conceptions of development. We need rather alternatives to development.

One of them could be the quechua concept of Sumak kawsay which, according to the Constitution of Ecuador of 2008, should preside over the socio-economic regulation of society. It means roughly buen vivir in Spanish or living well, in English. Living well means an aspiration of individual and collective flourishing that rather than setting us apart from nature – as inherent to the concept of development- conceives of nature as part of human society in such a way that human rights and the rights of nature are the two sides of the same struggle for social emancipation.

As the year of the Rio plus 20 (The UN Conference on Sustainable Development of 2012) approaches, giving credibility to the concept of Sumak kawsay may be a good way of indicating our priorities.

Q: The world is growing at an unprecedented rate. How can we handle this growth while being responsible to both people and the environment? A: Food sovereignty and what it entails is the solution.

Excerpt:

By Andrea Lunt
NEW YORK, Feb 8 2011 (IPS)

Behind the headlines of mass social forums and violent protests, fighting oppression and changing the world requires sustained grassroots action, according to Kenyan social justice activist Onyango Oloo.

Onyango Oloo Credit: Courtesy of Onyango Oloo

With this year’s Feb. 6-11 World Social Forum in full swing, IPS spoke to Oloo, a writer, former political prisoner and national coordinator of the 2007 WSF, about climate change, the ongoing protests in North Africa and social movements in his home country of Kenya. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What are the big issues being discussed at the 2011 WSF? A: This year’s event in Dakar is organised around what the WSF is referring to as “axes”. There are 12 of them, which range from issues of dignity, diversity, justice, gender oppression, recognition of sexual minorities, protection of the environment, climate justice and struggles against multinationals and global capitalism, peace and conflict transformation, to give a very truncated version.

I am particularly passionate about social movements and processes that lead to progressive national liberation triumphs all over the world, but especially in Africa.

Q: What is your take on the protests occurring across North Africa? Why are they happening now and do you believe they could spread to other regions of the continent? A: I am quite enthused and inspired by what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia. Revolutionary upsurges, contrary to mainstream media hype, are very different from a kettle of tea boiling over all over a sudden.

What is happening today in North Africa is the culmination of struggles, victories and reverses that have happened over many decades and are a product of many social contradictions – not the least of which is the disconnect between the machinations of neo-liberal imperialism and the popular aspirations for democracy, social justice, peace and a better society.

Revolutions by their very nature are not manufactured commodities from some factory conveyer belt that can be exported “willy nilly” to other countries. Nevertheless, the power of example should act as a catalyst for other national liberation struggles around Africa and the Middle East.

Q: How is climate change affecting populations in Kenya? How can social activism address issues being driven by climate change? A: Profoundly. Livelihoods are affected. Water towers are threatened. In Kenya, the fact that greedy speculators who have grabbed some of the rainforests and other natural reserves also happen to be powerful politicians means that the ripple effects of climate change will sooner, rather than later, spill over to the arena of class conflict and social unrest.

To me, climate change justice is part of the wider social justice and political transformation agenda. Human beings are part of the environment and therefore whatever they do, or is done to them, contributes one way or another to the degree to which global humankind finds lasting, sustainable solutions to the challenges foisted on mother earth by climate change.

We are lucky that one of the key organisations spearheading our Kenyan presence in Dakar is the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, the Nairobi-based secretariat of the continental climate change network.

Q: In your opinion, what are the most important social movements happening in Kenya at the moment? A: This is a question that is difficult, if not impossible to answer. In the first place, one cannot put social movements in any kind of hierarchy of “importance” in Kenya. In the second place, and to be quite candid, social movements in Kenya are still by and large, very weak with many of them in their nascent stages.

Some of them have been captured by Western-funded NGOs so their agendas are mere adjuncts of the funding priorities of North American and European donor agencies. Nevertheless, I would single out Bunge la Mwananchi as having made significant forays in disturbing the complacency of the neo- colonial status quo.

Q: What are some successful or alternative models of development in your country, or in Africa as a whole, that could be transferred to other areas of the globe? A: There is a lot of indigenous knowledge that is often “pooh poohed” by the mainstream Western media. I am talking about the reservoir of knowledge and praxis in the area of herbal and traditional medicine. Over the last few years even the medical mainstream is acknowledging that alternative/traditional health practices have offered palliatives and healthier approaches in dealing with ailments and conditions like diabetes, heart disease, prostrate cancer, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

Rwanda has shown the way in dealing with peace and conflict transformation through their gacaca courts set up in the aftermath of the terrible genocide of the mid-1990s.

African farmers, like their Asian counterparts, have superior methods of preserving the ecosystem and conserving seed knowledge in contrast to the Monsantos of the world.

In my opinion, fellow Kenyan compatriots from the Maa speaking peoples have demonstrated a resilience in holding onto to their culture without becoming historical relics consigned to museums.

African women, like the women of the Umoja Peace Village near Nanyuki in central Kenya, have come up with models of feminist empowerment rooted firmly within their reality as rural, pastoral ethnic minority communities – a shocker to those who believe that feminism in Africa is a preserve of urban based, university educated petit-bourgeois women.

Q: What’s the best way for social activists to have their voices heard and to ensure ideas discussed at forums such as the WSF are translated into real policy changes at the national and international levels? The best way to have their voices heard is not to wait for annual and periodical events like the World Social Forum. We talk best through conscious, united, concerted and sustained political action at the local, national and continental level.

What I am saying in other words that activists should not pine for the fleeting sound bites on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera or even dare I say, IPS, but rather listen to their own sisters and brothers speaking to them at home, in the local community and in their own countries as they analyse and organise around their specific oppressions and challenges.

That way, when they do make it to places like Dakar and Porto Alegre, what their comrades and companeros from around the world will be hearing will be powerful echoes from their own struggles back at home.

Incidentally, I did not make it to Dakar this year because I did not have any money to get on the plane to Senegal. Many activists around Africa faced this challenge. It is a rueful reminder of the class dictated constraints to participating in such events like the World Social Forum – even when they take place on the same continent you call home.

Excerpt:

Earlier this month, on a hot and humid day in the Jambi province of Indonesia, a group of local farmers was critically injured after being shot as they attempted to harvest fruit on a contested palm plantation.

The shooting, allegedly carried out by the national police’s notorious Mobile Brigade (Brimob), followed a four-year-long conflict between the villagers of Karang Mendapo and an Indonesian palm oil company, involving local land rights.

While this violent attack caused outcry and protests locally, Jambi’s is not an isolated case.

As climate change fears lead to a rise in carbon trading, and industries such as palm oil and biofuel prosper, indigenous peoples worldwide are increasingly being forced to fight against land grabs from both big business and their own governments.

“I don’t know how forest communities will benefit from climate change,” said Ghan Shyam Pandey, a forest conservationist and management specialist from the Ashwara community in Nepal.

Pandey is the coordinator of the Global Alliance of Community Forestry (GACF) and is currently in New York for the ninth session of the biennial United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF9).

The forum, which officially launches the International Year of the Forests, follows the REDD+ agreement negotiated in Cancún last December, which saw the global community lay out objectives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

Although Pandey welcomes agreements such as REDD+ as tools to advance conservation, he underscored the need for universal pacts to consider the livelihoods of indigenous communities.

“Forests are not only about biodiversity and climate change and carbon, but also other things,” he told IPS.

“Those people who live in and around the forest depend on the forest. If this is realised by governments – that we are responsible to both people and forests – if they can make good policies for both the forests and people to make their livelihoods better, and eradicate poverty, that will really bring new things,” Pandey said.

It is a sentiment echoed in a report released this week by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO), highlighting the need for people to be put back at the centre of forest management.

And it’s the theme of this year’s UNFF9, which has called for the international community to respond to global warming with “people-friendly” conservation solutions.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), at least 1.6 billion people depend on forests globally, and approximately 60 million are employed by forest-based industries.

While forests cover about 31 percent of the world’s land area, amounting to just under four billion hectares, 13 million hectares have been lost due to its conversion to other uses.

Many forest areas have been traditionally managed by local communities. However, with the increasing popularity of carbon storage and biofuels, there is fresh interest in these previously “unprofitable” land tracts.

According to Jeremy Rayner, one of the authors of the IUFRO report, indigenous people are losing their customary land rights as governments and businesses rush to secure control over forests worldwide.

“We know, of course, from bitter experience that turning forests into protected areas that exclude local communities is a losing proposition,” Rayner, a professor at University of Saskatchewan Graduate School of Public Policy, told IPS.

“It’s simply impossible to enforce – and it puts a great deal of pressure on other forest areas,” he said.

Rayner said the REDD+ agreement was a step forward in terms of forest conservation. However, he argues that “one-size- fits-all” international pacts needed to focus more on supporting individual regional initiatives.

Washington-based conservationist Andy White, coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative, agrees.

White told IPS the past 12 months had seen major progress in countries such as Brazil, the Philippines and Mexico in respect to indigenous land rights, but other areas of the globe including Indonesia were lagging behind.

“I hope that governments are not coming to New York with plans to celebrate,” White said, in reference to the UNFF9.

“There has been shockingly little progress since the first global forestry congress dedicated to ‘people and forests’ in Jakarta in 1978. If governments had taken their agreements there seriously, to put people at the centre of forestry, then Indonesia would now be the centre of global forest conservation, not leading the world in deforestation,” he added.

“Governments still claim ownership over a majority of the forests across the world despite historic ownership by local peoples, despite clear evidence that indigenous peoples and forest communities do a better job at conservation than governments, and despite the fact that government-promoted forest industries have led to corruption and continued exclusion of local people, extensive abuses of women and children and entrenched poverty.”

White argues that until pressures stemming from booming food prices, agriculture and biofuels were managed effectively and rights for local peoples were respected, violent clashes such as the recent incident in Jambi province were likely to increase.

“When we look back at 2010 we see it was a year of substantial pushback from local communities,” he noted. “On one hand, it’s good that communities are increasingly able to speak out, but what we will see now is the real contest, and we’re likely to see more conflict in the future for it.”