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Tag: Biodiversity

  • How to Defend the Environment and Survive in the Attempt, as a Woman in Mexico

    How to Defend the Environment and Survive in the Attempt, as a Woman in Mexico

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    Dozens of women environmentalists participated in Mexico City in the launch of the Voices of Life campaign by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023, which brings together hundreds of activists in five of the country’s 32 states. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    • by Emilio Godoy (mexico city)
    • Inter Press Service

    MEXICO CITY, Oct 24 (IPS) – The defense of the right to water led Gema Pacheco to become involved in environmental struggles in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, an area threatened by drought, land degradation, megaprojects, mining and deforestation.

    Care “means first and foremost to value the place where we live, that the environment in which we grow up is part of our life and on which our existence depends,” said Pacheco, deputy municipal agent of San Matías Chilazoa, in the municipality of Ejutla de Crespo, some 355 kilometers south of Mexico City.

    A biologist by profession, the activist is a member of the Local Committee for the Care and Defense of Water in San Matías Chilazoa, which belongs to the Coordinating Committee of Peoples United for the Care and Defense of Water (Copuda).

    The local population is dedicated to growing corn, beans and chickpeas, an activity hampered by the scarcity of water in a country that has been suffering from a severe drought over the past year.

    To deal with the phenomenon, the community created three water reservoirs and infiltration wells to feed the water table.

    “Women’s participation has been restricted, there are few women in leadership positions. The main challenge is acceptance. There is little participation, because they see it as a waste of time and it is very demanding,” lamented Pacheco.

    In November 2021, the 16 communities of Copuda obtained the right to manage the water resources in their territories, thus receiving water concessions.

    But women activists like Pacheco face multiple threats for protecting their livelihoods and culture in a country where such activities can pose a lethal risk.

    For this reason, eight organizations from five Mexican states launched the Voices of Life campaign on Oct. 12, involving hundreds of habitat protectors, some of whom came to the Mexican capital for the event, where IPS interviewed several of them.

    Involvement in the defense of water led Gema Pacheco to become an environmental activist, participating in the Voices of Life campaign in Mexico, which seeks to bring visibility and respect to this high-risk activity in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    Involvement in the defense of water led Gema Pacheco to become an environmental activist, participating in the Voices of Life campaign in Mexico, which seeks to bring visibility and respect to this high-risk activity in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

    The initiative seeks to promote the right to a healthy environment, facilitate environmental information, protect and recognize people and organizations that defend the environment, as well as learn how to use information and communication technologies.

    In 2022, Mexico ranked number three in Latin America in terms of murders of environmental activists, with 31 killed (four women and 16 indigenous people), behind Colombia (60) and Brazil (34), out of a global total of 177, according to the London-based non-governmental organization Global Witness.

    A year earlier, this Latin American country of almost 129 million inhabitants ranked first on the planet, with 54 killings, so 2022 reflected an improvement.

    “The situation in Mexico remains dire for defenders, and non-fatal attacks, including intimidation, threats, forced displacement, harassment and criminalization, continued to greatly complicate their work,” the report says.

    The outlook remains serious for activists, as the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law (Cemda) documented 582 attacks in 2022, more than double the number in 2021. Oaxaca, Mexico City and the northern state of Chihuahua reported the highest number of attacks.

    Urban problems

    The south of Mexico City is home to the largest area of conservation land, but faces growing threats, such as deforestation, urbanization and irregular settlements.

    Protected land defines the areas preserved by the public administration to ensure the survival of the land and its biodiversity.

    Social anthropologist Tania Lopez said another risk has now emerged, in the form of the new General Land Use Planning Program 2020-2035 for the Mexican capital, which has a population of more than eight million people, although Greater Mexico City is home to more than 20 million.

    “There was no public consultation of the plan based on a vision of development from the perspective of native peoples. In addition, it encourages real estate speculation, changes in land use and invasions,” said López, a member of the non-governmental organization Sembradoras Xochimilpas, part of the Voices of Life campaign.

    Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. In 2022, 31 activists were murdered, the third highest number in the region behind Colombia and Brazil. CREDIT: Cemda
    Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders. In 2022, 31 activists were murdered, the third highest number in the region behind Colombia and Brazil. CREDIT: Cemda

    Apart from the failure to carry out mandatory consultation processes, activists point out irregularities in the governmental Planning Institute and its technical and citizen advisory councils, because they are not included as members.

    The conservation land, which provides clean air, water, agricultural production and protection of flora and fauna, totals some 87,000 hectares, more than half of Mexico City.

    The plan stipulates conservation of rural and urban land. But critics of the program point out that the former would lose some 30,000 hectares, destined for rural housing.

    The capital’s legislature is debating the program, which should have been ready by 2020.

    Gisselle García, a lawyer with the non-governmental Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, said attacks on women activists occur within a patriarchal culture that limits the existence of safe spaces for women’s participation in the defense of rights.

    “It’s an entire system, which reflects the legal structure. If a woman files a civil or criminal complaint, she is not heard,” she told IPS, describing the special gender-based handicaps faced by women environmental defenders.

    Social anthropologist Tania López is one of the members of the Voices of Life campaign, launched by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023 to highlight the work of women environmental defenders in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS
    Social anthropologist Tania López is one of the members of the Voices of Life campaign, launched by eight non-governmental organizations on Oct. 12, 2023 to highlight the work of women environmental defenders in Mexico. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

    Still just an empty promise

    This risky situation comes in the midst of preparations for the implementation of the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement, an unprecedented treaty that aims to mitigate threats to defenders of the environment, in force since April 2021.

    Article 9 of the Agreement stipulates the obligation to ensure a safe and enabling environment for the exercise of environmental defense, to take protective or preventive measures prior to an attack, and to take response actions.

    The treaty, which takes its name from the Costa Rican city where it was signed, guarantees access to environmental information and justice, as well as public participation in environmental decision-making, to protect activists.

    The Escazú Agreement has so far been signed by 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries, 15 of which have ratified it as well.

    But its implementation is proceeding at the same slow pace as environmental protection in countries such as Mexico, where there are still no legislative changes to ensure its enforcement.

    In August, the seven-person Committee to Support the Implementation of and Compliance with the Escazú Agreement took office. This is a non-contentious, consultative subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to the agreement to promote and support its implementation.

    Meanwhile, in Mexico, the Escazú National Group, made up of government and civil society representatives, was formed in June to implement the treaty.

    During the annual regional Second Forum of Human Rights Defenders, held Sept. 26-28 in Panama, participants called on the region’s governments to strengthen protection and ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental protectors, particularly women.

    While the Mexican women defenders who gathered in Mexico City valued the Escazú Agreement, they also stressed the importance of its dissemination and, even more so, its proper implementation.

    Activists Pacheco and Lopez agreed on the need for national outreach, especially to stakeholders.

    “We need more information to get out, a lot of work needs to be done, more people need to know about it,” said Pacheco.

    The parties to the treaty are currently discussing a draft action plan that would cover 2024 to 2030.

    The document calls for the generation of greater knowledge, awareness and dissemination of information on the situation, rights and role of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights in environmental matters, as well as on the existing instruments and mechanisms for prevention, protection and response.

    It also seeks recognition of the work and contribution of individuals, groups and organizations that defend human rights, capacity building, support for national implementation and cooperation, as well as a follow-up and review scheme for the regional plan.

    García the attorney said the regional treaty is just one more tool, however important it may be.

    “We are in the phase of seeing how the Escazú Agreement will be applied. The most important thing is effective implementation. It is something new and it will not be ready overnight,” she said.

    As it gains strength, the women defenders talk about how the treaty can help them in their work. “If they attack me, what do I do? Pull out the agreement and show it to them so they know they must respect me?” one of the women who are part of the Voices of Life campaign asked her fellow activists.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Bringing the Piratininga Lagoon Back to Life in Brazil

    Bringing the Piratininga Lagoon Back to Life in Brazil

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    An aerial view of Hacendita Cafubá, on the north shore of Piratininga, a lagoon in southeastern Brazil, when ponds that serve as a spillway and to collect sedimentation of polluted water were being built and filter gardens that clean the water of the Cafubá River before discharging its waters into the lagoon were being planted. CREDIT: Alex Ramos / Niterói City Government
    • by Mario Osava (niterÓi, brazil)
    • Inter Press Service

    NITERÓI, Brazil, Oct 20 (IPS) – Houses with balconies facing the street or the surrounding hills, when they are not hidden behind high walls, reflect a neighborhood where people live on the shore of a lagoon but reject the landscape it offers.

    Piratininga, a 2.87 square kilometer coastal lagoon in the southern part of the Brazilian city of Niterói, began to change after several decades of uncontrolled urban growth with no care for the natural surroundings, in what has become a neighborhood of 16,000 inhabitants.

    Garbage, polluted water, construction debris and bad odors hurt the landscape and the quality of life that is sought when choosing a lagoon and green hills as a place to build a year-round or weekend residence.

    The accumulated sludge at the bottom of the lagoon is 1.6 meters thick, on average, resulting from both pollution and natural sedimentation.

    “That’s what explains those houses that turn their backs to the lagoon,” explained Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program (PRO Sostenible) of the city government of Niterói, a municipality of 482,000 people separated from the city of Rio de Janeiro only by Guanabara Bay.

    Oceânica is one of the five administrative zones of the municipality, locally called regions, which includes 11 neighborhoods in the southern part, on the open sea coast, in contrast to others on the shore of the bay or inland areas without beaches. With two lagoons and a good part of the Atlantic Forest still preserved, the area stands out for its nature.

    PRO Sostenible, which was founded in 2014, seeks to restore environmental systems and to ensure better and more sustainable urbanization in the area. Its actions are based on a systemic approach and nature-based solutions.

    Dionê Castro is head of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program of the municipality of Niterói, on the edge of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. Gardens and piers jutting into the lagoon have replaced the garbage dumps, polluted water and construction debris that had led local residents to reject the landscape, leading houses to be built with their "backs to the lagoon." CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    Dionê Castro is head of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program of the municipality of Niterói, on the edge of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. Gardens and piers jutting into the lagoon have replaced the garbage dumps, polluted water and construction debris that had led local residents to reject the landscape, leading houses to be built with their “backs to the lagoon.” CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    Natural clean-up of the water

    The program’s flagship project is the Orla Piratininga Alfredo Sirkis Park, which pays homage to a leader of the environmental movement, former national lawmaker and former president of the Green Party, as well as journalist and writer, who died in 2020.

    The park, known by its acronym POP, has the mission of recovering and protecting the ecosystems associated with the Piratininga Lagoon, in addition to fostering a sense of belonging to the environment and its surroundings. For this reason, the participation of the local residents in all stages of the project has been and continues to be a basic principle.

    It comprises an area of 680,000 square meters, the largest in Brazil in nature-based solutions projects, with 10.6 kilometers of bicycle paths, 17 recreational areas and a 2,800 square meter Ecocultural Center.

    To bring residents and visitors closer to the local environment, the plan is to complete three three-story lookout points – two of which have already been built – and piers reaching into the lagoon, part of which can be used for fishing, as fish still inhabit the lagoon despite the pollution of recent decades.

    The first section, known as Haciendita Cafubá, was inaugurated on Jun. 17, with a water filtration system for the Cafubá River, one of the three that flow into the lagoon, a lookout point, piers, a bicycle path and even a nursery for newborn crocodiles in a special fenced-in area.

    A view of ponds and, in the background, filtering gardens after their inauguration in June 2023. Hills covered by native vegetation surround the Piratininga lagoon and the neighborhood that grew up over half a century around it and now has 16,000 inhabitants, in Niterói, a neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    A view of ponds and, in the background, filtering gardens after their inauguration in June 2023. Hills covered by native vegetation surround the Piratininga lagoon and the neighborhood that grew up over half a century around it and now has 16,000 inhabitants, in Niterói, a neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    “I went to see if I could find the crocodiles, my son made me walk down the street, he loves animals… I never thought I would see what I saw… I went to the beginning of the Haciendita, I saw fish where there was nothing living before, I saw flowers where there was only mud, I saw life where nature was already dead without any hope. Congratulations for tolerating us, that community is tough.”

    This is the testimony of a resident, addressed to the head of PRO Sostenible. The park has had a large number of visitors since before its inauguration, attracted by flora and fauna that had long since disappeared from the shores of the lagoon.

    The technology used to clean the waters is known around the world but has not been widely used in Brazil. It is based on filter gardens, in which layers of gravel and permeable substrates serve as a base for macrophytes, aquatic plants that live in flooded areas and are visible on the surface.

    The plants filter the water in a process that does not require chemical inputs.

    A special spillway receives the waters of the Cafubá, which conducts and controls them to give greater efficiency to the next pond, the sedimentation pond, the first step in cleaning the polluted waters by reducing the solid material produced by erosion and garbage thrown into the riverbed.

    After the sedimentation basins, the water passes through three filtering gardens before flowing into the lagoon.

    Biologists and environmental managers Heloisa Osanai and Andrea Maia are photographed at the Tibau Island lookout point at the western end of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. The vegetation, dominated by the exotic and invasive white lead tree, is gradually being replaced by local species as part of the restoration and clean-up process. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    Biologists and environmental managers Heloisa Osanai and Andrea Maia are photographed at the Tibau Island lookout point at the western end of the Piratininga Lagoon in southeastern Brazil. The vegetation, dominated by the exotic and invasive white lead tree, is gradually being replaced by local species as part of the restoration and clean-up process. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    Plantfilters

    Twelve species of macrophytes are used in the filtration process, but the variety has been reduced due to maintenance difficulties. “We use only Brazilian species, and no exogenous species,” said Heloisa Osanai, a biologist specialized in environmental management and one of the 17 employees of PRO Sostenible.

    Examples include water lettuce and water lilies with orange flowers.

    “One of the effects of the water treatment is the reduction of mosquitoes, which is important to local residents, who used to burn dry vegetation in an attempt to drive away the insects. People no longer build bonfires in the evenings. The filter gardens attract dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” said Osanai.

    In the larger Jacaré River, 11 filtering gardens were created, which operate in sequence and whose size was designed for greater efficiency, said Andrea Maia, another biologist and environmental manager of the team.

    Filter gardens beautify the environment and expel mosquitoes, with macrophyte aquatic plant species that clean the water, in addition to decontaminating the Piratininga lagoon, restoring fishing and local tourism in a long-neglected ecosystem of Niteroi, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    Filter gardens beautify the environment and expel mosquitoes, with macrophyte aquatic plant species that clean the water, in addition to decontaminating the Piratininga lagoon, restoring fishing and local tourism in a long-neglected ecosystem of Niteroi, in southeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    Awards and results

    PRO Sostenible has already won several national and international awards. It was named one of the three best environmental sustainability programs in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Smart Cities 2022 award.

    This year it won another award from Smart Cities Latin America, as the best in Sustainable Urban Development and Mobility. The Park also won awards for valuing biodiversity, from the Federation of Industries of Rio de Janeiro, and another as an environmental project, from the São Paulo city government, for contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.

    In addition to the Park, the program has inaugurated a Sports and Leisure Center on the island of Tibau, on the other side of the Piratininga Lagoon, closer to the sea.

    As part of this project, sports fields, a playground and a lookout point have been built, while an invasive tree, the white lead tree (Leucaena leucocephala), native to Mexico and Central America, which dominated the island’s vegetation, has been gradually replaced with local species.

    The systemic thinking that guides PRO Sostenible is based on three pillars, explained Dionê Castro.

    First is the complexity of local ecosystems and of the projects being implemented, focusing on the environmental, natural, social and cultural dimensions.

    In second place is what is called “intersubjectivity”, which takes into account new paradigms of science, leaving behind “simplistic and Cartesian views…The changes do not come from outside, but from local residents, with public input from the conception of the project to its execution,” said the geographer who holds a doctorate in environmental management.

    The third pillar is irreversibility. The lagoon and its ecosystems will not return to their original state, “to zero,” but will be cleaned up as much as possible to reach a “new equilibrium,” she said.

    Local support for the environmental project led to solutions in different areas, such as the regularization of real estate in the favelas or shantytowns, the improvement of health, the revitalization of fishing, and even the creation of a fishermen’s association.

    “It’s environmental justice on the march,” Castro summed up.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Ecuadorians Vote to Preserve Yasuní National Park, but Implementation Is the Problem

    Ecuadorians Vote to Preserve Yasuní National Park, but Implementation Is the Problem

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    Oil workers are busy on the banks of the Tiputini river, on the northern border of the Yasuní National Park, in Ecuador’s Amazon region. CREDIT: Pato Chavez / Flickr
    • by Carolina Loza (quito)
    • Inter Press Service

    QUITO, Oct 09 (IPS) – The decision reached by Ecuadorians to put an end to oil production in Yasuní National Park, in a popular referendum in August, was a triumph for civil society and a global milestone in environmental democracy. But when it comes to implementation, the result is less promising.

    Despite being a democratic decision, taken by the majority of Ecuadorians, who voted to halt oil exploration and production in the park, the authorities say the verdict is not clear.

    During the Aug. 20 presidential and legislative elections, 59 percent of voters voted Yes to a halt to oil extraction in one of the most biodiverse protected areas in the world, part of the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest that has been a biosphere reserve since 1989.

    At the same time, 68 percent of the voters of the Metropolitan District of Quito voted against continued mining in their territory, in order to protect the biodiversity of the Chocó Andino, a forest northwest of the capital that provides it with water.

    In the midst of an unprecedented political and criminal insecurity crisis in Ecuador, the two votes were a historic landmark at a democratic and environmental level, in addition to demonstrating that Ecuadorians are increasingly looking towards alternatives that would move Ecuador away from the extractivism on which the economy of this South American country has depended for decades.

    But the No vote, i.e. the answer that allowed oil extraction to continue in the Yasuní ITT block, won in the provinces where the national park is located: Orellana and Sucumbíos. This is one of the arguments of the current authorities to stop compliance with the referendum, arguing that the areas involved want oil production to go ahead.

    Constitutional lawyer Ximena Ron Erráez said the Ecuadorian government cannot escape the obligation to abide by the result of the referendum.

    “As far as the Ecuadorian constitution is concerned…..it must be complied with in an obligatory manner by the authorities; there is no possibility, constitutionally speaking, that the authorities can refuse to comply with the results of the referendum,” she told IPS.

    One of the murals that still remain on the streets of Quito from the campaign for the August referendum on whether or not to keep the oil wealth underground in Yasuní National Park, to which voters decided "yes": leave it untouched. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPSOne of the murals that still remain on the streets of Quito from the campaign for the August referendum on whether or not to keep the oil wealth underground in Yasuní National Park, to which voters decided "yes": leave it untouched. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS
    One of the murals that still remain on the streets of Quito from the campaign for the August referendum on whether or not to keep the oil wealth underground in Yasuní National Park, to which voters decided “yes”: leave it untouched. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS

    Ron Erráez also complained about a lack of political will.

    On Sept. 5, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso, in a meeting with indigenous communities, described the referendum as “not applicable”.

    A leaked video in which he made the statement drew an outcry from civil society groups that pushed for the referendum for more than 10 years. Yasunidos, the group that was formed to reverse the 2013 decision by the government of then President Rafael Correa (2007-2017) to begin oil drilling and production in Yasuní, has declared itself in a state of permanent assembly.

    The Correa administration had proposed a project that sought to keep the oil in Yasuní ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini), also known as Block 43, in the ground, on almost 2,000 hectares, part of which is within the biosphere reserve and the rest in the so-called buffer zone.

    The initiative consisted of asking for international economic compensation for not exploiting the oilfield, which contains more than 1.5 billion barrels of reserves, in order to continue to preserve the biodiversity of the park and its surrounding areas. But the proposal did not yield the hoped-for results in international financing and the government decided to cancel it.

    This is despite the fact that Yasuní, covering an area of 10,700 square kilometers in the northeast of the country within the Amazon basin, is home to some 150 species of amphibians, 600 species of birds and 3,000 species of flora, as well as indigenous communities, some of which are in voluntary isolation.

    Environmental activists and organizations working in favor of keeping Yasuní’s oil in the ground say the management of the project showed the dilemma of finding alternatives to the extractive industry and the lack of real political will on the part of the political powers-that-be to come up with solutions.

    View of one of the rivers inside the Yasuni park, in northeastern Ecuador, which preserves an incomparable biodiversity. CREDIT: Manel Ortega Fernández / Flickr
    View of one of the rivers inside the Yasuni park, in northeastern Ecuador, which preserves an incomparable biodiversity. CREDIT: Manel Ortega Fernández / Flickr

    Ron Erráez mentioned an important fact: Lasso, in power since May 2021, will be an outgoing president after the second round of presidential elections is held on Oct. 15, and it will be his successor who will have to fulfill the mandate of the referendum on the national park.

    One difficulty is that his successor, who will take office on Nov. 25, will only serve as president for a year and a half, to complete the term of Lasso, who called for an unprecedented early election to avoid his likely impeachment by the legislature.

    Alex Samaniego, who participates in Yasunídos from Scientist Rebellion Ecuador, said it was clear from the start that the campaign for the Yasuní and Andean Chocó referendums was a long-term process, which would not end with whatever result came out of the vote.

    “We know that we have to defend the result, defend the votes of the citizens and make sure that the referendums are fully complied with,” he told IPS.

    According to the environmental activist, the democratic process behind the referendums will serve as an example for many countries, including Brazil, where communities are waging a constant struggle to combat climate change by seeking alternatives to the extractive industries.

    Capture from a video of the Quito Free of Mining campaign, which triumphed in the popular referendum on Aug. 20. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS
    Capture from a video of the Quito Free of Mining campaign, which triumphed in the popular referendum on Aug. 20. CREDIT: Carolina Loza / IPS

    “We are told about all the money that oil brings to the economy, but very little money stays in the communities,” said Samaniego, who mentioned alternatives such as community-based tourism and biomedicine and bioindustries as economic alternatives to oil production.

    Ron Erráez said “the referendum process sets a precedent because it is a way of establishing what is called an environmental democracy, where the people decide what to exploit and what not to exploit.”

    “These principles in practice are in harmony with the rights of nature that are mentioned in the Ecuadorian constitution, to protect nature above and beyond economic profit,” she added.

    Ecuadorian voters decided at the ballot box, and their decision should accelerate the possibility of a transition to alternatives for their economy. But what will the implementation look like?

    The referendum on the Andean Chocó region covers a conservation area of which Quito is part, which includes nine protected forests and more than 35 natural reserves, in order to avoid the issuance of mining exploration permits, a measure that will be implemented after the vote.

    There are contrasting views over the halt to oil exploration and production in Yasuni. The state-owned oil company Petroecuador highlights the losses for the State and presents figures that question the studies of groups such as Yasunidos.

    The referendum gives the government one year to bring oil production activities to a halt. But Ron Erráez said it could take longer to dismantle Petroecuador’s entire operation in Yasuní ITT. Meanwhile, operations in Block 43 continue.

    Sofia Torres, spokesperson for Yasunidos, said that despite all the talk during the campaign about economic losses, the vote showed that a majority of Ecuadorians question the country’s extractivist industry status quo.

    In her view, although government and oil authorities insist that oil resources are indispensable for the country’s development, Ecuadorians have not seen this materialize in terms of infrastructure, social measures or services.

    For this reason, they decided that “it is better to opt for the preservation of something concrete, such as an ecosystem that provides us with clean water and clean air and that is something like an insurance policy for the future,” she told IPS.

    On Oct. 15, Ecuadorians will choose between left-leaning Luisa Gonzalez, the protegé of former President Correa, and businessman Daniel Noboa. It will fall to one of them to enforce the majority vote on the future of Yasuní and the halt to oil industry activity in the park.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Growing Appetite for Nutrient-Rich Native Indigenous Australian Foods

    Growing Appetite for Nutrient-Rich Native Indigenous Australian Foods

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    Kalkani Choolburra, Aboriginal Programs Coordinator at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, showing the many uses of native plants. Here, she is weaving with a Lomandra leaf. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS
    • by Neena Bhandari (sydney)
    • Inter Press Service

    SYDNEY, Oct 03 (IPS) – Growing up in Sydney, Kalkani Choolburra, a Girramay, Kuku Yalanji, Kalkadoon and Pitta Pitta woman from Far North Queensland, would frequently travel with her family up and down Australia’s eastern seaboard. Her grandfathers and uncles would bring fresh catch of dugong, her favourite bush food, and she would go hunting for the short-necked turtle with her aunties and female cousins.

    The traditional or subsistence hunting of dugongs and turtles has been an important part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous Australians) people’s social and cultural lives. Its meat has been a vital source of protein for these communities, who have sustained themselves on the native flora and fauna for thousands of years.

    Now, national and international chefs are incorporating some of these native Indigenous produce – notably Kakadu plum, Davidson plum, lemon myrtle, wattle seed, quandong, finger lime, bush tomato, muntries, mountain pepper, saltbush – into their dishes ranging from sushi and samosa, pizza and pies to cakes and muffins.

    These quintessentially native Indigenous ingredients are also being used in condiments, relishes, sauces, and marmalades and infused into chocolates, teas and beverages for their unique flavours and textures.

    In recent years, there has been a growing interest and recognition of the nutritive and medicinal properties of native Indigenous plants and fruits. Professor Yasmina Sultanbawa, Director of the ARC Training Centre for Uniquely Australian Foods at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, recalls taking lemon myrtle to her lectures a decade ago. She would crush the leaves and ask her students to smell and identify them.

    “They didn’t know what it was back then, but now they immediately recognise it as lemon myrtle,” Sultanbawa tells IPS. “The market for native Indigenous foods is growing because it is rich in nutrients. For example, the vitamin C content in Kakadu plum is about 75 times more than in an orange; folates (a natural form of vitamin B9 or folic acid) and fibre in green plum is much higher than in a mango; and kangaroo meat has only 2 per cent fat and a high concentration of conjugated linoleic acid and omega 3.”

    In a study co-authored with Dharini Sivakumar, Sultanbawa argues that including native Indigenous foods in the diet could help reduce malnutrition.

    “Legumes like wattle seed are low in carbohydrates and have a very high content of protein, fibre, zinc and iron comparable to chickpeas. Wattle seed is also a great functional ingredient for adding value to other foods; for example, it can be incorporated into breads made with wheat flour. What makes native Indigenous foods attractive is that you don’t have to add a lot of it to get the nutritional benefit,” she adds.

    A 2019-20 market study of Australia’s native foods and botanicals industry by researchers at The University of Sydney, supported by Australian Native Foods and Botanicals (ANFAB), forecasted the native food sector would grow to 40 million Australian dollars (about USD 25,2m) in farm gate value, A$100m (about USD 63,1m) in middle market value and A$160m (about USD 101m) in total retail value by 2025.

    A spread of Lilly Pilly, Davidson Plum, Finger Lime marmalade and traditional Aboriginal bread, Damper, which is made by crushing a variety of native seeds into flour and then baking the dough in the ashes of a fire. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS
    A spread of Lilly Pilly, Davidson Plum, Finger Lime marmalade and traditional Aboriginal bread, Damper, which is made by crushing a variety of native seeds into flour and then baking the dough in the ashes of a fire. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

    Besides being used in traditional and modern cuisine, many of these native Indigenous botanicals are being used in cosmetics, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. For example, the vitamin C-rich, pink-red native Lilly Pilly fruit has good astringent properties that boosts collagen production within the skin. It is used today in a variety of anti-ageing skincare products.

    The COVID-19 pandemic craze for superfoods and television cooking shows, such as Australian MasterChef, has also contributed to the increasing popularity of native Indigenous foods.

    They can now be found on grocery superstore shelves. According to a spokesperson for Coles Group Ltd., a leading Australian retailer, “We currently work with nine Indigenous-run businesses that sell products with native ingredients, including Kurrajong Kitchen Oaklees original crackers, Yaru still mineral water and Seven Season Green Ant gin, on our shelves.”

    Recently, The Coles Nurture Fund awarded Indigenous-owned family business Walaja Raw Bush Honey a grant of A$330,000 (about USD 208,470) to create a new, medicinal grade, premium Melaleuca honey that is sustainably made in the West Kimberley region on Yawuru Country (Country is a term used by Indigenous Australians to describe the lands, waterways and seas to which they are connected through ancestral ties and family origins).

    Although the demand is growing, supply is limited because much of the native Indigenous produce is currently wild-harvested.

    “Native foods have never been cultivated to be mass produced. They grow now as they’ve grown since the beginning of their time, culturally and sustainably. It’s best left like that,” says Choolburra, who is the Aboriginal Programs Coordinator at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney.

    As Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Joe Morrison says, “Bush foods (food native to Australia and historically eaten by Indigenous Australians) are a fundamental part of Indigenous identity and our traditions that span thousands of years of connection to Country.”

    But climate change presents a growing challenge with extreme weather conditions, including frequent storms, soil erosion, salinity in fresh water and ocean acidification threatening the ecosystems supporting native flora and fauna.

    Choolburra says, “We (Indigenous Australians) are adapting our sustainability practices to meet the challenges of climate change, which is impacting everything in various ways. For example, many areas now facilitate cultural burns (Indigenous fire practice) in order to manage land and provide nutrients. In many cases, the production or harvesting of native foods is left to local communities in order to sustain the amount of quality produce.”

    She occasionally leads the Aboriginal Bush Tucker Tour, which provides visitors from across the world an opportunity to learn about the traditional knowledge and cultural significance of native Indigenous flora and its many innovative uses.

    On a cool, wet Sydney day, as we walk along the rich foliage in the Botanic Gardens, she plucks the long, flat green leaf from the native Lomandra plant, a vital source of food and survival and referred to as the ‘corner shop’ in some Indigenous Australians’ cultures and shows us how it can be woven to make baskets.

    Pointing at the Dianella bush, she relates the old practice when children were told to hide in it – if they got lost. The Dianella’s sharp-edged leaves would repel snakes, and the children could attract attention by blowing in the hollow base of the leaf to make a whistling sound. The edible blue-purple berries, with tiny, nutty seeds from some of the Dianella species, are rich in vitamin C.

    However, she warns that like anything consumed in large quantities, some of the popular nutritious plants, such as warrigal greens, used as a substitute for common spinach, and the sandpaper fig could cause diarrhoea or vomiting if eaten too much.

    As the native Indigenous food industry grows, experts say, there is a need to enhance Indigenous communities’ participation to ensure they reap the benefits. “Australia needs to brand and market native Indigenous foods as its authentic cuisine. This will foster cultural knowledge about our Indigenous heritage and biodiversity,” Sultanbawa tells IPS.

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  • Wanted: A New Local Oversight Structure to Achieve SDGS, Climate Action & Biodiversity Preservation

    Wanted: A New Local Oversight Structure to Achieve SDGS, Climate Action & Biodiversity Preservation

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    Credit: United Nations
    • Opinion by Simone Galimberti (kathmandu, nepal)
    • Inter Press Service

    KATHMANDU, Nepal, Sep 29 (IPS) – The links between Agenda 2030 and SDGs, including climate action and biodiversity preservation are clear and straightforward. Yet, leveraging them, and bringing them to together in a unified framework, remains extremely challenging.

    The only way possible to create synergies would be to rethink the way governments are accountable towards these issues at national and local levels. After all, there are two whole SDGs, SDG 13 and SDG 15, respectively focus on climate and biodiversity preservation.

    On the top of these two goals, there are plenty of additional elements, within Agenda 2030, that have a direct, impact in the double-edged fight against climate change and biodiversity loss.

    Unfortunately, despite these profound connections and interdependences, climate action and biodiversity preservation have been discussed and dealt with through staggering separate and disjointed processes.

    Proving this disconnection, hardly any news reports are covering the underlying interconnections that are indispensable to achieve a sustainable, just and fair planet. This is indeed, an overarching goal only possible if a new novel, holistic framework of action comes in place.

    In an attempt to a common response to this siloes like system, UN DESA and UNFCCC, convened in May this year, a technical group of experts, focused at “analyzing climate and SDG Synergies and aiming to maximize action impact”.

    During the recently held SDG Summit 2023, these experts released their first report entitled Synergy Solutions for a World in Crisis: Tackling Climate and SDG Action Together. As evident from its official title, the remit of this group neglected biodiversity.

    Despite this weakness, the document is an important contribution to what I call the “Better Sustainability and Better World Global Agenda”. With this term, I imply the need to come up with a truly comprehensive blueprint that can turn around the global, UN led mechanisms intended to deliver a fairer, more just agenda for our planet.

    The insights found in the document are not only important in terms of analyzing the “win-win” policies and related benefits from pursuing better joint policies.

    Green infrastructures that follow the latest technological breakthrough in their design and construction modalities, sustainable consumption practices, including new approaches in the agriculture, all offer potent solutions to reduce emissions and preserve the environment.

    Furthermore, the report explains how “the co-benefits related to health and agricultural productivity were found to globally offset the costs of climate policy and contribute to increased global GDP”.

    As much as new evidence on the correlations of between the SDGs and climate action is essential, yet, the more fascinating aspect of the report is the focus on what are defined as the “political and institutional barriers and governance and institutional settings”.

    An honest and frank assessment of the systems governing the implementation of Agenda 2030, the Paris Agreement and the Kunming- Montreal Biodiversity Framework, provide a frank assessment of the existing segmentation.

    Climate change, with the legally binding framework approved in Paris commands, by vast margin, the highest level of attention and are perceived as the most important issue. Instead, much less is known or discussed about both the SDGs and the new biodiversity framework approved, thanks to the co-stewardship of China and Canada.

    Among the three processes, no matter how much emphasis on the recently held SDG Summit, Agenda 2030 is where inaction and carelessness from the global leaders is most visible. The reason is simple: Agenda 2030 is not intergovernmental and therefore not legally binding.

    Its enforcement mechanism, the so called Voluntary National Review, as it is self-evident from the name itself, remains purely up to the member states for its implementation. In an overly complex and fragmented landscape, it is unsurprising to know that bureaucrats and policy makers, especially in the developing world, do struggle in both planning and reporting because they have to deal with different and unrelated toolkits and frameworks.

    The climate agenda is itself complex with multiple areas of work within the broad Paris Agreement. Governments have to prepare not only the so called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) in relation to the mitigation aspect of climate action but also separate planning and reporting for its adaptation dimension.

    On the latter, states should, at least in theory, prepare National Adaptation Plan or NAP, geared for longer terms and National Adaptation Programme of Action or NAPA. Planning and reporting, as a consequence, is truly, a daunting job for national governments and for an utterly unprepared and unequipped global governance system.

    The experts’ report could not be clearer.

    “Complex governance arrangements and institutional structural rigidity can impede synergistic action and integration due to factors like overlapping authority, lack of mandate, department-specific jargon, unequal access to information, and lack”, the document explains.

    The reality is that Agenda 2030, due to its weak legal dimension and its equally weak accountability mechanisms, is falling short of the expectations. It is doing so, especially in relation to its incapacity to include and bring together all the existing mechanisms and processes related to fights against poverty, climate and biodiversity.

    Unfortunately, the ambitious agenda to reform the multilateral system, put forward by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is not ambitious enough. There is no joint or combined planning, neither globally nor locally, to achieve a real a new Global Deal for the future of our planet.

    Indeed, at ground level, local governance mechanisms are, structurally unable of bringing coherence and unity among the three dimensions. Yet it is at local levels where we should place our best hopes to create a truly “anti-silos” system approach that unifies the three agendas.

    Because of the way they have been designed and implemented so far, the Voluntary Local Reviews or VLRs, should be entirely repurposed. We are talking about the tools at the hands of local governments to monitor the implementation of the SDGs.

    They should not only be strengthened in terms of accountability but should become real planning instruments able to engage and involve the people. The creation of the expert working group on the synergies between climate action and the SDGs was possible thanks to a number of reports generated from a series of UN convened conferences, focused on climate change and SDGs.

    The latest of these global events, formally the 4th Global Conference on strengthening synergies between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” was held on the July 16 this year. This series of events and the insights they generated, also backed, though vaguely and in general terms, the importance of revisiting the institutional mechanisms.

    At very practical level, what could be done?

    To start with, in terms of higher accountability standards, the UN Country Systems should be further empowered. The experts’ report calls for leveraging system wide changes and fostering policy integration.

    Among its recommendations there is “promote institutional capacity building and cross-sectoral and international collaboration at national, institutional, and individual levels, especially for the Global South”.

    Moreover, the document highlights the importance of “ensuring policy coherence and coordination among policy makers across sectors and departments for enhancing climate and development synergies at the national, sub-national, and multi-national levels”.

    Here few ideas on how these principles could be put into practice.

    In what could become an almost revolutionary evolution of the ways the UN works at local levels, the offices of the countries level UN Resident Coordinators should be transformed into watchdogs able to independently evaluate the work done by the governments

    While the UN agencies and programs, at national levels, are mandated to support the governments to implement their international commitments for a fairer, greener and more just planet, the UN Resident Coordinators should embrace the role of impartial and independent evaluator.

    Alternatively, these offices should become the guarantors of independently UN managed but country owned local mechanisms tasked with verifying and checking on the compliance of the governments.

    This could be either a permeant mechanism of a new global accountability system put in place at local level to ensure the common good or, otherwise, a temporary one.

    In the latter option, we could imagine a transitionary only solution that would remain in place till when national authorities would become capable of developing and running independent, fit for purpose, compliance instruments on the three issues of the SDGs, climate and biodiversity.

    In either way, an equal number of international and local independent experts, under the leadership of an authoritative local national, a person of undisputed integrity, symbolically responding to the UN Resident Coordinator, would make up the mechanism with the support of local staff.

    Only bold solutions will help achieve the “Better Sustainability and Better World Global Agenda”. Starting from the bottom, rethinking how UN works to ensure governments fulfill their responsibilities locally, could offer the best odds for success.

    States must admit and accept that, in order to fight inequality and poverty while reducing and slowing climate change and biodiversity degradation, they need to work under enhanced scrutiny and within a much more tighter accountability system.

    This new proposed approach, while very ambitious and radical, is not impossible to be negotiated and put in place.

    We just need, imagination and tons of political will!

    The Writer, co-Founder of ENGAGE and The Good Leadership, is based in Kathmandu.

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  • Nature Doesnt Know Borders: Collaboration for Conservation in Cyprus

    Nature Doesnt Know Borders: Collaboration for Conservation in Cyprus

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    During UN-organized beach and buffer zone clean-ups, though, youth from both the north and south of Cyprus work side-by-side with peacekeepers. Credit: UNFICYP
    • by Abigail Van Neely (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Sep 27 (IPS) – Along the 180-kilometer-long buffer zone separating the north and south of Cyprus, there is a surprising sign of unity: recycled ammunition boxes no longer hold bullets. They are home to baby birds.

    Over the past five years, United Nations police have collaborated with local authorities to place 100 boxes throughout the uninhabited border area. An alternative to harmful pesticides, the man-made nests attract barn owls who prey on rodents. By supporting these kinds of projects, United Nations peacekeepers in Cyprus are helping to facilitate conservation efforts that impact communities on both sides of the island’s divide.

    The UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus (UNFICYP) is one of the world’s oldest active missions. Following violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the 1960s, Cyprus was split in 1974 into a northern third run by a Turkish Cypriot government and a southern two-thirds run by an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government. UN forces monitor the dividing militarized buffer zone.

    UNFICYP peacekeepers have a double mission, environmental conservation and ensuring peace between north and south Cyprus. Credit: UNFICYP
    UNFICYP peacekeepers have a double mission, environmental conservation, and ensuring peace between north and south Cyprus. Credit: UNFICYP

    Fresh Tensions Persist

    In August, UN peacekeepers were seriously injured by Turkish Cypriot security forces during a controversy over unauthorized construction work in an UN-controlled area, Reuters reports. According to the BBC, reunification talks remain slow.

    Still, peacekeepers are trying to bring the two communities together through a shared interest in protecting the environment.

    A small Mediterranean island, Cyprus is an important breeding, nesting, and foraging area for many animals. While activists say sensitivity to the importance of sustainability has increased, climate change is a greater threat than ever throughout Cyprus. Development from wealthy investors has fragmented habitats and led to the loss of natural areas.

    Tourism has exacerbated water scarcity. Record high temperatures have aggravated social inequities for people who cannot afford air conditioning. Wildfires across the island have threatened to trigger minefields in the buffer zone. When everyone breathes the same air, air pollution is everyone’s problem.

    “Environment doesn’t really know boundaries or borders and different nationalities,” Cyprus advocate Meryem Ozkan says. “But how we are acting, protecting, and preserving everywhere all around the island is affecting us all living on it.”

    UNFICYP Senior Police Advisor Satu Koivu strives to practice environmentally responsive policing in line with UN environmental management mandates. Patrols of the buffer zone have reduced illegal waste dumping and helped curb the long tradition of bird poaching along the island’s famous bird migration routes.

    Meanwhile, mission-level initiatives include installing solar panels, driving hybrid vehicles, and using reusable water bottles.

    Ultimately, Koivu says supporting local people is her priority. Partnerships with local authorities, civil society organizations, and community members are essential. Communication and outreach are critical tools, especially for bringing people together.

    Many kids would cringe at the thought of enduring an hour-long bus ride on a hot summer day just to spend hours collecting trash. During UN-organized beach and buffer zone clean-ups, though, youth from both the North and South of Cyprus learn to appreciate the importance of their conservation efforts while working side by side with uniformed peacekeepers. The explicit goal is to discuss environmental solutions. Peacebuilding is a happy bonus.

    Ozkan, the current operations manager for the North Cyprus Society for the Protection of Turtles (SPOT), collaborated with the UN on a couple of beach clean-ups. SPOT’s sea turtle conservation project centers aim to raise awareness through firsthand experiences. “If people don’t love what you love and feel the need to protect, they will not want to put the effort in,” Ozkan said.

    Ozkan sees the UN’s open community events as important platforms for NGOs from both sides to communicate on equal footing without misunderstanding. Ozkan says engagement between organizations in the north and south has become more common in the last decade. Recently, SPOT partnered with NGOs around Cyprus to collect data about when sea turtles are trapped in fishing nets and engage fishermen through outreach activities.

    UNFICYP Senior Police Advisor Satu Koivu strives to practice environmentally responsive policing in line with UN environmental management mandates. Here is admires a young barn owl; the population has been introduced into the buffer zone between north and south Cyprus. Credit: UNFICYP
    UNFICYP Senior Police Advisor Satu Koivu strives to practice environmentally responsive policing in line with UN environmental management mandates. Here is admires a young barn owl; the population has been introduced into the buffer zone between north and south Cyprus. Credit: UNFICYP

    Youth Activists for Climate Change

    Youth activists who helped coordinate Cyprus’ second Local Youth Conference on Climate Change say the UN has helped them connect with each other and a wider audience. At one UN event, their team presented a draft policy proposal to install solar panels in the buffer zone to Cyprus government officials. They welcome not only the voices of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots but the perspectives of other minority and migrant communities as well.

    “There is a huge need for environmental action across the aisle at the moment,” Victoras Pallikaras, a former UNFICYP Champion for Environmental Peace, stressed. Different governmental regulations on either side of the island can make coordination and compliance a challenge. While the south follows and receives support from the European Union’s environmental directives, Pallikaras notes, the north has different policies.

    “The UN is kind of a pressure for both communities to bring them back together,” Pallikaras said. Even if it’s imperfect, “the most important thing is that the UN is making a huge effort.”

    At first, Nicolaos “Nikos” Kassinis, one of the Cyprus Game and Fauna Service staff responsible for coordinating the barn owl nesting project, found it strange to be escorted by foreign UN officers in his own country. Over the past years, they’ve developed a “great trust.”

    “Without these people, it will be impossible to do work in the buffer zone,” he now says.

    “Wildlife doesn’t recognize fences and divides that are on the map,” the conservationist emphasizes. In the future, he would like to see the barn owl project expand to include the Turkish Cypriot side of the island — pesticide residue has been found in birds of prey that travel across Cyprus.

    Koivu hopes that her environmental work will help the public also associate police with positive initiatives.

    “As an individual, I cannot change the world. But I can start the ball rolling, and then together, we can make this difference and impact. So, I try to be positive,” she says. Less serious, her crisp blue uniform crinkles with her grin when she emphatically talks about the magic of seeing a new owlet.

    “They are so cute, these babies!”

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  • Massachusetts to ban purchase of single-use plastic bottles by state agencies

    Massachusetts to ban purchase of single-use plastic bottles by state agencies

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    Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order Thursday that she says will make Massachusetts the first state to ban the purchase of single-use plastic bottles by state agencies

    ByThe Associated Press

    September 21, 2023, 3:11 PM

    FILE – Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey delivers her inaugural address in the House Chamber at the Statehouse moments after being sworn into office during inauguration ceremonies on Jan. 5, 2023, in Boston. Healey signed an executive order Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023, that she says will make Massachusetts the first state to ban the purchase of single-use plastic bottles by state agencies. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

    The Associated Press

    BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order Thursday that she says will make Massachusetts the first state to ban the purchase of single-use plastic bottles by state agencies.

    Massachusetts buys about 100,000 of the plastic water bottles each year.

    The order bars all executive offices and agencies in Massachusetts from purchasing any single-use plastic bottles under 21 fluid ounces except in cases of emergency. Healey, a Democrat, said the executive order takes effect immediately.

    Healey also signed a second executive order that she said will set state biodiversity conservation goals for 2030, 2040, and 2050 — and develop strategies to meet those targets. She said protections will be among the first to extend to coastal and marine habitats.

    “Massachusetts has a long history of being first in the nation, and we’re proud to be the first to set long-term targets for biodiversity and to ban state agencies from purchasing single-use plastic bottles,” Healey said Thursday.

    She said the state will be looking at strategies such as “marine protected areas” to help make sure that coastal and ocean habitats critical to biodiversity can recover and thrive while also ensuring the state helps maintains a climate-resilient landscape for the future.

    Christy Leavitt, campaign director at the conservation group Oceana, said other states and the federal government should follow the state’s lead.

    “Single-use plastics are polluting our oceans, devastating ecosystems, and harming our climate. The only solution is to stop the problem at its source by reducing the amount of plastic companies produce and use,” Leavitt said in a written statement.

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  • Dangerous Scramble for Renewable Energy Resources

    Dangerous Scramble for Renewable Energy Resources

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    • Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
    • Inter Press Service

    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 20 (IPS) – The growing and changing material requirements for new technologies have triggered natural resource scrambles for strategic minerals, generating dangerous rivalries fought out in the global South.

    Scrambles for resources
    Jayati Ghosh, Shouvik Chakraborty and Debamanyu Das have analyzed these new scrambles for mineral resources in developing countries triggered by major new innovations since the electronics boom.

    Jomo Kwame SundaramNatural resources here refer to naturally occurring solid, liquid or gaseous materials in or on the Earth’s crust. When extracted and exported commercially, they are considered primary commodities.

    All technologies – both peaceful and military – have specific material requirements. For example, energy transitions need particular minerals for renewable energy generation, transmission and storage.

    New technologies, with specific material requirements, are changing the nature of rivalries – among states, corporations and individuals – seeking to control these mineral resources.

    Feasible mass use of renewable energy requires extracting needed natural resources, which incurs costs and has adverse consequences. Commercial feasibility implies profitable extraction of desired minerals.

    Thus, addressing global warming by generating more energy from renewable sources – while desirable and necessary – in turn generates new problems and challenges which need to be addressed.

    Rare earths
    Despite their name, rare earth elements (REE) may not actually be scarce. But most REE are difficult and costly to extract as they are usually found together with other minerals. Unsurprisingly, REE demand and supplies have changed greatly in recent years.

    For the time being, demand for at least 17 ‘rare earth’ minerals is expected to grow. The inter-governmental International Energy Agency (IEA) projects supplies of some critical minerals will increase at least 30-fold over the next two decades.

    Extracting lithium and other such minerals also has very problematic environmental implications. Mined all over the world, REE are usually processed and separated by several stages of often complex and costly extraction and chemical processing, with many harmful to the environment.

    China currently leads the world in rare earth production, with over a third of the world’s known REE reserves. While Chinese companies dominate some supplies, China’s rare earth imports currently exceed its exports.

    Nevertheless, China dominates ‘downstream’ processing of REEs. Chinese companies control over 85 per cent of the costly REE processing processes. Unsurprisingly, China also accounts for over 70% of the world’s photovoltaic solar panel production and over 90% of its silicon wafer manufacturing.

    Lithium
    Lithium is one of the minerals over which control has been hotly contested. Lithium is particularly needed for processes to replace mechanical energy generation using fossil fuels. It is also needed for many industrial, office and household appliances, including rechargeable batteries, electric vehicles and electronic goods.

    Batteries – including rechargeable lithium-ion electrical grid storage devices – account for three-quarters of current supply. The IEA’s Sustainable Development Scenario expects demand to rise 42-fold in less than two decades!

    In 2021, there were almost 89 million tons of known lithium resources, mainly in developing countries. For decades, lithium mining has been very controversial, largely due to increasingly better known adverse environmental impacts.

    As pure lithium is very chemically reactive, it is often mined as ore, as in West Australia. It is also obtained from salt flats and brine pools in the southern cone of South America, particularly in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina.

    For decades, China has led the world in lithium mining. Australia and the US were second and third by the start of the pandemic, with 12% and 9% respectively. While Australia is the world’s largest exporter, lithium is mainly and increasingly mined in developing countries by a relatively few companies.

    Undermining communities
    REE mining has adversely impacted various ecosystems and communities. Mineral deposits may have to be raised from subterranean sources, or ‘concentrated’ by evaporation.

    Such techniques typically deplete, contaminate and otherwise reduce access to fresh water. Local water systems – used by people, animals, including livestock, and plants, including crops – are often badly compromised as a consequence.

    Extractive mining and related operations have worsened such environments. But mining companies can often get their way with impunity, often intimidating communities with the help of local politicians, government officials and police.

    Such ecological damage has devastated forest and vegetation cover, caused biodiversity loss, and compromised hydrological systems. Thus, extractive operations often involve abuses, with adverse effects for local communities.

    Economic gains to local communities are typically modest compared to mining’s adverse consequences. Benefits largely accrue to local ‘enablers’ while costs vary within communities with circumstances.

    The authors also urge majority government ownership of mineral extracting and processing companies. This will reduce foreign reliance and meddling, including by big powers such as the United States and China.

    Government transparency and accountability, including independent audits, can help ensure less adverse consequences and fairer compensation for all involved.

    This also prevents elite capture, abuse and deployment of mineral rents in their own interest. Avoiding such abuses is necessary to ensure resource rents actually advance sustainable development, as Bolivia is striving to do.

    Sustainability undermined?
    New frontiers for mineral extraction are emerging, especially as innovation creates new extraction and processing possibilities. This implies a vicious circle as global warming becomes both cause and effect of such mineral extraction.

    Mining practices threaten ecological fragility and vulnerability. Similarly, polar and seabed exploration and mining may well trigger disastrous environmental consequences, including mass extinctions of vulnerable polar and marine life.

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  • Diversify American Cropping and Food Systems

    Diversify American Cropping and Food Systems

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    The time is ripe to transform American agriculture from monoculture heavy farming and food systems to diversified cropping and food systems with a variety of crops including specialty crops. Credit: Bigstock.
    • Opinion by Esther Ngumbi (urbana, illinois, usa)
    • Inter Press Service

    URBANA, Illinois, USA, Sep 08 (IPS) – A few weeks ago, my husband and I drove from Illinois to Iowa to visit a friend. I was excited about my over 5 hours’ drive. Sadly, 60 minutes into the drive, my excitement fiddled out. I was bored.  Field after field, as far as my eyes could see, all I saw was either corn or soybean. I also noticed that the field margins were empty-with no sight of wildflowers.

    Unfortunately, growing singular crop species, also known as monocropping, in which, all plants are genetically similar or identical over vast acres of land, is prevalent across the U.S. Midwest and North America because of current problematic policies that incentivizes the overproduction of crops such as corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat.

    In 2023, for example, over 90 million of acres of corn and 82 million acres of soybean are being grown, accounting for almost over 70% of the planted farmland in the United States according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

    Not only has this system resulted into the overproduction of a few crop species, it has also resulted in a biodiversity loss including a reduction in insect diversity.

    In addition, monoculture cropping systems have led to increases of many unsustainable and environmental damaging practices by farmers including the use of pesticides and fertilizers. Furthermore, monocropping contributes to pollinators death and reduces the biodiversity of soil dwelling microorganisms, including beneficial soil microbes that underpin soil and crop health while harming the U.S. waterways. Undoubtedly, the current monocropping agricultural system prevalent in North America is unsustainable.

    The time is ripe to diversify U.S. Midwest farms and farms across America. Diversified agriculture and farming systems are a set of methods and tools developed to produce food sustainably by leveraging ecological diversity at plot, field and landscape scales.

    There are several strategies including incorporating diverse crop rotations, intercropping, cover cropping, and agroforestry.

    Indeed, the time is ripe to transform American agriculture from monoculture heavy farming and food systems to diversified cropping and food systems with a variety of crops including specialty crops. The time is ripe to consider planting pollinator strips and filling the field margins with wildflowers. There are many benefits that can emerge if American agriculture were to diversify.

    First, there is long-term evidence that shows that diversifying crop systems can increase agricultural resilience to the extremities and disturbances that come along with a changing climate including drought, heat waves, insect pest outbreaks and flooding.

    Second, diversified cropping systems can improve soil fertility and soil health, lower pressure of pests and weeds.

    Third, diversified agroecosystems will also become home to biologically diversified species including insect species that predate on insect pests. This will ultimately become a strategy to reduce the usage of harmful pesticides and support sustainable insect control.

    Indeed, recent scientific evidence reaffirms that diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services including pollination, pest control and water regulation without compromising yields.

    There is glimmer of hope that a wave of change is beginning.

    Several agencies, including Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), the US Forest Service, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, are promoting different crop diversification strategies and highlighting the benefits that come with cropping systems diversification.

    According to SARE, for example, diversifying cropping systems can lead to many benefits including spreading farmers economic risks, exploiting profitable niche markets and creating new industries based on agriculture that can make communities competitive while strengthening and enhancing quality of life, and ultimately, aid the domestic economy.

    It is encouraging that research funding agencies such as the United States Department of Agriculture are funding research aiming to diversify cropping systems in the Midwest and across America. Purdue University, for example, was awarded a $10 million grant to diversify the Corn Belt.  Corteva recently posted a call for proposals that propose novel solutions to enable intercropping practices for agricultural intensification.

    Complementing funding is the beginning of curation of datasets and comprehensive meta-analysis studies documenting outcomes of diversified farming practices including for biodiversity, yields, and economic returns.

    These datasets that also showcase diversification as a pathway to more sustainable agricultural production serve as a resource for researchers, farmers, and practitioners since they pinpoint where diversified systems have effectively contributed to sustainable food production outcomes without compromising the economic returns.

    Of course, to facilitate the shift in paradigm from monocropping to diversified cropping systems, we must confront the barriers to cropping system diversification  including lack of equipment to facilitate farming of other crops and  lack of a niche market for alternative crops.

    At the root of this wave of change is the need to change the agricultural policies to promote diversified farming. Removing commodity crop subsides and reallocating the money to farms that practice diversified farming is one strategy that can accomplish this.

    Changing these systems will take everyone including farmers, legislators, scientists, and advocates.

    Diversifying America’s cropping and food systems is critical to meeting American food security needs and strengthening it in the face of climate change. Diversifying American agriculture will also help in keeping America as a model country to be emulated. It is a win-win for everyone.

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  • Toothless Global Financial Architecture Fuelling Africas Climate Crisis

    Toothless Global Financial Architecture Fuelling Africas Climate Crisis

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    This goat died of starvation while surrounded by an inedible invasive plant. Lives hang in the balance as Kenya’s dryland is ravaged by a severe prolonged drought. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Sep 05 (IPS) – Africa needs approximately USD 579.2 billion in adaptation finance over the period 2020 to 2030, and yet the current adaptation flows are five to 10 times below estimated needs.  As thousands convene in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, for the Africa Climate Summit, the first time the African Union has summoned its leaders to solely discuss climate change under the theme ‘Driving Green Growth and Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and the World’, the backdrop is a country on the frontlines of a climate crisis.

    The severe, sharp effects of climate change are piercing the very heart of an economy propped up by rainfed agriculture and tourism – sectors highly susceptible to climate change. After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, more than 6.4 million people in Kenya, among them 602,000 refugees, need humanitarian assistance – representing a 35 per cent increase from 2022.

    It is the highest number of people in need of aid in more than ten years, says Ann Rose Achieng, a Nairobi-based climate activist. She tells IPS that Kenya is hurtling full speed towards a national disaster in food security as “at least 677,900 children and 138,800 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid regions alone are facing acute malnutrition. Nearly 70 per cent of our wildlife was lost in the last 30 years.”

    Despite Kenya contributing less than 0.1 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions per year, the country’s pursuit of a low carbon and resilient green development pathway produced a most ambitious Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to cut greenhouse gasses by 32 per cent by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement.

    But as is the case across Africa, there are no funds to actualise these lofty ambitions. Africa needs approximately USD 579.2 billion in adaptation finance over the period 2020 to 2030, and yet the current adaptation flows to the continent are five to ten times below estimated needs. Globally, the estimated gap for adaptation in developing countries is expected to rise to USD 340 billion per year by 2030 and up to USD 565 billion by 2050, while the mitigation gap is at USD 850 billion per year by 2030.

    After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, food insecurity is expected to escalate as maize crop has failed to flourish due to erratic weather patterns. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    After five consecutive failed rainy seasons, food insecurity is expected to escalate as maize crop has failed to flourish due to erratic weather patterns. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    As dams and rivers dry up, Kenya will continue to be on the frontlines of a climate crisis unless climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts are escalated. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    As dams and rivers dry up, Kenya will continue to be on the frontlines of a climate crisis unless climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts are escalated. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

    Frederick Kwame Kumah, Vice President of Global Leadership African Wildlife Foundation, tells IPS a big part of the problem is Africa’s burgeoning gross public debt which increased from 36 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 71.4 per cent of GDP between 2010 and 2020 – a drag on its development progress and a disincentive for climate finance flows.

    “There is a concern that climate finance, if and when provided, will be used to first service Africa’s debt burden. The first step to addressing Africa’s Climate Finance must be action towards debt relief for Africa. Freeing up debt servicing arrangements will release resources for continued development and climate finance purposes,” Kumah explains.

    He says there is an urgent need to challenge the existing unfair paradigm for financing by developing countries. It is very expensive for developing countries to borrow for development purposes. Africa must then leverage its natural capital towards seeking innovative financing mechanisms such as green bonds and carbon credits to address its development and climate change challenges.

    Nearly half, 23 out of 47 counties in Kenya, are classified as arid and semi-arid. Livelihoods are at risk as pastoralists are unable to cope with drastic weather changes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    Nearly half, 23 out of 47 counties in Kenya, are classified as arid and semi-arid. Livelihoods are at risk as pastoralists are unable to cope with drastic weather changes. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    This waterfall is on the verge of drying up. Kenya's economy is heavily dependent on tourism and agriculture. The two sectors are highly susceptible to climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    This waterfall is on the verge of drying up. Kenya’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism and agriculture. The two sectors are highly susceptible to climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

    “Climate finance was, as expected, a key part of COP27. It is a grave concern for Africa that developed countries’ commitment to provide $100 billion annually has yet to be met, even though the need for finance is becoming increasingly obvious. In COP27, we noted that new climate finance pledges were more limited than expected. Countries such as those in Africa are still waiting for previous pledges to be fulfilled,” says Luther Bois Anukur, Regional Director, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).

    Meanwhile, Anukur tells IPS negotiations on important agenda items, most notably the new finance target for 2025, stalled. In COP27, Parties concentrated on procedural issues – deferring important decisions about the amount, timeframe, sources, and accountability mechanisms that may be relevant to a new finance goal in the future. African countries and many other vulnerable countries are in the fight for our lives, and sadly they are losing.

    Anukur stresses that Africa’s natural resources are depleted, eroded, and biodiversity lost due to extreme effects of climate change leading to loss of lives and ecosystem services and damage to infrastructure at an alarming rate. Yet climate finance pledges have not materialised. The Africa Climate Summit should be the platform for Africa and developing partners to address existing finance gaps with clear programmatic and project approaches.

    Africa must use the Summit to assess and prepare their position for the COP28 in the United Arab Emirates towards strengthening partnerships for the delivery of desired climate finance. Kumah adds that the principle of equal but differentiated responsibilities of nations must be adhered to for climate justice and to enable developing countries, who are least responsible for the effects of climate, to have much-needed resources to cope and adapt to biodiversity loss and climate change.

    “In that respect, the creation of a dedicated funding mechanism to address loss and damage and another for adaptation and mitigation to redress historical and continued inequities in contributions towards biodiversity loss and climate change. We must rethink how private investments can be reshaped and harnessed for the benefit of biodiversity and climate action,” Kumah expounds.

    “Private investments can be scaled through green bonds, carbon markets, sustainable agricultural, forestry and other productive sector supply chains.  Transformative financing architecture is necessary at the domestic and international levels to bring the private and public sectors together to secure the critical backbone of Africa’s natural infrastructure.”

    Climate finance gap. Graphic: Joyce Chimbi & Cecilia Russell
    Climate finance gap. Graphic: Joyce Chimbi & Cecilia Russell

    While developing countries submitted revised and ambitious National Adaptation Plans and NDCs as requested, Anukur says complicated processes to access financing for their climate actions persist. Stressing the need for reforming the international financial architecture, starting with multilateral development banks.

    “The 2023 Summit for New Global Financing Pact held in Paris committed to a coalition of 16 philanthropic organizations to mobilize investment and support UN’s SDG priorities by unlocking new investment for climate action in low- and middle-income countries while reducing poverty and inequality,” Anukur observes.

    Civil society organizations and activists such as Achieng have expressed concerns that such announcements are insufficient considering the scale of the challenges facing planet Earth. The Summit will have failed if the global financial architecture is not overhauled in line with the needs of the African continent, she says.

    Anukur says the Summit must therefore propel Africa to new heights of climate financing to help reduce Africa’s vulnerability to climate change and increase its resilience and adaptive capacity in line with the Global Goal on Adaptation. Ultimately expressing optimism that the opportunity to unlock the potential of climate financing – breaking the shackles of debt and building a climate-resilient and prosperous Africa is, at last, in sight.

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  • Invasive Species, a Fast-Riding Horsemen Galloping the Biodiversity Apocalypse

    Invasive Species, a Fast-Riding Horsemen Galloping the Biodiversity Apocalypse

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    Wild boar female (Susscrofa) walking on mud beside a river with her piglets. The wild boar is an invasive Alien Species in countries such as South Africa, Vanuatu, and Uruguay. Credit: Budimir Jevtic/Shutterstock
    • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo and bonn)
    • Inter Press Service

    BULAWAYO AND BONN, Sep 04 (IPS) – Mango farmer Eufria Nyadome used to earn USD 60 from selling a 20-litre bucket of fresh mangoes and now can barely make USD 20 even though her mango trees are giving a good yield. She is throwing away buckets of rotten mangoes.

    Nyadome, from Mhondiwa Village in Ward 9 Murehwa District of Zimbabwe, has lost her income to an invasive Oriental fruit fly all the way from Asia. The fruit fly is classified as an invasive alien species, flagged by scientists as one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss around the world.  Invasive alien species could be plants, animals or microorganisms that are introduced intentionally or unintentionally into areas where they are not native.

    The Oriental fruit fly is one of the 3,500 harmful invasive alien species that a new report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) finds are seriously threatening nature, nature’s contributions to people and good quality of life.

    Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control
    Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control.

    According to the Assessment Report on Invasive Alien Species and their Control launched by IPBES this week, more than 37,000 alien species have been introduced by many human activities to regions and biomes around the world. The report finds that the global economic cost of invasive alien species exceeded USD 423 billion annually in 2019, with costs having at least quadrupled every decade since 1970.

    From the European shore crab (Carcinus maenas), Lantana (Lantana camera), the Fall Army Worm, (Spodoptera frugiperda), Nile Perch (Lates niloticus) to the water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes), alien species invasive species have changed and destroyed global biodiversity and ecosystems, causing harm to global economies, human health and wellbeing as well as impacting on food and nutrition security.

    Scientists say the conservative estimate of global economic costs is now rising at unprecedented rates.

    “Invasive alien species are a major threat to biodiversity and can cause irreversible damage to nature, including local and global species extinctions, and also threaten human wellbeing,” said Helen Roy, co-chair of the assessment report.

    In 2019, the IPBES Global Assessment Report found that invasive alien species are one of the five most important direct drivers of biodiversity loss – alongside changes in land- and sea use, direct exploitation of species, climate change and pollution.

    Aliens Are Coming

    The report warned of increasing invasive alien species worldwide on the back of a growing global economy, intensified and expanded land- and sea-use change combined with demographic changes.

    Even without the introduction of new alien species, already established alien species will continue to expand their ranges and spread to new countries and regions, the report said, noting that climate change will make the situation even worse.

    “What we demonstrated in this assessment is that the number of alien species is increasing by a huge margin where 200 invasive alien species a year get into an ecosystem; if nothing is done, these numbers are going to increase dramatically and impact food security and human health,” Sebataolu Rahlao, a Coordinating Lead Author of the report, told IPS in an interview.

    Boat crossing a river with water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes). This is an Invasive Alien Species in countries such as Egypt, Kenya, South Korea, and Mexico. Credit: CANVA
    Boat crossing a river with water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes). This is an Invasive Alien Species in countries such as Egypt, Kenya, South Korea, and Mexico. Credit: CANVA

    “We are also saying there are interactions with global changes, including climate change, pollution which all increase the likelihood of invasive alien species increasing in particular areas, for example, climate change has provided opportunities for invasive alien species to thrive like the river red gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh) trees in South Africa have increased because their suitable habitat has increased due to climate change.”

    While the IPBES experts confirm that there are insufficient measures to tackle these challenges of invasive alien species, with only 17 percent of countries with national laws or regulations specifically addressing invasive alien species, effective management and more integrated approaches were available solutions.

    An invasive Oriental fruit fly on an unripe mango. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS
    An invasive Oriental fruit fly on an unripe mango. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

    “The good news is that, for almost every context and situation, there are management tools, governance options and targeted actions that really work,” co-chair of the Assessment chair Anibal Pauchard said, noting that prevention was the best and most cost-effective option in addition to eradication, containment, and control of invasive alien species.

    Commenting on the report, Inger Andersen, Executive Director United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said humanity has been moving species around the world for centuries, but when imported species run rampant and unbalance local ecosystems, indigenous biodiversity suffers.

    “As a result, invasive species have become one of the five horsemen of the biodiversity apocalypse that is riding down harder and faster upon the world,” Andersen said in a statement, adding that, “While the other four horsemen – changing land- and sea use, over-exploitation, climate change and pollution – are relatively well understood, knowledge gaps remain around invasive species.

    Impacts on society of alien species. Credit: IPBES
    Impacts on society of alien species. Credit: IPBES

    Fighting the aliens

    In Zimbabwe, farmers have taken the fight to the alien invasive species.

    “We learnt about the fruit fly that was attacking our mangoes, and we were trained on how to control it from ruining our fruit,” said Nyadome, who is one of 1200 smallholder farmers in the Murehwa District who was trained in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices four years ago. IPM involves the use of various pest management practices which are friendly to humans, animals, and the environment.

    Local people in Chile fight forest fires where a mix of invasive alien species, including shrubs and trees, increase fire intensity and extent. Credit: Guillermo Roberto Salgado Sanchez

    The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), based in Nairobi, Kenya, together with various donor agencies and partners, developed an IPM package to manage the invasive fruit fly, which has been promoted under the Alien Invasive Fruit Fly project, a multi-stakeholder initiative under The Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund (CultiAF) by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

    ICIPE developed bio-based holistic solutions to address the fly problem in East and Southern Africa, such as the male-annihilation technique, which involves mass trapping the male fruit flies using attractants combined with insecticide and the use of “bait stations” — small plastic containers that hold food bait for fruit flies which has an insecticide that kills the flies.

    “There is a 100 percent loss in fruit yields when the fruit fly is not controlled, but we have seen that for those farmers who consistently used the IPM package, the fruit fly damage has been reduced, and farmers in most cases have had mango fruit yields of up to 70 percent,”  said Shepard Ndlela, an Entomologist with ICIPE and Project manager of the Invasive Fruit Fly project.

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  • Civil Society Organizations Unite to Urge Public Development Banks to Change the Way Development Is Done

    Civil Society Organizations Unite to Urge Public Development Banks to Change the Way Development Is Done

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    • Opinion by Bibbi Abruzzini (cartagena, colombia)
    • Inter Press Service

    CARTAGENA, Colombia, Sep 04 (IPS) – In the midst of a complex web of crises, spanning climate change, biodiversity depletion, constraints on civic space and mounting debt burdens, civil society organizations and human rights defenders from over 50 countries have united their voices to call for immediate and impactful action from Public Development Banks (PDBs).

    The global coalition’s message is clear: when it comes to financing for development, principles of rights, justice, sustainability, transparency, accountability and dignity for all cannot remain mere slogans. They must form the core of all projects undertaken by all Public Development Banks.

    The Finance in Common Summit has become a pivotal platform for Public Development Banks from around the world. The fact that this year’s summit is taking place in Cartagena, Colombia, the deadliest country in the world in 2022 for human rights, envrionmental and indigenous activists, development banks must acknowledge and integrate the protection of human rights into their projects.

    “Development banks are advocating to play an even bigger role in the global economy. But are they truly fit for this purpose? Unfortunately, the stories of communities around the world show us that development banks are failing to address the root causes of the very problems they claim to solve. We need to hold them accountable for this,” says Ivahanna Larrosa, Regional Coordinator for Latin America at the Coalition for Human Rights in Development.

    “When PDB projects cause harm to people and the environment, PDBs must remedy these harms. All PDBs should implement an effective accountability mechanism to address concerns with projects and should commit to preventing and fully remediating any harm to communities,” adds Stephanie Amoako, Senior Policy Associate at Accountability Counsel.

    The ongoing crises demand a transformation in the quality of financing and a power shift to include the voices of communities. The existing financial architecture not only impedes governments’ ability to safeguard both their citizens and the environment but also contributes to the escalating issue of chronic indebtedness. Policy-based lending and conditionalities enforced by International Financial Institutions have steered countries toward privatization of essential services, reduced social spending and preferential treatment for the private sector. This burdens the population with higher taxes, inflation, and weakened social safety nets.

    “The same multinational companies that have polluted and violated human rights in Latin America are now obtaining financing from development banks for energy transition projects. Another example is the development of the green hydrogen industry in Chile, which carries a very high environmental and social risk,” says Maia Seeger, director of the Chilean civil society organization Sustentarse.

    Addressing these issues requires a comprehensive and sustainable transformation of the financial architecture as well as holistic reforms and synergies with civil society and communities. Environmental and neo-colonial debts need to be a thing of the past and equitable reforms the thing of the present.

    Global civil society, in response to these challenges, demands bold and decisive actions in a collective declaration signed by over 100 organisations. The demands are the result of a 4-year process in which a coalition of civil society organisations has come together to call on all PDBs at the Finance in Common Summit to embrace tangible actions that genuinely prioritize and protect people.

    Just last month we have seen that change is possible when communities are involved, as the people of Ecuador voted to ban oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, the Yasuní National Park in the Amazon rainforest.

    “The global financial system needs not just a rethink but a surgical operation, and that requires bold action. Governments and institutions such as the Public Development Banks must cancel the debt of the countries that require it and put in place concrete and immediate measures to put an end to public financing of fossil fuels, to have financing based on subsidies so as not to fall into the debt trap once again. It is time for the rich countries, the biggest polluters and creditors, to offer real solutions to the multiple crises we are currently experiencing,” says Gaïa Febvre, International Policy Coordinator at Réseau Action climat France.

    “Public and Multilateral Development Banks must divest from funding false climate solutions and projects that harm forests, biodiversity and communities. Instead, they should redirect finance to support gender just, rights based and ecosystems approaches that contribute to transformative changes leading to real solutions that address climate change, loss of biodiversity and create sustainable livelihoods for Indigenous Peoples, women in all their diversities and local communities. Public funds must support community governed agroecological practices, small scale farming and traditional animal rearing practices instead of large scale agri-business which perpetuates highly polluting and emitting industrial agriculture and unsustainable livestock production, the root cause for deforestation and food insecurity,” adds Souparna Lahiri, Senior Climate and Biodiversity Policy Advisor at the Global Forest Coalition (GFC).

    The call to action emphasizes that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), effective climate action aligned with the Paris Agreement and successful implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework require Public Development Banks to pivot from a top-down profit-driven approach to one that prioritizes community-led involvement and human rights-based approaches.

    “It is important that civil society participation be strengthened at the Finance in Common Summit (FICS). In previous years, civil society has been sidelined. Clearly, there is still some room for improvement for civil society participation to become truly meaningful. The lack of civil society representative on the opening panel this year is just one example of that. PDBs should promote and support an enabling environment for civil society and systematically incorporate civic space, human rights and gender analysis. This year, we are working towards ensuring that civil society voices, including those from communities are heard at the FICS. In collaboration with the FICS Secretariat, Forus seeks to establish a formal mechanism between civil society and PDBs and to ensure that civil society is recognised as an official engagement group,” says Marianne Buenaventura Goldman, Project Coordinator, Finance for Development at the global civil society network Forus.

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  • IPBES Third Season of Hit Podcast Nature Insights Speed Dating with the Future Takes Listeners Inside Humanitys Relationship With Nature

    IPBES Third Season of Hit Podcast Nature Insights Speed Dating with the Future Takes Listeners Inside Humanitys Relationship With Nature

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    ‘Nature Insights – Speed Dating with the Future’ aims to explain human connectedness and impact with nature. CREDIT: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
    • by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
    • Inter Press Service

    NAIROBI, Aug 29 (IPS) – If you’ve ever heard that 1 million species are at risk of extinction and wondered what that means for you, your family, and your future – there’s a podcast you won’t want to miss.

    Nature Insight: Speed Dating with the Future, produced by IPBES (the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), tells the very human stories behind the science and policy of the global nature crisis, and its new third season starts today! 

    Human activity is pushing other species off planet Earth at a rate never before seen in human history. One million species of plants and animals, out of an estimated total of eight million species, are at risk of extinction, many within decades.

    “We are now in what some scientists consider the Anthropocene – a geological era based on the impact of humans on Planet Earth. We have touched the Earth in ways that will seemingly last forever. With that comes our impact on every other species with which we share the Earth, millions upon millions of species, many of which we do not even know yet. While we might not see it all the time, we are deeply connected and rely heavily on these species for our own well-being. These are the many values of nature, and we have a great responsibility to preserve them,” says Brit Garner, Science Communicator and one of the two co-hosts of the podcast.

    IPBES, often described as “the IPCC for biodiversity”, is an independent intergovernmental body. Its mandate is to compile the best available evidence on nature to inform decision-makers, and it brings together experts from around the world to create reports that are often thousands of pages long. But IPBES knows that not everyone will read a 1,000-page report, so the IPBES secretariat has found other ways of bringing biodiversity science to all kinds of decision-makers around the world.

    Rob Spaull, the Head of Communications at IPBES, is the other co-host of the podcast. He tells IPS the podcast provides a platform and an opportunity for people from every corner of the world to peer into the “box of science and policy on nature”, to engage with complex issues that impact their daily lives, and to assess how their own choices and decisions impact nature and in return, how these choices affect nature’s capacity to meet their needs. Nature Insight seeks to engage with a wide variety of decision-makers in finance, business, health, and energy and to make clear our own interlinkages with nature and biodiversity.

    Explaining the podcast’s title, Spaull says, “Every time you listen to Nature Insight, you are speed-dating with nature and with what the future may bring. Speed dating is about having a short time to communicate things that could change your life, and in this podcast, we try to do so by introducing listeners to people with unique insight into humanity’s relationship with nature.”

    The podcast was started at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is now entering its third season, which will be available today, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday over the next five weeks on all the platforms where people usually engage with podcasts. Listeners should expect to meet incredible individuals whose experience can help people in every part of the global community to see solutions for the future of humans and nature but from different perspectives.

    “From the great heights of the Himalayas to the farthest reaches of Antarctica, we have lined up a lot of exciting new topics and an array of experts to take us on these journeys together. In the first episode of our new season, we feature a mushroom scientist from Nepal who climbed Mount Everest and has been climbing the Himalayas in search of new species of fungi and mushrooms and for new discoveries for science, such as never-before-described species, to help fill existing knowledge gaps. We will also hear from an incredible and groundbreaking expedition that went to the South Pole, a place not known for its biodiversity and usually considered to have very little biodiversity,” explains Spaull about Season 3.

    “We will also speak to two very prominent environmental journalists, one from the global North and another from the South, on changes, challenges, and opportunities to reporting on nature and biodiversity over the years. There will be an episode on youth and youth engagement and another on stakeholders and the IPBES stakeholder network. Importantly, there will be an episode on invasive alien species following the launch of the new IPBES report, to be released on September 4, 2023. It’s a season of great excitement, extensive travels, and unmissable insights.”

    Nature Insight Season 3 builds on the success already achieved in the past two years, when the podcast explored topics such as zoonotic diseases and pandemics, indigenous and local conservation, achieving transformative change, protecting coral reefs and coastal ecosystems in the context of climate change, the links between business and biodiversity, and the diverse ways in which communities attach different values to nature.

    “With time and policy having passed and the pandemic having transitioned, so much has changed in three years since we started the podcast. In the third season, we are really widening the idea of what, where and who nature is and getting stories from those expansions. We get to hear from geographical locations and stakeholders we have not heard from before. We have considered the values of nature in ways we have not done in the past,” Garner expounds.

    Spaull points out the relevance of the podcast to implementing the new Global Biodiversity Framework, the outcome of the landmark 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference, in which nations adopted four goals and 23 targets for 2030 as a concrete plan to halt and reverse nature loss. Over six widely varied episodes of the podcast, listeners will hear from experts on the frontlines of biodiversity research and action about cutting-edge science and vibrant personal insights about some of the most critical issues facing people and the planet.

    “Making the podcast has been a very exciting experience, with me in the United States, Rob in Germany, the producer in the UK and guests from all over the world. The diversity of people, places and topics has created some profound experiences for me. During the lockdown, I was in my attic at 3 a.m. speaking to an indigenous leader from Western Australia on water rights, and I realised, though isolated, we are still very much connected, and it is this connection to people and nature that enables us to do and achieve great, meaningful things,” Garner recounts.

    Spaull says that the podcast has only scratched the surface. In subsequent episodes and seasons, there is still new ground to capture nature in its many unique elements. Season one started during the COVID-19 lockdown, season two as the world was coming out of lockdown, and season three is happening when governments are engaging with new targets for nature. As the world moves on, it is unlikely that Nature Insights will run out of topics to discuss anytime soon.

    You can subscribe to Nature Insight on all major podcast platforms or by clicking here.

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  • Flooding, Water Insecurity Looms as Indian Kashmirs Titanic Water Bodies Shrink

    Flooding, Water Insecurity Looms as Indian Kashmirs Titanic Water Bodies Shrink

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    Both the Wular Lake and Dal Lake (pictured here) are crucial for the Kashmir region’s flood management and livelihood generation, however, both are reducing in size with implications for water security. CREDIT: Athar Parvaiz/IPS
    • by Athar Parvaiz (srinagar, india)
    • Inter Press Service

    SRINAGAR, INDIA, Aug 24 (IPS) – Sadiq Dar, 68, is surprised how the heavy siltation of Wular Lake has turned many of its areas into land masses. “When we were growing up, we would only see water in this lake. Now, we see cattle grazing in it while a large portion is also being used by children for playing cricket,” he tells IPS.

    Overlooked by magnificent mountains, Wular Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Asia and the largest flood basin of Kashmir in Bandipora district, some 34 km north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Administered Kashmir.

    An international Ramsar site under the Ramsar convention, this beautiful lake has served the people of Kashmir for centuries earning praises from all, including its poets.

    “How long will they remain hidden from the world … the unique gems that Wular Lake holds in its depth,” 20th century Urdu poet Sir Muhammed Iqbal once wrote about Wular Lake’s depth and water expanse.

    Almost a century after Iqbal’s inquisitiveness, the depths of Wular have become heavily silted, its size reduced, and its pristine waters suffer from heavy pollution. This large Himalayan water body and Dal Lake in Srinagar play a key role in flood management, water security and livelihood generation in the region.

    But a NASA report recently revealed that both these lakes — Dal Lake and Wular Lake — have witnessed a large reduction in size due to land conversions, urbanization, and deforestation in recent decades. This not only poses a threat of repeated flooding in Kashmir but will negatively influence livelihood generation and the availability of water for the communities.

    “The conversion of forests to paved urban areas is a major driver of the change in water quality. Land conversion has delivered heavy sediment and nutrient loads into the lake, and untreated sewage from urban areas has also contributed,” says the NASA report.

    “Some of the bright green areas on the eastern side of Wular Lake used to be open water. Nutrient-rich sediment and aquatic vegetation have filled in parts of the lake and contributed to its shrinking in recent decades,” the report further says and adds: “In a 2022 study, researchers in India—using data from the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) LISS-IV instrument—found that Wular Lake’s open water area had shrunk in size by about one-quarter between 2008 and 2019.”

    In a detailed study of the lake, Wetlands International, a Netherlands-based not-for-profit that works to sustain and restore wetlands globally, had also revealed earlier that there was a 45 percent reduction in the lake area mainly because parts of the lake were converted for agriculture and willow tree plantations.

    Wular Lake is crucial for saving Kashmir from floods. In recent years, the region has witnessed repeated flood-like situations following the devastating 2014 flooding. The recent IPPCC reports have predicted that there will be an increase in floods and other extreme weather events across South Asia in the coming years as the climate crisis deepens.

    The Dal Lake, says the NASA report, has suffered a similar fate in response to land cover change. Researchers in Srinagar found that land conversion to urban development in the basin had worsened the lake’s water quality and contributed to its reduced size, the report says. They found that between 1980 and 2018, the lake shrunk in area by 25 percent, it added.

    The marshy and water body area of Dal Lake, a major tourist attraction in Srinagar, has shrunk from 2,547 hectares in 1971 to 1,620 hectares in 2008, another study titled Impact of Urban Land Transformation on Water Bodies found earlier.

    How to Stop the Lakes from Shrinking?  

    Wular Lake and Dal Lake are crucial for the region’s flood management and livelihood generation. Besides acting as a flood absorption basin for Kashmir during high flows in the region’s major river, Jhelum, Wular, and Dal Lake provide livelihood support to over 100,000 families dependent on tourism and fishing, said Samiullah Bhat, senior Assistant Professor at Kashmir University’s Environment and Science department.

    To stop further shrinkage of Wular and Dal Lakes, Bhat said that soil erosion in the catchment area of these water bodies, which is resulting in these lakes becoming silted up, must be stopped. “It is because of the massive soil erosion that parts of water bodies are turning into landmasses,” Bhat told IPS.

    Regarding encroachments in these lakes, Bhat said that geofencing is one way to mark the boundaries of these lakes, followed by close monitoring. “It has been done recently in the case of Wular Lake, and the same can be done for Dal Lake as well,” Bhat said.

    “It is a matter of proper governance, management and effective enforcement of laws for the protection of environmental assets,” he further said, adding that land ownership records and revenue records are also not that transparent, which also need to be addressed for protecting these lakes from further damage.

    According to a study, Dal Lake represents a case of a threatened ecosystem in dire need of management, with land use changes, erosion, enhanced nutrient enrichment and rising human population in its catchment as the major threats to its existence.

    “Regulation of a proper land use plan in the Dal Lake catchment is vital for preventing the further nutrient enrichment and sedimentation of the lake waters,” the study says.

    Aijaz Rasool, an engineer who has worked on these water bodies previously, said that all the areas of Dal Lake and Wular Lake need to be prioritised for complete conservation work. “For years, I have observed that only those areas of the lakes get attention which are visited by tourists, the other sides get least or no attention and keep deteriorating and encroaching. For example, the north-western parts of Dal Lake and Wular,” Rasool said and added that once all the areas of these lakes receive equal conservational treatment, conserving them will get easier.

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  • POWER TO THE YOUTH: With Quality Education, Youth are Empowered with the Green Skills to Save Our Planet

    POWER TO THE YOUTH: With Quality Education, Youth are Empowered with the Green Skills to Save Our Planet

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    • Opinion by Yasmine Sherif (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Aug 12 (IPS) – International Youth Day Statement by ECW Executive Director Yasmine SherifTo save our people and our planet from the life-threatening risks of the climate crisis, we must invest in the education of today’s youth. They will be the climate activists, climate scientists, climate innovators, game-changers and leaders of the 21st century green economy.

    On International Youth Day, ECW and our global partners urge world leaders in the public and private sectors to ensure today’s youth have the green skills they need to save our planet. The climate-change challenges and the detrimental impact are enormous – severely affecting the planet, as well as basic services and our very survival.

    According to the recent position paper by the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO): “Addressing the climate, environment, and biodiversity crises in and through girls’ education”, the climate crisis is impacting the education of 40 million children every year. “Education is an assumed, but hugely undervalued, component of responses to climate change impacts, and efforts to mitigate and adapt to them. It is essential for reducing vulnerability, improving communities’ resilience and adaptive capacity, identifying innovations, and for empowering individuals to be part of the solution to climate and environmental change,” states the position paper.

    Recent global estimates from Education Cannot Wait (ECW) – the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies & protracted crises – indicate that the number of crisis-impacted children who urgently need education support has spiked by as much as 25 million over the past year.

    According to the new ECW Global Estimate Study: “Climate change interacts with underlying crisis drivers to increase crisis severity and worsen education outcomes. For example, droughts in East Africa deplete livelihoods, boost displacement, and undermine food security, worsening access to education and learning and accelerating protection needs.”

    As we ramp up efforts to deliver on the Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development Goals at this year’s SDG Summit and Climate Talks (COP28), we must ensure that quality education, as a critical response to climate change adaptation, mitigation and resilience – especially for children and adolescents caught in emergencies – is inserted into the climate agenda, funding decisions and global policy. Because, climate change is not a stand-alone sector. It impedes and prevents the education of 224 million children and youth today, and their ability to survive and protect our planet tomorrow.

    As we build toward COP28, ECW will work closely with the Green Climate Fund, Global Environment Facility, Adaptation Fund and other multilateral and bilateral funds – along with the private sector – to develop solution-oriented and actionable commitments to ensure that education in emergencies both responds to immediate crises, while also equipping communities with the knowledge and skills they need to adapt, mitigate, and build resilience in the face of an uncertain future.

    For today’s youth, this means ensuring they receive a quality education in some of the highest-risk climate disaster areas on the globe. It also means to empower them with the knowledge and skills they need to develop, access and advance the green economy, and have the capacity to lead and make sustainable decisions for their communities and countries.

    Youth are the human power of a green economy and of climate action and climate resilience. Financial investments in climate change mean financial investments in the education of 224 million children and adolescents. Empowered with an education, they will save their communities, their countries and our planet. If not them, who? Without them, how?

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  • Brazil’s Lula pushes end to deforestation, stumbles on fossil fuels

    Brazil’s Lula pushes end to deforestation, stumbles on fossil fuels

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    Under pressure from the EU to rein in deforestation or face trade restrictions, Amazon countries must figure out how to bring prosperity to the region without destroying the forest. And that’s proving difficult.

    At a two-day summit starting Tuesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is looking to corral countries to speed up efforts to stop deforestation and decide on a common strategy to save the rainforest.

    But it’s likely to be an uphill climb, with countries disagreeing on whether they should commit to a zero deforestation goal and on whether oil and gas drilling should be banned in the region.

    The summit comes as the EU is rolling out new rules to ban commodities’ imports driving deforestation abroad and is asking countries to police their supply chains against environmental and human rights violations.

    That’s increasing pressure on the Amazon region — and particularly on Brazil, one of the largest exporters of agri-food products to the EU and home to 60 percent of the rainforest — to commit to ambitious action at this week’s meet-up.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro has argued that phasing out fossil fuels is essential for the forest’s protection. “Even if we get deforestation under control, the Amazon faces dire threats if global heating continues to climb,” he wrote in an op-ed last month, adding that “to avoid the point of no return, we need an ambitious transnational policy to phase out fossil fuels.”

    But Lula isn’t pushing to phase out fossil fuels domestically, highlighting a tension between conservation efforts and ensuring economies stay on track.

    The Brazilian leader told local media ahead of the summit he wants to “keep dreaming” about drilling in the region. His comments come as Brazilian oil major Petrobras is looking to open new fields near the mouth of the Amazon River despite receiving a negative opinion from the national institute for the environment.

    If fossil fuels are kept underground, Amazon countries will need alternative activities to keep their economies afloat. Observers have suggested using this week’s summit as a way to promote greener farming and sustainable forest management, as well as discuss potential schemes to pay farmers and indigenous people to help protect the forest.

    “The bioeconomy is the key to unlocking the region’s economic potential while preserving its ecological heritage and, as such, needs to be at the center of any sustainable and inclusive development plan for the Amazon,” said Vanessa Pérez, global economics director at the World Resources Institute.

    Indigenous groups are also watching the summit closely, and want their contribution to climate protection, as well as their rights and territorial claims recognized by country leaders.

    “It is not possible to plan the future of the Amazon without indigenous peoples, without guaranteeing our territorial rights,” said Ângela Kaxuyana, political adviser at the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon.

    High stakes

    The outcome of the summit is a major political and diplomatic test for Lula, who has pledged to achieve zero deforestation in the Amazon.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro has argued that phasing out fossil fuels is essential for the forest’s protection | Guillermo Legaria/Getty Images

    Since taking office last year, Lula has stepped up efforts to crack down on illegal miners, protect indigenous groups and boost conservation efforts in the Amazon, with the government reporting a 66 percent drop in the rate of deforestation in July compared to the same month last year.

    But not all Amazon countries are ready to commit to a similarly ambitious goal; Bolivia and Venezuela failed to sign a pledge made at the COP26 climate talks to end global deforestation by 2030.

    Scientists have warned that the continued deterioration of the Amazon, a major carbon sink, is likely to have a profound impact on global climate efforts.

    “If [Lula] doesn’t come out of this summit with agreement from other countries that they also see this goal as important, it really undermines Brazil’s efforts to reach this [zero deforestation] goal,” said Diego Casaes, campaign director at the NGO Avaaz.

    The regional meet-up is also a key opportunity for Lula to assert his credibility as a climate leader both domestically and internationally as Brazil prepares to host the COP30 summit in 2025, Casaes added.

    The outcome is “a test of how far Lula can go given the constraint that he has from the congress,” he said, given the Brazilian legislative body has pushed back against measures to boost policing and protection of the rainforest.

    Scientists have warned that the continued deterioration of the Amazon, a major carbon sink, is likely to have a profound impact on global climate efforts | Victor Moriyama/Getty Images

    European lawmakers will be looking for signals for how the region is preparing to adapt to new rules to police imports driving deforestation, tackle human rights abuses and green trade.

    Under the EU Deforestation Regulation, imports of commodities like soy and beef produced on deforested land will be forbidden from 2024, while under the new corporate sustainability due diligence rules companies will be forced to scrutinize their supply chains for environmental damage and human rights abuses.

    And although the trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur countries isn’t officially on the agenda, it will certainly come up.

    That’s because the EU is currently negotiating a sustainability addendum to the trade deal with his Latin American counterparts, which should give reassurances — notably to France — the agreement will not have negative consequences on the environment and worsen deforestation.

    The summit is an opportunity to see whether Amazon countries “are able to coordinate efforts” and to ensure policies related to the forest “are aligned with [global] climate goals,” said Caseas.

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  • Who’s who in the EU’s fight over nature restoration

    Who’s who in the EU’s fight over nature restoration

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    STRASBOURG — Gather round, gather round, it’s the last big match of the season.

    This week, just before lawmakers head into the summer recess, the European Parliament will fight it out over nature restoration.

    The EU’s proposal to rehabilitate its damaged ecosystems by 2050 has one last chance at survival in Wednesday’s plenary session. The bill, a key pillar of the bloc’s Green Deal, has limped to Strasbourg to face the full Parliament after failing to pass three committee votes.

    If the Nature Restoration Law is rejected on Wednesday, “it’s game over,” said Pascal Canfin, a liberal MEP and chair of Parliament’s environment committee. “Nobody will come back with something else before the next election.”

    The vote will be tight. And if the text doesn’t pass, it would be the first major Green Deal legislation to fail in Parliament — adding weight to a conservative campaign to pause environmental lawmaking ahead of the 2024 EU election.

    For months, supporters and opponents of the law have been exchanging (metaphorical) punches on social media, in committee sessions and press conferences.

    Ahead of the vote, POLITICO looks at the main players in the fight to kill — or save — the Nature Restoration Law.

    In the blue corner: The bill’s opponents

    1 — Manfred Weber

    The European People’s Party has spearheaded a tireless effort to kill off the legislation, arguing that it will have detrimental consequences for the bloc’s farmers by allegedly taking land out of production and jeopardizing food security.

    Its leader, Manfred Weber, has been among the most vocal opponents of the bill, seizing on the debate as a way to portray his group as defending farmers’ interests in Brussels.

    Political rivals have accused him of using underhand tactics to ensure his MEPs voted against the legislation in the agriculture, fisheries and environment committees, including by substituting regular members with others ready to fall in line — allegations Weber denied. The push has also featured an often bizarre social media campaign to highlight the supposed dangers of the bill, culminating in the group claiming it would destroy Santa’s home in northern Finland.

    “This is not the right moment to do this piece of legislation,” Manfred Weber said last month | Philippe Buissin/EP

    The EPP leader maintains the group is ready to engage on the legislation — if the Commission comes up with a new version. “This is not the right moment to do this piece of legislation,” Weber said last month.

    “Give me arguments, give me a better piece of legislation, then my party is ready to give,” Weber added, calling on the Commission to go back to the drawing board and insisting that achieving the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals can’t come at the expense of rural areas.

    2 — Right-wing groups — and a handful of liberals

    Weber’s conservative group has found allies further to the right — among MEPs belonging to the European Conservatives and Reformists and the far-right Identity and Democracy.

    The ECR’s co-chair, Nicola Procaccini, a close ally of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, called the nature proposal “one of the most significant regulation proposals of the entire legislature,” and said he was “quite convinced” the right-wing alliance could defeat it. He added that it shows alliances are shifting in Parliament: “On the Green Geal it is moving more to the right.”

    The EPP’s push has also found support among lawmakers in Renew Europe. About a third of the liberal group — mostly Dutch, Nordic and German MEPs — are set to vote against the bill on Wednesday, mostly out of national concerns.

    Swedish liberal MEP Emma Wiesner, for example, has argued that the bill will be bad for Swedish farmers and foresters, while stressing that she still supports “an ambitious climate and environmental agenda.”

    3 — Industry lobbies

    A host of lobby groups have also come out against the legislation, including those representing European fishermen, foresters and farmers.

    The powerful agri lobby Copa-Cogeca — which has been accused of representing the interests of large corporate outfits over smaller farms — has pushed the narrative that burdening farmers with new green obligations while they face the impacts of the war in Ukraine and higher energy prices will threaten their livelihoods.

    The draft legislation “is poorly constructed, [and] has no coherent, clear or dedicated budget” to help land managers implement it, the lobby said.

    Similarly, some business associations, like the Netherlands’ VNO-NCW, have been critical of the proposal, arguing that it will create a “lockdown for new business and the energy transition.” 

    A host of lobby groups have also come out against the legislation, including those representing European farmers | Jeffrey Groeneweg/AFP via Getty Images

    4 — Skeptical EU countries

    Several EU countries have waded into the debate, warning that the new measures would be bad for their farming and forestry sectors, as well as for people’s proprietary rights and permitting procedures for renewable energy projects.

    The Netherlands has been particularly vocal against the bill, calling for EU countries to be granted more flexibility in how to achieve the regulation’s targets as it could otherwise clash with renewables or housing projects, for example. “We do have concerns about implementation because of our high population density,” said Dutch Environment Minister Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink.

    Other skeptical countries include Poland, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Belgium.

    Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for hitting “pause” on new nature restoration rules amid a fierce national debate on the legislation.

    In the red corner: Its defenders

    1 — Frans Timmermans

    The EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans has been on the front lines of the effort to save the nature rules, going toe-to-toe with EPP lawmakers during Parliament committee discussions and calling out misleading statements spread by opponents to the bill.

    “Everybody is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts,” he told lawmakers in May, stressing that the reason harvests are failing “is linked to climate change and biodiversity loss.”

    He’s repeatedly insisted the legislation is intended to help farmers in the long run, as it aims to improve soil and water quality, as well as build resilience against natural disasters like floods, droughts and wildfires. He’s also been adamant that the Commission won’t submit a new version of the bill, as demanded by the EPP.

    “There is no time for that,” he explained.

    2 — Left-wing groups in Parliament — and (most of) the liberals

    The EU’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans has been on the front lines of the effort to save the nature rules | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

    The Parliament’s center-left Socialists & Democrats, the Greens, The Left and part of Renew Europe have been vocal advocates of the Commission’s proposal.

    Biodiversity loss and climate change are two sides of the same coin, Mohammed Chahim, vice president of the S&D, told reporters. “Not connecting them is either you being naive, at best, and at worst, you really trying to undermine the Green Deal, and that’s what’s happening.”

    The Renew group has been divided on the issue, but a majority backed a compromise deal ahead of Wednesday’s vote to try and convince some EPP lawmakers to switch sides and rally enough support in favor of the legislation.

    3 —Teresa Ribera

    Spain’s environment minister has come out in favor of the proposal, defending its importance both at home and at the EU level as a means to increase resilience to natural disasters and climate impacts like drought.

    “It is very important not only to conserve but also to restore nature … There will be time to improve what we have on the table but for the time being, the best thing we can do is to achieve an agreement,” Ribera said at an informal environment ministers’ meeting Monday.

    Alongside Spain, 19 EU countries supported the adoption of a common stance on the text in June.

    Ribera also signaled that the file will be among the Spanish presidency of the Council’s priorities if the Parliament adopts a position allowing MEPs to start negotiations with EU countries.

    4 — Big business and banks

    A number of multinationals — including Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Unilever — have urged MEPs to back the legislation, arguing that restoring nature is good for business.

    The new rules, they say, will boost the EU’s food production in the long term as it will help tackle pollinator decline and increase absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere, lessening climate impacts.

    Owen Bethell, senior global public affairs manager for environmental impact at Nestlé, stressed that farmers’ concerns need to be addressed and argued they should receive support to adapt to the new rules. “But in the short term, I think it’s important to maintain momentum on this law because it sends the right signal, that change needs to happen,” he said.

    Green activists have led a forceful push to convince lawmakers to back the proposal | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images

    The argument that nature is good for business also received backing from Frank Elderson, an executive board member of the European Central Bank, who warned: “Destroy nature and you destroy the economy.”

    5 — Scientists and NGOs

    More than 6,000 scientists have shown support for the Commission’s nature restoration plan, arguing that healthy ecosystems will store greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the EU’s objective to become climate neutral by 2050.

    “Protecting and restoring nature, and reducing the use of agrochemicals and pollutants, are essential for maintaining long-term production and enhancing food security,” they wrote.

    Green activists have also led a forceful push to convince lawmakers to back the proposal, staging protests and making arguments to counter the EPP’s narrative on social media.

    “The European Parliament must stay strong against the falsified pushbacks of the conservatives and take firm action to protect citizens from the devastating impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss,” the WWF said in a statement ahead of the vote.

    Watching from the sidelines

    Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the EPP, has stayed conspicuously quiet on the issue, despite mounting calls for her to get involved and help save the bill.

    The situation is a Catch-22 for the German official: The nature bill is part of the Green Deal on which she staked her reputation and reelection as Commission president, but speaking in support of it would involve going against her party’s official position.

    “I still expect a public reaction from her,” said the S&D’s César Luena, the lead MEP on the file. “Or if it’s not public, then a reaction inside the EPP,” he added, suggesting that her silence could be held against her in a bid for reelection next year if the legislation doesn’t pass this week.

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  • Biodigesters Boost Family Farming in Brazil

    Biodigesters Boost Family Farming in Brazil

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    Lucineide Cordeiro loads manure from her two oxen and two calves into the “sertanejo” biodigester that produces biogas for cooking and biofertilizer for her varied crops on the one-hectare agroecological farm she manages on her own in the rural municipality of Afogados da Ingazeira, in the semiarid ecoregion of northeastern Brazil. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    • by Mario Osava (afogados da ingazeira, brazil)
    • Inter Press Service

    AFOGADOS DA INGAZEIRA, Brazil, Jun 24 (IPS) – “The biodigester really gives a huge boost to those who have the courage to do things,” said Maria das Dores Alves da Silva, based on her own experience as a 63-year-old small farmer.

    She did not hesitate to accept the offer of Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, to acquire the equipment to produce biogas on her farm in the rural area of Afogados da Ingazeira, a municipality of 38,000 people in the state of Pernambuco in the Northeast region of Brazil.

    At first she did not have the cattle whose manure she needed to produce biogas, that enables her to save on liquefied petroleum gas, which costs 95 reais (20 dollars) for a 13-kg cylinder – a significant cost for poor families.

    She brought manure from a neighboring farm that gave it to her for free, in an hour-long trip with her wheelbarrow, until she was able to buy her first cow and then another with loans from the state-owned Banco del Nordeste.

    “Now I have more than enough manure,” she said happily as she welcomed IPS to her four-hectare farm where she and her husband have lived alone since their two children became independent.

    Das Dores, as she is known, is an example among the 163 families who have benefited from the “sertanejos biodigesters” distributed by Diaconia in the sertão of Pajeú, a semiarid micro-region of 17 municipalities and 13,350 square kilometers in the center-north of Pernambuco.

    Farmer Maria das Dores Alves da Silva stands between the manure pit and the "sertanejo" biodigester designed by Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, which has already installed 713 biogas production plants in eight of Brazil's 26 states. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    Farmer Maria das Dores Alves da Silva stands between the manure pit and the “sertanejo” biodigester designed by Diaconia, a social organization of Protestant churches in Brazil, which has already installed 713 biogas production plants in eight of Brazil’s 26 states. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    Biofertilizer

    In addition to using the biogas, she sells the manure after it has been subjected to anaerobic biodigestion that extracts the gases – the so-called digestate, a biofertilizer that she packages in one-kilo plastic bags, after drying and shredding it.

    Every Saturday, she sells 30 bags at the agroecological market in the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, the municipal seat. At two reais (40 cents) a bag, she earns an extra income of 60 reais (12.50 dollars), on top of her sales of the various sweet cakes she bakes at home, at a cost reduced by the biogas, and of the seedlings she also produces.

    The seedlings provided her with a new business opportunity. “The customers asked me if I didn’t also have fertilizer,” she said. The biodigester produces enough fertilizer to sell at the market and to fertilize the farm’s crops of beans, corn, fruit trees, flowers and different vegetables.

    This diversity is common in family farming in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, but even more so in the agroecological techniques that have expanded in this territory of one million square kilometers in the northeastern interior of the country, which has an arid biome highly vulnerable to climate change, subject to frequent droughts, and where there are areas in the process of desertification.

    The Pajeú river basin is the micro-region chosen by Diaconia as a priority for its social and environmental actions.

    On Lucineide Cordeiro's small farm, cotton, corn, sesame, sunflower, cassava and fruit trees are alternated in the fields, as recommended by agroecology, which is on the rise on family farms in Brazil's semiarid Northeast, which is threatened by longer and more severe droughts due to the climate crisis. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    On Lucineide Cordeiro’s small farm, cotton, corn, sesame, sunflower, cassava and fruit trees are alternated in the fields, as recommended by agroecology, which is on the rise on family farms in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast, which is threatened by longer and more severe droughts due to the climate crisis. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    Energy and food security

    “We seek to promote energy, food and water autonomy to maintain more resilient agroecosystems, to coexist with climate change, strengthening community self-management with a special focus on the lives of women,” Ita Porto, Diaconia’s coordinator in the Pajeu ecoregion, told IPS.

    “The production of biogas on a rural family scale fulfills the needs of energy for cooking, sanitary disposal and treatment of animal waste and reduction of deforestation, in addition to increasing food productivity, with organic fertilizer, while bolstering human health,” said the 48-year-old agronomist.

    More than 713 units of the “sertanejo biodigester”, a model developed by Diaconia 15 years ago, have been installed in Brazil. In addition to the 163 in the sertão do Pajeú, there are 150 in the neighboring state of Rio Grande do Norte and another 400 distributed in six other Brazilian states, financed by the Caixa Econômica Federal, a government bank focused on social questions.

    “Hopefully the government will make it a public policy, as it has already done with the rainwater harvesting tanks in the semarid Northeast,” said Porto.

    More than 1.3 million rainwater harvesting tanks for drinking water have already been built, but some 350,000 are still needed to make them universal in rural areas, according to the Articulation of the Semi-Arid (Asa), a network of 3,000 social organizations that spearheaded the transformative program.

    Maria Das Dores examines the biofertilizer that comes out of the biodigester, without the gases from the animal manure. She sells this by-product at the agroecological market in the town of Afogados da Ingazeira, the seat of the municipality where her four-hectare farm is located, which earns her an average extra income of 12.5 dollars a week. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    The value of manure

    “One cow is enough to produce the biogas consumed in our stove,” said Lucineide Cordeiro, on her one-hectare farm where she grows cotton, corn, sesame seeds and fruit, in an interconnected agroecological system, along with chickens, pigs and fish in a pond.

    She also has two oxen and two calves, which she proudly showed to IPS during the visit to her farm.

    “Pig manure produces biogas more quickly, but I don’t like the stench,” the 37-year-old farmer who is the director of Women’s Policies at the Afogados da Ingazeira Rural Workers Union told IPS.

    The difference in the crops before and after fertilization by the biodigester by-product is remarkable, according to her and other farmers in the municipality.

    She tends to her many crops on her own, although she is sometimes helped by friends, and has several pieces of equipment such as a brushcutter and a micro-tractor.

    "It's the best invention," says Lucineide Cordeiro, as she shows IPS the seeder created by the Japanese for small-scale farming, which allows her to sow in half a day the land that used to take her two days to plant, on her one-hectare farm in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil's semiarid Northeast. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    “It’s the best invention,” says Lucineide Cordeiro, as she shows IPS the seeder created by the Japanese for small-scale farming, which allows her to sow in half a day the land that used to take her two days to plant, on her one-hectare farm in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    “But the seeder is the best invention that changed my life, it was invented by the Japanese. Planting the seeds, which used to take me two days of work, I can now do in half a day,” Cordeiro said.

    The seeder is a small machine pushed by the farmer, with a wheel filled with seeds that has 12 nozzles that can be opened or closed, according to the distance needed to sow each seed.

    The emergence of appropriate equipment for family farming is recent, in a sector that has favored large farmers in Brazil.

    Female protagonism clashes with male chauvinist violence

    For the success of local family farming, the support of the Pajeú Agroecological Association (Asap), of which Cordeiro is a member and a “multiplier”, as the women farmers who are an example to others of good practices are called, is important.

    In family farming the empowerment of women stands out, which in many cases was a response to sexist violence or oppression.

    Blue flames emerge from the burners of Maria Das Dores' biogas stove at her home in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil's semiarid Northeast region. A single ox or cow produces enough manure to generate more biogas than a family requires for its domestic needs. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS
    Blue flames emerge from the burners of Maria Das Dores’ biogas stove at her home in Afogados da Ingazeira, in Brazil’s semiarid Northeast region. A single ox or cow produces enough manure to generate more biogas than a family requires for its domestic needs. CREDIT: Mario Osava / IPS

    “The first violence I suffered was from my father who did not let me study. I only studied up to fourth grade of primary school, in the rural school. To continue, I would have had to go to the city, which my father did not allow. I got married to escape my father’s oppression,” said Cordeiro, who also separated from her first husband because he was violent.

    After living in a big city with the father of her two daughters, she separated and returned to the countryside in 2019. “I was reborn” by becoming a farmer, she said, faced with the challenge of taking on that activity against the idea, even from her family, that a woman on her own could not possibly manage the demands of agricultural production.

    Organic cotton, promoted and acquired in the region by Vert, a French-Brazilian company that produces footwear and clothing with organic inputs, has once again expanded in the Brazilian Northeast, after the crop was almost extinct due to the boll weevil plague in the 1990s.

    In the case of Das Dores, a small, energetic, active woman, she has a good relationship with her husband, but she runs her own business initiatives. Thanks to what she earns she was able to buy a small pickup truck, but it is driven by her husband, who has a job but helps her on the farm in his free time.

    “He drives because he refuses to teach me how, so I can’t go out alone with the vehicle and drive around everywhere,” she joked.

    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • UN members adopt first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas

    UN members adopt first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas

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    UNITED NATIONS — Members of the United Nations adopted the first-ever treaty to protect marine life in the high seas on Monday, with the U.N.’s chief hailing the historic agreement as giving the ocean “a fighting chance.”

    Delegates from the 193 member nations burst into applause and then stood up in a sustained standing ovation when Singapore’s ambassador on ocean issues, Rena Lee, who presided over the negotiations, banged her gavel after hearing no objections to the treaty’s approval.

    Oceans produce most of the oxygen we breathe and absorb carbon dioxide, which makes them increasingly critical in reducing carbon emissions that fuel global warming. Yet, currently only 1% of the vast ocean areas are protected.

    A treaty to protect biodiversity in waters outside national boundaries, known as the high seas, covering nearly half of earth’s surface, had been under discussion for more than 20 years, but efforts repeatedly stalled until March. That’s when delegates to an intergovernmental conference established by the U.N. General Assembly agreed on a treaty which was then subject to legal scrutiny and translated into the U.N.’s six official languages.

    The new treaty will be opened for signatures on Sept. 20, during the annual meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly, and it will take effect once it is ratified by 60 countries.

    The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. It also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.

    Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates that the adoption of the treaty comes at a critical time, with the oceans under threat on many fronts.

    Climate change is disrupting weather patterns and ocean currents, raising sea temperatures, “and altering marine ecosystems and the species living there,” he said, and marine biodiversity “is under attack from overfishing, over-exploitation and ocean acidification.”

    “Over one-third of fish stocks are being harvested at unsustainable levels,” the U.N. chief said. “And we are polluting our coastal waters with chemicals, plastics and human waste.”

    Guterres said the treaty is vital to address these threats and he urged all countries to spare no efforts to ensure that it is signed and ratified as soon as possible, stressing that “this is critical to addressing the threats facing the ocean.”

    The treaty also establishes principles to share “marine genetic resources” discovered by scientists in international waters, a key demand of developing countries who insisted that the fruits of such discoveries could not be solely controlled by richer countries with money to finance expeditions to look for potentially new lucrative ingredients for medicine and cosmetics.

    After the treaty’s approval, the Group of 77, the U.N. coalition of 134 mainly developing nations and China, called it “an exceedingly important day for biodiversity,” praising their successful struggle to achieve benefit-sharing in the final text as well as funding to help implement the treaty when ratified.

    The Alliance of Small Island States, some of whose members fear that climate change and rising seas can obliterate their countries, said they have been championing a treaty for decades, and its adoption will have far-reaching implications “on our livelihoods, cultures and economies.”

    But Russia said it “distances itself from the consensus on the text of the agreement” which it called “unacceptable,” saying it “undermines the provisions of the most important acting international agreements, including the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

    Sergey Leonidchenko, who heads the Russian Mission’s legal section, told delegates the treaty “does not reach a reasonable balance between conserving and sustainably using the resources of the ocean.” As an example, he said, “checks and balances against politicizing marine conservation areas have not made it into the text.”

    The treaty’s adoption follows a separate historic accord reached by world governments in Montreal in December that includes a commitment to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30 by 30.

    Rebecca Hubbard, director of the High Seas Alliance representing over 50 non-governmental organizations and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, praised countries “for moving one step closer towards putting this political accord into action in the water.”

    “Countries must now ratify it as quickly as possible to bring it into force so that we can protect our ocean, build our resilience to climate change and safeguard the lives and livelihoods of billions of people,” she said.

    Greenpeace’s Chris Thorne called the treaty “a win for all life on this planet.”

    “The science is clear, we must protect 30% of the oceans by 2030 to give the oceans a chance to recover and thrive,” he said.

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  • Massive Fish Mortality Strikes Kashmirs Lake, Threatens Livelihoods

    Massive Fish Mortality Strikes Kashmirs Lake, Threatens Livelihoods

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    Thousands of dead fish in Dal Lake, Kashmir, are of concern to fishers, who make a living off the lake. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS
    • by Umar Manzoor Shah (srinagar, indian kashmir)
    • Inter Press Service

    SRINAGAR, Indian Kashmir, Jun 14 (IPS) – Abdul Lateef Dar, a 45-year-old man living on the outskirts of Kashmir’s renowned Dal Lake, relies on the lake’s fish for food and income.

    On the morning of May 26, 2023, Dar followed his usual routine, preparing his fishing tools and heading toward the lake. Initially, he noticed a few lifeless fish floating on the lake’s surface, which he considered a common sight. However, as the morning haze lifted, Dar looked at the lake with horror. The lake was filled with thousands of dead fish, resembling dry and withered branches. Dar urgently called out to fellow fishers and showed them the distressing scene.

    Soon, hundreds of fishermen and their families gathered along the lake’s shore, witnessing the devastating scale of the fish mortality.

    Dar recounted how he began fishing with his father at 14, relying on the lake for his livelihood. He expressed deep anguish at the devastation. Overnight, thousands of fish had perished, dealing a severe blow to his livelihood and that of countless others who depend on fishing and selling fish in the market.

    “But I have never ever seen such devastation – it’s like a doomsday. Not hundreds but thousands of fish are dead overnight. This is the heaviest blow to my livelihood, and there are thousands like me whose livelihood is directly dependent upon catching fish and selling them in the market. What will we sell now, and what is there to catch?” Dar lamented.

    The Hanjis community has lived around Dal Lake for centuries, and its main occupation is fishing. They are considered the poorest community in the valley – and they only own a few belongings and live a simple life. Because of their reliance on fishing since ancient times, the community, estimated at about 40 000 people, is more vulnerable than the others in Kashmir’s local populace.

    In Srinagar, Jammu, and Kashmir, Dal Lake is a famous and iconic body of water with enormous cultural and ecological value. It is frequently referred to as Kashmir’s “jewel.”

    The formation of Dal Lake is believed to have been caused as a result of tectonic action and glacial processes. It is surrounded by magnificent mountains and has a surface area of around 18 square kilometers.

    The mass fish deaths widespread panic among the locals and particularly those families whose livelihood is directly dependent on the lake.

    The region’s government said its scientific wing had made an initial examination to ascertain the cause of fish mortality and said the deaths were caused due to “thermal stratification”– a change in the temperature at different depths of the lake.

    Bashir Ahmad Bhat, the most senior officer of Kashmir’s Lakes and Conservation Management Authority, told IPS that the samples had been collected more analysis is ongoing.

    “Although we have collected samples for a thorough analysis, the fish (seemed to have) died as a result of heat stratification, a common occurrence. There is no need to be alarmed; fish as little as two to three inches have perished. We have collected samples of the dead fish in the research lab of our department to find out the precise reason why the fish in the lake died; we are awaiting the official results,” Bhat said.

    However, for experts and research scholars, fish mortality in the water body could be a prelude to more troubled times ahead.

    Zahid Ahmad Qazi, a research scholar, told IPS that the spike in pollution level is severely affecting the lake’s biodiversity and is causing huge stress to the lake’s fish fauna. He says the unchecked construction around the lake and liquid and solid wastes going into the lake’s water has begun to show drastic impacts.

    A research paper published by the Indian Journal of Extension Education in 2022 highlighted the same fact.

    “Over the years, the water quality of Dal Lake has deteriorated, causing adverse impacts on its fish fauna. The endemic Schizothorax fish populations have declined considerably owing to the pollution and introduction of exotics. At the same time, the total fish production of the lake has not increased much over the last few decades. The lack of proper governance, policy regulations, and coordination between government agencies and fishers adds more negative impact to this,” the research paper concluded.

    The Department of Lakes and Waterways Development Authority, tasked with the protection of the lakes in Kashmir, indicated there were various plans underway to save the Dal Lake and its biodiversity. The department, according to its officials, is uprooting water lilies with traditional methods and weeding the lake using the latest machinery so that the surface is freed from weeds and its fish production increases.

    However, in 2018 research done by Humaira Qadri and A. R. Yousuf from the Department of Environmental Science, University of Kashmir, the government, despite spending USD 3 million on the conservation of the lake so far, there has been no visible improvement in its condition. “A lack of proper management and restoration plan and the incidence of engineered but ecologically unsound management practices have led to a failure in the conservation efforts,” reveals the research.

    It concluded that conservation efforts have proved to be a failure. It adds that the apathy of the managing authorities has resulted in the deterioration of the lake.

    “There is a need to formulate a proper ecologically sound management plan for the lake encompassing all the environmental components of the lake ecosystem and thus help to conserve the lake in a real ecological sense,” the research stated.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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    © Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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