Commercial logging and firewood extraction for domestic use have accelerated Myanmar's deforestation rates in the last three decades. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Amantha Perera
YANGON, May 6 2014 (IPS)

Between 2008 and 2013, when Myanmar remained largely closed off to the rest of the world, it suffered a terrible toll at the hands of nature that remained largely unknown.

In those five years, the country of 60 million suffered at least eight major natural calamites that killed more than 141,000 people and affected 3.2 million.

The worst of these was Cyclone Nargis in May 2008 that killed more than 130,000 and affected 2.4 million.Myanmar is still covered with some of the most pristine jungles in East Asia, but the deforestation rate is alarming.

Myanmar has been vulnerable to increasing extreme weather events like many of its neighbours. But as the Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group of Myanmar noted in an extensive analysis last year of the nation’s disaster preparedness levels, the dangers have been amplified because the country has been slow to take remedial measures against changing climate patterns.

The East Asian country’s ranking 167 out of 176 countries surveyed by The Global Adaptation Institute “is as much a reflection of Myanmar’s exposure to climate change as it is of the country’s low capacity to manage climate risks,” the report said.

Such under-preparedness comes at a terrible cost. The same report found that over 2.6 million people live in areas vulnerable to natural disasters ranging from cyclones in the south to earthquakes in the north.

Since the reformist Thein Sein government took office in May 2011, there has been renewed attention to put in place measures that will help the country meet the challenges posed by changing climate patterns.

“I think the government is pretty serious about taking action on this, they know how important it is,” Helena Mazarro, the focal point for disaster risk reduction in Myanmar at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IPS.

In June 2013 the government unveiled the new Disaster Management Law and the National Natural Disaster Preparedness Working Committee under the President’s Office. A new building code is being formulated to make sure the current building boom does not undermine standards and put more people at risk.

On Apr. 1 this year a total ban on exporting of unprocessed timber was put in place to bring about controls on logging.

“Disaster preparedness levels have improved substantially since Cyclone Nargis. In mid 2013, Myanmar was significantly better prepared to respond to the approaching Cyclone Mahasen,” said Maciej Pieczkowski, programme manager with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Myanmar.

Mahasen caused limited damage and around 200 deaths. More than 120,000 persons were evacuated from the cyclone’s path in the western Rakhine region before the storm made landfall.

Pieczkowski said that after Mahasen the government carried out further evaluation of its disaster preparedness levels.

But despite the new disaster management law, coordination with the government and various non-governmental agencies is yet to be streamlined. While the international agencies tend to be structured along clusters working on different areas like emergency shelter or water or sanitation, the government still does not have such a structured approach, the OCHA’s Mazarro said.

The main government agency that coordinates relief and preparedness work is the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement. “We are trying to bring clarity to such coordination and further enhance the disaster management laws. It is a work in progress,” the OCHA official said.

Jaiganesh Murugesan, a disaster risk specialist with UN-HABITAT told IPS that while at the national level preparedness levels had improved, rural areas still lag behind. “The focus should be on long-term risk reduction while preparedness is essential for immediate work,” he said.

Peeranan Towashiraporn, director at the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) said that lack of resources was a major concern given the list of vulnerabilities the country faces.

“Different geographical areas of Myanmar face different kinds of risks. The Delta region, as we have seen from Cyclone Nargis, could suffer from the impact of cyclone and coastal flooding. Rakhine state in the northwest is facing threats of cyclones, river and coastal flooding, earthquakes. The central plain along the Irrawaddy River faces not only the risk of flooding, but also earthquakes.”

Towashiraporn said that the new building code which takes into account threats posed by earthquakes and storms, would need to be implemented strictly to be effective.

Myanmar is still covered with some of the most pristine jungles in East Asia, but the deforestation rate is alarming. About half of the country is still covered in forest, but Myanmar could be losing 466,000 hectares of forest a year if not more, according to the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (UN-REDD).

Between 1990 and 2005, its forest cover reduced by 18 percent. Many experts say deforestation has accelerated due to commercial logging and firewood extraction for domestic use.

The timber export ban that came into effect in April is partly aimed at controlling illegal logging. In the 12 months prior to the ban, export earnings through timber were estimated to be above one billion dollars, up from the average annual rate of between 600 to 800 million dollars, according to the Myanmar Timber Merchants Association.

Kevin Woods, the author of the report ‘Timber Trade Flows and Actors in Myanmar: The Political Economy of Myanmar’s Timber Trade’ told IPS that the government was making all the right statements but needed to shore up on implementation.

“The government also has plans to dramatically decrease the quota for cut logs. So far nothing has been implemented to the best of my knowledge, although there is increasing political will to see this through.”

By Hazel Henderson
ST.AUGUSTINE, Florida, Mar 4 2014 (IPS)

Providing water for our still growing human population is reaching crisis levels. Water is vital for agriculture, energy production and industrial processes worldwide. Floods and droughts in Asia, Latin America, Europe and the United States accompanied unprecedented typhoons and winter storms. While none could be linked directly to climate change, the debate surfaced. Mainstream media started covering these issues more broadly.

The Earth’s surface is largely covered with water. So, why has the world’s attention focused on the three percent of fresh water on our planet, on water management, pollution, waste and recycling? Yet 97 percent of the water on Earth is saline: oceans, salty lakes and brackish wetlands ignored in most policy, finance, business and public debates!

At last, unnoticed research on the 10,000 salt-loving halophyte plants which grow in deserts and thrive on seawater is coming to light. I have long reported on saline agriculture, noting that halophyte plants can provide humans with food, fibre, edible oils and biofuels. Indeed, the only biofuels that meet ethical criteria are those based on algae grown on seawater.

Today, as water-related risks reach crisis levels, they are changing traditional risk analysts’ focus on financial risk. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk in 2014, water rose to third place behind fiscal crises in key economies and structurally high unemployment/underemployment. The United Nations General Assembly Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cited water and drought issues high on its agenda while many countries’ delegates voted to make oceans a stand-alone focus of the SDGs.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) provides a welcome global focus on the needed transition to renewable energy, many forms of which will conserve water and provide better methods of desalination and treatment.

Fossil-fueled and nuclear power plants are prodigious gulpers of water, another reason for the shift to renewables. Additional risk factors focus on the rising ocean levels and acidification as CO₂ emissions are absorbed by oceans which are heating faster than previous models predicted. This led to renewed interest in ocean thermal differentials as a source of electricity along with ocean currents and wave energy technologies.

Embracing this broader view, the 14^th Delhi Sustainable Development Summit connected the dots in February 2014 as Attaining Energy, Water and Food Security for All. The International Conference on Sustainability in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, May 19-20, 2014 in Bonn, Germany, takes the same systems approach.

The Earth Systems Science programme at NASA is the most comprehensive approach to understanding how our planet processes the daily free photons from the Sun, through the atmosphere and ocean currents, which combined with geothermal energy from its core, create the conditions for life on Earth.  This daily information on how our planet functions and our human effects on it must now be cranked into all financial and business risk-analysis models, as I outline in Mapping the Global Transition to the Solar Age: from Economism to Earth Systems Science, with foreword by NASA Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell, who is also an expert on halophyte plants and saline agriculture.

Bringing desert areas into food, fibre and fuel production by employing saline agriculture and these thousands of salt-loving plants is now the lowest hanging fruit for humanity to address its myriad crises of tunnel vision: inequality, poverty, pollution, food, water, energy and political conflicts.

Desert-greening science has been quietly maturing for decades with experiments in many countries in the Middle East, China, Australia, Mexico and the U.S. Today, business plans are emerging, such as DESERTCorp, by the Planck Foundation in Amsterdam, as well as the work of Carl Hodges in Egypt and the U.S.; Allan Savorys Savory Institute in Zimbabwe and Australia and the Grasslands Project in South Dakota, U.S., with the Capital Institute; the research of Mae-Wan Ho of ISIS in Britain; Wes Jacksons Land Institute in Kansas, U.S; Janine Benyus at Biomimicry 3.8; Gunter Pauli at ZERI; and many other projects.

A biofuels breakthrough was announced, January 22, in Abu Dhabi that Boeing, in partnership with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are producing biofuel for jet aircraft made from algae grown on desert land, irrigated with seawater. This Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC) is affiliated with the MASDAR Institute.

Director Alejandro Rio states, the UAE has become a leader in researching desert land and seawater to grow sustainable biofuel feedstocks with potential applications in other parts of the world. Other airlines are also researching biofuels, but all seem to find that oils from tar sands and shale are too dirty for jet fuel and that oil companies seem unwilling to refine these dirty oils to the standards needed for aviation since they see this market as too small. Meanwhile, worries about shale fuels include their huge water requirements, methane emissions, pipeline leaks, earthquakes and other environmental problems.

None of these hazardous forms of energy are needed!  Humanity can now stop digging up the Earth and look up harvesting the free photons from our Sun as green plants do, providing our food. Let’s now green our desert areas, growing salt-loving crops using abundant land, salt waters and sunlight. Lets accelerate the global transition, to the more equitable, knowledge-rich, cleaner, greener economies now within our grasp!

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
Oct 2 2012 (IPS)

In Cameroon Information and Communication Technologies education is not universally accessible to Primary and secondary school children. A non-governmental organization called Ramsi ICT’s House is filling the void by introducing school children to use computers, telephones and digital cameras.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/ICT_.mp3[/podcast]

By IPS Correspondents
Jul 12 2012 (IPS)

Farming flowers in slums is becoming an option for jobless youths in cities across Cameroon. Flowers and ornamental trees are planted to decorate compounds ,roadsides, lanes and tourism sites. Aaron Kaah reports.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20120711_floweragric_aaron.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Dec 13 2011 (IPS)

Civil Society organisations are sticking to their guns: Women will be hardest hit by the climate change. Zuki Zimela reports from COP 17 in Durban.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsnews/20111213_maremawomen_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By Sandra Ferrari
Dec 13 2011 (IPS)

Last month in Ghana, community radio advocates and civil society members rallied through the streets of Accra in what they called a “Voice Walk” and Ghana’s National Communications Authority calls “hostile” and  ‘irresponsible”. Sandra Ferrari compiled this report

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111212_commradio_ferrrari.mp3[/podcast]

By Nasseem Ackbarally
Dec 13 2011 (IPS)

Mauritian men are standing up against violence against women. Nasseem Ackbarally reports that some are now joining organisations to change attitudes towards women in society.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111212_mauritiusgender_nasseem.mp3[/podcast]

By Sam Olukoya
Nov 28 2011 (IPS)

Women in West Africa have over the years relied on fishing and farming as their traditional source of income. But as Sam Olukoya reports from Lagos, changing weather patterns caused by climate change have put their livelihood under threat.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111128_genderclimate_olukoya.mp3[/podcast]

By IPS Correspondents
Nov 23 2011 (IPS)

Women coffee growers speak to Martha Nyambura about the impact of climate change on their production.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111121_gendercoffee_martha.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Nov 20 2011 (IPS)

Zuki Zimela reports from Libreville, Gabon: Farmers organisation say oil discoveries in Africa are holding back agricultural development.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111121_gendercoffee_martha.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Nov 15 2011 (IPS)

Stakeholders in agriculture from Western and Central Africa are meeting in Gabon for the 6th International  Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) regional forum. As Zukiswa Zimela reports, they are talking about the challenges facing smallholder farmers.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111114_gabonopening_zimela2.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Nov 12 2011 (IPS)

The South African Development Community says states need to protect their forrests as a region. SADC is preparing to put their case before COP 17 in Durban later this month. Zukiswa Zimela reports from the SADC headquarters in Botswana.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111107_REDD_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Nov 12 2011 (IPS)

The head of SADCs gender unit, Magdeline Mathiba-Madibela, says climate change affects women in Southern Africa and their plight must be discussed at COP 17 in Durban later this month. Zukiswa Zimela interviews Mathiba-Madibela in Gaborone and asked her what is needed to protect women against climate change.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111111_climatechangewomen_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By Tinus de Jager
Nov 12 2011 (IPS)

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions, SACAU, says the COP17 discussions in Durban later this month is an opportunity to put agriculture on the climate change map. Tinus de Jager asked Ishmael Sunga, the confederation CEO, what they are pushing for at the end of November.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/201112_ishmael_dejager.mp3[/podcast]

By Brian Moonga
Nov 3 2011 (IPS)

Zambian farmers say a lack of rain is putting a strain on their crops and they are starting to point their fingers at climate change. Brian Moonga reports from Lusaka.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111003_cimatechange_moonga.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Oct 25 2011 (IPS)

Legal experts say that the African Court on Human and People’s rights needs to be more visible on the continent. Zukiswa Zimela reports from the Pan African Parliament in Johannesburg that governments and leaders will also have to give up some power to make the court work.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111024_PAP3_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By Brian Moonga
Oct 8 2011 (IPS)

A lack of access to medicines due to prohibitive costs is driving some Zambians to use the cheapest remedies they can find and, as Brian Moonga reports, this has some serious health implications:

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111008_fakemedicines_moonga.mp3[/podcast]

By IPS Correspondents
Oct 7 2011 (IPS)

A lack of knowledge about the auto-immune disease Lupus, even amongst health professionals, is putting people in Africa at risk. Victims are not being diagnosed and the lucky few cannot access or afford treatment.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111007_lupusmartha.mp3[/podcast]

By IPS Correspondents
Oct 6 2011 (IPS)

South Africa faces an increasing burden of cardiovascular disease among the poor. Experts say awareness needs to be raised among the poor, to ensure they benefit from better tests for heart disease, dietary information and health care.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111005_heartdisease_Zimela2.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Oct 5 2011 (IPS)

Members of the Pan African Parliament say legislative powers will help them to better represent the people of the continent. Zukiswa Zimela is at the fifth ordinary session of PAP in Midrand and she filed this report:

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/200111004_madasa_PAP_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Oct 5 2011 (IPS)

Women should take a more active role in ensuring peace and security on the African continent. Zukiswa Zimela reports from the fifth ordinary session of the Pan African Parliament in Midrand, South Africa.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111004_AgyemanPAP_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By Brian Moonga
Oct 3 2011 (IPS)

Zambia has signed numerous international treaties to help promote gender equality, among them the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention on equal pay for work of equal value. But, as Brian Moonga reports, some gender activists feel much more needs to be done to reach gender parity.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20111003_gender_moonga.mp3[/podcast]

By Zukiswa Zimela
Oct 3 2011 (IPS)

South Africa wants to move from its reliance on coal for the generation of electricity to renewable energy sources like wind power and solar electricity. Zukiswa Zimela compiled this audio report:

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20110930_costofreneableenergy_Zimela.mp3[/podcast]

By IPS Correspondents
Sep 23 2011 (IPS)

New diseases and older ones building resistance to treatment are putting strain on African states. The launch of a new laboratory in Nairobi should allow a more rapid response to outbreaks in the area. Martha Nyambura compiled this report.

[podcast]http://traffic.libsyn.com/ipsaudio/20110923_accessinsects_martha.mp3[/podcast]