By Heike Kuhn
BONN, Jun 4 2021 (IPS)

You want to breathe fresh air and have access to clean water? I guess you do, just like all of us. As populations in the so-called developed countries, we love to go for holidays in places where on high mountains you get to breathe deeply and enjoy the fresh air, where the oceans or lakes are clean and refreshing. And how do we arrive there? Mostly by airplanes or cars, polluting the air whilst travelling to the desired destinations, causing harm to people and the planet. Interestingly, many people today, calculate their flight’s CO2 footprint and pay a certain amount of money to invest in renewable energy projects, in order to feel better about their travelling and to receive tax deductibility (depending on regulations of their country).

Dr. Heike Kuhn

I am writing this short article on June 3rd 2021, just having studied the press release of the Court of Justice of the European Union on a judgment with respect to environmental questions, focussing on clean air. The Court ruled that “between 2010 and 2016, Germany systematically and persistently exceeded the limit values for nitrogen dioxide (NO2)”, infringing “its obligation to adopt appropriate measures in good time to ensure that the exceedance period is kept as short as possible in the 26 zones concerned”. The Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe Air has not been respected, providing in respect of nitrogen dioxide an annual average limit value of 40 µg/m3 and an hourly average limit value of 200 µg/m3 as from 1 January 2010, allowing the limit to be exceeded less than 18 times a calendar year.

What happened, where and why? The underlying basis of this European directive is the idea that air, being a natural resource, is a global common good. We share the air on this planet, every human being, living and breathing, every animal, every plant. Air, being easily available to all individuals, animals and plants, can and is being polluted by some individuals in an excessive manner, causing harm to others, be it mankind or species. Therefore, there is a common responsibility for all of us on how to use this natural resource. For Europe, the relevant institutions have acknowledged this fact and imposed on European member states the task to protect the air by means of a directive, giving space to implement the provisions in national law within a certain timeframe.

But what happened in Germany instead? Lawgiving had taken place on a high level, but the law was not respected, implementation (the task of the national government) did not occur on time. Especially car drivers using harmful diesel were still circulating in the cities and regions which should have been protected, e.g., Stuttgart, Berlin and Frankfurt. These few drivers did affect many pedestrians, which could have been elderly people, parents with little children, cyclists or simply me and you, walking around on the streets, not emitting any damaging gases. And these emissions were dangerous for animals and plants, too.

To put it clearly: I am not asking not to drive in a city. However, the well-being of those persons not emitting dangerous gases should be protected first, as these persons and their lives matter. The use of fossil fuels should come to an end if it threatens others so much and if new technologies such as green electricity or hydrogen could be used instead. It is the responsibility of leaders in our governments to offer the incentives to energy consumers, taking into account the consequences of using the global common resources that all species need for survival. Governments have acknowledged this responsibility many times: We have laws and resolutions, high-ranking individuals advocating for ecological correct behaviour, you name it. But, in reality, we do see that progress comes quite slowly.

The COVID 19-crisis, as bad as it is on a global scale with millions of victims, is asking us to change life-styles in a sustainable way. This could be a chance for global common resources, e.g., the air as the most prominent one. Less pollution by traffic, less flights, less travelling, investments in green technologies and using digitization in intelligent ways could help to “build back better”, respecting the needs of all people and the planet. And the principle that the polluter is liable for the damages must be respected, finally.

Leaders in governments, civil society and businesses are challenged now – less air pollution is a powerful start, because air is our basis for ecological restoration, needed every moment that humans or animals breathe or photosynthesis takes place. Let us all push to adopt a sustainable lifestyle to protect the needs of current and future generations. The momentum is there!

Dr Heike Kuhn is Head of Division 413 – Education
BMZ, Germany

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Excerpt:

The following article is part of a series to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

Restoring natural habitats as pictured here in Cuba will help to slow down climate change. A new UN-backed study released May 27 says annual investments in nature-based solutions will have to triple by 2030, and increase four-fold by 2050, if the world is to successfully tackle the triple threat of climate, biodiversity and land degradation crises. Credit: UNDP

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4 2021 (IPS)

The United Nations has been in the forefront of an ongoing battle against the growing hazards of climate change, including the destruction of different species of plants and animals, the danger of rising sea-levels threatening the very existence of small island developing states (SIDS), and the risks of oceans reaching record temperatures endangering aquatic resources.

But that battle was temporarily undermined last year by a devastating pandemic which brought the world to a virtual standstill.

“The COVID-19 pandemic put paid to many plans, including the UN’s ambitious plan to make 2020 the “super year” for buttressing the natural world”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned last month.

That ambition, he pointed out, has now been shifted to 2021, and will involve a number of major climate-related international commitments, including a plan to halt the biodiversity crisis; an Oceans Conference to protect marine environments; a global sustainable transport conference; and the first Food Systems Summit, aimed at transforming global food production and consumption.

“The fallout of the assault on our planet is impeding our efforts to eliminate poverty and imperiling food security,” Guterres declared.

Professor Luca Montanarella

https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/ldr

The devastating effects and the close interlinkages with human health, he argued, “are now fully understood and visible to all of us following the COVID-19 pandemic. It is now time to act.”

He said the UN’s thematic plans to “Reimagine, Recreate and Restore” degraded ecosystems is the key solution, but it needs to be implemented consequently. There is a high risk to fall back to business-as- usual solutions that will be not solve the problem, he declared.

The young generation is the one that can save this planet, if properly empowered to do so. Are we ready to transfer some of the decision power to them?, he asked

The first signals from the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are going in the opposite direction. The highest increases in unemployment rates are among women and young workers, he noted.

Mirna Inés Fernández, a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) and co-founder of its Bolivian chapter, Kaaijayu-GYBN, told IPS the continued degradation of the global environment has been so devastating to the earth’s ecosystems “that our generation has seen the birth of concepts as the Anthropocene and the Planetary Boundaries”.

“Children and youth are the ones to face the biggest mental health impacts related to ecological grief and anxiety, because we realize that the loss of species and ecosystems have reached levels that threaten the biosphere integrity and our life support systems”.

“And we don’t see enough political will to reverse this situation,” she warned.

The world is ready and in desperate need for a real transformative change, “one that allows us to live in equitable and sustainable systems for all”.

What is missing, she said, is political will, adequate allocation of resources and an inclusive decision-making process that will lead to change the status quo that took us to this point.

“We need our world leaders to address the root causes of the multiple ecological crises that we face today: the UNSUSTAINABLE way we extract, produce, consume, and dispose of things, and the UNEQUAL way the benefits and damages of all these economic activities are distributed, as cited in the Youth Manifesto #ForNature”.

“As young people, we can play multiple roles in this global campaign: by spreading the word and getting more people to join and support this global youth movement, by demanding bold actions from our decision makers, or by leading the change by example, making use of the potential that young people have to bring innovative solutions to the table as transformative education and promotion of intergenerational equity”, she declared.

 

 
Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: The UN points out its Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean while it can help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent a mass extinction. How feasible is this goal? What would prevent the UN from helping the world reach this goal?

Montanarella: Ecosystem restoration needs to go hand in hand with a large social inclusion programmes that will assure employment and sustainable livelihoods to the global population. Otherwise, it will be doomed to failure.

Fernandez: The goal of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is quite ambitious and will be very difficult to be reached in only one decade because effective and complete ecosystem restoration is a process that can take various decades.

But it is very important that we have this goal that will guide the efforts to avoid further ecosystem degradation and start restoration efforts of already degraded ecosystems.

I think that one of the most important risks that could prevent the UN helping the world reach this goal is the misuse of restoration related concepts, such as offsetting, net zero/no net loss approaches, and Nature-based solutions.

Without appropriately defined safeguards for biodiversity and human rights, the wrong implementation of ecosystem restoration strategies can promote further perverse monoculture, offsetting and greenwashing schemes.

Countries and companies who want to be considered implementers of the Decade should follow strong safeguards to ensure that the quality of the restoration efforts matches the quantity in the area within the restoration policies and projects

IPS: What are your thoughts on the findings of the Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment (https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/ldr) by IPBES?

Montanarella: The Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment of IPBES, that I had the honour to co-chair jointly with my dear colleague and friend Prof. Robert Scholes who sadly passed away few days ago, clearly indicates the way forward and especially highlights the social and participatory dimension of land degradation.

Land is the basis of our existence on this planet and needs to be protected accordingly. Consumption habits and micro- as well as macroeconomic developments are the key drivers of land degradation and therefore need to be addressed if we want to reverse the current negative trend.

We can do a lot, starting from our individual lifestyles and dietary habits.

Fernandez: I consider that the IPBES Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration a key tool for policy makers and stakeholders to understand the extent and complexity of land degradation worldwide and take informed, appropriate action to address the drivers of land degradation and develop restoration strategies.

The key messages in the assessment, as well as the proposed ambitions and strategies for addressing land degradation, and possible actions and pathways, should be reflected in the outcomes of the Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and on the implementation of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

They should also be taken into account in the development of national targets and commitments related to combating land degradation and restoring ecosystems. I come from Bolivia, a country that has lost more than 5 million ha of an endemic ecoregion “The Chiquitano Forest” due to forest fires in 2019.

After these fires, different actors have developed various approaches to restore the devastated ecosystems. Sadly, many of these initiatives lack a solid scientific basis and could do more harm than good, including introducing invasive species, making space for monoculture plantations or changing the structure of the forest.

This is why efforts like this assessment, that provides the best available science and expertise on land degradation and restoration, are crucial to be shared among the implementers of land restoration strategies and the ones combating land degradation at the national levels.

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Excerpt:

The following article is part of a series to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

Women working in government-owned nurseries in Haripur, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. Pakistan has launched one of the largest reforestation initiatives in the world — the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jun 4 2021 (IPS)

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has been making sure that all foreign dignitaries visiting the country get their hands dirty. With a shovel and a watering can, they are invited to plant a tree for one of the largest reforestation initiatives in the world — the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme or TBTTP.

The TBTTP is part of a series of “nature-based solutions” to fight the climate change crisis. Other initiatives include increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix to 60 percent by 2030 and to helping preserve the environment of national parks. In addition, Pakistan has provided over 85,000 green jobs (to be increased to 100,000 by the end of the year) through a Green Stimulus Package following COVID-19.

These strategies fit perfectly with this year’s World Environment Day (WED) theme of ecosystem restoration (ER) as Pakistan readies to host, in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the event tomorrow, Jun. 5.

“This WED is of global significance as it kicks off the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 with focus on reversing the loss to natural ecosystems to fight the climate crises,” Malik Amin Aslam, Minister for Climate Change and special assistant to the Prime Minister on climate change, told IPS.

“We hope to lead the world towards climate mitigation as well as restoration of ecosystems, ” Aslam said via What’s App.

“Pakistan’s agenda on environment has been validated and our role in ecosystem restoration has been accepted,” a pleased Muhammad Irfan Tariq, Director General of environment and climate change at Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), told IPS by phone from Islamabad. He was referring to the TBTTP, which aims to target one million hectares of forest restoration by 2023.  

“We are not doing this for show,” said Prime Minister Khan, referring to the TBTTP. “We are doing this so that we can leave behind a better country for our future generations. The biggest impact of climate change is that it will affect our future generation,” he said while addressing a TBTTP programme last week.

Incidentally, Pakistan contributes less than one percent to global emissions, yet it is among the top 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change.

Pakistan has world’s seventh-largest mangrove forest in Sindh, located along the Arabian Sea coastline in the Indus deltaic swamps, and comprising some 667,000 hectares. These mangroves are in Kakapir village, located around 15 kilometres to the west of Karachi, along the Indus delta. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

Building a relationship with nature

Environmentalist Vaqar Zakaria, however, remained wary of the methods employed by the government saying “greenwashing done in the name of restoration” cannot bring the “bees and the birds” back.

But there must be something right about the TBTTP as Saudi Arabia recently announced its intention of planting 10 billion trees in the coming decades to reduce carbon emissions and combat pollution and land degradation. 

Still, Zakaria favours protecting over restoration.

“It is better to protect because nature will heal itself back,” he said, explaining that restoration required sophisticated techniques and should be carried out with caution. “The right trees must be grown at the right place,” Zakaria, who spends hours in nature re-establishing his “connection to nature”, told IPS via phone from Islamabad. He believes that only after spending time outdoors, will “our hearts be in it and will be able to guide our future decisions”.   

Perhaps that is why the government is carrying out the Protected Areas Initiative (PAI), for “rebalancing” mankind’s relationship with nature as Aslam pointed out with plans to increase Pakistan’s terrestrial and marine protected area to 15 percent and 10 percent by 2023 respectively.

“Already our national parks have increased from 30 to 45 in number,” said the minister.

Recharging aquifers

Recharge Pakistan is a project where the government, in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Pakistan, is building water storage that aims to benefit 10 million people.

“The focus is on building Pakistan’s resilience to climate change in water-stressed areas,” explained Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General, WWF-Pakistan. Along with increasing the water storage capacity, the project aims to restore the wetland ecosystem.

“But most importantly, it will benefit more than 10 million people (or five percent) of Pakistan’s population directly and 20 million people across 50 vulnerable districts of Pakistan indirectly,” Khan told IPS.

Minister Aslam emphasised these were not mere plans but are actually being implemented with “solid performance to show on the ground”.

Simi Kamal, chair and CEO of Karachi-based think tank Hisaar Foundation that looks at water, food and livelihood security, said: it was “still too early to see results” in the project but that it would have to “be a huge programme to make visible impact”.

Fortunately, the one-year project preparation phase has been approved by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Pakistan will be able to conduct site feasibility studies and prepare a detailed proposal.

“Going beyond the currently underfunded GCF, there is an urgent need for developed countries to establish a truly ambitious climate reparations financing mechanism to provide assistance for adaptation projects and building resilience in many developing regions faced with potentially serious impacts of climate change,” A. Karim Ahmed, a board member of the Washington D.C- based Global Council for Science and the Environment, told IPS via email.

Blue Carbon

Another feather in Pakistan’s cap is a comprehensive assessment on blue carbon (carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems) that was recently completed.

“Conservation, rehabilitation, and management of blue carbon ecosystems can provide one-third of the economic mitigation needed until 2030,” climate change expert Hadika Jamshaid told IPS via What’s App.

Among the coastal wetlands, mangroves provide a huge potential to sequestering carbon. “Pakistan has done tremendously well in expanding its mangrove plantation,” said Tariq, Director General of environment and climate change at MoCC.

Pakistan has world’s seventh-largest mangrove forest in Sindh, located along the Arabian Sea coastline in the Indus deltaic swamps, and comprising some 667,000 hectares.

But in the absence of data, this blue carbon remains precluded from both the reported mitigation potential and fiscal benefits for Pakistan.

“Protection of these forests can help Pakistan achieve the country’s NDCs [nationally determined contributions],” said Jamshaid, expressing his support of the MoCC in the revision and implementation process of its NDC document. 

Meanwhile, under the TBTTP the central government will plant mangroves over 40,000 hectares, of which 15,000 hectares have already been planted, Riaz Wagan, chief conservator of forests in Sindh province, told IPS.

In addition, the Sindh government, under a public-private partnership model, is doing its own bit to restore ecosystems. It has signed an agreement with Indus Delta Capital Private Limited under the Delta Blue Carbon to plant and protect mangroves over 350,000 hectares, said Wagan, who is also leading the this Indus Delta Mangroves REDD+ Project.

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Excerpt:

Sunrise in the Ebro Delta in Spain's Catalonia region. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said last month there was a 40% chance of the watershed global warming mark being met during the time frame, and these odds are increasing with time. Credit: WMO/Agusti Descarrega Sola

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jun 2 2021 (IPS)

With the climate negotiations getting more and more intense in the light of ensuring meaningful achievements in the upcoming COP- 26 summit in Edinburgh, an event that is key to move forward the pathway towards a net zero future started in Paris, this year World Environment Day on June 5 assumes an even more emblematic meaning.

While the ongoing climate negotiations have finally found relevance not only among policymakers but also among the masses thanks to new level of civic mobilization that is instrumental in creating a new global consciousness about the real perils of climate change, we are at risk of overlooking an equal important issue that is connected to the core of the climate challenge.

Fortunately, the World Environment Day 2021 could not choose a better topic to bring remedy here, finally highlighting the linkages between the dangers of a world economy driven by carbon fossils and the repercussions that emissions stemming from them and other types of human activities are having on the planet’s biodiversity.

To stress the new sense of urgency, that with “Ecosystem Restoration” as theme, World Environment Day is launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration that will be focusing on restoring, supporting and enhancing the planet’s different habitats in which life, of different forms and species, should supposedly abound and thrive rather than being at risk of extinction.

Restoring ecosystems should be therefore seen as a rallying cry, a call for action to ensure that biodiversity claims its due visibility in the broader call for a sustainable future under the banner of the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Policy makers are right now under pressure to come up with bolder and stronger emission targets and it is encouraging how a global leadership movement is emerging to tackle climate change.

If the Petersberg Climate Dialogue has now become a traditional forum, many other leaders from parts of the world’s previously less engaged on climate action, are stepping up.

Just days ago, the P4G Seoul Summit 2021 was held showing a new commitment from the Government of South Korea to become a trailblazer in matter of climate actions.

Yet, with so much discussions on climate change going on, the hope is not just that global leaders will muster the foresight and determination to truly lay out a long term “build forward better” vision of their countries but will also be able to bridge the gap that separate discussions on climate change from those focused on the planet’s endangered biodiversity.

Worryingly enough, the public opinion and consequentially the world leaders did not yet broaden their focus yet from the COP 26 discussions, enlarging their horizons to include another strategic summit that will be held from 11 to 24 of October in Kunming, formally the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Unfortunately, the global governance mechanisms do not facilitate cross cutting thematic linkages and therefore so far Edinburgh got much higher levels of attention than Kunming.

Yet, the same consensus existing now that new ambitious carbon emissions targets are essential for our survival, should also imply an acknowledgement on the need to elevate biodiversity to the same levels of attention and urgency that climate now musters.

The ninth Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity held in 2019 could not make a better case for such recognition.

“Scientists warn that we are heading for fundamental change in Earth systems as a result of changes in the biosphere” while stressing that “there are close links between the biodiversity and climate agendas, and it is well understood that a temperature rise of 1.5˚C will have impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function and services”.

With such high stakes at play it is baffling how we tend to neglect the importance of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets that were endorsed during the Tenth meeting of the Conference to the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held Nagoya, Japan, 18-29 October 2010

Kunming is even more important because it will adopt a post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework that will be considered as “a steppingstone towards the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature, where by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and widely used, maintaining ecosystem services sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essentials for all people”.

The vision of a “2050 living in harmony” was agreed in Nagoya but it needs an urgent rebooting and this is what Kunming should deliver, a new ambitious agenda that is able to be mainstreamed across the policy spectrum.

Indeed, mainstreaming is one of the biggest issues being discussed in the preparations to the Kunming summit.

In the regional consultation workshop on the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for Asia and Pacific, participants highlighted the missing linkages between work in the field of biodiversity, climate change and the overall SDGs framework.

“With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, there is a need to consider how future biodiversity targets will relate to or compliment the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, the need to link future biodiversity targets to the climate change agenda was also noted”, the report of the workshop explains.

Fortunately, there are some good news for us.

In the last official review of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, Protected Planet Report, there have been good progress in the extension of lands and oceans being protected but “a third of key biodiversity areas lack any coverage, and less than 8% of land is both protected and connected”.

In addition, the overall “quality” of such protected areas remains a question that must be addressed urgently, a concern well highlighted by Naville Ash with UNEP:

An interesting though much unexplored linkage between efforts on biodiversity and climate action is the “importance of nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation” and this is a huge area open for a global brainstorming and ideation process, reimagining different, more biodiverse and sustainable living settings.

These days the third session of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-3) of the Convention on Biological Diversity is taking place virtually in order to make the next biodiversity framework more effective, more streamlined and better relevant to the discussions taking in place around climate change.

We need to formulate a new narrative about biodiversity because at the end of the day it is a different side of the same coin and policy makers must be educated on strong linkages between climate change and biodiversity loss.

It is not surprising that resources needed for such “coupling” approach are going to be huge. According to the State of Finance for Nature report, released on the 27th of May, making a much-needed contribution in linking the two areas of biodiversity and climate, a total investment in nature of USD 8.1 trillion is required between now and 2050.

As you can see this year World Environment Day is not like any previous one.

There are two questions that this day should help reflect over: Will the celebrations ensure that the new UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is going to be aligned with climate change discussions and Agenda 2030?

And will it help create a new sense of awareness and urgency that tackling climate change requires the protection and expansion of our wealth expressed in biodiversity and, at the same time, gigantic resources?

Answering these two questions in the right way will determine the odds human beings will have to truly thrive in the decades ahead.

The Author, is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not for profit in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives. He can be reached at simone_engage@yahoo.com

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Excerpt:

The following Oped is part of a series of articles to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

Women and girls, like Susmita who lives in the Sundarbans, West Bengal, spend an estimated 200 million hours a year walking to fetch water, and climate change is making things even worse. Credit: Wateraid/Ranita

By Jonathan Farr
LONDON, Jun 1 2021 (IPS)

This year is being described as pivotal for climate change. That’s not only because we’re reaching a point of no return when it comes to the rise in global temperature, it’s because the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties – commonly known as COP26 – is due to take place in November in Glasgow.

COP26 is widely considered the last chance for governments to combat the global climate catastrophe. In the wake of the pandemic, the summit will offer world leaders the chance to reimagine how their countries can bounce back with greener, sustainable economies.

It’ll also be the first time that signatories of the landmark Paris Agreement all gather together. Adopted by nearly 200 nations in 2015, it legally binds them to hold global temperature rise to below 2C.

Quite rightly, in the lead up to COP26, focus is on tracking the progress signatories have made towards meeting those targets, as there’s no denying that failure to reduce emissions will result in cataclysmic climate impacts.

But on this World Environment Day on June 5, it needs to be highlighted that for millions of people, climate change is not some threat in a far-off future, but a reality they’re facing right now.

Significantly, the Paris Agreement, while heralded as a moment of unity in providing a global game plan to tackle one of the biggest challenges of our time, the playing field for dealing with climate change, isn’t level at all.

It is vulnerable communities in the world’s poorest countries who’ve done the least to contribute to the climate emergency that are the ones living with its severe effects. Take Mozambique, whose CO2 emissions in 2017 were 7.7 million tonnes. But in that same year, the UK released 379 million tonnes of CO2 – 50 times as much. ¹

Yet in 2018, Mozambique’s capital Maputo almost ran out of water following three years of drought. And a year later, the country experienced unprecedented, widespread, and devastating flooding.

Access to clean water is one of the fundamental ways the climate crisis impacts on communities. 2.2 billion people do not have a reliable and safe supply of water, and climate change is making it harder for them to get clean water.

Extreme weather events caused by climate change, such as prolonged droughts, dry up water sources, while rising sea levels and flooding pollute poorly protected water supplies. More people – often women and girls– are having to travel farther for water.

Susmita Mandal Jana, 22 is a housewife, living in the Madhab Nagar area of Sundarbans, West Bengal. A round trip to collect water takes her one hour, and she crosses a rickety bridge over a canal about two to three times a day – while carrying heavy water containers.

Frequent phenomenon in the area are high tides, which can be a consequence of rising sea levels. When they occur, the canal gushes with water, making the walk over the bridge even more perilous. Susmita says: “The water quality is not good either. This water that I collect now is salty.”

Despite the UN climate process, currently, only 5% of total global climate cash is spent helping countries adapt to the changing climate ², and that money isn’t even getting through to communities most vulnerable to climate change.

But as it’s communities on the frontlines of climate change, who best know how to respond to its effects, more investment in adaptation is needed.

There are practical solutions which are being piloted to address this. Initiatives, such as the recently launched Resilient Water Accelerator. Led by HRH The Prince of Wales’ Sustainable Markets Initiative, the accelerator will aim to protect 50 million people from climate and health threats with clean water, by ensuring that more finance is fast tracked towards providing communities’ with vital water services.

Other organisations are deeply involved in this area of work such as the UN Development Programme working with the government in Bangladesh and the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office to create a disaster management programme and the Dutch government’s programme Water as Leverage for Resilient Cities in Asia.

But with less than 1% of total global climate investment going to basic water infrastructure and services, more needs to be done. COP26 is the moment to change do this, to help people like Susmita cope with the impacts of climate change.

As the hosts of COP26, the UK government must lead the way in pushing for other countries to set more ambitious climate finance goals. WaterAid is calling for the Government to ensure at least one-third of its committed international climate finance goes to locally-led adaptation projects. By pledging this, lives will be saved.

¹ https://washmatters.wateraid.org/blog/who-is-picking-up-the-bill-for-climate-crisis-inertia
² https://washmatters.wateraid.org/publications/just-add-water-climate-finance

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Excerpt:

The following Oped is part of a series of articles to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

By External Source
May 31 2021 (IPS-Partners)

These are just some of the beautiful ecosystems that we are lucky to have on our planet.

An ecosystem is the interaction between living things and their surroundings – from plants to animals to people.

The health of our ecosystems is what keeps us humans alive.

But we are destroying them and losing them at an alarming rate.

Forest areas the size of a country like Denmark are destroyed every year.

That’s the same as losing one football pitch every three seconds.

More than half of the world’s wetlands have disappeared over the last century.

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow and our planet is now at risk of a climate change catastrophe.

Imagine this: COVID-19 and everything that it did to our way of life is an example of what happens when ecosystems are allowed to die.

When a natural habitat for animals begins to shrink, we create the ideal conditions for harmful diseases to spread from them to us.

But we can make a change for the better.

We can act now to help the children of our future. Like me.

This year’s World Environment Day is all about Ecosystem Restoration.

It is a call for all of us to do our part in helping to heal our world and build a better future for everyone.

Restoring our ecosystems is a massive world project to repair billions of hectares of land so that people have access to food, clean water and jobs.

It means bringing back plants and animals from the brink of extinction.

But it also involves many small acts of kindness that every human can take – like planting a tree, rewilding our gardens, cleaning up trash and asking others to do the same.

The next 10 years of our lives are so important.

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Greenpeace Brazil activists have joined forces with Munduruku Indigenous leaders to protest the Brazilian government's plans to build a mega dam on the Tapajós river, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest in the Pará state. Credit: Rogério Assis / Greenpeace

By Savio Carvalho
AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands, May 31 2021 (IPS)

Our natural earth is dying. It is on the brink of collapse.

Due to human impacts the planet is losing species – its biodiversity – at a rate so alarming it’s said to be comparable to the 5th mass extinction 65 million years ago, bringing the era of the dinosaurs to an end. Just 15% of the world’s forests remain intact, and only 3% of the world’s oceans are free from human pressures.

Intertwined with the biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis exacerbates species loss and social inequality, threatening the safety of our communities and our planet. Governments must work fast to stop the climate crisis in its tracks, and work with Indigeneous peoples and local communities to protect and restore nature.

Business-as-usual backed by polluted politics and corporate greed is holding us all to ransom. The same destructive systems that are stripping our forests and oceans of life are killing environmental defenders and pushing people into peril.

To balance our relationship with nature, we need governments to push back corporate interests and place people’s needs at the centre of future policies. This needs systemic changes in the way we relate to nature: a shift in how we produce and consume and how we operate our economies.

Savio Carvalho

This year’s meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) offers an opportunity for governments to help humanity balance it’s relationship with nature. To live in “harmony with nature”, as the CBD vision states, we must listen to those communities who have been depending on it for generations. Indigenous Peoples and other local communities must be heard and supported, their rights fully respected and protected.

11-24 October 2021, in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

We’ve seen over and over how local communities are instrumental in protecting our planet against corporate greed. In Mexico’s Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park, local communities secured legal protection and are reviving marine life and livelihoods. Studies from Brazil show that the most effective way to safeguard forest and biodiversity in the Amazon is to provide Indigenous people with the legal rights and instruments to defend their territories from encroachment, invasion and exploitation.

It’s time to move beyond “fortress conservation” – an antiquated and colonial approach to nature protection that has led to the eviction of Indigenous peoples and local communities of their ancestral lands, human rights violations, and outright atrocities.

Instead, Greenpeace is calling for an ambitious plan to protect and restore nature – a commitment to bold targets that protect at least 30% of our lands and oceans by 2030 – made in partnership with not against local and Indigenous communities.

For the CBD to succeed rights-based conservation must be an indispensable prerequisite, enshrined in it’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework. They must ensure local and Indigenous rights to land, and leadership in planning and managing protected areas. And provide robust legal instruments to defend these rights.

Deforested area Amazon. Credit: Daniel Beltrá / Greenpeace

Governments must also cut out dirty industries such as fossil fuel, forestry, and big agricultural companies from attempts to co-opt nature protection as a substitute for real emission reductions. Known as ‘offsetting, this approach is not only bad for our climate, but also puts a massive burden on those marginalised communities most affected by climate change.

As part of such offset schemes frontline communities often lose access to forests which are deeply connected to their lives and culture. They also provide them with food, medicine and income from non-timber forest products, getting a ridiculous amount of money in return.

In other cases, they lose access to land they rely on for food production, as it is being occupied by large corporations for planting monoculture tree plantations. All that for an often bogus and always uncertain reduction in emissions from land use, or increased sink capacities from ecosystem restoration.

We need widespread vigilance against insidious greenwashing tactics, and an unwavering commitment to cut emissions at their source, enforced by strict regulation. Partial measures to solve the climate crisis only serve as tactics that block necessary progress towards the protection of biodiversity and the 1.5oC Paris goal.

It’s imperative that governments protect nature and people and not let the fossil fuel industry hijack the agenda via their dirty lobbying and advertising tricks. Governments also need to ensure that COVID recovery must in no way cause more harm by investing or expanding in fossil fuel companies.

The worst-case outcome of land protection targets would be a rush for offset or other greenwashing projects that allow states and corporations with large greenhouse gas emissions to retain their unsustainable business model by investing in top-down managed protected areas.

This would further exacerbate social injustice, infringe rights, and undermine dignity and avenues for prosperity for local and Indigenous communities. This neo-colonialism must not be allowed to happen.

It’s time to act. Governments must recognise the urgency of the interconnected crises of climate and biodiversity and promote a shift of power that restores justice, and acknowledges and enables local communities to continue as the guardians of nature.

If nature disappears, our planet, our health, wellbeing and even our lives will disappear with it. Protecting nature is the only way to protect ourselves.

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Excerpt:

The following Oped is part of a series of articles to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

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

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on April 28 2021

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

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.”

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By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, May 27 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on April 23 2021

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, told IPS that the Summit achieved an important goal of bringing institutions and political conversations closer to young people. Clockwise from top left: Jayathma Wickramanayake, Swetha Stotra Bhashyam, Emmanuel Sindikubwabo, Diana Garlytska. Courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2021 (IPS) – Following almost two weeks of talks on issues such as climate change, innovation, marine conservation and social justice, thousands of young people from across the globe concluded the first-ever International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) One Nature One Future Global Youth Summit with a list of demands for action on nature.

Under three umbrella themes of diversity, accessibility and intersectionality, they are calling on countries and corporations to invest the required resources to redress environmental racism and climate injustice, create green jobs, engage communities for biodiversity protection, safeguard the ocean, realise gender equality for climate change mitigation and empower underrepresented voices in environmental policymaking.

“Young people talk about these key demands that they have and most of the time, they are criticised for always saying ‘I want this,’ and are told ‘but you’re not even sure you know what you can do,’” Global South Focal Point for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) Swetha Stotra Bhashyam told IPS. “So we linked our demands to our own actions through our ‘Your Promise, Our Future’ campaign and are showing world leaders what we are doing for the world and then asking them what they are going to do for us and our future.”

Bhashyam is one of the young people dedicated to climate and conservation action. A zoologist who once studied rare species from the field in India, she told IPS that while she hoped to someday return to wildlife studies and research, her skills in advocacy and rallying young people are urgently needed. Through her work with GYBN, the youth constituency recognised under the Convention on Biological Diversity, she stated proudly that the network has truly become ‘grassroots,’ with 46 national chapters. She said the IUCN Global Youth Summit, which took place from Apr. 5 to 16, gave youth networks like hers an unprecedented platform to reach tens of thousands of the world’s youth.

“The Summit was able to create spaces for young people to voice their opinions. We in the biodiversity space have these spaces, but cannot reach the numbers that IUCN can. IUCN not only reached a larger subset of youth, but gave us an open space to talk about critical issues,” she said. “They even let us write a blog about it on their main IUCN page. It’s called IUCN Crossroads. They tried to ensure that the voice of young people was really mainstream in those two weeks.”

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, told IPS that the Summit achieved an important goal of bringing institutions and political conversations closer to young people. During her tenure, Wickramanayake has advocated for a common set of principles for youth engagement within the UN system, based on rights, safety and adequate financing. She said it is important for institutions to open their doors to meaningful engagement with young people.

“I remember in 8th or 9th grade in one of our biology classes, we were taught about endangered animal species. We learned about this organisation called IUCN, which works on biodiversity. In my head, this was a big organisation that was out of my reach as a young person.

“But having the opportunity to attend the IUCN Summit, even virtually, engage with its officials and engage with other young people, really gave me and perhaps gave other young people a sense of belonging and a sense of taking us closer to institutions trying to achieve the same goals as we are as youth advocates.”

The Youth Envoy said the Summit was timely for young people, allowing them to meet virtually following a particularly difficult year and during a pandemic that has cost them jobs, education opportunities and raised anxieties.

“Youth activists felt that the momentum we had created from years of campaigning, protesting and striking school would be diluted because of this uncertainty and postponement of big negotiations. In order to keep the momentum high and maintain the pressure on institutions and governments, summits like this one are extremely important,” Wickramanayake said.

Global Youth Summit speakers during live sessions and intergenerational dialogues. Courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Other outcomes of the Global Youth Summit included calls to:

• advance food sovereignty for marginalised communities, which included recommendations to promote climate-smart farming techniques through direct access to funding for marginalised communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and extreme events,
• motivate creative responses to the climate emergency, and
• engineer sustainable futures through citizen science, which included recommendations to develop accessible education materials that promote the idea that everyone can participate in data collection and scientific knowledge creation.

The event was billed as not just a summit, but an experience. There were a number of sessions live streamed over the two weeks, including on youth engagement in conservation governance, a live story slam event, yoga as well as a session on how to start up and scale up a sustainable lifestyle business. There were also various networking sessions.

Diana Garlytska of Lithuania represented Coalition WILD, as the co-chair of the youth-led organisation, which works to create lasting youth leadership for the planet.

She told IPS the Summit was a “very powerful and immersive experience”.

“I am impressed at how knowledgeable the young people of different ages were. Many spoke about recycling projects and entrepreneurship activities from their own experiences. Others shared ideas on how to use different art forms for communicating climate emergencies. Somehow, the conversation I most vividly remember was on how to disclose environmental issues in theatrical performances. I’m taking that with me as food for thought,” Garlytska said.

For Emmanuel Sindikubwabo of Rwanda’s reforestation and youth environmental education organisation We Do GREEN, the Summit provided excellent networking opportunities.

“I truly believe that youth around the world are better connected because of the Summit. It’s scary because so much is going wrong because of the pandemic, but exciting because there was this invitation to collaborate. There is a lot of youth action taking place already. We need to do better at showcasing and supporting it,” he told IPS.

Sindikubwabo said he is ready to implement what he learned at the Summit.

“The IUCN Global Youth Summit has provided my team and I at We Do GREEN new insight and perspective from the global youth community that will be useful to redefine our programming in Rwanda….as the world faces the triple-crises; climate, nature and poverty, we made a lot of new connections that will make a significant positive change in our communities and nation in the near future.”

The Global Youth Summit took place less than six months before the IUCN World Conservation Congress, scheduled forSep. 3 to 11. Its outcomes will be presented at the Congress.

Reflecting on the just-concluded event, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth is hoping to see more of these events.

“I would like to see that this becomes the norm. This was IUCN’s first youth summit, which is great and I hope that it will not be the last, that it will just be a beginning of a longer conversation and more sustainable conversation with young people on IUCN… its work, its strategies, policies and negotiations,” Wickramanayake said.

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By Kanis Dursin
JAKARTA, May 26 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on April 7 2021

Ngadirejo residents have been converting their organic waste into compost and are selling this to inorganic waste to private companies. They are also planting vegetables in their backyards and on unused land as part of the community’s urban farming activity and climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.
Courtesy: Serono Arief Wijaya, ProKlim Ngadirejo

JAKARTA, Apr 7 2021 (IPS) – Residents of Ngadirejo village in Sukaharjo regency, Central Java province, had often found themselves helpless when their wells dried up or water flooded through their homes. But thanks to a national campaign called Program Kampung Iklim, known by its acronym ProKlim, they now have solutions to this flooding that generally occurs because of a lack of adequate water catchments.

“We started planting biopore holes and erecting infiltration wells in early 2016 to harvest rainwater and wastewater. The results have been almost instantaneous – our wells have never run out of water and floods never visited us again since 2017,” Serono Arief Wijaya told IPS from Ngadirejo, which lies around one-hour flight east of Indonesia’s capital Jakarta.

As climate change hits home, Indonesia has frequently experienced drought and heavy rainfall, with reports of water scarcity, floods, landslides, and crop failures becoming common. In 2012, the government introduced Program Kampung Iklim, which literally means Climate Village Programme, to raise public awareness towards global warming and to assist people at grassroots level to draw up adaptation and mitigation plans.

While attending a seminar organised by the local office of Environment and Forestry Department in December 2015, leaders of Ngadirejo, according to Wijaya, heard the word global warming and ProKlim for the first time. The following year community leaders decided to plant biopore holes along Ngadirejo’s drainage network and build infiltration wells throughout the neighbourhood in adaptation and mitigation efforts.

“We now have around 600 biopore holes, each measuring one meter deep and eight centimetres wide, and 50 infiltration wells measuring one meter deep and three meters wide each,” said Wijaya, who heads Ngadirejo’s ProKlim campaign.

“Many residents who had access to piped water previously now harvest groundwater instead for their daily needs,” he added.

Up until 2016, only between 10 to 15 percent of Ngadirejo residents had access to piped water, with the remainder reliant on artesian wells only. According to 2020 figures, the village has some 3,000 families – slightly over 10,000 people.

Aside from harvesting rainwater, Ngadirejo residents have also been converting their organic waste into compost and are selling this to private companies. They are also planting vegetables in their backyards and on unused land as part of the community’s urban farming activity.

They also use LED light bulbs and automatic sensors to switch lights on or off when needed and have planted trees with the slogan “one-house-one-big-tree”.

“We have also designated a section of our village as a tourist destination and training centre where we explain our ProKlim actions to visitors or conduct training on how to make biopore holes, infiltration wells, fertiliser, or anything related to adaptation and mitigation actions,” Wijaya said.

Residents sell their organic and inorganic waste at a waste bank in Ngadirejo village, Sukoharjo regency, Central Java province. Courtesy Serono Arief Wijaya, ProKlim Ngadirejo

Hardi Buhairat, a 50-year-old resident of Poleonro in Bone regency, South Sulawesi province — a three hour flight east of Jakarta — expressed a similar sentiment when talking about the ProKlim programme being implemented in his village.

“ProKlim has brought the Lita River back to life and we are very happy about that. The river is our only source of water for household consumption and farming but there were times it could no longer irrigate our field. Its water debit has returned and is stable throughout the year,” Buhairat, who is head of Poleonro’s ProKlim programme, told IPS.

The village started implementing ProKlim solutions in 2015, kicking it off with series of meetings with residents where they discussed climate change and the actions community members could take to avert its adverse impacts.

“The first things we did was issuing a village ordinance banning the residents from cutting trees and harvesting woods in and around Lita River’s spring. Soon after that, we planted thousands of trees in deforested areas around the spring,” said Buhairat, who is also Poleonro’s chief.

Poleonro’s village leaders also issued two other ordinances; one banning residents from burning rice straw and farms after harvest.

The 2019 Pollution and Health Metrics: Global, Regional and Country Analysis report from the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) ranks Indonesia as 4th in the world in terms of annual premature pollution-related deaths, after the populous nations of India, China and Nigeria.

The second ordinance requires residents to replace any tree they cut down in customary forests.

“The latter ordinance allows them to harvest trees in their customary forests but also orders them to plant new trees to replace the ones they cut. To ensure that they comply the rule, we inspect their forests regularly,” Buhairat said.

The residents also planted biopore holes to store rainwater underground, built wells to filter household wastewater before it goes into the river, and treated waste, converting organic waste into compost.

“Since 2015, we encouraged the residents to have indoor toilets. We are glad all households now have their own toilets indoors,” Buhairat said.

Buhairat said Poleonro villagers have also begun to diversify their food crops as part of their food security action.

“Our farmers planted organic red rice for the first time in 2018. We are now looking for buyers before going on a large-scale production. We want organic red rice to be our specialty commodity,” he said.

Since ProKlim’s launch in 2012, over 2,700 villages in 33 provinces have been registered as climate villages, according to Sri Tantri Arundhati, Director of Climate Change Adaptation of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. In 2020, six of those villages, including Ngadirejo and Poleonro, received the ProKlim Lestari Trophy, the highest accolade for a climate village programme, from the ministry.

Arundhati said the government now aims to establish 20,000 climate villages, which constitute roughly 25 percent of the country’s 83,000 villages, by 2024.

“We will cooperate with other stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations and the private sector, and improve coordination with local governments and related departments. We will also work to improve the capacity of local governments and people at the grassroots level,” she told IPS.

Arundhati said her ministry has also asked registered climate villages to promote ProKlim and help other communities design their adaptation and mitigation actions.

Wijaya confirmed Ngadirejo village has been encouraged to help other communities implement ProKlim.

“We are now helping 44 villages in Central Java where we explain about global warming and help residents there identify adaptation and mitigation actions they could take to deal with climate change-related problems in their community,” Wijaya said.

Buhairat said Poleonro is now guiding 15 villages in South Sulawesi to become climate villages.

Rizaldi Boer of the state-owned Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) said ProKlim could help the government achieve the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDCs) agreed according to the Paris Agreement.

“The programme can help a lot in dealing with climate change as it encourages active participation of people at grassroots level,” said Boer, who is also director of the Centre for Climate Risk and Opportunity Management in Southeast Asia and Pacific.

“However, the government should establish a standardised report mechanism on ProKlim actions, particularly how to calculate its contribution to greenhouse gas emission reduction,” Boer told IPS.

Under the country’s NDCs, Indonesia has committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 29 percent with its own initiatives and 41 percent with external financial and technical assistance by 2030.

Boer also praised the government’s ambitious target of establishing 20,000 climate villages by 2024.

“It’s a tall order but it is not impossible. However, it requires participation of governments at all levels and all stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations and the private sector,” he said.

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By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, May 25 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on April 1 2021

Two elephants cross a stream in Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. Thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, non-government organisations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

HYDERABAD, India, Apr 1 2021 (IPS) – As the sun sets over the canopy of Albizia amara trees, a thin blanket of fog begins to descend over the forests of the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies roughly 150 km south of the Indian city of Bangalore.

Not so long ago, plumes of smoke would rise from the hamlets dotting the forests as women busily cooked dinner for their families over wood stoves. But tonight, dinner will be a smokeless affair in dozens of villages as communities have opted for the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a clean burning fuel that has given a boost to the health and safety of both the forest and its people thanks to a unique conservation project.

Spread over an area of 906 sq. km – slightly bigger than the German capital Berlin — and nestled along the border of two states, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in southern India, Malai Mahadeshwara Hills (MM Hills) was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2013.

An estimated 2,000 elephants and 150 people, mostly police and security officers, had been killed here in the past because of rampant poaching by an infamous bandit.

But thanks to a number of conservation projects run by various government agencies, non-government organisations and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the wildlife population is thriving again. The forest is now home to an estimated 500 elephants and several other big game animals, including bison and tigers.

Besides animals, the forest landscape also includes over 50 villages of indigenous peoples. And in a dramatic shift towards sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of these wild animals thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), a local NGO, in partnership with IUCN.

Conserving the natural habitat of elephants

Funded under IUCN’s Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP), the project aims to minimise human-wildlife conflict and promote a sustainable living among the forest peoples.

Dr.Sanjay Gubbi, Senior Scientist at NCF, describes the early years when his team first began work in MM Hills.

Almost every village community in MM Hills practices farming, but they were also dependent on forest resources, including using firewood for fuel.

And the destruction of one particular tree, the Albizia amara — also called the Oilcake Tree in many parts of the world — was of significance to the wildlife population.

“We conducted a survey and found that 53 percent of the firewood used by the community came from the Albizia amara tree. Elephants feed on the barks of these trees, so because of the firewood consumption, elephants were directly affected. So, we decided to begin by addressing this firewood problem, especially along the elephant corridors (forest patches used by elephants to move from one part of the forest to another),” Gubbi tells IPS.

Forest women receive LPG stove and cylinder in the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. In a dramatic shift towards sustainability, thousands of forest dwellers have moved to a forest-friendly fuel to save the habitat of the sanctuary’s wild animals thanks to a project spearheaded by Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and IUCN. Courtesy: Sanjay Gubbi/NCF

A solution with numerous benefits

The team focused on introducing an alternative fuel source that would be non-polluting, accessible and affordable to the community. Moreover, it had to be something that would help the forest dwellers adopt a more sustainable way of living — one of the core conservation principles practiced by IUCN.

NCF provided each family with a free LPG subscription, which came with a stove, a cylinder and accessories, and cost about 5,300 rupees ($71). In addition, they trained the community to use the stove and connected them with a nearby LPG distributor, so they could re-fill their gas supply independently.

Changing the community’s source of fuel wasn’t easy. The villagers, most of whom had never seen an LPG stove before, were scared of taking one home. Their worries ranged from beliefs that food cooked over a gas stove could cause gastric pain, to the fear that the cylinders would burst and kill them. Every day, NCF field workers travelled to the villages, facing volleys of questions from the community.

And so the team came up with a unique solution to tackle the twin challenges of breaking the taboo and convincing the villagers to embrace LPG: producing a short film in which all the actors were from the community itself.

The 16-minute film answers the questions of community members, allays their fear and informs them about the use of LPG. The film also explains the co-benefits of using LPG instead of firewood; women will spend less time searching for and collecting firewood, leaving them with more time to do other things, improved lung health and reducing their risks of facing elephants while collecting wood.

“The film was a big hit and a great communication tool,” Gubbi tells IPS.

One of the villages where a large number of people have switched to using LPG is Lokkanahalli. The village is of geographical significance as it is located along the Doddasampige-Yediyaralli corridor, one of the paths the elephants take to Biligirirangana Ranganathaswamy Hills, an adjacent wildlife sanctuary.

“I was scared (at first) of using LPG because it might be harmful for our health. I also thought that it would mean an extra cost for our family (to refill the LPG cylinder) and we might not be able to afford it,” 28-year-old Pushpa Vadanagahalli, one of the women from Lokanahalli village, tells IPS.

The refill costs about $8.

“But after I received the first cylinder and cooked with it, I realised there was nothing to be afraid of. Actually, I feel it’s much safer than going to the forest daily and collecting firewood, so we don’t mind spending on the refill,” Vadanagahalli says.

Forty-year-old Seethamma had been braving elephants and other animals in the forest for several years as she collected firewood.

“Cutting trees and carrying them home is not easy, I used to get back pain. We also must watch out for big animals, especially elephants. It would also take so much time every day. Now, I no longer have to do that, so I am very relieved,” she tells IPS of her choice to switch to LPG.

A case study for a global discussion on managing landscapes for nature and people

According to Gubbi, over the past four years nearly two thousand families from 44 villages in MM Hills and its adjoining forest Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary have given up using firewood as a source of fuel.

Consumption of firewood has reduced by 65 percent among these villagers.

However, the community still continues to use firewood to heat water, but for this they collect agricultural residue or dry, dead branches and twigs that have fallen onto the forest floor. We now need to address the issue of providing an alternative for heating water.

It is a harmonious managing of the landscape for both nature and the people who live there. This is in fact one of the themes of theIUCN World Conservation Congress, which will be held from Sept. 3 to 11 in Marseille. The Congress will be a milestone event for conservation, providing a platform for conservation experts and custodians, government and business, indigenous peoples, scientists, and other stakeholders.

The success of the MM Hills and Cauvery project proves that a balance between “ecological integrity for natural landscapes, a shared prosperity, and justice for custodians on working landscapes within the limits that nature can sustain” — one of the discussion points for the Congress — is possible.

Understanding how to “deliver climate-resilient and economically-viable development, while at the same time conserving nature and recognising its rights” is one of the questions around the theme ‘managing landscapes for nature and people’ that will be discussed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

From Poaching to Protection

Another question is how to heed the voices of environmental custodians, especially those that are often marginalised such as indigenous peoples and women.

Perhaps the MM Hills project provides an answer to this. NCF has found a unique way to include the indigenous people of the area in their conservation efforts. And they have found that women are overwhelmingly taking the lead in these efforts.

With each LPG subscription provided by NCF, a written commitment to agree not to cut or destroy wild trees and to not engage in illegal hunting activities is required. The signatories are part of the community committee – a community-based group focused on the conservation and protection of the forest. Currently, 27 villages have a forest protection group, comprising over 80 percent of women.

Towards a sustainable future

The conservation efforts in MM Hills and Cauvery continue. Seven years after it became a protected forest, MM Hills is now home to 12 to 15 tigers and will soon become a tiger reserve. Early this year, the government of Karnataka and the federal government gave their approval and a formal announcement is expected to be made soon.

The formal status of a tiger reserve is expected to bring more funding, which could further help mitigate the human-wildlife conflict and help convert communities there to a more sustainable way of life.

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By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, May 24 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 25 2021

Forest women in Anantagiri forest in the south-east of India check out their solar dryer. (file photo) There is a growing shift and awareness in mainstream political, corporate and public debate about the need for climate action. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 25 2021 (IPS) – A keen awareness about the intersection of our ecosystem and the “accelerating destabilisation of the climate” is helping shift the narrative for climate action and can help us transition from being polluters to becoming protectors of the climate, said Marco Lambertini, Director General at the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“Science has never been clearer. We are currently witnessing a catastrophic decline in our planet’s ecosystems and biodiversity, and an accelerating destabilisation of the climate. And today we also understand that the two are interconnected,” Lambertini told IPS. “This isn’t in fact new.”

Lambertini spoke to IPS following the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) which took place this week, with the launch of the “Medium-Term Strategy” by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Over two days, world leaders gathered virtually to discuss climate sustainability and how deeply the coronavirus pandemic worsened the current climate crisis.

“Humanity continues to misappropriate nature, commoditise it, destroy it,” Keriako Tobiko, the Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Kenya, said on Monday. “The consequences of our actions are obvious – we’re paying a heavy price for that.”

Indian environmental activist Afroz Shah, a UNEP Champion of the Earth, said during UNEA-5 that leaders must go beyond talk and ensure implementation of measures to protect the environment.

“There must be a paradigm shift in the narrative, to go from being a polluter to a protector,” he said, urging leaders to make sure this message was given to every citizen.

Lambertini told IPS this “shift” in the narrative was already happening.

“What is new is that this awareness is beginning to reach mainstream political, corporate and public debate,” Lambertini added. “The narrative is also shifting. Conserving nature is not only being seen as an ecological and moral issue, but also an economic, development, health and equity issue. This is a true cultural revolution in our civilisation.”

Lambertini’s insight complemented what was said during UNEA-5.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, said during the assembly that a “green recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic would be a step in the right direction of implementing changes to protect the environment.

Tackling environmental sustainability was, after all, another means to ending poverty, she said.

“We need to start putting words into action after UNEA-5 and that means backing a green recovery from the pandemic, stronger and national determined contributions to the Paris Agreement, more funding for adaptation, agreeing on an ambitious and implementable post-2020 biodiversity framework, and a new progress on plastic pollution,” Andersen said.

Meelis Münt, Estonia’s Secretary General of the Ministry of the Environment, echoed Andersen’s point.

“We are confident that a green and digital transition will support our post-pandemic recovery,” he said, adding Estonia aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, with their government’s plans to “lead the production of solid coastal fuel based electricity by 2035”.

Other speakers at UNEA-5 included ministers from Kenya, Brazil, Jamaica and Malawi, among others, many of whom shared the initiatives their countries were implementing to protect the environment.

Marcus Henrique Morais Paranaguá, Brazil’s Deputy Minister for Climate and International Relations, pointed out that for Brazilians it was a unique situation where development and preservation of the Amazon forest had to be balanced.

“The Amazon forest alone occupies 49 percent of our territory and over 60 percent of our territory is covered today with natural vegetation,” he said. “Brazil must implement innovative public policy to balance nature conservation and the promotion of sustainable development.”

Pearnel Charles Jr., Jamaica’s Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change, shared that his country’s government was in the process of updating their climate change policy so that it complemented the Paris Agreement. He added that Jamaica’s administration also increased its “emissions reduction ambition,” and was implementing a tree planting initiative to reduce biodiversity loss.

Tobiko of Kenya said a big milestone for the country was banning single-use plastic in public conservation areas. Kenya has recently been acknowledged and applauded for its successful fight against single use plastic.

“We cannot afford another lost decade for biodiversity,” Lambertini told IPS. “Many ecosystems like coral reefs and tropical forests are heading towards tipping points and one million species are now threatened with extinction.”

“If we are to collectively survive and thrive, particularly in this COVID-19 pandemic, we must take the opportunity to review, reevaluate and possibly reinvent in charting the most sustainable way forward,” Charles Jr. said.

Overall, Lambertini was hopeful, citing a heightened awareness of climate justice among activists, and the fact that nature conservation was now seen as an economic, health and equity issue.

“We need clarity and alignment, to create a level playing field, and a north star/southern cross able to unite governments, businesses, investors and consumers around the ambition science demands,” he told IPS. “Only in this way we will meet the challenge to transition to an equitable, nature-positive and net-zero carbon world and forums like UNEA-5 must pave the way for these commitments and more importantly, concrete actions.”

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By Nalisha Adams
BONN, Germany, May 21 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 24 2021

Sudanese youth live with continuous insecurity due to climate change vulnerability, including droughts, desertification, land degradation and food insecurity. Courtesy: Albert Gonzalez Farran/ UNAMID/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

BONN, Germany, Feb 24 2021 (IPS) – For Sudanese youth, climate change is synonymous with insecurity.

“We are living in a continuous insecurity due to many factors that puts Sudan on top of the list when it comes to climate vulnerability,” said Nisreen Elsaim, Sudanese climate activist and chair of United Nations Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

She said this was directly linked to insecurity within Sudan. She noted that even a Security Council resolution from 2018 which acknowledged “the adverse effects of climate change, ecological changes and natural disasters, among other factors,”, including droughts, desertification, land degradation and food insecurity influenced the situation in Dafur, Sudan.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ranks Sudan as one of the world’s most vulnerable countries when it comes to climate change. Increased frequency of droughts and high rainfall variability over decades has stressed Sudan’s rainfed agriculture and pastoralist livelihoods, which are the dominant means of living in rural areas like north Dafur.

“In a situation of resources degradation, hunger, poverty and uncontrolled climate migration will [mean] conflict is an inevitable result,” Elsaim said, adding that climate-related emergencies resulted in major disruptions to healthcare and livelihoods and that climate-related migration increased the risk of gender-based violence.

She also pointed out that women, youth and children where the groups most adversely affected by climate insecurity.

In January, inter-communal violence in Darfur displaced over 180,000 people — 60 percent of whom are under the age of 18. “Displacement has declined in recent years in Sudan, but many of its triggers remain unaddressed. Ethnic disputes between herders and farmers over scarce resources overlap with disasters such as flooding and political instability,” the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said in a statement. There are currently 2.1 million internally displaced persons in Sudan.

Elsaim was speaking yesterday, Feb. 23, during a high-level United Nations Security Council debate focusing on international peace and security and climate change, led by United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The UK currently holds the Security Council presidency and will also be host to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which will take place in November in Glasgow, Scotland.

“Land and resources in Africa and in many other parts of the world, because of climate change, can no longer maintain young people,” Elsaim cautioned.

She said in the youth’s search for decent lives, jobs and proper access to services, the new challenge of COVID-19 meant the only solution for many was in country, cross-border or international migration.

The issue is a global one.

Natural historian Sir David Attenborough addressed the council in a video message also giving a stark warning that the “stability of the entire world” could be altered by climate threats.

“Today there are threats to security of a new and unprecedented kind,” Attenborough said.

“They are rising global temperatures, the despoiling of the ocean — that vast universal larder which people everywhere depend for their food. Change in the pattern of weather worldwide that pay no regard to national boundaries but that can turn forests into deserts, drown great cities and lead to the extermination of huge numbers of the other creatures with which we share this planet.”

He cautioned that no matter what the world did now, some of these threats could become a reality, destroying cities and societies.

“If we continue on our current path, we will face the collapse of everything that gives us our security: food production, access to fresh water, habitable ambient temperature, and ocean food chains,” Attenborough cautioned.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the last decade was the hottest in human history and that wildfires, cyclones and floods were the new normal which also affected political, economic and social stability.

“Climate disruption is a crisis amplifier and multiplier,” Guterres told the Security Council. “While climate change dries up rivers, reduces harvests, destroys critical infrastructure and displaces communities, it [also] exacerbates the risks of instability and conflict.”

He referred to a study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute which noted that 8 of the 10 countries hosting the largest multilateral peace operations in 2018 where in areas highly exposed to climate change.

“The impacts of these crises are greatest where fragility and conflicts have weakened coping mechanisms,” Guterres said.

The UN has already stated that 2021 will a be critical, not only for curbing the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic, but also for meeting the climate challenge. Guterres has already stated that he plans to focus this year on building a global coalition for carbon neutrality by 2050.

Alongside the Security Council debate, the Fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly wrapped up yesterday. The assembly, world’s top environmental decision-making body attended by government leaders, businesses, civil society and environmental activists, met virtually on Feb. 22 to 23 under the theme “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”.

The assembly concluded with member states releasing a statement acknowledging “the urgency to continue our efforts to protect our planet also in this time of crisis”, and calling for multilateral cooperation as they “remain convinced that collective action is essential to successfully address global challenges”.

Joyce Msuya, the Deputy Executive Director for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), noted that 87 ministers and high-level representatives participated during the two days. She shared some of the points of the dialogue noting that the health of nature and human health were inextricably linked.

“For our own well-being we must make our peace with nature in a way that demonstrates solidarity,” Msuya said, making reference to a recent UNEP report.

The report serves a blueprint on how to tackle the triple emergencies of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution and provides detailed solutions by drawing on global assessments.

Msuya added that the nature crisis was linked with the climate and pollution crisis and that the world now had the chance to put in place a green recovery “that will transform our relations with nature and heal our planet”.

She said the green recovery should put the world on a path to a low-carbon, resilient, post-pandemic world.

Meanwhile, Elsaim said that as a young person, she was “sure that young people are the solution”. She urged world leaders to engage with the youth and listen to them.

“Stop conflict by stopping climate change. Give us security and secure the future,” she said in conclusion.

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By Manipadma Jena
BHUBANESWAR, India, May 20 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 19 2021

A recent UN report lays out the gravity of Earth’s triple environmental emergencies of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution. Fishers on Kochi, Kerala operates the traditional lift-net method where catches have fallen drastically as a result of mechanised over-fishing. High fuel subsidies make it profitable for deep-sea fishing trawlers even when travelling large distances into sea. Safeguarding small fisher communities’ rights, expanding marine conservation area can allow biodiversity and fish growth to stabilise. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

BHUBANESWAR, India, Feb 19 2021 (IPS) – “Our war on nature has left the planet broken. This is senseless and suicidal. The consequences of our recklessness are already apparent in human suffering, towering economic losses and the accelerating erosion of life on Earth,” António Guterres Secretary-General of the United Nations said.

“By transforming how we view nature, we can recognise its true value. By reflecting this value in policies, plans and economic systems, we can channel investments into activities that restore nature and are rewarded for it,” the UN Chief told the media while releasing a UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) major new report.

‘Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies’ lays out the gravity of Earth’s triple environmental emergencies of climate, biodiversity loss and pollution but provides detailed solutions too by drawing on global assessments, including those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as well as UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook report, the UNEP International Resource Panel, and new findings on the emergence of zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19.

Without nature’s help we will not thrive, not even survive

“Without nature’s help we will not thrive, not even survive,” Guterres cautioned.

The UN chief was, however, particularly hopeful climate and biodiversity commitment will see progress as he is set to welcome United States back to the Paris Agreement today, Feb. 19.

The “net-zero club” is growing, Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP said.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was emerging as a moment of truth for our commitment to steer Earth and for our commitment to steer Earth and its people toward sustainability. (But) loss of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, together with climate change and pollution will undermine our efforts on 80 percent of assessed SDG targets particularly in poverty reduction, hunger, health, water, cities and climate,” Anderson said.

“Women represent 80 percent of those displaced by climate disruption; polluted water kills a further 1.8 million, predominantly children; and 1.3 billion people remain poor and some 700 million hungry,” Guterres said.

Christian Walzer, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Executive Director for Health Programs and one of the co-authors of the Making Peace with Nature report, told IPS via email: “Intact and functioning nature is the foundation on which we must build back better. Trying to separate economic recovery from healthy environments and climate change neglects the essential fact that the solutions to these crises are tightly interconnected and reinforce each other.”

He underlined how ecosystem degradation heightens the risk of pathogens making the jump from animals to humans, and the importance of a ‘One Health’ approach that considers human, animal and planetary health together. Walzer is a veterinarian who leads on One Health issues across the world.

Economic growth has brought uneven gains in prosperity to a fast-growing global population, leaving 1.3 billion people poor, while tripling the extraction of natural resources to damaging levels and creating a planetary emergency. Subsidies on fossil fuels, for instance, and prices that leave out environmental costs, are driving the wasteful production and consumption of energy and natural resources that are behind all three problems.

Guterres pointed out how governments are still paying more to exploit nature than to protect it, spending 4 to 6 trillion dollars on subsidies that damage environment. He said over-fishing and deforestation is still encouraged by countries globally because it helped GDP growth, despite drastically undermining livelihoods of local fishers and forest dwellers.

In the current growth trajectory despite a temporary decline in emissions due to the pandemic, the earth is heading for at least 3°C of global warming this century; more than 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species are at substantially increased risk of extinction; and diseases caused by pollution are currently killing some 9 million people prematurely every year.

A farmer in Kerala’s hinterlands applies chemical fertilisers to his rice paddies. Large areas under unsustainable agricultural methods world-over in a drive for higher food production has damaged the environment. Scientific climate friendly methods are available and are equally productive.
Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

The blueprint for solutions

The authors of Making Peace with Nature report assess the links between multiple environmental and development challenges, and explain how advances in science and bold policymaking can open a pathway towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and a carbon neutral world by 2050 while bending the curve on biodiversity loss and curbing pollution and waste.

Taking that path means innovation and investment only in activities that protect both people and nature. Success will include restored ecosystems and healthier lives as well as a stable climate.

Amid a wave of investment to re-energise economies hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the blueprint communicates the opportunity and urgency for ambitious and immediate action. It also lays out the roles that everyone – from governments and businesses to communities and individuals – can and must play.

“2021 is a make-it or break-it year, a mind-shift year,” said Guterres. 2021, with its upcoming climate and biodiversity convention meetings, is the year where governments must come up with synergistic and ambitious targets to safeguard the planet.

To turn the tide of current unsustainability, the UNEP blueprint has several recommendations some of which include that governments include natural capital while measuring economic performance of both countries and businesses, and putting a price on carbon and shift trillions of dollars in subsidies from fossil fuels, non-sustainable agriculture and transportation towards low-carbon and nature-friendly solutions.

It is high time, the report advises, to expand and improve protected area networks for ambitious international biodiversity targets. Further, non-government organisations can build networks of stakeholders to ensure their full participation in decisions about sustainable use of land and marine resources, the report recommends.

Financial organisations need to stop lending for fossil fuels, and boost renewable energy expansion. Developing innovative finance for biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture is of utmost importance now.

Businesses can adopt the principles of the circular economy to minimise resource use and waste and commit to maintaining transparent and deforestation-free supply chains.

Scientific organisations can pioneer technologies and policies to reduce carbon emissions, increase resource efficiency and lift the resilience of cities, industries, communities and ecosystems

Individuals can reconsider their relationship with nature, learn about sustainability and change their habits to reduce their use of resources, cut waste of food, water and energy, and adopt healthier diets. two-thirds of global CO2 emissions are linked to households. “People’s choices matter,” Guterres said.

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By Martin Kropff and Nteranya Sanginga
IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, May 19 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on February 17 2021

A woman farmer in Mozambique with DT maize harvest. Credit: CIMMYT

IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 2021 (IPS) – 17 February – African smallholder farmers have no choice but to adapt to climate change: 2020 was the second hottest year on record, while prolonged droughts and explosive floods are directly threatening the livelihoods of millions. By the 2030s, lack of rainfall and rising temperatures could render 40 percent of Africa’s maize-growing area unsuitable for climate-vulnerable varieties grown by farmers, while maize remains the preferred and affordable staple food for millions of Africans who survive on less than a few dollars of income a day.

Farmers across the continent understand that the climate crisis is affecting their harvests and their “daily bread”. In sub-Saharan Africa, growing numbers of people are chronically undernourished, with over 21 percent of the population suffering from severe food insecurity.

The global battle against climate change and all its interconnected impacts requires a multisectoral approach to formulate comprehensive responses. For farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, especially smallholders, this involves producing improved crop varieties that are not only high-yielding but also tolerant to drought and heat, resistant to diseases and insect pests, and can contribute to minimizing the risk of farming under rainfed conditions.

CGIAR, a global partnership involving numerous organizations engaged in food systems transformation, has been at the forefront of technological innovation and deployment for many decades. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are the two CGIAR research centers undertaking innovative maize research and development work in the stress-prone environments of Africa. Successful development of improved climate-adaptive maize varieties for sub-Saharan Africa has been spearheaded by these two CGIAR centers that implemented joint projects such as the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) in partnership with an array of national and private sector partners in the major maize-producing countries in Eastern, Southern, and West Africa. Under the 10-year DTMA initiative, about 160 affordable and scalable maize varieties were released.

High-yielding, multiple stress-tolerant, maize varieties using CIMMYT/IITA maize germplasm released after 2007 (the year the DTMA project was started) are estimated to be grown on 5 million hectares in 2020 in sub-Saharan Africa. The adoption of drought-tolerant (DT) maize varieties helped lift millions of people above the poverty line across the continent. For example, in drought-prone southern Zimbabwe, farmers using DT varieties in dry years were able to harvest up to 600 kilograms more maize per hectare—enough for nine months for an average family of six—than farmers who sowed conventional varieties.

A smallholder woman farmer in northern Uganda with DT maize on her farm. Credit: CIMMYT

The STMA project that followed DTMA also operated in sub-Saharan Africa, where 176 million people depend on maize for nutrition and economic well-being. The project, which ended in 2020, and followed by a new project called Accelerating Genetic Gains for Maize and Wheat Improvement (AGG), developed new maize varieties that can be successfully grown under drought, sub-optimal soil fertility, heat stress, and diseases and pests. In 2020, CGIAR-related stress-tolerant maize varieties were estimated to be grown on over 5 million hectares, benefiting over 8.6 million smallholder farmers in 13 countries across sub-Saharan Africa.

In Kenya, farmers with the new maize varieties are harvesting 20 to 30 percent more grain than farmers without drought-tolerant seeds. Prasanna Boddupalli, Director of CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program and the CGIAR Research Program on maize, says this has a cascading effect on livelihoods—improving the nutritional intake of the community, helping children return to school, and reducing poverty.

Martin Kropff, Director General, CIMMYT

In Zambia, a study by CIMMYT and the Center for Development Research has shown that adopting drought-tolerant maize can increase yields by 38 percent and reduce the risks of crop failure by 36 percent, even though three-quarters of the farmers in the study had experienced drought during the survey.

Besides climate-adaptive improved maize varieties, both CIMMYT and IITA have developed maize varieties biofortified with provitamin A; vitamin A deficiency is highly prevalent in populations across sub-Saharan Africa. These biofortified maize varieties, developed in partnership with HarvestPlus, are being deployed in targeted countries in sub-Saharan Africa in partnership with national programs and seed company partners.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding this year, CGIAR unveiled its roadmap for a new 10-year strategy at the online 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit, hosted by the Netherlands in January.

The new sustainable research strategy puts climate change at the heart of its mission, with an emphasis on the realignment of food systems worldwide, targeting five impact areas: nutrition, poverty, inclusivity, climate adaptation and mitigation, and environmental health.

Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, IITA

CGIAR warns that without more science-based interventions to align agriculture with climate targets, the number of undernourished people around the world could exceed 840 million by 2030.

To shift its focus and investment into agricultural research that responds to the climate crisis, CGIAR is undergoing an institutional reform. Now named ‘One CGIAR’ the dynamic reformulation of CGIAR’s partnerships, knowledge, assets, and global presence, aims for greater integration and impact in the face of the interdependent challenges facing today’s world.

Scientific innovations in food, land, and water systems will be deployed faster, at a larger scale, and at reduced cost, having greater impact where they are needed the most.

Ground-breaking progress to date would not have been possible without the generous funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Yet Bill Gates, who recognizes the essential role of CGIAR in “feeding our future”, also acknowledges that current levels of investment do not even amount to half of what is needed.

Investments in maize breeding and seed system innovations must expand to keep up with the capacity to withstand climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s most chronically undernourished region, and provide food and nutritional security to millions of maize-dependent and resource-constrained smallholders and consumers.

At CIMMYT and IITA, we have invested on long-term breeding to increase genetic gains using many new tools and technologies. These efforts need to be further intensified.

More funding is also needed to reach out to smallholders with quality seed of climate-resilient maize varieties. While 77 percent of Zambian households interviewed said they experienced drought in 2015, only 44 percent knew about drought-tolerant maize.

Mindful that adopting new technologies and practices can be risky for resource-poor farmers who do not enjoy the protection of social welfare safety nets in rich countries, CIMMYT encourages farmers, seed companies, and other end users to be involved in the development process.

It is not enough to lower carbon emissions. African farmers need to adapt quickly to rising temperatures, drawn-out droughts and sharp, devastating floods. With higher-yielding, multiple stress tolerant maize varieties, smallholder farmers have the opportunity to not only combat climatic variabilities, diseases and pests, but can also effectively diversify their farms. This will enable them in turn to have better adaptation to the changing climates and access to well-balanced and affordable diets. As climate change intensifies, so should agricultural innovations. It is time for a “business unusual” approach.

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Excerpt:

By Kate Chappell
KINGSTON, Jamaica, May 18 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on January 20 2021

A man walks by a storm drain piled high with plastic bottles and other garbage in Kingston, Jamaica. Credit: Kate Chappell

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Jan 20 2021 (IPS) – For decades, every time it rains heavily in Jamaica, a daunting deluge of plastic bottles and bags, styrofoam and other garbage trundles its way down a network of countless gullies and streams. If they don’t get snagged somewhere, they end up in the Kingston Harbour or close to the beaches ringing the tourist-heavy North coast.

This phenomenon is not restricted to Jamaica, occurring regularly across the Caribbean and Latin America. It represents the burden of how the world is failing to cope with so much plastic waste. Its effect on the region, however, is relatively unique and compounded by several realities: budget and infrastructure challenges, geography and the lack an effective waste management strategy. In the past several years, more than a third of Caribbean countries have banned single use plastics, which may have reduced some waste, but the plague remains.

One study found that beaches and coastal areas across the region could contain triple the amount of plastic waste compared to the rest of the world.

According to a paper summarizing waste management in the region, only 54% of single use plastic waste ends up in a sanitary landfill, with much of the remainder landing in storm drains and the ocean.

The disposal of single use plastic in this region and around the world is increasingly coming under the spotlight as countries attempt to tackle global heating and adhere to the Paris Agreement. If countries do not reduce their consumption of single use plastics, emissions from plastics are due to increase threefold by 2050, which would thwart the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, according to the global think tank ODI.

Andrea Clayton is one of four authors of a study on the Latin American and Caribbean region, and she says there are many problems surrounding the use of plastic and its disposal.

“Plastics have been deemed as carcinogenic. There are health implications. And we are an island state with very finite resources, so it’s very important that we put in place sustainable environmental practices,” she says. “We are privileged to experienced sandy beaches and water, but we want that to carry on to the younger generations. We must be preserving island from a sustainable position,” she says. Clayton is a lecturer for sustainable development and Caribbean Maritime University in Kingston, Jamaica.

On a daily basis in the Latin American and Caribbean region, 145,000 tons of waste are disposed of in open dumpsites, including 17,000 tons of plastic. In total, roughly 300,000 tons of plastic is not processed or collected, so it ends up in illegal dumps or waterways.

Part of the root of the problem can be traced to the region’s lack of manufacturing and agricultural capacity, which leads to heavy dependence on the importation of goods, which, of course, means more plastic waste.

In the region, plastic accounts for 35% of marine waste, according to Clayton’s paper, which is called “Policy responses to reduce single-use plastic in the Caribbean”. For one of the most tourism dependent regions in the world, this represents not just a threat to the environment, but to the livelihoods of its residents as well.

“Marine pollution is therefore a particular problem for the Caribbean These states are major contributors to marine pollution but are also more dependent on the environmental quality of the Caribbean Sea, which is the base for the regions ‘sand, sun, and sea’ tourism package. Tourism directly contributes 15.5% of the regions gross domestic product and employs 14% of the labour force,” according to Clayton’s paper.

Credit: Kate Chappell

In Jamaica, there is a lack of a sense of urgency amongst legislators, as well as the existence of alternative ways of disposing of garbage, says Diana McCaulay, director of the Jamaica Environment Trust. “People just don’t have alternatives. We have inculcated certain habits and attitudes that garbage is a state responsibility. If I don’t see a garbage bin within three feet of me, I can throw it on the road,” she says. Unless there is a holistic approach to overhauling the entire system that is accompanied by public education, nothing will change, she adds. “We need proper garbage collection, recycling programs, unless all of those other things go along with education, nothing will change.”

For its part, governments across the region have adopted several tactics, through legislation, policies, public education and incentive programs, to mixed results. “Across the region, we tend to have the legislative approach, and what has happened in most jurisdictions is a top down government policy with very little lead time,” says Clayton. In Jamaica, the bans on plastic bags, straws and Styrofoam were all rolled out to the surprise of a lot of citizens.

McCaulay says some of these policies have had success. Jamaica announced a series of new legislation in Sept. 2018, with a plastic bag ban implemented on Jan. 1, 2019. This has gone relatively well, with most people now toting reusable bags to do their shopping. The ban on the distribution and manufacture of Styrofoam and plastic straws, enacted a year later, however, has been less successful. For food containers, merchants have simply switched to plastic containers that claim to be recyclable, but in actuality are not, McCaulay says. Most business owners, however, have adhered to the plastic straw ban.

One of the main sources of pollution is single use plastic bottles, which account for an average 21% of the trash collected during beach and coastal clean ups in the Caribbean. This problem demands a deposit return scheme, McCaulay says.

In Jamaica, this is being spearheaded by the private sector, but has yet to translate to a widespread effort.

Ollyvia Anderson, director of public relations and corporate communications for the National Environment and Planning Agency in Jamaica, says that overall, citizens were slow to adopt the new regulations due to a lack of knowledge. “We were a little slow out of the blocks in terms of the uptakes,” she says. “For a lot of Jamaicans, they were concerned about the alternatives, and a lot of persons were not aware of alternatives, so we used public educations to bring them up to speed.

We are now seeing conversions where that has occurred with bags and straws. In terms of the foam food containers, we are seeing less and less of those on the market. People are adjusting but hasn’t been without challenges.”

With this in mind, enforcement has been by the government as a tool to encourage behavior change. To date, 41 businesses and individuals have been charged under the National Resources Conservation Act, with 27 of those convicted. The maximum fine is JMD$2 million, which is almost US$14,000.

It’s not enough, says McCaulay. If she were to assign a grade to the government’s efforts, she would give them a ‘D+.’ “It’s the usual lots of rhetoric with a very wide implementation gap.”

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By Catherine Wilson
CANBERRA, Australia, May 17 2021 (IPS)

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks.

The original article was published on January 4 2021

Contamination of rivers and streams by mine waste in the vicinity of the Panguna copper mine in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson

CANBERRA, Australia, Jan 4 2021 (IPS) – Local communities in the vicinity of the abandoned Panguna copper mine, have taken decisive action to hold the global mining multinational, Rio Tinto, accountable for alleged environmental and human rights violations during the mine’s operations between 1972 and 1989.

The mine operated in the mountains of central Bougainville in Papua New Guinea until 1989.

The complaint by 156 residents was lodged with the Australian Government in September by Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre and subsequently accepted in November, paving the way for a non-judicial mediation process.

“We and the communities we are working with have now entered into a formal conciliation process with Rio Tinto facilitated by the Australian OECD National Contact Point and talks with the company will begin very shortly,” Keren Adams, Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre in Melbourne told IPS.

Rio Tinto was the majority owner of the Panguna mine through its operating company, Bougainville Copper Ltd, with a 53.8 percent stake. However, 17 years after it began production in 1972, anger among indigenous landowners about contaminated rivers and streams, the devastation of customary land and inequity in distributing the extractive venture’s profits and benefits triggered an armed rebellion in 1989. After the mine’s power supply was destroyed by sabotage, Rio Tinto fled Bougainville Island and the site became derelict during the decade long civil war which followed.

The mine area, which is still controlled by the tribal Mekamui Government of Unity, comprising former rebel leaders, hasn’t been decommissioned and the environmental legacy of its former operations never addressed.

Now, according to the complaint, “copper pollution from the mine pit and tailings continues to flow into local rivers … The Jaba-Kawerong river valley downstream of the mine resembles a moonscape with vast mounds of grey tailings waste and rock stretching almost 40 km downstream to the coast. Levees constructed at the time of the mine’s operation are now collapsing, threatening nearby villages.”

Gutted mine machinery and infrastructure are scattered across the site of the Panguna mine in the mountains of Central Bougainville, an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

There are further claims that contamination of waterways and land is causing long-term health problems amongst the indigenous population, such as skin diseases, diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, and pregnancy complications.

Helen Hakena, Director of the Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency in Bougainville’s main town of Buka, fully supports the action taken by her fellow islanders.

“It is long overdue. It is going to be very important because it was the big issue which caused the Bougainville conflict. It will lay to rest the grievances which caused so much suffering for our people,” Hakena told IPS.

The Bougainville civil war, triggered by the uprising at the mine, led to a death toll of 15,000-20,000 people.

The people of Bougainville believe that Rio Tinto has breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by failing both to take action to mitigate foreseeable environmental, health and safety-related impacts at the mine and respect the human rights of the communities affected by its extractive activities. The Human Rights Law Centre claims that “the mine pollution continues to infringe nearly all the economic, social and cultural rights of these indigenous communities, including their rights to food, water, health, housing and an adequate standard of living.”

“While we do not wholly accept the claims in the complaint, we are aware of deteriorating mining infrastructure at the site and surrounding areas and acknowledge that there are environmental and human rights considerations,” Rio Tinto responded in a public statement.

“Accepting the AusNCP’s ‘good offices’ shows that we take this complaint seriously and remain ready to enter into discussions with the communities that have filed the complaint, along with other relevant communities around the Panguna mine site, and other relevant parties, such as Bougainville Copper Ltd, the Autonomous Bougainville Government and PNG Government,” the statement continued.

In 2016, Rio Tinto divested its interest in Bougainville Copper Ltd, the operating company, and its shares were acquired by the PNG and Bougainville governments. Simultaneously, the corporate giant announced that it rejected corporate responsibility for any environmental impacts or damage.

Panguna mine’s copper and gold await political settlement before extraction can resume. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

Mineral exploration in Bougainville in the 1960s, followed by the construction of the Panguna open-cut copper mine, occurred when the island region was under Australian administration. It would subsequently become a massive source of internal revenue Papua New Guinea, which was granted Independence in 1975. During its lifetime, the Panguna mine generated about US$2 billion in revenue and accounted for 44 percent of the nation’s exports.

The mining agreement negotiated between the Australian Government and Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia in the 1960s didn’t include any significant environmental regulations or liability of the company for rehabilitation of areas affected by mining.

There has been no definitive environmental assessment of the Panguna site since it was forced to shut down. However, about 300,000 tonnes of ore and water were excavated at the mine every day. In 1989, an independent report by Applied Geology Associates in New Zealand noted that significant amounts of copper and other heavy metals were leaching from the mine and waste rock dumps and flowing into the Kawerong River. Today, the water in some rivers and streams in the mine area is a luminescent blue, a sign of copper contamination.

Bougainville residents’ action comes at the end of a challenging year for Rio Tinto. It is still reeling from revelations earlier this year that its operations destroyed historically significant Aboriginal sacred sites, estimated to be 46,000 years old, in the vicinity of its iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The company’s CEO, Jean-Sebastien Jacques, has subsequently resigned.

Nevertheless, Adams is optimistic about the corporate giant’s willingness to engage with Bougainville and PNG stakeholders.

“In the first instance, we hope that this non-judicial process will help to facilitate discussions to explore whether Rio Tinto will make these commitments to address the impacts of its operations. If not, then the communities will be asking the Australian OECD National Contact Point to investigate the complaint and make findings about whether Rio Tinto has breached its human rights and environmental obligations,” the Human Rights Law Centre’s Legal Director said. A full investigation, if required, could take up to a year.

Ultimately, the islanders are seeking specific outcomes. These include Rio Tinto’s serious engagement with them to identify solutions to the urgent environmental and human rights issues; funding for an independent environmental and human rights impact assessment of the mine; and contributions to a substantial independently managed fund to enable long term rehabilitation programs.

Otherwise, Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre predicts that “given the limited resources of the PNG and Bougainville governments, it is almost inevitable that if no action is taken by Rio Tinto, the environmental damage currently being caused by the tailings waste will continue and worsen.”

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