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Week Reflections on a Divided World » news and comment » on global poverty, food security and climate change Images: Bill Gunyon/Peter Armstrong From 2012 my two blogs have been merged. You can now find my articles here....Beware the boomerang effect in climate media 30/8/11 Imagine you return from holiday to be confronted with an academic study which concludes that your field of work is having the opposite effect to that intended. Then you notice that the co-author is an assistant professor at the university school whose Dean happens to be the senior member of your board of directors. Should I catch the next train home?
The paper churns through some technical social science before arriving at its killer conclusion: “public exposure to news stories discussing the impacts of climate change on other groups outside the United States is likely to amplify the partisan divide on climate mitigation policies.” The unspoken implication is that such stories are best left to gather dust. The first part of that quote is a pretty accurate description of what I do. The second part is certainly not the intended outcome. The production of OneWorld Guides and my news articles that draw on their educational content is substantially concerned with the impact of global warming on developing countries and the unequal challenge they face in adapting to it. Raising awareness in Europe and North America of the serious humanitarian consequences of our fossil fuel economics will unite all shades of the political spectrum in hastening the low carbon transition, so my conventional media thinking goes. How naive can you get, say the paper's co-authors P.Sol Hart and Erik C.Nisbet. Hart is based at the American University’s School of Communication where OneWorld non-executive director, Larry Kirkman, is Dean. "Focusing on local (US) effects and including implications for local areas," is essential, warns the study, "when discussing the impact that climate change may be having on distant populations.” The authors do concede in a roundabout way that this is almost an impossible task for any journalist. But I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. There appear to be a couple of flaws in the study, although I realise that this is a specialist academic paper outside my territory. The first is the complete silence on the ethical dimension of climate change. The authors don't mention that the world’s poorest countries are going to be the hardest hit by a phenomenon for which the richest countries, notably the US, are responsible. Many of us working in media and education are motivated by injustice. Surely the public response to injustice should be unbundled from its response to science, even in the US? My second reservation stems from the profile of the experiment that informs the research. A simulated news story about a nasty disease which may be spreading on account of climate change is presented to a sample of US citizens. One version locates the story in New York State, home of the focus group, a second version is located in the state of Georgia and a third in Southern France. Needless to say, the New York story inspires the greatest identification with the victims. But diehard Republican supporters within the sample still refuse to soften their antipathy to global warming. And the stories from more distant locations rebound by increasing their denial. But why France? Has anyone ever written stories for US media about the impact of climate change in France? And is it not true that the rocky relations between US and France disturb the neutrality appropriate for a scientific study?
I will certainly take more care in selecting subjects for OneWorld articles that we syndicate to Yahoo World News, a platform which we understand reaches the largest share of the US online news audience. I have been guilty on occasion of deliberate attempts to provoke the sceptics by choosing an inflammatory combination of topics – usually climate change and foreign aid - spiced with a mention of the threat of legal reparations for climate disasters in poor countries and small island states. A more sensible strategy might be to take advantage of the events of 2011. For example, the damaging impact of high temperatures on the US corn harvest exactly reproduces one of the biggest concerns about the future of staple maize production in Africa. More interesting still is to transpose the study’s conclusions to Africa. If our work can inspire and inform African journalists to improve their communication of the science and impact of global warming, the message of climate injustice will be amplified by its close affinity with the local audience. Any consequent political polarization between Africa and the US would at least have potential for constructive resolution, unlike the destructive divide between Republicans and Democrats analysed in this study. ****** Study warns of boomerang effects in climate change campaigns from ClimateShift at the American University School of Communication Climate Change: Country Briefings from OneWorld Guides
****** Uganda tears up UN deforestation script 29/8/11 The decision by President Yoweri Museveni to convert one quarter of Uganda’s Mabira Forest into a sugarcane plantation will bolster those environmentalists who argue that UN plans for protecting the world’s forests are fundamentally flawed.
Museveni’s National Resistance Movement enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament following elections earlier this year, the conduct of which was criticised by official African Union observers. The intended swoop on Mabira has already stirred opposition in Kampala and will also raise eyebrows beyond Uganda's borders. The country is an active participant in the embryonic UN scheme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), a central component of global efforts to fight climate change. It is less than two months since Uganda submitted its final REDD Readiness Preparation proposal, a $5 million programme to lay the groundwork for bringing the rampant rate of national deforestation under control. The document insists that it “demonstrates Uganda’s commitment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international policy regimes towards reducing emissions from deforestation.” Developing countries that deliver effective and verifiable reduction of deforestation will be rewarded with a share of long term climate change finance totalling $100 billion per annum. This has been promised by richer countries in UN climate negotiations. The broad principle of this bargain is supported by most environmentalists. But the detail is proving contentious. The fate of the Mabira Forest will reinforce concerns that forest plans fail to acknowledge the rising pressure on governments to produce more food. It also illustrates how governments make decisions over the heads of forest communities, as though the land was an empty space. “To realise justice in the forests, policymakers must turn REDD on its head and put control of the forests into local hands,” says James Mayers, co-author of a hard-hitting report published last week by the Forest Governance Learning Group.
Coordinated by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the report expresses unease that generous funding for REDD will motivate governments to manoeuvre themselves into positions of control over forest assets. History suggests this is a formula for corruption and cronyism, rather than forest protection. According to this view, REDD plans pay insufficient attention to the underlying causes of deforestation. As a result, they neglect the optimum solution of supporting communities whose livelihoods are most closely aligned with long term forest sustainability. This perspective was endorsed at the Second Regional Forum for People and Forests held in Bangkok earlier this month. In the Asia-Pacific region 450 million people live in the vicinity of forest areas. “Two decades of work has shown conclusively that a policy and legislative framework that allows local communities to manage forest resources has not only resulted in regeneration of forests, watersheds, flora and fauna but also that millions can be pulled out of poverty,” said Dr Yam Malla, Executive Director of The Center for People and Forests. In Uganda’s Mabira Forest, the national forest department and non-governmental organisations have been working with forest communities to help them build sustainable livelihoods. Interest in eco-tourism has been a promising development. But such programmes have not provided the ultimate rights of tenure that could protect the future of poor households and the forest itself. President Museveni claims that his proposal will double the production of sugar, meeting the rising demand of Uganda’s growing population. Uganda’s REDD plan concedes that “the major causes of deforestation and forest degradation relate to the increasing agrarian human population.” But it fails to tackle the contradiction between stemming pressures on forest land whilst simultaneously achieving the country’s demanding goals for food production. Uganda is not alone in this predicament. UN negotiators meeting in Bonn in June were told that sixteen out of twenty prospective REDD countries cited agriculture as the primary driver of deforestation. The recent IIED report warns that “at national and international level there is a clash of needs between forests and food..... we must include farming in REDD.” An analysis of the Ugandan REDD plan published in June by the environmental watchdog organisation, Global Witness, focused on the signs that different branches of government are going their separate ways. With providential accuracy, its report warned that recent history in Uganda “undermines belief in the degree to which statements made within the (forests plan) actually reflect ongoing processes on the ground, or that other interventions will not be undermined by Presidential decrees.” Nevertheless, the fate of the Mabira Forest is not a foregone conclusion. There is likely to be strong public opposition to the government’s plans, bolstered by knowledge that President Museveni backed down after protests against similar proposals that he made in 2007. On the broader question of global deforestation, the IIED report recognises that, for all its faults, REDD merits persistence. “REDD is far from being a lost cause – it remains forestry’s best chance ever,” it says. ****** Mabira Petition to President Museveni from National Association of Professional Environmentalists Plans to protect forests could do more harm than good unless power is in local hands and Justice in the Forests a film about the Mabira Forest campaign in 2007, from International Institute for Environment and Development OneWorld Tropical Forests Guide
****** USAID programme charged with seed theft in India 16/8/11 A genetically-modified food project funded by the US Agency for International Development faces legal action for bio-piracy offences. The National Biodiversity Authority of India has published its decision to allow the case to proceed.
Such an oversight would contravene India’s Biological Diversity Act which regulates access to natural resources and ensures that local communities benefit from any commercial exploitation. Monsanto, the giant US biotechnology company which leads the world in development of genetically-modified crops, owns 26% of Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds, the company responsible for the commercial marketing of Bt Brinjal. The charges, which have been denied by both Mahyco and Monsanto, will fuel claims by anti-GM food campaigners that USAID acts as an agent of the US biotechnology industry, embedding its products into developing countries with funds earmarked for hunger reduction. The development of Bt Brinjal emerged through the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II, a consortium led by Cornell University and funded by USAID. One of the published aims of the project is the “commercialization of bio-engineered crops as a complement to traditional and organic agricultural approaches.”
Earlier this year, USAID chief, Dr. Rajiv Shah, announced new partnerships with Monsanto and 16 other global agribusiness corporations. Speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos in January, he said: “USAID is committed to creating new public-private partnerships in Feed the Future focus countries to advance their national investment plans.” Monsanto’s latest move in India is an application for permission to access varieties of Indian onions with the intention of creating a commercial hybrid. Clearance will be awarded if the National Biodiversity Authority receives no official objections from relevant state bodies by the end of August. Few subjects could be more sensitive for the new chair of the Authority, Dr Balakrishna Pisupati, who is due to start work this week. Every Indian household is intimately acquainted with the characteristics of local onion varieties. “No fresh application for accessing India's biological resources must be entertained from any agency being investigated for biopiracy,” is the verdict in a statement released by leaders of the Environment Support Group, an Indian NGO which closely monitors the implementation of biodiversity laws. ****** NGO alleges biopiracy by Monsanto’s Indian subsidiary from Spicy IP OneWorld India briefings OneWorld Food Security Guide
****** Anxious Africa awaits fallout from US downgrade 8/8/11 Recent years of encouraging economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa could unravel in the aftermath of the US credit rating downgrade. A flagging world economy might drag down commodity prices, dismantling the foundation of Africa’s recovery.
Copperbelt communities in Zambia, coffee farmers in Ethiopia and the uranium miners of Niger will be amongst those across the continent whose prospects may be at the mercy of commodity markets over coming months. Governments in these countries will also be nervous of their dependence on foreign aid for a significant share of their national budgets. This is another revenue source at risk as economies in North America and Western Europe tighten their belts. “With an economy heavily reliant on copper mining, the looming recession might threaten Zambia’s economic growth prospects,” said Malcolm Jhala, a Zambian financial consultant based in London. “The government has not done enough to provide us with a safe landing in the event that the copper bubble bursts,” he said in a video blog. Major oil economies such as Nigeria and Angola will be equally concerned about weak oil prices evident towards the end of last week. A fall in the value of the dollar would compound the exposure. In 2010, dollar-priced oil revenues contributed 89% of Nigeria’s exports. Countries exporting precious metals have reacted more positively to recent developments. The traditional flight to safety for investors has boosted the price of gold to a record high of just under $1700 per ounce. “The division being witnessed in the US Congress over the debt ceiling is bringing huge dividend to Ghana,” wrote Edward Nyarko in the Daily Guide. Gold is Ghana’s second largest export after cocoa. Observers in Botswana are more wary about the country's diamond resources. But the Weekend Post was reassured by an expert from De Beers. “Whatever might happen, there is robust consumption of our goods,” said Tom Tweedy in Johannesburg. The multilateral development banks appear to be mounting a joint strategy of promoting Africa as the potential beneficiary of the crisis, a haven for investors fed up with flaccid management of the established economies. Speaking in Washington at the 2011 World Congress of the Society for International Development, the World Bank’s President, Robert B. Zoellick, said: “there are great opportunities but they have to be seized and we have to figure out how developed and emerging markets work together in a different way than they did in the past.”
A planned $500 million Zambian bond could be the perfect test of the appetite of international investors for African fare. Standard and Poor’s, the rating agency responsible for the controversial US downgrade, took the opposite view of Zambia in March, upgrading the country’s credit rating to B+. Although the bond has no set date for launch and its rating is below the a key threshold for safer investments, the B+ rating is sufficient for Zambia to contemplate entry into commercial markets, a move inconceivable until very recently. For three decades following the 1970s, Africa’s sovereign states were forced to beg for relief from excessive debts loaded on them by the old economies in Europe and North America. Now the phrase “sovereign debt crisis” has performed a summersault. One benefit of the narrowing gap between global economies will be the introduction of fresh African metaphors into the dry business of economic commentary. In describing the importance of movements between the Ghanaian currency and the US dollar, Edward Nyarko writes: “when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” ****** Zambia's Economy Poised To Take A Beating As Recession Looms from The Gongstar on YouTube OneWorld Globalisation Guide
****** Madagascar at mercy of neo-colonial fishing plunder 25/7/11 A UN human rights mission to Madagascar has alleged that European and Asian exploitation of the island’s fishing grounds is comparable to the pillage of African resources by 19th century imperialists.
The UN expert examined why food insecurity affects 68% of people living in the south of the island, a region largely dependent on marine livelihoods because agriculture is unviable. “Madagascar today has one of the highest levels of child malnutrition in the world, with levels comparable to those of Afghanistan or Yemen,” warned De Schutter. His report explains that 60,000 traditional fisherfolk find themselves in an unequal contest with foreign industrial fishing vessels. The fish are disappearing fast and a vital source of protein in the local diet is in decline. The UN Special Rapporteur is critical of the European Union for the excessive profits squeezed out of its fishing agreements with Madagascar. He estimates that the country receives just 125 euros for each ton of catch, which the ship-owners can sell for 1,000 euros. “This reflects the unequal resources of the parties to the fishing negotiations,” his report says. The winners are tuna processing interests from Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. The alarmist sentiment of the UN Mission echoes the contents of a scientific paper published in May by the journal, Marine Policy under the title: “Unreported fishing, hungry people and political turmoil: the recipe for a food security crisis in Madagascar?” It explores in depth the sustainability of current fishing practices in the island’s waters.
Researched by the Sea Around Us Project, a scientific collaboration between the University of British Columbia and the Pew Environment Group, the paper lays out its case that consistent under-reporting of fish catches has misled the government into over-generous agreements with foreign interests. In addition, the current fragile current state of Madagascar’s governance is an open invitation to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The scientists point in particular to the insatiable demand for shark fin in the markets of Singapore and Hong Kong. “A number of known illegal vessels, which previously targeted Patagonian toothfish in the Southern Ocean, have been reported to have converted to shark fishing,” the paper asserts. Last September, a Taiwan-registered long-line fishing boat was apprehended for illegal activity by one of Madagascar’s patrol vessels. Over 3 tons of shark fins were discovered on board, corresponding to 65 tons of shark. This was a rare success for the island authorities, responsible for over 5,000 kilometres of coastline. “The monitoring and enforcement system in Madagascar is indeed only composed of 3 monitoring vessels, 8 speedboats, 18 inspectors and 22 observers,” laments the author of the scientific paper. “One cannot possibly monitor 1 million square kilometres with half a dozen ships,” said Olivier De Schutter. He called on international donors to strengthen Madagascar’s enforcement capacity, for the sake of sustainability of the fishing grounds and the population's fight against hunger. The current global food security controversy known as “land-grabbing” was sparked in Madagascar in 2008. The South Korean company, Daewoo, came close to acquiring almost half of the country’s arable land at a knockdown price, potentially overriding the rights of local people. Now it seems possible that the same country may coin the phrase “sea-grabbing”. ****** Madagascar’s hungry population is taken hostage from Olivier De Schutter OneWorld Food Security Guide Climate Change in Madagascar briefing
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