"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.

By Timothy A. Wise
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. , Jun 6 2023 (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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Yellowfin tuna diving.

By Grantly Galland
WASHINGTON DC, May 23 2023 (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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Freshly slaughtered bush meat is being consumed even though it may have health risks.

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, May 18 2023 (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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Carrying the Mayan flag, members of the Colibrí Collective lead a march against the Mayan Train in the city of Valladolid, in the southern Mexican state of Yucatán, in May 2023. The construction of the Mexican government’s most important megaproject has drawn criticism from affected communities due to its environmental, social and cultural effects. CREDIT: Arturo Contreras / Pie de Página

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, May 18 2023 (IPS)

Mexico’s development banks have violated their own socio-environmental standards while granting loans for the construction of the Mayan Train (TM), the flagship project of the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The National Bank of Public Works and Services (Banobras), the Nacional Financiera (Nafin) bank and the Foreign Commerce Bank (Bancomext) allocated at least 564 million dollars to the railway line since 2021, according to the yearbooks and statements of the three state entities.

Banobras, which finances infrastructure and public services, granted 480.83 million dollars for the project in the Yucatan peninsula; Nafin, which extends loans and guarantees to public and private works, allocated 81 million; and Bancomext, which provides financing to export and import companies and other strategic sectors, granted 2.91 million.

Bancomext and Banobras did not evaluate the credit, while Nafin classified the information as “confidential”, even though it involves public funds, according to each institution’s response to IPS’ requests for public information.“(The banks) are committing internal violations of their own provisions in the granting of credits, in order to give loans to projects that are not environmentally viable and that do not respect the local communities.” -- Gustavo Alanís

The three institutions have environmental and social risk management systems that include lists of activities that are to be excluded from financing.

In the case of Bancomext and Nafin, these rules are mandatory during the credit granting process, while Banobras explains that its objective is to verify that the loans evaluated are compatible with the bank’s environmental and social commitments.

Bancomext prohibits 19 types of financing; Banobras, 17; and Nafin, 18. The three institutions all veto “production or activities that place in jeopardy lands that are owned by indigenous peoples or have been claimed by adjudication, without the full documented consent of said peoples.”

Likewise, Banobras and Nafin must not support “projects that imply violations of national and international conventions and treaties regarding the indigenous population and native peoples.”

The three entities already had information to evaluate the railway project, since the Superior Audit of the Federation, the state comptroller, had already pointed to shortcomings in the indigenous consultation process and in the assessment of social risks, in the 2019 Report on the Results of the Superior Audit of the Public Account.

The total cost of the TM has already exceeded 15 billion dollars, 70 percent above what was initially planned, mostly borne by the government’s National Fund for Tourism Promotion (Fonatur), responsible for the megaproject.

Mexico’s three state development banks are partially financing the Mayan Train, for which they have failed to comply with the due process of the evaluation of socio-environmental risks that are part of their regulations. The photo shows the clearing of part of the route of one of the branches of the railway line in the municipality of Playa del Carmen, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, in March 2022. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Violations

Angel Sulub, a Mayan indigenous member of the U kúuchil k Ch’i’ibalo’on Community Center, criticized the policies applied and the disrespect for the safeguards regulated by the state financial entities themselves.

“This shows us, once again, that there is a violation of our right to life, and there has not been at any moment in the process, from planning to execution, a will to respect the rights of the peoples,” he told IPS from the Felipe Carrillo Port, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, where one of the TM stations will be located.

Sulub, who is also a poet, described the consultation as a “sham”. “Respect for the consultation was violated in all cases, an adequate consultation was not carried out. They did not comply with the minimum information, it was not a prior consultation, nor was it culturally appropriate,” he argued.

In December 2019, the government National Institute of Indigenous Peoples (INPI) organized a consultation with indigenous groups in the region that the Mexican office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights questioned for non-compliance with international standards.

Official data indicates that some 17 million native people live in Mexico, belonging to 69 different peoples and representing 13 percent of the total population.

INPI initially anticipated a population of 1.5 million indigenous people to consult about the TM in 1,331 communities. But that total was reduced to 1.32 million, with no official explanation for the 12 percent decrease. The population in the project’s area of ​​influence totaled 3.57 million in 2019, according to the Superior Audit report.

The conduct of the three financial institutions reflects the level of compliance with the president’s plans, as has happened with other state agencies that have refused to create hurdles for the railway, work on which began in 2020 and which will have seven routes.

The Mayan Train, run by Fonatur and backed by public funds, will stretch some 1,500 kilometers through 78 municipalities in the states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and Yucatán, within the peninsula, as well as the neighboring states of Chiapas and Tabasco. It will have 21 stations and 14 other stops.

The Yucatan peninsula is home to the second largest jungle in Latin America, after the Amazon, and is notable for its fragile biodiversity. In this territory, furthermore, to speak of the population is to speak of the Mayans, because in a high number of municipalities they are a majority and 44 percent of the total are Mayan-speaking.

The government promotes the megaproject, whose locomotives will transport thousands of tourists and cargo, such as transgenic soybeans, palm oil and pork – key economic activities in the area – as an engine for socioeconomic development in the southeast of the country.

It argues that it will create jobs, boost tourism beyond the traditional attractions and energize the regional economy, which has sparked polarizing controversies between its supporters and critics.

The railway faces complaints of deforestation, pollution, environmental damage and human rights violations, but these have not managed to stop the project from going forward.

In November 2022, López Obrador, who wants at all costs for the locomotives to start running in December of this year, classified the TM as a “priority project” through a presidential decree, which facilitates the issuing of environmental permits.

Gustavo Alanís, executive director of the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law, questioned the way the development banks are proceeding.

“They are committing internal violations of their own provisions in the granting of credits, in order to give loans to projects that are not environmentally viable and that do not respect the local communities. They are not complying with their own internal guidelines and requirements regarding the environment and indigenous peoples in the granting of credits,” he told IPS.

Groups opposed to the Mayan Train protest along a segment of the megaproject in the municipality of Carrillo Puerto, in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, on May 3. CREDIT: Arturo Contreras / Pie de Página

Trendy guidelines

In the last decade, socio-environmental standards have gained relevance for the promotion of sustainable works and their consequent financing that respects ecosystems and the rights of affected communities, such as those located along the railway.

Although the three Mexican development banks have such guidelines, they have not joined the largest global initiatives in this field.

None of them form part of the Equator Principles, a set of 10 criteria established in 2003 and adopted by 138 financial institutions from 38 countries, and which define their environmental, social and corporate governance.

Nor are they part of the Principles for Responsible Banking, of the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative, announced in 2019 and which have already been adopted by 324 financial and insurance institutions from more than 50 nations.

These standards address the impact of projects; sustainable client and user practices; consultation and participation of stakeholders; governance and institutional culture; as well as transparency and corporate responsibility.

Of the three Mexican development banks, only Banobras has a mechanism for complaints, which has not received any about its loans, including the railway project.

In this regard, Sulub questioned the different ways to guarantee indigenous rights in this and other large infrastructure projects.

“The legal fight against the railway and other megaprojects has shown us in recent years that, as peoples, we do not have effective access to justice either, even though we have clearly demonstrated violations of our rights. Although it is a good thing that companies and banks have these guidelines and that they comply with them, we do not have effective mechanisms for enforcement,” he complained.

In Sulub’s words, this leads to a breaching of the power of indigenous people to decide on their own ways of life, since the government does not abide by judicial decisions, which in his view is further evidence of an exclusionary political system.

For his part, Alanís warned of the banks’ complicity in the damage reported and the consequent risk of legal liability if the alleged irregularities are not resolved.

“If not, they must pay the consequences and hold accountable those who do not follow internal policies. The international banks have inspection panels, to receive complaints when the bank does not follow its own policies,” he stated.

Palau’s Marine Spatial Plan will provide a framework for managing ocean and coastal resources. Credit: SPC

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Apr 28 2023 (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

“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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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, Apr 27 2023 (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. UNDP is looking into how it can tailor its support to producing countries with compliance of this and other similar current and future regulations.

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.

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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A harvester checks the ripeness of oil palm fresh fruit. The UNDP’s Good Growth Partnership has worked with all sectors of the palm oil supply chain to reduce deforestation. Credit: ILO/Fauzan Azhima

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 27 2023 (IPS)

Indonesia finds itself in a delicate balancing act of uplifting people from poverty, managing climate change and biodiversity, and satisfying an increasingly demanding international market for sustainable farming practices—and at the pivot of this complexity is the management of its palm oil sector.

As the UNDP-led Good Growth Partnership (GGP) joins a new World Bank-led project with similar objectives—the Food Systems, Land Use, and Restoration (FOLUR) Impact Programme, it acknowledges that the government of Indonesia has made considerable advancements in improving the sustainability of the industry and the value chain over the past five years with GGP support.

The GGP, using a multi-stakeholder approach, included several projects under one programmatic umbrella, linking production, demand, responsible sourcing, traceability, and transparency, with supporting financial institutions and investors in relation to reducing deforestation from land use change. The project aimed to connect all components of the supply chain—which, in the case of Indonesian palm oil, represents 4.5 percent of the country’s GDP and 60 percent of global exports.

Late in 2022, Trase, in its report From Risk Hotspots to Sustainability Sweet Spots, confirmed Indonesia had reversed its deforestation trends in 2018-2020; deforestation for palm oil was 45,285 hectares per year—only 18 percent of its peak in 2008-2012. The improvement is attributed to strengthened law enforcement, moratoria, certification of palm oil plantations, and implementation of corporate zero-deforestation commitments.

“Importantly, deforestation has fallen during a period of continued expansion of palm oil production. Although the decline in deforestation has been linked to a drop in the market value of crude palm oil, the recent spike in palm oil prices has not yet been accompanied by a boom in palm-driven deforestation—a cause for cautious optimism,” Robert Heilmayr and Jason Benedict commented on Trase’s website.

However, CDP Palm Oil Report 2022 notes that while companies are adopting a wider range of actions to end deforestation, these “actions are not yet robust enough to end commodity-driven deforestation in the palm oil value chain.”

CDP says while 86 percent of companies implemented no-deforestation policies, only 22 percent have public and comprehensive policies: “Traceability systems have been implemented by 87 percent of companies, but only 25 percent have the capacity to scale these to over 90 percent of their production/consumption back to at least the municipality or equivalent.”

One major challenge is the inclusion of smallholders in the supply chains—and while 44 percent of companies work with smallholders to reduce or remove forest degradation, less than a third support “good agricultural practices and provide financial or technical assistance to help them achieve this.”

It is precisely these challenges the GGP confronted in Indonesia.

“Systemic change in commodity supply chains is one of the essential transformations that must occur this decade to mitigate the combined threats of catastrophic climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity and to achieve resilience for humanity globally,” GGP says in its assessment report, Reducing Deforestation from Commodity Supply Chains.

These deforestation commitments are not new and followed the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), adopted in 2014, which called for the end of forest loss and the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2030. Then came the Paris Climate Agreement, which in terms of its Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) agreements, was crucial for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries. More commitments flowed after the 2015/2016 fires, which were blamed on slash-and-burn agricultural practices, exacerbated by a dry El Niño; the fires raged for months, leading to deaths, respiratory tract infections, and cost, according to the World Bank, 16 billion US dollars.

The fires were also thought to cause a global rise in emissions and put wildlife, including the endangered orangutan population, at risk. Indonesia is a place where companies have been making commitments for some time, but implementing them with both direct and indirect suppliers is not easy.

Recognizing this challenge, the GGP supported the “improvement of sustainable production and land use policies and increased farmers’ capacities to shift to sustainable practices. At the same time, it has increased supply chain transparency and consumer demand for sustainable palm oil and built the awareness of financial institutions to invest sustainably and screen out deforesters in their portfolio.”

The GGP supported Indonesia’s National Action Plan—which is now being implemented at sub-national provincial, and district levels, too.

The action plan, along with Indonesia’s Enhanced Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), recognizes the country’s climate change vulnerabilities, especially in the low-lying areas throughout the archipelago and its position in the so-called ring of fires. The Enhanced NDC has set ambitious deforestation and rehabilitation targets, including peat land restoration of 2 million hectares and rehabilitation of degraded land of 12 million hectares by 2030.

Despite good results, stress ratcheted up for the industry as a new European Union policy now excludes sourcing palm oil or produce from areas deforested and degraded after December 31, 2020.

The new regulation will require companies to prove their bona fides through recognized traceability techniques. The sector is still working out its detailed response to the requirements, which some see as a unilateral EU move that does not respect the rights of the producing countries.

While the EU is a small market for Indonesia compared with the domestic, Chinese, and Indian markets, the regulations put additional pressure on an industry still strongly associated with small-scale farmers. It is also likely that other large markets will eventually align themselves with these regulations.

Even before the regulations became an issue, the GGP involved itself in communication campaigns to sensitize the public to sustainable certification, from the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO)to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards.

The communication campaigns worked to create awareness about sustainability issues among consumers, but also with large retailers (including one called Super Indo) to place RSPO-certified palm oil products on their shelves.

It’s critical to get all players in the supply chain on board, which is where multi-stakeholder tactics work effectively; the GGP believes that this multi-faceted approach is crucial to influencing companies.

“You influence companies through government policies, through the market, but you also influence them through the financial institutions,” says UNDP’s GGP Global Project Manager, Pascale Bonzom. “If the financial institutions that fund these downstream companies require them to show that they have no deforestation commitments, and they are implementing them with results, then they (the companies) are going to have to do something about it.”

Elaborating on the strategy, she said GGP and its partner World Wildlife Fund (WWF) worked at a regional level on building capacity in financial institutions to understand the impacts of their investments.

Now a scorecard is available—to equip and influence the investors to make better decisions and to use this kind of Environmental, Social, and Governance factors (ESG) screening for deforestation.

See Part 2: Smallholders Key to Indonesian Deforestation Successes

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Cocoa farmers in Padre Abad in Ucayali, Peru, benefitted from UNDP support to produce sustainable cocoa. Credit: UNDP

By Alison Kentish
NEW YORK, Apr 26 2023 (IPS)

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 April 2023, as the farmers worked to meet demanding international certifications, the European Parliament passed a new law 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 Environment 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.

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 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, Apr 19 2023 (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 [NZD25 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)

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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These containers hold food produced by women in the rural community of Choquepata, in the municipality of Oropesa, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco. Ana María Zárate places salad with various vegetables on the right, and the traditional dish mote, made from white corn and broad beans, on the left. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
CUZCO, Peru, Apr 3 2023 (IPS)

Paulina Locumbe, a 42-year-old peasant farmer who lives in ​​the Andes highlands of southern Peru, learned as a child to harvest and dry crops, one of the ancestral practices with which she combats the food insecurity that affects millions in this Andean country.

“I have tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis), peas and dry beans stored for six years, we ate them during the pandemic and I will do the same now because since I have not planted due to the lack of rain, I will not have a harvest this year,” she told IPS in her community, Urpay, located in the municipality of Huaro, in the department of Cuzco, at more than 3,100 meters above sea level.“Farmers faced a very hard 2022, it was a terrible year with water shortages, hailstorms, frosts and an increase in pests and diseases. These factors are going to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the crops they had planned for planting corn, potatoes, vegetables, and quinoa.” -- Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui

She, like a large part of the more than two million family farmers in Peru, 30 percent of whom are women, has been hit by multiple crises that have reduced their crops and put their right to food at risk.

A study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published in January estimated that more than 93 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean suffered from severe food insecurity in 2021, a figure almost 30 million higher than in 2019.

Compared to Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, the situation was more alarming in South America, where the affected population climbed from 22 million in 2014 to more than 65 million in 2021.

In Peru, a country of 33 million people, food insecurity already affected nearly half of the population, according to the FAO alert issued in August 2022, far exceeding the eight million suffering from food insecurity before the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to the increase in poverty and the barriers to accessing a healthy diet.

Women from the Andes highlands areas of Peru, such as those who reside in different Quechua peasant communities in the department of Cuzco in the south of the country, are getting ahead thanks to the knowledge handed down by their mothers and grandmothers.

Putting this knowledge into practice ensures their daily food in a context of constant threats to agricultural activity such as extreme natural events due to climate change -droughts and hailstorms in recent times – the rise in the cost of living and the political crisis in the country which means the needs of farmers have been even more neglected than usual.

Paulina Locumbe, an agroecological farmer from the rural community of Urpay, in the municipality of Huaro, in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, shows her recent planting of vegetables in her greenhouse, which once harvested will go directly to the family table to enrich their diet. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Producing enough for daily sustenance

Yolanda Haqquehua, a small farmer from the rural community of Muñapata, in the municipality of Urcos, answered IPS by phone early in the morning when she had just returned with the alfalfa she cut from her small farm to feed the 80 guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) that she breeds, a species that has provided a nutritious source of protein since ancient times.

“I don’t sell them, they are for our consumption,” she explained about the use of this Andean rodent that was domesticated before the time of the Incas. “I cook them on birthdays and on a daily basis when we need meat, especially for my eight-year-old daughter. I also use the droppings to make the natural fertilizer that I use on my crops,” she added.

Haqqehua, 36, the mother of Mayra Abigail, has seen how the price of oil, rice, and sugar have risen in the markets. Although this worries her, she has found solutions in her own environment by diversifying her production and naturally processing some foods.

“I grow a variety of vegetables in the greenhouse and in the field for our daily food. I have radishes, spinach, Chinese onion, chard, red lettuce, broad beans, peas, and the aromatic herbs parsley and coriander,” she said.

She also grows potatoes and corn, which last year she was able to harvest in quantity, although she does not believe this will be repeated in 2023 due to the devastating effects of climate change in the Andes highlands in the first few months of the year.

“Fortunately, I got enough potatoes and so that they don’t spoil, we made chuño and that’s what we’re eating now,” she said.

Chuño is a potato that dries up with the frost, in the low temperatures below zero in the southern hemisphere winter month of June, and that, when stored properly, can be preserved for years.

“I keep it in tightly closed buckets. I also dry the corn and we eat it boiled or toasted. And the same thing with peas. It’s like having a small reserve warehouse,” she said.

Selecting the best ears of corn, carrying out the drying, storage and conservation process is the result of lifelong learning. “My parents did it that way and we are continuing what they taught us. With all this we help each other to achieve food security, because if not, we would not have anything to eat,” she said.

Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui, a young Quechua agronomist, talks with a farmer in her vegetable greenhouse in the rural community of Muñapata in Cuzco, southern Peru, during her work providing technical assistance for food security to rural women, as part of the Agroecological School of the non-governmental Flora Tristán Center. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Agroecology to strengthen Andean knowledge

Janet Nina Cusiyupanqui, an agronomist born in the Cuzco province of Calca, is a 34-year-old bilingual Quechua indigenous woman who, after studying with a scholarship at Earth University in Costa Rica, returned to her land to share her new knowledge.

She currently provides technical assistance to the 100 members of the Agroecological School that the non-governmental feminist Flora Tristán Center for Peruvian Women runs in six rural communities in the Cuzco province of Quispicanchi: Huasao, Muñapata, Parapucjio, Sachac, Sensencalla and Urpay.

“Farmers faced a very hard 2022, it was a terrible year with water shortages, hailstorms, frosts and an increase in pests and diseases. These factors are going to reduce by 40 to 50 percent the crops they had planned for planting corn, potatoes, vegetables, and quinoa,” she told IPS in the historic city of Cuzco.

She stressed that women are leading actors in the face of food insecurity. “They know how to process and preserve food, which is a key strategy in these moments of crisis. To this knowledge is added the management of agroecological techniques with which they produce crops in a diversified, healthy and chemical-free way,” she said.

The expert stated that although they would have a smaller harvest, it would be varied, so they would depend less on the market. Added to this is their practice of exchanging products and ayni, a bartering-like ancestral tradition: “You give me a little of what I don’t have and I pay you with something you lack, or with work.”

Luzmila Rivera (2nd-L) poses for photos together with her fellow women farmers from the rural community of Paropucjio, in the highlands of Cuzco in southern Peru, after participating in a market for agricultural products organized by the municipality of Cusipata, where they sold their vegetables, grains and tubers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Don’t give up in the face of adversity

At the age of 53, Luzmila Rivera had never seen such a terrible hailstorm. In February, shortly before Carnival, a rain of pieces of ice larger than a marble fell on the high Andean communities of Cuzco, “ruining everything.”

In the peasant community of Paropucjio where she lives, at more than 3,300 meters above sea level, she felt the pounding on her tin roof for 15 seemingly endless minutes, and the roof ended up full of holes. “Hail has fallen before, but not like this. The intensity knocked down the tarwi flowers and we are not going to have a harvest,” she lamented.

Tarwi is an ancestral Andean cultivated legume, also known as chocho or lupine, with a high nutritional value, superior to soybeans. It is consumed fresh and is also dried and stored.

Rivera is confident that the potato planting carried out in the months of October and November will be successful in order to obtain a good harvest in April and May.

And like other small farmers in the Andes highlands of Cuzco, she also preserves crops to store. “I have my dry corn saved from last year, I always select the best ones for seeds and for consumption. I also store broad beans, after harvesting I air dry them and in a week they can be stored,” she said.

This provides the basis for their diet in the following months. “I cook the broad beans in a stew as if they were lentils or chickpeas, I put them in the soup or we have them at breakfast along with the boiled corn, which we call mote, it’s very tasty and healthy,” she said.

In another rural community at an altitude of 3,100 meters, Choquepata, in the municipality of Oropesa, Ana María Zárete, 41, manages an organic vegetable greenhouse as part of the Flora Tristán Center’s proposal to promote access to land and agroecological training to boost the autonomy of rural women.

She said it is valuable to have all kinds of vegetables always within reach. “This is new for us, we didn’t used to plant or eat green leafy vegetables. Now we benefit from this varied production that comes from our own hands; everything is healthy and ecological, we don’t poison ourselves with chemicals,” she said.

This knowledge and experience places Quechua women in Cuzco on the front line in the fight against food insecurity. But as agronomist Nina Cusiyupanqui stated, they continue to lack recognition by government authorities, and to face conditions of inequality and disadvantage.

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 Khan

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 Akester

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.

IPS UN Bureau

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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

By Paula Harrison, Pamela McElwee and David Obura
BONN, Mar 2 2023 (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.

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

IPS UN Bureau

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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, Mar 1 2023 (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).

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

Carter Roberts, head of WWF-US

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.

Miguel Barraza, secretary of the Chigualoco fisherpersons union in northern Chile, leans against a pile of Chilean kelp that has been drying in the sun for three days. The kelp used to fetch 1.5 dollars per kg, but the price has collapsed. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Feb 28 2023 (IPS)

Management areas in Chile for benthic organisims, which live on the bottom of the sea, are successfully combating the overexploitation of this food source thanks to the efforts of organized shellfish and seaweed harvesters and divers.

Benthic organisms are commercially valuable marine species that live at the lowest level of a body of water, including sub-surface layers, such as molluscs and algae.

The most widely harvested molluscs in Chile include the Chilean abalone (Concholepas concholepas), razor clam (Mesodesma donacium) and Chilean mussel (Mytilus chilensis), and the most harvested algae is Chilean kelp (Lessonia berteorana).“When there is free unregulated access, the resources do not recover, they tend to be overexploited and in the end there is nothing left. The only places where you can see these resources is in the management areas because fisherpersons are obliged to take care of them and help them recover.” -- Luis Durán Zambra

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The Undersecretariat for Fisheries and Aquaculture told IPS that in this country with a long coastline on the Pacific Ocean there are currently 853 Benthic Resources Management and Exploitation Areas (AMERB), with a total combined surface area of ​​close to 130,000 hectares.

The areas vary in size from one to 4,000 hectares, although 91 percent are under 300 hectares and the average is 150 hectares. They range from beaches and rocky coastal areas to places that are a maximum of five nautical miles offshore.

They were created in 1991, when geographical sectors were established within reserve areas for artisanal fishing in order to implement management plans, which set closed seasons, regulated catches and outlined recovery measures, and which are only assigned to organizations of legally registered artisanal fisherpersons.

The aim is to regulate artisanal fishing activity, restricting access to benthic organisms, under the supervision of the authorities.

Leaders of three local fishing coves or inlets that operate as production units where artisanal fisherpersons extract and sell marine resources told IPS about the efforts made to prevent poaching, and underscored the benefits of sustainable exploitation of these resources.

They said they managed to make a living from their work but expressed fears about the future.

This South American country of 19.2 million people has 6,350 km of coastline along the Pacific ocean and is among the world’s top 10 producers of fish.

Luis Durán Zambra presides over the Association of Guanaqueros Fisherpersons in Chile, which brings together 170 members, 70 of whom are registered for the assigned management area. Durán poses in his boat where he drives up to 20 tourists around the bay, an activity with which he earns extra income during the southern hemisphere summer. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

It has 99,557 registered artisanal fisherpersons, of whom 25,181 are women. There are 13,123 registered artisanal fishing vessels and 403 industrial fishing vessel owners. The country also has 456 fishing plants that employ 38,014 people, according to data provided by the Undersecretariat of Fisheries in response to questions from IPS.

As of October 2022, there were 1,538 aquaculture centers and 3,295 aquaculture concessions, 69 percent of which involved companies that employ a total of 10,719 people.

The Undersecretariat said it is in the process of creating 516 new AMERBs, and that in more than 30 years under the system 435 proposals have been rejected and the status of 34 sectors has been canceled.

Leaders of fisherpersons unions describe different realities

Luis Durán Zambra, president of the Fisherpersons Association of Guanaqueros, a town in the Coquimbo region, 430 kilometers north of Santiago, said that these areas have been very successful.

“When there is free unregulated access, the resources do not recover, they tend to be overexploited and in the end there is nothing left. The only places where you can see these resources is in the management areas because fisherpersons are obliged to take care of them and help them recover,” he told IPS during an interview in his cove.

Durán, 64, is the fifth generation of fishermen in his family.

The unions, advised by marine biologists, analyze each management area, its conditions, the reproduction of resources and then inform the Undersecretariat of Fisheries to authorize the size of the annual harvest.

Tasting seafood and fish ceviches – a local dish – in the market of the Tongoy resort town, in the Coquimbo region in northern Chile, is also an opportunity to educate tourists on the flavor and nutritional value of these products fresh from the sea. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Miguel Tellez, president of the Mar Adentro de Chepu Artisanal Fisherpersons Union, on the island of Chiloé, 1,100 kilometers south of Santiago, told IPS that they have worked for 20 years in four 300-hectare management areas that start at the Chepu River, where they harvest different molluscs.

The main species they harvest is the Chilean abalone, although there are also mussels, sea urchins (Echinoidea) and red seaweed (Sarcothalia crispata) that is harvested in the southern hemisphere summer. The production of Chilean abalone varies, but in a good year 400,000 are caught.

“We are 34 active members, half of us divers, who monitor the entire year, with four people taking turns overseeing day and night for six days,” Tellez said from his home in the town of Chepu.

He explained that poaching “has been our main problem, especially when we just started.”

He was referring to illegal fishermen and divers who enter the management zones, affecting the efforts of those legally assigned to exploit and protect them.

His union installed surveillance booths on the coast of Parque Ahuenco, a reserve belonging to some fifty families that preserve 1,200 hectares along the sea.

Tellez is worried about the future because the average age of union members is 40 years old.

“I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There are very few young people and because of their studies they are involved in other things,” he said.

In Chepu, fisherpersons sell Chilean abalone in the shell to a factory in the nearby town of Calbuco where they are cleaned and packaged for sale within Chile or for export. The price depends on the market. It has now dropped to 60 cents of a dollar per abalone.

“This is a low price given that we have to oversee the shellfish year-round, paying dearly for fuel, motors and boats and making a tremendous investment. An outboard motor, like the ones we use, costs 40 million pesos (about 50,000 dollars),” said Tellez.

At the pier in Tongoy, a seaside resort in northern Chile, shellfish divers prepare piures (a kind of sea squirt), which they try to sell to tourists by explaining how to eat them. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

He is dubious about moving towards industrialization, asking “How much more could we harvest and how much more would we have to invest?”

Proudly, he said his was “one of the best unions in the country. Partly because we are from the same area,” since all of the members live in Chepu or nearby towns.

In the Coquimbo region, Miguel Barraza, secretary of the Chigualoco fisherpersons union, 248 kilometers north of Santiago, is enthusiastic about transforming his cove.

At the cove, he told IPS that “1.1 billion pesos (1.37 million dollars) are going to be invested to make this a model cove. A new breakwater will be built, along with a bypass on the freeway and facilities to serve tourists.”

The new breakwater will protect boats from waves as they enter and exit the cove.

Thirty members and their families, including shellfish divers, fisherpersons and kelp harvesters, live in Chigualoco.

They have three management areas, the largest of which is 5000 square meters in size. From these areas they harvest 100,000 Chilean abalones and 300 tons of Chilean kelp a year.

“We earn enough to live year-round,” Barraza said, adding that they were not interested in processing their catch because “fishermen like to come ashore and sell.”

“We have overseers, but poachers come in from various sides. They are stealing a lot. We won a project to buy a drone to monitor the shore to find them,” he said.

In Guanaqueros, where Durán’s union is located, despite their seniority they have only now registered a management zone in their overexploited fishing area.

“We have an area that is not yet well developed. It has been difficult for us because most of us are fisherpersons. But the area is going to recover. The marine biologist says that 100,000 abalones could be harvested annually,” said Durán, looking for a shady spot to chat in his cove.

Today the area is looked after. It is about three kilometers in size and before it began to be regulated, people harvested abalone there for more than half a century without any limits.

“People are used to just harvesting without regulations and it is difficult to change that behavior. It’s a constant struggle and a problem to prevent disputes between fisherpersons…Many do not understand that the resources are there because other people take care of them,” he said.

As soon as fisherpersons and divers unload their products at the Tongoy pier, in the northern Chilean region of Coquimbo, crowded with tourists during the southern hemisphere summer, they are approached by customers seeking to buy products directly, without the need for intermediaries. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Low consumption of seafood, a public health problem

Durán lamented the low levels of consumption of fish and shellfish in Chile, despite the country’s abundant seafood.

“We don’t have culinary habits like in Peru (a country on Chile’s northern border) and we eat what we shouldn’t. There is no government promotion or policy that calls for consumption and it is a public health issue,” he said.

“I can’t conceive of the fact that there is a plant making fishmeal from Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) and that children are eating tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus),” a farmed fish, he added.

The Undersecretariat informed IPS that the annual consumption of seafood in 2021 was 16.6 kg per inhabitant, below the global average of 20 kg.

In Chile, fishing is the third largest economic activity, contributing around five billion dollars a year to the economy.

Chile is among the 10 largest fish producing countries in the world and is the global leader in aquaculture, second in salmon production and first in mussel exports.

The Undersecretariat is currently drafting a new law on the exploitation and conservation of seafood, for which it organized 150 meetings with artisanal fishermen and another 22 with representatives of industrial fishing and sector professionals.
The Undersecretariat told IPS that the objective is to promote and diversify the activity not only as a development strategy but also as a resource conservation strategy.

Credit: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

By Pablo Fajardo Mendoza and Gadir Lavadenz
QUITO, Ecuador / LA PAZ, Bolivia, Feb 27 2023 (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 [for climate deceit] 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

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A school of fish swim in the Pacific Ocean in Australia. Credit: Ocean Image Bank/Jordan Robin via United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 20 2023 (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.

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Deforestation, along with fires, reduces the region's forests, expands the agricultural frontier, shrinks the habitat of indigenous peoples and wildlife, destroys water sources, and brings more diseases to populated areas. CREDIT: Serfor Peru

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jan 31 2023 (IPS)

The environmental priority for South America in 2023 can be summed up in the management of its terrestrial and marine protected areas, together with the challenges of the extractivist economy and the transition to a green economy with priority attention to the most vulnerable populations.

This management “must be effective, participatory, and based on environmental and climate justice, with protection for the environment and environmental and indigenous activists,” biologist Vilisa Morón, president of the Venezuelan Ecology Society, told IPS.

Latin America and the Caribbean is home to almost half of the world’s biodiversity and 60 percent of terrestrial life, and has more than 8.8 million square kilometers of protected areas, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

It is thus the most protected region in the world, with the combined protected area greater than the total area of ​​Brazil or the sum of the territories of Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Paraguay, from largest to smallest. The leaders in percentage of protected territory are the French overseas departments and Venezuela.

The second great environmental challenge in the region for 2023 and the following years lies in the extractivist economies, which run counter to the region’s responsibility to the planet as a major reserve of biodiversity.

The extractivist economy involves the mining of metals in the Andes region, the Guyanese massif and the Amazon rainforest, and the exploitation of fossil fuels in most South American countries and Mexico.

Extractivism, plus the pollution in urban areas and in rivers and other sources of fresh water, weighs like a stone on the region’s transition towards a green economy that would rethink the management of these areas as a challenge, says Morón.

Other difficulties for the defense of the environment in the region are the destruction of the habitat, livelihoods and cultures of indigenous peoples, and the murders of environmental leaders and activists.

A view of a gold mining camp next to a river in the territory of the Yanomami, an ancient people who live in the extreme south of Venezuela and north of Brazil. Extractivism in search of precious minerals and hydrocarbons is a severe problem in the Amazon rainforest. CREDIT: Rogério Assis/Socio-Environmental Institute

Deforestation, a key issue

A major problem in Latin America, and particularly in South America, is deforestation of land for agriculture and livestock, or as a consequence of mining.

According to the report “Amazonia Viva 2022” by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 18 percent of the Amazon rainforest has been completely lost, another 17 percent is degraded, and in the first half of 2022 the damage continued to grow.

The loss of the Amazon jungle can directly affect the livelihoods of 47 million people who live in that ecosystem which forms part of eight nations, including 511 different indigenous groups (totalling more than one million individuals), as well as 10 percent of the biodiversity of the planet, said the WWF.

At the fifth Amazon Summit of Indigenous Peoples, held in September 2022 in Lima, the Amazon Network of Georeferenced Socio-environmental Information (RAISG) presented “Amazonia against the clock: A Regional Assessment on Where and How to Protect 80% by 2025”.

Brazil is the main focus of the deforestation, because 62 percent of the Amazon is located in that country, where the jungle is rapidly being cleared for agriculture and livestock, as well as the devastation caused by fires.

Indigenous people protest in the state of Pará, in northern Brazil, against companies that expand the agricultural frontier to produce biofuels, to the detriment of the lands that have been occupied by native peoples from ancient times. CREDIT: Karina Iliescu/Global Witness

For this reason, environmentalists around the world breathed a sigh of relief on Jan. 1, when moderate leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took over as president from the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, who turned a deaf ear to calls to curb deforestation and favored the expansion of the agricultural frontier.

Brazil “has shown that it is possible to reduce deforestation by implementing clear policies,” said researcher Paulo Barreto, co-founder of the Amazon Institute of Man and the Environment (IMAZON), based in the northern city of Belém do Pará, from which he spoke to IPS.

Barreto has faith in the environment minister appointed by Lula, Marina Silva, who already held that position when Lula was president, between 2003 and 2008.

Among the necessary policies that challenge the environmental agenda, according to Barreto, is the application of protective laws and, at the same time, addressing the social and economic issue represented by half a million smallholders in the Amazon and the Cerrado ecosystem.

The Cerrado is a more open forest, extending over 1.9 million square kilometers to the east of the Amazon basin.

According to the expert, policies aimed at reforestation and forest recovery “can be part of the solution in generating jobs and income, if, for example, payment is made for avoiding deforestation,” an initiative that he sees as positive in terms of bringing in foreign aid.

Barreto welcomed Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s launch of a new fund and new cooperation programs in the region to save the Amazon rainforest, based on extensive accumulated experience.

Peasant farmers from Peru’s Andes highlands engage in reforestation work and care for local fauna and water sources while expressing their native cultural traditions. CREDIT: Ecoan

Words and mining

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) says the restoration of 20 million hectares of degraded ecosystems in the region could generate 23 billion dollars in benefits over 50 years.

Peruvian biologist Constantino Aucca said that “In our countries and in general in the world there is a lack of political will to protect and recover our natural areas. More action is needed and fewer words,” he told IPS from New York, where he is staying temporarily.

In November Aucca received the Champions of the Earth award, the highest environmental honor given by the United Nations, in recognition of 35 years of work to restore the high Andean forests in 15 nature reserves in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

The Association of Andean Ecosystems that he heads has led the planting of three million trees in Peru and as many in neighboring countries, but Aucca insists that “much more is needed. Climate change is coming hard and fast and the Andes are already facing severe problems.”

“Enough egos, we need honest leaders who do not allow their heads to be turned by power. In some countries in our region a mining permit is granted in three weeks while studies for a protected natural area take five years,” he complained.

Unregulated illegal gold mining in southern Venezuela, eastern Colombia and northern Brazil is another major environmental challenge in the region, which combines the destruction of the natural environment – the habitat of native peoples – with the contamination of water and soil, Morón said.

Another problem is the presence of irregular armed actors, such as groups of garimpeiros (illegal miners) from Brazil, criminal “syndicates” from Venezuela or remnants of the guerrillas and other illegal armed groups from Colombia.

Morón stressed that illegal mining, bolstered by weak institutions in the region, as well as the oil industry that is active in most South American nations, is a constant source of environmental and social liabilities.

The harassment and murder of environmental defenders is another pending issue on the human rights agenda in Latin America. The Escazú Agreement, adopted by 25 countries in the region, is seen as a step forward in establishing policies and regulations for their protection. CREDIT: Diego Pérez/Oxfam

Drought, crime and indigenous people

In Argentina, three years of drought in most of the country have severely hit the indebted economy and public accounts, along with more than 6,700 fires that affected some 2.3 million hectares in the same period.

It is an urgent issue for Argentina, a global agricultural powerhouse whose economy depends on food exports to its clients, mainly Brazil, the United States and East Asia.

In addition, a serious regional problem is the murder of human rights defenders, including activists for the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples.

Of the 1,733 murders of environmental activists documented between 2012 and 2021 around the world, 68 percent were committed in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Colombia was the most dangerous country for them between 2020 and 2021, accounting for 33 of the 200 murders documented in that period by the Global Witness organization.

In this sense, the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, known as the Escazú Agreement because it was adopted in that Costa Rican city in March 2018, has a key role to play.

The agreement, signed by 25 countries and ratified by 14, seeks to ensure “adequate and effective measures to recognize, protect and promote all the rights of human rights defenders in environmental matters, including their right to life, personal integrity, freedom of opinion and expression.”

The sources interviewed also agreed on the need to give priority to indigenous peoples and local communities in all pending environmental management in the region, since their habitat is directly at stake in the short term.

The Escazú Agreement also provides an effective way of taking care of the territory and paying attention to the social debt that has accompanied the many decades of environmental degradation.

In a tourism-dependent economy, sustainable finance will promote sustainable fisheries, maritime transport, and tourism. Credit: UNDP

By Christopher Marc Lilyblad
MINDELO, Cabo Verde, Jan 26 2023 (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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By External Source
Dec 23 2022 (IPS-Partners)

 

2022 has been an apocalyptic warning of the frailty of our planet…

…and the woeful shortcomings of humankind.

It started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

And it’s ending with famine in Africa.

More than 7.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country.

And the impact of the war has been felt worldwide.

Prices of basic commodities have skyrocketed.

Somalia used to import 90 per cent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.

And now it is enduring the worst drought to hit the Horn of Africa in 40 years.

Women and girls are paying “an unacceptably high price” among affected communities. – UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

2022 is on its way to becoming one of the five hottest years on record.

Agriculture and food security joined the COP27 agenda.

More than 25% of arable soils worldwide are degraded, according to the FAO.

The equivalent of a football pitch of soil is eroded every five seconds.

The planet’s bio-diversity is being devastated as a result.

Still unresolved, however, is which countries will give money and to whom.

Only 1.7% of all climate finance reaches small-scale producers in developing countries.

As little as 8% of overseas aid goes to projects focused primarily on gender equality.

One seismic milestone event happened in late 2022.

The birth of the 8 billionth person was celebrated on November 15.

“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,”
– Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

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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

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, cosmetics, 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 humanitarian 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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Final plenary session of COP15. Some analysts say the adopted framework is a good compromise. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
Montreal, Dec 20 2022 (IPS)

In a landmark agreement, all parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) adopted the draft Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to protect at least 30% of the world’s lands and water by 2030.

Led by China and facilitated by the CBD, the parties of the convention adopted the draft very late on Sunday night, after 12 days of intense negotiations over 23 targets that, put together, make the framework for biodiversity protection until 2030.

The Old vs. New GBF

When COP15 negotiations began on December 7, the GBF had 22 targets. However, on December 19, the final day of the COP, there were 23 targets in the adopted document. There have not been any new additions, but Target 19 – focused on finance – has been divided into two targets: Target 19 and Target 20. Target 20, therefore, is now Target 21, Target 21 is Target 22, and Target 22 is now Target 23.

The adopted document looks leaner and shorter compared to the version presented before the parties on December 7. However, the new version – presented by China on Saturday and adopted later by all parties – has all the text considered crucial.

For example, on Target 3 – widely considered as the lifeline of the GBF and equivalent to the Climate Change COP’s goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees – the old text was long and somewhat vague, with too many details but no indication of action.

In Target 19.1, focusing on resource mobilization, the draft framework proposed to increase financial resources progressively and annually from all sources by reaching at least $200 billion by 2030.

The adopted framework has a more straightforward but detailed language: “Raise international financial flows from developed to developing countries … to at least US$ 20 billion per year by 2025, and at least US$ 30 billion per year by 2030.”

In Target 22, the draft version read: “Ensure women and girls equitable access and benefits from conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as their informed and effective participation at all levels of policy and decision making related to biodiversity.”

The adopted version of this target has a language that is richer and more action-oriented:  “Ensure gender equality in the implementation of the framework through a gender-responsive approach where all women and girls have equal opportunity and capacity to contribute to the three objectives of the Convention, including by recognizing their equal rights and access to land and natural resources and their full, equitable, meaningful and informed participation and leadership at all levels of action, engagement, policy, and decision-making related to biodiversity.”

The Big Decisions

In addition to the GBF, the parties at COP15 have approved a series of related agreements on the framework’s implementation, including planning, monitoring, reporting, and review; resource mobilization; helping nations to build their capacity to meet the obligations; and digital sequence information on genetic resources.

For example, digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources – a dominant topic at COP15 – has many commercial and non-commercial applications, including pharmaceutical product development, improved crop breeding, taxonomy, and monitoring invasive species.

Francis Ogwal and Basile Van Havre, co-chairs of the Global Biodiversity Framework, at a press meeting after the framework was adopted. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

COP15 delegates agreed to establish a multilateral fund for the equal sharing of benefits between providers and users of DSI within the GBF.

Another big decision was to create a specific fund for biodiversity within the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) – the nodal agency that receives, channelizes and distributes all funds for environmental protection in the world. Reacting to the decision, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, GEF CEO and Chairperson, called GBF a significant breakthrough and supported the creation of the fund.”

“Resource mobilization has been a central theme here in Montreal over the last two weeks, both to reach an ambitious agreement, and to ensure it is implemented. I am therefore honored and extremely pleased that the Conference of the Parties has requested the GEF to establish a Global Biodiversity Fund as soon as possible, to complement existing support and scale up financing to ensure the timely implementation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework,” Rodriguez said in a press statement.

A Good Compromise

Jennifer Corpuz of Indigenous People’s Forum for Biodiversity (IPFB), an umbrella of over 10 thousand indigenous organizations across the world, had been lobbying intensely to ensure mainstreaming of indigenous peoples’ rights in the GBF, called the adopted document, a “good compromise” and “a good start.”

According to Corpuz, the GBF – now known as “The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework,” contains strong language on all targets that concern indigenous peoples and local communities. The language is very strong, especially in the areas of spatial planning (Target 1), area-based conservation (Target 3), customary sustainable use (Targets 5 and 9), traditional knowledge (Goal C, Targets 13 and 21), and participation and respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to lands, territories, and resources (Target 22).

“The Framework should be celebrated as a historic step towards transforming how we approach biodiversity conservation. The text provides a strong basis for countries to walk hand in hand with Indigenous peoples in addressing the biodiversity crisis and in ensuring that the negative legacy of conservation on Indigenous peoples will be corrected,” Corpuz told IPS.

Basile Van Havre – the co-chair of the framework, appeared to agree with Corpuz. Answering a question on the implications and meaning of various terms such as “equitable governance” in the GBF, Havre told IPS, “it would help local governments to create a mechanism for working together with different sections of the populations, especially the Indigenous peoples.”

On the adoption of a gender target (Target 23) and the adoption of the Gender Action Plan, the CBD Women’s Caucus expressed their gratitude to various parties for their support. A group of women also broke out in a jubilant dance – an expression of their joy and relief after years of persuasion to include Gender as a stand-alone target in the GBF.

The next steps and challenges ahead

According to experts, the success of the GBF will heavily lie on two factors: 1) Adopting and operationalizing GBF indicators relevant to each target and 2) Creating a mechanism quickly for those decisions that involve a multilateral system.

For example, under the new GBF, finances for biodiversity will come from rich and developed nations and private investors. But the pathways and mechanisms for these are yet to be decided, and the sooner these are done, the better it will be for all parties to begin implementing the framework.

A lot will also depend on how quickly the countries can revise their current National Biodiversity Action Plans to make ways for implanting new decisions under the GBF, according to Francis Ogwal, CBD co-chair of the GBF.

Others have also cautioned that if countries are not able to make necessary policy changes, there is a risk that the GBF could fail.

“The agreement represents a major milestone for the conservation of our natural world, and biodiversity has never been so high on the political and business agenda, but it can be undermined by slow implementation and failure to mobilize the promised resources. Governments have chosen the right side of history in Montreal, but history will judge all of us if we don’t deliver on the promise made today,” warned Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International.

The agreement also obligates countries to monitor and report on a large set of “headlines” and other indicators related to progress against the GBF’s goals and targets every five years or less. Headline indicators include the percent of land and seas effectively conserved, the number of companies disclosing their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity, and many others.

The CBD will combine national information submitted by late February 2026 and late June 2029 into global trends and progress reports.

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Government delegations celebrate the close of the historic negotiation at COP15 of the New Global Framework on Biodiversity in the early hours of the morning on Monday Dec. 19, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada. CREDIT: Mike Muzurakis/IISD

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 19 2022 (IPS)

The pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), which takes its name from its shape, is found throughout the Caribbean Sea, but its population has declined by more than 80 percent since 1990. As a result, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed it as “critically endangered” due to the effects of the human-induced climate crisis.

Its fate now depends on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Framework on Biodiversity, which was agreed by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Monday Dec. 19, at the end of the summit held since Dec. 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.

Now, the world’s countries must translate the results into national biodiversity strategies, to comply with the new accord. In this regard, David Ainsworth, spokesman for the CBD, in force since 1993 and based in Montreal, announced the creation of a global accelerator for the drafting of national plans, with the support of U.N. agencies.

COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world’s natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The menu of agreements

COP15, whose theme was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”, approved four objectives on improving the status of biodiversity, reducing species extinction, fair and appropriate sharing of benefits from access to and use of genetic resources, and means of implementation of the agreement.

In addition, the plenary of the summit, which brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies, agreed on 23 goals within the Global Framework, for the conservation and management of 30 percent of terrestrial areas and 30 percent of marine areas by 2030, in what is known in U.N. jargon as the 30×30.

This includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

Likewise, the agreement reached by the 196 States Parties at COP15 includes the halving of food waste, the elimination or reform of at least 500 billion dollars a year in subsidies harmful to biodiversity, and at least 200 billion dollars in funding for biodiversity by 2030 from public and private sources.

It also endorsed increasing financial transfers from countries of the industrialized North to nations of the developing South by at least 20 billion dollars by 2025 and 30 billion dollars by 2030, and the voluntary publication by companies for monitoring, evaluation and disclosure of the impact of their activities on biodiversity.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will manage a new fund, whose operation will be defined by the countries over the next two years.

With regard to digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, the Global Framework stipulates the establishment of a multilateral fund for benefit-sharing between providers and users of genetic resources and states that governments will define the final figure at COP16 in Turkey in 2024.

The Global Framework also contains gender and youth perspectives, two strong demands of the process that was initially scheduled to end in the city of Kunming, China, in 2020. But because that country was unable to host mass meetings due to its zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19, a first virtual chapter was held there and another later in person, and the final one now took place in Montreal.

The states parties are required to report at least every five years on their national compliance with the Global Framework. The CBD will include national information submitted in February 2026 and June 2029 in its status and trend reports.

With some differences, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples gave a nod to the Global Framework, but issued warnings. Viviana Figueroa, representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and Simone Lovera, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition, applauded the agreement in conversations with IPS, while pointing out its risks.

“It’s a good step forward, because it recognizes the role of indigenous peoples, the use of biodiversity and the role of traditional knowledge,” said Figueroa, an Omaguaca indigenous lawyer from Argentina whose organization brings together indigenous groups from around the world to present their positions at international environmental meetings.

“It has been a long process, to which native peoples have contributed and have made proposals. The most important aspects that we proposed have been recognized and we hope to work together with the countries,” she added.

But, she remarked, “the most important thing will be the implementation.”

Goal C and targets one, three, five, nine, 13, 21 and 22 of the Global Framework relate to respect for the rights of native and local communities.

Lovera, whose organization brings together NGOs and indigenous groups, said the accord “recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and of women. It also includes a recommendation to withdraw subsidies and reduce public and private investments in destructive activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching and oil palm monoculture.”

But indigenous and human rights organizations have questioned the 30×30 approach on the grounds that it undermines ancestral rights, blocks access to aboriginal territories, and requires consultation and unpressured, informed consent for protected areas prior to any decision on the future of those areas.

Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Major challenge

While the Global Framework has indicators and monitoring mechanisms and is legally binding, it has no actual teeth, and the precedent of the failed Aichi Targets casts a shadow over its future, especially with the world’s poor track record on international agreements.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD’s COP10 and which its 196 states parties failed to meet in 2020, included the creation of terrestrial and marine protected areas; the fight against pollution and invasive species; respect for indigenous knowledge; and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.

Several estimates put the amount needed to protect biological heritage at 700 billion dollars, which means there is still an enormous gap to be closed.

In more than 30 years, the GEF has disbursed over 22 billion dollars and helped transfer another 120 billion dollars to more than 5,000 regional and national projects. For the new period starting in 2023, the fund is counting on some five billion dollars in financing.

In addition, the Small Grants Program has supported around 27,000 community initiatives in developing countries.

“There is little public funding, more is needed,” Lovera said. “It’s sad that they say the private sector must fund biodiversity. In indigenous territories money is needed. They can do much more than governments with less money. Direct support can be more effective and they will meet the commitments.”

The activist also criticized the use of offsets, a mechanism whereby one area can be destroyed and another can be restored elsewhere – already used in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

“This system allows us to destroy 70 percent of the planet while preserving the other 30 percent,” Lovera said. “It is madness. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is very negative, because they lose their own biodiversity and the compensation is of no use to them, because it happens somewhere else.”

Figueroa said institutions that already manage funds could create direct mechanisms for indigenous peoples, as is the case with the Small Grants Program.

Of the 609 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, 303 are aimed at the conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 188 at alliances, and 159 at adaptation to climate change and reduction of polluting emissions.

The summit also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from their Utilization, both components of the CBD.

Images of the planet’s sixth mass extinction reflect the size of the challenge. More than a quarter of some 150,000 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.

The “Living Planet Report 2022: Building a nature-positive society”, prepared by the WWF and the Institute of Zoology in London, shows that Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the largest decline in monitored wildlife populations worldwide, with an average decline of 94 percent between 1970 and 2018.

With a decade to act, each passing day represents more biological wealth lost.

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

Women doing on-the-spot training at COP15. Target 22 is being held up by a single word. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
Montreal, Dec 19 2022 (IPS)

Since the beginning of the high-level segment, tensions have been steadily rising at the 15th meeting of the conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) among all participants, including members of country delegation teams, NGOs, observers, monitors, and media. At the press events held daily at the media center and various other events in the Montreal Convention Center, an outburst of anger and frustration have become a common sight.

In the middle of such high drama, there is one corner at the COP – the Women’s Pavilion in the Palace Quebec room that presents a very different picture: a group of women sitting in a circle on low stools, intently listening to a fellow woman speak about easy and effective ways to connect, coordinate, and collaborate with their community members.

“That is a training in session,” says Mrinalini Rai – the director of Women4Biodiversity – a global coalition of dozens of women-led organizations worldwide working together to get gender equality mainstreamed into the CBD Global Biodiversity Framework.  In March this year, in the 3rd Working Group meeting of the CBD in Geneva, CBD first received a proposal for a stand-alone target on gender to the GBF, which, at that time, had 21 targets. The proposal was officially tabled by Costa Rica and supported by GRULAC – a group with 11 member countries from Latin America and West Africa. These are Guatemala, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Chile, Cote d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, and Tanzania.  Today, barely nine months later, the GBF consists of 22 targets – an inclusion that reflects an extraordinary level of coordination among the women’s coalition and their astonishing level of lobbying with different parties.

Target 22 at COP15: A Quick Look

Target 22 aims to “Ensure women and girls equitable access and benefits from conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as their informed and effective participation at all levels of policy and decision-making related to biodiversity.”

On the sidelines of the high-level segment of COP15, Rai spoke to IPS News on the struggle that has gone behind the current status of Target 22, the level of support it has received from the parties, and the area of contention that still remain to be resolved.

“It has been really a long journey that has taken years of advocacy, lobbying, discourses, and consultations around the importance of recognizing rights of all women and girls at the heart of the Convention,” Rai says candidly before adding that the gender target has received overwhelming support of all parties of the biodiversity convention at COP15. “There are 196 parties to this convention apart from the US, which is a non-party, and the Holy See (the Vatican). Right now, nobody has objected to having a target (22),” Rai reveals.

Mrinalini Rai, Coordinator of Women’s Caucus. Stella Paul/IPS

The reason is simple: mainstreaming gender into all the targets and goals of the biodiversity framework seems easier to perceive and understand far more easily than the other cross-cutting themes like finance or human rights. “If you are looking at how gender mainstreams into COP15 targets, for example, Access and Benefit Sharing, traditional knowledge, etc. – you immediately think of knowledge of women and then how do you ensure women have access. There are some very complicated issues in the COP like DSI (Digital Sequencing Information), invasive species, marine, and coastal biodiversity, etc., but whatever spaces you are looking at, gender ties to it,’ Rai says.

Gender-responsive vs. Gender sensitive – the last remaining challenge

Despite its broad support, however, the target doesn’t have a completely clean text yet. Incredibly, a single country – Russia – has raised objections to a single word, putting that within brackets.

According to Rai, on the opening day of COP15, in the working group’s plenary, Russia put a bracket on the ‘responsiveness’ in the text. This means that although the rest of the text is clean, the target 22 is not ready to be adopted yet because of this single bracket. However, the Women’s Caucus – a group of civil society organizations that is the main focal contact for all gender-related issues and has support from the CBD secretariat – is talking to the Russian delegation and pursuing them to either lift their objection or come up with an alternative that will be acceptable to all.

“Russia said that they want to replace “gender-responsive” with the term “gender-sensitive”. Now, for us, the word sensitive doesn’t really mean anything concrete. It is like being aware of something. You have been sensitized about gender, so now you are gender-sensitive or aware of gender. But the term “gender-responsive” demands action; it means there is an action for you to take and to be held accountable,” Rai explains.

Preparing for the Next Steps

While the lobbying continues, several Women’s Caucus members are already thinking ahead of COP15, strategizing for the time when countries will move to the implementation phase of the Gender Action Plan.

“It will be crucial how everything unfolds at the local level. At this point, it feels a little concerning to the national policies of respective countries in designing a compatible program for women-based organizations and women in the community to have access to finance. But as we see practically, it’s very hard for women to have that access because, one, they are not in any structure that could get them financing, and two, women, particularly in the rural areas, can’t even have access to the necessities, let alone access finance for climate or biodiversity. So, it’s important to engage grassroots women and civil society in the planning mechanism so that financing can be down streamed,” says Tsegaye Frezer Yeheyis, who heads Mahibere Hitwot of Social Development – an Ethiopian NGO and member of the Women’s Caucus.

Sharon Ruthia, a lawyer from Kenya who counsels on gender and biodiversity, further adds, “it will be important for the countries to design a mechanism to build the capacity of women – technically and financially,’

And how can gender be mainstreamed into crucial issues like DSI outside the GBF and are also contentious?  Cecilia Githaiga, another lawyer from Women4Biodiversity, shares some insights: “The biggest challenge (for gender mainstreaming is that the discussions on Nagoya Protocol are very fragmented at this moment. It would be good if these discussions were focused, then there would be a single mechanism for reporting, and that would help us women (who are not able to spread all over) still follow up, monitor, and tell when we are making progress and when there is a need for upscaling.’

When the whole chance of the target is hanging by the thread of one word, it’s easy to be frustrated, especially after crossing such a long journey. However, Target 22 advocates are making a brave effort to be positive. “We do have parties who support the word ‘responsiveness,’ so we are hoping that all 195 countries will support it. This hasn’t yet come to the working groups or the contact groups, so we are keeping an eye on that,” Rai concludes in a hopeful voice.

Note: The last bracket on Gender Target on the term “gender-responsive” was lifted, and the target was adopted when all parties of COP15 formally adopted the Global Biodiversity Framework late last night.

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Researcher, Billy Offland (left), filming a documentary on biodiversity in Kashmir. Credit: Billy Offland

By Busani Bafana
Bulawayo, Dec 19 2022 (IPS)

Billy Offland (21), a British sustainability student, went on a two-year ‘World Conservation Journey’ to bring attention to the biodiversity crisis as the world seeks a deal to protect nature.

Offland, a BSc Sustainability and Environmental Management student at the University of Leeds, was jolted into taking a solo research trip after reading the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment report highlighting the perilous state of the world’s biodiversity. The IPBES assessment notes that more than one million species of plants and animals face extinction more than ever before in human history.

Getting up and taking action is always a big decision. There’s no easy way of starting your journey into activism or ‘actionism’ – changing a big part of your life for something you believe in.

“It took something as ground-breaking as the IPBES Global Assessment for me – but really, as soon as I read it, I knew I had to do something,” Offland told IPS in an interview from Azad Kashmir, Pakistan, where he is making the first foreign film about the battle for beekeepers to continue producing medicinal honey as the impacts of climate change threaten to wash away their pot of gold.

“The scale of the report is unlike anything else and contains messages which defy time. I always saw it as a culmination of everything I had learnt, discovered, and been told in my previous 22 years, including (completing a) degree in sustainability and environmental management. It laid it all bare.”

Offland said the grim narrative of the IPBES assessment left him questioning why people are unaware of this impending catastrophe and why it was not front-page news.

“In my eyes, the best thing about this report was that it came from the knowledge of hundreds of not just scientists and researchers but included, for the first time ever, the traditional knowledge of communities all around the world,” said Offland, who has now visited 196 countries worldwide. He plans to visit Eritrea as the final country of his sustainability tour.

“The most important thing I’ve learnt is that our global nature system is being destroyed by the actions of the majority of humans, and this has terrible consequences for nature – with it being predicted that a million species are at risk of extinction in the coming decades. This will also bring severe negative consequences for the livelihoods and wellbeing of so many people across the globe.”

Offland’s response to the biodiversity crisis, signalled by the IPBES Global Assessment, underscores the power that scientific research has to highlight the nature crisis and to mobilise and motivate real action by  individuals and organisations to bring our world back from the brink.

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

It gets worse. The assessment further found that at least 680 vertebrate species had been driven to extinction since the 16th century. More than 9 percent of all domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had become extinct by 2016, with at least 1,000 more species still threatened.

The work of IPBES has also influenced policy change across the world. Following the discussions and agreement at the BES-Net Anglophone Africa Regional Trialogue, policy, science and practice sector representatives in Nigeria, for example, convened to refine a two-year strategic action plan for pollinator-friendly land degradation neutrality. This was a means to act on the IPBES thematic assessments on pollinators and land restoration.

The authors built on the earlier findings of the IPBES Regional Assessment Report for Africa to show what is changing in biodiversity and ecosystem services on the African continent. They also identified future pathways and options for an African continent where long-term development objectives are recognised as inseparably connected to conserving the region’s rich biocultural heritage.

As another direct impact of IPBES work, taking note of the urgency of the Global Assessment, 30 leading South African businesses teamed up with World Wide Fund South Africa and the Wildlife Trust (EWT) to undertake biodiversity valuation assessments to determine how to cost-effectively mainstream biodiversity into their strategies and practices.

The businesses indicated that given the key findings of the IPBES report, “there was, ‘more than ever’, a need for them to step up their biodiversity game.”

These are just some of many examples of governments, businesses, practitioners and individuals who took biodiversity science to heart and set out to make a difference. To document the impact of its work, IPBES developed its own Impact Tracking Database (TRACK) five years ago. It is a crowd-sourced tool that keeps track of, for example, new or changed laws, regulations, policy commitments, investments, research techniques, and more, that were inspired by the scientific reports published by the platform.

Rob Spaull, Head of Communications at IPBES, explains that IPBES realised it could not comprehensively monitor impacts globally.

“So, we decided to create an indicative list of these impacts whenever we found out about them,” Spaull said. He notes that the TRACK is a fully public database that can be used by anybody who wants to know about what kind of impacts IPBES has had or to submit an example of an IPBES impact themselves.

“The idea behind wanting to make it public and as searchable is that we want to give everybody interested in IPBES a chance to tell stories about the work that we do and the impact that we are having, but we want them to be able to find stories that are as closely related to their own priorities as possible,” Spaull tells IPS.

TRACK to date has almost 500 different specific examples of impact from every region and most countries and every kind of scale, including the private sector.

“TRACK is a really valuable asset that, we think, shows how science can have a very direct impact and that it does not need to be restricted to scientific publications that may end up gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. It can take a little time for science to result in concrete change, but thanks to the TRACK database we can trace the impact over time,” said Spaull.

This in itself is great news for the scientists who volunteer years of their time to work on IPBES assessments, but it can also be used to bring about even more change: Spaull added that member States had told IPBES they had used the examples collected in TRACK when advocating to their ministries and government organisations about the importance of IPBES in highlighting the science behind biodiversity issues worldwide, a strategy that can ultimately bring about even more support for biodiversity science.

TRACK is a fully public database that can be used by anybody who wants to know about what kind of impacts IPBES has had or to submit an example of an IPBES impact themselves. This includes 500 different specific examples of impact from every region and most countries and every kind of scale, including the private sector. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

At the COP15 Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said that the destruction of biodiversity and nature has come at a huge price for humanity.

“Humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction… with a million species at risk of disappearing forever,” said Guterres, noting that climate action and biodiversity protection were two sides of the same coin.

“It’s time for the world to adopt an ambitious biodiversity framework — a true peace pact with nature — to deliver a green, healthy future for all.”

IPBES science can be found in many places, such as in the draft Global Biodiversity Framework that is being discussed at the COP.

What does Offland make of the current global action to save biodiversity at COP15 in Montreal?

“There’s no doubt for me that we’re making progress,” Offland told IPS, adding, “The worry is that it’s not the transformative change that we need to see. Often the biodiversity crisis is subjugated under the need for climate action, but recent work noticeably by IPBES and the IPCC seeks to reconcile the two.”

Offland has a vision for a summit where biodiversity takes an equal level of priority.

“I would quite like to see an intermediary COP for biodiversity and climate change together, recognising the importance of treating both together and not in silos and, therefore, giving the biodiversity crisis the priority it requires across every country in the world.”

Meanwhile, it is hopeful that biodiversity science will continue to make an impact at different scales, whether it’s on the global scale of a COP or on the individual scale as with Offland himself. Truly transformative change will need to occur at all levels of society.

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

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 16 2022 (IPS)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Genetic havens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indigenous people and their share

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lagging behind

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

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

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

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

Activists at COP15 believe that keeping infrastructure off the radar is a problem and have expressed concern about the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China which impacts on biodiversity hotspots and Indigenous communities. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
Montreal, Dec 15 2022 (IPS)

As the COP entered its crucial second week, negotiations are intensifying now. A slew of new contact groups – meeting mostly behind closed doors – are discussing the minutest details of the Global Biodiversity Framework and the contentious issues within or around it, such as Digital Sequencing Information, Access, and Benefit Sharing. The core aim of all these groups is to talk and resolve all issues and produce a draft treaty that will be acceptable to all parties.

In this flurry of activities, however, there’s an elephant in the room that no one wants to see: The impact of mega infrastructural projects on biodiversity. Leading the table of these most impacting mega projects is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China – the president of COP15.

BRI: A Mammoth Project Like No Other

China launched BRI in 2013, intending to revive and strengthen its trade links with the rest of the world. Today, it’s a mammoth project involving several regions of Asia, Africa and Europe with plans to construct roads, railways, ports, and, more recently, health, digital, and space projects, building physical and economic links, enhancing trade and interconnectivity.

It is, however, not a single Chinese government initiative but consists of many different projects in multiple countries, financed through multiple avenues, including Chinese and international banks and investment funds.

According to a 2019 paper published by the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), the BRI was likely to boost world GDP by $7.1 trillion annually within the next two decades. The Information Office of the Chinese government also reports that BRI has created more than 244,000 jobs for locals abroad.

However, a vast majority of BRI projects require the use of Chinese companies, labour, and raw materials, meaning the GDP gains from BRI will go to the Chinese ‘locals,’ not to the locals of the countries in which China has invested.

An Ambition Vehicle or a Debt Trap

Today, at least sixty-four countries fall within its ambit, and the number is increasing.  The terrestrial route of BRI aims to cut across Central Asia, Russia, India, Pakistan and Europe, and the maritime route runs along the coast of Asia, East Africa, and Europe.

However, many of these small countries saw themselves falling into mounting debts. The first is Sri Lanka which recently plunged into a financial crisis from debts owed to China for highways, ports, airports, and a coal power plant. Sri Lanka owes China lenders over $7.4 billion – 20% of its total foreign debt. Other countries following the footsteps of Sri Lanka are Kyrgyzstan and Montenegro; while Kyrgyzstan owes 40% of its foreign debt, including $1.8 billion to Chinese lenders, the European Union (EU) refused to pay off a $1 billion Chinese loan for the BRI but has offered help on other infrastructure projects.

Impacts on Environment, Gender and Indigenous Peoples

The financial crisis put aside, the implication of the BRI on the region’s biodiversity is huge as it includes many different environmentally important areas such as protected areas, key landscapes, Global 200 Ecoregions (a list of ecoregions identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as priorities for conservation), and biodiversity hotspots that cover the distribution range of flagship species.  In fact, the study found that 32% of the total area of all protected areas in countries crossed by BRI corridors were potentially affected by the project. There are also areas that are important for delivering ecosystem services that provide social and economic benefits to people.

According to a geospatial study done by WWF, which examined the environmental impacts of BRI, the initiative will affect 1,700 biodiversity hotspots, threaten 265 species, and potentially introduce hundreds of alien species that threaten these fragile ecosystems.

The BRI corridors also overlap with 1,739 Important Bird Areas or Key Biodiversity Areas and 46 biodiversity hotspots or Global 200 Ecoregions5. This is in addition to the range of 265 IUCN threatened species, including 39 critically endangered species and 81 endangered species – including saiga antelopes, tigers and giant pandas.

According to Allie Constantine, Gender and Indigenous rights Advisor to Global Forest Coalition, there is still no impact assessment on how the BRI affects women, and China has not released data on gender and the BRI. However, given that China has signed and ratified most UN human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 5 being “Gender Equality”), the country is obliged to report on gender impacts of BRI projects it operates.

While China’s 14th Five-Year plan discusses women’s equality and gender rights, there is no indication of how China will implement or enforce this within the BRI.

“However, even without this data, we can still make certain inferences regarding gendered impacts,” says Constantine, who recently conducted a study on the impact of BRI on women and indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia.

The study reveals that BRI’s expansion through important ecological corridors, including Chinese-backed hydropower projects built along the Mekong River that cause changes in river flow, directly puts specific communities and fragile ecosystems at risk. In turn, this impacts fish migrations and creates a further loss of livelihoods for downstream communities in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam that rely on the river for sustenance.

It also says that specific BRI projects often negatively affect indigenous and forest communities. For example, the Indigenous Mah Meri community in Malaysia is frequently harmed by government processes, including the development of BRI ports in Mah Meri territories. Although Malaysia supports the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), it frequently acts against Indigenous land and human rights, Constantine’s study reveals.

Greening or Greenwashing

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has been intensifying “Green BRI” efforts, including research on how to make BRI projects more environmentally sound. For example, in 2021, the Chinese ministries of Foreign Commerce and Ecology and Environment released “Green Development Guidelines.” China has also committed to ending coal-fired power plants and investing in renewable energy sources.

Speaking to IPS, Li Shuo, Global Policy Advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, said that within China, there is a growing concern over the country’s investment overseas, especially in high-carbon projects such as coal plants.

“It’s a little hard to say if BRI is a good thing or a bad thing for the local economy or local environment. You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis,“ says Shuo, “But there is a clear recognition that some of the BRI projects are quite problematic from an environmental point of view. I think there is a realization from the Chinese side as well, and that is why a year ago, there was this Chinese commitment to not fund coal-fired power projects. The announcement was made in September 2021 in the UN General Assembly.”

Shuo, however, says that there is still no such recognition or public debate when it comes to biodiversity.

“There is a recognition that China should not invest in high-carbon projects, so there is a slow transition, but on the other hand, where biodiversity is feeding into all these, I think you are in need of more recognition on the Chinese side on the biodiversity implications of the BRI projects. I think climate recognition is slowly getting there but not necessarily on biodiversity. And if you think about it, a lot of the infrastructural projects will have a negative footprint,” Shuo says.

Observers at COP15, however, are saying that with many destructive projects under the BRI, such as large dams built along the Mekong River, which also threaten biodiversity, forests, and forest communities—simply defunding coal and investing in other potentially harmful projects is not the solution.

Exclusion of Infrastructure in GBF

Infrastructure has not been included in the current biodiversity draft framework. On Dec 8, at a side event of the ongoing COP15, Amy Fraenkel, Executive Secretary, Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), expressed alarm that infrastructure is not addressed in the GBF.

Highlighting that migratory species must be able to reach new habitats, she noted the CMS tackles threats posed to these species by infrastructure. She also called on governments and investors to consider whether there is a real need for new infrastructure developments and to look into alternatives, including “no new infrastructure” options.

Simone Lovera of the Global Forest Coalition has been more vocal in her criticism of BRI, the exclusion of infrastructure in the biodiversity framework and China’s silence on the initiative’s impact on biodiversity. She especially spoke out on how the current financing mechanism – already a contentious issue at COP15 could further fail if mega projects like BRI were continued to be ignored.

“It doesn’t make any sense to just close the financing gap; even US100 billion dollars per year, we have 1.3 trillion US dollars that are going to destructive activities. Sadly, China’s own Belt and Road Initiative is an example of initiatives that are still financing very harmful projects. They are trying to green it up, but they are not doing any gender analysis, and a lot of BRI activities are actually very harmful on the ground. So first and foremost, the thing China should do is look at its own Belt and Road Initiative and make sure that that is aligned. On the one hand, they claim to have ecological civilization at home, but they export the destruction to other countries,” Lovera told IPS News.

Speaking to IPS, Basile Van Havre- Co-chair of the GBF, said negotiators were now “focusing on not adding any new texts to the draft and instead were working to shift as much existing text as possible out of the brackets”. This means if infrastructure has been excluded from the GBF, it is not likely to be included now.

The onus of curbing the harms caused to biodiversity by projects like BRI falls entirely on the countries that own and run them – such as China.

“The European Union just banned commodities that come from deforestation and biodiversity destruction. It’s possible. Let us have an agreement here so they (China) also have a legal alignment. They can say, ‘okay, in line with this multilateral agreement, we will start banning products caused by biodiversity destruction, and I think the EU legislation will show it’s possible. It is a good example, and we very much look at China to do that,” Lovera says.

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Francis Ogwal (L) of Uganda and Basile van Havre (C) of Canada, co-chairs of the group responsible for drafting the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, explain the status of negotiations at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal on Dec. 14, 2022. Discussions are entering the final stretch to approve the new biodiversity protection targets. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 15 2022 (IPS)

Created in 2016, the Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve (MCBR) hosts 1900 species of animals and plants and contains half of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the second largest in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

This ecosystem is under pressure from the construction of two of the seven routes of the Maya Train (TM), the Mexican government’s flagship megaproject, whose construction, which began in 2020, alters the environment of the Maya Forest, the largest tropical rainforest in Latin America after the Amazon.

This is recognized in two technical reports obtained in Mexico by IPS through public information requests, which state that, although the project is outside the marine area itself, it is located within its zone of influence.

Regarding the 257-km section 4, a document from October 2021 acknowledges the impact on two high priority hydrological regions.

And with respect to the impact on the 110-km section 5, another document dated from May 2022 states that “there is no previous study or information on the monitoring and sampling sites. The presence and state of the fauna that inhabit the trees are unknown.”

The MCBR administration recognizes impacts on two priority marine regions and on the coastline of the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, which is protected by the reserve.

For this reason, the MCBR refused to issue a technical opinion on section 5 due to lack of “sufficient information and elements” and, for T4, issued an opinion that demanded the presentation of additional data and prevention, management, and oversight measures.

Despite the impact that the railroad will have in the region, the government’s National Fund for Tourism Development (Fonatur) did not request reports from at least four other nature reserves.

Fonatur will be in charge of the TM, which will run for some 1,500 kilometers, with 21 stations and 14 stops, through five states in southern and southeastern Mexico.

The case of the railway exemplifies the contradictions between the attempt to protect nature and the development of infrastructure that sabotages that aim, a theme present at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which began on Dec. 7 in the Canadian city of Montreal and is due to end on Dec. 19.

Moreover, the railway’s cost of some 15 billion dollars is classified as forming part of the harmful subsidies to biodiversity, which total 542 billion dollars a year globally. The investment needed for the conservation and sustainable use of nature is estimated at 967 billion dollars a year.

In the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which is due to be adopted at the summit, one of the main 21 measures being negotiated is called in UN jargon 30×30: the protection of 30 percent of the planet’s marine and terrestrial areas through conservation measures by 2030, in an attempt to halt the loss of biodiversity on the planet.

The plan has attracted support from more than 100 countries but has awakened distrust among indigenous peoples, who have suffered from the imposition of natural protected areas without due information and consultation.

The summit, which has brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international organizations and companies, will also discuss the post-2020 global framework, financing for conservation and guidelines on digital sequencing of genetic material, degraded ecosystems, protected areas, endangered species, the role of corporations and gender equality.

The 196 States Parties to the CBD, in force since 1993 and whose slogan at this year’s COP is “Ecological civilization. Building a shared future for all life on earth”, have not yet agreed in Montreal on the percentage of the oceans that should be protected and whether it should include waters under international jurisdiction.

The global framework is to succeed the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD COP10 and due to be met by 2020, which have failed. Target 11 stipulated the protection of 17 percent of terrestrial areas and inland waters and 10 percent of marine and coastal areas.

The Maya Train, the Mexican government’s main megaproject, threatens protected natural areas, such as the Mexican Caribbean Biosphere Reserve in the southeastern state of Quintana Roo, according to a Google Earth capture. In the COP15 negotiations in Montreal, a central issue is the declaration of more natural protected areas, but one of the threats is infrastructure works. Image: Google Earth

Insufficient rules

Manuel Pulgar Vidal of Peru, WWF global leader of Climate and Energy, who is attending COP15, said the problem lies in the regulation of protected areas.
“Nations such as Colombia, Ecuador and Chile have strengthened the system of natural areas. But in general the systems are weak and need to be reinforced, and money, staff and regulations are needed,” he told IPS.

Mexico has 185 protected areas, covering almost 91 million hectares -19 percent of the national territory-, six of which are marine areas, encompassing 69 million hectares. Despite their importance, the Mexican government dedicated less than one dollar per hectare to their protection in 2022.

In addition, management plans have not been updated to cover works such as the Maya Train.

Colombia, meanwhile, protects 15 percent of its territory in 1,483 protected areas covering 35.5 million hectares, including 12 million hectares in marine areas.

Chile, for its part, has 106 protected areas covering 15 million hectares of land – 20 percent of the total surface area – and 105 million hectares in the sea, in 22 of the conservation areas.

Among the 49 governments that make up the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, aimed at promoting 30×30, are 10 Latin American countries: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.

Of the 586 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, held at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, only 93 deal with marine, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, while 294 address terrestrial ecosystem conservation and restoration; 185 involve alliances and partnerships; and climate change adaptation and emission reductions are the focus of 155.

A group of government delegates discuss the post-2020 global biodiversity framework with new biodiversity protection targets to be approved at COP15, which is being held at the Palais des Congrès in the Canadian city of Montreal. CREDIT: IISD

Aleksandar Rankovic of the international NGO Avaaz said the key challenge goes beyond a specific protection figure.

“The hows are not in the debate. It’s up to each country how it will implement it. It’s left to each country to decide what’s appropriate. There is little openness on how to achieve the goals,” the activist from the U.S.-based organization dedicated to citizen activism on issues of global interest, such as biodiversity, told IPS.

Only eight percent of the world’s oceans are protected and only seven percent are protected from fishing activities. Avaaz calls for the care of 50 percent of marine and terrestrial areas, with the direct participation of indigenous peoples.

The protection of marine areas is tied to other international instruments, such as the Global Ocean Treaty, which nations have been negotiating since 2018 within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and which aims to protect 30 percent of these ecosystems by 2030.

Pulgar Vidal, for his part, called for the approval of the 30×30 scheme. “Implementing these initiatives takes time. And you need an international financing mechanism,” he stressed.

In Rankovic’s view, a strong global framework is needed. “The issue is broader, because fisheries are not well regulated. Without this, marine areas will be part of a weak program,” he warned.

COP15 has also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization, both components of the CBD and part of its architecture for preserving biodiversity.

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

Female workers sort out plastic bottles for recycling in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. New initiatives were launched at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) to reduce plastic pollution. Credit: Abir Abdullah/Climate Visuals Countdown

By Aimable Twahirwa
Kigali, Dec 13 2022 (IPS)

Experts agree that African economies need to develop innovative approaches to deal with plastic production, which is set to double in 20 years – adversely impacting rural communities.

They were speaking in Kigali, Rwanda, on the sidelines of the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF).

As a result of current global efforts to spur Africa’s transition to a Circular Economy at the country, regional and continental levels, official estimates show that the transition to a fully circular economy could generate $4.5 trillion in economic benefits globally by 2030.

Government representatives, researchers, civil society activists, and strategic partners launched an initiative, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, on the sidelines of WCEF to end plastic pollution by 2040.

“The issue of plastic pollution has reached crisis levels, and it is time polluters to be held to account,” Zaynab Sadan, the Regional Plastics Policy Coordinator for Africa at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), told IPS.

According to experts, the key to a circular economy in Africa is to eliminate open dumping and burning of waste on the continent and promote the use of waste as a resource for value and job creation.

The latest estimates by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) show that approximately 7 billion of the 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic produced from 1950-2017 globally has become plastic waste, ending in landfills or dumped.

Environmental experts argue that this pollution has altered habitats and natural processes and reduced ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities, and social well-being, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Experts unanimously agree that plastic consumption and production have reached unsustainable levels over the past 30 years, reaching 460 million tonnes between 2000 to 2019.

The 2022 Global Plastics Outlook report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) indicates that much of this growth is mostly driven by massive increases in the production of single-use plastics for packaging and consumer goods, which accounts for half of the plastic waste generation.

To address this growing phenomenon, Sadan insists on the need for African countries to integrate the informal sector into recycling and waste management.

“There is a pressing need to improvement in waste collection services and management at landfills,” the fierce conservation activist told delegates at the launching of the new High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution.

Official projections indicate that by 2060, the use of plastics could almost triple globally, driven by economic and population growth.

It said that plastic leakage to the environment is projected to double to 44 million tonnes (Mt) a year, while the build-up of plastics in aquatic environments will more than triple, where the largest costs are projected for Sub-Saharan Africa, whose GDP would be reduced by 2.8% below the baseline.

Kristin Hughes, the director of the resource circularity pillar and a member of the World Economic Forum’s executive committee, told delegates that if current trends continue, billion metric tons of plastic waste will be in landfills or the natural environment by 2050.

“Embedding science and evidence-based approach are key to end plastic pollution in Africa,” Hughes said.

From plastic waste to paving stones. This was a project highlighted at the World Circular Economy Forum in Kigali. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

During various sessions on the forum’s sidelines, Rwanda has been hailed as a role model in Africa toward managing waste from banning plastic bags in 2008, has made great steps forward, and has established the e-waste recycling facility in 2018.

Reacting to this achievement, Rwandan Minister of Environment Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya stressed the need for the country to strengthen existing mechanisms to have a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.

“Despite these achievements, there are still shortcomings that are exposing the country to severe impacts of improper waste management, including hazardous wastes,” Mujawamariya told delegates.

Terhi Lehtonen, Finnish Vice Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, is convinced that eradicating plastic pollution requires a systemic approach since plastic pollution is not simply a consumer issue.

“The plastic pollution is increasing at an alarming rate […] African countries need to adopt a holistic control strategy at both production and consumer level,” she told delegates.

The newly-established global mechanism, the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, is committed to developing ambitious international and legally binding instruments based on a comprehensive and circular approach that ensures urgent action and effective action interventions along the full lifecycle of plastics.

Erlend Haugen, Norway’s coordinator of the Global Initiative, said the new treaty must establish provisions for plastic waste minimization and environmentally sound collection, sorting, and preparation for reuse and recycling of plastic waste to re-enter recycled plastics into the economy and avoid leakage to the environment.

But activists are convinced that communities also have vital knowledge and experience that can help combat the scourge of plastic pollution.

“Countries should also adopt a gender-sensitive approach to tackle plastic pollution,” said Sadan.

According to her, the youth could also play a very influential role in plastic waste control by raising awareness about its negative impact.

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A dog trained under Africa Wildlife Foundation's Canines for Conservation programme looks content with its handlers. Sniffer and tracker dogs deployed in six African countries have contributed to the arrests of over 500 suspects in the long-running fight against poachers and traffickers. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks

By Guy Dinmore
London, Dec 9 2022 (IPS)

Elephant populations are starting to recover in parts of Africa as law enforcement agencies and local communities turn the tide in their long-running battle against wildlife poachers and traffickers.

But criminal gangs are constantly shifting tactics and exploiting other species, while the greatest threat now is posed by the severe drought devastating swathes of East Africa, displacing hundreds of thousands of people, threatening famine in Somalia, and killing off wildlife and livestock.

“Poaching of big game is going down in most countries,” says Didi Wamukoya, senior manager of Wildlife Law Enforcement at African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), noting that poaching in Kenya and Tanzania of large iconic species for the international wildlife trade is now very rare. Elephant population numbers in those two countries are now increasing. It is a particularly dramatic turnaround for Tanzania, which lost some 60 percent of its elephants within a decade.

Elephant population statistics. Credit: AWF

Wamukoya, who heads AWF’s capacity training of law enforcement agencies to prosecute cases of wildlife trafficking, warns that criminals adapt. While elephants are faring better – also in part because major markets such as China have banned domestic trade in ivory — gangs trafficking to Asia are switching to other species, such as lions for their body parts, pangolins, and abalone.

Pangolins, which have been identified as a potential source of coronaviruses, are the most trafficked wild mammals in the world.

Combating cybercrime and enhancing the use of digital evidence in courts have become a key elements of AWF’s work as criminals adapted to Covid-19 lockdowns. “Criminals live in society and are part of us, and they moved online too,” Wamukoya told IPS in an interview, referring to social media platforms like Facebook used to market animals and wildlife products.

Much illegal wildlife trade – estimated by international agencies to be worth over $20 billion a year globally – has moved online, but the actual poaching and transporting of smuggled animals and products across borders is the target of AWF’s Canines for Conservation Programme, headed by Will Powell in Arusha, Tanzania.

Powell and his team train sniffer and tracker dogs as well as their handlers selected from ranger forces across Africa, including most recently Ethiopia.

“We are having to raise standards of our operations with dogs at airports as smugglers try to adapt and hide stuff in coffee, condoms, screened by tinfoil. First, rhino horn and ivory were the main target but now pangolin scales are the biggest thing, so dogs are trained on this,” he tells IPS.

Trafficking in lion bones and teeth for Asian ‘medicine’ has also gone up as criminals switch from tigers. “We have to be sure dogs are up to date,” he says.

Powell previously trained dogs to sniff out 32 kinds of explosives in the Balkans and says over 90 percent of dogs can refind a smell after a year without exposure to it. A new smell can be introduced with just hours of training.

“Ivory is a range of smells from freshly killed to antique pieces. Dogs are amazing at how they figure it out, for example, by not responding to cow horn but picking out tortoises,” he says.

A sniffer dog trained by AWF works in a Kenya airport. They are trained in wide ranges of smells and can learn to detect a new one within hours as traffickers constantly change their smuggling methods. Credit: Paul Joynson-Hicks

AWF canine teams currently work in Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya,

Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda. All staff are local nationals. Since 2020 teams operating in Manyara Ranch and Serengeti National Park in Tanzania have made over 100 finds, resulting in multiple arrests.

No elephants in the Serengeti have been lost to the international wildlife trade since the canine teams have been in place.

AWF says that dog units across the six countries have uncovered over 440 caches that led to the arrest of over 500 suspects. Finds have included over 4.6 tonnes of ivory, 22kg of rhino horns, over 220 lion claws, 111 hippo teeth. Seven live pangolins were recovered, and over 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales.

Dogs and their handlers are also impacting corruption among officials and law enforcement agencies.

“Dogs are an incorruptible tool,” explains Wamukoya. Dealing with corruption is part of training for rangers and handlers. The transparency of their work and with handlers trained to send photos of seizures high up to authorities, corruption is made more difficult.

“Corruption is not zero but we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.

Tanzania has been known as the world’s elephant killing fields, but a crackdown on poachers and traffickers in recent years has halted a horrendous decline in elephant numbers. On December 2, a Tanzanian high court sentenced to death 11 people for the murder of Wayne Lotter, a well-known South African conservationist who was shot in a taxi in Dar es Salaam in August 2017. The sentences are likely to be commuted to long jail terms.

Compiling accurate estimates of Africa-wide populations of various species, including big beasts such as elephants, is widely recognised as extremely difficult. So is the gathering of statistics on poaching and seizures of trafficked animals. The 2020 World Wildlife Crime Report by the UNODC attempts to unpick and track the trends since its 2016 edition, noting that lockdown measures taken by governments during the Covid pandemic forced organised criminal groups to “adapt and quickly change their dynamics”, possibly resulting in “illicit markets going even deeper underground, additional risks for corruption and shifts in market and transportation methodologies in the longer term”.

It estimates some 157,000 elephants were poached between 2010 and 2018, an average of about 17,000 elephants per year. Data suggests a declining trend in poaching since 2011 but rising again slightly in 2017 and 2018. While elephant numbers are growing in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, there is a worrying decline in ‘critically endangered’ forest elephants in Central and West Africa because of loss of habitat and poaching.

The UNODC said a “trafficking trend of note” was more mixed seizures containing both ivory and pangolin scales together, singling out a container coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo on its way to Vietnam in July 2019, found to hold nearly 12 tonnes of pangolin scales and almost nine tonnes of ivory. The consignment was declared as timber.

“It is possible that ivory traffickers, facing declining demand, are taking advantage of their established networks to move a commodity for which demand is growing: pangolin scales,” the report said.

Save the Rhino International, a conservation charity, says poaching numbers have decreased across Africa since the peak of 1,349 in 2015, but still at least one rhino is killed every day. South Africa holds the majority of the world’s rhinos and has been hardest hit by poachers.

A consignment of illegally trafficked pangolin scales and elephant ivory seized in Kenya. Pangolins are the most trafficked wildlife mammal in the world. Dogs trained by AWF have sniffed out a total of 4.5 tonnes of pangolin scales in six countries. Poaching of elephants and rhinos in Kenya is now rare as the government, local communities, and NGOs step up efforts to stop wildlife trade. Credit AWF

These are hard-fought gains against wildlife traffickers that still need to be reinforced through support and training of law enforcement agencies, greater participation of local communities in conserving wild areas and wildlife, and reforms of legal systems.  Support from governments outside Africa, particularly in Asia, is vital to tackle shifting markets and trading routes.

But now, the most devastating and immediate threat in East Africa is the worst drought in 40 years. Four consecutive seasons of drought over the past two years have taken a dramatic toll on people, livestock, and wildlife.

In early November, the Kenya Wildlife Service reported the deaths of 205 elephants, over 500 wildebeest, 381 common zebras, 49 endangered Grevy’s zebras, and 12 giraffes within nine months. Rangers are removing tusks from dead elephants to stop poachers taking them.

“It is a tragedy despite all our efforts,” says Wamukoya. “Wildlife is not dying for poaching but it is drought and affecting the human population. Pastoral cattle communities no longer have pasture or food. Livestock are dying.”

IFAW, a global non-profit that helps people and animals thrive together, quoted Evan Mkala, program manager for Kenya’s Amboseli region, as saying he has never seen anything so devastating.  “You can smell the rotting carcasses all around the area.” He says poaching is back on the rise as people lacking food security are desperate for money to buy water and hay for their cattle.

The Horn of Africa is described by the UN World Food Programme as “a region at the intersection of some of the worst impacts of climate change, recurring humanitarian crises and insecurity”.

It says over 22 million people face a severe hunger crisis in a swathe of territory covering parts of Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, northern Kenya, and South Sudan. Over one million people have been displaced by drought; seven million livestock have died. A poor start to the October-December rains has initiated a fifth consecutive season of drought.

“This is the worst drought, the driest it’s ever been in 40 years. So, we are entering a whole new phase in climate change,” said Michael Dunford, WFP regional director for East Africa. “Unfortunately, we have not yet seen the worst of this crisis. If you think 2022 is bad, beware of what is coming in 2023. This means that we need to continue to engage. We cannot give up on the needs of the population in the Horn.”

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COP15 negotiations aim to conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s diversity by 2030. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
Montreal, Dec 9 2022 (IPS)

The long-awaited 15th Convention of United Nations Biological Diversity (CBD COP15) finally started this week in Montreal, Canada. After four years of intense negotiations and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, nations have gathered again for the final round of talks before adopting a new global treaty – the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

The GBF aims to conserve at least 30 percent of the world’s biodiversity by 2030. But even as the negotiations intensify, the job appears extremely tough, with many bottlenecks that make a clear outcome highly unlikely.

CBD COPs: A String of Failures

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was first adopted in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, alongside the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. There are 196 member nations with the glaring exclusion of the United States. In 2010, at the CBD COP10 in Nagoya, Japan, countries adopted a set of 20 targets called the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. These targets were expected to stop the loss of biodiversity by 2020. But by 2020, various assessments made it clear that none of these targets had been met. Now more ambitious and emergency measures are needed.

The failure of the world to achieve the Aichi Targets makes it crucial that the world adopts a new treaty, and the GBF has more ambitious targets with adequate financial support to implement them. It should support groups already leading action on the ground, especially Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC), and ensure more accountability for regularly monitoring the collective progress. This is what makes Montreal COP so crucial, especially when it’s already 2022, and the world now has only eight years left (out of the ten allotted years) to achieve the targets.

Expectations vs Reality

At the last Working Group meeting of the CBD COP held in Nairobi, Kenya, in June this year, IPS reported that the progress was far lower than expected. To put it into perspective, only two of the 21 targets of the GBF had clean text after the Nairobi meeting. The rest of the texts remained within brackets – 1800 in total, indicating the enormous amount of negotiation left to reach an agreement on the draft agreement.

On December 8, the second day of the negotiations, David Ainsworth – head of CBD Communications, said that in addition to the 1800, there were another 900 newly-added brackets. To ease the uphill task of cleaning this text through different stages of negotiations, a slew of contact groups had been formed, with each group being responsible for working on one of the most contentious issues. Little details were shared about these Contact Groups except that each would hold several rounds of negotiations with the parties – presumably those who raised the brackets – and find a headway. These meetings are closed to media and non-parties, including NGOs and other participants.

However, various civil society organizations, including the leaders of the IPLC, have criticized the groups’ formation because they are barred from participating.

“With the Working Group meetings, we could at least know what is going on. But the contact groups are having closed-door meetings; we don’t even have permission to enter these rooms,” said Jennifer Corpuz, an indigenous leader and a prominent voice for indigenous rights from International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

“It was always difficult for us Indigenous peoples to make our voice heard before, but now it’s impossible for us to be included in the discussion and know what is going on.”

The Missing Enthusiasm 

On Tuesday, at the opening ceremony of COP15, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Every leader must tell their negotiator to bring this ambition (conserving 30%of the world’s land and water) to their table as we reach a final framework over the next two weeks.”

Trudeau also announced an additional 350 million dollars for international biodiversity funding by Canada. The announcement and the speech were both received with thunderous applause.

However, three days since then, the mood has quickly changed, with little visible progress. “We see the delegates’ mood going down, together with their energy and hopes that this can have any great outcomes. And we hear the frustration: for many delegates, what took them to pursue such careers was, in essence, a love for the environment, for our peoples, and for the planet. We must dig in to find that motivation that helped many of us start this journey 10, 20, and for many over 30 years ago in Rio,” says Oscar Soria, director of Avaaz, a global advocacy group keeping a keen eye on the developments within COP15.

The ‘Paris Moment’ That May Never Come

Adoption of the GBF and achieving clear, strong results at COP15 was touted by many as the biodiversity’s ‘Paris moment’ – a reference to reaching a crucial global consensus on the conservation of the earth’s biodiversity and scripting a crucial diplomatic victory as it was done in the climate change COP 15 in Paris under the leadership of UNFCCC.

However, at the moment, the chances of this ‘Paris moment’ seem quite bleak. Only two of the 21 targets are for adoption. There are several bottlenecks in the ongoing negotiations, including Digital Sequencing Information (DSI), Access and Benefit Sharing and Resource Mobilization.

In the resource mobilization sector, pledges have overshadowed actual contributions, just as in the recently concluded COP27. For example, a paltry 16 billion US dollars of the expected 700 billion US dollars per year has been contributed so far.

In addition, donors are introducing different “false solutions” that are more populist than effective. These include carbon credits, carbon removals, net zero, net gain or loss, and Nature-positive or Nature-based Solutions (NbS), according to Simone Lovera, Policy Director of the Global Forest Coalition (GFC).

“Alignment of these financial flows with the new global biodiversity framework must be at the heart of the negotiations if it is to have any chance of succeeding. Commercializing biodiversity, making it market-dependent, or allowing offsetting are pathways to failure,” Lovera says.

Others allege that financial institutions dealing with implementation are still stuck in old models and have yet to align their practices with sustainable development. Most financial corporations still fund projects that don’t align with sustainability goals, while debt servicing suffocates the budgets of many developing countries. Continuation of these practices would also destroy that ‘Paris moment’ in Montreal, even if multilateral negotiations here are successful.

The Path Ahead

Clearly, creating a ‘Paris moment’ at COP15 will require a full-scale course correction and far greater leadership and urgency than we have seen from the UN and governments to date. The CBD held emergency working group meetings immediately before COP15, but the discussions failed to achieve significant progress, leaving a successful and ambitious outcome of COP15 in jeopardy.

In a statement yesterday, Campaign for Nature – a global group that focuses on advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to help achieve CBD’s 30×30 goal (which calls for 30% conservation of the earth’s land and sea in protected and other area-based conservation measures.)

It laid out the steps that are needed to get past the bottleneck on finance: “The agreement must contain a package which should include a commitment by all governments to increase domestic spending on biodiversity and end subsidies that are harmful to nature, redirecting these funds to protecting and restoring nature; an increase of at least 60 billion USD in new public international biodiversity finance in the form of grants as well as directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities.”

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Kiribati is located in the central Pacific Ocean. Credit: UNDP/Azza Aishath

By Enric Sala
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 9 2022 (IPS)

Delegates from more than 190 countries are donning thick coats and winter boots to attend the long-delayed UN biodiversity summit in Montreal, Canada—the land of caribou, beluga whales and wolverines.

They are gathering there to iron out the final details of a global deal for nature that seeks to curtail the extinction of one million species and the destruction of the ecosystems they help create.

I’ll join the delegates next week. As I trudge through the cold to speak with them about the urgent need to protect nature, I’ll be thinking of the distant southern Line Islands, a remote archipelago in the Republic of Kiribati, a nation known for its desperate battle against rising ocean levels.

Their islands could be among the first to disappear if we don’t phase off greenhouse gas emissions. But what is less known is that the southern Line Islands provide the strongest evidence that nature protection can foster ocean resilience to global warming.

In 2009, a team of scientists and I first surveyed the marine ecosystems surrounding the uninhabited southern Line Islands. What we saw was like a world from centuries ago. Fish abundance was off the charts; on every dive, we saw abundant large predators, such as sharks—an uncommon sight for even a seasoned diver. Thriving, living corals covered up to 90 percent of the ocean floor.

We thought the pristine and untouched corals were saved forever in 2015, when the government of Kiribati protected 12 nautical miles around the islands from fishing and other damaging activities in what is now the Southern Line Islands Marine Protected Area.

But then disaster struck. The same year, warmer-than-usual ocean temperatures killed half of the corals in the Southern Line Islands. The news discouraged many. If the most pristine reefs were to succumb so rapidly, then all hope is lost. Would they be able to recover?

To answer that question, we returned to the islands five years after the coral died off. I was terrified before the first dive—unsure if we’d see dead or recovering corals. But when I jumped in the water, I could not believe what I saw.

Amid massive schools of fish, the corals were back to their former richness – they had recovered completely. If we hadn’t known that half of the corals had recently died, I would have thought that nothing had changed since my first visit. They recovered faster than ever witnessed before, with millions of new coral colonies per square mile taking over the space left by dead corals.

This miracle was only possible because the reefs were fully protected from fishing. As a result, the fish biomass was enormous. Large parrotfish and schools of hundreds of surgeon fishes kept the reef healthy and seaweed-free by grazing and browsing continuously on the dead coral skeletons. Without seaweed smothering the dead corals, new corals could grow and restore the reef.

Our discovery on this expedition clearly showed that, when granted full protection from fishing and other extractive activities, marine ecosystems can bounce back. Strong protection yields resilience and replenishes our overfished ocean. We have seen this again and again, in Mexico, Colombia and the United States.

The Biden administration has pledged to protect more of the ocean under its jurisdiction, and even created a new Special Envoy for Biodiversity, currently held by Monica Medina. But there is more that countries around the world can do at a global and national level.

That is why I am carrying a strong message to Montreal: we must protect at least 30% of the Earth’s land and ocean by 2030, and we must hurry. Protecting a third of the planet is critical for biodiversity and all the benefits we obtain from it, such as oxygen, clean air and water, and food.

But it is also essential for mitigating climate change. Protecting vital areas in the ocean – and the land – will turn the tide against biodiversity loss and buy us time as the world phases out fossil fuels and replaces them with clean energy sources.

Ocean health hangs in the balance at COP15 in Montreal. But we’re already running out of time, with the summit delayed two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now, less than 8% of the ocean is under any kind of protection, and only 3% is highly protected like in the southern Line Islands.

We have eight years to quadruple all ocean protections ever achieved in human history. Some countries have announced new ocean protections, but we need a global action plan that targets the top priorities for conservation of the ocean—for the sake of biodiversity, food and climate.

This means that delegates must roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of ironing out a strong global agreement that doesn’t water down protection goals. There is no more time for podium pledges and empty speeches.

The only acceptable outcome of COP15 is a strong nature agreement including a serious commitment to protect at least 30% of our ocean by 2030.

Enric Sala is the National Geographic Explorer in Residence and the founder of National Geographic Pristine Seas. You can listen to an extended conversation about the Southern Line Islands expedition with Sala on the latest episode of the Overheard at National Geographic podcast.

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Andrew Gonzalez, co-chair of GEO BON speaking to decision makers at the Convention of Biological Diversity’s “Science Day” in Montreal. Credit: Juliet Morrison/IPS

By Juliet Morrison
Montreal, Dec 7 2022 (IPS)

Policymakers were encouraged to look at the economic and social aspects with the environmental elements of biodiversity losses to meet the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets.

Decision-makers gathered on the opening day of the 15th UN Biodiversity Convention for a “Science Day” to learn about the science underpinning the goals and targets of the post-2020 GBF. Held just before COP15’s opening ceremony, the event allowed attendees to hear from experts about the implications of the biodiversity issues under negotiation.

Opening the event, David Cooper, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, underscored the importance of scientific understanding for informing COP15 negotiations.

“We have seen increasing interest by the parties to get good scientific advice. The scientific community is super important to clarify some of the concepts and see how we can produce a framework where actions, targets are coherent with goals.”

In the first half of the workshop, scientists discussed findings from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reports and their relevance for the COP15 post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. A common thread throughout the presentations was the need for transformative change in how policymakers tackled biodiversity.

Sandra Díaz, Assessment Co-Chair of IPBES’s Global Assessment Report on Biological and Ecosystems Services, stressed the importance of focusing on the economic and social aspects of biodiversity loss—in addition to environmental elements—for transformative change to occur.

“Solutions that target only one of these elements, just nature or just drivers [of biological diversity loss], are not going to be enough. What is needed is for the whole transformative change, fundamental system-change across these ecological, social, and environmental actions,” Díaz said.

Mike Christie, Assessment Co-Chair of the Methodological Assessment Report on the Diverse Values and Valuation of Nature, highlighted that a total shift in societal values was also needed to protect biodiversity.

He said that society’s over-emphasis on material and individual gain has resulted in a devaluation of nature.

“We are currently focused on a narrow set of values that are market values—think, “I buy, you sell. That’s leading us to an unsustainable path. If we want true transformative change, we need to change societal norms; we need to change institutions and make sure we are sustainable in terms of achieving the outcomes.”

Christie added that the insights IPBES developed on considering diverse values in decision-making could support the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework as they underscore the benefits of stakeholder involvement and addressing power dynamics.

Among those identified as key stakeholders in biodiversity issues were Indigenous Peoples. Marla Emery, Co-Chair of the Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species, explained that their use of wild species through hunting, gathering, and logging helps maintain high biodiversity.

She emphasized that this was because of Indigenous Peoples’ unique orientation toward nature.

“The practices of Indigenous peoples and local communities are grounded in knowledge and worldviews. They are diverse […], but they have something in common with regards to uses of wild species and the relationships of people and other parts of nature, and that is a focus, a prioritization on respect, reciprocity, and responsibility in all those engagements.”

Scientists also discussed COP15’s monitoring framework, which is being developed alongside its goals and targets. They highlighted certain issues in the drafted framework, which included gaps in national capacity for certain indicators and a need for the additional data collection on biodiversity.

Andy Gonzales, Co-Chair of the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (Geo Bon), outlined several pivotal steps to make the monitoring framework more effective. These included greater investment in biodiversity monitoring and knowledge sharing across borders. He noted that species records currently cover less than 7 percent of the world’s surface, and most of this data is from North America and Europe.

“Biodiversity change does not recognize borders, so if we are to understand detection and attribution of causes and drivers, we need to be working across borders to achieve a regional and global perspective on change.”

Throughout the workshop, scientists urged decision-makers to listen to their findings about biodiversity loss and act during COP15.

“The science is there. There is no excuse for ignoring the science,” Christie said, summing up his remarks. “It’s over to you as the decision-makers in the convention to listen to the science. Embed some of our ideas that we have left you within the global biodiversity convention so we can actually address the biodiversity crisis and the climate crisis […]  and ensure a sustainable future.”

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The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international meeting bringing together governments from around the world, will set out new goals and develop an action plan for nature over the next decade. The conference will be held in Montréal, Quebec, the seat of the UN CBD Secretariat, from December 7 – 19, 2022.
 
COP15 will focus on protecting nature and halting biodiversity loss around the world. The Government of Canada’s priority is to ensure the COP15 is a success for nature. There is an urgent need for international partners to halt and reverse the alarming loss of biodiversity worldwide. Credit: Government of Canada

By Amy Fraenkel and Marco Lambertini
BONN / GLAND, Dec 7 2022 (IPS)

While climate change dominates the environmental headlines, quieter, startling changes are taking place in nature across the planet – whether in forests, oceans, deserts, rural landscapes, cities and other places where nature is found.

We are losing nature – biodiversity – at the fastest rate in human history. Around a million species of plants and animals are heading towards extinction. As human activities destroy and degrade more natural places, nature is becoming more and more fragmented.

Nature provides freshwater, supports food systems and underpins major industries such as forestry, agriculture, and fisheries. Yet our efforts to protect our precious biodiversity have been flawed and woefully inadequate.

Conservation of nature over the past decades has largely involved the creation of numerous dots of protected areas, which have undoubtedly helped to slow the loss of biodiversity.

But there are also limits to this approach. Many protected areas are not effectively or equitably managed, some types of ecosystems are underrepresented, and – perhaps most importantly – protected areas are carved out like islands in the middle of otherwise modified, industrial, agricultural and urbanized landscapes.

In many countries, the majority of wild species of animals live outside of protected areas. Just 9% of the world’s migratory bird species are adequately covered by protected areas across all stages of their annual cycle. Nature simply cannot survive let alone thrive in this deeply compromised and compartmentalized way.

This December, thousands of representatives of government, scientists, and other stakeholders will descend on Montreal, Canada (December 7-19) for the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP15), where they will try to agree on commitments to address this growing crisis.

By all accounts, the negotiations have yet to live up to what is desperately needed to correct our current path. If we are to successfully address the biodiversity crisis, we must adopt an approach that can meet conservation goals and also provide food, water, security and livelihoods for a global population of 10 billion people by 2050.

A key to achieving this lies in what is known as ecological connectivity – which simply put, is about ensuring that our landscapes, seascapes, and river basins allow the movement of species and the flow of natural processes.

Ecological connectivity is essential to ensure the health and productivity of ecosystems, the survival of wild animals and plant species, and genetic diversity.

It contributes to climate resilience and adaptation, productive lands and effective restoration. And it is indispensable for the thousands of migratory species of wild animals which need to seasonally move from one habitat to another.

One of the most talked about ideas in the Montreal negotiations that is gaining significant political traction is the so-called “30 by 30” target, which calls for a minimum of thirty percent of the earth’s lands, freshwater and oceans to be protected or conserved in some form by the year 2030.

But this numerical target will be far from ambitious unless connectivity is placed at the center of its implementation, and the role and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are recognized.

Currently, connectivity is captured in the draft target in two small words: “well-connected”. These same words were part of previous global biodiversity targets which by all accounts have failed us.

To succeed, connectivity must be a litmus test for all area-based conservation measures at the national level. The choice of which areas to protect and conserve needs to be guided by whether they contribute to connectivity – along with appropriate environmental and social safeguards.

Likewise, urban growth, infrastructure development and other human activities must be planned in ways that achieve social and economic needs while preserving connectivity. And governments need to measure and report their progress in implementing this commitment on connectivity.

There is one other essential element for achieving ecological connectivity: governments need to cooperate across national borders to protect and conserve shared natural areas and species.

In 2021, the UN General Assembly adopted a remarkable resolution urging all member states to increase international cooperation to improve connectivity of transboundary habitats, avoid their fragmentation and protect species that rely on connected ecosystems.

Yet alarmingly, the draft to be negotiated in Montreal does not, as yet, include any such commitment for governments to work together to implement the transboundary aspects of the framework.

The good news is we have the knowledge and ability to turn the current trends around, and to achieve a sustainable relationship with nature. There is enormous momentum on achieving connectivity by governments, companies, the financial sector, civil society, indigenous peoples and local communities.

For instance, the government of Canada is launching a CAD $60 million program for ecological corridors, a company in Sabah Borneo is completing a 14 kilometer reforested wildlife corridor within its plantation.

Local community citizen scientists in Nepal have found that a corridor they restored is now abuzz with wildlife. It is time to work together to connect nature at a scale that will deliver what we all need – a healthy planet.

Amy Fraenkel is Executive Secretary of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS); and Marco Lambertini is Director General, WWF International.

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Dawn in Lake Malawi. Photo by Ulla Räsänen (ullahannelerasanen@gmail.com). Global Landscapes Forum.
 
Meanwhile, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international meeting bringing together governments from around the world, will set out new goals and develop an action plan for nature over the next decade. The conference will be held in Montréal, Quebec, the seat of the UN CBD Secretariat, from December 7 – 19, 2022.

By Aiita Joshua Apamaku
KAMPALA, Uganda, Dec 7 2022 (IPS)

Dating back to the 16th Century, the face of biodiversity conservation has taken several tolls and twists- evolving from an era of preservation to conservation- down to conservation and sustainable utilisation of natural resources.

However, the conservation and preservation of biological diversity is not a new concept, but a fast-evolving one. Suitable methodologies and conservation models ought to consider the needs of the present and future generations at any moment in time- not outlooking the needs- of prime models employed in conserving natural resources from the beginning and the socio-economic, socio-cultural facets and needs of communities- with mutually shared benefits for people and nature.

The onset of the 20th Century saw a spark- an exponential rise in the human population from around 2.6 billion- hitting the 8-billion mark as of November 2022. The World’s population is set to escalating at a rate higher than ever recorded in the history of mankind.

Human settlements and agriculture, to cater for the ever-increasing demands of many people around the World, have accelerated the destruction of natural habitats to counteract the economy-dependent high and ever-increasing levels of consumption.

There exist variations in the ranks of consumption owing to the stories of development- with much higher levels of natural resource exploitation in wealthier parts of the World and Vice Versa.

The World Economic Forum’s recent Nature Risk Rising Report highlights that more than half of the World’s GDP ($44 trillion) highly or moderately depends on biodiversity- nature. It is only evident that several economies and businesses, both macro and micro are at risk due to increasing natural loss- even further putting the already vulnerable micro-economies at community grassroots levels at risk.

To enhance resilience and evade the sequence of vulnerability imposed on Indigenous People and Local Communities, it is vital to strengthen instruments for incentivisation and financing of biodiversity conservation endeavours at the grassroot community level.

Local communities are mainly characterised by micro-economies, thriving on small-scale/ subsistence. For such communities, biodiversity financing mechanisms could go as far as; incentivising community-led landscape planning and restoration efforts, small-scale carbon credits, incentivising conservation and restoration endeavours for key species on privately-owned lands, financing eco-conscious small-scale business models at community levels that mainly; address the day-to-day needs of the local community members while ensuring a net gain for biodiversity of any form, provide sustainable utilisation of particular resources within any ecosystem.

It is only paramount that any advances to promote and enhance community-led conservation and biodiversity financing mechanisms are undertaken under their consent- with critical attention to their own perspectives on the most suitable models in their landscape contexts.

Watch Aiita Joshua Apamaku along with other experts in the session Biodiversity finance innovations: How can we maximize impacts for local communities and nature? at the Biodiversity Finance Digital Forum – Investing in People and Nature, hosted by the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) on 29 November 2022, under the banner of the Luxembourg–GLF Finance for Nature Platform.

Aiita Joshua Apamaku is Education Taskforce Lead, Youth4Nature; Project Lead, NatureWILD Hub; and Global Landscapes Forum speaker.

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Measures to limit Bluefin Tuna fishing including limiting fishing seasons, increase in minimum catch size and quotas led to success in rebuilding of fish populations. Credit: Tom Puchner/Flickr

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Dec 6 2022 (IPS)

The Atlantic bluefin tuna is among the largest, fastest, and most beautifully colored of all the world’s fish species. They can measure more than 10 feet in length, weigh over 700 kilograms, and can live longer than 30 years. With their metallic blue coloring on top and shimmering silver-white on the bottom, the giant bony fish is a sight to behold.

But humanity’s interactions with the Atlantic Bluefin tuna have not always been sustainable. Highly migratory and warm-blooded, every year, they swim to the tropical waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea to reproduce, making them more accessible to fishermen.

The IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species, released in July 2022, offers important perspectives on the global biodiversity crisis and approaches to the use of wild species that can support the protection and restoration of such species.

IPBES research shows that while 50,000 wild species currently help to meet the needs of billions of people worldwide, providing food, cosmetics, shelter, clothing, medicine and inspiration, a million species of plants and animals face extinction, with far-reaching consequences.

Approved by representatives of the 139 member States of IPBES in Bonn, Germany, the report makes reference to a number of endangered wild species, highlighting challenges that undermine their sustainable use, providing best practices and a feasible path forward based on the most updated scientific knowledge.

With regards to the Atlantic bluefin tuna, the IPBES report stresses that the species has been sustainably exploited for two millennia by various traditional fisheries. As with many other fish stocks worldwide, the development of modern and more industrial fisheries occurred after the Second World War in both the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea and rapidly overtook the traditional fisheries.

The report further shows how the rise of the sashimi market in the 1980s brought attention to a strong demand for fresh Atlantic bluefin tuna from Japan. During this time, there was already overfishing of the southern bluefin tuna stock, which was, until then, the main source of fish tuna for the Japanese market.

When the species became a highly sought-after delicacy for sushi and sashimi in Asia, the value of Atlantic bluefin tuna increased, and the species was characterized in the media as being worth its own weight in gold, as shown by the annual New Year’s auction at the Tsukiji Fish Market, where a single bluefin tuna could be sold for up to $3 million.”

Driven by these high prices, fishermen deployed even more refined techniques to catch the delicious giant and to do so in even larger numbers due to the use of advanced longline vessels.

Conservationists were alarmed, not least because the large bony fish has a voracious appetite and is a top predator in the marine food chain, which is critical in maintaining a balance in the ocean environment.

The overcapacity of fishing vessels, combined with illegal fishing practices, brought the population of the Atlantic giant to dangerously low levels.

Factors such as the high value of the Atlantic bluefin tuna, coupled with insufficient enforcement of existing rules and regulations, and pursuit of short-term profits and economic growth, took precedence over conservation, creating troubled waters for this iconic species.

The IPBES report found that the severe and uncontrolled “overcapacity also due to deficient governance at both international and national levels generated a critical overexploitation of the resource and a severe problem of illegal catch. ”

The growing value of Atlantic bluefin tuna has led to a sharp increase in the fishing efficiency and capacity of various fleets, as well as the entrance of new storage technologies and farming practices.

“The management failure of Atlantic bluefin tuna at that time was partly due to the multilateral nature of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which is the regional fisheries organization that has in charge to monitor and manage tuna and tuna-like species of the Atlantic Ocean, and to a decision-making process based on consensus.”

Further, conflicts of interest between the numerous countries that fished Atlantic bluefin tuna impeded strong decision-making, especially in limiting catches. Against this backdrop, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas’ scientific body alerted the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas management body about critical Atlantic bluefin tuna stock status in the 1990s.

However, the IPBES report finds that “the scientific advice had, at that time, little weight against fisheries lobbies, which were most influential at maintaining high catch levels. In particular, questioning the Atlantic bluefin tuna scientific advice through the issue of uncertainty has been commonly used by different lobbies that wished to push their own agendas.”

During the 2000s, environmental NGOs managed to call the attention of the public to the poor stock status of Atlantic bluefin tuna. Consequently, managers began to pay more attention to scientific advice and implemented a first rebuilding plan in 2007, which was reinforced in the following years.

The final Atlantic bluefin tuna rebuilding plan was ambitious, as it included the reduction of the fishing season for the main fleets, an increase in the minimum catch size, new tools to monitor and control fishing activities, and a reduction of fishing capacity and of the annual quota.

Strictly enforced, these measures proved to be successful: They rapidly led to the rebuilding of the population. The latest analyses clearly show that today Atlantic bluefin tuna is not overfished anymore; the stock size is, in fact, increasing.

The IPBES report concludes that the Atlantic bluefin tuna case clearly shows that effective management of international fisheries that exploit highly valuable species that have been overexploited for decades is possible when there is strong political will.

It also shows that “uncertainty that is inherent to any scientific advice is also a source of misunderstanding, sometimes manipulation, between scientists and managers for whom uncertainty is often taken to mean poor advice.”

“Furthermore, these uncertainties can be weaponized by powerful political lobbies, whether intentionally or not, to advance a particular cause. Like in all scientific fields, fisheries scientists cannot provide certainties, but only probabilities and sometimes a consensual interpretation.”

Against this backdrop, more science is needed to deliver less uncertainty and better management recommendations, as this is a prerequisite to long-term sustainable use of species of plants and animals.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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