RÍO DE JANEIRO, 22 jun (TerraViva)  El consumo excesivo y la obesidad, sobre todo en los países industrializados, amenazan no solo la salud de los individuos, sino también la misma sostenibilidad dela Tierra, alerta un estudio presentado en la conferencia Río+20.

La investigación elaborada porla Escuelade Higiene y Medicina Tropical de Londres (LSHTM, por sus siglas en inglés), y titulada “El peso de las naciones: Una estimación de la biomasa humana adulta”, confirma que la población de Estados Unidos es la que presenta mayor sobrepeso del planeta.

De hecho, para que la población mundial tenga el mismo índice de biomasa entre personas de la misma edad que Estados Unidos, debería incrementarse en 58 millones de toneladas, lo que equivale a 935 millones de personas.

El aumento de la biomasa mundial por obesidad incrementa a su vez las exigencias de energía en 261 kilocalorías al día por adulto, lo que equivale a los requisitos de 473 millones de adultos.

El estudio, presentado este viernes 22 al cierre dela Conferenciade las Naciones Unidas sobre el Desarrollo Sostenible, conocida como Río+20, advierte que la energía necesaria para mantener la biomasa creada por la obesidad agrava los problemas ecológicos causados por el aumento poblacional.

Los investigadores calcularon la energía alimentaria requerida para sostener la biomasa usando una fórmula y datos dela Organizaciónde las Naciones Unidas parala Alimentaciónyla Agricultura(FAO).

Ian Roberts, profesor de epidemiología y salud pública enla LSHTMy autor del estudio, alertó que la obesidad es una amenaza tan grande para el ambiente como la superpoblación.

“La gente tiende a pensar que la mayor amenaza para el ambiente es la creciente población en los países en desarrollo. Pero esta medición de la biomasa es más relevante”, dijo Roberts.

“Al considerar cuántas personas puede sostener el mundo, la pregunta no es cuántas bocas hay que alimentar, sino cuánta carne hay que alimentar”, añadió.

El estudio estima el promedio de biomasa mundial en62 kilogramos. Los estadounidenses y canadienses en conjunto pesan un promedio de 80,7 kilos, y los europeos un promedio de 70,1 kilos.

La investigación además señala que, a pesar de solo constituir cinco por ciento de la población mundial, Estados Unidos responde por casi un tercio del peso mundial debido a la obesidad.

En contraste, Asia es hogar de 61 por ciento de la población mundial, pero solo representa 13 por ciento del peso de los habitantes del planeta.

“La creciente biomasa tendrá importante consecuencias para las exigencias mundiales de recursos, incluyendo la demanda de alimentos y la huella ecológica general de nuestras especies”, alertó Roberts.

El estudio sugiere que la tendencia mundial al aumento de la biomasa tendrá serias implicaciones en los recursos. El incremento del índice de biomasa recargaría las fuentes de energía del planeta en forma equivalente a la que lo harían 473 millones de personas.

La mayor demanda de comida disparará los precios de los alimentos. Dado el mayor poder de compra de los países industrializados, que también tienen un mayor promedio de biomasa, los peores efectos del aumento de precios los sufrirán los pobres del mundo.

El informe lamenta que el concepto de biomasa rara vez se aplique a la especie humana, aunque “las implicaciones ecológicas de la creciente biomasa son significativas y deben ser tomadas en cuenta a la hora de evaluar las futuras tendencias y la planificación de los futuros desafíos de recursos”.

Roberts señaló: “Tratar la gordura de la población podría ser fundamental para la seguridad alimentaria mundial y la sostenibilidad ecológica”.

El científico señaló que las personas hoy no necesariamente comen más que hace 50 años. El principal problema, dijo, es que “no movemos nuestros cuerpos tanto, pero estamos biológicamente programados para comer”.

Para combatir esta tendencia a la inmovilidad, sugirió que los urbanistas conciban las ciudades de manera de hacerlas más fáciles de transitar a pie o en bicicleta.

“Todos aceptan que el aumento poblacional amenaza la sostenibilidad ambiental. Nuestro estudio muestra que la gordura de la población es también una gran amenaza”, dijo Roberts.

“A menos que atendamos tanto el aumento de la población como la gordura, nuestras chances son escasas”, alertó. (FIN/2012)

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, 21 de junho (TerraViva) Chewang Norphel é um herói improvável. Ele é um homem modesto, pequeno, quieto e pensativo, que não checa sua imagem cada vez que passa por um espelho. Há alguns anos, seus vizinhos até pensaram que ele era louco.

Agora, Norphel, um engenheiro civil  indiano que trabalha para o departamento de Desenvolvimento Rural (DRD) de Jammu Kashmir, em Ladakh, no Himalaia, é cumprimentado pelas mesmas pessoas que não o consideravam como um benfeitor. Durante a sua longa carreira no DRD, Norphel veio a perceber que a água que flui a partir das geleiras do Himalaia para baixo das montanhas estava mudando seus padrões, tornando-se erráticos. Em uma região onde quase nunca chove, e onde a população depende 100% da água das geleiras para irrigar as plantações de trigo e legumes, estes novos padrões irregulares de fluxo eram dramáticos.

O lago glacial Tso Rolpa, na região central do Nepal, tem crescido devido ao rápido derretimento da neve com o aquecimento global. Foto: Kishor Rimal/IPS

No final da década de 1980, Norphel projetou geleiras artificiais nos lados das montanhas perto de Ladakh, que seriam expostas à luz solar direta. Tanques colocados ao lado dos leitos dos rios, ligados a eles por canais, serviriam como reservatórios de água doce durante a primavera e o verão, e em seguida, congelariam durante o inverno, para serem liberados novamente quando necessário. A princípio, os vizinhos pensaram que os engenheiros haviam enlouquecido.

No entanto, quando a primavera e o verão chegaram e os reservatórios derretidos  forneceram um fluxo constante de água para a agricultura, a genialidade de Norphel foi finalmente reconhecida. Agora ele é conhecido como “o homem do gelo”, e saudado com gratidão pelos agricultores locais. A história de Norphel é um dos exemplos mais vívidos de como as pessoas estão lidando com as mudanças climáticas no Himalaia, e ao mesmo tempo, tornando possível o desenvolvimento sustentável.

A história é contada no documentário Revealed: Himalayan Meltdown, que foi apresentado no dia 20, no Rio de Janeiro, como um evento paralelo à Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentável, a Rio+20. “Estou feliz que minha ideia foi aceita pelas pessoas, e está servindo para ajudá-los agora”, Norphel afirma no filme. A mudança climática e o aquecimento global causados pelo homem estão colocando em risco as vidas de milhões de pessoas no Paquistão, Índia, Butão, Nepal, Bangladesh e China – pessoas que não emitem quase nenhum gás de efeito estufa, e não pode pagar por soluções caras.

Os impactos do derretimento do Himalaia são múltiplos. Embora os campos de trigo de Ladakh sofram com os fluxos erráticos de água glacial na primavera e verão, outras regiões são confrontadas com a possibilidade de que o derretimento provoque uma enchente devastadora. Este é o caso de um novo lago chamado Thortormi no reino do Butão, na encosta sul da Montanha Table, perto da fronteira com o Tibete. Ele é formado a partir de água que flui para baixo a partir do derretimento da geleira Thortormi, que até alguns meses atrás foi mantida no lugar apenas por uma represa de moraina, um material constituído por restos de rochas e lama.

As populações locais temem que o lago recém-nascido extravase seus limites, destruindo a moraina, e provocando o que os cientistas chamam de enchentes por explosão de lago glacial, ou GLOF na sigla em inglês, que são tsunamis mortíferos que fluem montanha abaixo. Um tsunami desse tipo já aconteceu em 1994, matando pelo menos 21 pessoas e destruindo plantações e aldeias. Com o apoio técnico e financeiro de organizações internacionais como a Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre Mudança Climática (UNFCCC), o Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente (Pnuma) e o Fundo Global para o Meio Ambiente (GEF), entre outros, as populações locais transformaram a moraina em uma barragem adequada.

Para fazer isso, cerca de 350 moradores locais, incluindo mulheres e adolescentes, trabalharam em condições extremamente difíceis para transportar ferramentas, pedras e outros materiais de construção até a montanha, cinco mil metros acima. O documentário mostra o grupo de trabalho até os joelhos em água glacial, carregando pedras e lama para refazer a represa. O lago Thortormi é um dos 24 lagos glaciais butaneses considerados instáveis. O país tem 2.674 desses lagos glaciais. No filme, Pradeep Mool, um engenheiro do Centro Internacional para Desenvolvimento Integrado das Montanhas (ICIMOD), sediado em Katmandu, Nepal, disse que, “graças a imagens de satélite, é possível identificar as geleiras mais perigosas. Contudo, é impossível dizer quando ou onde uma catástrofe vai acontecer”. Envolverde/IPS

(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) “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.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 22 (TerraViva) A new study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) presented at Rio+20 shows that overconsumption of food and the obesity it causes, especially in the industrialised countries, threaten not only individual health but the very sustainability of our planet.

The U.S. alone accounts for almost a third of the world’s weight due to obesity. Credit: Don Hankins/CC By 2.0

The study, titled “The weight of nations: an estimation of adult human biomass”, confirms that the population of the United States is the most overweight on Earth.

If the global population had the same age-sex biomass index (BMI) as the U.S., total world biomass would increase by 58 million tonnes – equivalent to an additional 935 million people.

This increase in biomass would lead to higher energy requirements, by 261 kilocalories per day per adult, equivalent to the energy requirements of 473 million adults. Following those extrapolations, the researchers estimate that the global biomass due to obesity would increase by 434 percent.

The study, which calculated the food energy required to sustain human biomass using formulae and other data by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, warns that the energy required to sustain the biomass due to obesity exacerbates the ecological implications of a steadily rising population.

Ian Roberts, professor of epidemiology and public health at the LSHTM and author of the study, warned that obesity is as much a threat to the environment as overpopulation.

“People tend to think the main threat to the environment is the growing population in developing countries,” Roberts said. “But this measure of biomass is more relevant.

“In considering how many people the world can support, the question is not how many mouths we have to feed, but how much flesh we have to feed,” he added.

The study recalls that the energy requirement of species at each trophic level in an ecological pyramid is a function of the number of organisms and their average mass. In ecology, these factors are often considered together by estimating species biomass, the total mass of living organisms in an ecosystem.

The study estimates the average biomass globally at 62 kilogrammes. North Americans – Canadians and U.S. citizens – weigh an average of 80.7 kg. Europeans weigh an average of 70.1 kg. The study notes that despite only making up five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for almost a third of the world’s weight due to obesity.

In contrast, Asia has 61 percent of the world’s population but only 13 percent of the world’s weight due to obesity.

“Increasing biomass will have important implications for global resource requirements, including food demand, and the overall ecological footprint of our species,” Roberts warned.

The study’s scenarios suggest that global trends of increasing biomass will have important resource implications and that unchecked, increasing BMI could have the same implications for world energy requirements equivalent to 473 million people.

This increased global demand for food arising from the increase in biomass is likely to contribute to higher food prices. Given the greater purchasing power of industrialised countries, which also have higher average biomass, the worst effects of increasing food prices will most likely be experienced by the world’s poor.

The paper regrets that the concept of biomass is rarely applied to the human species, although “the ecological implications of increasing biomass are significant and ought to be taken into account when
evaluating future trends and planning for future resource challenges.”

As Roberts put it, “Tackling population fatness may be critical to world food security and ecological sustainability.”

The scientist said that people today do not necessarily eat more than 50 years ago. The main problem, he said, is that “we do not move our bodies so much but we are biologically programmed to eat.” To offset this tendency to immobility, he suggested that urban planners conceive cities were it is easier to walk and cycle.

“Everyone accepts that population growth threatens global environmental sustainability – our study shows that population fatness is also a major threat,” Roberts pointed out. “Unless we tackle both population and fatness, our chances are slim.”

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.”

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)

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, Jun 20 (TerraViva) Members of unions and the Landless Movement (MST) dominated the parade of nations, covering with red the Avenida Rio Branco, in the center of Rio de Janeiro, with at least 50,000 people protesting against the green economy.

The Central Workers Union (CUT) brought about 8,000 protesters, according to its national secretary of communications Rosani Bertoti, a family farmer from Xanxerê, in the west of Santa Catarina. “80 buses came only from the state of Rio de Janeiro,” he said.

Green economy is just a facade, “it solves nothing” in respect to what matters to workers: decent employment, collective bargaining rights, autonomous organization, equal wages for men and women and the end the slave labor, she declared, minimizing critics from activists who accuse the CUT of joining forces with the government.

The General Workers Union (UGT) and the Central of Workers of Brazil (CTB) also mobilized many affiliates, but the largest group was without doubt the rural workers of MST, with thousands of flags and red caps.

A new cycle of robbery is what the green economy announces and the perpetrators of environmental destruction “have first and last name,” the multinational companies such as Bunge, Monsanto, Syngenta and Shell, spoke João Pedro Stédile, one of the coordinators of the MST. “Since 1989 did not such a crowd take to the streets to say enough is enough”, a sign that “people are starting to walk with their own legs,” he concluded.

He criticized president Dilma Rousseff for offering 20 billion reais (10 billion U.S. dollars) to the International Monetary Fund “to save European banks”, instead of allocating this money to education and health of Brazilians.

Divina Rodrigues, 48 years and four children, came with another 150 peasants of Alto do Parnaiba in western Minas Gerais, where many have been living in tents for several years waiting for land reform. She herself lived for four years in one of nine camps in the region, with 30 other families. The People’s Summit is important to encourage the fight that goes on, she said.

At least six cars with loudspeakers divided auditory attention of protesters along the Avenida Rio Branco with some percussion groups, as the drumbeat of the World Movement of Women and a small percussion section of a samba school that accompanied the “tank of bread,” a miniature tank covered with flatbread, to advocate redirecting military expenditures to sustainable development projects.

The slogans and speeches repeated the condemnation of “green capitalism”, the commoditization of nature, life and women, American imperialism and transnational corporations. “The water has no owner” reflected the fears expressed in various discussions that the green economy will lead to a widespread privatization of water resources.

A group jumped on the street screaming “who does not jump is a ruralist”, protesting against the agribusiness sector that wants to relax the Forest Code, while another group repeated a typical thought of military paranoia: “In the Brazilian Amazon there is no room for foreign NGOs.”

Amid the mass of workers mobilized by unions, a wide variety of activists, nationalities and ways of manifestation colored the march organized by the People’s Summit, the gathering of civil society in the Rio+20 Conference.

The Chilean educator David Órdenes led youth from Latin American countries that are part of the Collective Cultural Diversity. Children and adolescents are mobilized in defense of common goods of nature, cultural and biological diversity threatened by neoliberalism, he explained to TerraViva.

A group of 30 activists came from El Salvador to exchange experiences with other countries and protest against the green economy that is nothing more than the “recycling of capitalism,” said Angel Ibarra, who believes in a “revolution of the people.” ALBA, Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, the Union of South American Nations, the indigenous struggles and the defense of the Cuban revolution are a sample of how the process is moving forward, though slowly, he said.

Women from various African countries, displaying placards saying “Africa is not for sale”, the Mujeres de la Matria Latinoamericana (Mumala) of Argentina, who struggle against all gender violence, a Haitian who condemned the presence of UN peacekeepers as “a military occupation to recolonise Haiti”, and a representative of the Paraguayan peasant movement speaking of “mourning” in his country for the murder of at least 18 farmers, formed the Babel of militant paraders.

Numerous public servants, asking for the valorization of their work, and university strikers emphasized the character of the union march, which added a new enemy to capitalism and imperialism: the green economy.

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 20 (TerraViva) More than 300 lawmakers have signed the Rio+20 Legislators’ Protocol to keep an eye on politicians who make promises on sustainability commitments they never keep.

Legislators' summit opens at the Tiradentes Palace, Rio de Janeiro. Julio Godoy/IPS

The Legislators’ Protocol – the highlight of the first World Summit of Legislators held ahead of the Rio+20 conference – was signed by lawmakers from 85 countries calling for political commitment to achieve economic growth, sustainability and justice and no regression on environmental law commitments.

For African lawmakers, the protocol has set the stage for battles ahead to get home governments to account for environmental commitments, support best legislative practices and integrate natural capital in national accounts.

“We have a lot of organisations putting efforts on conservation but there has been a gap because most of these efforts have not seen political legitimacy which is through pieces of legislation to support them,” said Stephen Kampyongo, a legislator and member of the Zambian Parliamentary Conservation Caucus.

“We have to reinforce our role and hold our executive government accountable for commitments they make and scrutinising the commitments of our government and ensure they are implemented.”

Co-Chair of the Zambian parliamentary caucus, Mwanda Imenda, said deforestation was a problem that needed urgent address in her country. Lawmakers have to lobby for the government to act on protecting the environment.

“This will not be easy but as the summit urged, the battle has just began and we are ready,” Imenda told TerraViva.

South Africa has enacted a raft of environmental laws, making it a model for other African countries. Presenting a paper on the case of South Africa, parliamentarian Ruth Bhengu cited South Africa’s proactive National Environmental Management Act (NEMA), which was the framework law for the environment.

An amendment to this act created the environmental Management Inspectorate known as the “Green Scorpions” under which people can be charged for crimes against the environment.

“Reported convictions of environmental criminals have increased, although we remain concerned about the incidents of rhino poaching I our protected areas,” Bhengu said.

For Byarugaba Bakunda, from Uganda, the protocol would be a rallying point for government and parliamentarians to tackle nagging environmental issues of deforestation and drought in the country.

Each of the legislators who attended the summit collected a printed pledge to which they will add their names to affirm their renewed commitment to progressive environmental legislation, poverty alleviation and ensuring effective scrutiny of public policy on environmental laws.

Andre Misiekaba, a member of the National Assembly of Suriname in the Caribbean, said the signing of the Legislators’ Protocol gave the summit a unique mandate in raising awareness about sustainable development in global parliaments.

“We have made a strong statement to our governments and we must act on what have agreed on by putting in place legislation to save our world,” said Misiekaba.

Hasan Tuluy, vice president of the World Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean, described the Legislators’ Protocol as a milestone in enacting national laws based on the Rio agenda. He urged countries to adapt new synergies between the twin goals of economic development and environmental responsibility.

SEROPÉDICA, Brasil, 20 jun (TerraViva) Una hacienda agroecológica integrada funciona como centro de experimentación para científicos y técnicos brasileños, empeñados desde hace 20 años en demostrar que es posible obtener frutos de la tierra de forma barata, eficiente y sin perjudicar el ambiente ni la salud humana.

Bautizada como “Sistema Integrado de Investigación en Producción Agroecológica” (SIPA) y más conocida como “Haciendita agroecológica KM47”, el establecimiento rural ocupa60 hectáreasen el municipio de Seropédica, a47 kilómetrosde la ciudad de Río de Janeiro.

Investigadores dela Empresa Brasileñade Estudios Agropecuarios (Embrapa) y dela Universidad FluminenseRural de Río de Janeiro, entre otras instituciones gubernamentales, realizan desde 1993 estudios de campo en agroecología en ese sitio.

La producción integra la actividad agropecuaria sin utilizar químicos sintéticos, como agrotóxicos para los vegetales ni fármacos de ese tipo para los animales.

La base del sistema es la “diversificación de cultivos” y está destinado fundamentalmente a la agricultura familiar, que en Brasil emplea a 75 por ciento de la mano de obra del campo.

“La agricultura de base ecológica busca de alguna manera reproducir las condiciones del ambiente natural, y, en un ambiente natural, lo que proporciona el equilibrio dinámico es la biodiversidad de especies”, explicó a TerraViva el ingeniero agrónomo Ernani Jardim, de Embrapa.

“Cuando se reduce esa diversidad se abre la posibilidad del desequilibrio, del surgimiento de una plaga, de una enfermedad, o de una condición ambiental que provoca el desequilibrio”, agregó.

La biodiversidad y el manejo del agua y del suelo de manera sustentable transformaron el paisaje de pastizales del pasado en un vergel de 50 especies de plantas cultivadas, como frutales, hortalizas, cereales y forrajeras, además de adobos naturales.

La hacienda, que surge como un paraíso en un área degradada como los es la “Baixada Fluminense” (Bajada Fluminense), alterna espacios preservados dela Mata Atlántica, una zona de agrofloresta y una huerta botánica.

El adobo es obtenido a partir del estiércol de las vacas que, a su vez, producen leche orgánica. Pero también se produce con vegetales. En una hectárea se consiguió un ingreso bruto por año equivalente a 30.000 dólares, explicó Alessandra Carvalho, también de Embrapa.

En tanto que para evitar plagas se enfatiza en la prevención. Se utilizan especies resistentes, se escogen las  mejores épocas de producción, se controla el agua de riego para evitar hongos y se diversifican los cultivos.

También se usan los llamados enemigos naturales, como es un cantero de cilantro, por ejemplo, que es una trampa para atraer insectos nocivos. En casos extremos, las plagas se combaten con extractos botánicos o sustancias permitidas en la agricultura orgánica.

La cobertura de residuos vegetales tiene como fin alejar hierbas invasoras y evitar la erosión del suelo.

La estación lechera también es orgánica. En vez de fármacos químicos se utiliza la homeopatía, y se mantienen los corrales con ventilación y sol. El objetivo es el “bienestar del animal”, porque al no ser maltratado se enferme menos, ejemplificó la veterinaria Mónica Florio, dela Empresade Investigación Agropecuaria del Estado de Río de Janeiro (Pesagro).

Según la médica, en solo un año se mejoró la salud de las vacas y se controlaron las infecciones parasitarias y los problemas reproductivos.

La producción fue “excelente”, al ubicarse entre 13 y14 litrospor animal. Y sin costo de ración, porque el alimento es pasto o forraje de la agrohacienda.

En otra estación, el investigador Daniel Caravalho, dela Universidad FluminenseRural de Río de Janeiro, desarrolla sistemas de energía solar e irrigación con tecnologías simples que usan desde caños de bambú hasta piezas viejas de máquinas lavarropas.

Una mesa con bocadillos, tortas y jugos preparados con hortalizas, leche y frutos orgánicos, es el mejor resumen de la agrohacienda.

“¿Es apenas ecológicamente correcto o también rico?”, pregunto a TerraViva la periodista argentina Laura Chertkoff.

“Ecológicamente correcto y muy rico”, aseguró.

(FIN/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (TerraViva) Imagine a green city, literally, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil presents itself as a perfect example. Fruit trees sandwiched between closely packed skyscrapers lining the city streets create a cool, natural and relaxing environment.

The sack farming method is used in many slums in Africa. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

The green lawns and parks within the city centre compliment the beautiful forested hills visible across a horizon of buildings. Despite the unending traffic jams, Rio can in many ways be considered an environmentally friendly city.

However, environmentalists and city managers attending the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development known as Rio+20 here say that apart from increasing tree cover within cities, a green urban future lies in good infrastructure, less pollution, affordable and sustainable housing, and better amenities to improve quality of living.

At a side event organised by the Asian Development Bank, there was consensus on the need to mobilise funding from all sectors with an aim of developing environmentally-friendly urban future.

“Many cities collect revenues from parking spaces and taxes from the private sector. Yet this is not enough because of other varied priorities. What we need is full participation of the private sector, where they should not give loans, but instead give grants,” said Arnab Roy, commissioner of the Kolkota Municipal Corporation in India.

At another event organised by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), experts cited expanding urban agriculture as a strategy to address food and nutritional security.

“One interesting observation is that in relation to tree dynamics in peri-urban areas which we’ve noticed from the agroforestry perspective is that many of these areas, particularly in the tropics, have been transformed into agroforests,” said Dennis Garrity, the former director general of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF).

“Such areas are currently producing fruits and vegetables, fuel wood, timber and other tree commodities that are in demand especially within the same urban areas,” he added.

In cities like Rio, fruit from trees growing in the streets is available for public consumption, a fact that experts at the U.N. conference said had great importance for city dwellers in terms of nutritional value.

In other cities where farmers have intensified urban farming, particularly in peri-urban regions, such tree products are a good source of income.

“It is interesting that one of these rapidly growing systems of agroforestry is the market demand for higher value products. In many cities and city environs, it is the demand that stimulates farmers to intensify tree crop production, thus creating the diversity of agroforestry systems in places where it never existed,” said the former ICRAF chief.

He cited cities in developing countries such as Nairobi, Kenya, Jakarta, Indonesia, Kampala, Uganda and many other areas where urban farming and tree cultivation is intensifying.

Other players at the event included the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture (IPSA) and Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI).

According to Alexander Müller, assistant director general of natural resource management and environment at FAO, different organisations in such a multilateral forums like Rio+20 have different issues to address ranging from food, biodiversity, and calories, among others, but all of them boil down to one issue, which is a greener environment.

“We have to find solutions that have global objectives but can be operationalised at a local reality. We also have to define new objectives with global objectives but with local realities,” said Müller.

He observed that Lagos, Nigeria, for example, is expected to grow by 400 percent in the next 40 years, bringing major challenges.

“Climate change will act as a multiplier of the already existing challenges. We must therefore ensure that we have sustainability of food security, and sound ecosystems,” said Müller.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (TerraViva) The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is putting science to work in boosting food production through a global research portfolio worth five billion dollars launched at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARDD) earlier this week.

CEO of the CGIAR Consortium Frank Rijsberman. Credit: CGIAR

Food security and sustainable agriculture have been identified as priority issues here at the Jun. 20-22 Rio+20 Summit.

New chief executive officer of the CGIAR Consortium, Frank Rijsberman, says science and the environment should be best friends to achieve a food secure future. He told TerraViva that CGIAR’s research programme targets collaboration with a diverse range of partners to ensure that research translates into results on the ground.

The research portfolio, covering a five-year period, focuses on increasing the productivity of small-scale farmers, who provide up to 80 percent of the food supply in developing countries.

An essential part of sustainable agriculture, smallholder farmers are CGIAR’s top priority because when they have access to new agricultural technologies and crop varieties resulting from research, they are able to get more out of their land, labour and livestock.

The ambitious CGIAR research agenda, Rijsberman says, aims to reduce rural poverty, and improve the food security, health and nutrition of hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people. In addition, the consortium has committed itself to ensuring sustainable management of natural resources.

Fifteen new programmes build on CGIAR’s accomplishments over the past 40 years, including research on natural resource management that has helped to conserve water, renew soil fertility, and reduce erosion and greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously increasing farmers’ yields.

Rijsberman said millions more hectares of land would be under cultivation today at the expense of primary forests and fragile environments had it not been for CGIAR’s crop improvement research.

Emphasising that investing in agricultural research was a critical first step to kick-start the innovation engine for a sustainable, food secure future, Rijsberman explained to TerraViva reporter Busani Bafana the ambitious research programme which will bring together investors and the implementers.

Q: Who are the targets of the research portfolios?

A: The portfolio of 15 CGIAR research programmes organises the publicly-funded research of the CGIAR Consortium and its partners in order to meet the challenges related to food insecurity, rural poverty, malnutrition and environmental degradation.

It targets both donors and investors in public agricultural research, by presenting to them an attractive investment portfolio, and the implementers of agricultural research, by organising and coordinating their efforts.

The research targets Africa, Asia and Latin America – with at least half of the projects in Africa.

Q: What specific research gaps does CGIAR seek to fill through the allocation of these funds?

A: Private sector research primarily focuses on the needs of commercial farmers, not the smallholders in developing countries that have different crops, different diseases and different problems accessing markets. CGIAR focuses on the needs of the 500 million smallholder farmers, mostly women, with less than two hectares of land, who provide most of the food in developing countries.

Q: Will CGIAR centres compete to access the funds?

A: The research programmes in this portfolio have been approved by our collective investors (through the CGIAR Fund Council). Funding will be allocated based on performance agreements between the CGIAR consortium and the centres leading the programmes.

Q: Can you briefly comment on the link between sustainable development and agriculture?

A: In response to the food price spikes in 2008, 2010 and 2011 (that pushed some 44 million people into poverty), farmers are trying to produce more food and they are ploughing under new and marginal lands more rapidly than even during the Green Revolution.

Unless agricultural research manages to help raise crop yields sustainably – getting more crop per ha of land – millions more hectares will be ploughed under. That is why agriculture and environment are new best friends, working together for a food secure future while safeguarding the planet.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (Terra Viva) U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon provided a frightening scenario of the not-too-distant future to over 100 world leaders present at the opening Wednesday of the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon bangs the gavel to mark the official opening of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

He singled out three dangerous trends: too much political strife, grave economic troubles, and widening social inequalities.

Ban put UNCSD, also known as Rio+20, in its grim context when he noted that 20 years ago during the 1992 Earth Summit, there were five-and-a-half billion people in the world.

“Now there are more than seven billion. And by 2030, we will need 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water just to continue to live as we do today.”

Beyond a shadow of doubt, he warned “we have entered a new era … a new geological epoch, even, where human activity is fundamentally altering the Earth’s dynamics.”

Our global footprint has overstepped our planet’s boundaries, he cautioned.

On Tuesday, delegates from 191 countries approved a blueprint for sustainable development, titled “The Future We Want,” which will eventually be endorsed by world leaders on Friday.

But the question remained, how is this blueprint to be implemented without new funds and in the absence of an institutional framework?

At a press conference earlier in the day, Ban admitted he would have preferred a more ambitious action plan for the future.

“I know that some member states hoped to have a bolder and more ambitious outcome document. I also hope that we should have a more ambitious outcome document,” he admitted.

“But you should also understand that the negotiations have been very, very difficult and very slow because of all the conflicting interests and ideas.

“Some have presented (many) far-reaching and bold actions, while some countries also had their own views and interests. So you should understand that this is the outcome of such a long and very delicate process of negotiation.”

Addressing world leaders, Ban said, “Let us follow up on Rio+20 with commitment and action. Now is the time for action.

“Let us not ask our children and grandchildren to convene a Rio+40 or Rio+60. Now is the time to rise above narrow national interests – to look beyond the vested interests of this group or that. It is time to act with broader and long-term vision. Here at Rio+20, we can seize the future we want.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, 18 junho (TerraViva) – As declarações finais da Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Meio Ambiente Humano de 1972 e a ECO-92 puseram o ser humano no centro do desenvolvimento sustentável. No entanto, até hoje, mais de 900 milhões de pessoas ainda passam fome.

Populações pobres pelo mundo afora, especialmente nas áreas rurais, são as mais atingidas pela crise de comida, climática, financeira, econômica, social e energética que o mundo enfrenta hoje.

Não podemos falar em desenvolvimento sustentável enquanto aproximadamente uma em cada sete pessoas – crianças, mulheres e homens – ficam para trás, vítimas de desnutrição. Seria uma contradição em termos.

A Fome e a pobreza extrema também excluem a possibilidade de um verdadeiro desenvolvimento sustentável porque os miseráveis precisam usar os recursos naturais disponíveis para conseguir comida. Para eles, suprir suas necessidades básicas é a principal primordial de cada dia – planejar para o futuro é um luxo que eles não têm.

Paradoxalmente, mais de 70 por cento das pessoas que passam fome no mundo dependem diretamente da agricultura, caça e pesca para sobreviver. Portanto, suas escolhas diárias ajudam a determinar como os recursos naturais do mundo são administrados.

Não podemos esperar que o agricultor pobre não corte uma árvore se essa é sua única fonte de energia; não podemos pedir para o pescador artesanal deixar de pescar durante o período do defeso se essa é a única maneira de alimentar sua família.

A fome coloca em movimento um ciclo vicioso que reduz a produtividade, aprofunda a pobreza, desacelera o desenvolvimento econômico, promove a degradação dos recursos e a violência.

A fome e a disputa por recursos naturais são fatores de conflitos que, mesmo quando são internos, tem impactos que frequentemente ultrapassam as fronteiras dos países. Então, há também uma ligação direta entre a segurança alimentar e segurança nacional e regional.

A busca da segurança alimentar pode ser o fio condutor que liga os diferentes desafios que o mundo enfrenta e ajudar a construir um futuro mais sustentável.

Na Conferência das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, a Rio + 20, temos uma oportunidade de ouro para explorar a convergência entre as agendas da segurança alimentar  e a sustentabilidade para assegurar que isso aconteça.

Ambos requerem mudanças para modelos de produção e consumo mais sustentáveis.

Para alimentar uma população mundial que superará a marca de nove bilhões de pessoas em 2050, a FAO prevê a necessidade de aumentar a produção agrícola em pelo menos 60 por cento. Para isso, precisamos produzir mais alimentos ao mesmo tempo em que conservamos o meio ambiente.

Mas mesmo com práticas mais sustentáveis, a pressão sobre nossos recursos naturais será extrema. Então, também temos que mudar a maneira que nos alimentamos, adotando dietas mais saudáveis e reduzindo o desperdício e perda de alimentos: todo ano, entre a colheita e o consumo, jogamos fora 1,3 bilhão de toneladas de alimentos.

No entanto, mesmo se aumentarmos a produção agrícola em 60 por cento até 2050, o mundo ainda terá 300 milhões de pessoas com fome daqui a quatro décadas porque, como as centenas de milhões de subnutridos hoje, eles continuarão sem os meios para ter acesso à comida que necessitam.

Para eles, a segurança alimentar não é um problema de produção insuficiente, é uma questão de acesso inadequado.

Para tirar esses milhões de pessoas da insegurança alimentar precisamos investir na criação de melhores empregos, pagar melhores salários, dar-lhes maior acesso a ativos produtivos – especialmente terra e água -  e distribuindo renda de forma mais justa e equitativa.

Precisamos trazê-los para dentro da sociedade, complementando o apoio aos pequenos agricultores com oportunidades de geração de renda, com o fortalecimento das redes de proteção social, mutirões de trabalho e programas de transferência de renda, que contribuam ao fortalecimento de circuitos locais de produção e consumo para dinamizar as economias locais.

A transição para um futuro sustentável também exige mudanças fundamentais no sistema de governança de alimentos e agricultura e uma partilha equitativa dos custos de transição e benefícios.

No passado, os mais pobres pagaram uma parcela maior dos custos de transição e receberam uma cota menor de benefícios. Este é um equilíbrio inaceitável e que precisa mudar.

Erradicar a fome e melhorar a nutrição humana, criando sistemas sustentáveis de produção e consumo de alimentos, e construir uma governança mais inclusiva e eficaz dos sistemas agrícolas e alimentares são cruciais para alcançar um mundo sustentável.

Na Rio+20, estamos numa encruzilhada. De um lado está o caminho para a degradação ambiental e o sofrimento humano; do outro está o futuro que todos queremos. A Rio +20 oferece uma oportunidade histórica que não podemos dar ao luxo de perder.

Nós sabemos como acabar com a fome e gerenciar os recursos do planeta de uma forma mais sustentável. Mas precisamos de uma vontade política mais forte para fazê-lo.

Devemos olhar para Rio +20 como o início de um caminho e não como o ponto de chegada. E essa é uma caminhada que não podemos fazer sozinhos.

Como a luta contra a fome, o desenvolvimento sustentável é uma meta a que cada um de nós deve contribuir – cidadãos, empresas, governos, movimentos sociais, ONGs e organismos regionais e internacionais. Juntos, trabalhando a partir do nível local ao nível global, podemos construir o futuro que queremos. E esse futuro precisa começar hoje. (IPS/TerraViva)

*Diretor-geral da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Agricultura e Alimentação (FAO).

Publicada originalmente no jornal Valor Econômico

(FIM/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (TerraViva) The cliché that mammoth summits like Rio+20 are “too big to succeed” can also be applied to the megacities of our day such as Rio de Janeiro: they are simply too big to become green and sustainable.

Shanties near waterways are a common sight in Manila. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

And yet that’s precisely the commitment made by the mayors of the 59 largest cities of the world, reunited in the so-called C-40 group.

At a side event during the U.N. conference on sustainable development here, the mayors of the C-40 group recalled that the largest urban centres of the world have “the potential to reduce their annual greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) by over one billion tonnes by 2030″, an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of Mexico and Canada combined.

Now the mayors want to reduce emissions by 45 percent by 2030.

Mind the word “potential” – omnipresent in these days of meek admissions of well-known, concrete catastrophic scientific data and vague promises to tackle the problems some time in the future.

Indeed, megalopolises across the world, from Rio de Janeiro to Mexico City to Tokyo to Shanghai, have vast potential to reduce pollution because they are big polluters in the first place.

A megalopolis per se constitutes a senseless waste of energy, human and otherwise. To change that, cities need to launch an improbable, most likely rather unpopular revolution that would affect practically all aspects of life, from transport to waste management to the generation and consumption of electricity, to food supply and population management.

If such a revolution is to succeed, cities must cease to lure rural populations searching for better lives in large urban centres. If such a revolution is to succeed, megalopolises would be capitals of fairytale countries, unlikely to come true in our lifetimes.

Let’s begin with transport. It is well known that transport activity is responsible for 13 percent of all anthropogenic GHGE, and for 23 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Transport’s dependency on oil is a staggering 95 percent, and it accounts for 60 percent of all oil consumption.

To reduce their share of such pollution, cities would have to offer efficient public transportation, and simultaneously discourage the use of private automobiles by substantially increasing taxation and fuel prices, and limiting access to urban centres.

Cities would have to encourage the use of bicycles, significantly boost the efficiency of combustion engines to reduce exhaust fumes, and guarantee safety for users of public transport, especially in developing countries. Today, crime is a major discouraging factor for well-to-do citizens, particularly women, to use public transport.

To call such a set of goals difficult to achieve, expensive, and most likely unpopular would be an understatement. But that’s only the beginning of the to-do list for city planners and administrations.

Although heating is not a pressing problem for tropical cities, it is in countries with cold winters. In such places, optimising the thermic isolation of buildings is a must – as it is to have more efficient air conditioning systems during hot summers.

This requires enormous private investments, which would need support by credit state agencies, and tax cuts to make them attractive to citizens. Zero-emission model buildings are already in place in some industrialised countries – but they are models, still a far cry from becoming standard housing policy.

Furthermore, cities would have to rely ever more on renewable sources – sun, wind, bio-mass. They must discourage waste, especially plastic, aluminium, and other non-degradable compounds. When waste is unavoidable, it must be recycled.

Cities would have to rely on local and regional food sources to further reduce transport emissions. And so on…

As already mentioned, the sustainable city of the future must not only discourage migration from the countryside, it would have to encourage migration back to rural areas to reduce its own population.

In other words, the sustainable city of the future would have to mirror the sustainable country of the future, one that offers opportunities to populations in rural areas, one crisscrossed more by railroads than by highways, the green, socially equitable country of our dreams.

That country is not around the corner, and it certainly won’t be made possible by such mammoth conferences such as Rio+20. That country, the citizens will have to build themselves.

RIO DE JANEIRO, 18 de junho (TerraViva) Não é mais novidade que o estado ambiental da Terra é catastrófico. Contudo, entender alguns números que descrevem esta catástrofe ainda provoca um choque – por exemplo, que 30% da biodiversidade desapareceu desde 1970, e que 60% desse declínio ocorreu nas áreas tropicais do planeta.

O biólogo inglês Jonathan Baillie no Rio de Janeiro. Julio Godoy/IPS

Jonathan Baillie, um biólogo britânico, membro da Sociedade Zoológica de Londres, e chefe do programa Edge para a conservação das espécies, tem esses números alarmantes na ponta da língua. Baillie, que está no Rio de Janeiro como consultor científico para a organização Globe de legisladores ambientais, disse ao TerraViva que esses números servem como indicador do estado dramático da situação ambiental do mundo.

P: Você pinta um quadro bastante sombrio do ambiente global.

R: A humanidade está se movendo na direção absolutamente errada. Nosso modelo de produção e consumo é insustentável, e a Terra não pode mais lidar com ele. Hoje é preciso um ano e meio para que a Terra absorva o dióxido de carbono produzido e regenere os recursos renováveis que as pessoas usam em um ano. Se continuarmos a consumir os recursos do planeta nessa mesma taxa global, em 2030 vamos precisar de dois planetas para sustentar a população mundial.

P: Que soluções o senhor vê para lidar com esta insustentabilidade?

R: Tenho medo de que apenas uma grande catástrofe, que afetasse diretamente e em massa a vida das pessoas, nos obrigaria a fazer as mudanças necessárias para acabar com este declínio. O que precisamos é ter em conta o capital natural nos sistemas nacionais de contabilidade e a utilização de tecnologias limpas, para transformar comportamentos e padrões de produção e consumo.

P: Os novos números da concentração de dióxido de carbono na atmosfera sugerem que podemos ter chegado a um ponto sem retorno.

R: Uma medida recente da concentração de CO2 no Ártico registra 400 partes por milhão. Este é um pico, um marco ruim, mas é ainda um valor pontual. Durante o ano, esse valor oscila, e chega a um ponto mais baixo. Contudo, esse número significa que a acidificação dos oceanos atinge com frequência um índice que, se permanecer constante, conduziria à destruição de ecossistemas marinhos vitais.

P: Mas não é só a biodiversidade marinha que está em risco.

R: Não, em absoluto. Mais de 20% dos mamíferos estão ameaçados de extinção. Uma parcela semelhante de invertebrados também sofre o risco de extinção. No entanto, as espécies mais ameaçadas são as de anfíbios – cerca de 32% de todas as espécies de anfíbios estão listadas como ameaçadas globalmente. Quase a metade de todas as espécies conhecidas de anfíbios estão em declínio.

P: Então, quais são as soluções que você vê como capazes de reverter essa situação preocupante?

R: É absolutamente necessário incorporar o valor do capital natural nos sistemas de contas nacionais, para levar em conta os ecossistemas e seu uso no cálculo do PIB. É absolutamente necessário usar tecnologias limpas, tais como fontes renováveis de energia, para substituir as fontes antigas e poluentes.

P: O que o senhor quer dizer por capital natural?

R: Por exemplo, estimativas aproximadas dos custos causados pelo desmatamento chegam a US$ 4,5 trilhões por ano. Tais valores, que incluem a captura de carbono pelas florestas, o valor das florestas para lazer e similares, não são levados em conta no cálculo do produto interno bruto.

P: Por tecnologias limpas o senhor quer dizer a chamada bioengenharia, para tentar reduzir a acidificação das águas oceânicas?

R: Não, em absoluto. Nós certamente precisamos tentar todas as tecnologias disponíveis, mas a manipulação artificial da química da água marinha certamente não é uma solução.

P: O senhor é pessimista sobre o futuro da Terra?

R: Eu acredito que somente a ação das gerações mais jovens pode forçar os governos a finalmente cumprirem seus próprios compromissos. As gerações mais jovens vão suportar as consequências das atuais omissões e políticas equivocadas. Por isto, elas têm que forçosamente exigir dos governos que tomem medidas na direção certa, para interromper a destruição da biodiversidade e de outros recursos naturais. Envolverde/IPS

(FIM/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (TerraViva) Giving farmers an opportunity to own plots can turn around under-utilised land and make it highly productive, according to a senior agro-forestry expert at the ongoing United Nations’ negotiations on sustainable development.

Kenyan farmer Judith Mwikali Musau has successfully introduced the use of grafted plants for crop and fruit harvesting. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

In a side event organised by the government of Japan at the Rio+20 conference in Brazil to review the Satoyama Initiative, Prof. Tony Simons, director general of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) told delegates that land ownership was an important missing link for fostering the desired green economy.

The Satoyama Initiative was launched jointly in 2010 by Japan’s Ministry of Environment and the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) in partnership with the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). Its goal was to build the relationship between human beings and nature by promoting reclamation of natural resources to change landscapes.

“Studies have shown that people with total land ownership can easily engage in sustainable farming and agroforestry, hence conserving biodiversity and other natural resources, (more) than those who are leasing it for a short period of time,” Simons said.

He cited a survey conducted by ICRAF in Kenya, where satellite images of adjudicated land and un-adjudicated land were analysed to compare the nature of investments within areas with land tenure and those without.

The 2011 survey analysed 22,000 images from different parts of the country that are viable for agricultural production.

“The findings of the study showed enormous differences between the two landscapes. Where there was land tenure, there were (more) massive investments on the ground than in places without land tenure. This means that the future green landscape lies in areas where people have land tenure,” he said.

The green economy has been held out as way to keep young people in the countryside, thus generating employment and at the same time decongesting cities.

Environmental experts at the forum observed that through sustainable use of biological resources, farmers can easily sustain biodiversity – which also promotes green economy objectives.

“This will therefore facilitate indigenous people to enjoy a stable supply of various natural benefits and as well be sure of a sustainable green future,” said the ICRAF chief.

In many parts of Africa, land is owned by communities, a fact that some research shows has a detrimental impact on the green economy.

“Legislators must put in place appropriate policies to enable individuals to own land if we have to achieve the desired green economy, and suitable landscapes,” said Simons.

Kazuki Hoshindo, advisor to the Japanese minister for environment, said that another option is to employ a strategy of public-private partnerships, to work closely with the indigenous communities.

“In Japan, for example, the private sector activities towards a green economy have been expanding, thus making very good progress. The private sector has a promising potential in technology, marketing, cost consciousness and social responsibility,” he told scientists at the Rio+20 forum.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (TerraViva) Amidst recrimination, anger and charges of “strong arm tactics”, negotiators eventually endorsed a global plan of action for sustainable development following marathon sessions lasting over six weary days.

Children displaced by drought line up to receive food in Mogadishu. The poor are hardest hit by climate change and other problems. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

A proposal for a 30-billion-dollar global fund for sustainable development – initiated by developing countries – was shot down even before it could get off the ground.

The United States and the 27-member European Union (EU) refused to approve the proposal, leaving in doubt how an ambitious blueprint for sustainable development, titled “The Future We Want,” is to be financed over the next decade.

“Without funding commitments, the Rio+20 outcome is likely to go the same way as previous documents of this nature, adopted with much fanfare and at great cost by world leaders,” Ambassador Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the United Nations, told Terra Viva.

The funding is essential for most developing countries if they are to implement the lofty aspirations expressed in the 49-page outcome document.

“If developing countries are not brought on board, the outcome document will remain a pious list of unfulfilled dreams. The future that we all want must be a future that we all can have,” said Kohona, a former chief of the U.N. Treaty Section, who has been closely monitoring negotiations both at Rio+20 and the politically-disastrous 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen.

But all is not lost, according to Martin Khor, executive director of the South Centre, a Geneva-based think tank of developing nations.

“The document is quite fair and balanced, given the current negative state of international cooperation for development,” he said.

Khor told TerraViva that at least the final document reaffirmed the Rio principles, including the common but differentiated responsibilities, which is precious for developing countries as it spells equity in sharing the costs of shifting to an environmentally friendly economy.

“Until almost the last day it seemed like some developed countries would refuse to even reaffirm what was committed at Rio 20 years ago,” Khor said.

It is a sad state of affairs, he said, that a reaffirmation of Rio, which in previous times would have been automatic, would now be considered a success of Rio+20.

“A weakness is that there is no commitment by the North for new funding or for concrete technology transfer,” he added.

However, the 132 member Group of 77 (G77) developing countries, plus China, managed to get a decision to start a U.N. General Assembly process to consider a new financial and a new technology mechanism. But it will be a tough fight to actually set these up.

“The global economic crisis has thrown a long shadow over Rio+20. Nevertheless, the G77 and China won a victory in having most of their issues accepted in the document,” Khor said.

Secretary-General of the Rio+20 summit Sha Zukang admitted the hurdles that had to be cleared before reaching final agreement.

“We think the text contains a lot of action. And, if this action is implemented, and if follow-up measures are taken, it will indeed make a tremendous difference in generating positive global change.”

Of course, he added, this document is the product of intensive protracted negotiations. And therefore, it is a compromise text.

“Like all negotiations, there will be some countries that feel the text could be more ambitious. Or, others who feel their own proposals could be better reflected. While still others might prefer to have their own language. But, let’s be clear: multilateral negotiations require give and take.”

Meena Raman, a negotiation expert at the Malaysia-based Third World Network said, “The outcome document does not have the ambition needed to save the planet or the poor but it has not taken us backwards, particularly given our initial fears that Rio+20 might be Rio-40.”

“This minimal outcome signals a lack of political courage, leadership and commitment from developed countries, and those campaigning for the future we really want will have to redouble our efforts.”

Ambassador Kohona said, “It is not going to be clever to disguise disinclination with clever terminology. We all know how donor countries mobilised massive funds at very short notice to deal with the financial crisis for which they themselves were responsible.”

“The environment may be approaching a much more serious crisis level,” he warned.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 18 (TerraViva) As stated in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and the 1992 Earth Summit, human beings are at the centre of sustainable development.

José Graziano da Silva. Credit: FAO/Alessandra Benedetti

However, even today, over 900 million people still suffer from hunger. Poor populations worldwide, especially in rural areas, are among those most vulnerable to the food, climate, financial, economic, social and energy crises and threats the world faces today.

We cannot call development sustainable while this situation persists, while nearly one out of every seven men, women and children are left behind, victims of undernourishment. It would be a contradiction in terms.

Hunger and extreme poverty also exclude the possibility of sustainable development because the hungry and extremely poor need to make use of the resources they have at hand in whatever way they can to make ends meet. For people who are chronically hungry and malnourished, meeting their immediate needs is their paramount concern – planning for the future is often a luxury they cannot afford.

Paradoxically, over 70 percent of the world’s hungry people depend on agriculture, fisheries and forestry for at least part of their livelihoods, so their daily choices also help determine how the world’s natural resources are managed.

We cannot expect a poor farmer not to chop down a tree for fuel if he doesn’t have another source of energy; we cannot ask an artisanal fisherman not to fish during spawning time if that’s the only way to feed his family.

Hunger puts in motion a vicious cycle of reduced productivity, deepening poverty, slow economic development, resource degradation and violence. Hunger and natural resources are increasingly a factor of internal conflicts and conflicts between nations. Even when they are internal, their impacts frequently surpass the borders of countries. So, there is also a direct link between food security and security.

The quest for food security can be the common thread that links the different challenges we face and helps build a sustainable future. At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) we have the golden opportunity to explore the convergence between the agendas of food security and sustainability to ensure that happens.

Both require changes towards more sustainable production and consumption models. To feed a growing population that is expected to top the nine billion mark in 2050, FAO projects the need to increase agricultural output by at least 60 percent in the next decades. To do so, we must save and grow – increasing agricultural production while preserving the environment.

But even then the pressure on our natural resources will be extreme. So we must also change the way we eat and find ways to feed the world without the need to produce as much.

We can do this by changing to healthier diets in the richer segments of our population and by diminishing the food loss and waste that exist in industrialised and developing countries, and that make us throw away 1.3 billion tonnes of food every year, between production and consumption.

However, even if we do increase agricultural output by 60 percent, the world would still have 300 million people hungry in 2050 because, like the hundreds of millions today, they would still lack the means to access the food they need. For them, food security is not an issue of insufficient production; it is an issue of inadequate access.

The only way to ensure their food security is by creating decent jobs, paying better wages, giving them more access to productive assets- specially land and water- and distributing income in a more equitable way.

We must bring them into society, complementing support to smallholders and income generation opportunities with the strengthening of safety nets, cash for work and cash transfer programmes that contribute to strengthening of local production and consumption circuits, in an effort that must contribute to our sustainable development goals.

The transition to a sustainable future also requires fundamental changes in the governance of food and agriculture and an equitable sharing of the transition costs and benefits. In the past, the poorer have paid a greater share of transition costs and received a smaller share of benefits.

This is an unacceptable balance and one that needs to change. The speed of change should also be our concern, so that the vulnerable population can adapt and be part of the changes instead of widening the gaps that exist today.

Eradicating hunger and improving human nutrition, creating sustainable food consumption and production systems, and building more inclusive and effective governance of agricultural and food systems are at the heart of achieving a sustainable world.

As world leaders meet for Rio+20, we are at a crossroads. In one direction is the path to further environmental degradation and human suffering; in the other direction lies the future we all want. The Rio summit offers a historic opportunity we cannot afford to miss.

We know how to end hunger and manage the earth’s resources in a more sustainable way. But we need a stronger political will to do it.

We should look to Rio+20 as the beginning of a new process and not the finish line. And it’s a path that we cannot travel alone.

Sustainable development, as is the case of ending hunger, is a goal to which every one of us must contribute – citizens, companies, governments, social movements, civil society, non-governmental organisations and regional and international bodies and institutions.

Together, working from the local to the global level, we can build the future we want. And this future needs to start today.

*José Graziano da Silva is Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO).

RIO DE JANEIRO, 17 junho (TerraViva) – Sistemas integrados de paisagens que promovam mais a cooperação do que a competição podem acabar com conflitos globais sobre água, energia e uso do solo decorrentes da forma como o mundo produz alimentos, diz um novo estudo global.

“Hoje, o mundo está preso em um ciclo vicioso que envolve agricultores, governos, empresas e comunidades na busca de soluções estritamente definidas de curto prazo para os conflitos relacionados com alimentos, energia e água, na medida em que surgem”, disse Sara Scherr, uma das principais autoras do relatório, Paisagens para Pessoas, Alimentos e Natureza: Uma Visão e a Evidência, lançado em Washington esta semana.

A autora destacou que abordagens míopes de gestão de crise para a produção de alimentos fazem com que muitas vezes a solução de um problema agrave algum outro problema, por causa do ambiente complexo e mutável em que os alimentos são produzidos atualmente.

Países em desenvolvimento terão que aumentar em 100% sua produção de alimentos para alimentar dois bilhões de bocas adicionais até 2050. Crédito: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Com uma queda prevista na produção agrícola e na disponibilidade de água como resultado da mudança climática, os países em desenvolvimento em particular terão de aumentar sua produção de alimentos em 100% para alimentar dois bilhões de novas bocas em 2050.

“Paisagem integral” é um termo abrangente que se refere a uma grande coleção de abordagens para a gestão da terra e da água, que usam negociações multissetoriais entre as partes interessadas para aumentar a provisão de alimentos, serviços dos ecossistemas e bem-estar social, ao invés das trocas tradicionais de “ganha-perde” entre as partes.

De acordo com uma coalizão global recém-formada por organismos multilaterais de pesquisa e defensoria, conhecida como Iniciativa de Paisagens para Pessoas, Alimentos e Natureza, uma  abordagem assim também ajuda a restaurar terras e recursos hídricos degradados.

A coalizão identificou mais de 300 iniciativas organizadas por paisagens onde alianças foram estabelecidas entre agricultores, fazendeiros, pastores, operadores de turismo, proprietários florestais, gerentes de conservação e empresas privadas.

Dados de 23 iniciativas de paisagem descritos no estudo mostram grandes impactos na produção agrícola, melhorias nos ecossistemas e benefícios para residências e comunidades na Costa Rica, Índia, Quênia, China e África.

Scherr, que também é presidente e CEO da Ecoagriculture Partners, uma coorganizadora da Iniciativa de Paisagens para Pessoas, Alimentos e Natureza, explicou ao TerraViva que o estudo foi desenvolvido a partir de uma revisão global de mais de um ano de sistemas de paisagem na América Latina, África e Ásia.

O estudo em curso também vai rever os sistemas nos Estados Unidos, Austrália e Europa. Ao defender a intensificação das abordagens de paisagem integral para acabar com os conflitos sobre água, energia e terra, Scherr destacou que o sistema tem potencial para permitir soluções criativas em disputas agrárias.

“Acredito que esta abordagem é particularmente relevante em áreas onde há questões agrárias delicadas, já que oferece um espaço para desenvolver soluções mais criativas que abordam as necessidades de vários usuários. Em áreas de governança muito pobre, a abordagem pode não funcionar bem, exceto no nível local “, observou Scherr.

Stephen Muchiri, diretor executivo da Federação dos Agricultores da África Oriental, ressaltou que a abordagem de paisagem integral tentou derrubar as cercas – em alguns casos, tanto no sentido literal como no figurado – que dividem as terras e os grupos que controlam a terra e a água.

No entanto, Scherr afirmou ao TerraViva que os mecanismos atuais de investimento, as políticas nacionais do setor e as políticas de posse da terra não apoiam soluções intersetoriais negociadas entre as partes interessadas, e muitas vezes atrapalham o caminho da ação.

“Nosso Chamado à Ação e nossa estratégia para a Iniciativa são mobilizar diretamente novos mecanismos de financiamento, políticas nacionais de apoio, o envolvimento das empresas em iniciativas de paisagem, e apoio técnico e de pesquisa para gerar resultados de paisagem integral”, explicou.

“Precisamos de uma estratégia integrada para a terra e a água que incorpore totalmente a gama de valores desses recursos para a segurança alimentar, energia, água, biodiversidade, mudança climática, e a abordagem de paisagem integral oferece um quadro estratégico para a discussão e para o desenvolvimento de planos de ação”, observou.

Falando sobre o lançamento do sistema, Achim Steiner, diretor executivo do Programa das Nações Unidas para o Meio Ambiente (Pnuma), afirmou que o mundo tem um apetite voraz por alimentos, água e energia, e alertou que um foco estreito em soluções específicas para o setor poderão em última análise levar ao desastre. “Não devemos perder a oportunidade da Rio+20 para estabelecer amplas abordagens integradas que atendam múltiplos interesses”, enfatizou. (FIM/2012)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 17 (TerraViva) If global leaders gathering next week for the Rio+20 conference are under immense pressure to deliver on the 1992 Earth Summit commitments, that pressure has just been doubled by parliaments taking out the environmental accountability whip.

John Gummer, (now Lord Deben), President of the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE). Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

In the words of one British legislator, Barry Gardiner, “we want governments to keep their feet in the fire”.

John Gummer, (now Lord Deben), president of the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE), agreed.

Gummer told TerraViva on the sidelines of the first international conference of legislators underway in Rio, Brazil: “International conferences have always been meetings of ministers and chief ministers, but in the whole issue of the environment it has become increasingly true that it is the parliament and legislation organisation making decisions and pushing the agenda forward.”

Gummer said parliamentarians should make governments accountable for promises they made by signing up to international environment agreements. But parliamentarians have been kept out of the loop so that governments have got away with murder when it comes to acting on environmental issues.

“Governments have often signed up to agreements but many times do not do what they promised,” said Gummer.

Commitments to environmental agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol have varied from proaction to inaction at the expense of citizens, now more vulnerable than ever to poverty and climate change.

If governments have failed to deliver on international green agreements, where does that leave the lawmakers?

“Things are done one by one, and we have started by getting governments to realise how important these environmental issues were and Rio in 1992 itself did that over time… and Rio+10 summed up that we have not done as much as we ought to have done. Rio+20 is the moment in which we move the big stage forward and say we can do a great deal more,” Gummer told TerraViva.

Asked about what form of pressure could be exerted on governments to act, Gummer said parliaments were powerful instruments in democracies if the elected representatives did their job properly.

He cited the examples of Mexico and Britain, which have passed progressive climate change legislation. The Chinese People’s Assembly has also piled pressure on its government to implement green commitments.

“We are seeing this big change taking place and what is happening in Rio+20 is to consolidate and make sure we work together and get the best practises. GLOBE is the beginning of a powerful movement throughout the world. Legislators represent people and it is the people who are being destroyed by climate change and other assaults on the environment,” he said.

A major outcome of the four-day global summit, which has attracted 300 speakers of Parliaments, presidents of Congresses and Senates and senior legislators from all over the world, is the Rio+20 Legislators Protocol.

The protocol negotiated during the summit is based on the objectives of strengthening the scrutiny of the work of governments, supporting national legislation to advance and share best legislative practices, and incorporating natural capital accounting into national economic models to enable legislators to better monitor the use of natural capital.
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The Rio+20 Legislators Protocol will be signed by each of delegations to uphold it and take active responsibility to press their governments to implement it. Legislators will regularly return to Rio to measure what governments have done in line with what they have committed to do.

Given that in some parts of the world, parliaments have been reduced to rubberstamps of the governments, will the protocol be enforceable?

“Yes, it is certainly enforceable in as far as the people who sign it make sure it is enforceable,” said Gummer. “Of course, some governments have very complacent parliaments but we cannot say that about the South African parliament, the British parliament and Australian parliament. What is happening in Mexico, Brazil and China and growing throughout the world is part of the democratic upsurge.

“There is no doubt the environment is something which brings people together and makes them much more active than any subject I can think of.”

GLOBE is expecting Rio+20 to enshrine the concept of natural capital to facilitate that future policies are measured not only by their effect on gross national products but also on natural capital.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 17 (TerraViva) Integrated landscape systems that promote cooperation over competition can end global conflicts over water, energy and land use stemming from how the world produces food, says a new global study.

Developing countries will have to increase their food production by 100 percent to feed an additional two billion mouths in 2050. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

“Today, the world is stuck in a vicious cycle that locks farmers, governments, companies and communities in the pursuit of short-term, narrowly defined solutions to food, energy and water conflicts as they emerge,” said Sara Scherr, one of the key authors of the report, “Landscapes for People, Food, and Nature: A Vision and the Evidence” launched in Washington this week.

Scherr said blinkered crisis management approaches to food production meant that solving one problem often worsened another because of the complex, changing environment in which food is now produced.

With a predicted drop in crop yields and water availability as a result of climate change, developing countries in particular will have to increase their food production by 100 percent to feed an additional two billion mouths in 2050.

“Whole landscape” is a umbrella term referring to a large collection of approaches to land and water management that use multi-sector, stakeholder negotiations to increase the provision of food, ecosystem services and social welfare, rather than win-lose “trade-offs” between them.

According to a newly launched global coalition of research, advocacy and multilateral organisations known as the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative, such as approach also helps restore degraded land and water resources.

The coalition identified more than 300 landscape-oriented initiatives where alliances have been built among farmers, ranchers, pastoralists, tourism operators, forest owners, conservation managers and private industry.

Data from 23 landscape initiatives outlined in the study shows major impacts in agricultural production, improved ecosystems, household and community benefits in Costa Rica, India, Kenya, China and Africa.

Scherr, also president and CEO of EcoAgriculture Partners, a co-organiser of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative, told TerraViva that the study was developed from a global review over one year of landscape systems in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The ongoing study will also review systems in United States, Australia and Europe.

While advocating for the scaling up of whole landscape approaches to ending conflicts over water, energy and land, Scherr said the system has the potential to unlock creative solutions in land disputes.

“I believe that this approach is particularly relevant in areas where there are sensitive land issues, as it provides space to develop more creative solutions that address multiple users’ needs. In areas of very poor governance, the approach may not work well except at local levels,” said Scherr.

Stephen Muchiri, chief executive officer of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, said the whole landscape approach sought to take down the fences – in some cases both literal and figurative – that divide up the land and the groups that manage land and water.

However, Scherr told TerraViva that current investment mechanisms, national sector policies, and land tenure policies did not support inter-sectoral, stakeholder-negotiated solutions and often got in the way of action.

“Our ‘Call to Action’ and our strategy for the Initiative are to directly mobilise new financing mechanisms, supportive national policies, business engagement in landscape initiatives, research and technical support to generate whole landscape outcomes,” she said.

“We need an integrated strategy for land and water that fully incorporates the range of values of these resources for food security, energy, water, biodiversity, climate change, and the whole landscape approach provides a strategic framework for discussion and for developing action plans.”

Speaking about the launch of the system, Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said the world had a voracious appetite for food, water and energy, and warned that a narrow focus on sector-specific solutions will ultimately lead to disaster.

“We must not miss the opportunity of Rio+20 to establish broad, integrated approaches that serve multiple interests,” said Steiner.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 17 (TerraViva) – When world leaders from over 100 countries wind up their three-day Rio+20 summit in Brazil next week, they will leave behind the shattered remains of a slew of proposals that never got off the ground.

The Mandava weeder, a farmers' innovation, is lightweight and easy for women to use. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

A 30-billion-dollar Global Fund for Sustainable Development? A Financial Transactions Tax? A Sustainable Development Index? A Sustainable Development Council? A Global Fund for Education? A World Environment Organisation? An Inter-governmental Body on Tax Matters?

The proposals originated from environmental activists, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), human rights groups, the U.N.’s NGO Committee on Financing for Development and a High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability.

After continued stalemate – over issues relating mostly to financing and technology transfers – the 193-member Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) failed to reach agreement Friday on a blueprint for a green economy and sustainable development worldwide.

A consolidated document produced by Brazil, in its capacity as president of the summit (also known as the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development), is likely to be the final action plan titled “The Future We Want” to be endorsed by world leaders when they arrive in Rio Jun. 20.

The proposals, including the strengthening and upgrading of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi to a full-fledged U.N. agency, are conditional on General Assembly approval.

On the creation of a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also to be created by the General Assembly, the action plan warns “the development of these goals should not divert focus or effort from the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”

The target to achieve MDGs, including the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger by half, is the year 2015. The time frame for SDGs is expected to begin 2015 as an immediate follow up to MDGs.

Asked for specifics, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters, “It’s very difficult for me to say anything which may give the impression that I am prejudging any future decision by member states.

“We have eight MDGs, and whether it will be five, seven, eight or 10 goals for sustainable development, that is now still under consideration,” Ban said.

“How are these SDGs to be achieved?” he asked, and pointed out that the United Nations needs institutional tools to help implement these goals.

One of the tools will be a revamped UNEP. Another would be the establishment of an intergovernmental high level political forum, building on the existing U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) to follow up on all sustainable development commitments.

The summit will recommend the first meeting of the high-level forum to be held during the 68th session of the General Assembly which begins September 2013.

There are two other new proposals in the plan of action: the creation of a capacity development mechanism, within the United Nations, for achieving SDGs and the establishment of an intergovernmental process, under the General Assembly, to propose options on an effective Sustainable Development Financing Strategy to facilitate the mobilisation of resources.

Still, the plan of action does not have any firm financial commitments or commitments to help transfer technology to the world’s developing nations.

“As a snapshot, out of 287 paragraphs, only seven begin with ‘we commit’,” said Daniel Mittler, political director of Greenpeace International.

“Voluntary” appears 16 times, while “as appropriate” – U.N. language for doing nothing – dominates with 31 entries, he said. Statistics are not everything, but these numbers show that governments overall are in the business of delaying and doing nothing in Rio, he added.

“One saving grace,” he told IPS, is the commitment to an Oceans Rescue Plan for the High Seas.

“Whether governments commit to an Oceans Rescue Plan is now a key test of whether this summit delivers anything at all,” Mittler said.

But the blueprint for sustainable development bypasses some of the recommendations made by the 22-member panel, co-chaired by South African President Jacob Zuma and Finnish President Tarja Halonen, which produced a highly ambitious report last January.

Tricia O’ Rourke of Oxfam International told IPS, “Our topline view is that (the Brazilian text) is a more streamlined text, more likely to be agreed, less likely to deliver sustainable development.”

She said it has been skillfully constructed to clear controversy and promote consensus, but even if agreed it would not reorient economic growth towards putting people and planet first.