RIO DE JANEIRO, 23 junho (TerraViva)  A Conferencia Global para os Assentamentos Humanos (Habitat II), em Istambul há 16 anos, foi das mais abertas à participação da sociedade civil, senão a campeã. Acolheu num grosso volume conclusivo milhares de  propostas e recomendações dos participantes.

Estava fadado ao esquecimento. “Faltou estratégia”, avaliou Jaime Lerner, certificado como grande urbanista pela inovadora gestão de Curitiba décadas atrás.

Sociedade civil: desejo de soluções rápidas para demandas complexas. Crédito: Ana Libisch

A Rio+20, pela via oposta, terminou também sem permitir que se vislumbre uma estratégia para desarmar a armadilha em que se meteu a humanidade. Propostas das ONGs foram excluídas. Mas poderia a conferencia governamental, com 99 por cento de países capitalistas, digerir as teses anticapitalistas do fórum não governamental ?

A Declaração Final da Cúpula dos Povos na Rio+20 assume o “desafio urgente de frear a nova fase de recomposição do capitalismo”, em que “o povo organizado e mobilizado” é a única forma capaz de “libertar o mundo do controle das corporações e do capital financeiro”.

A principal contribuição dessa Conferencia sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentável pode ser um choque de realismo como estímulo a uma reflexão, a partir do reconhecimento de realidades ignoradas tanto na pretensão de se apontar “O futuro que queremos” no documento oficial, como na de reunir uma “Cúpula dos Povos” no Aterro do Flamengo, sugerindo uma hierarquia rejeitada por esses mesmos “povos” quando se reúnem no Forum Social Mundial.

Essa busca de novos caminhos já começou. Um movimento lançado neste sábado no Rio de Janeiro, o Rio+20+1 dia ou “Day After”, pretende construir uma proposta de “Um novo Contrato Social para o século XXI”, atualizando idéias do pensador Jean Jacques Rousseau, cujo tricentenário se comemora este ano.

A iniciativa, idealizada pelo diretor executivo da UNITAR (Instituto da ONU para Formação Profissional e Pesquisa), Carlos Lopes, foi inaugurada com a presença do presidente do Painel Internacional de Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, e do economista do ecodesenvolvimento, Ignacy Sachs, entre outros.

Há um certo consenso sobre a necessidade de um novo padrão de produção e consumo. Mas seguem indefinidos tal paradigma e o como alcançá-lo, temas de discórdia inevitável. Ninguém, mesmo entre os anticapitalistas da “Cúpula”, fala em revolução social.

O impasse evidenciado pela Rio+20 põe em cheque concepções voluntaristas. Muitos cobram liderança com “ousadia, coragem de estadistas” aos atuais ocupantes do poder, como forma de resolver a “crise civilizatória” em que se combinam crises variadas como a ambiental, a econômica, a social e ética. Acaso queremos a volta dos déspotas esclarecidos ?

O impeachment do presidente paraguaio, Fernando Lugo, coincidindo com a Rio+20, deixa claro que governantes também têm seus limites. Devem responder aos interesses reais da sociedade nacional e à correlação de forças, que se expressam no poder político e econômico, não nas pesquisas de opinião em que uma maioria diz ter preocupações ambientais.

A ausência de Barack Obama na Rio+20 se atribuiu aos riscos que o mais poderoso homem da Terra enfrenta nas eleições de novembro próximo. Assumir compromissos ambientais ameaçaria sua reeleição.

O descompasso entre a dinâmica política de curto prazo e o longo prazo das questões ambientais seria outro obstáculo ao equacionamento dos desafios. Mas está fora de cogitação alongar os mandatos e exemplos recentes mostram a crescente intolerância com a longevidade no poder.

Uma nova institucionalidade parece indispensável para enfrentar ameaças à humanidade, como as mudanças climáticas, a redução da biodiversidade e da disponibilidade de água potável, a acidificação dos oceanos e a desertificação.

A conferência do Rio debilitou o multilateralismo, acatando a tese americana a favor de iniciativas nacionais, contra acordos globais vinculantes, concluiu a ex ministra Marina Silva. A ONU foi “capturada por interesses corporativos”, segundo muitos outros ativistas.

Nesse quadro, não parece prometedor criar uma nova agencia para temas ambientais na ONU, a exemplo da Organização Mundial de Saúde ou do Comercio, principal proposta para uma governança necessária nessa área.

Também não se avançou na questão do financiamento do desenvolvimento sustentável. A proposta de países emergentes pela criação de um fundo de 30 bilhões de dólares foi vetada, principalmente pelos Estados Unidos.

Mas na reunião das 20 maiores economias, nesta mesma semana no México, se aprovou um aporte de 456 bilhões de dólares para o Fundo Monetário Internacional, dos quais 75 bilhões oferecidos pelos emergentes do BRICS (Brasil, Russia, India, China e África do Sul), numa clara indicação de que a prioridade é “salvar os bancos”, se queixam os ativistas.

Diante dessa complexidade dos problemas globais são inócuas manifestações tautológicas de que precisamos de novos paradigmas de consumo. Há medidas de evidente eficácia, como a eliminação dos subsídios aos combustíveis fósseis, que somavam 409 bilhões de dólares no ano passado, segundo a Agencia Internacional de Energia. A tendência é de subir para 660 bilhões em 2020. Por que não se consegue sequer reduzir esse incentivo à destruição da vida, como se tem conseguido em relação ao tabaco?

Outra ação de resultados significativos, tanto ambientais como sociais e de saúde, é disseminar fogões eficientes a lenha, já desenvolvidos, ou mesmo substituir esse combustível ainda usado por três bilhões de pessoas no mundo.

Falta ao “povo organizado”, na verdade dividido em ONGs, sindicatos, movimentos sociais e entidades variadas com seus objetivos específicos, uma estratégia comum para tornar políticas públicas as experiências eficientes na área socioambiental e influir nas decisões nacionais e mundiais determinantes para o destino da humanidade.

Os caminhos para uma eficácia política, reprovada ou descartada a via partidária, deveriam aparentemente merecer uma maior reflexão por parte dos militantes. (TerraViva)

(FIM/2012)

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 23 jun (TerraViva) La investigación y el desarrollo de sistemas agroforestales son una apuesta a la sostenibilidad de la agricultura en zonas vulnerables, como América Central.

El Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (Catie), con sede en Costa Rica, viene investigando desde hace años sobre los cultivos que combinan producción forestal con alimentos, en especial el café y el cacao, dos productos tradicionales de América Central.

La agroforestería ayuda a restaurar las nacientes de agua. Crédito: Cortesía Acicafoc

En 2005 fundó el Centro de Recursos de Información Bibliográfica sobre Cacao, Árboles, Bosques y el Ambiente (Inaforesta), junto con instituciones similares de África y Asia, entre otras.

Inaforesta es un grupo mundial de estudio y mejoramiento de las relaciones entre la gente, el caco, los árboles y el ambiente.

El cacao se cultiva en más de 50 países, cubre más de siete millones de hectáreas y es el sustento de más de cinco millones de familias en las regiones tropicales húmedas del planeta. Pero su plantación asociada a bosques o en zonas deforestadas presenta diversos desafíos ambientales.

De modo similar, la producción de café fue perdiendo técnicas tradicionales que la hacían más sustentable, como la combinación con árboles para aprovechar su sombra.

Los sistemas agroforestales incorporan especies arbóreas a las labores agrícolas y agropecuarias. Su práctica, acompañada de investigación científica, permite encontrar métodos y tecnologías amigables con el ambiente, dijo a TerraViva el director ejecutivo de la Asociación Coordinadora Indígena y Campesina de Agroforestería Comunitaria Centroamericana (Acicafoc), Alberto Chinchilla.

Los árboles permiten recuperar nacientes de agua, protegen con su sombra los cultivos, conservando más la humedad, y mantienen más frescos los predios de pasturas, lo que reduce el estrés de calor del ganado.

Además, así se pueden recuperar especies nativas o en extinción y mejorar la seguridad alimentaria de las comunidades.

Esta agricultura climáticamente inteligente puede reducir la vulnerabilidad de América Central, coincidieron ministros, científicos, técnicos en un encuentro paralelo a la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible (Río+20).

Para el Catie, se trata de crear territorios climáticamente inteligentes.

La entidad plantea que el desarrollo sostenible debe ser un “trabajo colectivo”, afincado en un “territorio, el cual no solo es un espacio geográfico sino también una construcción social reflejada en la cultura, la producción, la gobernanza, es decir, un hilo conductor que caracteriza y diferencia una zona de un país”, según el director general del Catie,  José Joaquín Campos.

El Catie colabora en proyectos con organizaciones de productores, como Acicafoc, con el que está creando un programa de capacitación para reforzar el conocimiento tradicional y el académico en materia de sistemas agroforestales tropicales.

Otro de sus aportes es el software gratuito ShadeMotion http://www.shademotion.com/, que calcula la posición, forma y acumulación de las sombras de árboles en distintos lugares de la Tierra y en distintas fechas y horas.

Esto permite determinar cuántas horas de sombra hay en cada lugar de una parcela por la presencia de árboles y tomar decisiones acerca de qué y cómo plantar.

El programa informático es de uso sencillo para los productores, que solo necesitan incorporar datos de cantidad de árboles, ubicación, forma, tamaño y densidad de follaje;  coordenadas de tiempo en que se requiere la simulación e información geográfica del terreno.

El resultado, en la pantalla de la computadora, es un sombreado en distintas tonalidades de gris, sobre un cuadriculado que representa la parcela. Las tonalidades más oscuras denotan aquellas zonas que acumulan mayor cantidad de horas de sombra.

América Central podría perder hasta 19 por ciento de su producto interno bruto por el cambio climático, según el ministro de la Secretaría de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente de Honduras, Rigoberto Cuéllar.

Los efectos de los cambios del clima son las principales amenazas de la región, formada por siete países con una población de 43 millones de habitantes, casi la mitad de ellos pobres.

La superficie tiene apenas 27,5 por ciento de áreas protegidas. Pero posee una gran biodiversidad, según Cuéllar, que apoya la implementación del sistema agroforestal en su país.

“El cambio climático es uno de los aspectos que limitan el desarrollo sustentable de la región. Estamos apoyando fuertemente la agroforestería y el impulso a las actividades productivas. Hay que definir políticas claras para cruzar acciones coordinadas en los países”, dijo.

El PIB centroamericano crece cinco por ciento al año, pero se estima que la región ha perdido 1,7 puntos del PIB en las últimas dos décadas, debido a los desastres climáticos.

En este contexto, el sistema agroforestal es “la única alternativa que nos queda para adaptar y mitigar los cambios climáticos”, dijo Chinchilla.

La práctica agroforestal avanzó en la última década en la región. Los países centroamericanos pueden convertirse en vanguardia por una serie de proyectos que promueven la agroforestería y la seguridad alimentaria. (FIN/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) – The downpour that fell Friday in this Brazilian city was nature’s warning to the heads of state meeting at the Rio+20 summit. The generation of Noe (Noah), an environmentalist’s son who will be born a month from now, will have to save biodiversity that is more complex than that of his Biblical namesake.

Maureen Santos is working for a better world for her unborn son Noe (Noah). Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

“It was really heavy rainfall, and we were worried,” Maureen Santos told IPS. She is an activist with FASE, one of the Brazilian groups that organised the People’s Summit, held parallel since Jun. 15 to the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20.

In Rio de Janeiro, like in other cities around the world, this kind of unusually heavy rainfall is causing environmental tragedies like flooding, destruction of homes, and deaths in at-risk areas like hillsides and lowlands. Scientists say it is one of the effects of climate change.

“We were worried about the people camping here, and about the final assembly, which was held outside. But although that was the reason for the delay of the assembly, we had a shining closing session,” Santos said.

The activist is pregnant. In one month she will give birth to her first son, Noe (which is Noah in Portuguese).

The activist hopes her son will not have to suffer such destructive downpours like the ones that are forecast unless urgent action against climate change is taken, and that a kind of modern-day Noah’s ark will not have to be resorted to in order to salvage millions of endangered species.

“We might not see it, but we want the future to be different for him,” Santos told IPS in an interview given under a giant globe representing planet Earth.

“A world where we share common goods, nature does not have a price, the economy serves the people and is based on local trade, the crazy traffic in cities is reduced, there is less pollution and disease, and people are not as selfish,” she said.

The young expectant mother hopes this will be brought about by global demonstrations like the ones that the People’s Summit decided to promote.

Santos’ hopes for her son echo what was expressed in the People’s Summit’s final assembly for “social and environmental justice,” which brought together peasant, indigenous, black, student and faith-based movements, among others.

The assembly said the heads of state meeting over the last three days at Rio+20 “demonstrated irresponsibility towards the future of the planet and promoted their own government’s interests.”

The activists say the majority of the governments form part of the “new capitalist economy,” dominated by multilateral financial institutions, coalitions at their service like the G8 most powerful countries and the G20 industrialised and emerging economies, and a United Nations “taken over” by corporate interests.

“As the (global economic) crisis is aggravated, more corporations are encroaching on the rights of the people, democracy and nature, kidnapping the shared goods of humanity to save the economic and financial system,” the assembly’s final declaration says.

The assembly decided to hold worldwide demonstrations to combat “the current phase of capitalism, which is the green economy” and the new “financialisation” of the carbon and biodiversity markets.

They also committed to fighting for a solidarity economy, a clean energy mix, organic family agriculture, food sovereignty, decent, healthy work, access to all rights for everyone, better distribution of wealth, and the fight against racism and other forms of intolerance.

“It is clear that our document has more proposals and solutions than the official one,” said Santos.

The assembly ended with a “mystical” ceremony in which a group of women dressed up as “indignant jaguars” chanted slogans like “Mother Earth is outraged/Nothing happened in the official summit.”

Marcelo Durao, with Brazil’s Landless Movement and the international small farmers’ movement Via Campesina, told IPS that the official document was “a mere formality… adopted by corporations, which expresses little concern for the (planet’s) people.”

Darci Frigo with Terra de Direitos (Land of Rights), a Brazilian NGO, said “We confirmed that the official summit was a huge failure because the document approved significantly diluted the proposals and left it clear that it is just a first step for them, which confirms that in the last 20 years since the 1992 Earth Summit (in Rio de Janeiro) little progress was made in the fight against poverty and other causes that are generating environmental and economic crises,” she said.

Frigo was on the committee that delivered the final declaration of the People’s Summit to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
“
Ban only admitted that there were discrepancies over the concept of the “green economy” and “he was impacted by our position on the green economy as a false mechanism and solution for the problems of humanity,” Frigo told IPS.

The People’s Summit organisers said the debates there were positive, and praised the new method established to make the conclusions of the different thematic groups and seminars converge in plenary assemblies.

But they played down the problems of organisation at an event that mobilised some 14,000 people from across the globe, such as changes of venues for the debates, and difficulties in access to food and lodging for participants and in centralising the information to be made available to the press.

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 22 jun (TerraViva) El diluvio que cayó este viernes 22 en esta ciudad brasileña fue una advertencia de la naturaleza a los gobernantes presentes en Río+20. La generación de Noé, hijo de una ambientalista que nacerá dentro de un mes, tendrá que salvar una biodiversidad más compleja que la de su antecesor bíblico.

Maureen Santos trabaja por un mundo mejor su futuro hijo, Noé. Crédito: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

“Fue realmente una lluvia muy fuerte y nos preocupamos”, dijo a TerraViva la activista Maureen Santos, de la organización brasileña FASE, una de las que convocóla Cubrede los Pueblos en Río+20 porla Justicia Socialy Ambiente, que transcurrió del 15 de este mes en paralelo ala Conferenciade las Naciones Unidas sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible.

En Río de Janeiro, como en otras ciudades del planeta, ese tipo de precipitaciones fuera de los parámetros habituales causan tragedias ambientales como inundaciones, destrucción de viviendas y muertes en áreas de riesgo como los cerros y zonas bajas. Según los científicos, es uno de los efectos de las transformaciones climáticas provocadas por la actividad humana.

“Nos preocupamos por las personas que están acampadas y por la asamblea final que debió realizarse al aire libre. Pero, aunque ese fue el motivo del atraso, tuvimos un broche de oro brillante”, dijo Santos.

Esta activista esta embarazada. Solo le falta un mes para que nazca su primer hijo, Noah, un nombre hebreo que, según aclara, en portugués es Noé (el que trae la paz).

Espera que su hijo no tenga que sufrir diluvios destructores como los que se anticipan si no se actúa de manera urgente, ni que como última opción el mundo tenga que salvar en una nueva arca las millones de especies de la biodiversidad del planeta en riesgo de extinción.

“Nosotros tal vez no lo podamos ver, pero es el futuro que queremos para él”, dijo Santos a TerraViva, quien brindó la entrevista bajo un globo gigante que representa el planeta Tierra.

“Un mundo donde compartamos bienes comunes, que la naturaleza no tenga precio, la economía venga del pueblo y se base en el comercio local, que disminuya el transporte loco en las ciudades, con menos contaminación y enfermedades, y que las personas sean menos egoístas”, auguró.

Esta joven madre espera conseguir eso contribuyendo a las movilizaciones mundiales como las promovidas porla Cumbrede los Pueblos.

En ese sentido, tiene esperanza en ese tipo de encuentros, que promovió grupos de debate que convergieron en una asamblea y documento final.

Por el mismo sentido de los deseos de Santos para su hijo fue la declaración por “justicia social y ambiental” de la asamblea dela Cumbre de los Pueblos, donde convergieron movimientos de campesinos, indígenas, negros, estudiantes y de religiosos, entre otros.

La asamblea consideró que los gobernantes reunidos en Río+20 “demostraron la irresponsabilidad con el futuro del planeta y promovieron sus propios intereses”.

Los activistas entienden que la mayoría de esos gobiernos conforman la nueva economía capitalista, dominada por entidades financieras multilaterales, coaliciones a su servicio como el Grupo de los Ocho (G-8) países industrializados y el Grupo de los 20 (G-20, donde se suman estados emergentes) yla ONU(Organización de las Naciones Unidas) capturada por intereses corporativos.

“A medida que esa crisis se profundiza, más corporaciones avanzan contra los derechos de los pueblos, la democracia y la naturaleza, secuestrando los bienes comunes de la humanidad para salvar el sistema económico financiero”, puntualizaron.

La asamblea decidió movilizaciones internacionales para combatir “la actual fase del capitalismo, que es la economía verde” y las firmas transnacionales que “avanzan sobre los derechos de los pueblos“.

También se organizaran contra la nueva “financierización” de los mercados de carbono y la biodiversidad y se comprometieron a luchar por una economía solidaria, la matriz energética limpia, la agricultura familiar y orgánica, la soberanía alimentaria, el trabajo digno y saludable y el acceso a todos los derechos de las poblaciones, así como por la distribución de la riqueza y el combate al racismo, entre otras formas de intolerancia.

“Quedó demostrado que nuestro documento tiene más propuestas y soluciones que el oficial”, comparó Santos.

La asamblea finalizó con un acto “místico” en el que un grupo de mujeres disfrazadas de “panteras indignadas” cantaron consignas como “la MadreTierraestá indignada/ En la cumbre oficial no paso nada”.

Marcelo Durao, del brasileño Movimiento de Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra y deLa Vía Campesina, dijo a IPS que el documento oficial es una conclusión de “pura formalidad”,  “tomado por las corporaciones y poco preocupado por los pueblos”.

A su vez, Darcy Frigo, de la organización Tierra de Derechos”, señaló “que la cumbre oficial fue un gran fracaso, porque el documento aprobado rebajó significativamente las propuestas y dejó claro que es apenas un primer paso para ellos, lo cual confirma que estos últimos 20 años desdela Cumbredela Tierrade 1992 no se avanzó en la línea de combatir las causas de la pobreza y otras que están generando crisis ambientales y económicas”, sostuvo.

Frigo integró la comitiva que entregó el documento final al secretario general dela ONU, Ban Ki-moon.

“Ban admitió apenas que hubo divergencia en la definición del concepto de economía verde, y que se sintió impactado por nuestra posición sobre el particular de que es un falso mecanismo y solución para los problemas de la humanidad”, dijo Frigo a TerraViva.

Los organizadores consideraron positivo los debates en la cumbre de los pueblos y el nuevo método establecido de hacer converger en asambleas plenarias las conclusiones de los diversos grupos temáticos.

Pero minimizaron los problemas de organización en un evento que movilizó unas 14.000 personas de todo el mundo, como el cambio de lugares de debate, las dificultades de acceso a la alimentación y alojamiento de los participantes y de centralización de información para la prensa. (FIN/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) “With volunteers, we will drive sustainable development forward.” These were the words of Helen Clark, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, at the close of Rio+20 on Jun 22.

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

Clark was speaking at an event where municipalities, businesses and development banks announced voluntary commitments made in Rio.

While critics accuse the Rio final declaration of being merely empty words, some of the main actors involved in the negotiations organised a press conference on the last day of the summit to showcase “actions for the road ahead” that were agreed upon here.

The actions are to be included in a “registry of commitments” attached to the final Rio declaration, whose implementation the U.N. will follow up on.

According to Sha Zukang, secretary-general of the Rio conference, “from the very beginning, Rio+20 was supposed to be about implementation, about action” and “voluntary commitments are a major part of this conference, complementing the outcomes of the official negotiations.”

He said that 692 registered commitments are included in the final Rio agreement, amounting to 513 billion dollars.

What do these commitments look like? Jose Maria Figueres, a former Costa Rican president and current chair of the non-profit Carbon War Room, explained that his organisation signed a memorandum of understanding with Aruba to help the country take action to phase out fossil fuels by 2020.

Additionally, Figueres’s organisation will work to mobilise one billion dollars to be invested in energy efficiency in buildings. Figueres gave no details on how the money would be raised or spent.

Addressing Zukang and referring to the outcome document of the Rio+20 conference, Figueres said, “Those who have failed you, Mr. Sha, are the governments, not the CEOs (chief executive officers), not the NGOs.”

(During this statement, two activists stepped in front of the panel screaming that the speakers “do not represent them”. They were immediately removed from the room by security forces.)

Another example of a voluntary commitment made in Rio was given by Bindu Lohani, president of the Asian Development Bank, who reminded media that eight development banks have committed to investing 175 billion dollars for sustainable transport in developing countries.

Clearly proud of this amount, Lohani added, “If you want to know more about this commitment, just Google 175 billion, it will show up.”

Other commitments included 45 chief financial officers announcing their companies will adhere to sustainable water management principles, 200 businesses committing to sustainable practices, more than 250 academic institutions from 50 countries announcing they would reshape their curricula to include sustainable development education, and over 200 cities promising to make plans for and invest in climate action.

Possibly in an effort to convince the audience that voluntary commitments do matter, Clark invited a Jamaican volunteer worker to speak about her achievements on the ground in social and environmental improvements.

Clark concluded, “Someone said that without volunteers, the world will stop. Here, with volunteers, we will drive sustainable development forward.”

The voluntary commitments by businesses, municipalities, development banks, governments and international organisations are one of the outcomes of Rio that has been praised by commentators. In the absence of a final document that is strong and detailed, some place hope in individual initiatives.

But considering that negotiators at Rio could not agree on a proposed annual 30-billion-dollar fund for sustainable development, the amount of 513 billion dollars in voluntary commitments appears optimistic, particularly given the lack of details around the various amounts of money put forward.

And the strong praise for voluntary action during this event rang a little hollow considering that none of the speakers made any reference to the Cupula dos Povos, where civil society, the home of volunteering, gathered during Rio+20 to exchange experiences, share practices and also plan for a better world.

RIO DE JANEIRO, 22 junho (TerraViva) – O moçambicano Jeremias Vunjanhe conseguiu, na caótica Cúpula dos Povos, encontrar os ativistas do Movimento Xingu Vivo que denunciavam a criminalização dos seus ativistas pela policia de Altamira, no interior do Pará.

Vunjanhe tornou-se conhecido no encontro da sociedade civil da conferencia Rio+20, ao ser deportado no dia 12 de junho, quando desembarcava no aeroporto internacional de Guarulhos. Barrado pela Policia Federal, teve seu passaporte retido e devolvido “três horas depois já dentro do avião” de regresso a Moçambique, contou a TerraViva.

Manifestação contra a construção de Belo Monte.

O carimbo no seu passaporte diz que foi “Impedido” de entrar no país porque “consta no SINPI”, siglas de Sistema Nacional de Procurados e Impedidos, apesar de ter um visto de entrada concedido pelo consulado brasileiro em Maputo.

A solidariedade de 80 organizações e negociações com a chancelaria brasileira permitiram que viesse ao Brasil com novo visto. Recebido com festas no Aeroporto do Galeão dia 18, participou dos últimos quatro dias da Cúpula dos Povos, onde trouxe denuncias sobre violências da brasileira Vale contra os desalojados por suas atividades mineiras em Moçambique.

Membro da ONG Justiça Ambiental, denunciou também a ameaça que representa a hidrelétrica de Mphanda Nkuwa, que a Camargo Correia, uma das grandes empreiteiras brasileiras, construirá no Rio Zambeze, em sociedade com duas empresas locais, com investimentos previstos de 2,4 bilhões de dólares.

Daí seu interesse em estabelecer uma troca de informações e experiências com o Xingu Vivo, também procurado por Güven Eken, diretor-executivo da ONG Doga Denergi, da Turquia.

Represas atingem povos em todo o mundo, “a solução tem que ser global”, disse Eken, pregando “união para defender os rios”. Enquanto Belo Monte ameaça a Amazônia, a hidrelétrica Ilisu, no Rio Tigre, ameaça a Mesopotâmia, berço da civilização, salientou.

O encontro foi convocado pelo Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre (MXVPS) para informar sobre os interrogatórios a que a Delegacia de Altamira está submetendo participantes da manifestação do dia 16, no âmbito do Xingu+23, uma serie de atos de protesto contra Belo Monte na própria região, durante a semana passada.

No dia 16 manifestantes cavaram uma vala numa das ensacadeiras, para deixar escorrer a água, num gesto simbólico em favor do livre fluxo do Rio Xingu. Após o ato, alguns índios invadiram escritórios da Norte Energia, consórcio que constrói a usina, danificando equipamentos e instalações.

Estão tentando criminalizar a resistência ao “monstro Belo Monte”, quando os culpados pela violência são o próprio Governo Federal, o Poder Judiciário e o consórcio construtor, que violam a legislação, impondo uma licença de implantação da hidrelétrica, sem que as condicionantes estabelecidas com base nos estudos de impacto ambiental tenham sido cumpridas, protestou Antonia Melo, líder do Movimento.

Só os atingidos são criminalizados, enquanto se privatiza um bem público como o rio, a Norte Energia, “maior latifundiária da região”, tem propriedades legalizadas em três municípios e os pequenos agricultores nunca recebem seus títulos de propriedade, são desalojados sem indenização, enfatizou Ana Laíde Barbosa, do Conselho Indigenista Missionário de Altamira.

O governo e as empresas implantaram um clima de “terror jurídico” na região para “imobilizar a luta” conta Belo Monte e “calar ativistas”, opinou o advogado Sergio Martins, da Sociedade Paraense de Defesa dos Direitos Humanos, que presta assistência aos ativistas.

A repercussão dos fatos envolvendo Belo Monte, com personalidades conhecidas em todo o mundo aderindo ao movimento contra a hidrelétrica, tornou esse empreendimento uma referencia internacional dos atingidos por barragens. (TerraViva)

(FIM/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) – The countries of the Amazon river basin are pursuing definite goals for the region, such as zero deforestation by 2020, even though the Rio+20 conference’s outcome document does not include “sustainable development goals”.

The vast Amazon region needs sustainable development.

For the last three days, concluding this Friday Jun. 22, Rio de Janeiro has been hosting the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20. The final declaration prepared for signing by the participating heads of state has already been described as “weak” and “disappointing” by the U.N., official delegates and civil society representatives.

Claudio Maretti, the coordinator of the WWF Living Amazon Initiative, told IPS the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation (ACTO) has the challenging task of agreeing common goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire in 2015.

The MDGs are a set of global anti-poverty and development targets agreed in 2000 by the United Nations member states that include halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, from 1990 levels.

The eight Amazon countries – Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – are worried that without measurable new targets the region may be overtaken by ecological disaster, which would reverberate around the planet.

“The primary need in the Amazon is the sustainable use of its resources, in order to avoid a collapse. It is possible to achieve zero deforestation by 2020, and maintain the region as a provider of services for humanity. There is still time,” said Maretti.

Twenty years ago, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Amazon countries spoke with a united voice at the inter-government meeting as well as at the parallel forum of social organisations.

One result of their combined effort was the presentation of a document titled “La Amazonia en pie” (roughly, Keep the Amazon Forest Standing), which analysed the reality of the megadiverse Amazon region, debunking many myths. The summary was written by Colombian Nobel Literature Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez.

Two decades later, the WWF predicts that if current trends of deforestation and forest fires continue, the Amazon region will lose one-third of its vegetation by 2030.

Rainforest destruction may be exacerbated in the next 50 years, in which case the planet’s largest biome will shrink to less than 10 percent of its original forest cover by 2080, according to forecasts by the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO).

The Amazon jungle is the world’s largest tropical forest, covering six percent of the earth’s land surface and 40 percent of that of Latin America and the Caribbean.

This immense region is home to 38.7 million people, including 40 indigenous peoples who speak nearly 90 different languages.

The Colombian deputy minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, Adriana Soto, said that when the Rio+20 conference is over, the joint work of the Amazon countries will continue in earnest.

“We work with the Amazon countries in the framework of ACTO, learning from the experiences of each country and their ways of managing pressures from the expanding agricultural frontier and from illegal mining, one of the greatest threats we have in Colombia,” Soto told IPS.

According to Soto, the main causes of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon region are forest fires, illegal tree felling, cattle ranching and illegal mining, which is “as complex” as the illicit drug trade that goes on in the region. “In the case of Colombia, a large proportion of illegal mining revenues goes to financing illegal groups,” she said.

“We have a declaration (on sustainability) from the Amazonian peoples, and we are organising management models to make sustainable use of forest products, so that forest dwellers can meet their needs without deforestation,” Soto said.

Consolidación Amazónica (COAMA), an NGO that has been working for indigenous people’s land rights in Colombia for the past 20 years, along with other civil society organisations, is supporting sustainable development goals for the rainforest.

But COAMA representatives stress that the goals must take into account the specific cultures, and respect the traditional knowledge, of the Amazon forest peoples.

Anthropologist Martin von Hildebrand of the Gaia Amazonas Foundation, an organisation that is part of COAMA, emphasised the importance of reaching a consensus on sustainable goals with the indigenous peoples living in the Amazon regions of the eight countries.

“We support the fight against hunger and the struggle for gender equality and access to education and healthcare, but the goals must be set in consultation with the indigenous people,” he said.

RíO DE JANEIRO, 22 jun (TerraViva)  La cumbre Río+20 terminó este viernes 22 con ganadores y perdedores, pero principalmente con perdedores.

“La omisión de los derechos reproductivos es un paso atrás en relación a acuerdos previos”, dijo Gro Harlem Brundtland. Crédito: UN Photo/Mark Garten.

La Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) y Brasil, el país anfitrión, junto con las grandes empresas, dieron un giro positivo al resultado de la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible, más conocida como Río+20, por haberse realizado dos décadas después de la Cumbre de la Tierra.

Su resultado fue otro documento histórico que cambiará el mundo, según ellos.

Pero la mayoría de los representantes de la sociedad civil y feministas expresaron su desilusión e indignación por el texto final, titulado “El futuro que queremos”, que fue aprobado este viernes 22 por los líderes mundiales.

La comparación con la Agenda 21, aprobada en 1992, fue inevitable.

Anita Nayar, de la organización Alternativas de Desarrollo con Mujeres para una Nueva Era (DAWN, por sus siglas en inglés), con sede en Manila, dijo a IPS que en el acuerdo histórico adoptado en 1992 hubo unas 170 referencias a las cuestiones de género y un capítulo entero sobre las mujeres.

En la última versión de “El futuro que queremos” hay apenas unas 50, y estas han sido atenuadas y usadas como elementos de negociación por parte de los estados, declaró Nayar.

“Tampoco es un simple asunto de menciones a temas de género, sino más bien que algunos estados exhiben claramente una falta de voluntad a acordar acciones concretas y un debilitamiento general de compromisos internacionalmente acordados sobre la igualdad de género y el empoderamiento de las mujeres”, agregó.

Según ella, mientras en general los derechos humanos son afirmados en el contexto de la salud sexual y reproductiva, la omisión específica de los derechos reproductivos es flagrante.

Igualmente crítica fue Gro Harlem Brundtland, ex primera ministra de Noruega y presidenta de la comisión que lleva su nombre y que hace 25 años centró la atención mundial en el concepto de desarrollo sostenible.

“La declaración de Río+20 no hace lo suficiente para ubicar a la humanidad en un sendero sostenible, décadas después de haberse acordado que esto es esencial, tanto para las personas como para el planeta. Yo entiendo la frustración que hay en Río hoy”, señaló en un comunicado divulgado el jueves 21.

Brundtland, quien integra un grupo llamado The Elders (Los Ancianos), dijo: “Ya no podemos presumir que nuestras acciones colectivas no generarán puntos de inflexión, dado que los umbrales ambientales se han violado, corriendo el riesgo de daños irreversibles tanto para los ecosistemas como para las comunidades humanas. Estos son hechos, pero se han perdido en el documento final”.

“También es lamentable la omisión de los derechos reproductivos, que es un paso atrás en relación a acuerdos previos. Sin embargo, con este texto imperfecto, tenemos que avanzar. No hay alternativa”, añadió.

Las reacciones de organizaciones de la sociedad civil fueron mayoritariamente negativas.

Anil Naidoo, del Consejo de Canadienses -la mayor organización de ciudadanos de Canadá- arremetió contra el concepto de economía verde promovido en Río+20.

“No había visto tanta falsa cobertura verde desde el último Día de San Patricio. El documento ni se acerca al futuro que realmente queremos, y eso es porque fue escrito teniendo en mente los intereses de unos pocos en vez de los de muchos”, sostuvo.

Noelene Nabulivou, de Fiji Women’s Action for Change (Acción de las mujeres de Fiyi por el cambio), dijo a IPS: “Como activista del Pacífico veo claramente los impactos catastróficos del cambio climático, la pérdida de biodiversidad y el aumento del nivel del mar. Río+20 no le hace justicia a la inmediatez y severidad de este problema mundial”.

La uruguaya Nicole Bidegain, de la Oficina de Género y Educación del Consejo Internacional para la Educación de Personas Adultas (ICAE), dijo: “La economía verde simplemente refuerza el actual modelo de desarrollo, basado en la producción y el consumo excesivos. Se promueven los mismos mecanismos financieros que causaron múltiples crisis desde 2008”, sin tener en cuenta los impactos negativos sobre los derechos y el sustento de las mujeres.

Según Bidegain, el sector privado es priorizado sobre el público como fuente de financiamiento. “Esto es irónico, ya que el sector privado está involucrado en la maximización de las ganancias a corto plazo, no en las inversiones a largo plazo necesarias para la transición hacia un desarrollo sostenible genuino, centrado en las personas”, señaló.

Monica Novillo, de la boliviana Coordinadora de la Mujer, expresó: “Vine a Río+20 con altas expectativas de que los gobiernos agregaran la histórica resolución sobre salud y derechos sexuales y reproductivos para jóvenes y adolescentes, adoptada en la 45 Comisión de Población y Desarrollo”.

Brasil desempeñó un rol clave en la creación de este resultado, “así que yo esperaba que defendiera fuertemente estos derechos fundamentales en Río+20, contra una minoría de gobiernos conservadores”, dijo.

Aunque en Río+20 se reafirmaron las agendas de El Cairo y Beijing sobre población y mujeres, es tiempo de que estos acuerdos se implementen plenamente, agregó.

Gita Sen, de DAWN, lamentó que la cumbre prácticamente haya enterrado los derechos reproductivos.

“En este documento queda muy claro que hay una continua guerra contra los derechos humanos de las mujeres, lanzada por la Santa Sede (el Vaticano) junto con algunos gobiernos muy conservadores”, dijo a IPS.

(FIN)

RIO DE JANEIRO, 22 junho (TerraViva) – O desafio de aliviar a fome de cerca de 900 milhões de pessoas em todo mundo é uma das prioridades das Nações Unidas.

O secretário geral da ONU, Ban Ki-Moon, convidou os participantes da Rio+20 a enfrentarem conjuntamente os cinco objetivos do programa Fome Zero: propiciar 100% de acesso a alimentação adequada em todo o mundo, eliminar a desnutrição entre crianças com até dois anos, tornar sustentáveis todos os sistemas alimentares, aumentar em 100% a produtividade e renda dos pequenos produtores e eliminar a perda e o desperdício de alimentos.

Ban Ki-Moon: esforço para eliminar a fome. Crédito: Cortesia ONU

Os chefes de Estado, empresários e representantes dos agricultores presentes no encontro promovido pela FAO, Biodiversidade Internacional, Fundo Internacional para o Desenvolvimento da Agricultura (IFAD, da sigla em inglês), Banco Mundial e Programa Mundial de Alimentos (WFP em inglês) no Riocentro repetiram uma palavra-chave: resiliência.

O presidente de Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, salientou a necessidade de não apenas superar as crises, mas de aprender com os erros e prevenir, com políticas de agricultura adequadas e apoio logístico, que outras crises aconteçam.

Não basta receber doações, é preciso ensinar as pessoas o que fazer com elas, disse Issoufou. E citou o caso de mulheres que estão trabalhando em projetos de retenção para enfrentar os períodos entre a colheita e a seca. “Quando as mulheres têm renda, suas crianças comem”, observou.

O país desenvolve um projeto se segurança alimentar com o objetivo de aumentar a produção de cereais e restaurar os ativos produtivos. A primeira fase do projeto tratou de recuperar os bens de produção e criar bancos de alimentos. A segunda etapa pretende ampliar a produção local, com a reabilitação de algumas áreas. Sua estratégia foi o Plano 3N (Nigerians nourish Niguerians, ou nigerianos alimentam nigerianos).

Os participantes concordaram que o grande problema da fome não é tanto a falta de comida, como sua distribuição e a capacidade de armazenamento para evitar as perdas e os desperdícios, associando saúde e segurança nutricional com soberania alimentar.

Neste contexto, Esther Penunia, secretária geral da Associação dos Fazendeiros Asiáticos, lembrou que as organizações de agricultores familiares são os pilares da mudança social e do desenvolvimento sustentável. Apesar de serem responsáveis por grande parte da produção mundial, enfrentam a pobreza.

“É preciso que estejam organizados para exigir seu direito à água, à semente e à terra. Atuando de forma coletiva, eles têm mais poder de negociar com o mercado melhores preços e condições para continuarem produzindo”, resumiu.

José Graziano da Silva, diretor geral da FAO e um dos responsáveis pelo projeto Fome Zero implantado no Brasil em 2003 e 2004, disse que o programa da entidade não é novo, mas a meta ousada pressupõe assumir conjuntamente um compromisso político, mobilizando a sociedade. (FIM/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) The continued exodus of Somalis to Kenya and Ethiopia has fuelled the debate on a new issue of global concern: climate refugees, driven from their homes and across borders by extreme weather events.

Climate refugees in East Africa. Credit: UNHCR

Massive displacement of people in some parts of Africa, especially the eastern part of the continent, is caused by lengthy periods of drought, famine and armed conflict. One illustration of this is the flood of people leaving Somalia since late 2010.

The issue has caused deep concern in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which launched the report “Climate Change, Vulnerability and Human Mobility” at the Rio+20 climate conference on Thursday Jun. 21.

Social organisations are highly disappointed by the outcome document of the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, which has drawn heads of state from around 130 countries to Rio de Janeiro and ends Friday.

The UNHCR report, presented in the Riocentro, the conference venue, is based on the personal testimonies of 150 refugees and internally displaced people in Ethiopia and Uganda, and assesses global trends of forced displacement and their relation with climate change and natural disasters.

The growing number of climate refugees gives new urgency to the need for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures in areas far away from the parts of the world that are most affected by the phenomenon, such as Africa.

Protesters around the world took to the streets this week to mark World Refugee Day Jun. 20 and demand that the international community do more to address the growing humanitarian problem.

The report presented by U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres was produced by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security in partnership with the UNHCR, the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Bonn.

The rector of the U.N. University, Konrad Osterwalder, said “The report highlights how important it is to understand the real experiences of vulnerable people with environmental stressors today.”

“This report confirms what we have been hearing for years from refugees,” said Guterres. “They did everything they could to stay at home, but when their last crops failed, their livestock died, they had no option but to move; movement which often led them into greater harm’s way.

“I am convinced that climate change will increasingly be a driver in worsening displacement crises in the world. It is very important for the world to come together to respond to this challenge,” he said.

UNHCR spokesman in Brazil Luiz Fernando Godinho told TerraViva that although there is still no clear definition of what constitutes a “climate refugee”, what is important to understand is that climate-related phenomena are driving more and more people from their homes and countries.

“The UNHCR has issued a call at Rio+20 for (the world) to pay more attention to the existence of refugees who have been displaced by extreme climate changes,” he said. “The international community has not come up with a set of measures or agreements to give guarantees to people who are driven from their homes by natural disasters.”

There are some 15 million refugees in the world today, 10 million of whom are under the UNHCR’s mandate. But it is impossible to determine how many of them were displaced by natural disasters and climate-related phenomena.

Somalia alone, which has the third largest displaced population in the world, has 1.1 million refugees living in neighbouring countries, three times the 2004 total. They were driven out of the country by a combination of armed conflict, drought and famine.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) Last year was a particularly bad one for Asian countries facing nature’s wrath.

A bus navigates rushing floodwaters in Batticaloa, a town in eastern Sri Lanka, during the January 2011 floods. Credit: Courtesy of Sarvodaya

Of the 14.9 million people who were displaced by natural disasters in 2011, 89 percent lived in Asia, according to a new report released here by the International Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

The report, titled “Global Estimates 2011, Peoples Displaced by Natural Disasters”, said that the bulk of the displacements were the results of floods or storms. But even in previous years, Asia has claimed the number one spot in terms of the number of people forced to flee their homes due to natural disasters.

China and Thailand had the largest number of people displaced by extreme weather events, primarily due to recurring disasters. Over 4.5 million were displaced in China alone.

However, Sri Lanka, with an overall population of just over 20 million, saw the largest per capita displacements, with floods between January and February displacing three percent of the entire population, or 685,000 persons.

Most of those displacements occurred in the eastern and northeastern regions of the island, which are also some of the poorest areas.

Ponnanbalam Thanesveran, the top government official for the remote village of Verugal in eastern Trincomalee District, experienced firsthand the details of the disaster.

Between January and February of 2011, the eastern region of Sri Lanka received a year’s worth of rain in one month. Thanesveran’s office was cut off for over two weeks, during which time he used a boat to get to his office and get around his small constituency.

“I might be the first Sri Lankan government official who carried out his duties from a boat, wearing a life jacket and shorts,” he told TerraViva.

The floods destroyed the entire rice harvest in Verugal. According to figures released later by the government, around 20 percent of the overall harvest was wiped out.

The report had more bad news. It said that changing climate patterns that have altered rainfall patterns combined with growing populations were likely to increase the vulnerabilities of Asian populations living at risk of natural disasters.

In Sri Lanka, weather experts warn that while the number of days of precipitation has gone down, the shorter rains have increased in intensity, leading to frequent flash floods.

“The (other) problem is that most of the people who get affected in areas like Verugal are the poorest. One blow like last year’s floods and it will take years for some of them to recover,” Thanesveran said.

At the release of the report, officials said that the inability of poor villagers and farmers to cope with such disasters needs to be taken into consideration at negotiations like those which just concluded in Rio.

“The international community must ensure that vulnerable communities are prepared to respond and able to find sustainable solutions as they recover from such life-changing events,” NRC’s Secretary General Elisabeth Rasmusson said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) The EU’s “agriculture minister” tells TerraViva that in Europe, the push for food security made at Rio+20 will be continued with a future European development policy centred on this issue.

Dacian Ciolos. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS

Q: How do you evaluate the final Rio agreement?

A: Even if generally the European Union thinks that the final Rio document could have been better as regards agriculture and food security, I think the document is consistent enough.

Our objectives are in there, for example, the value of small-scale farming for global food security is properly recognised. Improving productivity of small farms both helps increase overall food production levels and contributes to poverty alleviation.

Technology and innovation transfer to small farmers has been acknowledged as important here in Rio and the EU’s development policy, particularly in relation to Africa, will reflect this. The document recognises the negative impacts of food price volatility on the livelihoods of smaller farmers and it has been agreed to improve transparency in food markets.

Q: Many voices say that Rio will not have any practical impact. What impact can Rio have when it comes to food security?

A: Food security cannot be dealt with unilaterally, by only one institution. It is also a problem that cannot be solved without looking at it simultaneously from the economic, environmental and social point of view.

The Rio agreement acknowledges this and it is a step towards finding the complex answer to the complex food security question. From now, when decisions will be made about financing or about social support measures, agriculture will be considered central.

In the next couple of years, we will need to think up an international framework that can address the issue of food security in its multidimensionality.

Q: What are the next steps you will take in Europe to follow up on Rio?

A: The European Commission is now working on applying our experience from the Common Agricultural Policy (i.e., the farming policy of the EU which offers financial support for European farmers and is now undergoing a “greening” process) to our development policy.

In the future development policy of the EU (2014-2020), we are focusing on two core dimensions: sustainable energy and food security. We intend to offer not only financing for these two areas but also offer knowledge.

Mind you, we do not want to provide models, but we rather want to support our partners in developing countries to elaborate their own development models. In Europe itself, the next farming policy will change to be more sustainable.

Q: Everyone speaks now about supporting small farmers to achieve food security. Is it enough to offer support to small farmers or do some other measures need to be taken to limit the negative impact that agri-business can have on sustainability?

A: Large-scale farming makes more sense than small-scale ones in some areas because of relief, climate and soil conditions, for example, when it comes to cereal and oil production. But what is important to watch is the behaviour of agri-business in the market: they should not be allowed to take over land artificially when proper land tenure and market management are lacking.

It is also important to ensure that investments in farming do not just go for those enterprises that bring short-term profits, which are agri-businesses, but also significantly towards the model that brings long-term gains, which according to me is smallholder farming.

Because private banks usually steer away from offering financing to small farmers, public policies should support investments in this sector. And public support is also needed for the organisation of small farms and simply for balancing the development of the agri-business sector and the smallholder one.

Q: How difficult it is politically to shift investments towards small farms?

A: It is a matter of political will. If you want to obtain medium and long-term results which make sense both socially and economically, then you are interested in supporting small farmers.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) When the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development ended Friday, there were winners and losers – mostly losers.

The omission of reproductive rights is a step backwards from previous agreements, said Gro Harlem Brundtland. UN Photo/Mark Garten

The United Nations and the host country Brazil – along with big business – put a positive spin on the outcome of the conference, a follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit.

It was another historic document that will change the world, they claimed.

But most non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society representatives and women activists expressed disappointment and outrage over the final blueprint, titled “The Future We Want”, which was approved by world leaders Friday.

The comparison with the 1992 Agenda 21 was inevitable.

Anita Nayar of the Manila-based Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) told IPS that in the historic agreement adopted in 1992, there were around 170 references to gender and an entire chapter on women.

In the latest version of “The Future We Want”, there are only around 50, and these have been watered down and were used as negotiating chips by states, she said.

“It is not a simple matter of gender mentions either, but rather there is clearly an unwillingness by some states to agree on concrete actions and an overall weakening of internationally agreed commitments on gender equality and women’s empowerment,” Nayar added.

She said while human rights is generally affirmed in the context of sexual and reproductive health, the specific omission of reproductive rights is glaring.

Equally critical was Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway and chair of the Brundtland Commission (named after her) which brought the concept of sustainable development to global attention 25 years ago.

“The Rio+20 declaration does not do enough to set humanity on a sustainable path, decades after it was agreed that this is essential for both people and the planet. I understand the frustration in Rio today,” she said in a statement released Thursday.

Brundtland, who is a member of a group called The Elders, said, “We can no longer assume that our collective actions will not trigger tipping points, as environmental thresholds are breached, risking irreversible damage to both ecosystems and human communities. These are the facts – but they have been lost in the final document.

“Also regrettable is the omission of reproductive rights – which is a step backwards from previous agreements. However – with this imperfect text, we have to move forward. There is no alternative,” she said.

The reactions from groups at the grassroots level were mostly negative.

“I haven’t seen this much fake green covering since last St Patrick’s day. The document does not come close to the future we really want and that’s because it was written with the interests of the few rather than the many in mind,”  said Nathan Thanki of Earth, one of the protesting youth leaders who occupied the plenary entrance at the Rio+20 site on Thursday.

Noelene Nabulivou, Women’s Action for Change, Fiji, told IPS, “As an activist from Pacific I see clearly the catastrophic impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and sea level rise. Rio+20 does not do justice to the immediacy and severity of this global problem.”

Nicole Bidegain of GEO-ICAE, Uruguay said, “The green economy simply reinforces the current model of development, based on overconsumption and production. The same financial mechanisms that caused multiple crises since 2008 are being promoted, but this time to commodify nature. There is enough evidence on the negative impacts of the financialisation of nature on women’s rights and livelihoods. “

She said the private sector as a source of finance is prioritised over public financing. “This is ironic as the private sector is concerned with maximising profit in the short term, not with long-term investments needed to transition to genuine people-centred sustainable development.”

Monica Novillo, Coordinadora de la Mujer, Bolivia, said, “I came to Rio+20 with high expectations that governments would build on the landmark resolution on sexual and reproductive health and rights for youth and adolescents adopted at the 45th Commission on Population Development.”

She said Brazil played a key role in creating this outcome, “so I expected that they would strongly defend these fundamental rights at Rio+20 against a minority of conservative governments.”

While the Cairo and Beijing agendas (on population and women) were reaffirmed at Rio+20, it is high time that these agreements are fully implemented, she added.

DAWN’s Gita Sen regretted that Rio+20 had virtually buried reproductive rights.

She told IPS, “Reproductive rights has been traded away. It is very clear in this outcome document that there is a continuing war on women’s human rights launched by the Holy See (Vatican) along with some very conservative governments.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) I disagree with the branding of Rio+20 as an abject “failure”. As a returnee from the 1992 Earth Summit, I have mixed views about the conference, some positive.

Don de Silva

Even former political leaders have joined the chorus of disappointment.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway, has said, “The Rio+20 declaration does not do enough to set humanity on a sustainable path, decades after it was agreed that this is essential for both people and the planet. I understand the frustration in Rio today.”

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland has said: “This is a ‘once in a generation’ moment when the world needs vision, commitment and above all, leadership. Sadly, the current document is a failure of leadership.”

Both world renowned and distinguished leaders raise important points. But blame and finger-pointing comes easy.

Are the civil society movements so blasé as to expect governments, many with scant respect for human rights or the environment, to suddenly come up with radical agreements and then cough up the billions to implement action?

Did they not look into what happened immediately after the creation of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1972? Or the follow-up to the 1992 Rio summit?

According to British government records unearthed by the New Scientist, the ambitious aims of UNEP were held in cheque by the activities of the Brussels group, which included Britain, the U.S., Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, while they piously preached about the environment.

The group was “an unofficial policy-making body to concert the views of the principal governments concerned”, according to a note of one of the group’s first meetings, held in 1971, written by a civil servant in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Instead of making generalised statements damning all countries, is it not possible for the members of the civil society groups and concerned leaders to name and shame those who have watered down texts, and strengthen the hand of negotiators who wanted to effect change?

At a fringe meeting, Gro Harlem Brundtland lamented the omission of women’s reproductive rights in the final document. It is surprising that the full force of the civil society movement was not mobilised to stop this from happening.

Holier-than-thou non-governmental organisations need to turn the searchlight inwards to see if they are really the paragons of virtue they claim to be. Getting two environmental NGOs to work together at times is a daunting task. Some are neither civil nor societies, and can be “some peoples’” movements.

At Rio+20, businesses came of age. An “extraordinary” group of leaders, calling themselves “Friends of Rio”, from across business, NGOs, trade unions and scientific institutions have banded together to find a new path towards sustainable development.

Their message is pretty clear: we cannot leave the future of the planet only to politicians.

Failure of leadership? The 2010 United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP16), which took place in Copenhagen, was a political disaster. By contrast, Rio+20 has produced an agreement, a combined effort of the passionate and plain-speaking Sha Zukang, secretary general of Rio+20, and the Brazilian government.

Rio+20 has witnessed the emergence of a new leadership from countries like Brazil and China. Yes, polluters must pay for past and present inequities. But developing countries will have to wait forever if they think that the debt-ridden, austerity-laden Western nations will put up the money.

To argue about a lack of funds is laughable. In 2011, global military spending amounted to 1.74 trillion dollars. Disarmament is a necessary condition for sustainable development. This spending is not mentioned in the final text.

Some 50,000 protesters in Rio claimed that the green economy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This need not be the case. The shift to a green economy can be used to bring paradigm shifts in thinking and living, beyond anything that we have witnessed so far.

A relentless and sustained united action by thousands of environmental NGOs throughout the world – a green Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter – will and can move mountains.

Don de Silva is a journalist and environmentalist. He is co-ordinator of UNEP’s Regional Information Programmes and has worked with several NGOs to initiate and manage advocacy programmes for sustainable development. He can be contacted at dondes@changeways.net

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) “Thousands of farmers are waiting on the side of the road for land reform,” Milton Rondo Filho, Brazil’s minister for international cooperation for tackling hunger, told a meeting organised by Oxfam on “Inequalities and Sustainable Development – a BRICS Perspective” here this week.

Puttaraju, a farmer in southern Karnataka state in India, proudly shows off his prize crop, millet, which assures him of a steady harvest. Credit: Krishna Prasad/IPS

Biraj Patnaik, principal food advisor to the Indian Supreme Court, said that “India and Brazil could learn a lot from other.”

While Brazil had its successful Zero Hunger programme, India had the highest procurement of food grain for public distribution in the world. It also had greater expertise of in-kind transfers of food, and had adopted a rights-based approach to education and employment, while the right to food is being campaigned for.

Brazil has launched what is probably the biggest school feeding programme in the world, involving 47 million children every day, Filho said.

“This forms a virtual cycle, with children in the family and families within the community, if food is procured locally,” he observed.

In 2011, Brazil donated 700,000 tonnes of food grain to needy countries.

Inequality within India has deepened, said Patnaik, who was appointed by the Indian Supreme Court as a food commissioner. “If you leave out Africa, only 16 countries have a lower per capita income. Only five countries have a lower infant mortality.

“The International Food Policy Research Institute, in its World Hunger Report, ranked India 66 out of 88 countries. Mothers have to teach their children how to live with hunger,” he said.

Five hundred million small farmers all over the world – many of them women – provide food for two billion people, almost a third of humanity, Biraj Swain, leader of the Delhi-based Oxfam India Food Justice Campaign, told IPS. One in every five people in the world has no electricity and two out of every five cook on open fires.

The campaign is part of Oxfam’s programme in 40 countries, which seeks to protect small household farmers from the shock of rising prices of food after the financial crisis of 2008.

“For small farmers, it has been Rio minus 20, most retrograde,” Swain said. “There has not been reengagement but reversal. Less than three percent of global food supply can meet the calorie needs of all those who are now deprived of this basic right.”

India is the worst off among BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) when it comes to runaway inflation in food prices, she said. “The government is tinkering with fiscal policy, like interest rates. What needs to be done is to bridge the gap between the farm and kitchen.”

Oxfam has put out what it terms “Killer Facts” regarding food security. At one level, economic disparities are great in Brazil, which is three times the size of India, while South Africa is the worst off.

One percent of Brazil’s population owns half the country’s wealth. Globally, the richest one-tenth of people own 57 percent, while the poorest one-fifth have to make do with less than two percent. However, 46 percent of Indian children are undernourished, compared to just four percent in Brazil.

“The lack of access to food in India is the worst in the world, most regressive. As many as seven out of every 10 farmers are net buyers of food. Food and fuel account for 80 percent of their expenditure,” she said.

She cited how her native state of Orissa in eastern India, which has been “bypassed by the Green (agricultural) Revolution”, subsidises electricity for industries while it has the lowest per capita energy consumption in India.

At Rio+20, “food infrastructure” was the most discussed item on the agenda on this sector. However, even if such infrastructure is increased, farmers do not necessarily get food, she said.

What is really required is the guarantee of a support price for farmers’ produce. In the northwestern state of Rajasthan in India, farmers have actually filed a criminal case against the federal government’s Food Corporation of India for neglecting to provide such a support price.

In the central state of Madhya Pradesh, which she describes as “ground zero” for food security in the entire world, the state government has said that it does not have bags to store and transport food grain.

“The government owes the nation the universalisation of food and nutrition rights, as indicated in the agenda of the Indian government’s Integrated Child Development Services scheme,” she said. “More than a Green Revolution, what most states in India require is a Brown Revolution, considering that we are in the semi-arid tropics.”

YEOSU, South Korea, Jun. 21 (TerraViva) Oceans, seas and coasts provide over 200 million jobs globally, while 4.3 billion people get 15 percent of their intake of animal protein from the seas. Travel and tourism, ports and energy production use oceans and seas to create jobs and economic and social benefits for millions of people.

Wendy Watson-Wright, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Over the last century a multitude of threats has eroded the ocean’s ability to sustain the benefits it can provide for present and future generations.  Poorly managed human activities have also eroded oceans’ resilience, particularly to climate change.

Sustainable management of marine ecosystems has not been accorded the priority it urgently deserves. At the Earth Summit currently underway in Rio de Janeiro, however, many hope these issues take centre-stage.

On the sidelines of Expo 2012, Yeosu, South Korea, whose theme this year is ‘The Living Ocean and Coast’, IPS correspondent Manipadma Jena asked Wendy Watson-Wright, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), what steps need to be taken to manage the challenges facing oceans and how much of this to expect at Rio+20.

Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: What is IOC’s view on the present state of ocean acidification and what are the mechanisms for controlling it?

A: Ocean acidification is definitely one of the most important issues facing the planet today. The oceans are now 30 percent more acidic than before the industrial revolution and as one of my colleagues says, ‘Oceans are already hot, sour and breathless’ – meaning, currently with climate change and absorption of carbon dioxide, the oceans are becoming warmer, more acidic and more hypoxic – with more dead zones in them now.

If we continue with business-as-usual oceans will be 150 percent more acidic by the year 2100. Already we are seeing the impact on marine organisms, their reproductive functions and mortality, which is most evident in the coral reefs.

While we need to stop emitting as much as we are currently, we also need to know more about acidification’s impact on sea organisms. We need more observation. We do have a global ocean observation system, but there is no observation network for ocean acidification which needs to be incorporated.

Q: We need more science, we need more research – how plentiful is funding for such activities?

A: Funding is forthcoming in those countries dependent upon the ocean, like the Small Island Countries – they do not have a lot of money, but are concerned and acting already. So are Monaco, Australia, Canada, the U.S. and Korea.

By hosting Expo 2012 (with the theme) ‘The Living Ocean and Coast’, (South) Korea is successfully directing world attention to the oceans.

As land creatures we tend to think primarily in terms of land; oceans remain out of sight, out of mind. In most national capital cities where decisions are made, oceans do not figure in day-to-day activities so funding is that much (harder) to come by.

Q:  What is UNESCO doing about increasing awareness levels on oceans at the policy-making level and particularly at Rio+20?

[related_articles]A:  At Rio+20 we are trying to heighten awareness that if we do not have sustainable development of the oceans we cannot have sustainable development of the planet. The only reason we are here on the planet is because of the ocean.

I think that (our) planet is misnamed: it should be called planet Ocean and not planet Earth.

Ahead of Rio +20, IOC – the ocean knowledge, data exchange and ocean services arm of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) – led an inter-agency paper, ‘Blueprint for Ocean and Coastal Sustainability’, translated into five languages including Korean. IOC has also been hosting side events, including talks in the European Parliament on oceans in the Rio context.

Q: Where do you see the Yeosu Declaration in the context of Rio+20?

A: The Yeosu Declaration will be adopted on Aug. 12, 2012, after Rio+20 and it is probably good timing. I am hopeful that Rio will come up with something very strong on oceans and then countries sign the Yeosu Declaration saying we must look after oceans if we are to look after humanity – it will bring more attention to the crisis currently facing (the world’s) oceans.

Q: In the midst of the debate on oceans, are we adequately addressing the issue of fisher communities?

A: In our work at UNESCO-IOC we try to involve the local people, particularly in capacity building on coastal issues, for example in the tsunami warning system.  We are also giving importance to getting the oceans into the school education system; we teach the children and they teach the rest when they grow up. But I think all of us could do much better.

Q: Where do we stand on the Blue Carbon issue?

A: We are at the very beginning. Outside the scientific community few know that coastal ecosystems like mangroves and sea grass are much more efficient at sequestering carbon; this knowledge needs to be brought in to the ocean science community, to policy makers and most importantly, to communities who look after these ecosystems. Blue carbon holds a lot of promise.

Q: What, currently, is your most passionate project within IOC?

A: Right now, working towards creating awareness at Rio+20 about the fact that the global oceans observation system is critical. In order to make good science, so necessary for good policy, we need good observation. This, and ocean acidification, marine litter – including the major concern on micro-plastic litter in the marine environment – are my other interest areas.

Q: Will Rio+20 reach a sufficient conclusion on the issue of oceans?

A: I am very hopeful; and there is a lot going on. The World Bank launched its very inclusive global partnership for oceans. The U.N. Secretary General will announce at Rio+20 the Oceans Compact (a strategic vision for stakeholders, including the U.N., to collaborate and accelerate progress towards the goal of Healthy Oceans for Prosperity).

The focus of Rio+20 is civil society. The Brazilian government has launched a wide-reaching web-based dialogue on all thematic including oceans. I am very interested to see the outcome of these (efforts).

(END)

RIO DE JANEIRO, 21 Junho (TerraViva) – O êxodo de populações da Somália para o Quênia ou Etiópia de finais de 2010 e ao longo de 2011 aponta para a discussão de uma nova preocupação mundial: os refugiados climáticos que se veem obrigados a deslocar-se para países vizinhos após serem atingidos por extremos do clima.

Este deslocamento em massa em alguns países africanos, em especial do leste do continente, é ocasionado por longos períodos de seca somado aos conflitos armados que existem na região.

Crianças refugiadas no leste da África. Crédito: Acnur

Este tema tem sido motivo de preocupação para o escritório do Alto Comissariado das Nações Unidas para Refugiados (ACNUR), que aproveitou a Conferência Rio+20 para lançar, nesta quinta-feira, dia 21 de junho, o relatório “Mudanças climáticas, vulnerabilidade e mobilidade humana”.

O estudo se baseia no relato de 150 refugiados do Leste da África e avalia as tendências globais para o deslocamento forçado e suas relações com mudanças climáticas e desastres naturais.

O relatório foi realizado pelo ACNUR em parceria com o Instituto para Meio Ambiente e Segurança Humana da Universidade das Nações Unidas com o apoio da London School of Economics e a Universidade de Bonn, na Alemanha.

Segundo o reitor da Universidade da ONU, Konrad Osterwalder, “o relatório dá destaque à importância para a necessidade de compreender as experiências reais de pessoas vulneráveis que sofrem com os estresses ambientais”.

O alto comissário para Refugiados, Antonio Guterres, reconheceu que o relatório vem a confirmar relatos de refugiados que sofrem com extremos climáticos há alguns anos.

“Os refugiados fazem de tudo para continuar vivendo em suas casas e em suas terras, mas quando as suas colheitas já não rendem, seus estoques de alimentos e cultivos já não garantem a subsistência, eles não tem outra alternativa que não se mudar”, afirmou Guterres.

Desde os anos 1950 que chove cada vez menos no leste da África. Crédito: Acnur

“Estou convencido que as mudanças no clima irão piorar ainda mais as crises de deslocamentos no mundo. É muito importante que o mundo ajude a reagir e a dar respostas a estes desafios”, anunciou em Guterres.

De acordo com o porta-voz do ACNUR no Brasil, Luiz Fernando Godinho, ainda não há uma definição técnica sobre o termo ‘refugiado climático’, mas admite que, de fato, cada vez mais pessoas se deslocam no mundo em decorrência de fenômenos associados ao clima. E à medida que avançam os impactos ambientais, o número de deslocados só tende a piorar.

“O ACNUR fez um apelo na Rio+20 para que estejamos atentos para a existência de refugiados que se deslocam por força de mudanças extremas do clima. Não há por parte da comunidade internacional um conjunto de medidas e convenções para dar garantias a essas pessoas que se movem por desastres naturais”, disse Godinho à IPS.

Existem no mundo 15 milhões de refugiados, dos quais 10 milhões estão sob o mandato das Nações Unidas. No entanto, não é possível saber quantos destes foram deslocados por força de catástrofes naturais.

Apenas a Somália, o terceiro maior país em número de refugiados tem hoje 1.1 milhão de refugiados, três vezes mais que em 2004. O país sofre com conflitos armados, mas também com crises associadas à seca e à fome. (TerraViva/FIM)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) Canadian grain and lentils farmer Nettie Wiebs does not support a green economy, a term she says has become a euphemism for corporate land grabbing that is putting smallholder farmers out of business.

Protesters denounce the new “green economy” at a march in Rio de Janeiro June 20. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

The concept of a green economy is being touted as a path to a sustainable future at Rio+20 but La Via Campesina, a global organisation of smallholder farmers, is fed up with what it sees as greenwashing.

“Our analysis of the green economy solution is that it is a false solution and in reality it is a legitimisation of land grabs, water grabs and seed grabs from their rightful populations, the smallholder farmers,” Wiebs told TerraViva.

“We utterly reject the idea of a green economy based on the agribusiness model of corporate interests because a vast majority of people in the world are badly served by it. We’re in a deep struggle to defend healthy food production and a living environment for all of humanity. It is our livelihood and their lunch.”

Wiebs, who runs a family farm east of Vancouver, said despite living in a highly industrialised country, corporate investment in agriculture is displacing smallholder farmers like her. She said a recent census in Canada noted that the small farm population is rapidly shrinking and its collapse was linked to corporate investment in agriculture “solutions”.

“We are in this food crisis because of agribusiness which makes prices very volatile, speculation in commodity markets, increases hunger and gives control over food production processes to a small group of actors whose key objective is to profit,” Wiebs said.

Luc Gnacadja, the executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, views the term “land grabs” as overly negative, arguing that land transactions are business transactions that empower farmers as well as from investors.

“Land grabbing is a kind of business and in every business there are crooks,” Gnacudja told Terraviva. “It is the responsibility of government to keep crooks in check, regulate and incentivise best practises.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) Agriculture and food security are one area where experts say that even a more general level of agreement, as reached in the final Rio+20 declaration, constitutes progress.

Peruvian farmer Inocencia Chipana shows her coffee beans outside a cooperative warehouse. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

“The European Union considers that the Rio final agreement could have gone much further, (but) when it comes to agriculture and food security, I think the document is consistent enough in that the importance of small family farming for improving global food security is properly recognised,” EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos told TerraViva.

According to the commissioner, the main value of the Rio agreement for global food security is that it acknowledges that this is an issue that needs to be addressed from economic, environmental and social points of view and that international collective efforts are needed in this direction.

Other positive aspects in the agreement, according to Ciolos, are the acknowledgement that technology and innovation have to be made available to small farmers, not just to agri-businesses, and the need to cushion farmers from the negative effects of global food price volatility.

Ciolos’ relatively positive assessment of agriculture and food security in the Rio+20 final document is shared by Emile Frison, director general of Biodiversity International.

According to Frison, agriculture was one of the less controversial points in the negotiations but this should be taken as a good sign, meaning that countries have come to accept the urgency of addressing food security as a global problem.

“Malnutrition has finally been recognised as a major concern for the future,” Frison told TerraViva. “And it has been acknowledged that if we want to address the issue of malnutrition, we cannot solve it only by offering pills and supplements, but a more sustainable solution has to be found and this has to come through a more diverse agriculture that provides a more diverse diet and a better health.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) What does birth control have to do with reducing global emissions? Everything, women around the world would say, because they know how closely linked reproductive health is to poverty, food security, climate change and more.

A woman’s work is never done. Taken in a low-income settlement in Karachi, Pakistan. Photo by Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

This message was precisely what female leaders at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development were saying, but not many were listening, least of all the Vatican.

“The only way to respond to increasing human numbers and dwindling resources is through the empowerment of women,” said Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway and former director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“It is through giving women access to education, knowledge, to paid income, independence and of course access to reproductive health services, reproductive rights, access to family planning,” she stressed.

Female leaders have long been telling the world that sustainable development is not just about deforestation, climate change and carbon emissions. It’s about understanding that sustainable development will not be possible without gender equality and that sexual and reproductive rights are human rights.

This concept is nothing new. At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, there was unanimous agreement that sustainable development cannot be realised without gender equality.

So it’s frustrating for people like Rebecca Lefton, a policy analyst focusing on international climate change and women at the Center for American Progress, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, to be fighting over something that was recognised 20 years ago.

Lefton has followed the negotiations for several months, and to her dismay, has found that many references to women’s reproductive rights and gender equality have been scrapped from the Rio summit’s text.

“Women’s rights and gender equality were affirmed, but not as strongly as they could be,” she told TerraViva. “I don’t think the text would be reopened to be revised or tweaked,” she added.

Brundtland sounded more optimistic. “It looked quite bad some weeks ago in the preparing process for this meeting….In the last week or two this has improved,” she said, citing “key passages on women as central partners in decision-making”.

The United States, Norway and several women’s rights organisations were fighting to keep the language strong, but the Holy See (the Vatican) led the opposition to remove passages ensuring women’s reproductive rights.

“The result is that the final text has no reference to reproductive rights and commits to promotion rather than ensuring equal access of women to health care, education, basic services and economic opportunities,” said Lefton.

“It’s quite frustrating to find the Vatican exerting so much power over what the majority of women want but don’t have access to,” she told TerraViva, adding that the Vatican equates reproductive rights and health with abortion – an inaccurate comparison, at best.

Female heads of state and government gathered at the Rio+20 women leaders’ summit nevertheless remained undaunted and pledged that the document they signed would not be lost in the “forest of declarations on gender issues”. They urged governments, civil society and the private sector to prioritise gender equality and female empowerment in their sustainable development efforts.

“We know from research that advancing gender equality is not just good for women, it is good for all of us. When women enjoy equal rights and opportunities, poverty, hunger and poor health decline and economic growth rises,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director of U.N. Women.

Cate Owren, executive director of the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), criticised the removal of references to reproductive rights from the Rio outcome document.

“Political compromises for the sake of an agreement should not have cost us our rights – nor our planet,” she said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) After nearly 50 years as an international wire service, the Rome-based Inter Press Service (IPS) is branching out into WebTV, keeping pace with the latest advances in digital technology.

Announcing the launch of IPS WebTV at RioCentro June 21. Credit: Ana Libisch/IPS

Utilising its current resources and manpower, the new WebTV will draw on more than 400 journalists in 140 countries, many of them with substantial expertise already in the visual media, according to IPS Director-General Mario Lubetkin.

The pilot phase will be launched in early 2013 with daily broadcasts through the web originating from its studios in Rome.

Lubetkin told Terra Viva that the IPS network of journalists, mostly from or based in the global South, will bring a new visual dimension to reporting on issues relating primarily to development, rights, energy, food, civil society, gender empowerment, the environment – and the growing emergence of the South on the multicultural world stage.

“IPS WebTV will be much more than a visual cousin of the print product,” Lubetkin said.

The formal launch, presided over by the President of the U.N. General Assembly Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, took place on the sidelines of the Rio+20 summit of world leaders here.

Also speaking at the launch were Sergio Alli representing the government of Brazil, Omar Resende Peres, president of the IPS Television Board, Carlos Tiburcio, chair of the IPS Core Group of Donors, and René Castro, minister of environment, energy and telecommunications of Costa Rica.

“I am confident that the IPS WebTV that we are launching today would contribute in a meaningful way towards advancing our continuing efforts for global solidarity and cooperation to a higher and more mutually beneficial level,” Al-Nasser said.

“As a media institution primarily focusing on development issues and providing a perspective of the South, (IPS) is making a major contribution towards presenting a balanced view with diversity of perspectives and highlighting the needs of the most vulnerable in the global agenda.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) Over one billion people in the developing world could benefit from the Sustainable Energy for All initiative to bring electricity and clean-burning cookstoves to those without by 2030, U.N. officials said here June 21.

Some 2.7 billion people rely on traditional biomass such as wood or dung for cooking and heating. Credit: IPS

However, civil society is critical that the target communities are simply being treated as customers and not partners in this effort.

“Hundreds of millions will gain improved access to energy through grid extension and off-grid solutions, as well as scaled-up renewable energy sources,” said Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and head of UN-Energy.

Launched last fall, Sustainable Energy for All has three goals: ensure universal access to modern energy services; double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

Worldwide, approximately 2.7 billion people rely on traditional biomass such as wood or dung for cooking and heating. Some 1.3 billion have no access to electricity, and up to a billion more only have access to unreliable electricity networks. Most energy-poor communities are concentrated in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

“This initiative is being decided by an unaccountable hand-picked group dominated by representatives of multinational corporations and fossil fuel interests,” Nimmo Bassey, Nigerian environmentalist activist and chair of Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), told TerraViva.

Many of those involved have strong ties to the fossil fuel industry, including banks that finance and profit from new oil and gas development. The Bank of America is the world’s third largest coal financier, according a new FOEI report.

Other key players include Eskom, South Africa’s coal and electricity utility, Brazil’s largest power utility Electrobras, along with oil and gas companies Statoil and Duke Energy. Former CEOs of Shell and BP are also involved. The sole independent representative of civil society is the Barefoot College of India, says the report, “Reclaim the UN”.

FOEI and a broad coalition of 107 NGOs want energy access to be improved through community-controlled small-scale sustainable energy projects.

They are calling on the U.N. secretary-general to open up the process to affected and marginalised communities so they can be full participants.

Bassey and others are increasingly concerned that U.N. organisations are being dominated by corporate interests, particularly in the areas of energy, agriculture and food, water and the financialisation of nature.

“As it stands currently, ‘sustainable energy for all’ will fail spectacularly in its goal of tackling climate change and poverty,” he said.

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 21 jun (TerraViva) Se calcula que la población mundial pasará de los actuales 7.000 millones de personas a 9.000 millones para mediados de este siglo, y esto no solo significa ciudades hacinadas, sino también una mayor demanda de alimentos, agua, energía y vivienda.

Los esfuerzos por promover el desarrollo sostenible que no abordan la dinámica demográfica han fracasado y continuarán haciéndolo. Crédito: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS.

El siglo XXI es un periodo crítico para las personas y para el planeta. Y las tendencias demográficas y de consumo plantean desafíos tremendos en un mundo finito, alerta un informe divulgado este jueves 21 por el Fondo de Población de las Naciones Unidas (UNFPA) en la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible, conocida como Río+20.

Titulado “Population Matters for Sustainable Development” (Asuntos de población para el desarrollo sostenible, o La población importa para el desarrollo sostenible), el estudio subraya la relevancia de las dinámicas demográficas en la agenda del desarrollo sostenible que, señala, se ha perdido en las últimas décadas.

El informe propone políticas concretas, centradas en las personas y los derechos humanos, para abordar los problemas que enfrenta el mundo en este siglo.

En una entrevista con TerraViva, el director ejecutivo del UNFPA, Babatunde Osotimehin, dijo que mejorar el bienestar de la humanidad ahora y con vistas al futuro requiere, sobre todo, un cambio genuino e inmediato hacia la producción sostenible y el consumo equilibrado, ambos sellos distintivos de la economía verde.

“En todas partes, pero especialmente en las economías emergentes, millones más de personas se están volviendo consumidoras más ricas de bienes y servicios, lo que se agrega a las presiones sobre los recursos naturales. Por lo tanto, se requieren con urgencia patrones sostenibles de consumo, habilitados en parte por tecnologías apropiadas”, declaró.

Según Osotimehin, la nueva dinámica demográfica presenta muchos desafíos, pero también ofrece oportunidades para garantizar un futuro sostenible. Cambios como la tendencia a vivir en ciudades, pueden reducir las presiones sobre el ambiente, reduciendo el consumo de recursos.

“Enlentecer el aumento de población puede tener un impacto positivo sobre la sostenibilidad ambiental a largo plazo. También dará a las naciones más tiempo para adaptarse a los cambios en el ambiente. Sin embargo, esto solo puede ocurrir si las mujeres tienen el derecho, el poder y los medios para decidir libremente cuántos hijos tener y cuándo”, dijo.

El informe plantea que más de dos tercios de los gobiernos de los 48 países menos adelantados se han declarado muy preocupados por el gran aumento de la población, la alta fertilidad y la rápida urbanización.

A fin de volver a poner la agenda de población en el debate acerca del desarrollo sostenible, es necesario reconocer que la dinámica demográfica tiene una gran influencia sobre el mismo. Los esfuerzos por promover el desarrollo sostenible que no abordan la dinámica demográfica han fracasado y continuarán haciéndolo, señala.

Pero el cambio es posible mediante una serie de políticas que respeten los derechos humanos y las libertades, y que contribuyan a la reducción de la fertilidad, a un notorio acceso a los servicios de salud sexual y reproductiva, a una educación que vaya más allá de la primaria, y al empoderamiento de las mujeres.

Osotimehin dijo que los gobiernos también tienen que integrar las tendencias poblacionales y las proyecciones para el futuro en sus estrategias y políticas de desarrollo.

“Las inversiones que se realizan en base a -y que se aprovechan de- las tendencias demográficas pueden ayudar a transformar las poblaciones en un rico capital humano que puede impulsar el desarrollo sostenible”, expresó.

“La planificación para los cambios proyectados en el tamaño de la población por tendencias como las migraciones, el envejecimeinto y la urbanización es una condición indispensable para que haya estrategias sostenibles de desarrollo rural, urbano y nacional, así como esfuerzos significativos para mitigar y adaptarse al cambio climático”, agregó.

(FIN)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) Danish artist Jen Galschiot is sending a strong message to delegates at the Rio+20 summit – one that some may not wish to hear.

Artist Jen Galschiot discusses his work. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

His metal sculptures, found outside the RioCentro summit complex, are elegant and diverse, but also aim to prick the conscience of world leaders gathered here. The most conspicuous one – the Statue of Liberty – holds a document with an ironic message: “The Freedom to Pollute”.

“We are not asking people to freely pollute the environment. But this sculpture symbolises the conflict between our demands for unbridled consumption and our concern for the planet that would imply that we restrict our excesses,” Galschiot told TerraViva.

Another eye-catching statue shows a pregnant woman hanging on a cross, titled “In the Name of God” – statement about the Catholic Church’s rejection of family planning and contraceptive use.

“The world is changing very fast, and population pressure is already affecting the climate and livelihoods. The more people there are in the world, the more forests are felled to create space for settlement, farming and grazing, the more the climate keeps changing,” said the artist.

“People need the freedom to choose the size of families they should have, in tandem with the available resources,” he added.

Galschiot’s sculptures, such as a series of figures titled “Climate Refugees”, paint a disturbing vision of a world plagued by hunger and want.

According to the United Nations, the number of people forced to move from their homes due to climate-related disasters could rise to 150 million worldwide in the next 40 years.

“It will be remembered that in 1992, the world’s heads of states made a promise to the world that they would form a global partnersdhip for sustainable development, and make the world a better place for the future generations. But 20 years on, all the promises have been broken. Billions of people are going without food, have no access to electricity, children are not going to school, and the list is endless,” he said.

SEROPEDICA, Brazil, Jun 21 (TerraViva) – An agroecological farm outside of Rio de Janeiro is a testing ground for scientists and agronomists in Brazil, who have worked there for two decades to show that it is possible to produce a wide range of natural agricultural products in a cheap, efficient way that harms neither the environment nor human health.

Everything produced on the Haciendita KM 47 is “ecologically correct and very tasty.” Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/TerraViva

The Integrated Agroecological Production System, better known as the “Haciendita agroecologica KM 47” or “Kilometre 47 agroecological farm”, covers 60 hectares of land in the municipality of Seropedica, 47 km from Rio de Janeiro.

Researchers from EMBRAPA, the government’s agricultural research agency, the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro and other government institutions have been carrying out field studies in agroecology on the farm since 1993.

The farm integrates chemical-free agricultural and livestock production, based on crop diversification, and the main target beneficiaries of the research are family farmers, who account for 75 percent of the labour force in the Brazilian countryside.

“Ecological agriculture seeks to some extent to reproduce the conditions of the natural environment, and in a natural environment, what ensures dynamic equilibrium is the biodiversity of species,” EMBRAPA agronomist Ernani Jardim told TerraViva.

“When that diversity is reduced, it opens the door to the emergence of some pest or disease or environmental condition that causes an imbalance,” he added.

Biodiversity and sustainable water and soil management have transformed the landscape of grasslands here into an oasis where 50 kinds of plants are grown, including fruit trees, vegetables, cereals and forage crops.

The farm, a green paradise in a degraded portion of the Baixada Fluminense or Fluminense Lowlands – a region sometimes considered to be part of the Rio de Janeiro greater metropolitan area – also has sections devoted to the severely threatened Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest ecosystem, and a botanical garden.

Organic fertiliser is also made here, using vegetable waste and manure from cows that produce organic milk.

Net earnings of 30,000 dollars a year were obtained from just one hectare, said Alessandra Carvalho, another EMBRAPA researcher.

Prevention is emphasised in the fight against pests and diseases. Pest-resistant species are planted, the best production periods are chosen for planting, crops are diversified, and the water used for irrigation is monitored to avoid fungus.

“Natural enemies” are also used, such as traps for harmful insects, botanical extracts, or, in extreme cases, substances that are permitted in organic agriculture.

Mulch is used to repel pests and prevent erosion and weeds.

The dairy station is also organic. Homeopathic remedies are used instead of antibiotics and parasiticides, and the barns have good ventilation and receive sunlight. The aim is “the animal’s welfare,” because if livestock are treated well they fall sick less frequently, said Mónica Florio, a veterinarian with the agricultural company of the state of Rio de Janeiro, PESAGRO.

The veterinarian said that in just one year, the health of the cows improved, and parasitic infections and reproductive problems were brought under control.

Production was “excellent” – between 13 and 14 litres per animal, she added. And it was not necessary to buy animal feed, because the cows are fed on grass or forage grown on the farm.

On another section of the farm, Daniel Caravalho, a researcher at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, is developing solar energy and irrigation systems based on simple technologies that use anything from bamboo to old washing machine parts.

A table with snacks and juice prepared using organic vegetables, fruit and milk is the best way to sum up the ecofarm’s success.

“Is it just ecologically correct, or is it tasty as well?” Argentine journalist Laura Chertkoff asked TerraViva, to which this journalist responded: “Ecologically correct and very tasty.”

* This story was originally published by IPS TerraViva.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (IPS) As the global population threatens to explode – from the current seven billion to over nine billion by mid-century – the sharp increase in humans not only means overcrowded cities but also increasing demands on food, water, energy and shelter, foreshadowing devastating implications for a sustainable future.

Efforts to promote sustainable development that do not address population dynamics will continue to fail. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

The 21st century is a critical period for people and the planet, with demographic and consumption trends posing tremendous challenges in a finite world, warns a new report released at the Rio+20 summit on June 21 by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Appropriately titled “Population Matters for Sustainable Development,” the report underlines the relevance of population dynamics in the sustainable development agenda “which has been lost over the past decades”.

It puts forward concrete human-centred and rights-based policies to address issues facing the world at large in the 21st century.

In an interview with TerraViva, UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin said improving the wellbeing of humanity now and into the future requires above all a genuine and immediate shift towards sustainable production and balanced consumption – the hallmark of the green economy.

“Everywhere, but especially in emerging economies, millions more people are becoming richer consumers of goods and services, thus adding to pressures on natural resources. Sustainable patterns of consumption – enabled in part by appropriate technologies – are therefore urgently needed,” he said.

Dr. Osotimehin said new global population dynamics present many challenges but also offer opportunities to secure a sustainable future. Demographic shifts, such as the trend towards living in cities, can reduce strains on the environment by reducing consumption of resources.

“Slowing population growth can have a positive impact on environmental sustainability in the long run. It will also offer nations more time to adapt to changes in the environment. However, this can occur only if women have the right, the power and the means to decide freely how many children to have and when,” he said.

The report says more than two-thirds of the governments of the 48 least developed countries (LDCs) have expressed major concerns with high population growth, high fertility and rapid urbanisation.

In order to bring the population agenda back into the sustainable development discussion, there is a need to recognise that population dynamics have a significant influence on sustainable development; efforts to promote sustainable development that do not address population dynamics have and will continue to fail; and population dynamics are not destiny.

But change is possible through a set of policies which respect human rights and freedoms and contribute to a reduction in fertility, notably access to sexual and reproductive health care, education beyond the primary level, and the empowerment of women.

Dr. Osotimehin said governments also need to integrate population trends and future projections into their development strategies and policies. “Investments that are built on – and take advantage of – demographic trends can help transform populations into rich human capital that can propel sustainable development,” he said.

“Planning for projected changes in population size for trends such as migration, ageing and urbanisation is an indispensable precondition for sustainable rural, urban and national development strategies, as well as meaningful efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, 21 Junho (TerraViva) – Apesar de a versão final da declaração da Rio+20 não incluir metas definidas para o desenvolvimento sustentável, as chamadas SDGs em inglês (Sustainable Development Goals), os países amazônicos se lançaram à missão de sair da Conferência das Nações Unidas no Rio de Janeiro com a definição de metas de desenvolvimento sustentável para a Amazônia, como o desmatamento zero para 2020.

O coordenador da Iniciativa Amazônia Viva da Rede WWF, Claudio Maretti, disse à IPS que a Organização do Tratado de Cooperação Amazônica (OTCA) tem o desafio de acordar entre os oito países amazônicos – Bolívia, Brasil, Colômbia, Equador, Guiana, Peru, Suriname e Venezuela – uma substituição às Metas do Milênio que expiram em 2015 sob o risco de a Amazônia viver um colapso ecológico.

Amazônia precisa de metas de desenvolvimento sustentável.

“O grande alerta da Amazônia está associado à utilização das riquezas de forma sustentável para evitar que entre em colapso. Para 2020, é possível termos desmatamento zero para que a Amazônia possa continuar a ser provedora de serviços para a humanidade. Ainda dá tempo”, afirmou Claudio Maretti.

Se mantida a tendência atual de desmatamento e incêndios florestais, a Amazônia terá cerca de um terço a menos de vegetação em 2030, segundo a WWF. Esse quadro pode ser ainda mais aprofundado em 50 anos, quando o maior bioma do planeta chegará, em 2080, com menos de 10% da floresta original, segundo projeções da Perspectiva Mundial sobre Diversidade Biológica (Global Biodiversity Outlook).

A Amazônia possui a maior floresta tropical úmida, representa 6% da superfície terrestre e ocupa 40% do território da América Latina e Caribe. Lá vivem 38,7 milhões de habitantes, além de 40 povos indígenas que falam quase 90 línguas diferentes.

Segundo garantiu a vice-ministra do Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento Sustentável da Colômbia, Adriana Soto, após a Rio+20, aagenda conjunta de trabalho entre os países amazônicos será aprofundada.

“Trabalhamos com os países amazônicos no marco da OTCA onde todos aprendemos as experiências vividas em cada país e como manejar a pressão de expansão agropecuária na região e os problemas de mineração ilegal, uma dos maiores ameaças que temos no território colombiano”, disse à IPS Soto.

Segundo a representante do ministério colombiano, os principais fatores de desmatamento na Amazônia colombiana, são os incêndios florestais, o corte ilegal de madeira, a criação de gado e a mineração ilegal que é “similar em complexidade” ao narcotráfico que atua na região.

“No caso colombiano, boa parte da mineração ilegal financia grupos à margem da lei. Temos uma declaração dos povos amazônicos e é possível que tenhamos modelos de gestão que estamos organizando, como uso dos produtos das florestas para que seus habitantes tenham uma alternativa diferente a estes motores de desflorestação”, ressaltou Adriana Soto.

A Consolidação Amazônica (COAMA), iniciativa colombiana que há 20 anos defende a gestão dos territórios amazônicos pelos povos indígenas defende o estabelecimento próprio de objetivos para a região amazônica de acordo com às especificidades das culturas e em respeito  aos conhecimento tradicionais dos povos da floresta.

O antropólogo Martin Von Hildebrand da Fundação Gaia Amazonas, integrante da COAMA, defende a formulação de metas consensuadas com as populações indígenas.

“Defendemos o combate à fome, maior igualdade de gênero, acesso à educação e à saúde, mas as metas devem ser definidas escutando os próprios povos indígenas”, afirmou Von Hildebrand. (TerraViva)

(FIM/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) – NGOs present at the Rio+20 conference complain that they were only consulted on the official document at the last minute, when they could no longer make a significant impact.

Representatives of WWF, Greenpeace and Oxfam criticise the final text and exclusion of NGOs from negotiations Thursday, June 21. Credit: Claudia Ciobanu/IPS

Speaking during the opening ceremony of the official segment of the Rio+20 conference June 20, when heads of state were supposed to rubber-stamp the final document presented by Brazil, a representative of NGO groups present here said that “the text is completely out of touch with reality and NGOs at Rio do not endorse this document.”

The NGO representative (identified as Waek Hamidan from Climate Action Network Europe by Brazilian media) said that the text was a failure because it did not address crucial issues such as ending support for fossil fuels and nuclear power, or taking clear steps to address high seas destruction.

He asked that, if the text remains as it was presented Tuesday, mentions of civil society being part of drafting it be removed from the introduction to the document.

NGOs present in Rio have all expressed deep disappointment with the final document, though they do not all necessarily agree with the call to strike out mentions of the text being elaborated together with civil society.

Barbara Stocking, chief executive officer at Oxfam, told TerraViva on June 22 that her organisation supports eliminating the civil society reference from the final text.

“Basically, civil society does not stand with that set of declarations,” Stocking said. “The basics are there, but there is nothing in it really that civil society has been strongly pushing for. There was no proper process of how civil society could be engaged.

“The dialogues took place just in advance of the actual high-level part of it but there has been no real means to bring that in because the actual text was closed by the time that was finished.”

But Sharon Burrow, secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation, took a different approach. “I support the ambition and the views, but my challenge is not to remove us from the text but to clarify what co-determination (co-decision) really means when we move forward,” Burrow said.

“We, civil society, trade unions, represent the people and so do politicians. They presented us with a final text on the eve of the summit, that was most frustrating. But it’s not about a word in the text, it’s about the fact that if they’re serious about co-decision, they have to tell us how we will be involved, tell us what is the timeline.”

Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International, told TerraViva that leaving civil society in the text or not is a theoretical question at this point, as no further changes will be made and the majority of civil society finds the document clearly inadequate and lacking in ambition.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) Imagine a space in which humanity can reconcile the often conflicting imperatives of population and a healthy natural environment.

Imagining sustainable development as a doughnut. Credit: Courtesy of Kate Raworth

Imagine this space shaped as a doughnut, providing a perspective on sustainable development that pursues environmental sustainability and social justice together.

Kate Raworth from Oxfam Great Britain introduced her novel research during a side event organised by Oxfam and the Expo Milano 2015 at Rio+20.

“Achieving sustainable development for nine billion people has to be high on the list of humanity’s great uncharted journeys,” Raworth told TerraViva.

“If we go over the limits of environmental ceiling there is unacceptable environmental degradation, but if we go under the floor of social boundaries, then we have unacceptable human deprivation. The space in the middle, within the boundaries, is the only just and safe space for all.”

The Expo 2015, scheduled to run three years from now in Milan, Italy, will focus on food and nutrition. Titled “Feeding the planet, energy for life”, the Expo aims at stimulating a global discussion on the challenges linked to food production and food security, safety, availability and nutrition.

“We have to make peace with the earth, and defend it so that all the peoples can have access to its land, water, forests and seeds, and biodiversity,” said renowned Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, who was invited by ActionAid, a civil society partner of Expo Milan, to give her views on equity and sustainability.

Rio+20 is a crucial summit for Earth’s future, she said, “But food security must remain on top of the agenda even after Rio.”

Anaclaudia Rossbach, director of the Interecao NGO, a Brazilian partner of the Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI) that promotes sustainable development through citizen participation, told TerraViva, “What traditionally happens is that governments take decisions top down and communities have less opportunities to participate, or if there is some space for them, it is always in a consultative way.

“If communities understand what’s possible to build in their territory, then transformations are possible. If they don’t know, if they don’t look abroad, they will be excluded from development forever.”

In July, Expo Milan will announce its financial support for the participation of civil society representatives from 10 developing countries to the upcoming international participants’ meeting Oct. 10-12. The meeting will be held every year until 2015, and convenes all the countries, institutions and organisations that are shaping the Expo 2015.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 (TerraViva) The outcome of Rio+20 was dismissed as a “complete failure” for its lack of specific targets and deadlines by Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace.

“The bottom line is that on all fundamental things on environment and climate, things are extremely dire,” said Greenpeace head Kumi Naidoo. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

Greenpeace has been one of the most vocal critics of the outcome of months of discussions on the final declaration at the Rio summit on sustainable development, which has increasingly come under fire by civil society as a sellout.

“There is a lot of spin and theatre to show that the outcome here has been a success,” Naidoo said June 21, one day before the summit officially ends.

“Are there specific benchmarks, are there specific resources (committed)?” he asked. “The reality is that there is a complete failure in that regard.”

Naidoo acknowledged that there were major disagreements among negotiating countries, but addsed that this will not be emphasised in official recaps of the summit. “They were under pressure to put on a nice face and say it was success.”

The Greenpeace head said that the full failure of the outcome should not be put entirely on Brazil, but added that the host nation should accept some blame for its efforts to secure a consensus, no matter how weak.

“Many governments have complained how hard Brazil was pushing to get any agreement at any cost,” he said, adding that the final result was a document with the lowest possible ambition. He also blamed richer nations for defending their own narrow interests.

Some U.N. officials who have been monitoring the negotiating process also said that there was pressure. One told TerraViva that many countries agree the declaration does not offer solutions to the dire crises currently faced by humanity, but were unlikely to say so publicly.

Naidoo stressed that a declaration lacking specific targets will fail to halt worsening problems like climate change, loss of biodiversity and deforestation.

“The bottom line is that on all fundamental things on environment and climate, things are extremely dire. All the signs are that time is running out. Within the context of lack of specific commitments with appropriate resources, we declare the outcome as an epic failure,” Naidoo said.