As the United Nations climate negotiations ended with the world’s nations still to agree on a new global treaty to reduce carbon emissions, others urge: "Stop Talking. Start Planting." Credit: Tinus de Jager/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 11 (IPS) – The world is increasingly committed to dangerous levels of global warming with yet another failure by nations of the world to agree to needed reductions in carbon emissions here in Durban. However, as the 17th Conference of Parties ended early Sunday morning, members did agree to talk about a new global treaty to reduce emissions.

After two weeks and an additional 29 hours of intense and even bitter negotiations, the 193 nations participating in the United Nations climate talks agreed to a complex and technical set of documents called the “Durban Platform.” These include the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, a formal structure for a Green Climate Fund, new market mechanisms, and more.

The biggest development reached at dawn Sunday is an agreement to negotiate a new global treaty to reduce emissions by 2015. While this may look like simply agreeing to more meetings, it is the first time all nations have agreed to be governed by a new global emission reduction treaty under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Currently the promised emission reductions by industrialised countries and those of China, Brazil, South Africa, India and others under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord guarantee a world that is at least 3.5 degrees Celsius warmer on average according to climate science. It will be double that over large parts of the world. Some analysis says this global average could be even higher rising to four or five degrees Celsius threatening our species with annihilation.

Despite the political posturing by the United States, Canada and even the European Union, the fact is that developing countries’ promised reductions are greater than the industrialised world that are responsible for 75 percent of the total human emissions in the atmosphere.

“There are still no new pledges on the table and the process agreed in Durban towards raising the ambition and increasing emission reductions is uncertain in its outcome,” said Bill Hare, Director of Climate Analytics, a non-profit climate science advisory group based in Germany.

COP 17 President, South Africa’s Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, and others pleaded with countries to put their self-interest aside “for the greater good of the planet and its people.” Rich countries like the U.S., Canada and Saudi Arabia blocked progress and numerous fronts leaving smaller nations bitter and frustrated.

“The grim news is that the blockers lead by the U.S. have succeeded in inserting a vital get-out clause that could easily prevent the next big climate deal being legally binding,” said Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace International Executive Director.

Even if a strong legally binding treaty is agreed to in 2015, it will have to ratified by governments before going into force. It took several years to ratify the Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. backed and then failed to ratify following the election of George W Bush.

Waiting until 2020 to make major cuts means those cuts will have to be far deeper and far more costly to have any hope of keeping temperatures below two degrees Celsius, Hare previously told IPS.

“The world’s collective level of ambition on emissions reductions must be substantially increased, and soon,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Various analysis show that global emissions should peak between 2015 and 2020 to earn a reasonable chance of less than two degrees Celsius at doable cost. If the peak and decline comes later costs and risks of exceeding two degrees Celsius skyrocket.

“Powerful speeches and carefully worded decisions can’t amend the laws of physics. The atmosphere responds to one thing, and one thing only – emissions,” said Meyer.

It was clear that our governments these past two weeks listened to the carbon-intensive polluting corporations instead of listening to the people, Naidoo said in a statement.

The “Durban Platform” includes a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that will begin January 2013, avoiding a gap at the end of the first commitment period finishing next year. The length of the second commitment period is to be decided at COP 18 in Qatar.

Developing countries insisted on this condition because Kyoto is the only legally binding emissions reduction agreement. However, it only asked for small reductions from industrialised countries like those in Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan and a few others. The U.S. opted out and Canada ignored its obligations and increased emissions 24 percent. And now Canada, Japan and Russia have said they will take not take part in the second commitment period.

The continuation of Kyoto “is highly significant” said Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary. Participating countries are to submit their emission reduction offers by May 2012.

There is no formal adoption of a second commitment period based on the actual wording of the documents, said Pablo Solón, former lead negotiator for the Plurinational State of Bolivia. “The actual decision has merely been postponed to the next COP.” Kyoto remains on “life support” he said.

The only progress on the Green Climate Fund (GFC) was on its design and governance. The GFC is supposed to funnel 100 billion dollars in assistance annually starting in 2020 to help developing nations to reduce emissions and help them adapt to climate change. There were no commitments on where the money would come from. What was agreed is to set up a “work plan” to mobilise significant climate funds from both private and public sources.

Private sources explicitly include carbon markets as governments from the rich countries frequently cited the financial crisis has tied their purse strings. Civil society and some developing nations noted that governments have made trillions of dollars available for the bank and financial sector and that world’s military budget is more than 10 times what is needed for the GFC.

Even though the carbon market has crashed the private sector is considered by the U.S., EU, New Zealand, Japan and other countries to be a key partner in mobilising money for climate change. Creating private markets for the buying and selling carbon offsets remains highly controversial and very complex in terms measurement, ownership carbon in soil or forests and more. Then there the ethics of rich countries offsetting their own emissions by buying up forests or land in poor countries.

“Keep the targets lose the markets” Oscar Reyes of the Friends of the Earth UK urged negotiators in in the final days of COP 17. “We’re worried that when the GCF has money it will lend it to the private sector to drive carbon markets,” Reyes told IPS.

“Durban is a disaster” for a fair and functional Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme said experts with Ecosystems Climate Alliance, a coalition of forest NGOs. REDD is by far the biggest potential carbon market.

“From looking at past conferences (climate COPs) it would be more effective if members of the conference would come outside and plant trees for the two weeks. They’d probably make a bigger impact,” said 14-year-old Felix Finkbeiner of Munich, Germany. Finkbeiner launched an organizaton of children called Plant for the Planet that is now working in 70 countries and have planted nearly four million trees in past four years.

Their motto: “Stop Talking. Start Planting.”

(END/2011)

La comunidad de Olonana Ole Pulei es una tribu de la etnia maasai de Kenia. Crédito: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Por Isaiah Esipisu*

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 9 dic (IPS)  Para la comunidad laibon, una tribu de la etnia maasai de Kenia, el bosque Loita, de 33.000 hectáreas, es un santuario.

“Nuestros dioses viven aquí. Juntamos hierbas de este lugar. Lo usamos para criar abejas. Por lo tanto forma parte de nuestro medio de vida”, dijo Olonana Ole Pulei sobre ese bosque ubicado en la occidental provincia keniata del Valle del Rift.

Ole Pulei estuvo en Durban, Sudáfrica, para representar a su comunidad en la 17 Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 17).

Según Nigel Crawhall, del Comité Coordinador de los Pueblos Indígenas de África (IPACC, por sus siglas en inglés), diferentes comunidades africanas poseen increíbles conocimientos indígenas que usan en la conservación de los bosques y la biodiversidad en general, y esto debería reconocerse en las negociaciones climáticas.

Crawhall puso como ejemplo a las comunidades de pigmeos bambuti y batwa, en el oriente de la República Democrática del Congo, que conservan los bosques utilizando métodos tradicionales. Ambos grupos dependen de la biodiversidad animal de los bosques ecuatoriales para sobrevivir.

“Por lo general saben identificar árboles que pueden talarse para crear una apertura única en la bóveda (forestal), lo que permite entrar la luz en los cerrados bosques del Congo. Luego la luz atrae a pájaros e insectos que ellos pueden cazar”, dijo Crawhall a IPS.

Esto ayuda a conservar la biodiversidad y, en particular, los bosques, porque este método solamente puede funcionar si la bóveda forestal está intacta.

En Kenia, la cultura maasai prohibe a los miembros de la comunidad talar árboles, ya sea para obtener leña o con cualquier otro fin. También está prohibido interferir con las raíces principales o eliminar toda la corteza de un árbol para extraer sustancias herbáceas.

Sus creencias indican que solo se pueden usar las ramas para hacer leña, y las raíces fibrosas como hierbas. Si la corteza del árbol tiene valor medicinal, solamente se puede aprovechar porciones pequeñas, tallando una “V” sobre ella. Luego ese corte se sella usando tierra húmeda.

Esta práctica se ha transmitido de generación en generación en la comunidad maasai. Entre los laibons, son los conocimientos indígenas los que han ayudado a conservar el bosque Loita.

Los miembros de la comunidad consideran que talar un árbol es atentar contra los dioses y contra su cultura.

Si bien todos los africanos son nativos de su continente, Crawhall señala que los grupos que conservan la definición de indígenas son aquellos que viven de la caza y la recolección, mientras otros practican la ganadería pastoril o la agricultura de secano.

Pese a que no hay una definición estándar sobre estas poblaciones, la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas (2007) reconoce que comunidades particulares, debido a circunstancias históricas y ambientales, se han encontrado fuera del sistema estatal y han quedado poco representadas en materia de gobernanza.

“Los bosquimanos de África austral, o la comunidad ogiek de Kenia, que viven en los bosques, son ejemplos típicos de grupos categorizados como indígenas”, dijo Crawhall.

África tiene más de 40 pueblos que sobreviven completamente gracias a la caza y la recolección, señaló.

IPACC trabaja estrechamente con 155 comunidades de 22 países africanos que se reconocen como originarias a causa de sus circunstancias históricas y ambientales.

En consecuencia, representantes de estas comunidades se han unido al resto del mundo en Durban para hacer oír sus voces, a fin de que sus aportes a la conservación forestal se reconozcan como parte de los esfuerzos de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático.

“Creemos que los conocimientos ecológicos tradicionales africanos son el cimiento de políticas nacionales de adaptación adecuadas y efectivas”, dijo Crawhall.

A través de la secretaría de IPACC, las 155 organizaciones comunitarias existentes en África redactaron un borrador con su posición para la plataforma de negociación. Reclamaron que los negociadores representen a todas las partes africanas: organizaciones indígenas, autoridades y sistemas de valores tradicionales.

Exigen la formación de una entidad regional legalmente vinculante en el marco de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para manejar asuntos de conservación que son difíciles de tratar en el ámbito nacional.

“Una de las brechas dominantes en la mayoría de los países miembro de IPACC es que no hay (derechos reconocidos sobre la) tenencia de la tierra para las comunidades que viven en los bosques o dependen de ellos”, dijo Crawhall.

Sin embargo, varios países liderados por Kenia han empezado a responder a las necesidades de sus comunidades locales incluyéndolas en sus estrategias de adaptación al cambio climático.

Kenia está en proceso de redactar un proyecto de ley de adaptación al cambio climático. Y las comunidades indígenas aportarán su perspectiva en ese texto porque, según la Constitución, se las debe consultar al elaborar iniciativas legislativas.

“Atravesamos todo el país buscando opiniones sobre este proyecto. (…) Nuestra visión es participar y liderar en el desarrollo y la implementación de políticas sensibles al cambio climático, así como proyectos y actividades dentro y fuera de nuestras fronteras”, dijo John Kioli, presidente del Grupo de Trabajo de Kenia sobre Cambio Climático, presente en Durban.

* Este artículo es parte de una serie apoyada por la Alianza Clima y Desarrollo (CDKN).

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) – For the Laibon community, a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group, the 33,000-hectare Loita Forest in the country’s Rift Valley Province is more than just a forest. It is a shrine.

Olonana Ole Pulei’s community is a sub-tribe of Kenya’s Maasai ethnic group. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“It is our shrine. Our Gods live there. We gather herbs from the place. We use it for bee- keeping. It therefore forms part of our livelihood,” said Olonana Ole Pulei, who is in Durban, South Africa, to represent his community at the ongoing 17th Conference of Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

According to Nigel Crawhall, the Director of Secretariat for the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC), different African communities have incredible indigenous knowledge that they use in the conservation of forests and biodiversity in general, and this should be recognised during the negotiations in Durban.

“Different communities have different practices that they use in forestry conservation,” he said.

Crawhall gave an example of how the Bambuti and Batwa pygmy communities, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, conserved the forest using traditional methods. Both communities depend on the biodiversity of animal life in the equatorial forests in order to survive.

“Usually, they know how to identify particular trees that can be cut down in order to create a unique opening on the canopy, which attracts light in the closely-packed Congo forests. The light then attracts animals, birds and insects, thus giving them an opportunity to hunt,” Crawhall told IPS.

This helps conserve the biodiversity, as well as the forests because this method can only work if the forest canopy is intact.

In Kenya, the Maasai culture forbids any community member from cutting down a tree, either for firewood or any other purpose. People are also forbidden from interfering with the taproots or removing the entire bark of a tree for herbal extraction.

According to their cultural belief, one can only use tree branches for firewood, and fibrous roots for herbs. If the bark of a tree has medicinal value, then only small portions of it can be removed by creating a “V” in the bark. The wound is then sealed using wet soil.

“We believe that the soil helps in healing the wound on a tree. This is cultural, and we all believe that it is an abomination for one to injure a tree, and not help it heal,” said Ole Pulei.

It is a practice that has been passed down from generation to generation among Maasai community members. Among the Laibon community, it is this indigenous knowledge that has aided in the conservation of the Loita Forest.

“All logging activities observed on Maasai land, including the destruction of the Mau Forest, are done by foreigners because the Maasai culture does not allow such activities. This is the indigenous knowledge that helps in forest conservation,” Ole Pulei told IPS.

Such beliefs make the forests part of the community, where community members have feelings for the trees, and where cutting down a tree could amount to an offence against the Gods and their culture.

“We have several other communities all over the continent who co-exist with forests. They include the Tuareg community in Algeria, Yiaku community in Kenya’s Laikipia region, the Ogiek community also in Kenya, the Kung community in Botswana among others,” said Crawhall.

Though according to Crawhall, all Africans are indigenous although there are some groups who live by hunting and gathering, while other groups practice pastoralism, and others practice dry-land farming.

Despite the fact that there is no standard definition of indigenous people, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognises that particular communities, due to historical and environmental circumstances, have found themselves outside the state system and underrepresented in governance.

“The Bushmen of the Southern African region, or the Ogiek community in Kenya who live in forests are a typical example of groupings categorised as indigenous,” said Crawhall.

He points out that Africa has more than 40 groupings in different countries that survive entirely on hunting and gathering. However, IPACC works closely with 155 communities from 22 African countries who are recognised as indigenous because of their historical and environmental circumstances.

As a result, representatives from these communities have joined the rest of the world in Durban to have their voices heard, so that their contributions to forest conservation are recognised as part of the climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

“We believe that African traditional ecological knowledge is the foundation for appropriate and effective national adaptation policies,” said Crawhall.

Through the IPACC secretariat, the 155 community-based organisations in Africa have drafted their position for the Durban negotiation platform. They want the negotiators to come up with a position that is representative to African parties, indigenous African people’s organisations, traditional institutions, traditional authorities and value systems.

They are calling for the formation of a regional body that is legally binding under the United Nations, to handle issues on conservation that are difficult to deal with at national level.

“One of the prevailing gaps in most of the IPACC-member countries is that there is no land tenure for communities who live in forests, or depend on forests,” said Crawhall.

However, different countries have started responding to the needs of their local communities by including them in their national climate change adaptation strategies, with Kenya taking the lead.

The country is in the process of drafting the Climate Change Adaptation Bill. And the indigenous communities will have their say on the bill because according to the constitution, they must be consulted on draft legislation so that they can make contributions.

“We have traversed the entire country seeking views on this bill, where local communities have been able to give their contributions. Our vision is to participate and lead in the development and implementation of climate change sensitive policies, projects and activities within and outside our Kenyan borders,” said John Kioli, the chairman for the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, who is attending the Durban climate change negotiations.

* This article is one of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (END)

Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Entire societies will be lost forever if we delay reaching a climate change agreement in Durban, warns Rezaul Karim Chowdhury of the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust (COAST).

“Let us not be witness to that unfortunate happening. Extreme events beyond everybody’s expectation are now observed more and more frequently and we know the consequence of that,” Chowdhury said.

Governments of low-lying island states such as the Maldives, the Bahamas, or the Pacific nation of Kiribati say their very physical existence is threatened by sea level rise of one metre – anticipated to take place by 2100.

Chowdhury’s home country, Bangladesh, is also caught in the crosshairs of global warming – rising temperatures and sea levels, changing weather patterns increasing catastrophic flooding from both swollen rivers and storm surges from intensifying monsoons will hit this low-lying, agriculture-dependent country full in the face.

A map produced by the United Nations Environment Programme shows that an area of this South Asian state that is home to 15 million people will be entirely submerged by a one-metre rise in sea levels. Long before then, increasing numbers of floods will erode riverbanks, and destroy homes, farms, roads and other infrastructure while taking longer to recede, hampering agriculture. Lingering floodwater will test public health systems wrestling with waterborne diseases.

The fears of Bangladesh and other low-lying states are an urgent reminder as the 17th Conference of Parties remains unlikely to agree on even a minimal programme of emissions reductions by developed countries – historically the worst polluters – or financial assistance for vulnerable developing nations.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon poured cold water on the talks Tuesday Dec. 6 when he told delegates that a global, legally-binding deal on climate change could well be off the agenda for now. He blamed grave economic troubles in many countries for overshadowing the talks, which are now in their second week but little tangible progress before they conclude on Dec. 10.

South African Bishop Geoff Davies head of the Anglican Church compared rich countries’ behaviour in Durban to apartheid, saying wealthy nations were trying to keep power and wealth for themselves. “Decision makers need to put the needs of people and the planet before profits.”

The parties remain sharply divided. Coastal states, small island nations and the Africa group are pushing for a second commitment by developed countries to reduce emissions to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The U.S. and Canada say any new commitment should be delayed until after 2020. These two governments are also rejecting a legally-binding global agreement. Japan at one point threatened to pull out altogether.

The European Union has taken up a position somewhere in the middle, proposing a second commitment period to start somewhere around 2015. The EU also says this is on condition that other polluters – such as fast-growing China – are brought on board.

“We have committed under Kyoto and we have actually over achieved in the first commitment period,” said Connie Hedegaard, the European Commissioner for Climate Action. “But Europe only accounts for 11 percent of global emissions and that is why we are saying two things. We are ready to agree a second commitment period even though the family of countries who are ready to do so is shrinking; however we need reassurance that if we lay down a bridge to the future, then others will follow.”

The Congolese chair of the Africa Group, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, says it’s hard to understand why the developed countries are behaving as they are.

“They says they want rules on climate change, but they don’t like the Kyoto Protocol. It’s hard to comprehend. If you want the mango, then you have to like the mango tree also,” he said. “If you want the carbon markets to continue, you must have robust transparent rules to continue – you have to keep the mango tree (binding emissions reduction agreements).”

He said the Africa Group is looking to the rich countries which have enjoyed a certain level of development at the cost of everyone’s atmosphere to now show leadership on climate change.

“They have shown us economic leadership, they have shown us political leadership and sometimes even military leadership, so let’s see them show us climate leadership.”

The pessimsism expressed by Secretary General Ban and COAST’s Chowdhury hangs over the conference venue, but some – like Paul Mafabi, a negotiator from Uganda – say it was already foregone conclusion that a deal would not be struck because of the economic crisis gripping the biggest offenders.

It’s perhaps worth remembering that small island and developing states are threatened not just by economic crisis, but by devastating and permanent disaster. And the real baseline demand of small island and developing states – measures to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and avoid devastating changes in these vulnerable states – is not even on the table.

(Ends)

Camino en la selva amazónica de Acre para transportar árboles caídos. Crédito: Mario Osava/IPS

Por Fabiana Frayssinet

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 7 dic (IPS) El Senado de Brasil aprobó un nuevo Código Forestal en medio de críticas ecologistas y elogios de sectores vinculados a la gran agricultura. El proyecto debe volver a la cámara baja y ser sancionado por la presidenta Dilma Rousseff para convertirse en ley.

Para los ambientalistas, el texto constituye un estímulo a la tala de la Amazonia, mientras el poderoso sector agropecuario ve en él un avance para garantizar la seguridad alimentaria de este país de 192 millones de habitantes.

La reforma, aprobada el martes 6 por 59 votos a favor y siete en contra, reglamenta la preservación de los bosques en relación a las actividades económicas que utilizan el suelo y los recursos naturales.

Se modifica así el Código Forestal vigente desde 1965, convirtiéndolo no en una “ley ambiental, sino en una ley más de uso agropecuario del suelo”, lamentó en un comunicado la organización Greenpeace.

El texto “tiene tres problemas: estimula la deforestación, amnistía delitos del pasado y disminuye la protección de las selvas todavía en pie”, resumió para IPS el coordinador de la campaña de Amazonia de Greenpeace Brasil, Márcio Astrini.

El punto más polémico es el que amnistía a los propietarios que hayan deforestado las  áreas de preservación permanente (APP) hasta 2008, si bien para evitar las multas el responsable tendrá que recuperar parte de lo talado y registrar su propiedad para futuras fiscalizaciones. En Brasil hay unos cinco millones de propiedades rurales.

Según al actual Código Forestal, las APP son aquellas que, “cubiertas o no por vegetación nativa, (tienen la) función de preservar los recursos hídricos, el paisaje, la estabilidad geológica, la biodiversidad, el flujo genético de fauna y flora, proteger el suelo y asegurar el bienestar de las poblaciones humanas”. Por ejemplo, las márgenes y nacientes de ríos y las cumbres y laderas de cerros.

De acuerdo con el Fondo Mundial para la Naturaleza (WWF) la superficie de las APP sujetas a indulto suma 79 millones de hectáreas, equivalentes a los territorios combinados de Alemania, Austria e Italia.

“Será una tragedia para Brasil y para el mundo si ahora el país da la espalda a más de una década de conquista y vuelve al tiempo de las tinieblas de la deforestación catastrófica”, advirtió WWF en un comunicado.

El nuevo texto mantiene porcentajes de protección de la reserva legal, una zona “ubicada dentro de una propiedad o posesión rural, con excepción de la APP, necesaria para el uso sustentable de los recursos naturales”, según el código vigente.

En la Amazonia legal –delimitación política que incluye los estados parcial o totalmente cubiertos por ese bioma– la proporción de reserva legal en los predios agrarios en zonas selváticas es de 80 por ciento.

Si la propiedad se encuentra en zonas de sabana tropical de la Amazonia legal, la reserva es de 35 por ciento, y de 20 por ciento en el resto del país.

El proyecto, que debe volver a la cámara baja y después ser sancionado por Rousseff, exime de la reforestación a todos los predios de entre 20 y 400 hectáreas, según la región.

Si la propiedad se encuentra en estados amazónicos con más de 65 por ciento de su territorio ocupado por tierras indígenas o por unidades de conservación –parques naturales, áreas protegidas, etcétera– la superficie que debe preservar el productor disminuye de 80 a 50 por ciento.

“La legislación ambiental de Brasil era considerada como una de las más avanzadas. Esta alteración del Código Forestal destruye totalmente esta noción”, dijo a IPS la abogada ambientalista Rachel Biderman, consultora senior en Brasil del World Resources Institute.

“Este momento en que Brasil vive un gran crecimiento económico es acompañado por la banalización y debilitamiento de la legislación ambiental”, añadió.

El gobierno, que intentó mejorar algunos puntos aprobados previamente en la cámara baja, considera que el proyecto no es ideal pero es “el mejor posible”.

El senador Jorge Viana, del gobernante Partido de los Trabajadores y relator del proyecto, estimó que se cumple la misión de dar tranquilidad a los brasileños que necesitan tanto de alimento como de preservación ambiental.

“No conozco actividad como la agrícola que necesite más del ambiente para crear y producir. Así que no tiene sentido este enfrentamiento entre ruralistas y ambientalistas”, opinó.

Las autoridades creen que con controles más estrictos, ya en marcha, se conseguirán restaurar 24 millones de hectáreas deforestadas en reservas legales o APP.

Adriana Ramos, secretaria ejecutiva adjunta del Instituto Socioambiental, sostuvo que la ley “permite actividades agropecuarias en áreas críticas que en cambio tendrían que ser recuperadas”. Se trata de  un “mal proyecto” que “refuerza la cultura de la impunidad”, dijo a IPS.

Brasil es uno de los principales productores de alimentos, y es el primer exportador mundial de carne vacuna, café y jugo de naranjas. También es un gran productor de soja y maíz.

Para los representantes del agronegocio, como la senadora Katia Abreu del Partido Social Democrático, empresaria ganadera y presidenta de la Confederación Nacional de Agricultura y Pecuaria, se “pone fin a años de dictadura ambiental”.

El lunes 5, el Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales (INPE) reveló que la deforestación amazónica sigue cayendo. La registrada entre agosto de 2010  y julio de 2011 fue de 6.238 kilómetros cuadrados, 11 por ciento menor a la del período 2009-2010.

Es, además, la menor tala registrada desde que el INPE inició estos controles satelitales, en 1988. Por entonces, la deforestación era de 29.000 kilómetros cuadrados por año.

Por eso Abreu insistió en que es posible compatibilizar la producción de alimentos con la preservación de la selva.

Pero esto no convence a los ambientalistas.

“Brasil pierde la oportunidad” de construir “un código de desarrollo sostenible” basado en prácticas modernas “como el pago por servicios ambientales y promoción de sistemas agroforestales sostenibles, con apoyo y desarrollo de comunidades locales”, opinó Biderman.

Astrini apuntó que el país podría incumplir tratados ambientales internacionales y socavar los esfuerzos para frenar el cambio climático.

Las organizaciones que integran el Comité de la Floresta se movilizarán para exigir un veto de la presidenta Rousseff. “Le cobraremos el compromiso que hizo por escrito de que no aceptaría un texto que tuviese amnistía y promoviera más deforestación”, recordó Astrini.

Este país adoptó la meta de reducir sus emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero entre 36 y 39 por ciento para 2020, dependiendo del crecimiento del producto interno bruto, para lo cual necesita disminuir en 80 por ciento la deforestación amazónica respecto del período 1996-2005.

Brasil es el sexto mayor emisor de gases invernadero en el mundo. Y la principal fuente es la pérdida de su selva tropical, causada en gran medida por la expansión agropecuaria. (FIN)

SSESE ISLANDS, Uganda, Dec 7 (IPS) – From a distance, Bugala Island in Lake Victoria is a patchwork of green and brown. The pattern is a result of dense forest retreating in the wake of recently planted palm tree plantations.

Workers on Bugala Island work to clear the rainforest to make way for an expanding palm tree plantation. Palm oil production is one of Uganda's rising industries. Credit: Will Boase/IPS

The island, the largest of Uganda’s Ssese Islands, is at the center of one of the country’s newest economic endeavors – palm oil processing – and the formerly lush rainforest has fallen quickly, taking with it some critical jobs for the island’s poorest women.

Now, five years after the first phase of that process was completed, residents are starting to measure the impact of the initiative. Many speak glowingly of the jobs and activity the plantation has created. But for some of the island’s poorest residents – especially widows and the wives of often-traveling fishermen – continued deforestation has robbed them of their sole source of income.

Sarah Namwanje used to collect timber and charcoal from the forests that she could sell to people around the island. Now the 28-year-old mother of seven has no way to make money.

“No timber is seen,” she said. “We’re searching for firewood and trying to get money, but my job has stopped.”

Ahead of the palm oil project’s start, activists had clashed with the government over the potential environmental ramifications of the deforestation. But, with assurances from Bidco –the company behind Uganda’s palm oil industry – that the development would have little environmental impact and a stamp of approval from the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the dazzle of a new industry and more jobs eventually won out.

What was never communicated to some of the poorest residents was how the project would affect both their livelihoods and their health. Especially the small groups of women who live on an island mostly populated by fishermen.

Some are widows, their husbands lost to AIDS or fishing accidents. Others are left alone for long stretches of time, their husbands chasing schools of fish around the archipelago of 84 islands. Until the men return with money from their catch, the women must scramble for resources.

The available jobs for these women are scarce and Mary Nampomwa, a local health worker, said it is difficult for many of them to get by without resorting to commercial sex work.

Before the palm plantations arrived, women who refused to turn to sex work had small-scale jobs, like gathering firewood. They had relatively free access to the timber in national forests or on privately held, underdeveloped plots, according to Richard Kimbowa, the programme manager for Uganda Coalition for Sustainable Development (UCSD).

But many of those landowners, offered an opportunity to make good money off of unused land, sold out or cleared the forest themselves to create subsidiary palm plantations.

Now the island’s poor women are “being marginalised,” Kimbowa said, in the “craze for expanding this palm.”

Namwanje said the only thing she knows to do is encourage people to start planting more trees, so that she has renewed access to firewood and charcoal. But that is not going to happen anytime soon. Other women have taken up jobs drying small mukene fish on the sand next to Lake Victoria.

What is particularly galling to Edisa Katusime, a single mother of six children, is that local officials had for years been warning residents about cutting down trees. She was told that the forest was critical for preserving the island’s animal life and she had to be secretive about gathering timber.

But the government is “not preventing Bidco because it’s a company,” she said. “They are allowed to cut when the government is telling us the importance of the trees.”

Kimbowa predicts that the small-scale job loss might be only the first of the problems the palm plantations are going to create. Eventually, he said, there are going to be issues with food security as land previously used for raising crops turns to palm trees. And already some of the women are reporting that the absence of forest covering is creating health issues.

The loss of the forest means there is no longer a shield from the strong winds that sometimes blow across Bugala Island. The wind now “sounds as if it’s going to knock the house down,” Katusime said. The dust it carries sometimes leaves her children in coughing fits and has been particularly dangerous for asthmatic residents.

And despite assurances from Bidco that it is following the plan laid out by NEMA to minimise environmental impact, UCSD is still monitoring the situation, concerned about issues like soil erosion and seepage of agrochemicals into Lake Victoria. Despite the jobs that Bidco has brought, most of the people on Bugala still live and die by fishing. If fish stocks are reduced, there will suddenly be a lot more people on the island without a source of income.

For now, the warnings of environmental groups and the complaints of women like Katusime and Namwanje are muted by widespread enthusiasm for the island’s palm oil industry. And it’s still growing. According to Bidco, the palm oil plantation will eventually cover 40,000 hectares and be the largest plantation in Africa.

There is division even within the small group of women infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS that Katusime and Namwanje belong to. Unlike those two women, Annette Nnamukasa was able to harness enough money to take advantage of the palm oil boom. She bought about two acres of land and had it cleared. In its place she planted palm trees and now sells the crop to Bidco.

“It is almost the same,” she said. “The palm trees are almost forests.” (END)

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Emerging economies China, South Africa and Brazil have indicated their openness to legally-binding carbon emission reduction targets from 2020 during the United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa.

Climate experts say the three countries’ willingness to consider legally binding commitments, even if they will not take immediate effect, was potentially “a great step” to unlock one of the big political issues of this year’s climate change talks.

Only India continues to refuse to commit.

The European Union (EU) proposed a “roadmap” last week, which stipulates that all major economies, including emerging countries like South Africa, Brazil, India and China, generally called the BASIC group – and not only industrialised nations as currently under the Kyoto Protocol – will be subject to legally binding carbon emission targets.

BASIC countries all face developmental challenges but are at the same time significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Major emerging economies and other developing nations already emit more than half of current carbon emissions. Within the next 20 years, they are projected to account for two- thirds.

The 194-nation climate talks, which will wrap up on Dec. 9, are abuzz with speculation on the prospect of emerging economies agreeing on the proposed roadmap.

In a move that surprised many after a tough week of negotiations that brought to the fore deep rifts between different countries’ demands and expectations, China announced for the first time it would accept a legally-binding climate deal after 2020, when current voluntary pledges will run out. After first insisting the demands of the EU roadmap were “too much,” China now seems open to finding a middle ground, especially with Europe.

“But there are pre-conditions,” said China’s top climate negotiator Xie Zhenhua. “A second Kyoto commitment period is a must for rich nations. After (the second period has ended), we need to review what has been done. Based on this assessment can we start negotiating what we shall agree after 2020.”

China laid out five conditions under which it would consider a legally-binding carbon reduction deal. Apart from a second commitment period of carbon-reduction pledges by industrialised nations under the Kyoto Protocol, they include hundreds of billions of dollars in short- and long-term climate financing for developing countries.

China also wants to see the Green Climate Fund signed off during the summit and demands the implementation of a range of agreements outlined at the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which were integrated into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at last year’s climate gathering in Cancun. These include initiatives for technology transfer, adaptation to climate change and new rules for verifying that carbon-cutting promises are kept.

South Africa and Brazil – two countries most vulnerable to the adverse effects of global warming, especially with regards to agriculture and biodiversity – have also shown interest in the roadmap.

South Africa’s Minister of Environment Edna Molewa said the EU roadmap was “seen favourably”, but noted that South Africa would, like China, want to place “conditionalities” on any binding agreements.

“We would like to work towards a legally binding outcome. As South Africa, we’re of the opinion that the seriousness with which we will deal with the level of contributions that South Africa can make in the global arena is understood in the context of articles 4.1 and 2 of the UNFCCC,” confirmed South Africa’s second negotiator Xolisa Ngwadla.

UNFCCC article 4.1 refers to “common and differentiated responsibilities” depending on the gross domestic product (GDP) of each country, while article 2 refers to the stabilisation of greenhouse gas emissions at a level that allows ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner – a point important for countries that heavily feel the effects of climate change.

“Our future commitments will also depend on finance, technology transfers and capacity building,” Ngwadla added.

Contrary to South Africa, Brazil said it is not placing any conditions on committing itself to an internationally legally binding instrument to reduce carbon emissions as long as such a treaty helped the fight against climate change based on scientific studies.

“We could agree already today on an internationally legally binding instrument, but not on any. It has to be robust, respond to what science is telling us is needed and therefore something that will make a difference in the fight against climate change,” explained Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, head of Brazil’s delegation. “We would not adapt a legally binding instrument for the sake of it.”

Currently, Brazil has set voluntary carbon reduction targets, which have been passed into national law. Figueiredo said he is aware this commitment will have to increase over time: “We understand that this regime will have to evolve over time. We think voluntary actions alone usually don’t add up to the level of international response that science tells us is needed. We are willing to play our part in the future evolution of the international fight against climate change.”

As part of the Group of 77 and China negotiating bloc, a group of 132 developing countries, Brazil is pushing for the adoption for a second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol before the end of the climate change summit on Dec 9. The country is also lobbying for a sign off of a fully functional Green Climate Fund, which will have short-term and long-term financing mechanisms so that developing nations can adapt to climate change.

Delegates from BASIC countries have repeatedly noted that South-South cooperation is important to them, not only economically but also with regards to decisions made during the climate change summit, and have indicated that they would support each other’s positions.

India, however, the fourth member of the BASIC group, does not seem to fall into line. It has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the EU roadmap, as it is not willing to consider signing a legally binding agreement to cut carbon emissions.

India said it felt implementing its voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of its GDP growth by 20 percent to 25 percent by 2020, compared to 2005, was sufficient. Having one of the smallest per-capita-carbon footprints in the world, tougher targets weren’t necessary, said India’s lead negotiator J.M. Mauskar: “We are not a major emitter.”

India was only willing to negotiate “mutual reassurances”, he said. “In terms of the Cancun pledges, developing countries’ voluntary pledges by 2020 amount to more mitigation in absolute terms than that of developed countries,” Mauskar further explained, insisting that rich nations, not developing countries and emerging economies must ramp up their commitments.

India has criticised industrialised nations, especially the United States, for not making firm commitments to cutting green house gas emissions. “We are deeply concerned that there has been hardly any progress in achieving a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol,” said Mauskar.

Russia, a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, which belongs with South Africa, China, Brazil and India to the BRICS economic bloc, has blankly refused to consider a second commitment period.

(END/2011)

By Kristin Palitza

Dubbing Saturday the “Global Day of Action”, demonstrators from international and national non-governmental groups as well as labour, women, youth, academic, religious and environmental organisations came together to highlight civil society’s demands for politicians all over the world to take serious action to fight climate change.

“We are asking for 100 percent change. Today will be the beginning of a strong movement that is going to challenge the rich nations of the world,” said Global Day of Action subcommittee convenor Desmond D’Sa. “World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change.”

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. They marched holding banners which said: “Never trust COP17”, “Unite against Climate Change”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations”.

There was a general feeling that ordinary people remained largely excluded from important debates on important issues that directly affected their lives.

“We want to ensure that the one percent on the inside [of the conference] will hear what the 99 percent on the outside have to say,” explained Bobby Peek, one of the organisers of the protest and director of Friends of the Earth South Africa. “We demand immediate, drastic emission cuts by rich countries that have caused climate change.”

Widespread anger could be felt about the slow progress made during the first week of the climate change negotiations, mixed with fear that the summit will end without tangible results.

Peek said he was gravely disappointed about the outcomes of the first week of negotiations. “It was generally a disastrous first week. There is no evidence of moving forward on [emission reduction] targets.”

Greenpeace international executive director Kumi Naidoo agreed, lashing out at the United States for never having ratified the Kyoto-Protocol, the only global, legally binding instrument to cut carbon emissions: “This is not a dress rehearsal. A week of belligerence, bickering and backstabbing needs to now give way to real deals about the future of our planet. Those who are not interested in saving lives, economies and environments, like the US, must now stand aside and let those with the political will move forward.”

Chanting slogans and signing protest songs, a large throng of demonstrators walked from Durban’s city centre to the entrance of the International Convention Centre where the climate change summit is being held, to hand over a list of their demands to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Civil society requests that governments meet the following targets by the end of the conference on December 9:

• Ensure a peak in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.
• Ensure that the Kyoto Protocol continues and provide a mandate for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument.
• Deliver the necessary finance to tackle climate change.
• Set up a framework for protecting forests in developing countries.
• Ensure global cooperation on technology and energy finance.
• And ensure international transparency in assessing and monitoring country commitments and actions.
Activists criticised rich, industrialised nations for using the global financial crisis as an excuse to give national interests priority before international ones. After a week of negotiations, it remained unclear how money to finance climate mitigation and adaptation projects – measures particularly important to developing nations – will be generated.

“So far we don’t even know where the money will come from. There is a real risk we walk away from Durban with empty pockets. And that failure will be measured in lives, economies and habitats,” warned Tove Ryding, Greenpeace co-ordinator for climate policy. “If governments don’t move forward, the final agreement will be stripped of any possibility of protecting the climate.”

Demonstrators voiced strong concern about a lack of political commitment to put in place legally binding and comprehensive agreements. The protest march was therefore particularly meant as a message to the heads of state and ministers from around the globe, which are expected to arrive at the summit on December 5.

“We demand urgent and strong action on climate change. We can’t just keep talking and keep wasting time,” said ActionAid international climate justice coordinator Harjeet Singh. “We march today to show our outrage. We want to give the ministers, who will arrive next week, a clear message: You cannot continue to make excuses.”

(Ends)

Burial ground ... Protesters form the Sierra Club declare carbon dead outside the ICC today. Credit: IPS/Zukiswa Zimela

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – Just a few days into the United Nations climate change negotiations, deep divides on the conference’s key issues have arisen.

Serious doubts about the adoption of the Green Climate Fund have cropped up, while a second period of the Kyoto Protocol looks more and more unlikely.

A number of South American countries, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria and Venezuela have voiced reservations about signing off on the GCF, stating the need to revisit some of its clauses. The European Union (EU), which continues to stand behind the fund’s draft document, urged countries not to delay its progress, but so far with little success.

“It should be possible to agree on the draft instrument as it stands. It is a good compromise. In its current form it would attract significant funding,” said EU negotiator Tomasz Chruszczow. “It would be counterproductive to undertake further technical discussions on the instrument.”

Non-governmental organisations and climate activists agree that reopening the negotiating text would seriously undermine the chances of finalising the GCF before the end of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) summit.

“This would mean that there is no instrument into which money could flow. We understand there are concerns from some parties, but this negotiating text represented a finely balanced political compromise and took months to finalise,” lamented World Wide Fund for Nature international climate strategy chief Tasneem Essop.

More than 190 countries at the global climate talks in Durban were expected to sign off on the GCF, which is meant to help developing countries with 100 billion dollar a year by 2020 to adapt to the effects of climate change.

In an attempt to create consensus, COP 17 president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said she would reach out to various countries through “transparent and informal discussions” over the next few days. There is, however, no definitive process or timeline for those talks. Supporters of the GCF now wait with baited breath for her report-back.

Some experts suggest that instead of reopening negotiations, there should be an additional text to the draft document that resolved some of the most pressing concerns, while other issues could be taken up by the GCF board, once elected.

Economics of adaptation

Immediate funding for adaptation and mitigation will not only help countries to confront climate change but also make sound economic sense. The World Bank and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that economic losses worldwide from natural disasters in the 1990s could have been reduced by 280 billion dollars, if only 40 billion dollars had been invested in disaster prevention.

But two years after committing to mobilising 100 billion dollar per year for climate adaptation and mitigation, at COP 15 in Copenhagen, developed countries have yet to indicate where any of the promised public funds will come from. Instead they have focused on ways to mobilise the private sector.

“If the fund comes with an empty vault it will be meaningless,” warned Ilana Solomon, policy advisor at ActionAid USA. “We know financial aid times are tough and budgets are tight,” she said in reference to the Eurozone crisis, “but the truth is that rich countries can bring up the money.”

The difficulties to secure funding for the GCF are alarming, because even if countries eventually bring up the entire budget, it will not be enough. Recent estimates by the European Commission and World Bank show that at least double the amount that will be raised for the fund is needed for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. Other experts note the world will need 5.7 trillion dollars by 2035 to deal with the effects of climate change.

Climate change experts also stress that action is needed now, because it will cost seven times more to reverse negative impacts of climate change, than to invest in prevention.

“It sounds like we’re talking about a lot of money, but the cost of inaction is far higher than the cost of action,” said Oxfam International - Australia climate change policy adviser Kelly Dent. “We need money to fill the fund. And we need it up and running quickly.”

Up until now, countries have not been able to agree on a single mechanism to draw public funds.

Kyoto – a cop out?

Amidst heated discussions about the climate fund, the chances of countries agreeing to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire at the end of 2012, have become slim as well. Aside from the EU, no other industrial nation currently stands behind an extension. The U.S., Russia and Japan have clearly stated their disinterest, while Canada caused a public outcry this week when it became known it wants to abandon the protocol, probably to avoid fines for not reaching its emission reduction targets.

“We cannot let the distraction of Canada’s move take our focus away from very real progress that can be made with the EU and others, as a crucial pathway forward for a legally binding regime and emission reductions,” urged Dent.

Even the EU has been slightly changing tack. It now wants the world’s largest emitters to agree by 2015 to a binding pact to be enacted in 2020 at the latest and offers in exchange an extension to its carbon- reduction goals under the Kyoto Protocol. The EU said it hopes to break the deadlock in the talks and find “common ground” with China and other emerging economies.

But climate change experts believe waiting until 2020 to set firm emissions reduction targets is leaving it too late. “We need ambition to increase emission reduction targets from after 2012. 2020 is too late,” said Dent.

Developing countries, especially Africa where climate change will be felt most severely, keep their hopes pinned strongly on the EU being able to convince other industrialised nations to commit to Kyoto from 2013 onwards.

“For us, a lot is at stake,” said Raymond Lumbuenamo, central Africa regional coordinator of the World Wide Fund for Nature. “We already experience real impacts of climate change. We are the victims of a climate change that we didn’t cause. Africa does not want to be the burial ground of this treaty.”

(END/2011)

Farming in Gabon, West Africa

By Kristin Palitza

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 30 (IPS) – Global climate change can now be observed from space. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a new technology that can survey the world’s forests via satellites and provide a more accurate, global picture of common threats to the environment, such as deforestation, degradation or illegal logging.

Using a remote sensing surveying technology, FAO has taken and analysed more than 13,500 high-resolution satellite images in 102 countries. These images will help nations to accurately assess the state of their forests. Monitoring change in forests has important implications for biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and human livelihoods.

The losses in forests all around the world can now be quantified for the first time, FAO announced at the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties climate change summit, which is taking place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9 in Durban, South Africa.

“It’s a very comprehensive study of the world’s forests. For the first time we have consistent and comparable global and regional long-term data on forest loss land use. Up until now, most available data has come in numbers, not maps (based on satellite images),” explained FAO forest monitoring scientist Adam Gerrand.

As a result, very few countries have been able to monitor the impact of climate change and human intervention on their forests consistently over time.

“We have been lacking good data on deforestation and urgently needed more details about the dynamics of forest loss. We didn’t get the whole story until now,” Gerrand added.

The initial findings from the high-resolution satellite data show that the world’s total forest area shrank by an average of 14.5 million hectares per year between 1990 and 2005. It largely occurred in the tropics, likely attributable to the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural land.

“The rate of forest loss has increased from four million hectares in 1990s to six million hectares between 2000 and 2005,” said Gerrand. “We are losing vital carbon storage, biodiversity and other values forests provide.”

There is some good news, too, however. The survey shows that deforestation does not happen quite as fast as countries have been reporting. The new data showed a net loss of 73 million hectares between 1990 and 2005 compared to previous net loss estimate of 107 million hectares for the same time period.

During that time, the loss of forests was highest in the tropics, where just under half of the world’s forests are located, followed by Africa. Asia was the only region to show net gains in forest land-use area in both periods. Deforestation occurred here as well, but the extensive planting that has been reported by several countries in Asia, mainly China, exceeded the forest areas that were lost.

All satellite images are taken a hundred kilometres apart and comprise 10 square kilometres. They are classified, labelled and then passed on to the countries where they have been taken, so that governments can review and confirm the data.

“It’s a framework countries can use to improve forest resources,” explained Gerrand.

Some countries have already benefited from the new satellite technology. In Papua New Guinea, a small country in Oceania, for example, which is to 65 percent covered with forests, 41 satellite images were taken to establish the impact climate change had on its forest cover.

“Our country didn’t have the technology to assess forest degradation. The new satellite imagery improves the credibility of data,” said Dr. Joe Pokana, head of Papua New Guinea’s national climate change office. “We now plan to establish a robust national monitoring system that will help us to understand the level of degradation and inform policy.”

Similarly, Angola has started to survey the threat of deforestation via the photographic maps provided by the satellites. Forests currently make up 43.4 percent of the southern African country.

“We how have important information about how our forest resources are utilised, carbon stocks, environmental problems, causes of degradation and deforestation,” said Mateus Andre, the head of Angola’s forestry department. “For the first time, we have quality information on which we can base decisions.”

The new data are particularly important for developing regions like Africa, where existing information is often out-dated or of low quality due to lack of capacity. They differ from previous FAO findings in the Global Forest Resources Assessment of 2010, which were based on a compilation of country reports that used a wide variety of sources.

“Deforestation is depriving millions of people of forest goods and services that are crucial to rural livelihoods, economic well-being and environmental health,” said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, FAO assistant director-general for forestry. “The new, satellite-based figures give us a more consistent global picture. Together with the broad range of information supplied by the country reports, they offer decision- makers at every level more accurate information.”

Further remote sensing studies are expected to reveal changes occurring since 2005. “Eventually we will be able to assign biomass to each site for the estimation of forest carbon emissions,” explained Frederic Achard, a scientist from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission who helped to develop the new imaging system.

Until then lies a long way ahead. Currently, the satellite technology can provide some important data, but not all. Admitted Gerrand: “We still have several decades worth of development ahead.”

(END/2011)

Tract of rainforest cleared by burning in the state of Acre, Brazil. Credit:Mario Osava/IPS

DURBAN, South Africa, Nov 29 – (IPS) Organisations working with indigenous peoples living in forests say the United Nations programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is just another way for big corporates to reap huge profits.

REDD+ has been touted as a global scheme to conserve forests, enhance carbon stocks and support sustainable forest management.

“It is a system where you pour a lot of money into forests that will attract powerful international investors who will make big profits,” warned Simone Lovera, managing director of the Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide network of more than 50 non-governmental organisations and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She spoke during the U.N. 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17), which is taking place in Durban, South Africa, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

Lovera does not contest that deforestation and forest degradation are key climate change culprits. Caused by agricultural expansion, conversion to pastureland, infrastructure development or destructive logging, they account for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N., more than the entire global transportation sector and second only to the energy sector.

REDD+ is supposed to turn this around. Since it was started in 2005, the programme enables industrialised countries in the North to reward reductions of carbon emissions to nations in the South. It is basically a system of performance-based payments that are financed through global carbon markets. The U.N. predicts that finance for greenhouse gas emission reductions from REDD+ could reach up to 30 billion dollars per year. The money is supposed to go towards pro-poor development, help conserve biodiversity and secure vital ecosystem services.

But indigenous communities say this is not so. It was big, international forestry businesses that ultimately benefited from the carbon deals, not the locals who have lived in and off the forests for many generations. Instead, locals are kicked off their land to make space for large monoculture plantations aimed at offsetting carbon emissions in the north.

Lovera said there are many risks inherent to REDD+ that indigenous communities are unable to address because they lack access to information and education, such as forced, non-transparent contracts and land grabbing. What forest-dependent communities need instead, she argued, are national public policies that support sustainable forest management.

Lovera said the U.N. promise of the scheme generating billions of dollars annually was “a big fairytale”, a way of green washing. “There won’t be big carbon financing for REDD+. Carbon markets are collapsing. It’s a very risky scheme that is creating havoc all over the world,” she cautioned.

Her prediction is likely to be correct. A World Bank draft report, written for a G20 meeting in November and leaked to the Britsh Guardian newspaper in September, confirmed the trouble global carbon markets are in. “The value of transactions in the primary CDM market declined sharply in 2009 and further in 2010 … amid chronic uncertainties about future mitigation targets and market mechanisms after 2012,” the World Bank stated.

In the meantime, the U.N. continues to pump large amounts of finance into REDD+. Last month, for example, Nigeria’s national REDD+ programme received four million dollars in funding, which the U.N. says brought total funding in 14 countries worldwide to nearly 60 million dollars. The funds are aimed at increasing the capacity of national governments to implement carbon-saving strategies together with local groups, such as indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities.

“The U.N.-REDD programme’s support is invaluable because climate change is a global problem and the issues of REDD+, sustainable forest management and sustainable livelihoods cannot be handled by the country alone,” said Salisu Dahiru, national coordinator for REDD+ in Nigeria.

But organisations working with forest-dependent communities say the benefits for local people are minimal.

“We say very clearly ‘no’ to REDD+. Under it, people are being expelled from nature so that big industries can profit from carbon storage,” argued Winnie Overbeek, the international coordinator of the World Rainforest Movement, a non-governmental organisation based in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In Uganda, for example, a case was documented where 22,000 people were violently evicted from the Mubende and Kiboga districts earlier this year to make way for the United Kingdom-based New Forests Company to plant trees, to earn carbon credits and ultimately to sell timber. Similar incidents happened to indigenous peoples all over the world, said Overbeek.

“REDD+ is about making more profit, continuing pollution and disrespecting the rights of forest people all over the world. It’s about land grabbing,” he warned. “It’s time to stop thinking about REDD+ and start protecting local populations and their land rights.”

Marlon Santi, a member of the Quichua indigenous community that lives in the Amazon Region of Ecuador, said he has experienced first-hand how REDD+ took away people’s livelihoods. The scheme has led to mega forestry projects that exist to the detriment of local people.

“Forests have become a negotiating space to make money. They are used as business opportunities. That’s unacceptable to us,” said Santi. “REDD+ projects are hypocritical. We need real political solutions that benefit everyone.”

He hoped the negotiators at this year’s COP 17 will grant an open ear to his people’s needs.

PARIS, Nov 28, 2011 (IPS) – When firefighters arrived to put out a blaze that was engulfing the home of Elise Inversin on the French island of Corsica, the 66-year-old grandmother told firemen to forget about her house and save a neighbouring 900-year-old Mastic tree. The house could be rebuilt, she said.

The damaged Saint-Jean Oak tree near Paris. Credit:A.D.McKenzie/IPS.

Inversin traveled from Corsica to Paris last week to receive a Tree of the Year prize on behalf of her beloved Mastic (or pistacia lentiscus), which beat 25 other trees in a competition to mark the closing weeks of the United Nations’ International Year of Forests in 2011.

“All I want now is for this tree to be recognised so that it can be protected for generations to come,” Inversin told IPS. “It has meant a lot to me and my family but it will outlast us, so the mayor’s office now has the responsibility to protect it.”

Launched by France’s first nature magazine ‘Terre Sauvage’ in association with the National Forests Office (ONF), the inaugural Tree of the Year contest asked the public to nominate the country’s most remarkable trees based on beauty, history, biodiversity and their significance to the people around them.

Individuals and community groups recommended hundreds of trees, in areas from Alsace to Martinique, and voters finally chose 26 to represent the regions of France. They included a massive 1,600-year-old yew in Normandy, and a sprawling, gnarled 1,400-year-old juniper that grows at an altitude of 1,100 meters in the Alps.

The organisers said they had to “suppress” false voting that sought to increase numbers through “computer pirating”, but a jury selected the Mastic as the overall winner.

The jury also gave a special “prix du public” to another tree: a 200-year-old, 18-metre-high Pedunculate Oak that grows in Brittany. And organisers of the contest welcomed a “guest honoree” as well, a thousand- year-old oak of Palestine, known as the Oak of Sharafat. Photos of all these trees now adorn a part of the fence around the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) here.

The competition was not just a green beauty pageant, however. Its aim was to highlight the importance of trees in the world, and the “alarming” rate at which forests are disappearing.

According to the United Nations, about 13 million hectares of forests are disappearing each year around the globe, mainly in tropical regions. The livelihoods of some 1.6 billion people are at stake, and some of the 300 million people that call forests home could become environmental refugees.

Deforestation also contributes to global warming, being responsible for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, says the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The FAO says that South America and Africa had the highest net annual loss of forests from 2000 to 2010, with four and 3.4 million hectares respectively. In Africa, the destruction of forests has led to reduced rainfall, contributing to the current drought. The FAO has started several replanting projects in an attempt to make land fertile again.

In Asia, ambitious replanting programmes in countries such as India and China have slowed deforestation, but the rate is still nearly 3 percent annually, the FAO says. In Malaysia forests are disappearing at nearly three times the combined Asian rate.

In France, forests cover more than 30 percent of the land surface, and the mission of the National Forests Office is to protect these regions as well as those in the country’s overseas territories such as French Guiana, Réunion, Martinique and Guadeloupe. It’s not an easy task, says Hervé Gaymard, president of ONF’s board of directors.

“The work for the sustainable management of these forests is very varied and wide-ranging because there’s really nothing in common in the management of forests in mainland France and in Guiana, for instance,” he told IPS.

He said the ONF was active “on the diplomatic front” in the protection of tropical forests, fighting against the trade in “Africa’s precious wood” especially in the Congo basin.

Gaymard said deforestation was not a real problem in France. But some of the country’s old trees are at risk, say environmentalists. For instance, in the Forest of Compiègne, about 50 kilometres from Paris, there is a 750-year-old oak tree known as the Chêne de Saint-Jean that has a huge gaping hole in its trunk. The hole was reportedly caused by a fire that a group of scouts started a few years ago to get rid of wasps.

“We try to do the best we can, but we cannot have a policeman beside every tree to protect it,” Gaymard told IPS. “Trees sometimes get hurt through malfeasance.”

Inversin of Corsica says that protecting the world’s forests starts with seeing and respecting individual trees. “You have to see the trees to save the forests,” she said. “When I told the firemen to save (the Mastic), it was a spontaneous reaction. I didn’t have time to think about it. But I know how many lives this tree has touched.” (END)

BLANTYRE, Nov 28, 2011 (IPS) – As Daniel Chakunkha and Mussa Abu talk on the side of a dirt path in Makunje village, Malawi, a steady stream of bicycles loaded with charcoal passes by. The men stand at the halfway mark between Mwanza, a small city in the country’s southwest, and Blantyre, Malawi’s commercial hub.

Charcoal production in Malawi is done inefficiently using traditional methods and tools that lead to large areas of land being felled. Credit:Travis Lupick/IPS

The 50-kilometre-long road joining the two is a figurative energy highway; a constant stream of bicycles heavily laden with oversized bags of charcoal.

“We are forced to walk this distance,” Chakunkha said. “It’s not like we chose to go to (Mwanza) village, but it is the only place where some trees are left.” Informal charcoal makers like Chakunkha and Abu travel to Mwanza because of the easy availability of trees here. Here they use the trees to produce charcoal and then transport it back to Blantyre for sale.

Chakunkha and Abu have both worked as charcoal producers since the 1970s. They recounted how the industry has steadily consumed trees and pushed production sites further away from densely-populated urban areas.

Resource depletion and environmental degradation are serious problems in Malawi. This sub-Saharan nation is geographically small and relies heavily on natural resources to meet demands for both food and energy.

It is the fifth most-densely populated country in Africa, 80 percent of its 14.9 million people rely on subsistence agriculture, and 85 percent of households surveyed by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in 2007 reported using charcoal for cooking.

Michael Mmangisa, national project manager for the Poverty-Environment Initiative in Malawi, an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme, described a whirlwind of forces currently working against a sustainable environment.

The two big ones are deforestation and rapid agricultural expansion, he explained.

“Excessive degradation is clearly attributable to poverty, population growth, infrastructural development, inappropriate management, poor policies (especially in the past), and limitations in governmental capacity in policy implementation and legislation enforcement,” Mmangisa said.

It is not something Malawians are unaware of. “We are well aware of the effects of deforestation on the environment but we are forced by circumstances,” Abu lamented.

“Yes, we are feeling the effect of these self-inflicted injuries,” Makunje interrupted. “When we had enough vegetative cover, the soil was very fertile and strong because of the leaves and roots. Nowadays, our farmland has become useless.”

Citing government figures, Mmangisa said that each year Malawi loses 2.6 percent of its forests and between 10 to 57 tonnes of soil per hectare across the entire country.

“There is a need to have well-detailed and enforced legislation in the management of the environment,” Mmangisa said.

His concerns were echoed by Bright Sibale, executive director for the Centre for Development Management, a research organisation that works with forestry stakeholders in Malawi.

“Charcoal production in Malawi is done inefficiently using traditional methods and tools that lead to large areas of land being felled to produce a limited amount of charcoal,” Sibale explained. “Deforestation increases the rate of soil erosion, which causes siltation of major water systems.”

One possible solution, he suggested, is the adoption of “community-managed forests.”

Sibale described the scheme as a “mechanism of empowering local communities to own and manage a forest under an agreement with some authority.”

He noted that most forest areas in Malawi are either publicly or customarily managed, which deprives communities of formal rights to access resources. “The end result is the feeling that each community would like to extract their piece, before the next person does so.”

Community-managed forests would encourage their sustainable management, Sibale said.

There are other similar efforts being made to safeguard Malawi’s natural resources. The Malawi Environmental Endowment Trust, Malawi Environmental Health Association, Rainwater Harvesting Association of Malawi, and a host of international non-governmental organisations are at work in the country.

There are also laws aimed at governing the country’s formal and informal charcoal industry which, according to an IIED report, employs upwards of 93,000 people.

However, there are complications with this. Section 81.1 of the Forestry Act states that charcoal can only be produced with a license issued by the Forestry Department. But, according to several stakeholders interviewed, the government has not issued licenses in years.

Furthermore, according to another IIED report: “The complexity of writing a forestry management plan, and the lack of clarity over who has the right and responsibility to produce (charcoal), has effectively criminalised all charcoal producers.”

Malawi’s Director of Environmental Affairs, Yanira Ntupanyama, maintained that efforts are being made to lessen the country’s reliance on charcoal. She said that biogas is being introduced as an alternative to charcoal, and that government is promoting income-generating activities that will hopefully act as incentives for people to leave the charcoal industry.

As governments and world experts meet in Durban, South Africa on Monday at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ntupanyama went on to draw attention to the world’s changing climate, which has compounded Malawi’s problem of environmental degradation.

“Malawi’s total emissions (averaging 23,487 gigatonnes annually) are insignificant at the global level,” she noted. “Yet we do suffer from the consequential adverse effects of climate change that include intense rainfall, floods, droughts, dry spells, cold spells, strong winds, thunderstorms, landslides, hailstorms, mudslides and heat waves, among others.”

Ntupanyama described climate change as a direct threat to the country’s socio-economic development, and therefore a government priority. “We have set ambitious goals under the Green Belt Initiative,” she boasted.

Yet if Malawi’s illegal but booming charcoal industry is any indication, there is much work to be done. Furthermore, while deforestation and soil erosion may be the country’s most pressing concerns today, it is possible there are even greater threats on the horizon.

Lake Malawi plays home to more species of fish than any other freshwater body on the planet. It also provides a livelihood for tens of thousands of fishermen, and acts as a major tourist attraction. Yet in October, UK-based Surestream Petroleum was awared a license for oil exploration in the lake.

The possibility of oilrigs on one of Africa’s most celebrated natural resources has inevitably attracted the ire of environmentalists. But proponents of the project contend that Malawi is an impoverished nation in dire need of external revenue.

That argument that was echoed by charcoal producers in Makunje village.

“We feel the effects of deforestation,” Chakunkha said. “If you ask any charcoal producer, no one will try to justify it. We are only doing this out of desperation.” (END)

OUAGADOUGOU, Sep 27 (IPS) – This year Fatimata Koama and her associates received more than half a million CFA francs as a reward for planting – and looking after – 1,200 trees in their small corner of Burkina Faso.

 ”Trees are important,” says Koama. “We plant mostly exotic species, but also mango, moringa, and pawpaw trees.”

Koama, who lives in the Nayala province of this semi-arid West African country, is the leader of a collective which calls itself “Magoulé”, meaning “I believe” in the local San language.

In addition to retaining soil moisture and preventing erosion, many trees provide additional direct benefits to communities.
The seeds of the locust bean tree (Parkia biglobosa) are fermented to make a tasty, high protein paste, or dried and stored for a year or more without refrigeration, then added to stews to improve their nutritional value.
The leaves of the moringa tree are another source of protein and vitamins, cooked and eaten in much the same way as spinach.

The palmyra palm yields edible kernels, wood for fuel or construction, and its leaves can be used to make brooms, baskets, or fish traps. Species like kapok (Ceiba pentandra) can be used as supplementary fodder for livestock when grazing is poor.

Magoulé’s payout – equivalent to about 1,200 dollars – is just part of more than 100,000 dollars disbursed over the past two years as a strategy to strengthen reforestation efforts, according to environmental group SOS Sahel and the Burkina Ministry of the Environment.

BRAZZAVILLE, Jun 16 (IPS) – Only two of the eleven countries that share the Congo Basin have validated their plans to participate in the forest conservation process known as REDD+.

 Preparatory plans for REDD (the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Forests, the plus refers to the extension of the programme to encompass certain tree plantations) have been completed by only the Republic of Congo and its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The Central African Republic, which has forest cover of 3.8 million hectares, has been waiting since January for the valuation of its plan. “CAR has already begun its REDD process and we believe we could benefit quickly from the RETOMBEES of carbon credit,” said the country’s president, François Bozizé, at a Brazzaville summit earlier this month. The summit involved international donors and representatives drawn from the world’s three largest tropical forest basins, the Congo, the Amazon and the Mekong- Borneo basins.

Echoing concerns raised elsewhere, civil society in CAR has called for the land rights of forest communities like the Mbororos and the Anka to be taken into account, to ensure that they too can benefit from carbon finance.

François Naoueyama, the CAR’s minister for the environment and ecology is bullish on the prospects of the process. “The REDD+ process for us is an opportunity to receive necessary funding for the reduction of emissions from deforestation,”

The Republic of Congo, after having a plan rejected by civil society in July 2010, has now completed its Readiness Preparation Plan. “After this validation, we are waiting for funding for our national strategy,” Georges Claver Boudzanga, the country’s point person for REDD told IPS.

“After all the efforts we’ve put in, we don’t want REDD+ to be a white elephant here. We are awaiting funding so we can implement alternative activities and prevent the destruction and degradation of forests,” he said.

Loïc Braume, a forest expert from the World Bank, said Congo can expect 3.4 million dollars to support its REDD strategy as well as developing alternate livelihoods for forest communities battling poverty. This is also the amount he says was made available to the DRC’s REDD preparations.

“This money also allowed the setting up of some project pilots, such as the tree plantaions in Batéké,” said Braume.

The DRC, with 25 square kilometres of protected land, includes the largest share of the basin. DRC’s Readiness Preparation Plan has been approved at the level of the REDD+ Partnership, composed of wealthy countries and forested countries. Central Africa’s largest country is already the beneficiary of two REDD+ project pilots, including a plantation on the Batéké Plateau, not far from the capital, Kinshasa.

The DRC’s environment minister, José Endundu, said his country is expecting much more support. “It’s a drop in the ocean in light of the size of the country and the size of the population relying on the impact of REDD+ on the ground,” he told IPS.

Outside of Cameroon, which is presently preparing tools for REDD+, the other countries of the Congo Basin – Burundi, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Chad, Rwanda and Sao Tomé – are not even in an embryonic phase.

“It’s a real gap for us in Burundi. The authorities need to wake up so that we can benefit from funding like the other countries,” said Albert Mbonerane, president of the Green Belt Action association, based in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura.

Donors attending the Brazzaville summit confirm that resources exist to support countries starting the process. In the framework of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, managed by the African Development Bank, countries who want to begin the process will receive between 200,000 and 400,000 euros. “In three months, these funds will be available in the Congo Basin,” says Braume.

There are also funds which come from individual wealthy countries. Norway and the United Kingdom have already financed conservation and biodiversity projects, according to Guillaume Chomert, an expert from the REDD+ Partnership. “There are several countries which already benefit from this financing, including the DRC in the Congo Basin.”

But the countries which have already made progress did not attempt to conceal the difficulties they’ve faced in understanding the international carbon market. “There are subtleties, there’s no single method for the calculation of carbon, all of which makes it important that the Congo Basin countries unite and strengthen their cooperation,” said Minister Endundu from the DRC.

Launched in 2008 by the United Nations, the REDD+ process is considered an alternative response to deforestation and to the degradation of forests by forest communities who survive thanks to the forest. According to Juvenal Tais, coordinator of REDD+ at the United Nations, 71 countries – including 54 low-income countries – are involved in the process.

(END/2011)