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Tag: Biodiversity

  • The U.S. Assault on Mexico’s Food Sovereignty

    The U.S. Assault on Mexico’s Food Sovereignty

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    “Remove corn and beans from NAFTA!” at a 2008 protest in Ciudad Juarez. It has been a longstanding demand the Mexican farmers’ movement. Credit: Enrique Pérez S.
    • Opinion by Timothy A. Wise (cambridge, mass.)
    • Inter Press Service

    CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Jun 06 (IPS) – On June 2, the U.S. government escalated its conflict with Mexico over that country’s restrictions on genetically modified corn, initiating the formal dispute-resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

    It is only the latest in a decades-long U.S. assault on Mexico’s food sovereignty using the blunt instrument of a trade agreement that has inundated Mexico with cheap corn, wheat, and other staples, undermining Mexico’s ability to produce its own food. With the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador showing no signs of backing down, the conflict may well test the extent to which a major exporter can use a trade agreement to force a sovereign nation to abandon measures it deems necessary to protect public health and the environment.

    The Science of Precaution

    The measures in question are those contained in the Mexican president’s decree, announced in late 2020 and updated in February 2023, to ban the cultivation of genetically modified corn, phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate by 2024, and prohibit the use of genetically modified corn in tortillas and corn flour. The stated goals were to protect public health and the environment, particularly the rich biodiversity of native corn that can be compromised by uncontrolled pollination from GM corn plants.

    Where the original decree vowed to phase out all uses of GM corn, the updated decree withdrew restrictions on GM corn in animal feed and industrial products, pending further scientific study of impacts on human health and the environment. Some 96% of U.S. corn exports to Mexico, nearly all of it GM corn, fall in that category. It is unclear how much of the remaining exports, mostly white corn, are destined for Mexico’s tortilla/corn flour industries.

    These were significant concessions. After all, there is no trade restriction on GM corn. Mexico is not even restricting GM white corn imports, just their use in tortillas.

    Timothy A. Wise

    No matter. In the U.S. government’s formal notification that it would initiate consultations preliminary to presenting the dispute to a USMCA arbitration panel, it cites a lack of scientific justification for the measures, denials of some authorizations for new GM products, and Mexico’s stated intention to gradually replace GM corn for all uses with non-GM varieties.

    As Mexico’s Economy Ministry noted in its short response, Mexico will show that its current measures have little impact on U.S. exporters, because Mexico is self-sufficient in white and native corn. Any future substitution of non-GM corn will not involve trade restrictions but will come from Mexico’s investments in reducing import dependence by promoting increased domestic production of corn and other key staples. The statement also noted that USMCA’s environment chapter obligates countries to protect biodiversity, and for Mexico, where corn was first domesticated and the diet and culture are so defined by it, corn biodiversity is a top priority.

    As for the assertion that Mexico’s concerns about GM corn and glyphosate are not based on science, the USTR action came on the heels of an unprecedented five weeks of public forums convened by Mexico’s national science agencies to assess the risks and dangers. More than fifty Mexican and international experts presented evidence that justifies the precautionary measures taken by the government. (I summarized some of the evidence in an earlier article.)

    Three Decades of U.S. Agricultural Dumping

    Those measures spring from deep concern about the deterioration of Mexicans’ diets and public health as the country has gradually adopted what some have called “the neoliberal diet.” Mexico has displaced the United States as the world leader in childhood obesity as diets rich in native corn and other traditional foods have been replaced by ultraprocessed foods and beverages high in sugar, salt, and fats. Researchers found that since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted in 1994, the United States has been “exporting obesity.”

    The López Obrador government recently stood up to the powerful food and beverage industry to mandate stark warning labels on foods high in those unhealthy ingredients. Its restrictions on GM corn and glyphosate flow from the same commitment to public health.

    So does the government’s campaign to reduce import-dependence in key food crops – corn, wheat, rice, beans, and dairy. But as I document in a new IATP policy report, “Swimming Against the Tide,” cheap U.S. exports continue to undermine such efforts.

    We documented that in 17 of the 28 years since NAFTA took effect, the United States has exported corn, wheat, rice, and other staple crops at prices below what it cost to produce them. That is an unfair trade practice known as agricultural dumping, and it springs from chronic overproduction of such products in that country’s heavily industrialized agriculture.

    Just when NAFTA eliminated many of the policy measures Mexico could use to limit such imports, U.S. overproduction hit a crescendo, the result of its own deregulation of agricultural markets. Corn exports to Mexico jumped more than 400% by 2006, with those exports priced at 19% below what it cost to produce them. Again, from 2014 to 2020, corn prices were 10% below production costs, just as Mexico began seeking to stimulate domestic production.

    We calculated that Mexico’s corn farmers lost $3.8 billion in those seven years from depressed prices for their crops. Wheat farmers lost $2.1 billion from U.S. exports priced 27% below production costs.

    Thus far, the Mexican government has had little success increasing domestic production of its priority foods, though higher international prices in 2021 and 2022 provided a needed stimulus for farmers.

    So too have creative government initiatives, including an innovative public procurement scheme just as the large white corn harvest comes in across northern Mexico. With corn and wheat prices falling some 20% in recent weeks, the government is buying up about 40% of the harvest from small and medium-scale farmers at higher prices with the goal of giving larger producers the bargaining power to then demand higher prices from the large grain-buyers that dominate the tortilla industry.

    Swimming Against the Neoliberal Tide

    With its commitment to public health, the environment, and increased domestic production of basic staples, the Mexican government is indeed swimming against strong neoliberal tides. Remarkably, it is doing so while still complying with its trade agreement with the United States and Canada.

    Before U.S. trade officials further escalate the dispute over GM corn, they should look in the mirror and ask themselves if three decades of agricultural dumping are consistent with the rules of fair international trade. And why Mexico doesn’t have every right to ensure that its tortillas are not tainted with GM corn and glyphosate.

    For more on the GM corn controversy, see IATP’s resource page, “Food Sovereignty, Trade, and Mexico’s GMO Corn Policies.”

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  • Right to ‘exist’: The campaign to give nature a legal status

    Right to ‘exist’: The campaign to give nature a legal status

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    Imagine a court hearing where the plaintiff is not a person, but a damaged river, lake or mountain.

    That’s the vision of a movement of conservationists — gaining traction across the Continent — that believes granting basic legal rights to nature can help protect it from threats like deforestation, biodiversity loss, chemicals pollution and climate change.

    “We usually think about nature as an object” that “serves us,” such as a swimming pool or a natural park, said Eduardo Salazar, a lawyer involved in the successful push to grant legal rights to Mar Menor, a large saltwater lagoon in Murcia in southeastern Spain polluted by the overuse of nitrogen fertilizers by nearby farmers.

    Granting an ecosystem legal status on “the same level” as individuals can help alter social attitudes to nature, he said, and give it important new protections.

    The lagoon last year became the first ecosystem on the Continent to be granted a status comparable to that of a person following a campaign backed by more than 600,000 people.

    Activists are now trying to replicate the model elsewhere.

    In Poland, a group of activists this week will complete the last leg of a 43-day-long march along the Oder River aimed at drawing attention to their campaign to grant the polluted ecosystem — which runs along the German-Polish border — the legal status of a person. 

    After a massive die-off last summer killed thousands of fish in the Oder, campaigners fear the ecosystem may be headed for another ecological disaster, pointing to Poland’s failure to rein in industrial emissions that are thought to have contributed to the incident. 

    “There is a lot of suffering going on in this river,” said Przemek Siewior, a climate activist who joined the march. Giving the fragile ecosystem legal rights is “a really good tool for people to try to save it,” he argued.

    A ‘voice’ for nature

    The so-called rights of nature movement, which originated in the United States some 50 years ago, has gained traction in recent years thanks to growing attention to the importance of protecting nature as part of combating climate change and biodiversity loss.

    A growing number of countries — including Uganda, Ecuador and New Zealand — have laws granting ecosystems legal rights, and court rulings in India and Colombia have recognized such rights and stressed the government’s duty to protect it. Just last month, Panama gave rights to sea turtles in a bid to protect them against pollution and poaching. 

    In Europe, campaigners are hoping to ride the coattails of the Mar Menor movement, with citizens’ initiatives pushing for similar recognition for the North Sea in the Netherlands and the Loire River in France, for example. 

    The Loire River bed at Loireauxence was completely dried out because of extreme heat in September 2022 | Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images

    At the movement’s core is a call for a fundamental rethink of the way people relate to and understand ecosystems. But more tangibly, campaigners also stress the importance of ensuring ecosystems can be represented in court.

    In New Zealand, granting legal personhood to the Whanganui River was seen as a key step to ensure the Indigenous Māori community living in its vicinity gets more say on the health of the ecosystem. 

    The Spanish law giving Mar Menor a right “to exist as an ecosystem and to evolve naturally” ensures it will be represented by a group of caretakers, made up of scientists, local politicians and citizens. 

    Inspired by the Spanish example, the Oder River movement last month published a draft law to protect the ecosystem that would include establishing a 15-person committee to represent the river. Three would be appointed by the state, four by municipalities and eight by NGOs; a group of 10 scientists would advise the committee.

    That structure would “give the Oder River a democratic representation” and a “voice that it currently just doesn’t have,” said Gaweł Andrzejewski, the coordinator of the Oder River march. 

    The process is still in its early stages: Drafted by a lawyer in collaboration with civil society, the draft bill is mostly meant to “stir and start the conversation” with politicians and NGOs, said Andrzejewski.

    Practical impact 

    Critics argue that such representation is largely symbolic and doubt it can do much to help protect and restore ecosystems. 

    Setting up committees to represent an ecosystem gives “power to particular people” to make decisions about what is or isn’t in its interest, said Michael Livermore, a professor of law at the University of Virginia who specializes in environmental law, among other topics.

    But there’s no guarantee that they’ll make the right call, or that it’ll be heeded. “I think part of the issue with a legal right is that you still run into problems, like what’s best for an ecosystem? And who’s going to make that decision?” he said.

    In Ecuador, for example, environmental activists challenged a large-scale mining project located in one of the most biodiversity-rich areas of the planet, saying it violated nature’s rights — but the court ruled against them, arguing that the government’s interests to exploit the resource were important enough to override the nature rights argument. 

    Giving ecosystems legal status also does not guarantee protection — granting the Indian Ganges River legal personhood in 2017 has not prevented it from deteriorating, for example. 

    Livermore argues there are more efficient alternatives to protecting nature, such as preserving people’s rights to organize, providing protections for environmental organizations or improving decision-making processes to give more power to Indigenous communities. 

    Companies have so far remained relatively quiet on the movement — to Livermore, that’s a sign that giving rights to nature doesn’t pose much of a challenge.

    “If it’s such a powerful tool to protect the environment, why don’t the special interests that worry about that, who would be opposed to very strong environmental protections, why aren’t they fighting it?” he said.

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    Antonia Zimmermann

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  • Governments Are Changing Fisheries Management for the Better, but More Action Is Still Needed

    Governments Are Changing Fisheries Management for the Better, but More Action Is Still Needed

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    Yellowfin tuna diving.
    • Opinion by Grantly Galland (washington dc)
    • Inter Press Service

    WASHINGTON DC, May 23 (IPS) – Global fisheries are worth more than US$140 billion each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. But this hefty sum does not capture the true value of fish to ocean health, and to the food security and cultures of communities around the world.

    Unfortunately, many important populations were allowed to be overfished for decades by the same regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) charged with their conservation and sustainable use, and in some regions, this continues.

    At the same time, the demand for fish continues to grow— from consumers of high-end bluefin tuna sushi to coastal communities who depend on seafood as their primary source of protein. So, RFMOs and governments must do more to ensure sustainable fishing and long-term ocean health.

    More than 20 years ago, the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) entered into force as the only global, binding instrument holding governments accountable for managing the shared fish stocks of the high seas.

    Under the agreement, fish should be managed sustainably and consistent with the best available science. Governments that are party to this treaty—and to RFMOs—are supposed to follow its management obligations, and work towards greater sustainability of the transboundary species, including tunas and sharks, vital to the ocean and economies.

    Five of those RFMOs focus specifically on tuna management, one each in the Atlantic, eastern Pacific, western and central Pacific, Indian, and Southern oceans. They operate autonomously and, although there is some overlap among their constituent members, each sets its own rules for tuna fishing in its waters.

    This makes UNFSA critical to successful management of tuna fisheries. And because the tuna RFMOs manage some of the world’s most iconic species, they often set the tone for how other similar bodies operate.

    All of this is pertinent now because UNFSA member governments are meeting in New York May 22-26 to evaluate whether RFMOs are performing consistent with their commitments. A similar review was conducted in 2016, and although management has improved over time, some areas require more work, especially when it comes to ending overfishing and considering the health and biodiversity of the entire ecosystem.

    Since 2016, the share of highly migratory stocks that are overfished increased from 36% to 40%, making it all the more urgent for governments to act quickly.

    UNFSA calls on RFMOs to be precautionary in how they regulate fishing, although that guidance is not always followed. There are several examples of extensive overfishing of target species, such as bluefin tuna in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean; and mako, oceanic whitetip sharks and other species that are caught unintentionally.

    Although the RFMOs that manage these fisheries have stopped the overfishing in some cases, in others they have not. But there are signs of progress. Over the past decade, a new precautionary management approach known as harvest strategies has gained traction among RFMOs.

    These strategies (or management procedures) are science-based rules that automatically adjust catch limits based on several factors, such as population status. If widely implemented, they should end overfishing and prevent it from threatening these populations again.

    Harvest strategies have already been successful, particularly in the Southern and Atlantic oceans, where they’ve been adopted for several species, including bluefin tuna and cod, fish stocks for which precautionary management has historically been difficult, or even controversial.

    While this progress is important, UNFSA members are still falling short in an area they have agreed is critically important: taking an ecosystem approach to management. For generations, fisheries managers focused on individual fish stocks—adopting catch limits and other measures with little thought to the broader ecosystem.

    Science shows that maintaining ecosystem health is critical to sustainable fishing. Yet, to date, RFMOs largely have not consistently assessed or addressed the wider impacts of fishing on ecosystems, including predator-prey relationships, habitat for target and non-target species, and other factors.

    Instead, most action has been limited to reducing the impact of bycatch on individual shark species. Better data collection and sharing, and more monitoring of fishing activities, could help integrate stronger ecosystem considerations into management. The more RFMOs can build the whole ecosystem into their decisions, the better it will be for their fisheries.

    For example, in the western and central Pacific, the $10 billion skipjack tuna fishery is an enormous economic driver for island nations that are threatened by climate change. But the harvest strategy in place there is nonbinding and unimplemented.

    For a fishery facing changes in stock distribution due to warming waters, as well as increased market pressures, delayed action on implementation—and a lack of an ecosystem approach—may make matters worse.

    At this week’s UNFSA meeting, RFMOs should be commended for the work they have done in the seven years since the last review. Good progress has been made, including improvements to compliance efforts, and monitoring and enforcement to fight illegal fishing.

    But many of the legal obligations of the treaty remain unfulfilled. As such, sustainability is still out of reach for some critically important stocks, and almost no ecosystem-based protections are in place.

    As governments convene this week, they should look to the lessons of the past—when poor decision-making threatened the future of some fisheries—and seize the opportunity to modernize management and adhere to the promises they have made on conservation. The biodiversity in the world’s ocean shouldn’t have to wait another seven years for action.

    Grantly Galland leads policy work related to regional fisheries management organizations for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries project.

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  • Nothing Beats Bushmeat, Not Even the Risk of Disease

    Nothing Beats Bushmeat, Not Even the Risk of Disease

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    A man with poached kudu in Kenya. Credit: Richard Moller/Tsavo Trust
    • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
    • Inter Press Service

    BULAWAYO, May 18 (IPS) – Meat from wild animals is relished across Africa and widely traded, but scientists are warning that eating bush meat is a potential health risk, especially in the wake of pandemics like COVID-19.

    A study at the border settlements of Kenya and Tanzania has found that while people have been aware of the risks associated with eating bushmeat, especially after the COVID-19 outbreak, they don’t worry about hunting and eating wild animals that could transmit diseases.

    On the contrary, the demand for bushmeat has increased, the 2023 study by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and TRAFFIC and other partners found.

    No Beef With Bushmeat

    Bushmeat is a collective term for meat derived from wild mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds that live in the jungle, savannah, or wetlands. Bushmeat comes from a variety of wild animals, including monkeys, pangolins, snakes, porcupines, antelopes, elephants, and giraffes.

    The study — the first ever to look at disease risk perceptions of wild meat activities in rural communities in East Africa — was conducted in December 2021, and 299 people were interviewed in communities on the Kenya-Tanzania border.

    Key findings of the study revealed that levels of education played a critical role in understanding zoonotic disease transmission; a majority of the people interviewed who had higher levels of education were more aware of the risks of disease transmission.

    Nearly 80 percent of the respondents had learned about COVID-19 from mass media sources, but this did not impact their levels of wild meat consumption. Some even reported increased consumption. Hoofed animals, such as antelopes, gazelles and deer, were found to be the most consumed species, followed by birds, rodents and shrews.

    Scientist and lead study author at ILRI, Ekta Patel, commented that it was important to commence the study in Kenya given the limited information on both rural and urban demand for wild meat and the potential risks associated with zoonotic diseases. The Kenya-Tanzania border is a known hotspot for wild meat consumption.

    Zoonotic diseases are those that originate in animals — be they tamed or wild — that then mutate and ‘spill over’ into human populations.  Two-thirds of infectious diseases, from HIV/AIDS, which are believed to have originated in chimpanzee populations in early 20th century Central Africa, to COVID-19, believed to have originated from an as-yet undetermined animal in 2019, come from animals.

    Confirming that there is no COVID health risk of consuming wild meat, Patel said that given the COVID-19 pandemic, which is thought to originate from wildlife, the study was investigating if the general public was aware of health risks associated with frequent interactions with wildlife.

    Patel said some of these risks of eating bush meat include coming into contact with zoonotic pathogens, which can make the handler unwell. Other concerns are linked to not cooking meats well, resulting in foodborne illnesses.

    “The big worry is in zoonotic disease risks associated with wild meat activities such as hunting, skinning and consuming,” Patel told IPS.

    Africa is facing a growing risk of outbreaks caused by zoonotic pathogens, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The global health body reported a 63% increase in zoonotic outbreaks in the region from 2012-2022 compared to 2001-2011.

    Control or Ban?

    Scientists estimate that 70 percent of emerging infectious diseases originated from animals, and 60 percent of the existing infectious disease are zoonotic. For example, Ebola outbreaks in the Congo basin have been traced back to hunters exposed to ape carcasses.  She called for governments to implement policies to control zoonotic disease transmission risks through community engagements to change behaviour.

    The study, while representative of the small sample, offered valuable insights about bushmeat consumption trends happening across Africa, where bushmeat is many times on the menu, says Martin Andimile, co-author of the study and Research Manager at the global wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

    Pointing to the need to improve hygiene and standards of informal markets while at the same time providing communities with alternative protein sources, Andimile believes bushmeat consumption should be paused, citing the difficulty of regulating this source of meat.

    “I think people in Africa have other options to get meat besides wild meat although some advocate that they get meat from the wild because of cultural reasons and that it is a delicacy, government systems cannot control the legal exploitation of wildlife,” Andimile told IPS. “I think bushmeat consumption should be stopped until there is a proper way of regulating it.”

    Andimile said while some regulation could be enforced where the population of species are healthy enough for commercial culling to give communities bushmeat, growing human populations will impact the offtake of species from the wild.

    “Bushmeat consumption is impacting species as some households consume bushmeat on a daily basis, and it is broadly obtained illegally (and is) cheaper than domestic meat,” Andimile told IPS.

    Maybe regulation could keep bushmeat on the menu for communities instead of banning it, independent experts argue.

    “Wild meat harvesting and consumption should not be banned as this goes against the role of sustainable use in area-based conservation as made clear by recent CBD COP15 decisions,” Francis Vorhies, a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group (SULi), says.  He called for an enabling environment for sustainable and inclusive wild meat harvesting, which means better regulations and voluntary standards such as developing a FairWild-like standard for harvesting wild animals.

    Another expert, Rogers Lubilo, also a member of the IUCN SULi, concurs that bushmeat consumption should not be banned because it is a major source of protein. He argued that local communities who live side-by-side with wildlife would like to access bushmeat like they used to before, but the current policies across many sites incriminate bushmeat when acquired from illegal sources.

    “There is a need to invest in opportunities that will encourage access to legal bushmeat,” Lubilo said. “The trade is big and lucrative, and if harnessed properly with good policies and the ability to monitor, would be part of the broadened wildlife economy.”

    Eating Species to Extinction

    There is some evidence that the consumption of bushmeat is impacting the species’ population, raising fears that without corrective action, people will eat wildlife to extinction.

    The IUCN has warned that bushmeat consumption and trade have driven many species closer to extinction, calling for its regulation. Hunting and trapping are listed as a threat to 4,658 terrestrial species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, including 1,194 species in Africa.

    At least 5 million tons of bushmeat are trafficked every year in Central Africa. Africa is expected to lose 50 percent of its bird and mammal species by the turn of the century, says  Eric Nana, a member of the IUCN SULi.

    Nana notes that bushmeat trafficking from Africa into European countries like France, Switzerland, Belgium and the UK remains a largely understudied channel. He said estimates show that more than 1,000 tons are trafficked yearly.

    “Much of the reptile-based bushmeat trade in Africa is technically illegal, poorly regulated, and little understood,” Patrick Aust, also a member of IUCN SULi, said, adding that reptiles form an important part of the bushmeat trade in Africa and further research is urgently needed to better understand conservation impacts and socioeconomic importance.

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  • Biodiversity Rich-Palau Launches Ambitious Marine Spatial Planning Initiative

    Biodiversity Rich-Palau Launches Ambitious Marine Spatial Planning Initiative

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    Palau’s Marine Spatial Plan will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources. Credit: SPC
    • by Busani Bafana (bulawayo)
    • Inter Press Service

    BULAWAYO, Apr 28 (IPS) – Growing up in Palau in the western Pacific Ocean, Surangel Whipps Jr. played on the reefs and spearfished on an island teeming with birds, giant clams, fish, and turtles.

    Today that has all changed as a result of growing sea level rise. Half of the turtle eggs nesting on beaches are not surviving because they are laid in the tidal zone and swallowed by the sea.

    During the United Nations Ocean Conference in Portugal in June 2022, Whipps Jr., the President of Palau, emphasized the interconnectedness of the fate of the turtles, their homes, culture, and people, drawing global attention to the dire impact of climate change on this island nation that relies heavily on the ocean for its livelihood.

    Protecting Palau’s Marine Treasures

    The Pacific Ocean is the lifeblood of Palau, supporting its social, cultural, and economic development. Palau is an archipelago of over 576 islands in the western tropical Pacific Ocean. Its rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles.

    Worried that the island would have no future under the sea, Palau has launched an ambitious Marine Spatial Plan (MSP) initiative for its marine ecosystems that are vulnerable to climate change and impacted by human activities such as tourism, fishing, aquaculture, and shipping. It will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources in a way that balances economic, social, and environmental objectives. It also aims to minimize conflicts between different users of the ocean and coastal areas and promotes their sustainable use.

    Marino-O-Te-Au Wichman, a fisheries scientist with the Pacific Community (SPC) and a member of the Palau MSP Steering Committee, explains that the initiative is particularly important for Palau due to the country’s dependence on the marine ecosystem for food security, livelihoods, and cultural identity.

    “We recognize the critical role that MSP plays in the development of maritime sectors with high potential for sustaining jobs and economic growth,” Wichman said, emphasizing that SPC was committed to supporting country-driven MSP processes with the best scientific advice and capacity development support.

    “The MSP can help balance ecological and economic considerations in the management of marine resources, ensuring that these resources are used in a sustainable way.  Some of the key ecological considerations that MSP can help address include the conservation of biodiversity, restoration of habitats, and the management of invasive species. While on the economic front, MSP can help promote the sustainable use of marine resources: and promote low-impact economic activities such as ecotourism,” Wichman observed.

    Climate Informed Decision Making

    As climate change continues to impact ocean conditions, the redistribution of marine ecosystem services and benefits will affect maritime activities and societal value chains. Mainstreaming climate change into MSP can improve preparedness and response while also reducing the vulnerability of marine ecosystems.

    Palau’s rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles. Credit: SPC
    Palau’s rich marine biota includes approximately 400 species of hard corals, 300 species of soft corals, 1400 species of reef fishes, and the world’s most isolated colony of dugongs and Micronesia’s only saltwater crocodiles. Credit: SPC

    “MSP can inform policy making in Pacific Island countries in several ways to support sustainable development, particularly in the face of climate change impacts. The MSP initiative launched by Palau encompasses a Climate Resilient Marine Spatial Planning project that is grounded in the most reliable scientific data, including climate change scenarios and climate risk models,” said Wichman, noting that the plan can help identify areas that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, ocean acidification, movement of key tuna stocks and increased storm intensity.

    Increasing the knowledge base on the impacts of a changing climate is necessary for policymakers to ensure the protection of ecologically important areas and the implementation of sustainable development strategies. This includes building strong evidence that takes into account the potential spatial relocation of uses in MSP, the knowledge of conservation priority species and keystone ecosystem components, and their inclusion in sectoral analyses to promote sustainability and resilience.

    Although progress has been made in understanding the impacts of climate change and its effects on marine ecosystems, there is still a need for thorough scientific research to guide management decisions.

    “At SPC, we are dedicated to supporting countries in advancing their knowledge of ocean science. Our joint efforts have paid off, as Palau has made significant strides in improving their understanding of the ocean and safeguarding its well-being. Through the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science (PCCOS), Palau and other Pacific countries are given support to continue promoting predictive and sustainable ocean practices in the region,” explained Pierre-Yves Charpentier, Project Management Advisor for the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science.

    A Long-Term Commitment To Protect the Ocean  

    In 2015, Palau voted to establish the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, with a planned five-year phase-in. On January 1, 2020, Palau fully protected 80% of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), prohibiting all forms of extractive activities, including mining and all types of fishing.

    A Palauan legend is told of a fisherman from the village of Ngerchemai. One day the fisherman went out fishing in his canoe and came upon a large turtle and hastily jumped into the water after it. Surfacing for a breath, the fisherman realized his canoe wasn’t anchored and was drifting away. He then looked at the turtle, and it was swimming away. He could not decide which one he should pursue. In doing so, he lost both the canoe and the turtle.

    Unlike the fisherman, Palau cannot afford to be indecisive about protecting its marine treasures, Whipps Jr. said: “Ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development is our collective responsibility.”

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  • UNDP Good Growth Partnership: Smallholders Key to Reducing Indonesian Deforestation (Part 2)

    UNDP Good Growth Partnership: Smallholders Key to Reducing Indonesian Deforestation (Part 2)

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    The replanting of palm oil plants aimed at producing better trees through good agricultural practices. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership (GGP) in Indonesia included several projects under one umbrella. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima
    • by Cecilia Russell (johannesburg)
    • Inter Press Service

    JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 (IPS) – Smallholder farmers are critical to the success of Indonesia’s efforts to address deforestation and climate change. Creating an understanding and supporting this group, internally and abroad, is a crucial objective for those working towards reducing deforestation and promoting good farming practices, especially as smallholders often work hand-to-mouth and are vulnerable to perpetuating unsustainable farming practices.

    Musim Mas, a large palm oil corporation involved in sustainable production, says smallholders “hold approximately 40 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations and are a significant group in the palm oil supply chain. This represents 4.2 million hectares in Indonesia, roughly the size of Denmark. According to the Palm Oil Agribusiness Strategic Policy Initiative (PASPI), smallholders are set to manage 60 percent of Indonesia’s oil palm plantations by 2030.” 

    Since last year a new World Bank-led programme, the Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR), incorporates the United Nations Development Programme Good Growth Partnership (GGP). It will continue to be involved in the success of palm oil production and smallholders’ support—crucial, especially as a study showed that the “sector lifted around 2.6 million rural Indonesians from poverty this century,” with knock-on development successes including improved rural infrastructure.

    Over the past five years, GGP conducted focused training with about 3,000 smallholder farmers, says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom:

    “The idea was to pilot some public-private partnerships for training, new ways of getting the producers to adopt these agricultural practices so that we could learn from these pilots and scale them up through farmer support system strategies,” Bonzom says.

    Farmer organizations speaking to IPS explained how they, too, support smallholder farmers.

    Amanah, an independent smallholder association of about 500 independent smallholders in Ukui, Riau province, was the first group to receive Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification as part of a joint programme, right before the start of GGP, between the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, UNDP, and Asian Agri. This followed training in good agricultural practices, land mapping, high carbon stock (HCS), and high conservation value (HCV) methodologies to identify forest areas for protection.

    “The majority of independent smallholders in Indonesia do not have the capacity to implement best practices in the palm oil field. Consequently, it is important to provide assistance and training on good agricultural practices in the field on a regular and ongoing basis,” Amanah commented, adding that the training included preparing land for planting sustainably and using certified seeds, fertilizer, and good harvesting practices.

    A producer organization, SPKS, said it was working with farmers to implement sustainable practices. It established a smallholders’ database and assisted them with ISPO and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifications.

    Jointly with High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN), it created a toolkit for independent smallholders on zero deforestation. This has already been implemented in four villages in two districts.

    “At this stage, SPKS and HCVRN are designing benefits and incentives for independent smallholders who already protect their forest area (along) with the indigenous people,” SPKS said, adding that it expected that these initiatives could be used and adopted by those facing EU regulations.

    SPKS sees the new EU deforestation legislation as a concern and an opportunity, especially as the union has shown a commitment to supporting independent small farmers—including financial support to prepare for readiness to comply with the regulations, including geolocation, capacity building, and fair price mechanisms.

    Amanah also pointed to the EU regulations, which incentivize independent smallholders to adhere to the certification process.

    “As required by EU law, the EU is also tasked with implementing programs and assistance at the upstream level as well as serving as an incentive for independent smallholders who already adhere to the certification process. The independent smallholder will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices. Financing may be used as an incentive. The independent smallholders will be encouraged by this incentive to use sustainable best practices,” the organization told IPS.

    SPKS would like to see final EU regulations include a requirement for companies importing palm oil into the EU to guarantee a direct supply chain from at least 30 percent of independent smallholders based on a fair partnership.

    “In the draft EU regulations, it is not yet clear whether the due diligence is based on deforestation-related risk-based analysis. Indonesia is often considered a country with a high deforestation rate, and palm oil is perceived to be a factor in deforestation. Considering this, we hope the EU will consider smallholder farmers by ensuring that EU regulations do not further burden them by issuing Technical Guidelines specifically designed for smallholder farmers.”

    In April 2023, the European Parliament passed the law introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil. The UNDP is now researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the criteria.

    Setara Jambi, an organization dedicated to education and capacity building for oil palm smallholders for sustainable agricultural management, says that while they are concerned about the EU regulations, small farmers have “many limitations, which are different from companies that already have adequate institutions.

    “This concern will not arise if there is a strong commitment from both government and companies (buyers of smallholder fresh fruit bunches) to assist smallholders in preparing and implementing sustainable palm oil management.”

    The next five years with FOLUR will face significant challenges. There is a need to ensure that the National Action Plan moves to the next level because it is going to expire at the end of 2024. It will require updating and expanding.

    Traceability and Deforestation

    In Indonesia, there are 26 provinces and 225 districts that produce palm oil. And at the time of writing, eight provinces and nine districts have developed their own versions of the pilot Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plan and developed their own provincial or district-level Sustainable Palm Oil Action Plans.

    There is a lot to do, including supporting the Indonesian government’s multi-stakeholder process, capacity building for the private sector, supporting an enabling environment for all, and working with financial institutions to make investment decisions aligned with deforestation commitments.

    The biggest issue is to get the smallholder farmers on board. Because they live a life of survival, often they are vulnerable to “short-termism.”

    On the positive side, the FOLUR initiative has the government’s backing. At the launch in Jakarta last year, Musdhalifah Machmud, Deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, said that the implementation of the FOLUR Project was expected to be able to create a value chain sustainability model for rice, oil palm, coffee, and cocoa through sustainable land use and “comprehensively by paying attention to biodiversity conservation, climate change, restoration, and land degradation.”

    At that launch workshop in Jakarta, the World Bank’s Christopher Brett, FOLUR co-leader, noted: “Healthy and sustainable value chains offer social benefits and generate profits without putting undue stress on the environment.”

    Bonzom agrees: “At the end of the day, they (smallholders) will need to see the benefits—better market terms, better prices, better, more secure contracts—that’s what is attractive for them.”

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  • UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

    UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

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    • by Alison Kentish (new york)
    • Inter Press Service

    NEW YORK, Apr 26 (IPS) – For the last five years, the United Nations Development Programme has worked with some of the world’s biggest producers of commodities like beef, soy, palm oil, and cocoa to protect livelihoods and the planet.In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

    Membership would grow to over 500 partners covering 200 hectares of land today.

    For almost four years, the cooperative’s small producers worked tirelessly on the transition of the area from traditional but environmentally taxing cocoa harvesting to growing premium cocoa that could meet export demand in the chocolate industry. This was no easy feat, as fine-flavor cocoa production demanded significant investment in technical training for members, initiatives to monitor deforestation, and data systems to ensure cocoa traceability, production, and sales. On the education side, it demanded a change from centuries-long cocoa farming practices to the principles of agroecology.

    Then in 2022, as the farmers worked to meet demanding international certifications, the European Parliament passed a new law that is introducing rigorous, wide-ranging requirements on commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef and cocoa. Now the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is researching how it should step up its assistance to producers to meet the new criteria.

    New EU Requirements

    Colpa de Loros sells 100 percent of its cocoa to a European buyer, the French company Kaoka. When word of the new European regulations hit, the cooperative had already achieved organic production and fair-trade certification. It had also attained ‘fair for life’ certification, a Kaoka-led initiative.

    Attaining these credentials meant that members had been working on a blueprint for environmentally friendly agriculture systems. However, for Peru, the world’s third largest cocoa supplier to Europe, the new regulations triggered frenetic action to maintain contracts with buyers and protect the almost 100,000 small producers who depend on cocoa exports to sustain their households.

    “The law affects not only Colpa de Loros, but all producers,’ said Ernesto Parra, Manager of Colpa de Loros Cooperative.

    “We already have laws which require analysis of pesticides, which makes costs higher. To ensure compliance with this rule, they implement measures like regular audits. Every grain must be free of contamination. There are organizations bigger than Colpa that are experiencing difficulties to respond, and no actions have been taken by the government to support them,” he said.

    The European Commission has now also introduced new forest conservation and restoration rules. The Commission said the deforestation regulation would promote EU consumption of deforestation-free supply chain products, encourage international cooperation to tackle forest degradation, reroute finance to aid sustainable land-use practices, and support the collection and availability of quality data on forests and commodity supply chains.

    Parra says this commitment to the environment complements the Cooperative’s core values.

    “The cooperative aligns with this green pact signed by all actors in Europe to not buy chocolate from deforested areas or involving child or forced work. They not only promote the protection of the environment, but reforestation, land protection, recycling programmes, and biogas from cacao liquid. We agree that cocoa can’t come from deforested areas or make new plantations in protected areas.”

    While the cooperative is firm in its environmental consciousness, Parra says the investment is needed in educational activities and technical support for rural farmers who are struggling to accept the realities of land degradation and climate change.

    “Some of them are still burning forests. Organizations need to convince the base of producers and farmers to change. Not only their partners but all people in the communities. Incentives can help. For example, I can be carbon neutral, but I’m going to have a higher cost, and if the market does not recognize it, if I don’t have an incentive, the standard will be difficult to maintain. Our cooperative gives its own incentives: those who commit to the organic certification receive fertilizer produced by Colpa de Loros to increase production.

    “It is a start, but this is not enough. The state or the market needs to offer incentives as well.”

    UNDP Support – and Good Growth Partnership Scoping

    The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has been working with the world’s commodity-producing countries to put sustainability at the center of supply chains.

    For the past five years, its Good Growth Partnership (GGP), based on the tenets of the Sustainable Development Goals  and funded by the Global Environmental Facility, has struck a balance between livelihoods and environmental protection—prioritizing people and the planet.

    From Brazil to Indonesia, the GGP has embraced an Integrated Approach, working with producers, traders, policymakers, financial institutions, and multinational corporations to build sustainability in soy, beef, and palm oil supply chains.

    Peru has so far not been covered by GGP but is being scoped for possible assistance under a next phase of the programme.

    In the meantime, the UN agency has been supporting Peru to achieve sustainable commodity production- a target that remains crucial in the face of the new EU regulation.

    “The control and monitoring of all production processes had to be doubled, and UNDP is vital here. With its finance, the technical department was strengthened, agricultural technology was incorporated, and members received capacity building in sustainability and food security,” said Parra.

    Each member of Colpa de Loros is responsible for 3-4 hectares of land. The GEF-financed Sustainable Productive Landscapes (SPL) in the Peruvian Amazon project, led by the Ministry of Environment with technical assistance from UNDP, has been supporting projects that enhance food production while protecting water and land resources.

    “The organization’s cocoa is not conventional cocoa. It is a fine aroma cocoa. So, producers needed equipment for special analysis. Then all information needed to be organized in a digital platform. UNDP helped in these areas,’ he added.

    “The GEF-financed SPL project provided US$150,000 to complement the work of the organization with maps, digital platforms, and traceability. As there is no global system of traceability, Colpa is using its own, which is expensive.”

    Action Plans

    The UN organization, working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, has also been assisting the Government and industry partners to develop and implement national action plans for the cocoa and coffee sectors. The Peruvian National Plan for Cocoa and Chocolate was unveiled in November 2022. It breaks down divisions between production, demand, and finance issues in agriculture. It also contains clear strategies to increase sustainability based on science, technology, and tradition.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBiNtHbEMZQ

    The plan complements the values of UNDP and represents a win for both farmers and the environment.

    “It is important to recognize that many Peruvian farmers’ cooperatives and companies, regardless of the EU regulation, are concerned about the potential impacts of their production systems on the environment, and they are increasingly conscious of the impacts that climate change is having on their production systems,” said James Leslie, Technical Advisor Ecosystems and Climate Change at UNDP Peru.

    “Now, the concern is the feasibility of complying with the EU regulation and in the timeframe required. This concern is directly related to the fact that the EU markets are important for Peruvian agricultural products, particularly coffee, and cocoa. There is a concern that with the new EU regulation, there can be restricted or more challenging access to the market.”

    The UNDP official says meeting stringent sustainable production requirements comes at a hefty cost to owners of small and medium-sized farms.

    “There is not necessarily a price premium for their products due to certification,” he said. Incentives are a key factor in GGP’s work in encouraging farmers to adopt sustainable practices.

    “It’s important also to recognize that there is a difference within the farmer population. Some farmers are organized and are part of cooperatives. For example, roughly 20 percent of cocoa and coffee farmers are organized in some way, which means that 80 per cent are not. Those unorganized farmers are less likely to be certified, and they are less likely to be accessing stable markets that provide some price guarantee.”

    According to the UNDP, Peru ranks 9 in the world’s top ten cocoa producers and tops the world in organic cocoa production. The majority of farmers are small-scale and medium scale. Leslie says many of these farmers are either living in poverty or vulnerable to falling below the poverty line.

    “Add to that additional restrictions and costs in order to access markets, and it poses a risk for these farmers—for their wellbeing and livelihoods,” he said.

    The Future of Sustainable Agriculture

    Looking ahead, Leslie says access to traceability systems is important. The farmers will need to prove that their production has met the EU requirements.

    He says the Government will also need to expand technical assistance, increase investment in science and technology, including the purchase of climate change-resistant crop varieties, and ensure that farmers can receive finance aligned with the EU regulation’s sustainability criteria.

    Clear land use policies will also be needed to delineate land that is appropriate for agriculture and particular types of crops. Areas that must be regenerated should be clearly marked, along with those that should be conserved, such as watersheds and zones of high biodiversity value.

    For Colpa de Loros, Parra says the goal must be to strike a balance between sustainable land use and livelihoods.

    “For deforestation, there is a big relation to poverty. The majority of the time a producer cuts down a tree, it’s because of need.”

    He says the challenge is to create a supply chain that is sustainable, competitive, and inclusive – a goal that is attainable with adequate support and buy-in from every link in the value chain.

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  • Pacific Island Countries To Develop Advanced Warning System for Tuna Migration

    Pacific Island Countries To Develop Advanced Warning System for Tuna Migration

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    Pacific Community-led regional initiative aims to assist countries in the region with mitigating the impacts of climate change-induced tuna migration. Credit: Pacific Community/SPC
    • by Neena Bhandari (sydney)
    • Inter Press Service

    SYDNEY, Apr 19 (IPS) – Climate change and warming ocean waters are causing tuna fisheries to migrate to international waters, away from a country’s jurisdiction, thereby putting the food and economic security of many Pacific Island countries and territories at risk.

    Now a Pacific Community (SPC) led regional initiative will help ensure that these countries are equipped to cope with climate change-induced tuna migration.

    “All the climate change projections indicate that there will be a redistribution of tuna from the western and central Pacific to the more eastern and towards the polar regions, that is not Antarctica or the Arctic, but to regions outside of the equatorial zones where they primarily occur at the moment,” says SPC’s Principal Fisheries Scientist, Dr Simon Nicol.

    “This has really important implications for the Pacific Island countries. Our projections suggest that about one-fifth or about USD 100 million of the income derived from the tuna industry directly is likely to be lost by 2050 by these countries,” Nicol tells IPS.

    The total annual catch of tuna in the western and central Pacific Ocean represents around 55 percent of global tuna production. Approximately half of this catch is from the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Pacific Island countries.

    The recent USD15.5 million funding by New Zealand for SPC’s ‘Climate Science for Ensuring Pacific Tuna Access’ programme will enable Pacific Island countries to prepare and adapt the region’s tuna fisheries to meet the challenges posed by climate change.

    Nicol says that the investment that New Zealand has provided for the programme will allow for more rigorous and timely monitoring of the types of changes that are occurring, both due to the impacts of fishing and climate change, at a very fine resolution. Secondly, it will also provide the additional resources that are needed to increase the ocean monitoring capacity to remove the anomalies and biases to particular local conditions, which often occur in global climate models.

    “We have noted, for example, that the boundary of the warm pool in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Nauru can have an element of bias associated with it. It’s an important oceanographic feature in the western Pacific equatorial zone, which moves in association with the El Nino Southern Oscillation. Sometimes its eastern boundary is right next to Papua New Guinea, and at other times, it extends all the way past Nauru. It is a key driver of recruitment for skipjack tuna, so we need to be quite precise where that boundary is for any prediction of skipjack recruitment that occurs in any given year,” he tells IPS.

    Several Pacific Island countries and territories find their food and economic security at risk due to the climate-change-induced migration of tuna into international waters. Credit: Pacific Community/SPC
    Several Pacific Island countries and territories find their food and economic security at risk due to the climate-change-induced migration of tuna into international waters. Credit: Pacific Community (SPC)

    The analysis at the ocean basin scale does not provide EEZ scale information for particular countries, and it is often not precise in predicting when the impact of climate change is going to manifest itself.

    Under the programme, a Pacific-owned advanced warning system will be developed by SPC to help countries forecast, monitor and manage tuna migration, which is set to become more pronounced in the coming decades.

    “The advanced warning system will allow us to zoom in on what the likely changes are in each particular country’s EEZ and also zoom in more accurately and precisely on when those changes are likely to occur, which is particularly important from a Pacific Island country perspective,” Nicol tells IPS.

    Whilst Pacific Island countries manage the tuna resource collectively to ensure its biological sustainability, the income that they derive is very much a national-level enterprise. A recent study in Nature Sustainability estimates that the movement of tuna stocks could cause a fall of up to 17 percent in the annual government revenue of some of these countries.

    The study notes that more than 95 percent of all tuna caught from the jurisdictions of the 22 Pacific Island countries and territories comes from the combined EEZs of 10 Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) – Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu. On average, they derive 37 percent (ranging from 4 percent for Papua New Guinea to 84 percent for Tokelau) of all government revenue from tuna-fishing access fees paid by foreign industrial fishing fleets.

    “The advanced warning system would allow for more refined predictions of the changes in tuna stock, abundance, distribution and the fisheries around them. This is very important to what each country gets as access fees, which relates to how much tuna is typically caught in their EEZ,” says Dr Meryl Williams, Vice Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation.

    “Access fees usually form part of the general consolidated revenue that the government has to spend on hospitals, education and infrastructure, and hence it is a very important source of revenue for people’s economic development in many of the Pacific Island countries,” she adds.

    Currently, the program is focused only on the four dominant tuna species – Skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis), Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares), Bigeye (Thunnus obesus) and the South Pacific Albacore (Thunnus alalunga) – caught in the Pacific Island countries.

    SPC’s Director of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, Coral Pasisi says, “Without successful global action to mitigate climate change, the latest ecosystem modelling predicts a significant decrease in the availability of tropical tuna species (tuna biomass) in the Western Pacific due to a shifting of their biomass to the east and some declines in overall biomass. Negative impacts on coastal fish stocks important for local food security are also predicted”.

    Curbing greenhouse gas emissions in line with The Paris Agreement could help limit tuna migration away from the region. “We have to ensure sustainable fishing levels for the Pacific Islands. To reach this goal, developed countries should act quickly and increase their ambition to stay below 1.5 degrees centigrade, and Pacific countries should maintain sustainable management of their fisheries resources,” Pasisi tells IPS.

    She says the future of the Pacific region’s marine resources will be secured through nearshore fish aggregating devices, sustainable coastal fisheries management plans, and aquaculture.

    “We must also complete the work on delineating all Exclusive Economic Zone boundaries to ensure sovereignty over the resources. We need and seek international recognition for the permanency of these. We also must work with all fishing nations in the Pacific to ensure that sustainable management of tuna fisheries continues, even if there is a shift into international waters,” Pasisi adds.

    The programme will work with Pacific Island countries and territories to develop and implement new technologies and innovative approaches to enable the long-term sustainability of the region’s tuna fisheries.

    There is a need to also recognise the more direct fisheries benefits that people, including women, receive from their contributions to the tuna industry, says Williams, who is also the founder and immediate past Chair of the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries section of the Asian Fisheries Society.

    “Looking at the whole of employment in small-scale and industrial fisheries tuna value chains, not just fishing but also processing, trading, work in offices and in fisheries management etc., we estimate that women probably make up at least half, if not more than half, of the labour force in the tuna industry. Hence, their role is very important in sustainably managing the tuna stock in Pacific Island countries,” she tells IPS.

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  • Protecting and Managing the High Seas

    Protecting and Managing the High Seas

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    • Opinion by Daud Khan, Stephen Akester (rome / london)
    • Inter Press Service

    ROME / LONDON, Mar 20 (IPS) – On March 4 2023, the 193 members of the United Nations reached a major milestone. They agreed on a treaty to manage and protect the high seas– the marine areas that lie outside the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of coastal states. The high seas are an essential part of the global ecosystem. They cover 50 percent of the Earth’s surface, produce half the oxygen we breathe, provide a home to 95 percent of the planet’s biosphere, are a critical sink for carbon dioxide, and help regulate the Earth’s temperature.

    Daud KhanThe new treaty provides a legal framework for establishing vast marine protected areas (MPAs) in the high seas and for a body to manage these protected areas – the target is to protect 30 percent of the seas by 2030. It will also set up systems to ensure the benefits of the genetic resources derived from the sea are “shared in a fair and equitable manner”; and will establish a Conference of the Parties that will meet periodically and members will be held to account on issues such as governance and biodiversity.

    The agreement of the new treaty, the result of decades of work and lobbying, is something to celebrate. However, a review of other international laws and treaties suggests that enthusiasm needs to be tempered with realism. Commonly, developed countries, due to their superior technology and financial heft, are the biggest economic beneficiaries of open access resources such the high seas, the atmosphere and outer space. They are also the worst culprits in terms of damage caused due to pollution and overuse. Getting these benefiting countries to change behavior has proved difficult.

    The case of the 1982 Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS) is illustrative. . Some of the provisions of Part VII of UNCLOS, which deals with the high seas, work well. For example those related to piracy – maybe because keeping shipping lanes safe is of interest to big countries with large fleets. However, the provisions related to fisheries work much less well.

    Stephen AkesterUnder Article 119 of UNCLOS, parties are required “to maintain or restore populations of harvested species at levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yield”. The responsibility for this lies with states whose flags the fishing fleets fly (Article 117). Notwithstanding these provisions, overfishing has continued unabated with the fleets from a handful of countries being the main culprits. There has been no effective action or sanctions to curb this, and, as a result, the proportion of fishery stocks exploited in excess of sustainable levels has continued to rise and has reached 35 percent in 2019 (https://www.fao.org/3/cc0461en/cc0461en.pdf). Under UNCLOS there is also a requirement for states to “cooperate to establish subregional or regional fisheries organizations”. But these too have had a patchy record of success as we pointed out in our article about Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (https://www.ipsnews.net/2022/07/rape-indian-oceanthe-story-yellow-fin-tuna/).

    Similarly the International Seabed Authority was set up to oversee and manage the exploitation of the resources on or under the seabed including oil, gas and minerals. However, there is no requirement to carry out any detailed environmental or ecological assessment; no royalties are to be paid; and no requirement for sharing of benefits with the poorer countries that lack the technologies to mine these resources.

    The situation is even worse with regard to the disposal of waste in the high seas where there are virtually no regulations. This has resulted in increasing plastic and chemical pollution, much of which emanates from developed countries. Even spent fuel from nuclear power plants and radioactive water from the Fukushima power plant disaster have been dumped there.

    The new treaty for the high seas aims to address many of these issues. However, it is essential that developing countries are fully involved in drafting the detailed implementation and enforcement arrangements; and defining responsibilities, as well as sanctions in the case of violation of rules and procedures. Developing countries should also continue to call into question the fact that new treaty does not cover ongoing exploitation of the high seas.

    The high seas are common property of mankind and all countries need to be involved in how they are managed. The European Union has already pledged €40m to facilitate the formal ratification of the treaty and its early implementation. This will certainly give them a big say on the evolution of the detailed institutional and regulatory architecture. In order to counter this, developing countries must at least match this amount, with the larger developing countries taking in lead in provision of funding and technical skills.

    Daud Khan works as consultant and advisor for various Governments and international agencies. He has degrees in Economics from the LSE and Oxford – where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from the Imperial College of Science and Technology. He lives partly in Italy and partly in Pakistan.

    Stephen Akester is an independent fisheries specialist working in Indian Ocean coastal countries for past 40 years.

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  • Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

    Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas – representing a turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation has previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.

    The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. The treaty agreement concluded two weeks of talks in New York.

    An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty, which applies to nearly half the planet’s surface, was reached late Saturday.

    “We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”

    Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, called the long-awaited treaty text “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”

    The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. And Clark said that’s critical to achieve the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s waters, as well as its land, for conservation.

    Treaty negotiations initially were anticipated to conclude Friday, but stretched through the night and deep into Saturday. The crafting of the treaty, which at times looked in jeopardy, represents “a historic and overwhelming success for international marine protection,” said Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environment minister.

    “For the first time, we are getting a binding agreement for the high seas, which until now have hardly been protected,” Lemke said. “Comprehensive protection of endangered species and habitats is now finally possible on more than 40% of the Earth’s surface.”

    The treaty also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.

    “It means all activities planned for the high seas need to be looked at, though not all will go through a full assessment,” said Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

    Several marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them, along with human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life, have long proven difficult for international governing bodies.

    “This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” Battle said.

    That protection also helps coastal biodiversity and economies, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.

    “Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.

    The question now is how well the ambitious treaty will be implemented.

    Formal adoption also remains outstanding, with numerous conservationists and environmental groups vowing to watch closely.

    The high seas have long suffered exploitation due to commercial fishing and mining, as well as pollution from chemicals and plastics. The new agreement is about “acknowledging that the ocean is not a limitless resource, and it requires global cooperation to use the ocean sustainably,” Rutgers University biologist Malin Pinsky said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Berlin.

    ___

    Follow Larson on Twitter at @larsonchristina and Whittle at @pxwhittle

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

    Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

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    WASHINGTON — For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas – representing a turning point for vast stretches of the planet where conservation has previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.

    The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept. The treaty agreement concluded two weeks of talks in New York.

    An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty, which applies to nearly half the planet’s surface, was reached late Saturday.

    “We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”

    Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, called the long-awaited treaty text “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”

    The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. And Clark said that’s critical to achieve the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s waters, as well as its land, for conservation.

    Treaty negotiations initially were anticipated to conclude Friday, but stretched through the night and deep into Saturday. The crafting of the treaty, which at times looked in jeopardy, represents “a historic and overwhelming success for international marine protection,” said Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environment minister.

    “For the first time, we are getting a binding agreement for the high seas, which until now have hardly been protected,” Lemke said. “Comprehensive protection of endangered species and habitats is now finally possible on more than 40% of the Earth’s surface.”

    The treaty also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.

    “It means all activities planned for the high seas need to be looked at, though not all will go through a full assessment,” said Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

    Several marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them, along with human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life, have long proven difficult for international governing bodies.

    “This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” Battle said.

    That protection also helps coastal biodiversity and economies, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.

    “Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.

    The question now is how well the ambitious treaty will be implemented.

    Formal adoption also remains outstanding, with numerous conservationists and environmental groups vowing to watch closely.

    The high seas have long suffered exploitation due to commercial fishing and mining, as well as pollution from chemicals and plastics. The new agreement is about “acknowledging that the ocean is not a limitless resource, and it requires global cooperation to use the ocean sustainably,” Rutgers University biologist Malin Pinsky said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Berlin.

    ___

    Follow Larson on Twitter at @larsonchristina and Whittle at @pxwhittle

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

    Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seas

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    WASHINGTON — For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas — nearly half the planet’s surface — concluding two weeks of talks in New York.

    The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea came into force in 1994, before marine biodiversity was a well-established concept.

    An updated framework to protect marine life in the regions outside national boundary waters, known as the high seas, had been in discussions for more than 20 years, but previous efforts to reach an agreement had repeatedly stalled. The unified agreement treaty was reached late Saturday.

    “We only really have two major global commons — the atmosphere and the oceans,” said Georgetown marine biologist Rebecca Helm. While the oceans may draw less attention, “protecting this half of earth’s surface is absolutely critical to the health of our planet.”

    Now that long-awaited treaty text has been finalized, Nichola Clark, an oceans expert at the Pew Charitable Trusts who observed the talks in New York, said, “This is a once in a generation opportunity to protect the oceans — a major win for biodiversity.”

    The treaty will create a new body to manage conservation of ocean life and establish marine protected areas in the high seas. And Clark said that’s critical to achieve the U.N. Biodiversity Conference’s recent pledge to protect 30% of the planet’s waters, as well as its land, for conservation.

    The treaty also establishes ground rules for conducting environmental impact assessments for commercial activities in the oceans.

    “It means all activities planned for the high seas need to be looked at, though not all will go through a full assessment,” said Jessica Battle, an oceans governance expert at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

    Many marine species — including dolphins, whales, sea turtles and many fish — make long annual migrations, crossing national borders and the high seas. Efforts to protect them — and human communities that rely on fishing or tourism related to marine life — have previously been hampered by a confusing patchwork of laws.

    “This treaty will help to knit together the different regional treaties to be able to address threats and concerns across species’ ranges,” said Battle.

    That protection also helps coastal biodiversity and economies, said Gladys Martínez de Lemos, executive director of the nonprofit Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense focusing on environmental issues across Latin America.

    “Governments have taken an important step that strengthens the legal protection of two-thirds of the ocean and with it marine biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal communities,” she said.

    The question now is how well the ambitious treaty will be implemented.

    The high seas have long suffered exploitation due to commercial fishing and mining, as well as pollution from chemicals and plastics. The new agreement is about “acknowledging that the ocean is not a limitless resource, and it requires global cooperation to use the ocean sustainably,” said Malin Pinsky, a biologist at Rutgers University.

    ___

    Follow Larson on Twitter at @larsonchristina and Whittle at @pxwhittle

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Interwoven Global Crises Can Best be Solved Together

    Interwoven Global Crises Can Best be Solved Together

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    Mangroves in Tai O, Hong Kong. Coastal wetland protection and restoration is an example of the kind of multifunctional solution that is needed to address multiple global crises together. Credit: Chunyip Wong / iStock
    • Opinion by Paula Harrison – Pamela McElwee – David Obura (bonn)
    • Inter Press Service

    BONN, Mar 02 (IPS) – When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.

    In September, almost every Government on Earth will gather at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York to take stock at the halfway mark of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

    Despite some progress, global development efforts have been hamstrung by unprecedented environmental, social and economic crises, in particular biodiversity loss and climate change, compounded of course by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Tackling these interlinked challenges separately risks creating situations even more damaging to people and communities around the world, and exacerbates the already high risk of not meeting the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    This is especially true because the myriad drivers of risk and damage affect many different sectors at once, across scales from local to global, and can result in negative impacts being compounded. For example, when demands for food and timber combine with the effects of pollution and climate change, they can decimate already degraded ecosystems, driving species to extinction and severely reducing nature’s contributions to people.

    The global food system offers another example of this negative spiral of interlocking crises – where food that is produced unsustainably leads to water overconsumption and waste, pollution, increased health risks and loss of biodiversity. It also leads to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.

    Yet policies often treat each of these global threats in isolation, resulting in separate, uncoordinated actions that typically address only one of the root causes and fail to take advantage of the many potential solution synergies. In the worst cases, actions taken on one challenge directly undermine those needed to tackle another because they fail to account for trade-offs, resulting in unintended consequences, or the impacts being externalised, as someone else’s problem.

    This is why almost 140 Governments turned to the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – requesting IPBES to undertake a major multiyear assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity, water, food and health in the context of the rapidly-changing climate. This ‘Nexus Assessment’ is among the most complex and important expert assessments ever undertaken – crossing key biophysical domains of climate and biodiversity and elements central to human wellbeing like food, water and health. It will also address how interactions are affected by energy, pollution, conflict and other socio-political challenges.

    To fully address this ‘nexus’, the assessment is considering interactions across scales, geographic regions and ecosystems. It also covers past, present and future trends in these interlinkages. And, most importantly, it will offer concrete options for responses to the crises that address the interactions of risk and damage jointly and equitably – providing a vital set of possible solutions for the more sustainable future we want for people and our planet.

    One example of the mutifunctional solutions that will be explored is nature-based solutions – such as coastal wetland protection and restoration. When coastal wetland ecosystems are healthy – whether conserved or where necessary, restored – they are a refuge and habitat for biodiversity, improving fish stocks for greater food security and contributing to improve human health and wellbeing. They can also sequester carbon, helping to mitigate climate change, and protect adjacent communities and settlements from flooding and sea level rise.

    To develop and implement these kinds of multi-functional solutions, responses for dealing with the major global crises need to be better coordinated, integrated, and made more synergistic across sectors, both public and private. Decision-makers at all levels need better evidence and knowledge to implement such solutions.

    Work on the nexus assessment began in 2021 – with the final report expected to be considered and adopted by IPBES member States in 2024. A majority of the 170 expert authors and review editors from around the world are meeting in March in the Kruger National Park in South Africa to further strengthen the draft report, responding to the many thousands of comments received during a first external review period.

    The assessment will also include evidence and expertise contributed by indigenous peoples and local communities – whose rich and varied direct experiences and knowledge systems that consider humans and nature as an interconnected whole have embodied a nexus approach for generations.

    The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the recently-agreed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework provide the roadmaps for tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. The IPBES nexus assessment will offer policymakers a practical guide to bridge the vital interlinkages across the two challenges, to other relevant frameworks, and link to the sustainable development agenda.

    For more information about IPBES or about the ongoing progress on the nexus assessment, go to www.ipbes.net or follow @ipbes on social media.

    Prof. Paula Harrison is a Principal Natural Capital Scientist and Professor of Land and Water Modelling at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom.

    Prof. Pamela McElwee is a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA.

    Dr. David Obura is a Founding Director of CORDIO (Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean) East Africa, Kenya.

    IPS UN Bureau

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

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  • Wildlife Is Much More than a Safari. And It Is at Highest Risk of Extinction

    Wildlife Is Much More than a Safari. And It Is at Highest Risk of Extinction

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    A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute, finds WWF report. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
    • by Baher Kamal (madrid)
    • Inter Press Service

    MADRID, Mar 01 (IPS) – Wildlife is indeed far much more than a safari or an ‘exotic’ ornament: as many as four billion people –or an entire half the whole world’s population– rely on wild species for income, food, medicines and wood fuel for cooking.

    In spite of that, one million species of plants and animals are already facing extinction due to the voracious profit-making, over-exploitative, illegal trade and the relentless depletion of the variety of life on Planet Earth.

    In fact, billions of people, both in developed and developing nations, benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, and many other vital contributions to human well-being, as duly reports the UN on the occasion of the 2023 World Wildlife Day (3 March).

    Much so that 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions worldwide. And 1 in 5 people around the world rely on wild species for income and food, while 2.4 billion people depend on wood fuel for cooking.

    The world’s major multilateral body reminds us of the “urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime and human-induced reduction of species, which have wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.”

    Variety of life, lost at an “alarming rate”

    A world organisation leading in wildlife conservation and protection of endangered species: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns that unfortunately, we’re losing biodiversity — the rich variety of life on Earth — at an “alarming rate.”

    “We’ve seen a 69% average decline in the number of birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970, according to the 2022 Living Planet Report.

    “A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute.”

    WWF highlights the following findings, among several others:

    • 69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970,
    • Wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean plummeting at a staggering rate of 94%,
    • Freshwater species populations have suffered an 83% fall.

     

    Major causes

    The 2022 Living Planet Report points out some of the major causes leading to the shocking loss of the world’s biodiversity.

    “The biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the way in which people use the land and sea. How we grow food, harvest materials such as wood or minerals from the ocean floor, and build our towns and cities all have an impact on the natural environment and the biodiversity that lives there.”

    Food systems: the biggest cause of Nature loss: according to findings provided by WWF, food production has caused 70% of biodiversity loss on land and 50% in freshwater. It is also responsible for around 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

    As a global population, what we’re eating and how we’re producing it right now is good for neither us nor the planet. While over 800 million people are going hungry, over two billion of those who do have enough food are obese or overweight.

    The WWF provided findings also indicate that meat tends to have the highest environmental impact, partially because livestock produce methane emissions through their digestive process – something called enteric fermentation – but also because most meat comes from livestock fed with crops.

    And that around 850 million people around the world are thought to rely on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods.

    WWF’ report also refers to the invasive non-native species: Invasive non-native species are those that arrive in places where they historically didn’t live and out-compete local biodiversity for resources such as sunlight and water. This causes the native species to die out, causing a shift in the makeup of the natural ecosystem.

    Future depends on reversing the loss of Nature

    “The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. And you can’t solve one without solving the other,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US.

    “These plunges in wildlife populations can have dire consequences for our health and economies,” says Rebecca Shaw, global chief scientist of WWF.

    “When wildlife populations decline to this degree, it means dramatic changes are impacting their habitats and the food and water they rely on. We should care deeply about the unravelling of natural systems because these same resources sustain human life.”

    In view of all the above, the causes of the fast destruction of the variety of life have been scientifically identified as well as the dangerous consequences. However, the dominant private business continues to see more profits in destroying than in saving.

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

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  • World’s Largest Oil Corporation to Lead Climate Change Talks in 2023

    World’s Largest Oil Corporation to Lead Climate Change Talks in 2023

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    Credit: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
    • Opinion by Gadir Lavadenz, Pablo Fajardo Mendoza (quito, ecuador / la paz, bolivia)
    • Inter Press Service

    QUITO, Ecuador / LA PAZ, Bolivia, Feb 27 (IPS) – The Chief Executive of the twelfth largest oil producer – Sultan Al Jaber of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – has been appointed as president of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) COP28, the biggest climate change conference that will take place in November, 2023 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

    In brief, the leadership of a Climate Conference that should deliver on ways to create a fossil-free future is in the hands of the representative of one of the top 15 corporations most responsible for carbon emissions globally. Like any other oil company, ADNOC’s very reason for existence is to profit off of the very product that has sent global greenhouse gas emissions soaring and spurred a global climate emergency.

    In fact, ADNOC Drilling under ADNOC Groups reported a rise of 33 percent in 2022 net profit with a projection of record net profit in 2023 fueled by further oil and gas expansion plans. And now at least 12 employees of ADNOC have been given organizing roles for COP28. That means this year the global climate negotiations will literally be run by the fossil fuel industry.

    Fierce criticism has arisen from all over the world and in particular from climate activists that have been long fighting for a fossil fuel free climate COP. In reaction to this appointment, more than 450 climate and human rights organizations wrote a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres and Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC condemning the appointment of Al Jaber as COP28 President.

    The thin argument presented for the appointment of Al Jaber is his involvement in renewables as chairman of Masdar, a “clean-energy innovator” investing in renewables. But that alone does not compare to the evidence on the negative role and powerful influence of the fossil fuel industry in the climate talks.

    The fossil fuel industry has completely co-opted climate policy from the inside out. The most offensive illustration of this co-option and corporate capture of climate talks is the current reality that someone like Al Jaber will preside over a crucial session of climate negotiations at such a time when complete and equitable phase out of fossil fuels is a critical and immediate action needed to protect the planet.

    And this is not happening for the first time!

    More than 630 fossil fuel industry lobbyists participated in COP27 last year at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt and 18 out of 20 COP27 sponsors were either directly partnered with or are linked to the fossil fuel industry.

    This ongoing 30-year experiment of allowing the largest polluters, their financiers, and polluter governments to undermine a meaningful global response to climate change has delivered predictably poor and unacceptable results.

    Several reports last year including this report by the UN Environmental Programme showed that the world will miss the target set in the Paris Agreement by world leaders to limit global warming below 1.5?.

    So, what’s the solution?

    It’s time for international climate policy to finally be protected from polluting interests, and this is the reason many are proposing a concrete drawing from other UN precedents to systematically weed out this undue interference.

    The UN Secretary General has recently equated the fossil fuel industry’s modus operandi as “inconsistent with human survival,” also agreeing that “those responsible must be held to account.’

    A concrete Accountability Framework should be implemented by the UNFCCC drawing from other UN precedents to systematically weed out this undue interference.

    Parties to the UNFCCC have to change the course of how climate talks are moving and provide immediate and clear signs of deep structural changes that can lead to just transition. Governments across the world should be actively protecting climate action from being written, bankrolled, and weakened by polluting interests.

    Rather, it’s (past) time to implement real, proven, and people-centered solutions and hold polluting corporations liable for their decades-long deception and deceit. These are not new ideas. These are not even radical ideas. They are necessary ones.

    The indigenous peoples, peasants, women and frontline communities who face and suffer the serious consequences of the impacts of climate change, together with the social groups of the world that have a real interest in curbing the emissions of greenhouse gasses, demand that the decision makers implement the necessary changes in order to ensure that appropriate measures are adopted by the world and governments at COP28 to prevent the collapse of the planet.

    If these necessary measures are not rectified and implemented immediately, it is world leaders and the decision makers who would be mainly responsible for the collapse of our planet. For us it is clear, Sultan Al Jaber does not have the moral or ethical rectitude to lead and deliver on a COP28 that is for the peoples.

    Pablo Fajardo Mendoza is with the Union of People Affected by Chevron-Texaco (UDAPT); and Gadir Lavadenz is Global Coordinator, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

    IPS UN Bureau


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  • The environmental scars of Russia’s war in Ukraine

    The environmental scars of Russia’s war in Ukraine

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    One year of war in Ukraine has left deep scars — including on the country’s natural landscape.

    The conflict has ruined vast swaths of farmland, burned down forests and destroyed national parks. Damage to industrial facilities has caused heavy air, water and soil pollution, exposing residents to toxic chemicals and contaminated water. Regular shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, means the risk of a nuclear accident still looms large.

    The total number of cases of environmental damage tops 2,300, Ukraine’s environment minister, Ruslan Strilets, told POLITICO in an emailed statement. His ministry estimates the total cost at $51.45 billion (€48.33 billion).

    Of those documented cases, 1,078 have already been handed over to law enforcement agencies, according to Strilets, as part of an effort to hold Moscow accountable in court for environmental damage.

    A number of NGOs have also stepped in to document the environmental impacts of the conflict, with the aim of providing data to international organizations like the United Nations Environment Program to help them prioritize inspections or pinpoint areas at higher risk of pollution.

    Among them is PAX, a peace organization based in the Netherlands, which is working with the Center for Information Resilience (CIR) to record and independently verify incidents of environmental damage in Ukraine. So far, it has verified 242 such cases.

    Left: Hostomel, Ukraine, after a Russian assault. Right: Port of Mykolaiv after a Russian strike | Imagery courtesy of Planet Labs PBC

    “We mainly rely on what’s being documented, and what we can see,” said Wim Zwijnenburg, a humanitarian disarmament project leader with PAX. Information comes from social media, public media accounts and satellite imagery, and is then independently verified.

    “That also means that if there’s no one there to record it … we’re not seeing it,” he said. “It’s such a big country, so there’s fighting in so many locations, and undoubtedly, we are missing things.”

    After the conflict is over, the data could also help identify “what is needed in terms of cleanup, remediation and restoration of affected areas,” Zwijnenburg said.

    Rebuilding green

    While some conservation projects — such as rewilding of the Danube delta — have continued despite the war, most environmental protection work has halted.

    “It is very difficult to talk about saving other species if the people who are supposed to do it are in danger,” said Oksana Omelchuk, environmental expert with the Ukrainian NGO EcoAction.

    That’s unlikely to change in the near future, she added, pointing out that the environment is littered with mines.

    Agricultural land is particularly affected, blocking farmers from using fields and contaminating the soil, according to Zwijnenburg. That “might have an impact on food security” in the long run, he said.

    When it comes to de-mining efforts, residential areas will receive higher priority, meaning it could take a long time to make natural areas safe again.

    The delay will “[hinder] the implementation of any projects for the restoration and conservation of species,” according to Omelchuk.

    And, of course, fully restoring Ukraine’s nature won’t be possible until “Russian troops leave the territory” she said.

    Meanwhile, Kyiv is banking that the legal case it is building against Moscow will become a potential source of financing for rebuilding the country and bringing its scarred landscape and ecosystems back to health.

    It is also tapping into EU coffers. In a move intended to help the country restore its environment following Russia’s invasion, Ukraine in June became the first non-EU country to join the LIFE program, the EU’s funding instrument for environment and climate.

    Earlier this month, Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius announced a €7 million scheme — dubbed the Phoenix Initiative — to help Ukrainian cities rebuild greener and to connect Ukrainian cities with EU counterparts that can share expertise on achieving climate neutrality.

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  • A Last-Ditch Effort to Save a High Seas Treaty from Sinking

    A Last-Ditch Effort to Save a High Seas Treaty from Sinking

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    • by Thalif Deen (united nations)
    • Inter Press Service

    UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 (IPS) – When the United Nations began negotiations on a legally binding treaty to protect and regulate the high seas, one diplomat pointedly remarked: “It’s a jungle out there”—characterizing a wide-open ocean degraded by illegal and over-fishing, plastics pollution, indiscriminate sea bed mining and the destruction of marine eco-systems.

    Although the origins of the proposed treaty go back to 2002, the initial negotiations began in 2018, with a new round scheduled to take place February 20 through March 3.

    The discussions will include four elements of the 2011 package that have guided the negotiations, namely marine genetic resources (MGRs), questions on benefit-sharing, area-based management tools (ABMTs), marine protected areas (MPAs), environmental impact assessments (EIAs), capacity building and the transfer of marine technology (CB&TT).

    Without a strong Treaty, says Greenpeace, it is practically impossible to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030: the 30×30 target which was agreed at COP15 in Montreal in December 2022.

    Dr Laura Meller, Oceans Campaigner and Polar Advisor, Greenpeace Nordic said:
    “The oceans support all life on Earth. Their fate will be decided at these negotiations. The science is clear. Protecting 30% of the oceans by 2030 is the absolute minimum necessary to avert catastrophe. It was encouraging to see all governments adopt the 30×30 target last year, but lofty targets mean nothing without action.”

    “This special session taking place so soon after the last round of negotiations collapsed gives us hope,” she said.

    “If a strong Treaty is agreed on the 3rd of March, it keeps 30×30 alive. Governments must return to negotiations ready to find compromises and deliver an effective Treaty. We’re already in extra time. These talks are one final chance to deliver. Governments must not fail,” she declared.

    Dr Palitha Kohona, former co-Chair, UN Ad Hoc Working Group on Biological Diversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, told IPS even though the goal of the UN Preparatory Committee is clear, the details have bedevilled negotiating parties.

    As during previous negotiations on shared global resources, he said, it is the difficulty involved in making compromises on the “key issues of financing and monetary benefit- sharing from Marine Genetic Resources” exploitation that has prevented the conclusion of the much-anticipated binding legal instrument.

    “While the conservation of marine biological diversity is a priority for the globe, and is consistent with the SDGs, the developing world feels (with considerable justification) that they should also have access to the wealth that is expected to flow (gush) from the exploitation of marine genetic resources.”

    Past negative experiences of missing out on new and lucrative developments, colour the thinking of the developing world. If both sides are to emerge with a win/win outcome, compromises will have to be made, he argued.

    “The precedent of the Sea Bed Authority and the many environmental treaties could be adapted to the needs of the proposed treaty. Imaginative and ambitious thinking is required”.

    Given the dire situation confronting the oceans and the unimaginable consequences for humanity of a collapse of the biological resources of the oceans, (small scale fisherfolk, especially in poor countries are crying for a positive outcome, where the protein intake comes mainly from the oceans), “let us hope that pragmatic compromises could be arrived at the next round of negotiations”, said Dr Kohona, a former Sri Lankan Ambassador to the UN and current envoy in Beijing.

    More than 50 High Ambition Coalition countries promised a Treaty in 2022 and they failed. Many of the self-proclaimed ocean champions from the Global North refused to compromise on key issues such as financing and monetary benefit sharing from Marine Genetic Resources until the final days of talks. They offered too little, too late, said Greenpeace.

    The sticking points which must be resolved are on finance, capacity building and the fair sharing of benefits from Marine Genetic Resources. Resolving these impasses depends on the Global North making a fair and credible offer to the Global South

    Asked about the primary issues holding up the final treaty, James Hanson, a Greenpeace spokesperson, told IPS finding an agreement will largely depend on a fair agreement on the finance behind supporting developing nations to implement the Treaty (how much money, and who will be paying?) and finding a fair compromise on the sharing of monetary benefits from marine genetic resources.

    The key to resolving these issues will be High Ambition Coalition countries returning to the table with a credible and timely offer on both issues. These countries are the ones which have committed to delivering a Treaty, and so the onus is on them to compromise to get a Treaty over the line.

    China also will have a crucial role to play as a power broker, holding significant sway over many developing nations. China’s welcomed flexibility at the last round of talks on ABMTs is encouraging, and we hope this continues at this next round of talks.

    China’s position on MGRs is still at odds with the EU’s, and this impasse must be resolved through compromise on both sides.

    Asked whether he expects the outstanding issues to be resolved in the current sessions, Hanson said there seems to be willingness and desire from all sides to deliver a Treaty at this last round of talks.

    “The progress made last time, and this special session being called so soon after the last round of talks failed, gives us hope. We encourage countries to return to the table with willingness to compromise and seek agreement, for the sake of the oceans,” he declared.

    Pepe Clarke, Oceans Practice Leader at WWF International said: “For most people, the high seas are out of sight, out of mind. But the ocean is a dynamic mosaic of habitats, and the high seas play an important role in the healthy functioning of the whole marine system.”

    With two-thirds of the ocean falling outside national waters, a High Seas Treaty is an essential precondition for protecting 30% of marine areas worldwide, he noted.

    “We have a chance to achieve a global, legally binding agreement that would address the current gaps in international ocean governance. We’re optimistic the COP15 biodiversity agreement will provide the shot in the arm needed for governments to get this important agreement over the line,” Clarke noted.

    The waters beyond national jurisdiction, known as the high seas, comprise nearly two-thirds of the ocean’s area, but only roughly 1% of this huge swathe of the planet is protected, and even then often with little effective management in place.

    The high seas play a key role for many important species of sharks, tuna, whales and sea turtles, and support billions of dollars annually in economic activity.

    Jessica Battle, Senior Global Ocean Governance and Policy Expert, who is leading WWF’s team at the negotiations, said overfishing and illegal fishing, habitat destruction, plastic and noise pollution, as well as climate change impacts, are all rife in the high seas.

    “Heavily subsidized, industrial fishers seek to exploit and profit from ocean resources that, by law, belong to everyone. It’s a tragedy of the commons.”

    She said a legally binding High Seas Treaty would help to break down the current silos between isolated management bodies, and result in less cumulative impacts and better cooperation across the ocean – it would create a forum where all ocean issues can be discussed as a whole.

    “The high seas, the wildlife that migrates through these waters, and the climate-regulation functions of the ocean need urgent protection from both current and new threats, such as deep sea mining,” declared Battle.

    IPS UN Bureau Report


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  • Cabo Verde Hoists the Blue Flag

    Cabo Verde Hoists the Blue Flag

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    In a tourism-dependent economy, sustainable finance will promote sustainable fisheries, maritime transport, and tourism. Credit: UNDP
    • Opinion by Christopher Marc Lilyblad (mindelo, cabo verde)
    • Inter Press Service

    MINDELO, Cabo Verde, Jan 26 (IPS) – On 20 January, the world’s best sailors arrived in Mindelo, Cabo Verde, completing the initial leg of the 2023 edition of The Ocean Race. Coinciding with this stop was the launch of Cabo Verde’s first blue bond at the Ocean Summit, an event jointly organized by The Ocean Race and the Government of Cabo Verde on the sidelines of the grueling round-the-world race. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in attendance as this year’s keynote speaker.

    The bond was launched on Cabo Verde’s Blu-X sustainable finance platform, a regional platform for listing and trading sustainable and inclusive financial instruments.

    The issuance will raise domestic, regional, and global investment in Cabo Verde’s rising ocean economy while divesting capital from industries responsible for sea-level rise, pollution, and other transgressions against ocean rights.

    In brief, the winds of sustainable finance are filling the sails of a local blue economy heeling towards global Ocean Rights.

    Consistent with its blue seal, up to US$1 million in proceeds (minimum US$500,000) will supply affordable loans to microentrepreneurs and startups in coastal communities, emphasizing financial inclusion to ensure widespread access to the new value generated from the growing blue economy.

    The remaining US$1.5 million foresees structural investments in small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the maritime and fisheries sectors.

    Notably, this is the first initial public offering, or IPO, listed on the Blu-X sustainable finance platform. This means anyone, anywhere with access to the digital Blu-X platform can invest via their computer or phone, including foreign investors and members of Cabo Verde’s sizable diaspora.

    Furthermore, this marks the first private issuance that does not rely on a public guarantee but is solely backed by market demand. With a ‘greenshoe’ (or ‘blue aquasocks’, rather?) option of an additional US$ 1 million triggered if demand for bond subscriptions exceeds the initial US$2.5 million, the blue bond could ultimately generate US$3.5 million in private and market-driven finance for a sustainable blue economy.

    In a race against time during the UN’s Ocean Decade, this initial blue bond listing offers a potentially game-changing test case for Cabo Verde’s blue finance ambitions.

    The strategic partnership between the Cabo Verde Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valores de Cabo Verde – BVC) and UNDP under Cabo Verde’s integrated national financing framework (INFF) has already led to four sustainable bond issuances totaling USD32.5 million.

    Building on this momentum, the blue bond’s proceeds are exclusively destined for sustainable marine- and ocean-based projects generating returns for the economy, society, and environment – the triple bottom line.

    With funding from the UN’s Joint SDG Fund and UNDP’s strategic and technical support, the Blu-X team at the BVC guided the Cabo-Verdean International Investment Bank through the process of issuing the bond framework, following an external review process that ensures adherence to blue principles.

    What actually ‘counts as’ blue has recently been established through a new blue bond regulation in November 2022, enacted under the authority of Cabo Verde’s capital market regulatory agency.

    The regulation draws on the Atlantic Technical University’s blue taxonomy, derived from a scientific study of existing blue economy activities and the potential of Cabo Verde’s shores.

    The first of its kind in Africa, the regulation reflects the country’s pioneering role in defining blue finance norms, standards, and principles, which closely aligns with the Ocean Race’s Sustainability Charter and corresponding calls for a Universal Declaration of Ocean Rights anchored at the United Nations.

    By hoisting the blue flag, Cabo Verde is again signaling its emergence as a global front-runner. Indeed, since the first blue bond issuance by Seychelles in 2018, these financial instruments have mostly been treated as a subsidiary category of green bonds in financial markets. However, what was once seen as a ‘shade of green’ is now emerging as a primary colour of its own.

    Building on this initial proof of concept, the proliferation of blue bonds has the potential to transform financing for Cabo Verde’s strategic sustainable development agenda: Ambition 2030.

    In a tourism-dependent economy vulnerable to external shocks, the growth of sustainable finance and the blue economy will accelerate socio-economic decentralization and sectorial diversification, from fisheries and maritime transport to nautical sports and ocean-based technology.

    As a small island developing state that is “99 percent ocean,” this stands to benefit the local communities that depend on marine environments and maritime spaces for their livelihoods.

    Blue economy impact investing poignantly illustrates why marine environments and biodiversity should be preserved not only as ends in themselves but also as catalysts for value creation.

    As more and more people subscribe to the idea that protecting ocean resources is vital for maintaining and growing economies, we will see an upsurge in innovative businesses, initiatives and transactions that advance marine conservation.

    The growth of blue entrepreneurship and investment paves the way for greater collaboration spurring collective action capable of avoiding a tragedy of the ocean commons.

    In other words, by reshaping economic incentive structures along these lines and leveraging their effects in local coastal communities, sustainable finance enhances cognizance of global ocean sustainability principles and incentivizes corresponding human action.

    The Ocean Race Cabo Verde presented by Blu-X marks a growing interest in Cabo Verde’s emerging blue standard. Inspired by these blue finance bearings, perhaps others will soon chart a similar course, with the prospect of collectively raising an entire fleet racing towards the UN Ocean Decade finish.

    Christopher Marc Lilyblad is Head of Strategy and Policy Unit, a.i. UNDP Cabo Verde; Development Economist & Head of Strategy and Economic Cluster, a.i. UNDP Guinea-Bissau

    Source: UNDP

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  • War, Famine, Disease, Disasters – 2022 – a Year Staring at Apocalypse

    War, Famine, Disease, Disasters – 2022 – a Year Staring at Apocalypse

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    • Opinion by Farhana Haque Rahman (toronto, canada)
    • Inter Press Service

    TORONTO, Canada, Dec 23 (IPS) – A year that started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is ending with famine in Africa, while still spreading death and misery through an enduring pandemic and a deteriorating climate crisis — 2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

    Farhana Haque Rahman

    Beyond the stark statistics of millions of people displaced by war and natural disasters, it has been a 12 months that tragically highlighted our global interconnections and how a confluence of events and trends can bring another year of record levels of hunger.

    Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians (numbers given by the UN and involved parties vary enormously) have been killed in Ukraine since Russia launched war on February 24. More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country. Billions of dollars have been spent on armaments.

    But the impact of the war has been felt worldwide, driving up prices of basic commodities such as oil, gas, grain, sunflower oil and fertilisers. Somalia, now in the grip of the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years, used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

    Commodities have been weaponised. Countries slipped back into recession, just as they were slowly recovering from the economic distress of Covid-19 lockdowns. A deepening relationship between sanctioned Russia and an energy- hungry China exacerbated existing tensions with the US over Taiwan. The result? China broke off climate cooperation efforts with the US in the run-up to the COP27 climate conference hosted by Egypt in November with 200 countries and 35,000 people attending.

    Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Pakistan and West Africa, and with 2022 on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record, agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda. Talks ran into extra time, as they tend to, and countries of the global South emerged with the landmark creation of a special fund paid by wealthier countries to address the Loss and Damage caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

    “After 30 contentious years, delayed tactics by wealthy countries, a renewed spirit of solidarity, empathy and cooperation prevailed, resulting in the historic establishment of a dedicated fund,” said Yamide Dagnet, director for climate justice at the Open Society Foundations, reflecting a sense of hard fought victory among developing countries.

    Still unresolved however is which countries will give money and to whom. China in particular seems uneasy over which category it belongs to. However COP27 joined its 26 forerunners since 1995 in not reaching a binding agreement on cutting fossil fuel burning which has continued to rise globally, except for a brief pandemic dip. For this, many branded it a failure. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the opening plenary session. By the end, many felt the conference had concluded with the latter. Rather than falling, the latest estimates from the Global Carbon Project show that total worldwide CO2 emissions in 2022 have reached near-record levels.

    Victims of devastating floods, heatwaves and forest fires, and severe drought in Central Sahel and East Africa surely needed no confirmation from the final decision text of COP27 which recognises “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger” and the vulnerability of food production to climate change.

    In this respect, COP27 recognised the importance of nature-based solutions – a theme driven by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in ringing alarm bells on the degraded soil, water sources and eco-systems caused by intensive agriculture with overuse of fertilisers and pesticides.

    According to FAO, more than 25 percent of arable soils worldwide are degraded, and the equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds. The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result. As highlighted by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in stressing the vital connections between Nature and people, a landmark report in July found that 50,000 wild species provide food, osmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration. Many face extinction.

    As international agencies and NGOs (and media outlets) jostled and competed for funding to deal with the fallout from wars and climate emergencies, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) which is active in the Sahel cautioned that only 1.7 per cent of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries and as little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality. Women’s empowerment has been made a major focus of ASAP+, IFAD’s new climate change financing mechanism.

    Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among communities hit by severe drought in the Horn of Africa, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). It launched a $113.7 million appeal to scale-up life-saving reproductive health and protection services, including establishment of mobile and static clinics in displacement sites.

    Also overshadowed by wars and pandemics in 2022 were marginalised communities lacking a voice, suffering diseases such as leprosy or exploited in the form of child labour.

    Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, says many issues have been sidelined because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society has the knowledge and means to stop and cure leprosy, he says in the ‘Don’t Forget Leprosy’ campaign by the Sasakawa Leprosy Initiative.

    “When people are still being discriminated against even after being cured, society has a disease. If we can cure society of this disease—discrimination—it would be truly epoch-making,” he told IPS.

    A similar message was delivered by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi who told the 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour that a mere $53 billion per annum – equivalent to 10 days of military spending – would ensure all children in all countries benefit from social protection.

    International Labour Organisation and UNICEF statistics from 2020 show at least 160 million children are involved in child labour, a surge of 8.4 million in four years. Children denied education became a burning issue in Afghanistan in March when the Taliban declared that girls would be banned from secondary education. The UN said 1.1 million girls were affected. The late-night reversal of a decision by Taliban authorities to allow girls from grades 7 to 12 to return to school was met with outrage and distress, inside and outside Afghanistan.

    Denial of human rights to girls and women has fuelled the desire of many to get out of Afghanistan and seek a better life elsewhere, adding to the millions around the world forced to flee their homes because of conflict, repression or disaster. The Ukraine conflict has displaced more than 14 million people, about a third of the population.

    A UN Office on Drugs and Crime report on trafficking warns that refugees from Ukraine are at risk of including sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and surrogacy, forced begging and forced criminality.

    As they come over border crossings into Poland, refugees – including victims of rape – are greeted with posters and flyers carrying warnings about jail terms for breaking local abortion laws, images of miscarried foetuses, and a quote from Mother Theresa saying: “Abortion is the greatest threat to peace”.

    UNDP, which is assisting the Ukraine government in getting access to public services for IDPs, says in its 2022 report, Turning the tide on internal displacement, that earlier and increased support to development is an essential condition for emerging from crisis in a sustainable way.

    “More efforts are needed to end the marginalization of internally displaced people, who must be able to exercise their full rights as citizens including through access to vital services such as health care, education, social protection and job opportunities” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator.

    Nearly one million Rohingya refugees languishing in refugee camps in Bangladesh after being driven out of Myanmar in waves since 2016 would surely agree.

    Asif Saleh, executive director of BRAC, said to be the world’s largest NGO and founded by Sir Fazle after the independence of Bangladesh in 1972, says work needs to “shift towards a development-like approach from a very short-term umanitarian crisis-focused approach”. But the only solution for the Rohingya refugees is their sustainable and voluntary repatriation to Myanmar. As 2022 closes, that unfortunately looks highly unlikely as the military junta that seized power in 2021 fights ethnic armed organisations on multiple fronts.

    There was one seismic milestone event that happened in late 2022 although no one is quite sure exactly where and when. The few people to witness it were not aware either – not that it prevented the UN from declaring it a special day. The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15. The world’s population has doubled from 4 billion in 1974 and UN projections suggest we will be supporting about 9.7 billion people in 2050. Global population is forecast to peak at about 10.4 billion in the 2080s.

    Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN environment programme, sent a message to the baby, and the rest of the world, as countries meet in Montreal for the COP15 biodiversity conference this month.

    “We’ve just welcomed the 8 billionth member of the human race on this planet. That’s a wonderful birth of a baby, of course. But we need to understand that the more people there are, the more we put the Earth under heavy pressure,” she said.

    Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service and Executive Director IPS Noram; she served as the elected Director General of IPS from 2015-2019. A journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

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    © Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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  • Historic biodiversity pact inspires, but past failures loom

    Historic biodiversity pact inspires, but past failures loom

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    MONTREAL — A day after negotiators reached a landmark biodiversity agreement, the pressure was already growing on countries, business leaders and the environmental community to deliver on its ambitious promises to protect the planet — and not repeat the failures of past deals.

    Delegates expressed optimism Tuesday in Montreal that this time will be different, mostly due to greater financing provisions in the global biodiversity framework and stronger language around reporting, measuring and verifying progress by nations. There is also growing public awareness about threats facing rainforests, oceans and other ecologically important areas.

    “We’ve seen unprecedented mobilization for biodiversity protection,” Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said at the closing press conference of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference. “The fact that Canada, the EU and many others would agree to double by 2025 and triple by 2030 our funding is a clear sign.”

    The most significant part of the agreement is a commitment to protect 30% of the world’s land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030, known as 30 by 30. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

    The deal also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity from a range of sources and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of the financing package, the framework asks for increasing to at least $20 billion annually by 2025 the money that goes to poor countries. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.

    The challenge now will be making good on those commitments.

    The new framework “is the equivalent of simply agreeing on the ‘to-do list’ — now the hard work must begin to ensure it gets done,” said Terry Townshend, a Beijing-based fellow for the Paulson Institute, which had previously estimated the annual shortfall in biodiversity funding to be around $700 billion.

    The last time around, countries failed to fully achieve any of the targets in the previous 10-year agreement and only partially achieved six by 2020. The failures prompted some to question whether it was even worth setting more ambitious targets this time around.

    Some complained the past targets were too vague while others cited the delays of several years in setting up a reporting mechanism. There was also much less money in that deal.

    But the new targets are more precise and cover a wider array of issues affecting biodiversity, including pollution, invasive species and pesticides. There is also clearer language for protecting the rights of Indigenous communities and respecting their role in biodiversity decisions.

    U.N. Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press that part of the problem with targets set in 2010 was that negotiators were “all inside the environmental bubble” when agreeing to a framework.

    “At this point, there is a global conversation happening,” Andersen said. “I would say the difference between these 12 years is that there is a broader societal engagement. Some countries will lean in and will get closer to those targets that we’ve now set, some will surpass them. Others may not.”

    As part the framework, the nearly 190 parties are requested to update their national biodiversity strategies to with the targets and goals reached in Montreal. Those will be reviewed at COP16 in Turkey in 2024 to assess progress, challenges countries face and the progress on getting financing into the hands of developing countries.

    “Global governments have clearly established specific, numerical targets to restore degraded land and habitat and similarly to expand protected areas,” said Eliot Whittington, director of policy at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

    Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm said these targets provide governments and civil society with a “measure of whether we succeed or not.”

    “The devil is always in the details,” said Pimm. “Promises are made and not always fulfilled, but we do understand that money has to be involved. If we’re going to stop deforestation in Brazil and the Congo and Indonesia, it’s going to need some financing from richer countries.”

    But others said the agreement fell short in setting up a strong system of monitoring country progress, meaning that it will be the responsibility of credible, independent third parties to measure progress.

    “Countries’ failure to set robust systems in place for monitoring progress on the biodiversity targets is one notable weakness in the outcome,” said Craig Hanson, managing director for programs for the nonprofit World Resources Institute. “Monitoring progress with robust, credible systems is critical to ensuring that countries’ actions are delivering the intended impact and unlocking finance for nature-based solutions.”

    Others praised the language in the document covering the private sector. It calls for legal and administrative policies that enable business, especially larger and transnational companies, to “regularly monitor, assess, and transparently disclose their risks, dependencies and impacts on biodiversity.”

    “The target on corporate disclosure of biodiversity risk also sends a powerful signal to the private sector that it must adjust its business models and investment strategies towards a nature-positive economy,” said the Paulson Institute’s Townshend.

    But some environmental groups suggested big business had taken the conference hostage and that the language related to corporations was little more than “greenwashing.”

    “The text does not stipulate any regulation on corporations and instead promotes greenwashing measures such as ‘Nature-Based Solutions,’ which allow for offsetting for environmental destruction,” Nele Marien, Friends of the Earth International’s forests & biodiversity coordinator, said in a statement.

    Kaddu Sebunya, CEO of African Wildlife Foundation, said the new agreement “provides a basis for many of the changes we need in conservation, especially in the way conservation is financed.”

    Nearly a third of the world’s biodiversity exists in Africa, although “Africa receives less than 4% of global biodiversity financing,” Sebunya said. “That needs to be changed,” he said, adding that the new framework could help jumpstart the change.

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    Larson reported from Washington, D.C.

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    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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