The executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, highlighted on Friday Dec. 16 the results of the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and fair benefit sharing at an event during COP15 in the Canadian city of Montreal. But the talks have not reached an agreement on the digital sequencing of genetic resources. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 16 2022 (IPS)

In addition to its nutritional properties, quinoa, an ancestral grain from the Andes, also has cosmetic uses, as stated by the resource use and benefit-sharing permit ABSCH-IRCC-PE-261033-1 awarded in February to a private individual under a 15-month commercial use contract.

The permit, issued by the Peruvian government’s National Institute for Agrarian Innovation, allows the Peruvian beneficiary to use the material in a skin regeneration cream.

But it also sets restrictions on the registration of products obtained from quinoa or the removal of its elements from the Andean nation, to prevent the risk of irregular exploitation without a fair distribution of benefits, in other words, biopiracy."The scientific community is willing to share benefits through simple mechanisms that do not unfairly burden researchers in low- and middle-income countries." -- Amber Scholz

The licensed material may have a digital representation of its genetic structure which in turn may generate new structures from which formulas or products may emerge. This is called digital sequence information (DSI), in the universe of research or commercial applications within the CBD.

Treatment of DSI forms part of the debates at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began on Dec. 7 and is due to end on Dec. 19 at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal.

The summit has brought together some 15,000 people representing the 196 States Parties to the CBD, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies.

The focus of the debate is the Post-2020 Global Framework on Biodiversity, which consists of 22 targets in areas including financing for conservation, guidelines on digital sequencing of genetic material, degraded ecosystems, protected areas, endangered species, the role of business and gender equality.

Like most of the issues, negotiations on DSI and the sharing of resulting benefits, contained in one of the Global Framework’s four objectives and in target 13, are at a deadlock, on everything from definitions to possible sharing mechanisms.

Except for the digital twist, the issue is at the heart of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, part of the CBD, signed in that Japanese city in 2010 and in force since 2014.

The delegations of the 196 States Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have failed to make progress at COP15 in the negotiations on new targets for the protection of the world’s natural heritage, in the Canadian city of Montreal. In the picture, a working group reviews a proposal on the complex issue. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Amber Scholz, a German member of the DSI Scientific Network, a group of 70 experts from 25 countries, said there is an urgent need to close the gap between the existing innovation potential and a fair benefit-sharing system so that digital sequencing benefits everyone.

“It’s been a decade now and things haven’t turned out so well. The promise of a system of innovation, open access and benefit sharing is broken,” Scholz, a researcher at the Department of Microbial Ecology and Diversity in the Leibniz Institute’s DSMZ German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, told IPS.

DSI stems from the revolution in the massive use of technological tools, which has reached biology as well, fundamental in the discovery and manufacture of molecules and drugs such as those used in vaccines against the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD COP10, were missed by the target year, 2020, and will now be renewed and updated by the Global Framework that will emerge from Montreal.

The targets included respect for the traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, their customary use of biological resources, and the full and effective participation of indigenous and local communities in the implementation of the CBD.

Lack of clarity in the definition of DSI, challenges in the traceability of the country of origin of the sequence via digital databases, fear of loss of open access to data and different outlooks on benefit-sharing mechanisms are other aspects complicating the debate among government delegates.

Through the Action Agenda: Make a Pledge platform, organizations, companies and individuals have already made 586 voluntary commitments at COP15, whose theme is “Ecological civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”.

Of these, 44 deal with access and benefit sharing, while 294 address conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 185 involve partnerships and alliances, and 155 focus on adaptation to climate change and emission reductions.

Genetic havens

Access to genetic resources for commercial or non-commercial purposes has become an issue of great concern in the countries of the global South, due to the fear of biopiracy, especially with the advent of digital sequencing, given that physical access to genetic materials is not absolutely necessary.

Although the Nagoya Protocol includes access and benefit-sharing mechanisms, digital sequencing mechanisms have generated confusion. In fact, this instrument has created a market in which lax jurisdictions have taken advantage by becoming genetic havens.

Around 2,000 gene banks operate worldwide, attracting some 15 million users. Almost two billion sequences have been registered, according to statistics from GenBank, one of the main databases in the sector and part of the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Argentina leads the list of permits for access to genetic resources in Latin America under the Protocol, with a total of 56, two of which are commercial, followed by Peru (54, four commercial) and Panama (39, one commercial). Mexico curbed access to such permits in 2019, following a scandal triggered by the registration of maize in 2016.

There are more than 100 gene banks operating in Mexico, 88 in Peru, 56 in Brazil, 47 in Argentina and 25 in Colombia.

The largest providers of genetic resources leading to publicly available DSI are the United States, China and Japan. Brazil ranks 10th among sources and users of samples, according to a study published in 2021 by Scholz and five other researchers.

The mechanisms for managing genetic information sequences have become a condition for negotiating the new post-2020 Global Framework for biodiversity, which poses a conflict between the most biodiverse countries (generally middle- and low-income) and the nations of the industrialized North.

Brazilian indigenous activist Cristiane Juliao, a leader of the Pankararu people, calls for a fair system of benefit-sharing for access to and use of genetic resources and their digital sequences at COP15, being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Indigenous people and their share

Cristiane Juliao, an indigenous woman of the Pankararu people, who is a member of the Brazilian Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, said the mechanisms adopted must favor the participation of native peoples and guarantee a fair distribution of benefits.

“We don’t look at one small element of a plant. We look at the whole context and the role of that plant. All traditional knowledge is associated with genetic heritage, because we use it in food, medicine or spiritual activities,” she told IPS at COP15.

Therefore, she said, “traceability is important, to know where the knowledge was acquired or accessed.”

In Montreal, Brazilian native organizations are seeking recognition that the digital sequencing contains information that indigenous peoples and local communities protect and that digital information must be subject to benefit-sharing. They are also demanding guarantees of free consultation and the effective participation of indigenous groups in the digital information records.

Thanks to the system based on the country’s Biodiversity Law, in effect since 2016, the Brazilian government has recorded revenues of five million dollars for permits issued.

The Working Group responsible for drafting the new Global Framework put forward a set of options for benefit-sharing measures.

They range from leaving in place the current status quo, to the integration of digital sequence information on genetic resources into national access and benefit-sharing measures, or the creation of a one percent tax on retail sales of genetic resources.

Lagging behind

There is a legal vacuum regarding this issue, because the CBD, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in force since 2004, do not cover all of its aspects.

Scholz suggested the COP reach a decision that demonstrates the political will to establish a fair and equitable system. “The scientific community is willing to share benefits through simple mechanisms that do not unfairly burden researchers in low- and middle-income countries,” she said.

For her part, Juliao demanded a more inclusive and fairer system. “There is no clear record of indigenous peoples who have agreed to benefit sharing. It is said that some knowledge comes from native peoples, but there is no mechanism for the sharing of benefits with us.”

IPS produced this article with support from Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

Anne Larigauderie, the Executive Secretary of IPBES, with Hoesung Lee, President of the IPCC. IPBES and the IPCC were joint winners of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity 2022, which was dedicated to climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Oct 13 2022 (IPS)

IPBES’ assessment report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species, released in July 2022, painted a troubling picture of the ongoing global biodiversity crisis that could paralyse economies and endanger food security and livelihoods.

Earlier in February 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) painted a similarly troubling picture: a warning that every tenth of a degree of additional warming could escalate threats to people, species, and ecosystems.

IPBES and IPCC both produce scientific knowledge, alert society to climate change and biodiversity loss, and inform decision-makers to make better choices for combatting climate change and the loss of biodiversity. In doing so, they provide tools to foster a low-carbon future, mitigate climate change’s negative effects, and promote a resilient society.

For their contribution to climate change adaptation and resilience building, IPBES and IPCC today (October 13, 2022) emerged winners of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity 2022, which was dedicated to climate change.

“The decision to award the 2022 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity to both IPBES and the IPCC is a powerful statement confirming that the global loss of species, destruction of ecosystems, and degradation of nature’s contributions to people together represent a crisis not only of similar magnitude to that of climate change, but one which must be addressed with at least similar urgency,” said Anne Larigauderie, the Executive Secretary of IPBES who accepted the prize alongside Hoesung Lee, President of the IPCC.

“The unified message from both of our expert communities is that either we tackle and solve the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis together – or we will fail on both fronts.”

Additionally, Lee emphasised that science was “our most powerful instrument to tackle climate change, a clear and imminent threat to our wellbeing and livelihoods, the wellbeing of our planet and all of its species. For IPCC scientists, this prize is an important recognition and encouragement. For the decision-makers, it is another push for more decisive climate action.”

IPBES is an independent, intergovernmental body set up in 2012 with the objective of improving the interface between scientific knowledge and political decision-makers on questions around biodiversity, the protection of ecosystems, human wellbeing, and sustainability.

IPCC, the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2007, in conjunction with Al Gore, is a United Nations-affiliated organisation that fosters the production of scientific knowledge within the scope of evaluating the climate impacts of human actions and supporting governments with regard to their decision-making and the implementation of measures able to combat climate change.

Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, chaired the jury Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity 2022. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

The two entities – IPBES and IPCC – were selected out of 116 nominations from 41 nationalities spanning five continents. Angela Merkel, former Chancellor of Germany, chaired the jury with vice-chair Miguel Bastos Araújo (Geographer, Pessoa Award 2018).

Merkel attended the prizegiving, as did António Feijó, President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation that introduced the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity in 2020.

The focus on climate change, Feijó explained, was a very simple decision: “Climate change and all which this philanthropic organisation does, they represent an existential condition for humanity.”

Merkel reiterated the importance of focusing on climate change acknowledging the controversies that often surround decisions made and the many policies on the table for the potential way ahead.

“Science is the most important link. Scientific evidence cannot be removed from the equation. We may have our own political views, but I believe we must make the right decision in order to ensure the survival of humanity,” Merkel observed.

Merkel further stressed that humanity now faces two crises, biodiversity loss and climate change, emphasising their interlinkages.

On biodiversity, Larigauderie spoke of the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which alerted the world that a million species, out of an overall eight million, of plants and animals, now face extinction – many within decades.

This degradation of nature, she said, is affecting the capacity of ecosystems to deliver on a number of key functions central to human survival, including the capacity to mitigate against climate change and to achieve food security.

The jury, comprised of leading figures in global climate and environment research and action, highlighted how this prize recognises the role of science on the front line of tackling climate change and the loss of biodiversity.

Finding that “evidence-based science has been fundamental not only to advancing many of the political and public actions but also the need to attribute the ‘nature of urgency’ to the ways in which the political agenda approaches the question of combatting the climate crisis”.

In this regard, Larigauderie and Lee expressed their gratitude to thousands of scientists and indigenous and local knowledge holders for volunteering their time and expertise to deliver robust research on climate change and biodiversity.

“Our reports are the most authoritative, may I say, the scientific voice of the United Nations about climate change. They provide the world’s leaders and decision-makers at all levels with a sound and most scrutinised scientific knowledge about our climate system, climate change and how to tackle it,” Lee observed.

“The Prize comes at a critical time for climate change science. IPCC reports are clear and unequivocal. Climate change is man-made, widespread, rapid and intensifying. Today, we are not on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

Against this backdrop, the Jury stressed that IPBES and IPCC stood out in highlighting the relationship between “science, climate, biodiversity and society, representing the best that is done in this field all around the world.”

The Jury, therefore, recognised how the two organisations serve to emphasise “the need to look at the climate crisis and biodiversity in conjunction, with concerted approaches making recourse to nature-based solutions.”

With an annual cash award of €1 million, the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity recognise people, groups of people or organisations from across the globe that make outstanding, innovative, and impactful contributions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

This is the third edition of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity. It was awarded for the first time in 2020 to the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. In 2021 the Prize was awarded to the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, the largest global alliance for climate leadership in cities, comprising more than 10,600 cities and local governments from 140 countries, including Portugal.

IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Nature Insight: Speed dating with the Future’, an IPBES podcast, is spreading the love for science and nature. Its aim is to change perceptions and ignite interest even in animals like the bat. Bats are often blamed for ills but in reality we, as humans, have expanded into bats' territory. Credit: Geoff Brooks/Unsplash

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Feb 17 2022 (IPS)

In a busy world where love is a complicated affair, speed dating is one way to connect, but can it work to ignite more sustainable relationships with nature? Are we open to a romance with science and evidence?

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is spreading the love for science through an innovative podcast series, ‘Nature Insight: Speed dating with the Future’. A podcast is a regular series of digital audio episodes focused on a particular topic, which can be subscribed to, downloaded, or streamed.

Talking science

The IPBES podcast was first piloted in 2021 to help make the work of IPBES more accessible to a wider audience. IPBES is involved in documenting, synthesizing, and critically evaluating relevant knowledge about our relationship with the rest of nature to help reverse the global loss of biodiversity.

A second podcast season, launched just last week, will feature interviews with experts offering insights about biodiversity loss from many angles. This will include the sustainable use of wild species, the many values of nature, how the law can address the nature crisis, the role of the financial sector in biodiversity protection, and mobilizing private sector philanthropy for nature.

“We want to bring our work to new audiences and explain to decision-makers outside the environment space why they should care about the science of biodiversity and the science behind nature and the protection of nature,” explains Rob Spaull, Head of Communications at IPBES. He argues that biodiversity is often made to sound academic, something that belongs in a lab or a university, with little effect on people’s lives.

“That is furthest from the truth because biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people are all about what happens in our daily life; the food that we eat, the water that we drink, the air that we breathe, and the diseases that we try to avoid. Biodiversity is the cornerstone of human wellbeing.”

Rob Spaull, Head of Communications at IPBES says the idea behind the podcast was to bring IPBES’ work to new audiences. Credit: IPBES

“Our first season of Nature Insight has been downloaded in dozens of countries and broke into the Top Ten charts for podcasts about nature and science. By the end of our first season, we had the evidence to show that not only had we produced a good podcast but that we had managed to expand our IPBES audience, particularly among non-environment decision-makers,” Spaull said. He noted that the podcast series also sought to give decision-makers the best evidence possible on biodiversity issues. For instance, in the first season, Dr Anne Poelina, an indigenous leader from Australia, discusses the value of different kinds of knowledge systems. She argues that indigenous knowledge should complement western science in science-policy reports.

Biodiversity under threat

IPBES is an independent intergovernmental body established to strengthen the science-policy interface on biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human wellbeing, and suitable development. Its seminal publication, The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services, released in 2019, found that 1 million animals and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades. Changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change pollution, and invasive alien species are the leading causes of changes in nature.

According to the Global Assessment Report, the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20 percent, mostly since 1900. More than 40 percent of amphibian species, almost 33 percent of reef-forming corals, and more than a third of all marine mammals are threatened. The picture is less clear for insect species, but available evidence supports a tentative estimate of 10 percent being threatened.

“The overwhelming evidence of the IPBES Global Assessment, from a wide range of different fields of knowledge, presents an ominous picture,” said Robert Watson, former IPBES Chair, in 2019. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide.”

The IPBES podcast had been recorded remotely and launched during the first wave of COVID-19, which relates directly to nature loss. Spaull said the first episode of the first season had focused on the links between the risk of pandemics and the destruction of nature.

Speaking on the first episode of the show, zoologist and expert on disease ecology Dr Peter Daszak said people cannot blame the rest of nature – especially not pangolins, snakes, and bats, for our environmental health problems.

“I feel really sorry for bats in particular that they are getting blamed, already they have got such a bad rap in films, TV shows, and books. They are going about their daily business doing what they have done for millions of years,” said  Daszak, who is also President of EcoHealth Alliance. This non-profit organization supports global health. He explained that human populations have expanded to reach into the habitats of all animal species, like bats.

“We are eating them, cutting down the trees they live in, we invading the caves that they inhabit, and as by-products of that, we get exposed to the viruses they have carried for millions of years which do not harm them and unfortunately kill us. It’s really our fault actually if we want to point the blame.”

Admitting to having taken something of a gamble with the podcast’s title, Spaull said the podcast was essentially offering listeners a chance to speed date with nature and the future.

“As with real speed dating, you get this opportunity to connect, for a very short time, with people you might never otherwise have a chance to meet – and if what they say resonates with you, it could make a difference to both of your lives,” said Spaull. “We want to give people information about the science of biodiversity so that they can better understand our relationships with the species and ecosystems with whom we share our planet – so that we can all take better action and make better-informed choices.”

Mangroves substantially reduce the vulnerability of coastlines to erosion from waves and tides and are an important contributor to biodiversity. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

Policymakers listening to the science?

Governments, decision-makers, and ordinary citizens need to protect biodiversity through transformative change. This was the underlying message in an episode entitled ‘Choose your own adventure (what is transformative change and how we all can make it happen)’ with Professor Kai Chan, an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented sustainability scientist at the Institution for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia.

Dr David Obura, one of the world’s leading experts on coral reefs and fisheries and the importance of coral reefs and coastlines for biodiversity and people, said the podcast has helped communicate science.

“I have enjoyed doing the podcast. It helps build up awareness about IPBES as an institution and what it does,” said Obura. He admitted that the Speed Dating podcast had introduced him to listening to podcasts.

“Policymakers are listening to the science to a greater extent in different countries and different sectors. I think the COVID pandemic has shown the importance of science and how we communicate it,” he said. “Amazing science is being done, but getting the message out about this science and evidence is critical.”

Acting for the future of biodiversity

With the second season of the Nature Insight: Speed Dating with the Future podcast now underway, Spaull said the series would continue to offer the views of seldom-heard voices and people with great stories to tell.

“Season two is timely; the global negotiations will take place later this year to agree on the biodiversity targets for the next ten years. These are going to be agreed by governments around the world, much as the climate change targets were recently discussed and agreed,” Spaull said.

“So it is a good time to be talking about all these issues and how they fit into people’s lives because it’s not just academic, it vital for us all.”

• IPS UN Bureau Report

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Rwanda's Gishwati Mukura rainforest is one of the most biodiverse places on the Congo Basin. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
NYABIHU, Rwanda, Sep 30 2021 (IPS)

Laurent Hategekimana, a villager from Nyabihu, a district from Western Rwanda, recalls the terrible condition of the Gishwati natural forest a few years ago when it was overrun by illegal loggers and invading farmers.

Many invaders of this natural reserve were local villagers, and Hategekimana, a farmer-turned environmental activist, faced a hard task changing their minds.

“Although many haven’t yet started getting tangible benefits, some people are engaging in beekeeping while others are trying to venture into tree planting, conservation farming and handcraft,” the father of six told IPS in an interview.

In these remote rural parts of Rwanda, tropical forest conservation is now creating new jobs for several thousand indigenous people who live especially near major rainforests in Western Rwanda thanks to the country’s new laws and policies encouraging community participation in environmental protection.

With a number of challenges facing this group who self-identify as having a link to surrounding natural resources, scientists recommend strategic solutions to resolve possible conflicts between people and the conservation of wildlife along this part of the Congo river basin.

Some scientists believe it is important to find out what kinds of activities communities want, need and could commit to and steward in a sustainable way, to come up with durable actions that address biodiversity conservation and climate change issues.

Thanks to several conservation mechanisms adopted recently by the Rwanda government and stakeholders, Hategekimana is among members of the indigenous community who have become actively involved in keeping guard of the Gishwati natural forest. They inform the local administrative authorities of illegal activities such as felling trees without a permit and burning charcoal.

“I now understand the importance of conserving the forest. That’s why I sacrifice my time to protect it,” Hategekimana said.

Over the last two decades, large parts of these natural reserves on the Rwandan side of the Congo rainforest were nearly depleted, largely due to resettlement and livestock farming.

When new forest conservation efforts were initiated in 2015, most local villagers felt they were depriving their main source of income. Some were initially engaged in illegal logging, timber, and charcoal business.

The natural reserve of Gishwati-Mukura, now a national park for conservation, is currently contributing to improving the livelihoods of the local communities living in the surrounding areas. This, in turn, offers the forest a better chance of regeneration.

This has pushed local residents to launch a local NGO focusing on the conservation of the newly created national park. Thanks to these initiatives, the size of the reserve increased from 886 to 1 484 hectares the number of chimpanzees grew from 13 to 30, the 600 hectares added to the core forest are naturally regenerating and chimpanzees started using this area over the last two decades

Professor Beth Kaplin, the Director of the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management of the University of Rwanda told IPS that there is a need to commit to really listening to the people who live next to this park and interact with it daily and develop strategies collaboratively to solve emerging problems.

“We need to take time to find out what kinds of activities communities want, need and could commit to and steward in a sustainable way (…) to come up with durable actions that address biodiversity conservation and climate change issues,” she said.

Gishwati Forest, a protected reserve in the north-western part of Rwanda, covers an area of about 1439 hectares and Mukura forest, with a total surface of 1987 hectares, has critical populations of endemic and endangered species such as golden monkeys, blue monkeys, and chimpanzees and over 130 different types of birds.

The reserve also boasts about 60 species of trees, including indigenous hardwoods and bamboo, according to Rwanda Development Board, a government agency responsible for Tourism and Conservation.

The Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA) estimates the forest reserves initially covered 250 000 hectares, but illegal mining, animal grazing, tree cutting, and other practices drastically reduced its size.

In 2014, Rwanda received $9.5 million from the Global Environment Facility through the World Bank to restore the forest and biodiversity in the Gishwati-Mukura forest.

The primary purpose of this funding was to support community-based activities. These included farm stays, handicrafts, beekeeping, and tourism activities such as tea plantation tours and the chance to learn from traditional healers, who use natural plants to support modern medicine and synthesised drugs.

The collective efforts of villagers, environmental, indigenous NGOs and local administrative entities to train and mobilise villagers on the importance of conserving the forest in this part of the Congo River Basin, which covers 33 percent of Rwanda, has been praised.

“These efforts have changed people’s mindsets and in turn save this natural forest from extinction,” said Jean Bosco Hakizimana, a senior local administrative leader in Arusha, a small forest village from Nyabihu, a mountainous district in North-Western Rwanda.

Delphine Uwajeneza, the deputy head of the African Initiative for Mankind Progress Organization, told IPS that the key to achieving the current natural forest conservation efforts would be to include indigenous people in decision-making and management of ecosystems. Her NGO advocates for the protection and promotion of the rights, welfare, and development of the historically marginalised people in Rwanda.

“Current conservation efforts will not allow rainforests to persist if they are completely closed off from use or other benefits by these communities … they are the first to preserve the environment,” Uwajeneza told IPS in an interview.

While the Rwandan Government and stakeholders are satisfied with current conservation efforts, some scientists and activists shake their heads in dismay and say it is not enough. They are adamant the communities living around those natural reserves need to benefit.

Dr Charles Karangwa, Head of the Regional Forests and Landscapes Programme for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Eastern and Southern Africa Region, told IPS the most important is to balance the need of these communities trying to make a living and trying to maintain and sustain their forests.

“Development actors need to engage these vulnerable communities in a win-win situation,” he said.

In 2011, Rwanda joined “The Bonn Challenge”, a global effort to bring 150 million hectares of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020. Rwanda has reached its 30% forest cover target, according to officials.

However, despite the good policy framework and efforts towards achieving this goal, experts stress the need for identifying ways that communities can benefit from the resources of the forest in sustainable ways.

“People who work here (in the traditional ceramic industry) earn their livelihood without entirely depending on forest resources,” says 55-year-old Giselle Uwimanaas as she chats with neighbours in the village a stone’s throw from a nearby rainforest reserve of Mukura in Rutsiro, Western Rwanda.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Golden Monkey (Cercopithecus mitis ssp. kandti) Endangered in IUCN Red List. In Cameroon, 1999 bushmeat was openly on sale along the road as 100-year-old trees were illegally logged and transported. Today large primates face the same fate, even if not so openly. Credit: Steve Morgan / Greenpeace

By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, Sep 2 2021 (IPS)

As Arti Prasad rode the Kuala Lumpur Pavilion mall escalator up to the third floor, a pair of luscious lips pouted down at her. Next to the towering and oversized lips, the vibrant red shades of lipstick on the giant screen immediately caught the 36-year-old Indian tourist’s fancy.

Prasad headed straight to the cosmetic outlet and bought all four of the advertised lipsticks. She, like many others, is oblivious to a baby Orangutan’s plight – orphaned when its forest home was burned down to grow the palm oil that went into these beauty products. Primary forest losses mean that only 10% of gorilla habitat will remain in the Congo Basin by 2032.

Deforestation, a significant threat to biodiversity and climate change, is accelerated by global demand for commodities. However, a considerable share of this agro-commodity production is intended for export – driving massive deforestation and conversion of natural ecosystems in the global south.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates global forest areas declined by 129 million hectares between 1990-2015, equivalent in size to South Africa.

Data from satellite imagery released on Global Forest Watch in June 2020 recorded 3.75 million hectares of tree cover loss in humid primary forests in the tropics in 2019, an almost 3% increase from 2018 and the third-largest tropical forest loss since 2000. 

Consumption patterns of G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, and the US) drive an average loss of 3.9 trees per person per year, over 15 years from 2001-2015, says a study published this year in Nature.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) will hold the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France, from 3-11 September 2021. This premier conservation event will address global deforestation. More importantly, Congress motion 012 – the fight against imported deforestation – was co-sponsored by numerous IUCN Members and voted on and approved before Congress.

The IUCN Congress meets every four years to tackle the most pressing issues impacting people and the planet. This IUCN Congress in Marseille will drive action on nature-based recovery, climate change, and biodiversity for decades to come.

Congress motion 012 calls on countries to stop imported deforestation through several ambitious strategies, including imposing additional taxes on imported products that generate deforestation.
The aim is to recommend that private companies establish concrete action plans to guarantee supplies that did not result in deforestation.

Red-faced spider monkeys (Ateles paniscus) are found in undisturbed primary rainforests, in northern Brazil, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana and Venezuela. Because of its ability to climb and jump, it tends to live in the upper layers of the rainforest trees and forages in the high canopy. With habitat loss and hunting it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Credit: la Vallee des Singes

The list of imported agricultural products contains, first and foremost, soy, palm oil, cacao, beef and its by-products, rubber, timber, and derived products that do not come from sustainably managed forests. Others include coffee, tea, or even cane sugar, which impact the deforestation and conversion of natural ecosystems.

“The most recent IPCC and IPBES reports show that we are now at the point where significant and permanent changes to consumption patterns and legislative regulation can no longer be delayed,” David Williams-Mitchell, Director of Communications, European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) told IPS via email. Netherlands-based EAZA, an IUCN member, is one of the co-sponsors of Congress motion 012.

More than 50% of global forest loss and land conversion is attributable to the production of agricultural commodities, and forestry products are driven by consumer demand, as shown by a 2020 WWF study on Switzerland’s overseas footprint for forest-risk commodities.

To end deforestation, companies must eliminate 5 million hectares of conversion from supply chains each year.

“The concept of imported deforestation is still quite new to the public in Europe. For EAZA, the key issue is to establish understanding globally that imported deforestation is one of the root causes of climate change and biodiversity loss,” Williams-Mitchell said.

He cited examples of a hugely expanded meat industry leading to increases in greenhouse gases, carbon sink capacity loss, and biodiversity loss through habitat conversion.

In 2017 alone, the international trade of agricultural products was associated with 1.3 million hectares of tropical deforestation emitting some 740 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – this is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the EU28’s total greenhouse gas emissions that year.

“We need countries all over the world to participate in the fight against imported deforestation. We need to learn to use local resources and establish sustainable sources for exported products, especially without harming the forests,” says Jean-Pascal Guéry of Primate Conservation Trust. This France-based IUCN member also co-sponsors Congress motion 012.

The world’s forests absorb 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, one-third of the annual CO2 released from burning fossil fuels. Forest destruction emits further carbon into the atmosphere, with 4.3–5.5 gigatons of total anthropogenic Green House Gas (GHG) emissions per year, generated annually mainly from deforestation and forest degradation, according to Cameroon-based NGO Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF).

IUCN Member ERuDeF, co-sponsor of Congress motion 012, estimates that half of the tropical forests worldwide have been destroyed since the 1960s. Every second, more than one hectare of tropical forest is destroyed or drastically degraded.

“Deforestation and conversion-free supply chains must protect not only forests, but all the terrestrial natural ecosystems threatened by the expansion of commodity production and trade including savannahs, grasslands, and peatlands among others,” Romain Deveze, WWF Switzerland’s senior manager, sustainable commodities & markets and co-author of the WWF 2020 study told IPS.
“It is vital that people understand that their choices and the frameworks that allow them to make those choices are at the heart of the solution,” Williams-Mitchell concurs.

“As governments, science engagement institutions, schools, and other providers and facilitators of education, we need to act to ensure this level of understanding at all levels of society,” Williams-Mitchell says, explaining why EAZA is sponsoring the motion.

Guéry is critical of some of the efforts to combat deforestation.

“There is awareness (too late, in our opinion) in certain European countries of the deleterious effects of this imported deforestation, and the French initiative to establish a national strategy to combat imported deforestation is commendable, but it lacks ambition and does not set binding and short-term goals,” he said.

“The assessments of companies including distributors, manufacturers, operators, rely too much on self-assessment rather than establishing an independent external certification,” Guéry said.

WWF also mentions that despite more initiatives to halt deforestation, including certification, corporate commitments, and market incentives, the rate of commodity-driven land use doesn’t appear to be declining. This means the negative impacts on local people and nature continue.

A full truck loaded with 60-70 Mukula logs at Katanga Province, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2016. Around 8-10 trucks transported out Mukula logs every day. Mukula is a rare and slow-growing hardwood unique to southern and central Africa, illegally logged and traded from Zambia and DRC. Credit: Lu Guang / Greenpeace

In a study earlier this year, Greenpeace said that “certification is a weak tool to address global forest and ecosystem
destruction.”

By certifying their products as ‘sustainable,’ some certification schemes can help guide consumption choices and have a positive impact locally, “but it is (largely) greenwashing destruction of ecosystems and violations of Indigenous and labour rights.”

So, while buyers think they are making the right ethical choice, they might still buy products linked to abuse and destruction.

However, WWF’s Deveze says, “certification and legality are critical to halt deforestation at scale. A hectare of conversion is just equally as harmful to people and nature whether or not it is done legally.”

Ranece Jovial Ndjeudja, Greenpeace Africa’s campaign manager in Cameroon, told IPS in a Zoom interview, “the limitations to the policy effectiveness for the IUCN Congress motion on imported deforestation is increased taxation aimed at deterring forest clearing. This, however, cannot always prevent deforestation.”

“Companies would just increase production to compensate for the tax hikes,” Ndjeudja said, speaking from Yaoundé, where Cameroonians rallied in early August to demand EU stop deforestation for rubber production.
“It is industrial logging and industrial agriculture which is the problem. Are these industrial productions really bringing in a large revenue to the exporting governments? No. If it did, Cameroon and Congo would not be so poor. A small group gets rich. While Cameroon’s natives lose access to food, health, and their culture,” Tal Harris, Greenpeace Africa’s international communications coordinator, told IPS from Dakar, Senegal.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) hosts the second-largest contiguous tract of tropical forests globally, including roughly 60 percent of the Congo Basin rainforest. It is home to plants and animals found nowhere else on earth.

“A government cannot work out of a capital city thousands of miles distant from such extensive forests,” Harris said. “Devolution of power to the local population is necessary.”

Local communities play a vital role in wildlife conservation and environment protection. Comprising less than 5 percent of the world’s population, indigenous communities protect 80 percent of global biodiversity, says ERuDeF.

Cameroon’s Ndjeaudja echoes this. To ensure trees are not cut, there is the need to work with local communities because, for generations, they have been living with forests and have the knowledge of their sustainable management.

“We have a lot to learn from them and must allow indigenous communities to share this knowledge,” he said.

Deveze concluded: “Economic and technical incentives are required to shift producer behaviour. At an international policy level, go for differentiated custom tariffs based on sustainability requirements and due diligence processes. Compensation mechanisms to support farmers in protecting high conservation value areas should be amplified.”

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Mountains and vegetation of the Mabouya Valley, Saint Lucia. The Convention on Biological Diversity is reminding the world that ‘solutions are in nature’ and biodiversity provides the answer to several sustainable development challenges. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 2021 (IPS)

The Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) has put leaders and policymakers on notice that they are not willing to listen to the same conversations, suggestions and unmet promises, as the world faces a biodiversity crisis.

With its network of national youth chapters across the globe and promotion by some of the world’s leading youth voices, the network has launched a massive youth mobilisation campaign, with the hashtag #samesucks. 

For too long our politicians, leaders & corporations have fed us the SAME lies, the SAME broken promises, the SAME too-little-too-late solutions, the SAME destructive fossil fuels 🚨

But we know that if we keep doing things the SAME way, we are doomed.#SameSucks #StopTheSame pic.twitter.com/YuUVSK7W8g

— UN Youth Office (@UNYouthAffairs) May 20, 2021

The campaign, which is built on years of youth consultation, kicks off on International Day for Biological Diversity and ends on World Environment Day.

“Youth see that it is all the same. The conversations are the same. If you follow the negotiations ten years ago and what the politicians were saying then, what the negotiators were saying and you follow the negotiations happening in the Convention of Biological Diversity now, they are saying the same things. It is frustrating,” GYBN Global South Focal Point Swetha Stotra Bhashyam told IPS.

“Even after so many years, going through such a pandemic, they are still talking the same language. They are not even changing that. That’s what is really riling us up.”

Bhashyam is a zoologist who previously studied rare species from the field in India. She has temporarily left wildlife studies and research, to devote her time and voice to biodiversity conservation action.

She concedes that the #samesucks campaign is drawing some early backlash for its tough words. She says the biodiversity movement is known for being less forceful than climate change, but a stronger stance is needed, in keeping with the gravity of the current biodiversity crisis.

“We are also frustrated about the same empty promises that we are being given. We are frustrated about the greed in the world. We are tired of the same old story.”

The GYBN is the youth constituency recognised under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) an international agreement for the conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of the earth’s species, ecosystems and genetic diversity. It has been ratified by 196 nations.

For the next three weeks, the GYBN is taking over the CBD’s Instagram page, hoping to amplify youth biodiversity advocates’ message by reaching its close to 300,000 followers.

The CBD is encouraging an online-only biodiversity day campaign this year, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Officials have encouraged youth to embark on awareness-raising campaigns and calls to action that are feasible at the national level.

The GYBN’s driving statement is “leaders and businesses have fed us the same lies, the same broken promises, the same too-little-too-late solutions, the same destructive fossil fuels. But we know that if we keep doing things the same way we are doomed.”

Members are launching a ‘samestagram’ initiative to commemorate the day. They say they are reaching young people through the most popular platforms, with messaging that they understand. That initiative urges young people to post the same picture multiple times on Instagram, something that they would never do, to show how the ‘same old thing’ is tedious and quickly loses its appeal.

For users who think that the language of #samesucks is too strong, the GYBN is also encouraging the use of #stopthesame and #biodiversityrocks.

The youth campaign precedes the adoption of a new global biodiversity framework and the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, known as COP15.

Walkway through mangroves at Marigot Bay, Saint Lucia. The Convention on Biological Diversity is calling for protection and sustainable use of the world’s ecosystems, along with the animal species they shelter. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

In his Biodiversity Day address, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said governments are pushing for an ambitious framework, aware that biodiversity is declining at an ‘unprecedented and alarming’ rate.

The UN Chief stated that the COVID-19 pandemic should not only serve as the world’s reminder of the relationship between people and nature, but should be seen as ‘an opportunity to recover better’ and reverse the damage being done to the world’s species and ecosystems.

“We need to protect nature, restore ecosystems and establish a balance in our relationship with the plant. The rewards will be tremendous. By reversing biodiversity loss, we can improve human health, realise sustainable development and address the climate emergency,” he said.

“Solutions exist to protect our planet’s genetic diversity on land and at sea. Everybody has a part to play.”

For young people who want to play a bigger part in raising awareness of biodiversity issues, Bhashyam said advocacy can be pursued incrementally.

She said youth can start at the personal level with sustainable lifestyle choices. When they are ready, she suggests getting more political and asking elected officials for the change that is needed. She is also advising young people to get involved in biodiversity and other nature-related youth groups.

The youth advocate says collective youth action is happening and young people are answering the call to be part of the solution – as they hold leaders and policymakers accountable.

Some of the GYBN members who are based in New York City are planning to meet outside the United Nations Headquarters on International Biological Diversity Day and fly the #samesucks banner high.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim is the first woman president of Mauritius and a renowned biodiversity scientist. Courtesy: International Labour Organisation/Crozet / Pouteau

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, May 20 2021 (IPS)

If we want to address the great challenges this world is facing, we have to factor in science into all our narratives, according to Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, the first woman president of Mauritius and renowned biodiversity scientist.

In an interview conducted over Zoom, Gurib-Fakim tells IPS the real cost of biodiversity loss.

“You know, human beings owe their existence to the byproducts of nature’s activities like oxygen, right? And we don’t value it. We depend on nature and unfortunately, for too long, humans have considered themselves to be outside of the ecosystem.

“We are very much part of this ecosystem, so let us stop destroying it because we’re not preserving nature, we are preserving our own livelihoods,” Gurib-Fakim, who is also a successful entrepreneur, says.

She also tells IPS about the importance of using science diplomacy to better international relations and the importance of investing in the youth. Excerpts follow:

IPS: World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2020 has just identified the loss of biodiversity as one of the two greatest risks to global economy. As a biodiversity scientist, what’s your take on this?

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim (AGF): You have raised a very important question. Nature gives us every year over a hundred trillion US dollars. If you can measure that, that is the input of nature to our livelihoods.

We have read the Word Economic Forum’s Global Risk report and I think by 2025, over 60 percent of the big, big animals, the mammals are really threatened with extinction.

Now, if you look at a country like India, if you look at a continent like Africa, just think of a big animal, like the elephant, how much does the elephant contribute to sustaining the ecosystem, which we thrive on?

A wild elephant takes bath in Moei River near the Myanmar-Thailand border. Elephants contribute to sustaining ecosystems. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

 IPS: We have often heard you speak about science diplomacy. How could science diplomacy help build better relations at an international level?

AGF: Science diplomacy for me is the soft power. For the past few years, there has been an anti-science sentiment voiced by major leaders on this planet. And this undesigned sentiment has weighed very heavily again when it comes to addressing issues like climate science, for example, climate change, biodiversity. They have weighed in as well in terms of handling of this pandemic that we are currently living in. So, I think if you want to address the great challenge that this world is facing, we have to factor in science into all our narratives.

We have also seen, at least in the beginning of this year, how we’re trying to revive the multilateral system. And that’s why we need to bring in science diplomacy because we have to rethink our multilateral system and we have to make it fit for purpose to address major challenges.

IPS:  How can the world help create wealth and jobs for youth across the world and how can tapping into youth power and youth talent help build a more sustainable Africa?

AGF:  If you look at the statistics, 60 percent of the jobs that young people will work in have not yet been created. How do we empower the youth, it’s investment in education, right? And, you know, the education that I received as a child is not fit for purpose for my daughter … So what are we doing in terms of investment in the education system for these kids to be ready for that job that has not yet been created?

If you look at Africa, by 2050 it will be the major provider of labour to the world. And the youth of Africa is considered to be a boon. But I worry because that boon can very quickly become a bane. Why are we seeing young Africans dying in the Mediterranean? Partly because they are climate refugees. Don’t forget that climate change has impacted a lot of the regions in Africa. It has impacted agriculture, for example, and this is a huge sector where the youth have been working in and climate change has impacted crops.

These are things that we have to really consider very, very quickly if we are going to consider the youth as being a boon, otherwise we are going to be in a similar situation as Tunisia 10 years ago, when one person, by setting himself aflame, actually brought the country down.

The Kakum National Park in Ghana is a semi-deciduous rainforest. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

IPS: Can you identify a few sectors where investing in youth is needed right now?

AGF:  The health sector needs capitalisation very, very fast, but I’m thinking of another sector, especially for Africa, the agricultural sector. In Africa, agriculture is estimated to be a $1 trillion business. Now every time there is a messaging on Africa, we see a woman working with a baby on her back with a hoe in her hand, digging a very arid land. And this is not what agriculture is. So, just think what drone technology has been able to do, just think what smart technologies have been able to do to empower youth and investment,…[and] how many jobs can be created.  But again, it calls for smart investment in the youth, in the ecosystem and in infrastructure.

IPS: Many women and young people are trying very hard to become successful entrepreneurs, but they don’t really have a lot of support to guide them or resources. What would be your advice to them?

AGF: To become an entrepreneur, you have to have the appetite to take risks. And it is perhaps easier for a man to take risks, because he would have been told from a very young age that he’s a breadwinner of the family.  In Africa, for example, you see that 12 million graduates are landing on the job market every year. I don’t think any country is going to be able to produce that many jobs. So you need to actually need them to become job creators as to being job seekers. But when it comes to a woman, again, all the odds are stacked against her. For a woman to start taking risks is already a big issue because we tend to be very conservative in our approach.

So this is where we need government to weigh in, to provide the ecosystem so that they become job creators and not just job seekers. So the responsibility comes back to us again, but we have to move fast because the world is changing. And over and above these pandemics, there are so many other factors which are going to deter young people. But one thing that we must not do is allow them to dream big and enact whatever ideas and be confident job creators and not just job seekers.

IPS: Finally, what would be your three key messages today?

AGF: I will summarise it in three words: dream, dare and do. Dream big, your dreams must frighten you. If it doesn’t frighten you, it’s not big. Take risk, go out there and do it yourself. There is no cutting corners when it comes to hard work, because everything that you actually will engage in will demand a huge investment on your side. And one thing that I’m happy to have been able to do is that I have been able to show girls growing up in my village, that it is possible to reach the highest position in the country through hard work and also by taking risks.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Excerpt:

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation pressures and heightened the urgency of action to support sustainable forest management. The pandemic has the brought the importance of forests to global well-being into sharp focus. Pictured here forest in the Dominican Republic. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 28 2021 (IPS)

A new global report on forests says that while the COVID-19 pandemic is the latest threat to achieving ambitious forest protection goals, it has brought the importance of forests to global well-being into sharp focus, and that this recognition must now be met with collection action.

The inaugural Global Forest Goals Report was launched on Apr. 26, as part of the 16th United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) session which runs until the end of this week. It is based on data and information submitted by 52 member states, representing 75 percent of the world’s forests.

The report concluded that while countries have taken action to protect their forests, those efforts must be accelerated to achieve ambitious global goals.

It tracks the progress of countries in meeting the ambitious goals set out in the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2030. Under that plan, countries vowed to accelerate the pace of forest protection by upgrading an initial focus on achieving net-zero deforestation to increasing global forest area by three percent by 2030 and eradicating extreme poverty for all forest-dependent people.

While it acknowledged the work done by countries in areas such as poverty reduction for forest-dependent people, initiatives to increase forest financing and cooperation on sustainable forest management, it stated that there is a lot more to be done. Noting that Africa and South America lost forest cover during the reporting period, the publication stated that forests remain under threat.

“Every year, seven million hectares of natural forests are converted to other land uses such as large-scale commercial agriculture and other economic activities. And although the global rate of deforestation has slowed over the past decade, we continue to lose forests in the tropics – largely due to human and natural causes,” it stated.

United National Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed said the report is being launched at a crucial time for the world’s forests.

The report cites growing concern by some countries that the economic fallout from the pandemic will lead to reduced donor funding for forests. It states that Africa, the Asia-Pacific Region and some countries in Latin America are facing dwindling forest financing, as scarce public funds are being prioritised on immediate public health needs.

Mohammed said while the COVID-19 crisis has dealt a blow to poverty alleviation and sustainable development goals, it is presenting an opportunity to make peace with nature through a green recovery, with healthy forests as a solid foundation.

“We are at a make or break moment. 2021 provides us a unique opportunity to halt the rapid loss of biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, while addressing the climate emergency and desertification and making our food systems more sustainable, with the sustainable development goals as our guide,” the deputy UN chief said.

UNFF Secretariat’s Officer-in-Charge Alexander Trepelkov presented a note on COVID-19’s impact on forests and the forest sector. It concluded that the pandemic has aggravated hardships for forest-dependent people and exposed systemic gaps and vulnerabilities.

It called for the integration of forest-based solutions into pandemic recovery, accelerated implementation of international forest-related targets and adequate resources for forestry.

Meanwhile, on the fringes of the event, a group of 15 international organisations launched a joint statement on the challenges and opportunities involved in halting deforestation. The Collaborative Partnership on Forests event was chaired by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Director of the FAO’s Forestry Division Mette Wilkie told IPS that as ecosystems that are home to the vast majority of land biodiversity and 75 percent of freshwater, without forests, climate goals cannot be met.

“Forests also provide numerous products for everyday life – from the traditional use of wood to the masks, gloves and hand sanitisers that we all use during the current COVID-19 pandemic. They provide more than 86 million green jobs and support the livelihoods of many more people worldwide,” Wilkie said.

“As we increasingly encroach on forests and wildlife habitats to expand agricultural production, settlements and infrastructure, the risk of diseases spilling over from animals to people rises exponentially. It is evident that we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the future we want unless we halt deforestation and forest degradation and increase our efforts to protect, manage and restore our forests.”

Wilkie, who chairs the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, told IPS that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated deforestation pressures and heightened the urgency of action to support sustainable forest management.

“Lockdowns have led to disruptions in markets and supply chains and caused job losses, triggering reverse migration into rural areas and increasing pressure on forests to provide subsistence livelihoods,” she said, adding that, “on the other hand, investing in forest restoration and the sustainable management of forests can create green jobs and livelihoods, and at the same time create habits for biodiversity and mitigate – and adapt to – climate change.”

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Climate change and a lack of care for the environment could have devastating consequences for Saint Lucia’s healthy ecosystems and rich biodiversity. On Jan 10, France, the United Nations and the World Bank hosted a virtual biodiversity summit where world leaders pledged action and funding to protect the planet. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 12 2021 (IPS)

French President Emmanuel Macron convened the 4th edition of the One Planet Summit for Biodiversity with a concession – that after a decade, the world has failed to take the action needed to stem global biodiversity loss. The Jan. 10 event, hosted virtually by France, the United Nations and the World Bank, focused on four areas for urgent action; protecting land and maritime species, promoting agroecology, mobilising finance for biodiversity and protecting tropical forests, species and human health.

“A decade has gone past and the facts are undeniable. Not a single one of the targets have been implemented, such as putting an end to species extinction or cutting pollution. We have to face up to this failure and learn its lessons,” Macron said.

The French leader said the world is seeing the impacts of overexploitation of natural resources including rising poverty, inequality, public health crises and security concerns. He urged leaders to act decisively, stating that they have the means to tackle the crisis in the natural world.

“Opportunities are emerging in nature to create 191 million jobs by 2030. If forests, oceans and ecosystems remain intact, they can become effective carbon sinks to help us meet climate targets. Nature offers solutions for sustainable agriculture and economic services, helping us to preserve our heritage and cultures,” he said.

The 2019 Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the first of its kind in a decade, stated that the rate of global change in nature in the last half century was unprecedented in history. It warned that the ruthless demand for earth’s resources had resulted in one million plant and animal species facing extinction within decades, with implications for public health.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the summit that 2021 must be the year to “reconcile humanity with nature”, and that the world cannot afford to “revert to the old normal”.

“Until now we have been destroying our planet. We have been abusing it like we have a spare one. Our current resource use requires almost two planets, but we only have one. If we can compare earth’s history to a calendar year, we have used one third of its natural resources in the last 0.2. seconds.”

With over 1.8 million lives lost and economies brought to their knees by COVID-19, the UN chief said pandemic recovery is the world’s opportunity to change course.

“With smart policies and the right investments, we can chart the right course, revive economies, build resilience and rescue biodiversity. Innovations in energy and transport can steer sustainable recovery, economic and social transformation,” Guterres said.

The Secretary-General cited the African Great Green Wall as a nature-based solution to biodiversity loss that is particularly promising. The ambitious project seeks to plant a 5,000-mile “wall” of trees to combat land degradation and protect livelihoods in the Sahel, Lake Chad and Horn of Africa regions. The summit raised $14.3 billion towards the project – surpassing its target by just over $4 billion. The World Bank Group pledged $5 billion to the initiative.

“Climate change and the loss of biodiversity are defining issues of our time,” World Bank President David Malpass told the summit, adding that with COVID-19 stressing the link between human and earth health, the institution will work with the German government on new research towards a “one health” approach to preventing emerging infectious diseases.

“It’s very clear: we cannot succeed in helping countries reduce poverty and inequality without rising to the challenges of climate change and the loss of biodiversity.” 

Heir to the British throne, the Prince of Wales, called for stepped up action on biodiversity preservation, stating that consensus, intentions and targets are good “first steps”, but practical effort is overdue. The royal unveiled his “Terra Carta”, an earth charter with 100 recommendations for the recovery of nature, people and the planet. It hopes to raise $10 billion for environmental projects and challenges big corporations to commit to an “ambitious and sustainable future”.

“I am making an urgent appeal to leaders, from all sectors and from around the world, to join us in this endeavour and to give their support to this ‘Terra Carta’ – to bring prosperity into harmony with nature, people, and planet over the coming decade,” he said.

The meeting also set the stage for a new “High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People”, a group of 50 countries committed to preserving 30 percent of the world’s land and oceans by 2030. The coalition, chaired by France, Costa Rica and the United Kingdom, hopes to curb species loss and protect ecosystems.

The theme for this year’s summit was “Let’s act together for nature”, and it kickstarts an important year of action on the nature crisis. The UN Biodiversity Summit is planned for Kunming, China in May and expected to produce a post-2020 global framework on biodiversity.

The 26^th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) is scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland in November.

Excerpt:

A dust story in El Fasher, North Darfur. This is a natural weather phenomenon in Darfur which occurs regularly between March and July every year. It affects all aspects of daily life in the region, including airline flights. Scientists say these storms have a range of affects that are not clearly understood. Courtesy: CC By 2.0/ Mohamad Almahady, UNAMID.

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 9 2020 (IPS)

When sand and dust storms (SDS) rage in the Sahara Desert, more than 10,000 km away in the Caribbean Sea the very same storms have a range of effects on the 1,360 species of shorefish that populate the waters there.

According to a report released last week by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), each year about half a billion tonnes of nutrients, minerals, and organic inorganic matter is transferred to the oceans through SDS.

But as Dr. Nick Middleton, a fellow in physical geography at St Anne’s College at the University of Oxford and author of the UNEP report titled “Impacts of Sand and Dust Storms on Oceans”, told IPS, “our understanding of how dust affects marine waters is far from complete”. 

Though he added that the upcoming U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development will be an exciting opportunity to help scientists gain a better understanding of issues such as how much dust from SDS reaches the oceans. In his interview, Middleton said that this decade is an important time to consider the ways in which SDS affect issues such as biodiversity, the climate, and food systems.

“The U.N. Decade offers exciting opportunities to improve our understanding of some of these basic issues. Nobody lives permanently in the open oceans, so historically we have had to rely on scientists on ships to take measurements when and where they are able.

“Hence, the data we have on dust in the atmosphere and deposited over the oceans is patchy and sporadic at best. The use of geostationary satellites is improving our capacity to monitor dust, but there is no substitute for taking real samples at sea,” Middleton told IPS.

And as Jian Lu, Director of the Science Division at UNEP, said in the report: “Desert dust is a principal driver of oceanic primary productivity, which forms the base of the marine food web and fuels the global carbon cycle.” 

“One of the clear messages from this report is the simple fact that many aspects of the impacts of SDS on the oceans are only partially understood,” Lu said. “Despite the limited knowledge, the impacts of SDS on oceans—their ecosystem functions, goods and services—are potentially numerous and wide-ranging, thus warranting continued careful monitoring and research.”

“Many scientists predict that as our climate warms dust storms will become more frequent in certain parts of the world where the climate becomes drier and soils will be protected by less vegetation,” Middleton added. “More dust in these places will inevitably have complex feedback effects on climate and what happens in the oceans.”

Excerpts of the interview below.

Inter Press Service (IPS): Jian Liu said in the report the impacts of sand and dust storms on the oceans are only partially understood. What are some under-reported issues about the impact of sand and dust storms on oceans?

Dr Nick Middleton (NM): One aspect that needs more accurate assessment is the amount of desert dust transported to the world’s oceans each year. When they occur, we can see great plumes of dust above the oceans on satellite imagery, but we only have a rough idea of how much dust is involved. We estimate that anything between one billion and five billion tonnes of desert dust are emitted into the atmosphere by SDS every year on average. Two billion tonnes is the current best estimate, and 25 percent of that reaches the oceans, with all sorts of effects on marine ecosystems. However, most of these estimates come from computer models which are imperfect at simulating all the numerous processes involved in lifting, transporting and depositing dust to the sea.

We know that desert dust delivers some vital nutrients to the oceans, but our understanding of how dust affects marine waters is far from complete. For instance, dust probably has an impact on the energy balance in several oceans, affecting the circulation of heat and salt. These circulation regimes have implications for marine life, but our understanding of the details is hazy at best.

IPS: The U.N.  Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) is scheduled to start in 2021. What are some issues that you believe should be addressed during this time?

NM: The U.N. Decade could initiate a great leap forward in our understanding if it presided over the establishment of a network of study sites across different oceans to take long-term measurements of dust in the atmosphere and as it is deposited on the ocean surface. Buoys can be used as platforms for autonomous sampling of dust and other weather variables, and their data transmitted to researchers.

Long-term datasets are vitally important, but they cannot replace experiments conducted from ships at sea. The U.N. Decade can also promote coordinated experiments involving both atmospheric and marine measurements to address some of the processes in which desert dust is important. One such role is how iron and phosphorus carried with desert dust helps to fertilise large areas of ocean surface, and may also impact local climate.

IPS: The report establishes a link between desert dust and coral reef systems; it also suggests a potential link between disease arising from microorganisms and a decline in coral reefs worldwide. What kind of impact do sand and dust storms have on biological diversity overall, and on human life?

NM: Dust raised in SDS and transported to the oceans helps to sustain the biodiversity of large marine areas. One of the most direct effects is the incorporation of tiny dust particles into coral skeletons as they grow. Nutrients carried on desert dust particles also fuel the growth of marine microorganisms such as phytoplankton, which form the base of the marine food web.

Human society relies on fish and other products from the sea, but the fertilising effect of desert dust is also thought to have an impact on algal blooms, some of which are detrimental to economic activity and human health. Certain harmful algal blooms contain species that produce strong toxins which become concentrated up the food chain, becoming harmful to people who eat contaminated seafood.

IPS: Dust has significant impacts on weather and climate in several ways. In what ways are sand and dust storms linked to issues such as climate change? 

NM: Dust in the atmosphere affects the energy balance of the Earth system because these fine particles scatter, absorb and re-emit radiation in the atmosphere. Dust particles also serve as nuclei on which water vapour condenses, helping to form clouds, and the chemical composition of dust affects the acidity of rainfall. Dust from the Sahara is regularly transported through the atmosphere over the tropical North Atlantic Ocean where it can have a cooling effect on sea surface temperatures. In turn, the cooler sea surface changes wind fields and the development of hurricanes. A year with more Saharan dust usually translates into fewer hurricanes over the North Atlantic.

Future trends in desert dust emissions are uncertain. They will depend on changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation – how much falls, when and where.

IPS: Are there ways in which sand and dust storms have an impact (direct or indirect) on the coronavirus pandemic? 

NM: Links between sand and dust storms and the coronavirus pandemic are quite possible, but inevitably work on such potential links at an early stage. We know that SDS are a risk factor for a range of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, so someone exposed to both COVID-19 and air pollution from dust storms may experience particularly harmful effects. For instance, one recent study in Northern Italy established an association between higher mortality rates due to COVID-19 and peaks of atmospheric concentrations of small particulate matter. Saharan dust frequently contributes to poor air quality in Italy, but a direct causal link between desert dust and suffering from COVID-19 has not been established to date. There are numerous other factors to take into account.

We also know that many SDS source areas contribute many types of microorganisms (such as fungi, bacteria and viruses) to desert dust, and that these microorganisms are very resilient. SDS can also transport viruses over great distances (greater than 1,000 km), sometimes between continents. Long-range transport of desert dust has been linked to some historical dispersal/outbreak events of several diseases, including Avian influenza outbreaks in areas downwind of Asian dust storms.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

More than 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are endangered due to overfishing, destructive practices and climate change, according to the United Nations. Yesterday the first-ever U.N. Summit on Biodiversity concluded with world leaders and experts agreeing on the urgency to preserve biodiversity globally. Credit: Nalisha Adams/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2020 (IPS)

“Investing in nature is investing in a sustainable future,” was one of the key messages from yesterday’s first-ever United Nations Summit on Biodiversity where world leaders and experts agreed  on the urgency to act swiftly to preserve biodiversity globally. 

“More than 60 percent of the world’s coral reefs are endangered due to overfishing, destructive practices and climate change,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in his opening remarks  at the biodiversity summit, which was held as the 75th Session of the U.N. General Assembly wrapped up this week.

This loss doesn’t come without a cost.

Guterres added that according to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimate, the amount of money required for sustainability of nature is about $300 – 400 billion, which is less than “current levels of harmful subsidies for agriculture, mining and other destructive industries”.

Guterres also pointed out how this disproportionately affects poor communities.

According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, between 50 to 90 percent of the livelihoods of poor households comes from ecosystems.

“Nature offers business opportunities to poor communities, from sustainable farming to eco-tourism or subsistence fishing,” Guterres said.

This year was especially crucial given the COVID-19 pandemic and the havoc it wreaked across communities around the world.

Volkan Bozkır, president of the General Assembly, pointed out the world’s  inability to ensure preservation of biodiversity severely impedes the ability to fight diseases — a result that is being witnessed first hand this year. It also negatively affects food security, water supplies, and livelihoods, among other issues.

“We must be pragmatic: our healthcare systems rely upon rich biodiversity,” Bozkır said. “Four billion people depend upon natural medicines for their health, and 70 percent of drugs used for cancer treatments are drawn from nature.”

“More than half of the world’s GDP – $44 trillion – is dependent on nature,” he added. 

Chinese president Xi Jinping addressed the meeting, extending a warm welcome for next year’s Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 15) scheduled to take place in China. 

“COP15 offers an opportunity for parties to adopt new strategies for global biodiversity governance,” Xi said. 

Xi proposed a list of steps that leaders can take in order to ensure biodiversity preservation around the world:

• Adhere to ecological civilisation and increase the drive for building a beautiful world, given that a sound ecosystem is crucial for the prosperity of civilisation. “We need to respect nature, follow its laws, and protect it,” he said. “We need to find a way for man and nature to live in harmony, balance and coordinate economic development and ecological protection.”
  
• Uphold multilateralism and build synergy for global governance on the environment. “Faced with the risks and challenges worldwide, countries share a common stake as passengers [on] the same boat, and form a community with a shared future,” Xi said. “To enhance global governance on the environment, we must firmly safeguard the U.N.-centred international system, and uphold the sanctity and authority of international rules.”
  
• Continue with green development and increase potential for high quality economic recovery after COVID-19.
  

Meanwhile, panelists at a “Fireside Chat” panel brought up the importance of including indigenous communities in the conversation.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, said the indigenous community is “critical” to this conversation.

“Let’s recall they are the owners and managers of one quarter of global land area, and one third of protected areas,” Andersen said. “So safeguarding their right to their land is part of safeguarding biodiversity.”

Ana Maria Hernandez Salgar, the first woman chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also shared a similar sentiment as she reflected on what, in her experience, has led to true change.

“We have to work collectively: governments, individuals, private sector, academia, we need to address the root cause of biodiversity loss – it works,” Salgar said.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the appointed Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, also spoke on the same panel and added that it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that biodiversity, on top of being a concern, is also a solution to some of the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

“We know, 14 out of the 17 SDGs depend on biodiversity, from nature-based solutions, to climate, to food, water, security, sustainable livelihood: biodiversity remains the basis for sustainable future and sustainable development,” Mrema said.

Perhaps the conversation on the link between biodiversity preservation and humans was most aptly put forth by Achim Steiner of the U.N. Development Programme who moderated the panel.

At the core of the preservation efforts is how we view the issue, Steiner said.

It’s not just about nature, it’s about humans too.

“Biodiversity has as much to do with nature as it has to do with people, people’s dependence on nature, people’s inability to see the complexities of nature, people’s blindness and sometimes greed and ignorance and also the planetary blindspots of our economies.”

By Jewel Fraser
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Mar 17 2020 (IPS)

Trinidad and Tobago, like many other signatories to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, had made commitments in 2010, to achieve several biological diversity targets during the decade 2011 to 2020, commonly referred to as the Aichi targets. However, achieving most of those targets continues to be a work in progress.

Kishan Kumarsingh, head of Multilateral  Environmental  Agreements  at Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Planning and Development tells Voices from the Global  South that the government is keen on achieving the targets, however, in view of the economic benefits the country expects to  derive  from having healthy biodiversity.

In 2016, in its fifth national report to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, Trinidad and Tobago estimated that coastal protection services provided by coral reefs, mangroves and marshes were worth nearly $50 million annually to the country, while the forests in Trinidad’s famous Northern Range were estimated to provide soil retention services valued at as much as $620 million annually, representing nearly seven percent of central government annual revenues. A more recent study completed with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the U.N. suggests that communities close to forests enjoy a 30 percent increase in their annual income due to forest-related employment.

Though biodiversity in Trinidad and Tobago is coming under increasing pressure, Kumarsingh says the hope is to incorporate the economic value derived from biological diversity and ecosystem services into the country’s national development plans.

In this Voices from the Global South podcast, IPS Caribbean correspondent Jewel Fraser learns more about Trinidad and Tobago’s challenges with regard to achieving these sustainable biodiversity goals.

Excerpt:

A young man on the banks of lake Enriquillo on the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which forms part of the Caribbean Biological Corridor created in 2007 by these two countries and Cuba with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Union. Credit: Dionny Matos/IPS

By Ivet González
SANTO DOMINGO , Jan 20 2016 (IPS)

The nearly 7,000 islands and the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea are home to thousands of endemic species and are on the migration route of many kinds of birds. Preserving this abundant fauna requires multilateral actions in today’s era of global warming.

That is the goal of the Caribbean Biological Corridor (CBC), a project implemented by the governments of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which was created in 2007 with the support of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the European Union with the aim of protecting biodiversity in the region.

“Puerto Rico should form part of the corridor in 2016,” Cuban biologist Freddy Rodríguez, who is taking part in the initiative, told IPS.

In late 2015 Puerto Rico, a free associated state of the United States, presented an official letter asking to join the sustainable conservation project, whose executive secretariat is located in the Dominican Republic on the border with Haiti.

“The admission of new partners, which has been encouraged from the start, is a question of time,” said Rodríguez. “Several countries have taken part as observers since the beginning.”

He said the Bahamas, Dominica, Jamaica and Martinique are observer countries that have expressed an interest in joining the corridor.

The Caribbean region is already prone to high temperatures, because the wind and ocean currents turn the area into a kind of cauldron that concentrates heat year-round, according to scientific sources.

And the situation will only get worse due to the temperature rise predicted as a result of climate change, a phenomenon caused by human activity which has triggered extreme weather events and other changes.

The extraordinary biodiversity of the Caribbean is increasingly at risk from this global phenomenon, which has modified growing and blooming seasons, migration patterns, and even species distribution.

Meanwhile, the biological corridor is one demonstration of the growing efforts of small Caribbean island nations to preserve their unique natural heritage.

A flock of birds flies over a coastal neighbourhood of Havana, Cuba. The Caribbean Biological Corridor is on the migration route for many species of birds, and its conservation requires multilateral actions in today’s era of global warming. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

It also reflects the long road still ahead to regional integration in the area of conservation.

The 1,600-km CBC includes the Jaragua-Bahoruca-Enriquillo Biosphere Reserve and Cordillera Central mountains, in the Dominican Republic; the Chaîne de la Selle mountain range, Lake Azuéi, Fore et Pins, La Visite and the Massif du Nord mountains – all protected areas in Haiti; and the Sierra Maestra and Nipe-Sagua-Baracoa mountain ranges in Cuba.

Studies carried out by researchers involved in the biological corridor have documented damage caused to nature by extreme events like Hurricane Sandy, which hit eastern Cuba in 2012, and the severe drought of 2015, which affected the entire Caribbean region.

Rodríguez said they have carried out more than 60 training sessions, involving local communities as well as government officials from the three countries, with the participation of guests from other Caribbean nations.

And they have a web site, which compiles the results of studies, bulletins, a database and maps of the biological corridor.

“Other people and institutions say the CBC’s biggest contribution has been to create a platform for collaboration with regard to the environment, which did not exist previously in the insular Caribbean. This has created the possibility for the environment ministers to meet every year to review the progress made as well as pending issues,” Rodríguez said.

“We are trying to grow in terms of South-South collaboration,” he said.

The insular Caribbean is a multicultural, multi-racial region where people speak Spanish, English, Dutch, French and creoles. It is made up of 13 independent island nations and 19 French, Dutch, British and U.S. overseas territories.

These differences, along with the heavy burden of under-development, are hurdles to the conservation of the natural areas in the Caribbean, which is one of the world’s greatest centres of unique biodiversity, due to the high number of endemic species.

Experts report that for every 100 square kilometres, there are 23.5 plants that can only be found in the Antilles, an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east.

The project is focusing on an area of 234,124 square km of greatest biodiversity, home to a number of unique reptile, bird and amphibian species.

View of the Caribbean Sea in the Dominican Republic near the border with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, which the two countries share. The roughly 7,000 Caribbean islands are home to thousands of endemic species, whose preservation is complicated by climate change. Credit: Dionny Matos/IPS

The CBC’s 2016-2020 development plan also involves continued research on climate change, and aims to expand to marine ecosystems.

The four million square km of ocean around the Antilles are “the heart of Atlantic marine diversity,” according to a report by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund.

The region contains 25 coral genera, 117 sponges, 633 mollusks, more than 1,400 fishes, 76 sharks, 45 shrimp, 30 cetaceans and 23 species of seabirds.

The area also contains some 10,000 square km of reef, 22,000 square km of mangroves, and as much as 33,000 square km of seagrass beds.

“As a Dominican, I didn’t have that much experience and I hadn’t heard about the Caribbean environment,” business administration student Manuel Antonio Feliz, who has taken CBC courses, told IPS. “The trainings have opened my eyes to the natural riches of our islands.”

“We talk more about the polar bear and the loss of its habitat at the North Pole than about a little local frog or solenodon (one of the rarest mammals on earth, native to the Antilles),” Cuban researcher Nicasio Viña said in a conference for a group of journalists in the capital of the Dominican Republic, which IPS took part in. “The people of the Caribbean, we don’t know what treasures we have in our hands.”

Viña, director of the CBC executive secretariat, explained that initiatives like the biological corridor require at least 30 years of work to solidify.

He called for “thinking about conservation systems, due to the extraordinary influence and responsibility that we human beings have with regard to biodiversity in the Caribbean, because of what we have done, and climate change.”

The corridor has a centre of plant propagation in each one of the member countries, where seedlings of native species are grown to reforest the areas that are benefiting from pilot projects.

The pilot projects are aimed at helping Dominican, Haitian and Cuban communities to find environmentally-friendly sources of income, besides restoring degraded environments.

So far they are being implemented in the Cuban settlements of Sigua in Santiago de Cuba and the Baitiquirí Ecological Reserve in Guantánamo; the communities of Pedro Santana, Paraje Los Rinconcitos and Guayabo, in the Dominican province of Elías Piña; and in the Haitian towns of Dosmond and La Gonave.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Frederic Mousseau
OAKLAND, California, Jan 11 2016 (IPS)

Millions of African farmers don’t need to adapt to climate change. They have done that already.

Frederic Mousseau

Like many others across the continent, indigenous communities in Ethiopia’s Gamo Highlands are well prepared against climate variations. The high biodiversity, which forms the basis of their traditional enset-based agricultural systems, allows them to easily adjust their farming practices, including the crops they grow, to climate variations.

People in Gamo are also used to managing their environment and natural resources in sound and sustainable ways, rooted in ancestral knowledge and customs, which makes them resilient to floods or droughts. Although African indigenous systems are often perceived as backward by central governments, they have a lot of learning to offer to the rest of the world when contemplating the challenges of climate change and food insecurity.

Often building on such indigenous knowledge, farmers all over the African continent have assembled a tremendous mass of successful experiences and innovations in agriculture. These efforts have steadily been developed over the past few decades following the droughts that impacted many countries in the 1970s and 1980s.

In Kenya, the system of biointensive agriculture has been designed over the past thirty years to help smallholders grow the most food on the least land and with the least water. 200,000 Kenyan farmers, feeding over one million people, have now switched to biointensive agriculture, which allows them to use up to 90 per cent less water than in conventional agriculture and 50 to 100 per cent fewer purchased fertilizers, thanks to a set of agroecological practices that provide higher soil organic matter levels, near continuous crop soil coverage, and adequate fertility for root and plant health.

The Sahel region, bordering the Sahara Desert, is renowned for its harsh environment and the threat of desertification. What is less known is the tremendous success of the actions undertaken to curb desert encroachment, restore lands, and farmers’ livelihoods.

Started in the 1980s, the Keita Rural Development Project in Niger took some twenty years to restore ecological balance and drastically improve the agrarian economy of the area. During the period, 18 million trees were planted, the surface under woodlands increased by 300 per cent, whereas shrubby steppes and sand dunes decreased by 30 per cent. In the meantime, agricultural land was expanded by about 80 per cent.

All over the region, a multitude of projects have used agroecological solutions to restore degraded land and spare scarce water resources while at the same time increasing food production, and improving farmers’ livelihoods and resilience. In Timbuktu, Mali, the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) has reached impressive results, with yields of 9 tons of rice per hectare, more than double of conventional methods, while saving water and other inputs. In Burkina Faso, soil and water conservation techniques, including a modernized version of traditional planting pits­zai­ have been highly successful to rehabilitate degraded soils and boost food production and incomes.

Southern African countries have been struggling with recurrent droughts resulting in major failures in corn crops, the main staple cereal in the region. Over the years, farmers and governments have developed a wide variety of agroecological solutions to prevent food crises and foster their resilience to climatic shocks. The common approach in all these responses has been to depart from the conventional monocropping of corn, which is highly vulnerable to climate shocks while it is also very costly and demanding in purchased inputs such as hybrid seeds and fertilizers. Successful sustainable and affordable solutions include managing and harvesting rain water, expanding conservation and regenerative farming, promoting the production and consumption of cassava and other tuber crops, diversifying production, and integrating crops with fertilizer trees and nitrogen fixating leguminous plants.

The enumeration could go on. The few examples cited above all come from a series of 33 case studies released recently by the Oakland Institute. The series sheds light on the tremendous success of agroecological agriculture across the African continent in the face of climate change, hunger, and poverty.

These success stories are just a sample of what Africans are already doing to adapt to climate variations while preserving their natural resources, improving their livelihoods and their food supply. One thing they have in common is that they have farmers, including many women farmers, in the driver’s seat of their own development. Millions of farmers who practice agroecology across the continent are local innovators who experiment to find the best solutions in relation to water availability, soil characteristics, landscapes, cultures, food habits, and biodiversity.

Another common feature is that they depart from the reliance on external agricultural inputs such as commercial seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and chemical pesticides, on which is based the so-called conventional agriculture. The main inputs required for agroecology are people’s own energy and common sense, shared knowledge, and of course respect for and a sound use of natural resources.

Why are these success stories mostly untold, is a fair question to ask. They are largely buried under the rhetoric of a development discourse based on a destructive cocktail of ignorance, greed, and neocolonialism. Since the 2008 food price crisis, we have been told over and over that Africa needs foreign investors in agriculture to ‘develop’ the continent; that Africa needs a Green Revolution, more synthetic fertilizers, and genetically modified crops in order to meet the challenges of hunger and poverty. The agroecology case studies debunk these myths.

Evidence is there, with irrefutable facts and figures, that millions of Africans have already designed their own solutions, for their own benefits. They have successfully adapted to both the unsustainable agricultural systems inherited from the colonial times, and to the present challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. Unfortunately, a majority of African governments, with encouragement from donor countries, focus most of their efforts and resources to subsidize and encourage a model of agriculture, largely reliant on the expensive commercial agricultural inputs, in particular synthetic fertilizers mainly sold by a handful of Western corporations.

The good news is that an agroecological transition is affordable for African governments. They spend billions of dollars every year to subsidize fertilizers and pesticides for their farmers. In Malawi, the government’s subsidies to agricultural inputs, mostly fertilizers, amount to close to 10 percent of the national budget every year. The evidence that exists, based on the experience of millions of farmers, should prompt African governments to make the only reasonable choice: to give the continent a leading role in the way out of world hunger and corporate exploitation and move to a sustainable and climate-friendly way to produce food or all.

(End)

Excerpt:

Scene from Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village in Bafut in Cameroon’s Northwest Region, the country’s first and only eco-village which is based on the principle that the answer to food insecurity lies in sustainable and organic methods of farming. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

By Mbom Sixtus
YAOUNDE, Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

Marking a shift away from the growing trend of abandoning sustainable life styles and drifting from traditional customs and routines, Joshua Konkankoh is a Cameroonian farmer with a vision – that the answer to food insecurity lies in sustainable and organic methods of farming.

Konkankoh, who left a job with the government to pursue that vision, founded Better World Cameroon, which works to develop local sustainable agricultural strategies that utilise indigenous knowledge systems for mitigating food crises and extreme poverty, and is now running Cameroon’s first and only eco-village – the Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village in Bafut in Cameroon’s Northwest Region.

“Biodiversity was protected by traditional beliefs. Felling of some trees and killing of certain animal species in certain forests were prohibited. They were protected by gods and ancestors. We want to protect such heritage” – Joshua Konkankoh
Talking with IPS, Konkankoh explained how the eco-village organically fertilises soil through the planting and pruning of nitrogen-fixing trees planted on farms where mixed cropping is practised. When the trees mature, the middles are cut out and the leaves used as compost. The trees are then left to regenerate and the same procedure is repeated the following season.

“Here we train youths and farmers on permanent agriculture or permaculture,” he said. “I call it ‘permaculture the African way’ because the concept was coined by scientists and we are adapting it to our old ways of farming and protecting the environment.”

While government is keeping its distance from the project, Konkankoh said that local councils and traditional rulers are encouraging people to embrace the initiative, which is said to be ecologically, socially, economically and spiritually friendly.

“I was active during the U.N. Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. In studying the reason why many countries failed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), we realised that there were some gaps but we also found out that permaculture was a solution to sustainability, especially in Africa. So I felt we could contextualize the concept – think globally and act locally.”

The permaculture used at the eco-village makes maximum use of limited agricultural land, and villagers are taught how to plant more than one crop on the same piece of land, use a common organic fertiliser and obtain high yields.

Farmers, said Konkankoh, are encouraged to trade and not seek aid, to benefit from their investment and prevent middlemen and multinationals from scooping up a large share of their earnings. The organic agriculture practised and taught in the eco-village is a blend of culture and fair trade initiatives.

Joshua Konkankoh, founder of Cameroon’s first and only eco-village, shows off some nitrogen-fixing trees. Credit: Mbom Sixtus/IPS

“We encourage rural farmers to guarantee food sovereignty by producing what they also consume directly and not cash crops like cocoa and coffee.”

Farmers are trained in the importance of manure, of producing it and selling it to other farmers, as well in innovative techniques of erosion control, water management, windbreaks, inter-cropping and food foresting.

Konkankoh also told IPS that it was a mistake to have left the spiritual principle out of the MDG programme. “Biodiversity was protected by traditional beliefs.  Felling of some trees and killing of certain animal species in certain forests were prohibited. They were protected by gods and ancestors. We want to protect such heritage.”

The eco-village has started a project to replant spiritual forests with 4,000 medicinal and fruit trees in a bid to reduce CO2 emissions.

Fon Abumbi II, traditional ruler of Bafut, the village which hosts the Ndanifor Permaculture Eco-village, believes that the type of cultivation of fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants used by the eco-village will improve the health of local people.

He is also convinced that with many firms around the world producing health care products with natural herbs, the demand for the products of the eco-village is high, guaranteeing a promising future for the villagers who cultivate them.

Houses in the eco-village are constructed with local materials such as earth bags and mud bricks, and grass for the roofs. Domestic appliances such as ovens and stoves are earthen and homemade.

Sonita Mbah Neh, project administrator at eco-village’s demonstration centre, said that the earthen stoves bit not only reduce the impact of climate change by minimising the use of wood for combustion but the local women who make then also earn a living by selling them.

Lanci Abel, mayor of the Bafut municipality, told IPS that his council is mobilising citizens to embrace permaculture. “You know, when an idea is new, people only embrace it when it is recommended by authorities. We are carrying out communication and sensitisation of the population to return to traditional methods of farming as taught at the eco-village.”

Abel also had something to say about the performance of genetically modified plantain seedlings planted by the Ministry of Agriculture at the start of the 2015 farming season in Cameroon’s Southwest Region, which recorded a miserable 30 percent yield.

The issue had been raised by Mbanya Bolevie, a member of parliament from the region who asked Minister of Agriculture Essimi Menye about the failure of the modern seeds during the June session of parliament.

Julbert Konango, Littoral Regional Delegate for the Chamber of Agriculture, said the failure was due the fact that seeds are often old because “there is inadequate finance for agricultural research organisations in Cameroon as well as a shortage of engineers in the sector,” a sign that the country not fully prepared for second-generation agriculture.

Commenting on the incident, Abel said that citizens using natural seeds and compost would not have faced these problems, adding that “besides the possibility of failure of chemical fertilisers, they also pollute the soil.”

The eco-village, which would like to become a model for Cameroon and West Africa, is a member of the Global Ecovillage Network.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Indigenous people who would be directly affected by the impact of a hydroelectric project in Panama were not consulted despite national and international human rights obligations to obtain their free, prior and informed consent, according to a just-released report.

Acting on behalf of communities in Panama’s Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous territory, the Movimiento 10 de Abril (M-10) had filed a complaint with the Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM) of the Dutch FMO and German DEG development banks alleging that the Barro Blanco dam project which the banks were financing would lead to the flooding of the communities’ homes, schools, and religious, archaeological and cultural sites.

The two banks were accused of failing to adequately assess the risks to indigenous rights and the environment before approving a 50 million dollar loan to GENISA, the project’s developer.

The independent panel’s report, released May 29, found that the “lenders should have sought greater clarity on whether there was consent to the project from the appropriate indigenous authorities prior to project approval,” adding that “the lenders have not taken the resistance of the affected communities seriously enough.”

“We did not give our consent to this project before it was approved, and it does not have our consent today,” said Manolo Miranda, a representative of the M-10.  “We demand that the government, GENISA and the banks respect our rights and stop this project.”

According to the ICM’s report, “significant issues related to social and environmental impact and, in particular, issues related to the rights of indigenous peoples were not completely assessed.”

The environmental and social action plan (ESAP) accompanying the project “contains no provision on land acquisition and resettlement and nothing on biodiversity and natural resources management. Neither does it contain any reference to issues related to cultural heritage.”

Ana María Mondragón, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), said: “This failure constitutes a violation of international standards regarding the obligation to elaborate adequate and comprehensive environmental and social impact assessments before implementing any development project, in order to guarantee the right to free, prior and informed consent, information and effective participation of the potentially affected community.”

In February this year, the Panamanian government provisionally suspended construction of the Barro Blanco dam and subsequently convened a dialogue table with the Ngöbe-Buglé, with the facilitation of the United Nations, to discuss the future of the project.

The Barro Blanco project was registered under the Clean Development Mechanism, a system under the Kyoto Protocol that allows the crediting of emission reductions from greenhouse gas abatement projects in developing countries.

“As climate finance flows are expected to flow through various channels in the future, the lessons of Barro Blanco must be taken very seriously,” said Pierre-Jean Brasier, network coordinator at Carbon Market Watch. “To prevent that future climate mitigation projects have negative impacts, a strong institutional safeguard system that respects all human rights is required.”

The ICM will monitor the banks’ implementation of corrective actions and recommendations, while M-10 said that it expects FMO and DEG to withdrawal their investment from the project and ask that the Dutch and German governments show a public commitment to ensuring the rights of the affected Ngöbe-Buglé.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Forest rangers putting out a fire at a charcoal burning kiln in Kenya’s Mau Forest. The future of the country’s indigenous forest cover is under threat but this has little to do with poverty and ignorance – experts say that it is greed which allows unsustainable practices, such as the lucrative production of charcoal and logging of wood. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
NAIROBI, Apr 25 2015 (IPS)

Armed with twigs and placards, enraged residents from a semi-pastoral community 360 km north of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, protested this week against wanton destruction of indigenous forest – their alternative source of livelihood.

With climate change a new ordeal that has caused frequent droughts, leading to suffering and death in this part of Africa, the community from Lpartuk Ranch in Samburu County relies on livestock which is sometimes wiped out by severe drought leaving them with no other option other than the harvesting of wild products and honey.

“People here are ready to take up spears and machetes to guard the forest. They have been provoked by outsiders who are out to wipe out our indigenous forest to the last bit,” Mark Loloolki, Lpartuk Ranch chairman, who led the protesting community members told IPS.

They threatened to set alight any vehicle caught ferrying the timbers or logs suspected to be from their forests.Illegal harvesting of forest products is pervasive and often involves unsustainable forest practices which cause serious damage to forests, the people who depend on them and the economies of producer countries

Their protest came barely a week after counterparts from Seketet, a few kilometres away in Samburu Central, held a similar protest after over 12,000 red cedar posts were caught on transit to Maralal, Samburu’s main town.

Last year, students walked for four kilometres during International Ozone Day to protest against the wanton destruction of the same endangered forest tree species.

A report titled Green Carbon, Black Trade, released by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and Interpol in 2012,  which focuses on illegal logging and its impacts on the lives and livelihoods of often some of the poorest people in the world, underlines how criminals are combining old-fashioned methods such as bribes with high-tech methods such as computer hacking of government websites to obtain transportation and other permits.

Samburu County, in Kenya’s semi-arid northern region, hosts Lerroghi, a 92,000 hectare forest reserve that is home to different indigenous plants and animal species. Lerroghi, also called Kirisia locally, is among the largest forest ecosystem in dry northern Kenya and was initially filled with olive and red cedar trees.

It is alleged that unscrupulous merchants smuggle the endangered red cedar products to the coastal port of Mombasa for shipping to Saudi Arabia where they are sold at high prices.

“This is a business that involves a well-connected cartel of merchants operating in Nairobi and Mombasa,” said Loloolki.

In Kenya, the future of indigenous forest cover is under threat but has little to do with poverty and ignorance – experts say that it is greed which allows unsustainable practices, such as the lucrative production of charcoal and logging of wood.

“This forest is our main water catchment source and home to wild animals such as elephants,” Moses Lekolool, the area assistant chief, told IPS. “Elephants no longer have a place to mate and reproduce or even give birth, with most of them having migrated.”

According to Samburu County’s Kenya Forest Service (KFS) Ecosystem Controverter Eric Chemitei, “as a government parastatal, we [KFS] do not issue permits for transportation or movement of cedar posts. However, we do not know how they get to Nairobi, Mombasa and eventually to Saudi Arabia as alleged.”

At the same time, Chemitei told IPS that squatters currently residing inside the forest are mainly families affected by insecurity related to cattle rustling, adding that their presence was posing a threat to the main water towers of Lerroghi, Mathew Ranges, and Ndoto and Nyiro mountains.

He further noted that harvesting of cedar regardless of whether forest was privately or publicly owned was banned in 1999, and that over 30,000 hectares – one-third of the Lerroghi forest – has been destroyed.

Reports from INTERPOL and the World Bank in 2009 and from UNEP in 2011 indicate that the trade in illegally harvested timber is highly lucrative for criminal elements and has been estimated at 11 billion dollars – comparable with the production value of drugs which is estimated at around 13 billion dollars.

In a report on organised wildlife, gold and timber, released on Apr. 16, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said: “There is no room for doubt: wildlife and forest crime is serious and calls for an equally serious response. In addition to the breach of the international rule of law and the impact on peace and security, environmental crime robs countries of revenues that could have been spent on sustainable development and the eradication of poverty.”

According to the KFS Strategic Plan (2009/2010-2013/2014), of the 3.4 million hectares (5.9 percent) of forest cover out of the Kenya’s total land area, 1.4 million are made up of indigenous closed canopy forests, mangroves and plantations, on both public and private lands.

The plan also indicated that Kenya’s annual domestic demand for wood is 37 million cubic metres while sustainable wood supply is only around 30 million cubic metres, thus creating a deficit of seven million cubic metres which, according to analysts, means that any projected increase in forest cover can only be realised after this huge internal demand is met.

Last year, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Environment Judi Wakhungu said that KFS’ revised policy framework for forest conservation and sustainable management lists features including community participation, community forest associations and benefit sharing.

The policy acknowledges that indigenous trees or forests are ecosystems that provide important economic, environmental, recreational, scientific, social, cultural and spiritual benefits.

Nevertheless, illegal harvesting of forest products is pervasive and often involves unsustainable forest practices which cause serious damage to forests, the people who depend on them and the economies of producer countries.

Forests have been subjected to land use changes such as conversion to farmland or urban settlements, thus reducing their ability to supply forest products and serve as water catchments, biodiversity conservation reservoirs and wildlife habitats.

Meanwhile, the effect of forest depletion on women has been noted by Veronica Nkepeni , Director of Kenya’s Centre for Advocacy and Gender Equality, who told IPS that the “most affected are women in the pastoralist areas, trekking long distances in search of water as a result of the effects of forest depletion leading to water scarcity.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

The future of the Amazon rainforest is “dangling by a thread”. Photo credit: By lubasi (Catedral Verde - Floresta Amazonica)/CC BY-SA 2.0

By Kwame Buist
ROME, Apr 2 2015 (IPS)

A global civil society petition to save the Amazon is circulating on the internet and its promoters say that once one million signatures have been collected indigenous leaders will deliver it directly to the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

Launched by ”Avaaz” (“voice” in Persian), a global civic organisation set up in January 2007 to promote activism on issues such as climate change and human rights, citizens around the world the petition invites citizens around the world to voice support for an ambitious project to create the largest environmental reserve in the world, protecting 135 million hectares of Amazon forest, an area more than twice of France.“The fate of the Amazon rainforest is dangling by a thread” – Avaaz

Avaaz says that the project will not happen “unless Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela’s leaders know the public wants it.” The organisation, which operates in 15 languages and claims over thirty million members in 194 countries, says that it works to “close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.”

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos announced Feb. 13 that Colombia proposes collaboration with Brazil and Venezuela to create the world’s largest ecological corridor to mitigate the effects of climate change and preserve biodiversity.

“This would become the world’s largest ecological (corridor) and would be a great contribution to (the) fight of all humanity to preserve our environment, and in Colombia’s case, to preserve our biodiversity,” Santos said.

The Colombian president added that his foreign minister, Maria Angela Holguin, had been asked to “establish all the mechanisms of communication with Brazil and Venezuela” in order to be able to present a joint “concrete, realistic proposal that conveys to the world the enormous contribution the corridor would make towards preserving humanity and mitigating climate change.”

According to Avaaz, “if we create a huge global push to save the Amazon and combine it with national polls in all three countries, we can give the Colombian president the support he needs to convince Brazil and Venezuela.”

“All three leaders are looking for opportunities to shine at the next U.N. climate summit [in Paris in December],” said Avaaz. “Let’s give it to them.”

The Amazon is widely recognised as being vital to life on earth – 10 percent of all known species live there, and its trees help slow down climate change by storing billions of tonnes of carbon that would otherwise be released into in the atmosphere.

Avaaz says that “the fate of the Amazon rainforest is dangling by a thread.” After declining for a few years, deforestation rates started rising again last year, and shot up in Brazil by 190 percent in August and September.

Current laws and enforcement strategies are failing to stop loggers, miners and ranchers, and according to Avaaz, “the best way to regenerate the forest is by creating large reserves, and this ecological corridor would go a long way to help save the fragile wilderness of the Amazon.”

Countering possible criticism of those who argue that reserves hold back economic development and others who say that they are often implemented without consulting the indigenous communities, Avaaz says that “those behind this proposal have committed to full engagement and collaboration with the indigenous tribes. Eighty percent of the territory in this plan is already protected – all that this ground-breaking proposal really requires is regional coordination and enforcement.”

According to the petition’s promoters, “this is an opportunity to win a tangible and vital project that could help guarantee all of our futures. If it works, this could be replicated in all the world’s most important forests. Together, this could plant a seed that helps look after the whole world.”

Edited by Phil Harris

There is rising anger among trade unionists, environmentalists and civil society groups in Gabon after a wood company, Rain Forest Management (RFM), sacked 38 fixed-term workers last month in Mbomao, Ogooué-Ivindo province.

RFM, a Gabonese wood processing company with Malaysian investment, is one of several exploiting the rich natural forests in Gabon. The forestry sector is the country’s second source of foreign exchange after oil.

RFM and the woodworkers had been locked in a lengthy dispute over working conditions, lack of contacts and legal working hours, among other complaints.

According to the Entente Syndicale des Travailleurs du Gabon (ENSYTG) union, RFM refused to negotiate with them and workers who were planning to take part in trade union meetings were threatened and intimidated.“Although Gabon’s forests are often described as being relatively undamaged and offering great potential for long-term sustainable timber production, it is clear that industrial forestry within the current policy framework threatens their future integrity and the country’s biodiversity” – Forests Monitor

After numerous threats and charges of intimidation, on Feb. 17, as the employees were returning to work, RFM called on police to evict them from their company-supplied dormitories, claiming that the workers had violated company rules.

The dismissals were linked to worker protests over poor working conditions, unsanitary housing infested with rats, cockroaches and snakes, demands for legal working hours and payment of wages on time.

Léon Mébiame Evoung, president of ENSYTG, told IPS that the workers were simply calling on the company to respect basic rights and provide a pharmacy and an infirmary that should be managed by competent Gabonese health professionals.

RFM failed to meet any of these demands, said the union official. Instead, it decided to execute its earlier threat by firing all protesting workers.

The action has provoked the ire of civil society groups and syndicates, including Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWINT), which is circulating an online petition to help the strikers’ return to their jobs.

Marc Ona Essangui, founder of the environmental NGO Brainforest and president of Environment Gabon, a network of NGOs, told IPS in an online interview that he could not accept such “gross suppression” of workers’ rights. “I have signed up to the call to protect the workers,” he said.

“I strongly protest against the dismissal of these workers, which is clearly linked to their strike action,” he insisted. Such anti-union activities, he added, violate International Labour Office (ILO) conventions 87 and 98 (on freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively, respectively).

Along with other environmentalists in the region, Essangui – who once received a suspended sentence for accusing a presidential ally of exploiting timber, palm oil and rubber in Gabon’s “favourable agri-climate” – is troubled by risks to the region’s natural forests due to development activities.

The Gabonese government and international donors, however, regard the exploitation of timber as central to the country’s macroeconomic development.

According to Forests Monitor, an NGO that supports forest-dependent people, “although Gabon’s forests are often described as being relatively undamaged and offering great potential for long-term sustainable timber production, it is clear that industrial forestry within the current policy framework threatens their future integrity and the country’s biodiversity.”

The NGO notes that “production levels are already considerably above the official sustainable production estimates and are set to continue rising”, meaning that “the contribution which forestry sector revenues make to the country’s population as a whole and to people living in the locality of forestry operations is questionable.”

On its website, the World Resources Institute (WRI) notes that “nowhere is the pressure (on resources) more intense than in Gabon, a nation with 80 percent of its territory covered by dense tropical forest. With resource use demands spiralling in recent years, Gabon urgently needs better forest management planning if the government is to achieve its goal of becoming an emerging economy while preserving the country’s natural resources.”

RFM’s woodworking factory lies at the centre of three national parks – Lope, Crystal Mountain, and Ivindo – and to the east of Libreville. The park area is a small fraction of the land marked for development on a WRI map. The wood used by RFM is locally sourced.

Established in 2008, RFM produces windows and doors for the Gabonese domestic market. It exports semi-finished products to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The company employs more than 700 workers, with a Gabonese majority.

Since November 2009, when log exports were banned, the formal economy production of processed wood has increased significantly.

According to a WRI report titled ‘A First Look at Logging in Gabon’, compiled by seven Gabonese environmental organisations, “Gabon has vast forest resources, but rapid growth of logging activity may threaten those resources. If managed properly, Gabon’s forests could offer long-term revenues without compromising the ecosystems’ natural functions.”

However, the authors continued, “(we) found information about forest development unreliable, inconsistent, and very difficult to obtain. We believe that more public information will promote accountability and transparency and favour the implementation of commitments made to manage and protect the world’s forests, which would significantly slow forest degradation around the world.”

Edited by Lisa Vives/Phil Harris    

Forest protection, increased biodiversity and wildlife conservation are just a few of the promises made by proponents of genetically engineered (GE) plants. But campaigners are not buying these promises.

On Tuesday, environmental activists gathered in Brazilian consulates and embassies demanding that the government reject the proposal of FuturaGene, a biotechnological company, to legalise GE eucalyptus trees.

The action was taken as part of the Emergency Global Day of Action on Four Continents to STOP Genetically Engineered Trees, organised by an international group of NGOs which have formed the The Campaign to STOP GE Trees. The campaign aims to protect forests, biodiversity, and support communities which may be threatened by the effects of GE plants in the environment.

Campaigners fear that the Brazilian Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio), which regulates genetically modified organisms in Brazil, will accept FuturaGene’s request for the legalisation of industrial GE plantation, at a conference which will be held on 5th March in Brasilia.

International Coordinator of World Rainforest Movement, Winnie Overbeek, said in a statement: “CTNBio does not have sufficient research on the serious impacts that approval of GE eucalyptus trees could cause to render a decision,” adding that CTNBio held only one public meeting, back in September 2014 in Brasilia, which showed the insufficiency of the existing studies on the issue.

“Existing non-GE eucalyptus plantations are already causing serious conflicts over access to land, and living conditions of communities surrounded by them have been destroyed. Approval of GE eucalyptus trees will worsen these problems,” Overbeek concluded.

As opposed to the negative picture painted by environmentalists, FuturaGene claims that, “Technology developed by FuturaGene could position Brazil as a new model for the plantation forestry industry. This innovation provides benefits in the social, economic and environmental spheres.” However, activists insist on saying that introducing GE eucalyptus trees plantation would simply worsen the impact on the environment, biodiversity, and indigenous and local communities worldwide.

Anne Petermann, International Coordinator of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees, said, “Industry requests to legalise GE Trees are not just being decided in Brazil, but in the U.S. also. And companies in other countries would like to develop GE trees.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has had the same proposal put to them by a different GE tree company, ArborGen.

“Today’s day of action shows once more that people around the world reject genetically engineered trees and Brazil must also,” Petermann added.

In November 2014, a group of experts, scientists, agronomists, indigenous peoples and foresters met in Paraguay to discuss the rejection of all GE trees, even those in field trials. Recently, this committee has finalised a declaration, the Asuncion Declaration, which has been submitted to the CTNBio.

Follow Valentina Ieri on Twitter @Valeieri

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Bamboo nursery in Africa. There is debate over whether commercially-grown bamboo could help reverse the effects of deforestation and land degradation that has spread harm across the African continent. Credit: EcoPlanet Bamboo

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Feb 28 2015 (IPS)

Deforestation is haunting the African continent as industrial growth paves over public commons and puts more hectares into private hands.

According to the Environmental News Network, a web-based resource, Africa loses forest cover equal to the size of Switzerland every year, or approximately 41 000 square kilometres.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is also on record as saying the African continent loses over four million hectares (9.9 million acres) of natural forest annually, which is twice the world’s average deforestation rate. And deforestation, according to UNEP, accounts for at least one-fifth of all carbon emissions globally.

The dangerous pace of deforestation has triggered a market-based solution using bamboo, a fast-growing woody grass that grows chiefly in the tropics.“If grown in the right way, and under the right sustainable management system, in certain areas, bamboo can play a role in reversing ecosystem degradation” – Troy Wiseman, CEO of EcoPlanet Bamboo

“The idea of bamboo plantations is a good one, but it triggers fear of widespread starvation as poor Africans may be lured into this venture for money and start ditching food crops” – Terry Mutsvanga, Zimbabwean human rights activist

EcoPlanet Bamboo, a multinational company, has been expanding its operations in Africa while it promotes the industrialisation of bamboo as an environmentally attractive alternative fibre for timber manufacturing industries that currently rely on the harvesting of natural forests for their raw resource. The company’s operations extend to South Africa, Ghana and Nicaragua.

For EcoPlanet and some African environmentalists, commercially-grown bamboo could help reverse the effects of deforestation and land degradation that has spread harm across the African continent.

“If grown in the right way on land that has little value for other uses, and if managed under the right sustainable management system, bamboo can play a role in restoring highly degraded ecosystems and connecting remnant forest patches, while reducing pressure on remaining natural forests,” Troy Wiseman, CEO of EcoPlanet Bamboo, told IPS.

Happison Chikova, a Zimbabwean independent environmentalist who holds a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the Midlands State University here, agreed.

“Bamboo plants help fight climate change because of their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and act as carbon sinks while the plants can also be used as a source for wood energy, thereby reducing the cutting down of indigenous trees, and also the fact that bamboo can be used to build shelter, reduces deforestation in the communal areas where there is high demand of indigenous trees for building purposes,” Chikova told IPS.

But land rights activists are sceptical about their claims.

“The idea of bamboo plantations is a good one, but it triggers fear of widespread starvation as poor Africans may be lured into this venture for money and start ditching food crops,” Terry Mutsvanga, an award-winning Zimbabwean human rights activist, told IPS.

Mutsvanga’s fears of small sustainable farms losing out to foreign-owned export-driven plantations were echoed by Nnimmo Bassey, a renowned African environmentalist and head of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, an ecological think-tank and advocacy organisation.

“No one can seriously present a bamboo plantation as a cure for deforestation,” Bassey, who is based in Nigeria, told IPS, “and unfortunately the United Nations system sees plantations as forests and this fundamentally faulty premise gives plantation owners the latitude to see their forest-gobbling actions as something positive.”

“If we agree that forests are places with rich biodiversity, it is clear that a plantation cannot be the same as a forest,” added Bassey.

Currently, bamboo is widely grown in Africa by small farmers for multiple uses. The Mount Selinda Women’s Bamboo Association, an environmental lobby group in Chipinge, Zimbabwe’s eastern border town, for example, received funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through the Livelihood and Economic Development Programme in order to create sustainable rural livelihoods and enterprises by using bamboo resources.

Citing its many benefits, IFAD calls bamboo the “poor man’s timber.”

Further, notes IFAD, bamboo contributes to rural poverty reduction, empowers women and can be processed into boats, kitchen utensils, incense sticks, charcoal and footwear. It also provides food and nutrition security as food and animal feed.

Currently, EcoPlanet Bamboo’s footprint in Africa includes 5,000 acres in Ghana in a public-private partnership to develop commercial bamboo plantations. In South Africa’s Eastern Cape, certification is under way to convert out of production pineapple plantations to bamboo plantations for the production of activated carbon and bio-charcoal to be sold to local and export markets.

Environmentalist Bassey worries whether all these acres were unutilised, as the company claims. “Commercial bamboo, which will replace natural wood forests and may require hundreds of hectares of land space, may not be so good for peasant farmers in Africa,” Bassey said.

EcoPlanet Bamboo, however, insists it does not convert or plant on any land that could compete with food security.

“(We) convert degraded land into certified bamboo plantations into diverse, thriving ecosystems, that can provide fibre on an annual basis, and yet maintain their ecological integrity,” said Wiseman.

Wiseman’s claim, however, did not move long-time activist Bassey and one-time winner of the Right Livelihood Prize, an alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize, who questioned foreign ownership of Africa’s resources as not always to Africa’s benefit.

“Plantations are not owned by the weak in society,” said Bassey. “They are owned by corporations or rich individuals with strong economic and sometimes political connections. This could mean displacement of vulnerable farmers, loss of territories and means of livelihoods.”

Edited by Lisa Vives/ Phil Harris   

Food security and a balanced diet for all must be combined with the knowledge of indigenous peoples’ food systems and livelihoods as a contribution to sustainable development. Credit: IFAD

By Valentina Gasbarri
ROME, Feb 23 2015 (IPS)

Overcoming hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century no longer means simply increasing the quantity of available food but also the quality.

Despite numerous achievements in the world’s food systems, approximately 805 million people suffer from chronic hunger and roughly two billion peoples suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies while, at the same time, over 2.8 billion people are obese.

Unfortunately, the debate over how to address this challenge has polarised, pitting agriculture and global commerce against local food systems and traditional ecological knowledge, land-based ways of life and a holistic, interdependent relationship between people and the Earth.“Arrogantly and insolently, humanity has cultivated the idea of development and progress based on the belief that the planet’s resources are infinite and that human domination of nature is limitless” – Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement

Organised to reflect on this, among other issues, the second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, held at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) from Feb. 12-13 in Rome, discussed solutions that combine the need to ensure food security and a balanced diet for all with the knowledge of indigenous peoples’ food systems and livelihoods as a contribution to sustainable development.

According to IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze, “indigenous peoples’ lands are some of the most biologically and ecologically diverse places on earth … It is only now, in the 21st century, that the rest of the world is starting to value the biodiversity that is a core value of indigenous societies.” Occupying nearly 20 percent of the Earth’s land area, indigenous groups act as custodians of biodiversity.

Participants at the Forum debated the potential of indigenous livelihood systems and practices – thanks to an age-old tradition of inter-generational knowledge transmission – to contribute to and inspire new transformative approaches of sustainable development, synthesising culture and identity, firmly anchored in respect for individual and collective rights.

However, the Forum described how many indigenous communities and ecosystems are at risk due to the lack of recognition of their rights and fair treatment by governments and corporations, population growth, climate change, migration and conflict. According to participants, the on-going exclusion of indigenous people devalues not only the importance of their communities but also the traditional ecological and agricultural knowledge they possess.

“Arrogantly and insolently, humanity has cultivated the idea of development and progress based on the belief that the planet’s resources are infinite and that human domination of nature is limitless,” Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement, said at a Forum side event focused on the interconnections among nutrition, food security and sustainable development.

“The march towards this idea of progress has left women, youth and elderly people and indigenous populations at the end of the line with no one left to give a voice to them,” he continued. “All the drama of modern reality is now revealing itself: the ‘glorious march’ of progress is now on the edge of a precipice, the present crisis the fruit of greed and ignorance.”

Largely addressing the so-called developed world, the Forum described how many of the good practices and traditional empirical wisdom of indigenous peoples deserve to be studied with care and attention. For example, boosting local economies and agriculture, along with respect for small communities, are ways of reconciling man with the earth and nature.

At the same time, many indigenous communities have certain foods – including corn, taro and wild rice – that are considered sacred and are cultivated through sustainable land and water practices.  This contrasts with the global production, distribution and consumption of food which pays little attention to loss of water and soil fertility, genetic plant and animal erosion and unprecedented food waste.

The Forum also heard how issues related to the paramount role of indigenous peoples’ food systems are central to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects managed by the Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at Montreal’s McGill University in Canada.

“Years of work have documented the traditional food systems of indigenous peoples and their dietary habits to understand matriarchy and the role of women in food security and community peace in Canada,” said Harriet V. Kuhnlein, Professor Emerita of Human Nutrition and founding Director of CINE.

Kuhnlein described one of CINE’s projects, the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project, a three-year community-based project focused on a primary prevention programme for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in a Mohawk community near Montreal.

Among others, the project organised community-based activities promoting healthy lifestyles and demonstrated that “a native community-based diabetes prevention programme is feasible through participatory research that incorporates native culture and local expertise,” said Kuhnlein.

According to Forum participants, the reintroduction of local food products is essential for feeding the planet – “here we see real democracy in action,” said one speaker – and a major effort is needed to avoid practices that exacerbate the negative impacts of food production and consumption on climate, water and ecosystems.

There was also a call for the post-Millennium Development Goal (MDG) agenda to ensure a healthy environment as an internationally guaranteed human right, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will replace the MDGS at the end of 2015, encouraging governments to work towards agricultural policies that are compatible with environmental sustainability and trade rules that are consistent with food security.

It was agreed that none of this will be easy to implement and will require both a strong accountability framework and the will to enforce it, including through recognition of corporate responsibility in the private sector.

As the world prepares for the post-2015 scenario, the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum in Rome said that it was crucial to incorporate food security, environmental issues, poverty reduction and indigenous peoples’ rights into discussions around the new goals of sustainable development involving citizens, governments, academic institutions, private corporations and international organisations worldwide.

Edited by Phil Harris

Organic farmer Slawek Dobrodziej with volunteers from Warsaw helping on his farm. Credit: Courtesy of Malgosia Dobrodziej

By Claudia Ciobanu
WARSAW, Aug 21 2014 (IPS)

Polish farmer Slawek Dobrodziej has probably the world’s strangest triathlon training regime: he swims across the lake at the back of his house, then runs across his some 11 hectares of land to check the state of the crops, and at the end of the day bikes close to 40 kilometres to and back from a nearby town for some shopping.

That Dobrodziej would still want to enter the triathlon, despite working daily in the fields from dawn until well into the night, speaks volumes about his supra-human levels of energy.

But it takes this kind of stamina to succeed as an ecological farmer in Poland.Community-supported agriculture “could help promote farm biodiversity because consumers buy different types of vegetables and products in this scheme, and it could also help to spread the certified organic model, which is only marginally developed in Poland today” – organic farmer Sonia Priwieziencew

Today, around 3.5 percent of Poland’s agricultural land is taken up by organic farms. Their number has been growing steadily over recent years, yet farmers complain of obstacles. Of the country’s some 1.8 million farmers, just 26,000 have organic certification (though some of these farms are just meadows and do not necessarily produce food), and only 300 of these are vegetable producers.

Under the most recent national policies (adopted in parallel to the new European Union’s 2014-2020 budget, which will finance Polish agriculture), Polish authorities have been cutting subsidies for medium and large organic farms, and they have practically eliminated public support for organic orchards.

Smaller organic producers have to struggle with complicated bureaucratic procedures in place for obtaining national or European funding.

Slawek Dobrodziej and his wife Malgosia clearly have the determination to penetrate these procedures. Over the past eight years, the couple have managed to build up a successful organic farm in the village of Zeliszewo, near the western city of Szczecin. They sell some 100 types of fruit and vegetables to consumers in several Polish major cities, including the capital Warsaw.

According to Malgosia, the book-keeper of the family farm, the first years were particularly rough. Selling large quantities of one product to food processing companies did not pay off: organic farming, which uses no pesticides, is labour-intensive, and the prices paid by the companies were not enough to cover costs.

The family managed to access some national and European funds, but the amounts were barely sufficient to buy some basic machinery. European money must often be co-financed by the recipient, meaning that obtaining more funds would be impossible without becoming heavily indebted to banks.

The Dobrodziej’s fortunes improved once they diversified their vegetable production and found opportunities to sell their produce directly to consumers in big cities. Selling to a bio bazaar in Warsaw was a turning point.

Additionally, for the first time this year, they started selling to consumers via two community-supported agriculture (CSA) schemes in the cities of Szczecin and Poznan, through which the roughly 30 consumers in each scheme pay them in advance for vegetables they will receive weekly throughout the summer and autumn months.

The CSA model is based on the idea that consumers share risks with the farmers: consumers enter the scheme agreeing to take whatever vegetables the farmer is able to produce given weather conditions. They are also able to volunteer on the farm, which provides an understanding of seasonality and farm work that few city inhabitants have. Malgosia says that CSA is an excellent way of offering financial stability to a small farm.

The first CSA was created in Poland in 2012 in Warsaw, and this year six such schemes are operational in the country, including the two served by the Dobrodziej. More schemes are expected to be launched next year, given the warm welcome the model has received from city consumers and the farming community.

At the moment, the Dobrodziej’s week is a mad rush among various cities in Poland, with night-long drives to deliver fresh products, followed by days in the field. Yet Malgosia hopes that next year, once the bank credits are paid, they will be able to rely only on the two CSA schemes and sales to bio bazaars in Warsaw and Katowice. Meanwhile Slawek dreams of setting up an organisation to promote the model nationally.

“We do absolutely too much work right now, and we spend too much time packaging half kilos of vegetables to sell to small organic shops,” explains Malgosia. “The CSA model seems very promising, because we get rid of the packaging ordeal and we also get money in hand at the start of the season from which we can make investments in the machinery we need.”

“I think many Polish farms could go this way, because the model is really economically viable for farmers,” says Sonia Priwieziencew, who together with her partner Tomasz Wloszczowski, runs a 6 hectare organic farm in the village of Swierze Panki, 120 km northeast of Warsaw, which has been serving the first CSA in Poland for three years.

Priwieziencew and Wloszczowski had been active for years in NGOs promoting organic farming in Poland and they wanted to put theory into practice.

“CSA could help promote farm biodiversity because consumers buy different types of vegetables and products in this scheme, and it could also help to spread the certified organic model, which is only marginally developed in Poland today,” says Priwieziencew.

After years of experience with advocacy work and promotion of the organic model among farmers, Priwieziencew is quite critical of the authorities’ approach to ecological farming. According to her, despite the fact that the vast majority of farmers in Poland today have small plots of land, the policies issued both by the Polish government and the European Union are more favourable to large-scale industrial farming.

Despite the new Common Agricultural Policy adopted this year in Brussels, which is supposed to provide guidance to farming in the European Union for the coming years, paying much lip service to organic farming and small-scale agriculture as means to ensure food security, limit climate change and preserve biodiversity, national policies and financing do not necessarily follow this direction, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.

Yet, over recent years, citizens in these regions have become increasingly aware of the faults of industrial food production and numerous initiatives intended to safeguard small farming and promote ecological agriculture have been created across both regions.

This month, Warsaw saw the opening of the first cooperative shop bringing vegetables and other foods directly from producers, most of them local, and selling them at a discount to members of the cooperative who volunteer work.

Cooperatives and vegetable box schemes exist in most big Polish cities and are even developing at the level of neighbourhoods. A newly discovered passion for urban gardening in the country has led museums in Warsaw and other cities to open up their green areas to local inhabitants who want to grow vegetables.

Other countries in the region are not lagging behind. At least 15 CSA initiatives exist in the Czech Republic and, in addition, vegetable box schemes and urban gardens are continually appearing. In Romania, CSA groups exist now in at least six different cities, with some of the farms explicitly employing people from marginalised social categories.

”Every such new initiative gives small-scale ecological farmers a new chance to sell more and develop in Poland,” says Warsaw-based food activist Piotr Trzaskowski, who set up the first CSA in Poland. ”These farmers must survive because they are real caretakers of the land and the environment, unlike large-scale conventional producers who commodify the land, buying it, using it up and ignoring the impact on biodiversity, people and the environment.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

Attempts to genetically modify food staples, such as crops and cattle, to increase their nutritional value and overall performance have prompted world-wide criticism by environmental, nutritionists and agriculture experts, who say that protecting and fomenting biodiversity is a far better solution to hunger and malnutrition.

Two cases have received world-wide attention: one is a project to genetically modify bananas, the other is an international bull genome project.

In June, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it has allocated some 10 million dollars to finance an Australian research team at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), working on vitamin A-enriched bananas in Uganda, by genetically modifying the fruit.

On the other hand,  according to its project team, the “1000 bull genomes project” aims “to provide, for the bovine research community, a large database for imputation of genetic variants for genomic prediction and genome wide association studies in all cattle breeds.”“It makes little sense to support genetic engineering at the expense of (traditional, organic) technologies that have proven to substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries” – ‘Failure to Yield’, a study by the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists

In both cases, the genetic modification (GM) of bananas and of bovines is an instrument to allegedly increase the nutritional value and improve the overall quality of the food staples, be it the fruit itself, or, in the case of cattle, of meat and milk.

James Dale, professor at QUT, and leader of the GM banana project, claims that “good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food.”

In the ‘1000 bull genomes project’, the scientists involved (from Australia, France, Germany, and other countries) have sequenced – that is, established the order of – the whole genomes of hundreds of cows and bulls. “This sequencing includes data for 129 individuals from the global Holstein-Friesian population, 43 individuals from the Fleckvieh breed and 15 individuals from the Jersey breed,” write the scientists in an article published in Nature Genetics of July 13.

The reactions from environmental activists, nutritionists, and scientists could not be more critical. The banana case has even prompted a specific campaign launched in India – the “No to GMO Bananas Campaign”.

The campaign, launched by Navdanya, a non-governmental organisation founded by the international environmental icon Vandana Shiva, insists that “GMO bananas are … not a solution to” malnutrition and hunger.

The group argues that so-called bio-fortification of bananas – “the genetic manipulation of the fruit, to cut and paste a gene, seeking to make a new or lost micronutrient,” as genetic expert Bob Phelps has put it – is a waste of time and money, and constitutes a risk to biodiversity.

“Bananas are highly nutritional but have only 0.44 mg of iron per 100 grams of edible portion,” a Navdanya spokesperson said. “All the effort to increase iron content of bananas will fall short the (natural) iron content of indigenous biodiversity.”

The rationale supporting bio-fortication suggests that the genetic manipulation can multiply the iron content of bananas by six. This increase would lead to an iron content of 2.6 mg per 100 grams of edible fruit.

“That would be 3,000 percent less than iron content in turmeric, or lotus stem, 2,000 percent less than mango powder,” the spokesperson at Navdanya said. “The safe, biodiverse alternatives to GM bananas are multifold.”

Scientists have indeed demonstrated that the GM agriculture has so far failed to deliver higher yields than organic processes.

In a study carried out in 2009, the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists demonstrated that the yields of GM soybeans and corn have increased only marginally, if at all. The report, “Failure to Yield“, found out that increases in yields for both crops between 1995 and 2008 were largely due to traditional breeding or improvements in agricultural practices.

“Failure to Yield” also analyses the potential role in increasing food production over the next few decades, and concludes that “it makes little sense to support genetic engineering at the expense of (traditional, organic) technologies that have proven to substantially increase yields, especially in many developing countries.”

Additionally, the authors say, “recent studies have shown that organic and similar farming methods that minimize the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers can more than double crop yields at little cost to poor farmers in such developing regions as Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Yet another ground for criticism is the fact that Bill Gates has repeated an often refuted legend about the risk of extinction of the banana variety Cavendish, grown all over the world for the North American market.

In his blog, Gates claims that “a blight has spread among plantations in Asia and Australia in recent years, badly damaging production of … Cavendish. This disease, a fungus, hasn’t spread to Latin America yet, but if it does, bananas could get a lot scarcer and more expensive in North America and elsewhere.”

The risk of extinction, however, is practically inexistent, as the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), among other institutions, had already shown in 2003.

“What is happening is the inevitable consequence of growing one genotype on a large scale,” said Eric Kueneman, at the time head of FAO’s Crop and Grassland Service. That is, monoculture is the main cause of the fungus.

“The Cavendish banana is a “dessert type” banana that is cultivated mostly by the large-scale banana companies for international trade,” recalled Kueneman, today an independent consultant on agriculture.

On the other hand, as FAO numbers show, the Cavendish banana is important in world trade, but accounts for only 10 percent of bananas produced and consumed globally. Virtually all commercially important plantations grow this single genotype, and by so doing, make the fruit vulnerable to diseases. As FAO said in 2003, “fortunately, small-scale farmers around the world have maintained a broad genetic pool which can be used for future banana crop improvement.”

Actually, the most frequent reasons for malnutrition and starvation can be found in food access, itself a consequence of poverty, inequity and social injustice. Thus, as Bob Phelps, founder of Gene Ethics, says, “the challenge to feed everyone well is much more than adding one or two key nutrients to an impoverished diet dominated by a staple food or two.”

The same goes for the genome sequencing of bulls and cows, says Ottmar Distl, professor at the Institute for Animal Breeding and Genetics at the University of Hannover. “Some years ago, we thought that it would impossible to obtain more than 1,000 kilograms of milk per year per cow,” Distl said. “Today, it is normal to milk 7,000 kilograms, and even as much as 10,000 kilograms per year.”

But such performance has a price – most such “optimised” cows calve only twice in their lives and die quite young.

And yet, the leading researchers of the “1000 bull genomes project” look at further optimising the cows’ and bulls’ performance by genetic manipulation of the cattle in order to, as they say in their report, meet the world-wide forecasted, rising demand for milk and meat.

Distl disagrees. “Whoever increases the milk output hasn’t yet done anything against worldwide malnutrition and hunger.” In addition, he warned, the constant optimisation of some races can lead to the extinction of other lines, thus affecting the populations depending precisely on those seldom older races.

It goes without saying that such an extinction would hardly serve the interests of the world’s consumers.

Photo courtesy of Greenpeace/Marine Photobank

By Bradnee Chambers
BONN, May 21 2014 (IPS)

Some of the Earth’s most delicate tropical paradises are being disfigured by the by-products of the modern age – marine debris: plastic bottles, carrier bags and discarded fishing gear. 

Just a tiny fraction of this originates from the islands themselves – most is generated on land and enters the sea through the sewers and drains; the rest comes from passenger liners, freighters and fishing vessels, whose crews often use the oceans as a giant waste disposal unit.  While much of the garbage sinks, some of it joins the giant gyres where the currents carry it across the globe.

"Marine debris casts its ominous shadow and threatens to break the virtuous circle which would otherwise guarantee sustainable livelihoods and incentives to protect wildlife."
Small Island Developing States (SIDS), recognised as a distinct group of nations by the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, lack the space to dedicate to landfill sites and do not have the resources to deal with the huge problem of marine debris that is being washed up on their doorstep – as the tides and currents wash the accumulated marine garbage onto their beaches.  Domestically, they can take steps to ensure that they do not add to the problem – American Samoa for instance has banned plastic bags – but the “polluter pays” principle would require that those responsible for producing the waste should be made responsible for disposing of it properly.

A litter-strewn beach is an eye-sore and with tourism playing a major role in the economies of many island states, marine debris can have substantial adverse financial implications threatening local businesses and employment prospects.

Palau has banned commercial fisheries in its huge territorial waters forsaking the lucrative licensing revenue and will develop ecotourism based on snorkelling and scuba diving as a sustainable alternative.  Alive, Palau’s sharks can bring in $1.9 million each over their life-time.  Dead, a shark is worth a few hundred dollars, most of it attributable to the fins used to make soup considered a delicacy in parts of East Asia.

In February, Indonesia became the world’s largest sanctuary for manta rays and banned the fishing and export of the species throughout the 2.2 million square miles surrounding the archipelago.  The numbers are about the same; as a tourist attraction, a manta ray is worth in excess of 1 million dollars; as meat or medicine no more than 500 dollars.

Whale-watching creates jobs while bird-watching boosts binocular and camera sales and both help hotel occupancy rates.  And the total number of international travellers broke the one billion mark for the first time in 2012 making tourism one of the main foreign exchange earners globally particularly for many developing countries, including SIDS.

But marine debris casts its ominous shadow and threatens to break the virtuous circle which would otherwise guarantee sustainable livelihoods and incentives to protect wildlife.

Sea birds inadvertently feed their young with plastic which then blocks the chicks’ intestines preventing them from eating properly and leading to a slow and painful death.  The staple prey of some marine turtles is jellyfish but the turtles often mistake plastic bags for their favourite food with same dire results.  For larger species such as whales, dolphins and seals, discarded fishing gear – ghost nets – are a problem as the animals become entangled in them.  This can impede the animals’ movement and ability to hunt as well as cause serious injury or even death through drowning.

Remote island habitats support a rich and diverse fauna often including unique endemic species and provide vital stop-over sites for migrants and breeding sites for marine birds. But long established bird colonies have fallen victim to another danger exacerbated by humans – that posed by invasive alien species.

The problem of rodent infestations is well documented.  Mice and rats have escaped from ships wreaking havoc on the local bird populations which had previously nested on the ground with impunity as there were no predators.  Eradication programmes have successfully rid 400 islands of their alien rodents.

Less well known is the phenomenon of “rafting” where the invaders also use marine debris as a vector – plastic bottles are harbouring a potentially devastating assortment of worms, insect larvae, barnacles and bacteria, and warmer waters arising from climate change increase the resilience of these unwanted stowaways making them an even more potent danger.

One of the fascinations of dealing with the animals covered by the Convention on Migratory Species is how they link different countries and even continents.  Many of the species are endangered and their conservation as well as the threats that they face require internationally coordinated measures.  This applies to marine debris, a singularly unwelcome “migratory species” whose continued presence CMS will be doing its utmost to eliminate.

Excerpt:

With water usage for agriculture surpassing sustainable levels, farmers must embrace crop varieties which require little irrigation. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI , May 22 2013 (IPS)

Amid warnings that Kenya’s agricultural water use is surpassing sustainable levels and adversely affecting food security, biodiversity researchers say that agrobiodiversity should be considered as a vital tool to combat this.

“In order to feed the nation, the country must explore agrobiodiversity, specifically (the growing of) vegetables and fruits, which have been neglected in favour of maize,” Mary Abukutsa-Onyango, a professor of horticulture at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told IPS.

As climate change continues to wreak havoc on rainfall patterns, resulting in intermittent prolonged dry spells across this East African nation, vegetables present the best alternative to maize because they do not require large amounts of water.

The 2012/2013 Kenya country brief by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated that the “October to December ‘short-rains’ season performed poorly … (and) a series of dry spells also caused poor germination … leading to wilting and drying out of crops.”

According to the United States Agency for International Development Kenya, this nation is “classified among the most water scarce countries in the world.” And government statistics indicate that 13 million Kenyans lack access to improved water supply.

“In Kenya, and by extension Africa, desertification and water scarcity are a major threat to agriculture and to pastoralist communities. Strategies such as irrigation, water harvesting and conservation, and tree planting must be revamped,” Nashon Tado, of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Horn of Africa and Yemen office, told IPS.

A food security report by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute said that “official estimates indicate over 10 million people are food insecure with majority of them living on food relief.”

The Ministry of Agriculture says that at least 70 percent of Kenya’s agricultural production comes from smallholder farmers who farm on two to five acres of land. Of Kenya’s 42 million people, eight million households are involved in agriculture, with five million depending directly on it for their livelihoods.

But Kenya’s Food Security Outlook 2013, released on May 15 by the U.N. World Food Programme, confirmed that embracing other crops besides maize was improving food security here.

“Improved availability of green vegetables, green maize and legumes from early June through July is expected to diversify diets and sustain food consumption,” the report stated.

It makes sense that Kenyans should explore biodiversity. Kenya has ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, the globally negotiated agreement committed to sustainable use of biodiversity. Consequently, agrobiodiversity is being touted as a solution to the biting water stresses facing Kenya.

“This year’s International Biodiversity Day’s theme is Water and Biodiversity and is very significant as the country tries to find innovative techniques and strategies to maximise water usage,” Naomi Chepkorir, an agricultural extension officer at the Ministry of Agriculture, in Kenya’s bread basket, Rift Valley province, told IPS.

Indigenous vegetables and fruits are easy to manage, can withstand high and unpredictable temperatures, and are known to have high nutritional value and contain high concentrates of micronutrients, including iron.

“Take the spider plant and African nightshade, which are found in parts of Western and Nyanza provinces, as well as across East Africa. They are known to be nutritious, medicinal and are very rich in iron, calcium, magnesium, anti-oxidants and fibre,” Abukutsa-Onyango said.

The spider plant is known to have high levels of beta-carotene, calcium, protein, magnesium, iron and vitamin C. The plant is also high in antioxidants, which may help prevent diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

Chepkorir said that generally vegetables have a shorter life cycle compared to other crops. They grow in a few weeks and require very little irrigation, hence allowing smallholder farmers to reap the benefits of their harvest earlier than they would if they planted a crop like maize – which takes up to three to four months to mature.

Abukutsa-Onyango agreed, adding that indigenous vegetables are able to adapt to climate change because they mature faster. She gave the example of the spider plant and the variety of amaranth that is indigenous to Africa, which can be harvested within three weeks of planting. She added that the slenderleaf ice plant could also withstand water deficit conditions.

Abukutsa-Onyango added that growing a diversity of indigenous vegetables and fruits “would not only address food security, but also nutrition and health security.

“People should eat a balanced diet, and currently Kenyans are consuming inadequate amounts of vegetables and fruits leading to an upsurge of diet-related diseases,” she said.

Good nutrition and healthy diets are important aspects in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The eight ambitious goals, adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

According to the MDG Report 2010 “nutrition has long been seriously overlooked and underemphasised by donors and developing countries, despite good nutrition being a key enabler to meet almost every MDG.”

Yvonne Onyango, a nutritionist in Nairobi, explained: “If a child is not well fed in its first 1,000 days, its growth is affected and the damage is irreversible. The child will never rise to the potential that other children who are well nourished do.”

Government statistics show that about 35 percent of Kenyan children suffer from malnutrition, including iron deficiency anaemia.

But water is a significant aspect of food security and management of this resource requires cooperation from many levels, according to Phillip Muthee, from Kenya’s Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA).

KEPSA is the umbrella body of organised business associations, ranging from big to small enterprises in the country.

“When water is managed and shared cooperatively, it supports livelihoods, food security and the economy,” Muthee told IPS.

Muthee feared that Kenya’s new devolved system of government could lead to potential new conflicts around the provision of and access to water. Kenya is now implementing the new system, which allows for decisions affecting Kenya’s 47 counties to be taken at grassroots, as opposed to national, level.

“For instance, the government has already committed to make about one million hectares of land irrigable. But conflict may arise between the national and county governments regarding whose responsibility it is to ensure that this is done,” Muthee said.

He worried that if this happened “water will not reach the people at the grassroots level who need it, not just to feed themselves, but to feed the nation.”

By Gunter Pauli
BERLIN, Jan 28 2013 (IPS)

When my children were born it was a clear commitment: all clothing would have to carry the “organic” seal. It was an expression of a lifestyle, a commitment to the Earth.

Gunter Pauli.

While in the early nineties I still had to search half the world to find certified organic children’s wear, today even mainstream shops carry organic clothing, especially for children.

I still have to pay a premium price like twenty years ago, but the products are easily available since an increasing number of brands pride themselves on offering natural products.

Whereas we have debated the use of biofuels that increase the cost of food, especially when subsidies divert corn from tortillas to gas stations, we have never debated the issue of fibres diverting land from food.

On a recent visit to China I learned that the government of the world’s largest cotton-producing nation decided to phase out cotton. The reasoning follows a clear logic: the land reserved to produce 32 percent of the world’s cotton should not provide a raw material for clothing. Land and its massive water reserve that made cotton viable and competitive should be reserved for producing food. Protein instead of fibres. The Chinese offer an insight into a logic that should prevail in all our production and consumption decisions: why waste water on clothing, when food is the priority?

All cotton, even organic cotton, requires excessive amounts of water. Eliminating chemicals is a great step forward, but is not enough to push society on a pathway towards sustainability.

There should be no doubt that by 2050 the additional two billion people on Earth will need to be dressed. However, the limited resources and the carrying capacity of our Earth need to be aligned with emerging demand.

While biologists have embraced chemicals, and even genetic manipulation to respond to growing needs, a smarter option emerges that goes beyond fiddling with nature through genetic control mechanisms, to searching for solutions within the regenerative resources that biodiversity offers.

After all, cotton originated from the Americas, but 63 percent is farmed in China and India, stressing the water reserves that even the United States does not have anymore. It is not good enough to have genetically modified cotton that requires less water: all water that is sustainably available should be dedicated to providing food security.

The question is: what else is available beyond hemp and kenaf? Time has come to create a portfolio of solutions. China offers once more an interesting strategy.

During the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese military was called in to clear two million tons of algae blooms from water bodies around Qingdao that were threatening the open water games.

This emergency situation provided an insight into the potential of algae. After all, these prolific protists feed on excessive nutrients and require no additional input. On the contrary, these grow in rivers and seas without ever needing fresh water as an input.

The processing is about removing water – not consuming water. It did not take long before motivated Chinese entrepreneurs and policy makers to join forces to create the first alginate-based textile fibre factory.

The conversion of 20 million tons, and the potential for farming beyond the harvesting of blooms, suggests that China could substitute all its fibre needs with these blooms. The cost to remove the bloom is converted into the generation of income without the need for additional land. The economics of new fibres could hardly be better.

A quick tour of the world confirms that Europe, Africa, the islands in the Chinese seas and Indonesia could provide a natural source for fibres that could release 25 percent of the world’s irrigation waters.

We should embrace a broader search and identify all the natural fibres that could meet demand without stressing this thin crust that sustains us. Regions characterised by temperate climates and void of rivers and seashores full of prolific algae growth seem to have forgotten another tremendous potential: nettle (Urtica dioica). Considered a weed around the world, this prolific plant thrives in poor conditions and could be part of the portfolio of fibres that will release water resources and dramatically reduce our dependency on chemicals to dress the world.

Nettles do not compete with food crops. Observing its presence, it does not even need to be planted. Since it is a perennial, once growing it only needs harvesting, no planting or nurturing. It is so easy to grow that it is embarrassingly simple compared to the industrialisation of cotton.

A piece of foul land the size of Belgium and the Netherlands is enough to provide a quarter of the world’s demand for fibres. We not only save the water, we save the chemicals and the seeds while generating jobs for producing a long lasting quality fibre that was the preferred raw material for the European royals in the Middle Ages, and remains the core fibre for men’s clothing in Bhutan and Nepal today.

We can continue to live on a beautiful blue Earth, provided we find out what we have. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

Small farmers are returning to organic fertilisers. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 23 2012 (IPS)

Worms and termites are not likely to win hearts and minds, but they, along with lichens and microbes, are vital to food security, say biodiversity specialists who attended this month’s United Nations conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in this south Indian city.  

“Worms, termites, lichens and soil microbes may well be the heroes of food production as without these species land-based biodiversity would collapse and food production cease,” Julia Marton-Lefevre, director-general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, told IPS.

“In this day’s fierce competition for political attention and funds, (preventing) land degradation is a tough sell,” said Marton-Lefevre. “It may be one of the most serious threats to global food production and biodiversity over the next few decades, affecting an estimated 1.5 billion (poor) people.

“Soil biodiversity may not be the most glamorous of our biodiversity, but it is nevertheless highly important,” she added.

Safeguarding the underlying ecological foundations that support food production, including biodiversity, will be central to feeding seven billion inhabitants, climbing to over nine billion by 2050, says the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) study ‘Avoiding Future Famines: Strengthening the Ecological Basis of Food Security through Sustainable Food System’ released in Hyderabad.

“Soil is not an empty container, as is thought by modern agriculturists; land is a living organism and has to be valued as such,” emphasised internationally known Indian environmentalist and activist Vandana Shiva. 

Borrowing from Charles Darwin, Shiva said, earthworms create dams without concrete, increase air volume within soil by 30 percent and improve water retention capacity by 40 percent, increasing the life of soil. 

“Unfortunately, we are valuing inefficient systems like chemical intensive monoculture, forgetting that value and benefit lie in securing the soil that provides everything for humanity; discarding natural farming that simultaneously provides grains, firewood and also fodder for cattle,” Shiva told IPS.

Shiva hit out at Indian policy saying it gave “billions of dollars as subsidy for chemical fertilisers, completely ignoring the fact that the solution to hunger and poverty lay in biodiversity promotion – that is being destroyed by chemical farming.”

“Land degradation has been caused by misplaced investment; now we need to change the way we view land,” said Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification, told IPS. 

At the Oct. 8- 19 CBD meet developed countries agreed to double funding by 2015 to support developing states meet the internationally agreed biodiversity targets set for 2020. Governments also agreed to increase country funding in support of action to cut the rate of biodiversity loss.

While key decisions taken at the conference mandate better investments in marine and coastal biodiversity, proponents of soil and agricultural biodiversity say more needs to be done on land, given that global food security is at risk.

“In the last century as much as 70 to 80 percent forests in many countries have been cleared for farming. We now need to reverse the trend, ensure that that we focus on revitalising agriculture in a way that it will give back the land its health,” said Gnacadja.

“The era of seemingly everlasting production based upon maximising inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides, mining supplies of freshwater and fertile arable land and advancements linked to mechanisation are hitting their limits, if indeed they have not already hit them,” said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner.

“What the world needs is a green revolution with a capital G – one that better understands how food is actually grown and produced in terms of the nature-based inputs provided by forests, freshwaters and biodiversity,” said Steiner.

According to experts, the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels are necessary to sustain key functions of the ecosystem. For example, a diverse range of soil organisms interacts with the roots of plants and trees and ensures nutrient cycling. 

“The environment has been more of an afterthought in the debate about food security,” said UNEP chief scientist Joseph Alcamo, adding that, “only now the scientific community is giving the complete picture of how the ecological basis for food system is not only shaky but being really undermined.”

“At the moment, 12 million hectares of land where 20 million tonnes of grain could have been grown disappear every year,” said Marton-Leferve. “It is no coincidence that all three critical planetary boundaries that are today exceeded by human activities – biodiversity loss, climate change and global nitrogen and phosphorous run-offs that create dead zones in once fertile areas – are directly related to our land use practices.”

“The endeavour to build a land-degradation neutral world is a paradigm shift. It means avoiding the degradation of new areas. But where this is inevitable, we have to offset land degradation by restoring at least an equal amount of land which is degraded, ideally in the same landscape, in the same community, in the same ecosystem,” said Gnacadja. 

“Mobilising and employing financial resources may not be so much about hard currency but about our learning – through policy and practice – to account for the natural capital called soil without commodifying it and without taking shortcuts for profit with nature.” Gnacadja said. “When support is forthcoming, in whichever form, developing countries must start walking the talk.”

UNEP's Achim Steiner and Pawan Sukhdev at COP 11. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 19 2012 (IPS)

 “With more than 60 percent of the world projected to be urban by 2030 why not prepare for it and build cities that include biodiversity preservation into planning?” asks Kobie Brand of ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability in Cape Town, South Africa.

The existence of ICLEI, an association of  the world’s cities that are committed to sustainable development, suggests that the value of greening urban centres is gaining ground. ICLEI’s  Cities Biodiversity Centre in Cape Town works closely with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Global urbanisation will have implications for biodiversity and ecosystems if current trends continue, with knockout effects on human health and development, according to a new report by the CBD that concluded its 11th Conference of Parties (COP 11) in this south Indian city on Friday.

‘The Cities and Biodiversity Outlook’ report released at COP 11 is the world’s first global analysis of how projected patterns of urban expansion would impact biodiversity and crucial ecosystems.

The report, drawing on contributions from 123 scientists worldwide, says that over 60 percent of land that is projected to become urban by 2030 is yet to be built. This, according to Prof. Thomas Elmqvist of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and scientific editor of the report, offers an opportunity for low-carbon, resource-efficient urban development.

“Cities need to learn how to better protect and enhance biodiversity, because rich biodiversity can exist in cities and is extremely critical to people’s health,” said Elmqvist.

Even backyard gardens harbour significant biodiversity. A study of 61 gardens in the city of Sheffield, Britain, found 4,000 species of invertebrates, 80 species of lichen and more than a thousand species of plants.

“City folks love nature but just take it for granted; they do not understand the importance of biodiversity; so in towns and cities we are encouraging and awarding people who are protecting biodiversity, including frogs,” Julia Hennlein, 21, told IPS. Hennlein, a student from Germany, attended COP 11 as part of a youth delegation.

“Cities are where innovation and governance tools are generated, so urban centres are in a better position to take the lead in biodiversity preservation,” said Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, executive secretary of the CBD. “The way our cities are designed, the way people live in them and the policy decisions of local authorities will define, to a large extent, future global sustainability.”

Not everyone has a positive outlook on urbanisation and there are misgivings in India, host of COP 11.   

“Unless fundamental changes are made to the current development paradigm, urban areas will continue to see huge migration and India is an example,” Ashish Kothari, an internationally known Indian environmental activist, told IPS. “Very little is being done to regenerate villages and where this is done, migrants have returned home from the cities.”

Aarati Khosla, leading the World Wildlife Fund-India’s ‘Earth Hour City Challenge’ campaign in six Indian cities to promote energy efficient technology and renewable, told IPS: “Even small things, like efficient vehicle parking, need to be better managed to make urban centres sustainable.”

New Delhi, India’s capital, and Mumbai, the country’s main business hub, have been ranked 58 and 52 respectively among 95 cities worldwide by a U.N. Habitat report released this week. Poor environmental conditions and pollution are some of the major reasons for their low ranking.

India, experiencing massive urbanisation currently, expects its urban population to jump from the present 30 percent to 50 percent by 2044. India currently accounts for 11 percent of the world urban population, but this will grow to 15 percent by 2031 when 600 million Indians will be living in cities.

“Urbanisation in the present unsustainable avatar also has a major impact on rural areas, reshaping livelihoods, lifestyles, patterns of consumption and waste generation,” says Helene Roumani, coordinator for Local Action for Biodiversity  from Jerusalem attending the two-day Cities for Life Summit running parallel to the COP.

Urging local governments to understand better the role of ecosystem services in urban planning, Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme, emphasises that large and small urban groups depend on ecosystem services for their food, water and health.

“With environment and development traded off against each other, one-third of the population could soon be living in water-stressed areas,” said Steiner at the release of ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Water and Wetlands’ report, an initiative of the Ramsar Convention Secretariat.

According to the report, the world lost half of its wetlands in the 20^th century.

“People, cities and blue space are closely connected,” Nick Davidson, deputy director-general of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, told IPS.

“Wetlands do not just manage pollution but promote better health in many ways and coastal cities in Asia are particularly under great pressure from livelihood demands,” Davidson said. “The marine coastal areas are being seen as a waste area and encroached into for various livelihood sources.

“Decision makers have a really hard choice to balance development and livelihood priorities with wetland health,” Davidson said.

Biodiversity activists with UNEP's Achim Steiner and Pavan Sukhdev. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Manipadma Jena
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 18 2012 (IPS)

With negotiations to mobilise resources for preservation of biodiversity at a major United Nations conference going nowhere, the Group of 77 and China have hinted at  possible suspension of the ‘Aichi targets’  under the Nagoya Protocol.

Algeria, current G 77 chair, stressed in a statement at the 11^th Conference of Parties (COP 11) to the CBD, underway in this south Indian city, that developing countries had made significant commitments at COP 10 in Nagoya, Japan, on the expectation that financial resources would be forthcoming to meet the Aichi targets.

The Algerian statement hinted that unless COP 11 – which ends Friday after almost two weeks of fruitless negotiations – addresses the issue of resource mobilisation the gains at Nagoya would be negated and the momentum towards realising the Aichi targets lost.

G 77, a loose coalition of 77 developing countries, now expanded to 132, was founded in 1964 to promote the collective economic interests of members and create joint negotiating capacity at the U.N.

At stake now are the 20 Aichi targets aimed at halving the rate of loss of natural habitats, conserving 17 percent  terrestrial and inland water areas, 10 percent of marine and coastal areas, restoration of biodiversity by up to 15 percent with countries implementing national biodiversity strategies and action plans by 2015.

Resource mobilisation has been the most contentious area of negotiations at Hyderabad. Developing countries, home to rich biological diversity, are now doubtful that the promise of increasing financial resource flows from developed to developing countries by 2015 will materialise.

Developed countries are firm that a baseline is necessary to determine the sum that is already being spent and that needs to be increased. But developing countries are pushing for commitments on interim figures.

Experts say funding from diverse international and national sources, and across different policy areas, is required to secure the full range of economic and social benefits to be gained from meeting the Aichi targets.  

Public funding and private sector investment (still under debate),  innovative measures, incentives such as payments for ecosystem services, conservation agreements including with local communities, water fees, forest carbon offsets, and green fiscal policies are among possible sources.

A high-level ‘Global Assessment of Resources for Implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020’, sponsored by Britain and India and released at the COP 11, informs that addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss and ecosystem restoration, over the 2013 – 2020 period could cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Whilst there are some big numbers in this report, our panel found that the greatest resource needs are around reducing the direct drivers of biodiversity loss – those which occur throughout our economies and societies,” said Pavan Sukhdev, an economist and goodwill ambassador of U.N. Environment Programme at the COP.

Sukhdev who is also chair of the Global Assessment of Resources (GAR) report said if the direct drivers of biodiversity are addressed, they will “deliver benefits, far beyond biodiversity, to human health, livelihoods, and sustainable development.”

Sukhdev said research is needed to “fully assess cross-benefits cutting across many areas” and noted that the “drivers that destroy biodiversity are multifarious, climate change being one of them.”

India, in a show of commitment to cutting biodiversity loss, had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledging 50 million dollars at COP 11 to strengthen technical, institutional and human capacity building in India, and to also help other developing countries.

India is one of the six countries, out of the 193 members of the CBD, to have ratified the Nagoya Protocol.

Clarity on how much funds would be necessary to globally implement the Aichi targets is yet to emerge at COP 11 with experts reluctant to quote numbers.

“It may be good not to look at numbers. The roadmap to achieving the Aichi targets is important. Setting interim targets would be more practical; we do not till now even know the entirety of biodiversity,” said M.F. Farooqui, a key official in India’s ministry of environment and forests.

“Two-thirds of the proposed outlay for the Aichi targets is in the form of investment. But in initial stages, estimates like this can only be approximations,” Sukhdev told IPS.

“Funding for biodiversity should not be seen as costs but as investment for future global well being,” Braulio Ferreira De Souza Dias, executive secretary of the CBD, commented while speaking with IPS.

The other view among experts is that more than financial investment, policy change is important for saving biodiversity.

“It is not true that funds will flow from the North to the South. This may be the catalyst but nationally designed policies will make all the difference,” said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, a senior environmentalist from Costa Rica associated with the GAR report.

“Costa Rica tripled per capita income and doubled forest cover by investing in institutional transformation,” Rodriguez said. “The same policies that caused the problem in the first place cannot continue. There is an urgent need to understand the need for appropriate policy development.”

“Conservation of biodiversity also depends on redefining the relationship between economic progress, environmental sustainability and social equity,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.

Steinem was satisfied that countries were increasing their investments in biodiversity. “This is not an issue of one moment or nothing… resource mobilisation is supposed to be for accelerating these efforts.”

Farooqui said India is currently spending two billion dollars, directly and indirectly on biodiversity conservation, including tiger protection areas that concurrently conserve nature’s chain down to microbes.

“Large developing countries like India and Brazil are already investing enormously in preserving biodiversity,” André Aranha Correa do Lago, a senior official at Brazil’s ministry of external relations, told IPS.

“Other than the larger developing countries, there are those that need additional resources. I cannot imagine that developed countries do not take this into consideration,” Lago said. “India and Brazil too can do more if there are additional resources.”

“It (funding by developed nations) is not charity, it is a compelling rationale,” said Steinem. “You cannot leave Hyderabad without numbers.”

Stall at the COP 11 of the CBD in Hyderabad. Credit: Keya Acharya/IPS

By Keya Acharya
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 17 2012 (IPS)

India’s National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is actively promoting decentralised grassroots livelihoods as the best way to  conserve biodiversity as mandated by the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing (ABS).

On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had announced at the 11^th Conference of Parties (COP 11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) India’s ratification of the Nagoya Protocol, and pledged 50 million dollars for national biodiversity conservation efforts.

At the 2010 meeting of the CBD in Nagoya, Japan, the parties had agreed to halve by 2020 the rate of habitat loss, restore degraded ecosystems and  work to prevent the extinction of threatened species.

But, finding the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to achieve the 20 ‘Aichi Targets’ of the protocol has proved problematic and so far dominated the COP 11 deliberations running in this south Indian city from Oct. 8 to 19, with over 174 countries participating.

“We are discussing the issue of where to garner resources without taking into account local communities, unaware that they have the full answer,”  said the chairman of the NBA, Balakrishna Pisupati.

The NBA has initiated countrywide documentation of biodiversity conservation efforts as a means of better understanding that could lead to  policy-making.

Invited to seek out efforts in this list is the Centre for Forest and Natural Resources Management Studies (CEFNARM) of the forest department of Andhra Pradesh, the southern state playing host to COP 11.

CEFNARM has identified 80 potential sites in the state where biodiversity conservation has encompassed livelihoods that use flora, fauna and traditional knowledge of local communities. Some 25 case studies are now being promoted for replication.

Livelihoods in these case studies entail the sustainable use of bamboo for handicrafts, harvesting of non-timber forest produce such as honey and gum, conservation of medicinal plants, mangroves and community-based ecotourism activities.

CEFNARM’s director-general P. Raghuveer gives credit to non-government organisations for doing ‘significant’ work in the field in Andhra Pradesh.

Mangrove conservation by Kobbari Chettupeta village, near the seacoast in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, is now being helped by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), an organisation which has helped put coastal and marine biodiversity back on the area’s map.

MSSRF came in after 1996 when a severe cyclonic storm destroyed several villages in the area, and a seasoned 60-year-old villager, Mythu Sathya Rao, realised that villages without mangroves suffered the most damage.

Mythu Rao then got his village interested in mangrove conservation. The MSSRF has been helping conservation efforts by providing smokeless cook stoves so that mangrove twigs and branches are not used.

In the interior areas of East Godavari district, protection of the Akuru range of the Kakinada forests by surrounding villages through forest committees set up with the help of the forest department has revived native bamboo groves.

Bamboo, harvested judiciously to allow re-growth, is now providing an excellent source of livelihood for tribal communities in the region.

In 2010, bamboo sales netted nearly 200,000 Indian rupees (approximately 4,000 dollars), divided equally between the forest department and the village committee.

The money was enough to meet the needs of 14 tribal households. Araghati Sanyasi, a widow, used her share of income from bamboo to build a house, educate her three children and pay for the weddings of a daughter and a son.

“These are examples of what The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) actually means,” Pisupati said. India has an ambitious plan under TEEB to value its natural resource wealth with the objective of efficient and sustainable use by 2015.

Other South Asian nations, such as Nepal and Bangladesh, have also shown interest in pursuing TEEB.

Developed by the G8 and developing country ministers to study the economics of biodiversity loss and thereby provide solutions to environmental degradation, TEEB also aims to connect policy makers, conservationists and private business.

Prime Minister Singh told his COP 11 audience that India had unique biodiversity conservation efforts, such as a traditional knowledge digital library which has documented over 34 million pages of local knowledge systems.

The library, said Singh, was a response to biopiracy of Indian systems, most notably the patenting of extracts of the ‘neem’ tree (Azadirachta indica) and also of turmeric as healing agents. Both have been known and used in India’s traditional medicine for centuries.

At a local level, TEEB has been raising angst among non-government organisations and experts who feel that private corporate interests will appropriate biodiversity  for profits, leaving local communities out in the cold.

India is one of eight worldwide centres of intense biodiversity, holding eight percent of the world’s total species and home to three of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

Lakshmi and a fellow seaweed diver at COP 11. Credit: Keya Acharya/IPS

By Keya Acharya
HYDERABAD, India, Oct 12 2012 (IPS)

Indian civil society organisations see in the 11th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD), underway in this south Indian city, a rare opportunity to highlight alleged neglect of biodiversity along the country’s extensive coastal and marine areas.

The Bombay Natural History Society, Kalpavriksh, Greenpeace India, Coastal Protection Campaign, Dakshin Foundation and PondyCAN are among groups accusing ports, power plants, shipyards and aquaculture projects of creating havoc in inter-tidal tracts and threatening artisanal fishing.

No fewer than 15 power plants, six captive ports and six mega shipyards are coming up along a small 150 km stretch on the western coastline in the state of Maharashtra alone, delegates to the Oct. 8-19 international conference were told.

On the eastern coastline of this peninsular country, in the state of Andhra Pradesh, host to COP11, there are 10 new ports and 15 thermal power projects on the anvil.

Additionally, Andhra Pradesh has proposed 70 ‘special economic zones’ in 15 of its 23 districts, including a staggering five million acres in a coastal corridor that will include airports, seaports, ship breaking units, petrochemical complexes and other polluting industries.

“None of India’s environmental impact assessments (EIA), conducted by the ministry of environment and forests, take thermal pollution of sea water into account, while existing policy does not make cumulative assessments  mandatory,” says Ashish Kothari of Kalpavriksh, a leading non-governmental organisation (NGO).

“Our EIA system itself is essentially flawed,” Kothari, tells IPS.

Whenever marine conservation actually happens it does not take local communities into account, says the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF), another leading NGO that speaks for artisanal fishing communities.

In the southeastern coastal state of Tamil Nadu, near the Gulf of Mannar, an entire community stands threatened because its women have been barred from pursuing their traditional occupation of diving for seaweed.

The area has now been declared a marine national park and comes under the protection of the forest department, leaving communities that depend on the collection of seaweed for their livelihood stranded.

Collecting seaweed has been banned by the department on the grounds that it may be detrimental to corals – though officials have little to say about a major nuclear park coming up in nearby Koodankulam that could raise the temperature of coastal waters.

Seaweed, used in cosmetic and lifestyle health products, grows on dead coral underwater and is sustainably harvested by the nimble fingers of women divers to supplement family incomes.

“We have been collecting seaweed since our forefathers’ time,” Lakshmi, 52, from Ramanathapuram district, told rapt audiences on the sidelines of the COP 11 deliberations.

“We depend on harvesting seaweed for our livelihoods, why should we destroy live coral?” she asks.

The women said they were not consulted when the park’s boundaries were demarcated, and accused forest department officials of undue harassment such as by interfering with or preventing artisanal fishing.

“They (forest department) had to seek our help recently to put out a fire probably started by a carelessly thrown cigarette butt by one of their guards,” Lakshmi said, explaining the community’s local knowledge and experience in natural resource maintenance.

“You cannot preserve an ecosystem by throwing people out,” says V. Vivekanandan of the South Indian Fisheries Federation. “The department needs to use local strength in fisheries management.”

The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, begun by India’s best-known agricultural scientist and named after him, has spearheaded several initiatives on coastal biodiversity conservation.

Notable among these is one to promote the growth of mangroves that has led to a national consultation called ‘Securing Coastlines and Securing Livelihoods’ earlier this year.

The consultation has recommended a new approach to coastal and marine conservation, taking biodiversity issues into account and linking them integrally to the wellbeing of local communities. However, the consultation still needs to find a place in policymaking.

While laying down the principle of national sovereignty over biological resources, the CBD expected this to translate into community sovereignty with farmers, fishers and pastoralists placed at the centre of preserving biodiversity – not just their knowledge, innovations and practices.

India’s own Biodiversity Act, devised to be in line with the CBD, requires “consultation” with local communities, but there are too many instances of populations being forcibly dislocated from their traditional farming or fishing lands to make way for mega projects.

Chandrika Sharma, executive secretary of ICSF, pointed to the irony of poor coastal people, especially women, being adversely affected by development and conservation policies, while lip service is paid to empowering them in the interests of conserving biodiversity.

“Their activities are affected by government policies banning fishing in protected areas while development projects are allowed to come up,” Sharma said. “Local communities can play an important role in governing resources as they have been around for generations and know the ecosystem best.”

A pangolin in the Gir forest of Gujarat, India. Credit: Sandip Kumar/Wikimedia commons

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct 10 2012 (IPS)

Conservationists see the decimation of pangolins (scaly anteaters) in Pakistan as a sign of the callousness with which this country’s rich biodiversity is being traded away for commercial gain.   

Tariq Mahmood, assistant professor at the University of Arid Agriculture, Rawalpindi, tells IPS that if the illegal trade in pangolins – prized for their scales and meat – is not stemmed, the animal may well go extinct within the next few decades. 

Between December 2011 and March 2012, Mahmood’s team of researchers recovered 50 pangolin carcasses in the Potohar district of Punjab province alone.

International trade in Asian pangolin species is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, but with each animal fetching about 125 dollars, poachers supplying markets in China and Southeast Asia are ready to take the risk.   

In China, the main market for pangolins, the meat of the animal is considered a delicacy with the scales, blood and other parts used as ingredients in traditional medicine.

“People in Pakistan know pangolins only as a harmless animal and are unaware that the animal also saves crops and plants from insect pests,” says Ejaz Ahmad of the World Wide Fund-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan). “With their super strong sense of smell, they can detect termites and ants from hundreds of metres away.”

“They are natural pest controllers,” Rhishja Cota-Larson of Project Pangolin (PP) told IPS. “One pangolin can consume an estimated 70 million insects per year.

“If pangolins disappear, you would need to increase the use of pesticides in order to control the insect population. This, in turn, would have adverse affects on the environment and on people,” she said.

“We know of pangolins being killed for their scales in Pakistan and their seizures occur on a regular basis in India and Nepal,” Cota-Larson added. The PP has noted similar incidents in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda.

The insatiable demand may have wiped out around 50,000 pangolins worldwide in 2011, according to PP. 

“In Pakistan, pangolins are bought for as much as 105 dollars per individual at some  five-star hotel for use in their Chinese restaurants,” said Mahmood.

Last year, Mahmood said, ‘Pangolins-wanted’ pamphlets were dropped by helicopter over rural areas around the Jhelum river giving details of people to contact if anyone had a captured animal for sale.  

There are no reliable estimates for the pangolin population in Pakistan as they are elusive, nocturnal animals. “We have no idea how many remain in the wild,” said Ahmad.

But pangolins are not the only animals under threat in Pakistan, and scientists have identified 100 species that are endangered. Taken together with the massive denudation of pine forests in areas such as Swat and the Khyber Paktunkhwa province, the damage to Pakistan’s biodiversity may already be irreversible, experts fear.   

WWF-Pakistan’s Ahmad said since every living thing is in a symbiotic web, balanced biodiversity is vital for the survival of life on earth. “Biodiversity is the summation of all living things on this planet.”

Already gharial, a crocodile species found in Pakistan till late 1970s, has vanished, says environmentalist Munaf Qaimkhani. “This knowledge alone should prompt us to take steps to save those species facing extinction,” he told IPS.

Similarly, the blind dolphin of River Indus, which lost its habitat due to the damming of the river, is now breathing its last, caught in nets, starved of fish and forced to live in increasingly toxic waters.  

In 2006, the WWF-Pakistan estimated that there were just 1,200 dolphins left in the Indus. “Each year almost two dozen dolphins get trapped in the irrigation channels,” said Nasir Panhwar, executive director of the Centre for Environment and Development, a non-governmental organisation based in Hyderabad in Sindh province.

Qaimkhani lists the snow leopard, white-backed vulture, falcons, houbara bustards, Chiltan markhor, Marco polo sheep, woolly flying squirrel and musk deer among animals in Pakistan that have become highly endangered.

Conservationists worry that there are cases where the government is not just apathetic about biodiversity loss but also collusive in its destruction for political or diplomatic reasons.

Raja Zahoor, a customs official, said many animals and birds are hunted for sport by foreign nationals with special permission granted by a government eager to “foster good relations” among influential countries in the Middle East. “Rare species of falcons and the houbara bustard are being taken away to Arab states on dubious documentation.”

Arab falconers hunt the internationally protected houbara bustard on special permits issued by the ministry of foreign affairs. They often bring in their own hunting falcons, but take back endangered Pakistani species using re-export permits. “It is very easy to swap the falcons,” said Panhwar.

“We know this is illegal, but our hands are tied. Customs officers who have tried to stop local falcons from being smuggled out of the country in this way have been taken to task,” Zahoor said. 

“In case a bird or animal is seized by customs, there are no facilities to keep it safely until the courts call for its exhibit or until the case is disposed of – often the animal or bird dies in custody,” Zahoor added.