In many ways, a rhino is an odd-looking creature. Even its name, meaning a creature with a horn on its nose, betrays its unusual appearance.
So if you had a sudden urge to put a horn on your head, not use your knees and chew on some leaves, you may be catching the spirit of World Rhino Day.
It was celebrated in Zimbabwe at the weekend and all over the world with art shows, auctions, walk-a-thons and lectures with the theme of Five Rhino Species Forever.
The effort was to raise awareness for the threats posed to the rhinoceroses hunted for their horns believed to have medicinal properties.
Rhinos can be very big, with the two largest of the five species weighing up to 2,7 tonnes and standing six feet high and up to 15 feet in length.
This makes them second only to elephants as the world’s largest land mammals. Yet in spite of their size, over short distances they can move at speeds of up to 48km per hour and can turn very sharply. You don’t want to be chased by a rhino.
Rhinos also have the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most endangered animals on earth. For over 100 years, the rhino has been subject to dedicated conservation efforts, but in spite of this, since the 1970s the world’s rhinoceros population has declined by over 90%.
Agreeably poor performances by African countries could be threatening the survival of wild rhinos, tigers and elephants.
Yet conservationists might not bother rescuing other species such as a giant soft-shell turtle or a pygmy three-toed sloth because these animals don’t provide any clear benefits to humans. As Zimbabwe commemorated Rhino Day, I wondered how we should decide which endangered animal species to focus on saving?
First, the usual culprits - habitat destruction, pollution, hunting, and climate change.
There’s another problem: unlike cuddly or “charismatic” endangered animals like tigers, the African painted dog, pangolin - or even the appetite-suppressing hoodia cactus, which has obvious medicinal uses - these endangered species are dangling precariously close to extinction because of the simple fact that they don’t offer humans any clear benefits. In many cases, people don’t care enough about these species to intervene.
So are these species worth devoting limited resources to saving?
The donor community and conservation movements are increasingly leaning towards a “what can nature do for us?” approach, where species and wild habitats are valued and prioritised according to the services they provide for people. Well, saving every single species is an “enormous undertaking”.
Yet it’s often better to save “umbrella species like tigers, elephants, and rhinos” in order to protect the habitats they share with other endangered creatures.
Scientists fear that these plants and animals are at the greatest risk of extinction because, quite simply, they don’t offer any obvious or immediate benefit to humans.
Of the world’s five species of rhino, two are found in Africa in particular Zimbabwe or southern Africa - the Black rhino and the White rhino, while the other three species are found in Asia. These are the Greater One-Horned (Indian) rhino, the Sumatran rhino and the Javan rhino. The Javan, the Sumatran and the Black rhino are all critically endangered.
There are possibly only 48 Javan rhino left, with approximately 200 Sumatran and around 4 800 Black rhino.
The Greater One-Horned (Indian) rhino is considered to be vulnerable, with just under 3 000 remaining, while the Southern White rhino is in a better position, although considered to be near threatened, with approximately 20 600.
Two sub-species are in a very grave position. There are only seven Northern White rhino left in the world and the Vietnamese sub-species of the Javan rhino is down to only four or five left in the wild.
The chief reason for the decline in their world population is that rhino horn is widely regarded in traditional Chinese medicine as being a “remedy” for a whole range of ailments including pain, fever, acne, laryngitis, mumps, herpes, epilepsy and even cancer.
Rhino horn is comprised of keratin, which is the same material as hair and fingernails.
The front horn of the two African species can reach up to four feet in length, while the Asian species have shorter horns that are rarely longer than two feet.
But extensive tests have shown that claims of medicinal properties of rhino horn are completely without foundation, yet its continued use, particularly in China and Vietnam, is pushing these animals ever closer to extinction.
As is usually the case, when something is in high demand but is not legally available, international crime syndicates move in. The result is that after drugs and weapons, the illegal trade in rhino horn is now considered to be the third biggest illegal trade industry in the world.
Poaching is now endemic. For instance, in the 255 days between January 1 and September 11, 2012, 381 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa alone - over 10 every week.
The scenario is saddening in Zimbabwe and elsewhere as well.
On the side of the rhino is the fact that international crime also attracts international law enforcement. South African law enforcers have also voiced suspicion that game farmers and reserve owners are actually killing their own rhinos and selling the horns.
When the potential rewards are so high, it is easy to understand the temptation, especially since interceptions and prosecutions are really nothing more than a tip of an iceberg and there is little real chance of ever being caught.
Given the escalation of elephant poaching in Zimbabwe and most of Africa and the increased levels of organised crime involved in the trade, it is clear that the situation is now critical.
Wildlife crime not only poses a threat to animals, but is a risk to people, territorial integrity, stability and rule of law. Regional co-operation is needed to counter the flows of illegal ivory and arms spilling across borders.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Monday, 24 September 2012
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Do birds cry at bird funerals?
Human beings are not the only creatures on the globe to ceremonially honour their dead. There have been many anecdotal reports suggesting that other animals carry out their own traditions when one of their own passes away.
This includes primates, elephants, rhinos, lions, birds, and other species which we consider intelligent. A new study found that one bird species, the Scrub Jay, has a very unique behaviour. They will summon their group together to screech over the body of a dead jay. This loud, boisterous “funeral ceremony” in which they cry over their fallen one can last for up to 30 minutes.
The research conducted by University of California (UC) Davis graduate student, Teresa Iglesias showed that the Western Scrub Jays host screeching “funerals” for up to a half-hour. Iglesias recorded the Jays’ reactions when she placed a dead Jay on the ground near the feeding tables.
When she placed the dead bird, the other birds began a series of loud, screeching calls to attract other Scrub Jays. The scrum of birds was then found to screech for up to 30 minutes.
That’s unique funeral behavior of the scrub jay, isn’t it?
This disclosure came as the world’s largest conservation forum IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) curtain closed in South Korea at the weekend with warnings that reckless development was ruining the planet's natural health, pushing thousands of species towards extinction.
Closer to home, daggers were recently drawn between Zanu PF ministers Francis Nhema (Environment) and Walter Mzembi (Tourism) over the “parcelling out” of plots in the world’s renowned Save Valley Conservancy (SVC).
Instead of dealing with the problem, the matter has turned very political, at a time the State of the natural world had been “severely compromised”, with unrestrained development, reducing biodiversity and nearly 20 000 species facing extinction.
Separated from nature, we cannot imagine ways to resolve climate change, poverty or shortages of water, food and energy resources.
Hence, the Zanu PF politburo task team set up to deal with the SVC takeover bid should come up with a workable way-out acceptable to all and sundry to ensure the survival of endangered species in the conservancy given reports of mass slaughter of wildlife.
If tiny little birds have feelings, what about endangered rhinos, elephants and many more facing danger in the unprotected conservancy and elsewhere, as a result of political considerations and infighting.
There is indeed a need for a holistic socio-economic approach to conservation efforts in Zimbabwe.
What is more is that the quadrennial IUCN conference took place against a drumbeat of scientific warnings that a mass extinction looms, as species struggle to survive in a world of depleted habitat, hunting and climate change.
At Rio+20 world summit in June, it was disclosed that out of 63 837 species the IUCN had assessed, 19 817 ran the risk of extinction.
At threat are 25% of mammals –elephants, rhinos, lions, and cheetah among others, 41% of amphibian species, 20% of plants and 13% of birds, according to the prestigious “Red List”.
Many of these species are essential for humans, providing food and work and a gene pool for better crops and new medicines.
Zimbabwe and other countries had pledged under the Millennium Development Goals to break the rate of loss in species by 2010, but fell badly short of the mark. After this failure, it is expected that the country should set a “strategic plan for biodiversity” under which the country should vow to prevent the extinction of “most known species”.
The country should actually designate huge swathes of land as nature reserves or we will have little chance of establishing enough protected areas for wildlife and fish to stave off a disastrous loss of species.
Given that the environment and tourism industries are intertwined, progress should be made in setting up and/or governing more protected areas in the form of conservancies to benefit the majority.
Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi once said the “earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed”. There is no doubt that Zimbabwe has abundant wildlife, but politicians should desist from exploiting valuable species and habitats for personal gain than to strive to protect them, even if paying lip service to environmental goals.
The future for conservation lies in co-operating with the business world and politicians should get out of their comfort zones.
The need for action is overcoming global political sclerosis. Companies working anywhere in Africa are increasingly investing in biodiversity expertise, in community development, environmental restoration and long-term conservation capacity building.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
This includes primates, elephants, rhinos, lions, birds, and other species which we consider intelligent. A new study found that one bird species, the Scrub Jay, has a very unique behaviour. They will summon their group together to screech over the body of a dead jay. This loud, boisterous “funeral ceremony” in which they cry over their fallen one can last for up to 30 minutes.
The research conducted by University of California (UC) Davis graduate student, Teresa Iglesias showed that the Western Scrub Jays host screeching “funerals” for up to a half-hour. Iglesias recorded the Jays’ reactions when she placed a dead Jay on the ground near the feeding tables.
When she placed the dead bird, the other birds began a series of loud, screeching calls to attract other Scrub Jays. The scrum of birds was then found to screech for up to 30 minutes.
That’s unique funeral behavior of the scrub jay, isn’t it?
This disclosure came as the world’s largest conservation forum IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC) curtain closed in South Korea at the weekend with warnings that reckless development was ruining the planet's natural health, pushing thousands of species towards extinction.
Closer to home, daggers were recently drawn between Zanu PF ministers Francis Nhema (Environment) and Walter Mzembi (Tourism) over the “parcelling out” of plots in the world’s renowned Save Valley Conservancy (SVC).
Instead of dealing with the problem, the matter has turned very political, at a time the State of the natural world had been “severely compromised”, with unrestrained development, reducing biodiversity and nearly 20 000 species facing extinction.
Separated from nature, we cannot imagine ways to resolve climate change, poverty or shortages of water, food and energy resources.
Hence, the Zanu PF politburo task team set up to deal with the SVC takeover bid should come up with a workable way-out acceptable to all and sundry to ensure the survival of endangered species in the conservancy given reports of mass slaughter of wildlife.
If tiny little birds have feelings, what about endangered rhinos, elephants and many more facing danger in the unprotected conservancy and elsewhere, as a result of political considerations and infighting.
There is indeed a need for a holistic socio-economic approach to conservation efforts in Zimbabwe.
What is more is that the quadrennial IUCN conference took place against a drumbeat of scientific warnings that a mass extinction looms, as species struggle to survive in a world of depleted habitat, hunting and climate change.
At Rio+20 world summit in June, it was disclosed that out of 63 837 species the IUCN had assessed, 19 817 ran the risk of extinction.
At threat are 25% of mammals –elephants, rhinos, lions, and cheetah among others, 41% of amphibian species, 20% of plants and 13% of birds, according to the prestigious “Red List”.
Many of these species are essential for humans, providing food and work and a gene pool for better crops and new medicines.
Zimbabwe and other countries had pledged under the Millennium Development Goals to break the rate of loss in species by 2010, but fell badly short of the mark. After this failure, it is expected that the country should set a “strategic plan for biodiversity” under which the country should vow to prevent the extinction of “most known species”.
The country should actually designate huge swathes of land as nature reserves or we will have little chance of establishing enough protected areas for wildlife and fish to stave off a disastrous loss of species.
Given that the environment and tourism industries are intertwined, progress should be made in setting up and/or governing more protected areas in the form of conservancies to benefit the majority.
Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi once said the “earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed”. There is no doubt that Zimbabwe has abundant wildlife, but politicians should desist from exploiting valuable species and habitats for personal gain than to strive to protect them, even if paying lip service to environmental goals.
The future for conservation lies in co-operating with the business world and politicians should get out of their comfort zones.
The need for action is overcoming global political sclerosis. Companies working anywhere in Africa are increasingly investing in biodiversity expertise, in community development, environmental restoration and long-term conservation capacity building.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Place forests under local control
Zimbabwe is endowed with vast tracts of protected areas — parks, nature reserves and other natural areas — accounting for nearly 20% of the country’s land area.
These assist in reducing deforestation, habitat and species loss and support the livelihoods of millions countrywide, whereas globally, forests assist over one billion people, while containing 15% of the world’s carbon stock.
Sadly, over 700 000 hectares of protected areas have been destroyed this year alone around Zimbabwe by forest fires ignited by people hunting for mice or game. Pastures have also been destroyed for selfish reasons, resulting in livestock and wildlife starving due to loss of pasturage.
This is unfortunate given that the country prides itself as an agriculture-based economy, (but) where a sizeable population has no regard for the environment.
This is why protected areas such as Save Valley and Midlands conservancies must be jealously guarded for future generations. No one individual should benefit at the expense of the public really.
However, protected areas must be placed under local communities control to increase their incomes and sustainability.
To increase the income of many of the billion forest-dependent people worldwide, the current conservation model for investment in forests/wildlife must be turned on its head.
An initiative of unprecedented scale, led by The Forests Dialogue (TFD), IUCN and the Growing Forests Partnerships (GFP), has also found that optimising the benefits and productivity of forests requires moving from a “resource-led” model to a “rights-based” system of “locally controlled forestry”, that places local control of forests/wildlife at the heart of the investment process.
Over the last three years, TFD, partnering with IUCN, organised a series of country level dialogues engaging over 400 forest owners, investors, NGOs, governments and intergovernmental agencies. The resulting report, “Investing in Locally Controlled Forestry”, launched last week at IUCN World Conservation Congress in Jeju South Korea (WCC), shows that with the right processes in place, and under the right conditions, almost any individual or group can build a successful forest enterprise.
“A first step is to recognise that many forests and landscapes are inhabited by people with some form of land rights,” says Chris Buss, Senior Programme Officer for IUCN’s Global Forest and Climate change Programme “Investors are increasingly aware they must respect these rights through recognised processes, although the practical implications of such processes have until now received less attention.”
The learning from this initiative demonstrates that these processes often result simply in compensation for loss of access to land or resources, rather than a genuine shared enterprise. In contrast, a “rights-based” system places local control at the heart of the process. Under this system, the people who own or have rights over the forest are the ones who seek investors and partnerships for managing their natural resource assets.
The rights-based approach will recognise local people’s autonomy and their rights to determine the land’s destiny and to gain income from its effective management. Hence, empowering local people to make decisions on commercial forest management and land with secure tenure rights, the ability to build their own organisations and access to markets and technology can be a highly effective way of raising incomes and protecting forestry resources. Communities, governments and investors, according to the report, all stand to gain from investing in locally controlled forestry.
However, launching a commercially viable enterprise is not without its own challenges and requires adjustments to conventional investment approaches.
Ironically, the ugly public spat between Environment minister Francis Nhema and Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi became the highlight at the WCC albeit for the wrong reasons. In terms of conservation, Zimbabwe is viewed as a leader globally given its sustainable development policy advocating for sustainable utilisation of the wildlife resource — perhaps through safari hunting, eco-tourism and Campfire programmes.
Apparently, it is the Campfire programme that put Zimbabwe on the world map resulting in the establishment of conservation areas such as the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park linking the country’s second largest national park Gorezhou, South Africa’s Kruger and Mozambique’s Gaza Coutada 16. The country was to establish another conservation area Kaza linking Zambezi National Park in Victoria Falls, Zambia, Namibia, Chobe in Botswana and Angola.
These are great initiatives by a country now under siege for botching up the wildlife-based land reform programme in Save Valley. *millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
These assist in reducing deforestation, habitat and species loss and support the livelihoods of millions countrywide, whereas globally, forests assist over one billion people, while containing 15% of the world’s carbon stock.
Sadly, over 700 000 hectares of protected areas have been destroyed this year alone around Zimbabwe by forest fires ignited by people hunting for mice or game. Pastures have also been destroyed for selfish reasons, resulting in livestock and wildlife starving due to loss of pasturage.
This is unfortunate given that the country prides itself as an agriculture-based economy, (but) where a sizeable population has no regard for the environment.
This is why protected areas such as Save Valley and Midlands conservancies must be jealously guarded for future generations. No one individual should benefit at the expense of the public really.
However, protected areas must be placed under local communities control to increase their incomes and sustainability.
To increase the income of many of the billion forest-dependent people worldwide, the current conservation model for investment in forests/wildlife must be turned on its head.
An initiative of unprecedented scale, led by The Forests Dialogue (TFD), IUCN and the Growing Forests Partnerships (GFP), has also found that optimising the benefits and productivity of forests requires moving from a “resource-led” model to a “rights-based” system of “locally controlled forestry”, that places local control of forests/wildlife at the heart of the investment process.
Over the last three years, TFD, partnering with IUCN, organised a series of country level dialogues engaging over 400 forest owners, investors, NGOs, governments and intergovernmental agencies. The resulting report, “Investing in Locally Controlled Forestry”, launched last week at IUCN World Conservation Congress in Jeju South Korea (WCC), shows that with the right processes in place, and under the right conditions, almost any individual or group can build a successful forest enterprise.
“A first step is to recognise that many forests and landscapes are inhabited by people with some form of land rights,” says Chris Buss, Senior Programme Officer for IUCN’s Global Forest and Climate change Programme “Investors are increasingly aware they must respect these rights through recognised processes, although the practical implications of such processes have until now received less attention.”
The learning from this initiative demonstrates that these processes often result simply in compensation for loss of access to land or resources, rather than a genuine shared enterprise. In contrast, a “rights-based” system places local control at the heart of the process. Under this system, the people who own or have rights over the forest are the ones who seek investors and partnerships for managing their natural resource assets.
The rights-based approach will recognise local people’s autonomy and their rights to determine the land’s destiny and to gain income from its effective management. Hence, empowering local people to make decisions on commercial forest management and land with secure tenure rights, the ability to build their own organisations and access to markets and technology can be a highly effective way of raising incomes and protecting forestry resources. Communities, governments and investors, according to the report, all stand to gain from investing in locally controlled forestry.
However, launching a commercially viable enterprise is not without its own challenges and requires adjustments to conventional investment approaches.
Ironically, the ugly public spat between Environment minister Francis Nhema and Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi became the highlight at the WCC albeit for the wrong reasons. In terms of conservation, Zimbabwe is viewed as a leader globally given its sustainable development policy advocating for sustainable utilisation of the wildlife resource — perhaps through safari hunting, eco-tourism and Campfire programmes.
Apparently, it is the Campfire programme that put Zimbabwe on the world map resulting in the establishment of conservation areas such as the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park linking the country’s second largest national park Gorezhou, South Africa’s Kruger and Mozambique’s Gaza Coutada 16. The country was to establish another conservation area Kaza linking Zambezi National Park in Victoria Falls, Zambia, Namibia, Chobe in Botswana and Angola.
These are great initiatives by a country now under siege for botching up the wildlife-based land reform programme in Save Valley. *millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
Elephant in the room at climate talks
The United Nations climate machine has rolled into Bangkok, and an elephant sat patiently on the table in the plenary room.
As the latest round of UN climate talks kicked off in an “informal” session, observers described the presence of United States representatives as an “elephant in the room”.
The Obama administration recently announced it does not support an international agreement that guarantees a safe climate. They actually reject the entire premise of the international negotiations and instead they want to keep on with business as usual, each country doing whatever it wants.
“Business as usual” caused this crisis in the first place. Bringing that approach in Bangkok only guarantees climate catastrophe.
One of the key issues in the negotiations is that of “adaptation finance” — the amount of money needed for countries, especially the poorer ones, to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The amount needed is calculated to be at least $150 billion a year although some consider this a low estimate. Until now, the amount pledged by rich countries was pitifully low, and while the European Union has begun to indicate that they will put some money on the table, it is still nowhere near what is necessary.
As politicians falter, the public has once again taken a lead with communities across northern Thailand providing “small change for the climate” to give a boost to the adaptation fund.
The money collected was handed over in five elephant piggy banks last week to the top official in charge of the UN climate change negotiations — by five Thai children representing the 1,3 million people who have already called for a fair, ambitious and binding treaty as part of the anti-rich country’s campaign. They also represented the millions of young people whose futures are at risk if a strong outcome is not achieved in Qatar in December.
The official was clearly moved by the presentation and immediately suggested that one of the elephants could be placed on the table in the plenary room to remind delegates of their responsibilities to the people of the world. He was good to his word, and the elephant duly appeared with him at the opening session — sadly, however, this is currently the only money on the table.
Almost 50 of the world’s poorest nations claimed pledges made by rich countries to provide funds to help them adapt to a warmer planet risked being overlooked as UN negotiations over a global climate pact to start in 2020 got underway in Bangkok.
The group of mostly African nations said that ill-fated talks launched in 2007 to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol must not end without richer nations pledging financial aid to help them cope with rising sea levels caused by climate change.
Traditional industrialised nations and blocs such as the European Union, the US and Japan want to close down the talks, which failed in 2009, to produce a legally-binding global pact to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases starting next year.
They want to focus on a new deal to take effect at the end of the decade. Rich nations have pledged to find $100 billion per year starting in 2020 to help nations combat the effects of climate change, but poorer nations are concerned that existing pledges of $10 billion a year will expire in December without a new interim agreement in place.
“All sides need a clearer understanding on how to get to $100 billion a year by 2020 with no gaps,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN’s climate department and the public face of the talks.
The call comes as traditional rich nations struggle to rein in their national debt and budget deficits, while support for proposals to tap the private sector for cash through regulating or taxing emissions from shipping and aviation have struggled to receive backing.
The Bangkok negotiations, which end this week, will also try to advance talks on whether countries that have refused to be legally bound to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol should be allowed access to the carbon markets launched under the 1997 treaty.
Earlier this month, Australia’s main opposition party which is tipped to win the country’s next general election said it would not object to the country taking on another legal target to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, putting pressure on the government to sign up.
It is not a mystery as to what is missing in the climate change talks — it’s as obvious as an elephant in the room.
They need deep emission cuts in line with the science and they need a commitment to getting finance and technology to communities on the frontline. These were promised by industrialised countries in existing legal agreements, but the tricks they will use to get out of their commitments seem endless.
* millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
As the latest round of UN climate talks kicked off in an “informal” session, observers described the presence of United States representatives as an “elephant in the room”.
The Obama administration recently announced it does not support an international agreement that guarantees a safe climate. They actually reject the entire premise of the international negotiations and instead they want to keep on with business as usual, each country doing whatever it wants.
“Business as usual” caused this crisis in the first place. Bringing that approach in Bangkok only guarantees climate catastrophe.
One of the key issues in the negotiations is that of “adaptation finance” — the amount of money needed for countries, especially the poorer ones, to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The amount needed is calculated to be at least $150 billion a year although some consider this a low estimate. Until now, the amount pledged by rich countries was pitifully low, and while the European Union has begun to indicate that they will put some money on the table, it is still nowhere near what is necessary.
As politicians falter, the public has once again taken a lead with communities across northern Thailand providing “small change for the climate” to give a boost to the adaptation fund.
The money collected was handed over in five elephant piggy banks last week to the top official in charge of the UN climate change negotiations — by five Thai children representing the 1,3 million people who have already called for a fair, ambitious and binding treaty as part of the anti-rich country’s campaign. They also represented the millions of young people whose futures are at risk if a strong outcome is not achieved in Qatar in December.
The official was clearly moved by the presentation and immediately suggested that one of the elephants could be placed on the table in the plenary room to remind delegates of their responsibilities to the people of the world. He was good to his word, and the elephant duly appeared with him at the opening session — sadly, however, this is currently the only money on the table.
Almost 50 of the world’s poorest nations claimed pledges made by rich countries to provide funds to help them adapt to a warmer planet risked being overlooked as UN negotiations over a global climate pact to start in 2020 got underway in Bangkok.
The group of mostly African nations said that ill-fated talks launched in 2007 to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol must not end without richer nations pledging financial aid to help them cope with rising sea levels caused by climate change.
Traditional industrialised nations and blocs such as the European Union, the US and Japan want to close down the talks, which failed in 2009, to produce a legally-binding global pact to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases starting next year.
They want to focus on a new deal to take effect at the end of the decade. Rich nations have pledged to find $100 billion per year starting in 2020 to help nations combat the effects of climate change, but poorer nations are concerned that existing pledges of $10 billion a year will expire in December without a new interim agreement in place.
“All sides need a clearer understanding on how to get to $100 billion a year by 2020 with no gaps,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN’s climate department and the public face of the talks.
The call comes as traditional rich nations struggle to rein in their national debt and budget deficits, while support for proposals to tap the private sector for cash through regulating or taxing emissions from shipping and aviation have struggled to receive backing.
The Bangkok negotiations, which end this week, will also try to advance talks on whether countries that have refused to be legally bound to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol should be allowed access to the carbon markets launched under the 1997 treaty.
Earlier this month, Australia’s main opposition party which is tipped to win the country’s next general election said it would not object to the country taking on another legal target to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, putting pressure on the government to sign up.
It is not a mystery as to what is missing in the climate change talks — it’s as obvious as an elephant in the room.
They need deep emission cuts in line with the science and they need a commitment to getting finance and technology to communities on the frontline. These were promised by industrialised countries in existing legal agreements, but the tricks they will use to get out of their commitments seem endless.
* millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
Friday, 31 August 2012
July 2012 - hottest in world history?
Every crisis has that vital moment where a problem can no longer be ignored, and in regard to global warming, the moment is now.
Say what you will about global warming, but July 2012 was another warmer-and drier-than-average month perhaps the warmest and 28th driest July on record, based on data back to 1895 when weather conditions were averaged across not only in the United States, but the world at large.
It’s now official, globally the month of July ranked as the fourth warmest July since people began keeping records in 1880.
According to the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC): “The Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature for July 2012 was the all-time warmest July on record, at 2,14°F above average
. . . the fourth month in a row that the Northern Hemisphere has set a new monthly land temperature record.”
A strong high pressure system reportedly kept its stranglehold over much of the world for most of July, resulting in persistent warm anomalies, disease outbreaks and droughts dominating globally.Indeed, the month of July was the hottest month on record for continental US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Take it or leave it, yes, not one of the hottest, or the hottest since — but THE hottest. Previously, critics of human-caused global warming had been able to point out record-setting heat waves from many decades past, indicating that if global warming were true, you would be seeing all the record-breaking heat in the present and not the past. But now it has happened. The present holds the record and the record is only the culmination of a growing trend over the last several seasons.
It could not have been possible to ignore the changing climatic conditions especially as it pertained to the month of July as there were so many signs to contend with.
Towards the end of July, I spent a week feeling dizzy, and it bloomed into a bout of cold. I consulted a medical doctor, who treated me, but the cold refused to completely vanish. I had not in many years been treated for cold, surprisingly (and) when I visited the doctor, he told me that I had to be inoculated “because this kind of cold strain” is different from that which Zimbabweans are accustomed to.
Just in time, the World Health Organisation research of climate factors which influence tropical diseases was commissioned to understand the impact of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa on people's susceptibility to diseases carried by mosquitoes, flies, and snails.
The conclusion was that “extreme” warm temperatures coupled with stagnant waters lingering in flooded areas in Africa and Asia yielded favourable conditions as breeding ground for mosquitoes. In fact mosquitoes had multiplied in dozens that month. It was reported that 2 000 cases of dengue fever with 23 deaths had occurred between January and July 2012 and reflected an increase of 16% compared to the same period of 2011.
While other countries are up to date, Zimbabwe among others is still struggling to establish what could be the cause of the excessive cold outbreaks across the nation. The doctor I have alluded to above believes “it’s something in the family of dengue fever”.
Perhaps or perhaps not, he is an alarmist, I don’t know, but dengue fever is a disease caused by a family of viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes. It is an acute illness of sudden onset that usually follows a benign course with symptoms such as headache, fever, exhaustion, severe muscle and joint pain, swollen glands and rash. The presence of fever, rash and headache (and other pains) is particularly characteristic of dengue. Other signs of dengue fever include bleeding gums, severe pain behind the eyes, and red palms and soles.
But how could that be, I queried, and was directed to the NCDC report that stated dust from Africa's Sahara Desert was observed to be traversing eastward across the Atlantic Ocean and reached the US during July. Evidence suggests that heavy dust transport has coincided with Caribbean coral declines in the past.
Dry riverbed sediments from Sahara Desert blew western over the Red Sea during the following week. Dust plumes ascended over Latin America as a result of persistent dry conditions around the world. In South Africa there was snow all over, and temperatures fell to two degrees. Talk about global warming.
There is no doubt that rising ocean temperatures have significantly inflicted damage to the environment across the world. Overfishing and influxes of sediment and pollution were cited as contributing factors.
Likewise, another study released in July concluded that greenhouse gas emissions amplify effects of climate change’s influence on the collapse of environment. Deforestation occurring in Madagascar was cited within another study as adversely impacting corals in the western Indian Ocean due to resulting soil erosion.
Drought ravaged vast swaths of Zimbabwe as the record-setting temperatures were making things unbearably worse.
In Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa drought has become the default condition, making water rationing a necessity. The City of Kings, as Bulawayo is affectionately known, has been building a water pipeline to bring in crucial water from another town, Gwanda, some 126km away, even with which the water-rationing will continue.
For other dried-out cities and towns the capital Harare, Masvingo, Gweru, Kadoma, Chinhoyi, Gokwe that have not been as proactive as Bulawayo, the record-setting July heat and lack of rain should serve as an alarm.
Drought conditions need to be prepared for, and fast. No municipalities in drought-stricken regions can afford to stick their heads in the sand any longer. Contingency plans must be drawn up. Food for thought!
*millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
Say what you will about global warming, but July 2012 was another warmer-and drier-than-average month perhaps the warmest and 28th driest July on record, based on data back to 1895 when weather conditions were averaged across not only in the United States, but the world at large.
It’s now official, globally the month of July ranked as the fourth warmest July since people began keeping records in 1880.
According to the US National Climatic Data Centre (NCDC): “The Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature for July 2012 was the all-time warmest July on record, at 2,14°F above average
. . . the fourth month in a row that the Northern Hemisphere has set a new monthly land temperature record.”
A strong high pressure system reportedly kept its stranglehold over much of the world for most of July, resulting in persistent warm anomalies, disease outbreaks and droughts dominating globally.Indeed, the month of July was the hottest month on record for continental US, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Take it or leave it, yes, not one of the hottest, or the hottest since — but THE hottest. Previously, critics of human-caused global warming had been able to point out record-setting heat waves from many decades past, indicating that if global warming were true, you would be seeing all the record-breaking heat in the present and not the past. But now it has happened. The present holds the record and the record is only the culmination of a growing trend over the last several seasons.
It could not have been possible to ignore the changing climatic conditions especially as it pertained to the month of July as there were so many signs to contend with.
Towards the end of July, I spent a week feeling dizzy, and it bloomed into a bout of cold. I consulted a medical doctor, who treated me, but the cold refused to completely vanish. I had not in many years been treated for cold, surprisingly (and) when I visited the doctor, he told me that I had to be inoculated “because this kind of cold strain” is different from that which Zimbabweans are accustomed to.
Just in time, the World Health Organisation research of climate factors which influence tropical diseases was commissioned to understand the impact of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa on people's susceptibility to diseases carried by mosquitoes, flies, and snails.
The conclusion was that “extreme” warm temperatures coupled with stagnant waters lingering in flooded areas in Africa and Asia yielded favourable conditions as breeding ground for mosquitoes. In fact mosquitoes had multiplied in dozens that month. It was reported that 2 000 cases of dengue fever with 23 deaths had occurred between January and July 2012 and reflected an increase of 16% compared to the same period of 2011.
While other countries are up to date, Zimbabwe among others is still struggling to establish what could be the cause of the excessive cold outbreaks across the nation. The doctor I have alluded to above believes “it’s something in the family of dengue fever”.
Perhaps or perhaps not, he is an alarmist, I don’t know, but dengue fever is a disease caused by a family of viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes. It is an acute illness of sudden onset that usually follows a benign course with symptoms such as headache, fever, exhaustion, severe muscle and joint pain, swollen glands and rash. The presence of fever, rash and headache (and other pains) is particularly characteristic of dengue. Other signs of dengue fever include bleeding gums, severe pain behind the eyes, and red palms and soles.
But how could that be, I queried, and was directed to the NCDC report that stated dust from Africa's Sahara Desert was observed to be traversing eastward across the Atlantic Ocean and reached the US during July. Evidence suggests that heavy dust transport has coincided with Caribbean coral declines in the past.
Dry riverbed sediments from Sahara Desert blew western over the Red Sea during the following week. Dust plumes ascended over Latin America as a result of persistent dry conditions around the world. In South Africa there was snow all over, and temperatures fell to two degrees. Talk about global warming.
There is no doubt that rising ocean temperatures have significantly inflicted damage to the environment across the world. Overfishing and influxes of sediment and pollution were cited as contributing factors.
Likewise, another study released in July concluded that greenhouse gas emissions amplify effects of climate change’s influence on the collapse of environment. Deforestation occurring in Madagascar was cited within another study as adversely impacting corals in the western Indian Ocean due to resulting soil erosion.
Drought ravaged vast swaths of Zimbabwe as the record-setting temperatures were making things unbearably worse.
In Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa drought has become the default condition, making water rationing a necessity. The City of Kings, as Bulawayo is affectionately known, has been building a water pipeline to bring in crucial water from another town, Gwanda, some 126km away, even with which the water-rationing will continue.
For other dried-out cities and towns the capital Harare, Masvingo, Gweru, Kadoma, Chinhoyi, Gokwe that have not been as proactive as Bulawayo, the record-setting July heat and lack of rain should serve as an alarm.
Drought conditions need to be prepared for, and fast. No municipalities in drought-stricken regions can afford to stick their heads in the sand any longer. Contingency plans must be drawn up. Food for thought!
*millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
E-waste – Africa’s biggest undoing?
Zimbabwe faces a rising tide of e-waste generated by domestic consumption of new and used electrical and electronic equipment.
The rate at which cheap electronic gadgets for retail are flooding the local market could be viewed by some as development. In most parts of Zimbabwe as in most African states’ urban settlements, there are mushrooming satellite receivers, a move that has helped connect both the urban/rural folk with the rest of the world - making the remotest areas part of the global village.
Whether these listen/watch (to) the so-called pirate radio stations/television or whatever, a new United Nations report has concluded that domestic consumption makes up the majority (up to 85%) of waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) produced in especially in West Africa.
This according to a study, Where are WEEE in Africa? Sadly, the situation is the same in most of Africa including Zimbabwe. The e-waste problem is further exacerbated by an ongoing stream of used equipment from industrialised countries, significant volumes of which prove unsuitable for re-use and contribute further to the amount of e-waste generated locally.
In the five countries studied in the UN report (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria), between 650 000 and 1 million tonnes of domestic e-waste are generated each year, which need to be managed to protect human health and the environment in the region.
Where are WEEE in Africa? sheds light on current recycling practices and on socio-economic characteristics of the e-waste sector in West Africa. It also provides the quantitative data on the use, import and disposal of electronic and electrical equipment in the region.
The report draws on the findings of national e-waste assessments carried out in the five countries from 2009 to 2011. It concluded that effective management of the growing amount of e-waste generated in Africa and other parts of the world is an important part of the transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient green economy.
UN Environment Programme executive director Achim Steiner said: “We can grow Africa’s economies, generate decent employment and safeguard the environment by supporting sustainable e-waste management and recovering the valuable metals and other resources locked inside products that end up as e-waste.”
This report shows how measures such as improved collection strategies, and establishing more formal recycling structures, can limit environmental damage and provide economic opportunities. But, what are the risks and opportunities of e-waste?
The use of electrical and electronic equipment is still low in Africa compared to other regions of the world, but it is growing at a staggering pace. The penetration rate of personal computers in Africa, for example, has increased by a factor of 10 in the last decade, while the number of mobile phone subscribers has increased by a factor of 100.
It is therefore everybody’s hope that e-waste will not be dumped to countries such as Zimbabwe through “supersonic” Information Communication Technology minister Nelson Chamisa or President Robert Mugabe’s schools computerisation programmes across the country.
The reason being that electrical and electronic equipment can contain hazardous substances (eg, heavy metals such as mercury and lead, and endocrine disrupting substances such as brominated flame retardants).
These hazardous substances are released during various dismantling and disposal operations and are particularly severe during the burning of cables to liberate copper and of plastics to reduce waste volumes. Open burning of cables especially as normally happens in Mbare’s Magaba and Gazaland, Highfield, both in Harare is a major source of dioxin emissions, a persistent organic pollutant that travels over long distances that bio-accumulates in organisms up through the global food chain.
Electrical and electronic equipment also contains materials of strategic value such as indium and palladium and precious metals such as gold, copper and silver. These can be recovered and recycled, thereby serving as a valuable source of secondary raw materials, reducing pressure on scarce natural resources, as well as minimising the overall environmental footprint.
The report, by the Secretariat of the Basel Convention and partners, also documents the economic and environmental potential of building a sound resource recovery and waste management system for e-waste, along with the risks of continuing on the present course.
According to executive secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Jim Willis, e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream worldwide and a key waste stream under the Basel Convention.
Clearly dealing with electronic and electrical equipment properly presents a serious environmental and health challenge for many countries, yet also offers a potentially significant opportunity to create green businesses and green jobs.
The exposure to hazardous substances in and around dismantling sites also causes manifold health and safety risks for collectors, recyclers and neighbouring communities. Children’s health in particular may be at risk. Child labour is common in other of Africa’s scrap metal business, it has been found.
Collection and dismantling activities are carried out by children from the age of 12, however younger children from the age of five are sometimes engaged in light work, including dismantling of small parts and sorting of materials.
In contrast to the informal recycling sector, where collection and recycling of e-waste is almost exclusively carried out by individuals largely consisting of migrant labourers who are often stigmatised in African societies as “scavengers”, refurbishment is viewed as a relatively attractive economic opportunity for an increasingly well-educated, semi-professional labour force.
In Accra (Ghana) and Lagos (Nigeria), the refurbishing sector provides income to more than 30 000 people. So, sustainable solutions for e-waste management in Africa require measures aimed at imports and exports control, collection and recycling, policy and legislation that incorporate extended producer responsibility, recognise the important role of the informal sector, promote awareness raising and education, as well as compliance monitoring and enforcement.
Appropriate health and safety measures for those involved in recycling, as well as environmentally sound practices, should be ensured.
Therefore, Zimbabwe and its counterparts should enhance their capacities to tackle the growing problem of e-waste to protect the health of citizens, particularly children, while providing economic opportunities.
*millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
The rate at which cheap electronic gadgets for retail are flooding the local market could be viewed by some as development. In most parts of Zimbabwe as in most African states’ urban settlements, there are mushrooming satellite receivers, a move that has helped connect both the urban/rural folk with the rest of the world - making the remotest areas part of the global village.
Whether these listen/watch (to) the so-called pirate radio stations/television or whatever, a new United Nations report has concluded that domestic consumption makes up the majority (up to 85%) of waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) produced in especially in West Africa.
This according to a study, Where are WEEE in Africa? Sadly, the situation is the same in most of Africa including Zimbabwe. The e-waste problem is further exacerbated by an ongoing stream of used equipment from industrialised countries, significant volumes of which prove unsuitable for re-use and contribute further to the amount of e-waste generated locally.
In the five countries studied in the UN report (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria), between 650 000 and 1 million tonnes of domestic e-waste are generated each year, which need to be managed to protect human health and the environment in the region.
Where are WEEE in Africa? sheds light on current recycling practices and on socio-economic characteristics of the e-waste sector in West Africa. It also provides the quantitative data on the use, import and disposal of electronic and electrical equipment in the region.
The report draws on the findings of national e-waste assessments carried out in the five countries from 2009 to 2011. It concluded that effective management of the growing amount of e-waste generated in Africa and other parts of the world is an important part of the transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient green economy.
UN Environment Programme executive director Achim Steiner said: “We can grow Africa’s economies, generate decent employment and safeguard the environment by supporting sustainable e-waste management and recovering the valuable metals and other resources locked inside products that end up as e-waste.”
This report shows how measures such as improved collection strategies, and establishing more formal recycling structures, can limit environmental damage and provide economic opportunities. But, what are the risks and opportunities of e-waste?
The use of electrical and electronic equipment is still low in Africa compared to other regions of the world, but it is growing at a staggering pace. The penetration rate of personal computers in Africa, for example, has increased by a factor of 10 in the last decade, while the number of mobile phone subscribers has increased by a factor of 100.
It is therefore everybody’s hope that e-waste will not be dumped to countries such as Zimbabwe through “supersonic” Information Communication Technology minister Nelson Chamisa or President Robert Mugabe’s schools computerisation programmes across the country.
The reason being that electrical and electronic equipment can contain hazardous substances (eg, heavy metals such as mercury and lead, and endocrine disrupting substances such as brominated flame retardants).
These hazardous substances are released during various dismantling and disposal operations and are particularly severe during the burning of cables to liberate copper and of plastics to reduce waste volumes. Open burning of cables especially as normally happens in Mbare’s Magaba and Gazaland, Highfield, both in Harare is a major source of dioxin emissions, a persistent organic pollutant that travels over long distances that bio-accumulates in organisms up through the global food chain.
Electrical and electronic equipment also contains materials of strategic value such as indium and palladium and precious metals such as gold, copper and silver. These can be recovered and recycled, thereby serving as a valuable source of secondary raw materials, reducing pressure on scarce natural resources, as well as minimising the overall environmental footprint.
The report, by the Secretariat of the Basel Convention and partners, also documents the economic and environmental potential of building a sound resource recovery and waste management system for e-waste, along with the risks of continuing on the present course.
According to executive secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Jim Willis, e-waste is the fastest-growing waste stream worldwide and a key waste stream under the Basel Convention.
Clearly dealing with electronic and electrical equipment properly presents a serious environmental and health challenge for many countries, yet also offers a potentially significant opportunity to create green businesses and green jobs.
The exposure to hazardous substances in and around dismantling sites also causes manifold health and safety risks for collectors, recyclers and neighbouring communities. Children’s health in particular may be at risk. Child labour is common in other of Africa’s scrap metal business, it has been found.
Collection and dismantling activities are carried out by children from the age of 12, however younger children from the age of five are sometimes engaged in light work, including dismantling of small parts and sorting of materials.
In contrast to the informal recycling sector, where collection and recycling of e-waste is almost exclusively carried out by individuals largely consisting of migrant labourers who are often stigmatised in African societies as “scavengers”, refurbishment is viewed as a relatively attractive economic opportunity for an increasingly well-educated, semi-professional labour force.
In Accra (Ghana) and Lagos (Nigeria), the refurbishing sector provides income to more than 30 000 people. So, sustainable solutions for e-waste management in Africa require measures aimed at imports and exports control, collection and recycling, policy and legislation that incorporate extended producer responsibility, recognise the important role of the informal sector, promote awareness raising and education, as well as compliance monitoring and enforcement.
Appropriate health and safety measures for those involved in recycling, as well as environmentally sound practices, should be ensured.
Therefore, Zimbabwe and its counterparts should enhance their capacities to tackle the growing problem of e-waste to protect the health of citizens, particularly children, while providing economic opportunities.
*millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
Mourning the elephants
Horrific footage showing elephants that have been hacked to death for their ivory tusks reveals the terrifying toll that mass poaching is taking on Africa's dwindling elephant population.
After having focused my last two installments on the African elephant, I was forced to take another look once again on the fate of the jumbos given the fact that Zimbabwe and Botswana are the only two countries with the remaining largest population in the world, over 100 000 apiece.
The recent disturbing video, released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), shows mutilated elephants after a mass slaughter in Bouba N'Djida National Park in Cameroon, where poaching has hit record levels.
Between January and March this year, heavily armed foreign poachers killed 350 elephants in the national park. Authorities said the poachers targeting Bouba N'Djida national park were well-organised and worked in groups of 50.
Poachers killed an entire school of elephants in helicopter attacks, raining bullets down on adult and baby elephants alike. After the slaughter, poachers set about removing their tusks and genitals before smuggling them through South Sudan or Uganda.
The killing represents a significant percentage of Africa’s remaining elephant population. Nearly 500 elephants were killed in the same park during 2010. Since 1996, 120 park rangers have lost their lives trying to protect the elephants, and each month a significant number of Zimbabwe Parks rangers are killed battling marauding poachers along the Zambezi Valley.
Tens of thousands of the majestic jumbos are killed each year for their ivory tusks, which are mostly trafficked to Asia.
I could not agree more with WWF Cameroon project manager Philip Forboseh’s conclusions that the poaching crisis was a world heritage issue, not just an issue for Cameroon.
"When I looked at those elephants on the ground it was horrendous, I wished I didn't see it," he said. “I'm sad that it has taken hundreds of elephants to be slaughtered for the authorities to act."
We know there are some elephants left, how many we don't know. Zimbabwe is still to conduct its elephant count in as many years, but at the last count we had about 100 000. And estimates are that the figure has gone up significantly, although affected by poaching in the elephant range areas along the Zambezi Valley.
Since the mass slaughter earlier this year in Cameroon and elsewhere, other African countries have boosted security in their protected areas.
This horrendous footage came at a time the 62nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), adopted crucial measures to halt the escalation of ivory and rhino horn smuggling.
The meeting in Geneva came a month after the Rio+20 Conference recognised the important role of Cites in its outcome document The Future We Want.
Cites Secretary-General John E Scanlon said the committee decided unanimously to take urgent measures to tackle the current poaching and smuggling crisis threatening elephant and rhino populations.
But a proposal to legalise the ivory trade by African range States including Zimbabwe and its neighbours as a way to combat rampant elephant poaching, sparked fierce debate at the meeting. This prompted Cites to meet again in October to fine tune the plan, which would then be considered for final approval at the March 2013 Cites CoP 16 conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
It is undisputable that an estimated 38000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks. But the arguments were that reversing the ivory trade ban would have a devastating effect on elephants by triggering an increase in demand and sending even more illegal ivory into uncontrolled markets.
Some scientists believe that if poaching and the ivory trade was not brought under control, most populations of elephants could face extinction by 2020. The real solution therefore, is to better protect elephants in their home ranges and to pressure those nations participating in illegal trade to do more to combat ivory smuggling and sales.
A campaign is already at full throttle elsewhere to pressure the West not to support any proposals that would open the door to the bloody ivory trade.
The Cites thus also analysed the drivers behind the exploding demand in rhino horn and requested VietNam to report by next month on its actions to combat illegal trade in rhino horn.
Among other decisions taken by the committee, nine are total wildlife trade suspensions for lack of legislation to penalize illegal wildlife trade (the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Paraguay and Rwanda) or for failing to report trade in Cites-protected species (Guinea-Bissau, Nepal, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands and the Syrian Arab Republic).
Guinea was also warned to take a clear set of minimum actions to improve the issuance and monitoring of Cites permits and operations and to reduce illegal wildlife trade.
This being the case poor countries like Zimbabwe should mobilise to count their flagship species in preparation for the next Cites. Also to ensure that when the ivory moratorium collapses in 2017 the country would be better prepared for any eventuality.
After having focused my last two installments on the African elephant, I was forced to take another look once again on the fate of the jumbos given the fact that Zimbabwe and Botswana are the only two countries with the remaining largest population in the world, over 100 000 apiece.
The recent disturbing video, released by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), shows mutilated elephants after a mass slaughter in Bouba N'Djida National Park in Cameroon, where poaching has hit record levels.
Between January and March this year, heavily armed foreign poachers killed 350 elephants in the national park. Authorities said the poachers targeting Bouba N'Djida national park were well-organised and worked in groups of 50.
Poachers killed an entire school of elephants in helicopter attacks, raining bullets down on adult and baby elephants alike. After the slaughter, poachers set about removing their tusks and genitals before smuggling them through South Sudan or Uganda.
The killing represents a significant percentage of Africa’s remaining elephant population. Nearly 500 elephants were killed in the same park during 2010. Since 1996, 120 park rangers have lost their lives trying to protect the elephants, and each month a significant number of Zimbabwe Parks rangers are killed battling marauding poachers along the Zambezi Valley.
Tens of thousands of the majestic jumbos are killed each year for their ivory tusks, which are mostly trafficked to Asia.
I could not agree more with WWF Cameroon project manager Philip Forboseh’s conclusions that the poaching crisis was a world heritage issue, not just an issue for Cameroon.
"When I looked at those elephants on the ground it was horrendous, I wished I didn't see it," he said. “I'm sad that it has taken hundreds of elephants to be slaughtered for the authorities to act."
We know there are some elephants left, how many we don't know. Zimbabwe is still to conduct its elephant count in as many years, but at the last count we had about 100 000. And estimates are that the figure has gone up significantly, although affected by poaching in the elephant range areas along the Zambezi Valley.
Since the mass slaughter earlier this year in Cameroon and elsewhere, other African countries have boosted security in their protected areas.
This horrendous footage came at a time the 62nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), adopted crucial measures to halt the escalation of ivory and rhino horn smuggling.
The meeting in Geneva came a month after the Rio+20 Conference recognised the important role of Cites in its outcome document The Future We Want.
Cites Secretary-General John E Scanlon said the committee decided unanimously to take urgent measures to tackle the current poaching and smuggling crisis threatening elephant and rhino populations.
But a proposal to legalise the ivory trade by African range States including Zimbabwe and its neighbours as a way to combat rampant elephant poaching, sparked fierce debate at the meeting. This prompted Cites to meet again in October to fine tune the plan, which would then be considered for final approval at the March 2013 Cites CoP 16 conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
It is undisputable that an estimated 38000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks. But the arguments were that reversing the ivory trade ban would have a devastating effect on elephants by triggering an increase in demand and sending even more illegal ivory into uncontrolled markets.
Some scientists believe that if poaching and the ivory trade was not brought under control, most populations of elephants could face extinction by 2020. The real solution therefore, is to better protect elephants in their home ranges and to pressure those nations participating in illegal trade to do more to combat ivory smuggling and sales.
A campaign is already at full throttle elsewhere to pressure the West not to support any proposals that would open the door to the bloody ivory trade.
The Cites thus also analysed the drivers behind the exploding demand in rhino horn and requested VietNam to report by next month on its actions to combat illegal trade in rhino horn.
Among other decisions taken by the committee, nine are total wildlife trade suspensions for lack of legislation to penalize illegal wildlife trade (the Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Paraguay and Rwanda) or for failing to report trade in Cites-protected species (Guinea-Bissau, Nepal, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands and the Syrian Arab Republic).
Guinea was also warned to take a clear set of minimum actions to improve the issuance and monitoring of Cites permits and operations and to reduce illegal wildlife trade.
This being the case poor countries like Zimbabwe should mobilise to count their flagship species in preparation for the next Cites. Also to ensure that when the ivory moratorium collapses in 2017 the country would be better prepared for any eventuality.
Are Ivory Bonfires worth anything?
In last week’s instalment I pointed out that Gabon President Ali Bongo had set a pyre of ivory aflame on June 27 in a symbolic warning to poachers: “We will fight to protect our elephants”.
The public burning served a dual purpose, according to conservationists — both demonstrating Gabon’s zero-tolerance policy for wildlife crime, and curtailing the temptation to sell the government-seized stockpile on the black market. Zambia “lost” about three tons from its government stock hold recently.
Bongo’s bonfire emulated a July 2011 Kenyan bonfire. Activists in Kenya were galvanised last year by the killing of a matriarch elephant named Khaija, who poachers slaughtered near Kenya’s Samburu National reserve.
Khaija had been treated just two weeks earlier for a bullet wound from a different attack. With her death, Khaija left behind eight orphan elephants.
That July, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki burned five tons of confiscated ivory. The ivory in Kenya had been selling on the black market for $1 500 per kg, according to Kibaki.
True the African elephant population is in serious trouble. Despite the ban in international trade of ivory under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), an international trade agreement to protect wildlife from exploitation, in 1989, trade has been flourishing.
Investigators have seized 24,3 tons of illegally harvested ivory this year alone taken from an estimated 2 500 elephants, according to the same report — twice the amount of ivory seized in 2010 and more than the United Nations has ever seized since it started keeping records in 1990.
Inconceivable, isn’t it? And elephants’ futures look no brighter in 2012 with Zimbabwe currently holding 52 000kg of raw ivory. Much of the ivory makes its way through Cairo, Egypt or Nairobi, Kenya direct to Malaysia and of course Asia, where it is popular in China, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan.
The wildlife trade-monitoring network, Traffic, estimates ivory sales have doubled in China since 2004.
The same Traffic report found that only one tenth of the shops they surveyed selling ivory in China had licenses to do so.
But, problems in Africa are largely due to inadequate law enforcement capacity and training; inadequate laws and/or policies; insufficient resource management capacity; a lack of efficient co-operation at national and sub-regional levels between agencies (particularly enforcement and customs officers); and lack of collaboration between exporting, transit countries and their counterparts in China.
So, it is essential to involve all the players along the wildlife trade chain, including the private sector, to ensure their operations are in compliance with international Conventions such as Cites and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and with national environmental and social laws and regulations in China and Africa.
Specific support to encourage sustainable trade and eliminate illegal trade should become a key element of China’s aid policy in Africa. Greater resources are needed for monitoring and enforcement measures, such as cargo inspection.
Currently less than 2% of cargo traffic from Africa is inspected, enabling criminals to conceal the true origin, ownership and content of container cargo.
Chinese based in Africa in general, and Zimbabwe in particular, need to be made aware of environmental laws and policies, while China should develop and implement well researched demand reduction campaigns to influence consumer behaviour with a view to reducing demand for products of illegal origin.
David Newton, Head of Traffic East Southern Africa argued there has never been a greater urgency for China and Africa to put into action their commitments towards environmental sustainability and to direct significant resources towards addressing rising concerns over the levels of illegal and unsustainable trade in wildlife.
There is no doubt China is Africa’s largest trading partner, with overall trade values estimated to be over one trillion Yuan (US$160 billion) per annum.
The rising influence of China within Africa creates multiple opportunities for growth in trade between key Africa and China, including within the wildlife trade sector—the trade of wild fauna and flora products, including timber and fisheries.
Hence, sustainable utilisation of Africa’s wildlife resources can lead to positive development and growth for trading partners, while unsustainable wildlife trade depletes Africa of its natural wealth, and illegal trade inevitably leads to a growth in organised criminal activities, with the potential to create political instability.
Although the rapid growth in Chinese investment and aid in Africa has largely been welcomed, there have always been concerns over the levels of unregulated trade in natural resources, including those involving timber and fisheries, while poaching of Africa’s elephants is running at record levels.
It is hoped, however, that the recent 5th Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Co-operation provided an opportunity for countries to transform the wildlife trade dynamics from Africa to China, leading to a significant reduction in illegal trade and supporting the sustainable trade in Africa’s wild plants and animals.
In this regard, should Africa burn its ivory stockpiles as a statement of intent against rising elephant poaching? “WWF supports Gabon’s decision and sees the move as an indication of the country’s commitment to curbing elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade,” said Stefanie Conrad, WWF Central Africa Regional Programme Office Representative.
The decisions taken at last week’s Cites Standing committee could perhaps ratchet up pressure on a number of countries to be held accountable over their failure to deal with rampant poaching and illegal trade, but no sanctions or punitive measures were agreed.
Perhaps with elephant poaching and illegal trade in ivory reaching new heights, we should not be shy about using Cites trade suspensions as an international tool to prevent a full-blown elephant crisis.
* millenniunzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
The public burning served a dual purpose, according to conservationists — both demonstrating Gabon’s zero-tolerance policy for wildlife crime, and curtailing the temptation to sell the government-seized stockpile on the black market. Zambia “lost” about three tons from its government stock hold recently.
Bongo’s bonfire emulated a July 2011 Kenyan bonfire. Activists in Kenya were galvanised last year by the killing of a matriarch elephant named Khaija, who poachers slaughtered near Kenya’s Samburu National reserve.
Khaija had been treated just two weeks earlier for a bullet wound from a different attack. With her death, Khaija left behind eight orphan elephants.
That July, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki burned five tons of confiscated ivory. The ivory in Kenya had been selling on the black market for $1 500 per kg, according to Kibaki.
True the African elephant population is in serious trouble. Despite the ban in international trade of ivory under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), an international trade agreement to protect wildlife from exploitation, in 1989, trade has been flourishing.
Investigators have seized 24,3 tons of illegally harvested ivory this year alone taken from an estimated 2 500 elephants, according to the same report — twice the amount of ivory seized in 2010 and more than the United Nations has ever seized since it started keeping records in 1990.
Inconceivable, isn’t it? And elephants’ futures look no brighter in 2012 with Zimbabwe currently holding 52 000kg of raw ivory. Much of the ivory makes its way through Cairo, Egypt or Nairobi, Kenya direct to Malaysia and of course Asia, where it is popular in China, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan.
The wildlife trade-monitoring network, Traffic, estimates ivory sales have doubled in China since 2004.
The same Traffic report found that only one tenth of the shops they surveyed selling ivory in China had licenses to do so.
But, problems in Africa are largely due to inadequate law enforcement capacity and training; inadequate laws and/or policies; insufficient resource management capacity; a lack of efficient co-operation at national and sub-regional levels between agencies (particularly enforcement and customs officers); and lack of collaboration between exporting, transit countries and their counterparts in China.
So, it is essential to involve all the players along the wildlife trade chain, including the private sector, to ensure their operations are in compliance with international Conventions such as Cites and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and with national environmental and social laws and regulations in China and Africa.
Specific support to encourage sustainable trade and eliminate illegal trade should become a key element of China’s aid policy in Africa. Greater resources are needed for monitoring and enforcement measures, such as cargo inspection.
Currently less than 2% of cargo traffic from Africa is inspected, enabling criminals to conceal the true origin, ownership and content of container cargo.
Chinese based in Africa in general, and Zimbabwe in particular, need to be made aware of environmental laws and policies, while China should develop and implement well researched demand reduction campaigns to influence consumer behaviour with a view to reducing demand for products of illegal origin.
David Newton, Head of Traffic East Southern Africa argued there has never been a greater urgency for China and Africa to put into action their commitments towards environmental sustainability and to direct significant resources towards addressing rising concerns over the levels of illegal and unsustainable trade in wildlife.
There is no doubt China is Africa’s largest trading partner, with overall trade values estimated to be over one trillion Yuan (US$160 billion) per annum.
The rising influence of China within Africa creates multiple opportunities for growth in trade between key Africa and China, including within the wildlife trade sector—the trade of wild fauna and flora products, including timber and fisheries.
Hence, sustainable utilisation of Africa’s wildlife resources can lead to positive development and growth for trading partners, while unsustainable wildlife trade depletes Africa of its natural wealth, and illegal trade inevitably leads to a growth in organised criminal activities, with the potential to create political instability.
Although the rapid growth in Chinese investment and aid in Africa has largely been welcomed, there have always been concerns over the levels of unregulated trade in natural resources, including those involving timber and fisheries, while poaching of Africa’s elephants is running at record levels.
It is hoped, however, that the recent 5th Ministerial Conference of Forum on China-Africa Co-operation provided an opportunity for countries to transform the wildlife trade dynamics from Africa to China, leading to a significant reduction in illegal trade and supporting the sustainable trade in Africa’s wild plants and animals.
In this regard, should Africa burn its ivory stockpiles as a statement of intent against rising elephant poaching? “WWF supports Gabon’s decision and sees the move as an indication of the country’s commitment to curbing elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade,” said Stefanie Conrad, WWF Central Africa Regional Programme Office Representative.
The decisions taken at last week’s Cites Standing committee could perhaps ratchet up pressure on a number of countries to be held accountable over their failure to deal with rampant poaching and illegal trade, but no sanctions or punitive measures were agreed.
Perhaps with elephant poaching and illegal trade in ivory reaching new heights, we should not be shy about using Cites trade suspensions as an international tool to prevent a full-blown elephant crisis.
* millenniunzimbabwe@gmail.com/millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com
Monday, 30 July 2012
Politics –not a popularity contest
From Kenya to South Africa, African law-enforcement and conservation authorities are facing a continuing battle with poachers.
And it is in strife-torn African countries where governance is at its weakest, that the elephant population is being hit hardest, with thousands of jumbos killed each year.
Conservationists have recorded steep declines in population and fear fewer than 20 000 of the Great Lakes region’s forest elephants remain in the Congo basin.
Although Zimbabwe has a zero tolerance policy for wildlife crime, strong institutions and laws must be developed to ensure the policy is enforced given rampant poaching and proliferation of ivory and rhino horn on the streets of Harare. Illegal wildlife trade is the fifth largest illicit trade worldwide, and it finances insecurity across Africa.
Africa has about 500 000 elephants (the bulk of them in Zimbabwe and Botswana), but the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) says they are increasingly threatened. Despite a 23-year ban on international trade in ivory, elephants continue to be shot for their prized tusks, with much of the material ending up on sale in China.
Under the circumstances, the very future of the African elephant, the largest land mammal on Earth, could be at risk. We don’t want our children to inherit an empty forest, do we?
Sadly, as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) annual Standing Committee meeting took place in Geneva from July 23-27, a report graded 23 African and Asian origin, transit and destination countries implicated in illegal trade of ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts giving them scores of green, yellow or red for each species group.
It concluded that poaching for international trade is threatening elephants, rhinos and tigers.
.Over 250 rhinos have been killed so far this year in South Africa.
.Tens of thousands elephants are killed each year for their ivory
.There are as few as 3 200 tigers left in the wild
Laws exist to protect elephants, rhinos and tigers, but governments are not doing all they could to save them.
Criminal kingpins involved in illegal wildlife trade are according to conservation groups distributing guns, intimidating communities, exploiting the poor, and bribing officials in order to get what they want.
In 1989, Kenya under Daniel arap Moi became the first African country to burn its own stockpile of seized ivory, while Zambia torched tusks three years later. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki under the auspices of the Lusaka Task Force Agreement (LATF) last year again burnt ivory mountains.
Inspired, Gabon also burnt its ivory stockpiles worth $9,3 million sometime last month. Gabonese President Ali Bongo, who lit the pyre, said: “We believe this is a strong signal of intent . . . against poaching and illegal wildlife trade — at a time of intense poaching pressure in central Africa, where the illegal killing of elephants for ivory is at record levels.”
Should countries burn their ivory stockpiles to halt illegal trade? Were these actions popularity stunts? Can we imagine what that money could have done to change the lives of those living alongside the jumbos? Is there a way to humanely remove the tusks of elephants to make them less of a target to poachers who only kill them for the tusks?
Not at all, an elephant’s tusks are like teeth and they need them to dig, feed, and settle their differences.
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority is currently sitting on 52 000kg of raw ivory, worth tens of millions of dollars. Zimbabwe was allowed a once-off ivory trade in 2008, but the moratorium ends in 2018.
The upsurge in poaching in Zimbabwe and other countries is cause for concern — what with some political upstarts invading conservancies. It appears to me that most countries’ policing is lax, and the laws too lenient for abusers of wildlife heritage. The influx of foreign tourists to view game in Africa should serve as a lesson.
Where will our children go for game viewing in future?
The current demand for endangered species products in Asia, especially China, is unprecedented and largely driven by demand for medicinal products, such as rhino horn and tiger parts, or as a demonstration of economic and social status, through products like ivory and rhino horn carvings or tiger bone wine.
This horrific addiction to ivory and the rhino horn can be stopped. But, as long as humanity still sees either of these two wondrous animals as a form of monetary value, the senseless killing will continue unabated.
Every night many of us must carry with them the sickening heartache that across Africa 100 elephants have breathed their last –yes, every day 100 elephants, 36 000 jumbos every year. Do we have any idea of how to picture this in our minds?
Why the Chinese — presumably the second biggest economy in the world due to their industrial revolution, a country with the biggest (20% of the world) population at 1,3 billion, with the biggest investment in the US at $1,6 trillion, who have joined the space-race, have over 50 game parks for their almost extinct pandas, who once had elephant and rhino roaming their lands (killed them off), who appear to be intelligent people, but still believe that rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine will cure a multitude of ills including breast and cervical cancer.
If this was the case, then wouldn’t modern medical science have started “rhino farming” long ago if the rhino horn really cured all these medical ills?
The African rhino and elephant do not belong to the adults of this world (us) — they are the future gifts to the children of our world.
Should/shouldn’t Kenya, Gabon and Zambia be congratulated for making the point that ivory must be worthless, except as what it was meant to be in the first place: as part of an elephant?
email: millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
And it is in strife-torn African countries where governance is at its weakest, that the elephant population is being hit hardest, with thousands of jumbos killed each year.
Conservationists have recorded steep declines in population and fear fewer than 20 000 of the Great Lakes region’s forest elephants remain in the Congo basin.
Although Zimbabwe has a zero tolerance policy for wildlife crime, strong institutions and laws must be developed to ensure the policy is enforced given rampant poaching and proliferation of ivory and rhino horn on the streets of Harare. Illegal wildlife trade is the fifth largest illicit trade worldwide, and it finances insecurity across Africa.
Africa has about 500 000 elephants (the bulk of them in Zimbabwe and Botswana), but the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) says they are increasingly threatened. Despite a 23-year ban on international trade in ivory, elephants continue to be shot for their prized tusks, with much of the material ending up on sale in China.
Under the circumstances, the very future of the African elephant, the largest land mammal on Earth, could be at risk. We don’t want our children to inherit an empty forest, do we?
Sadly, as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) annual Standing Committee meeting took place in Geneva from July 23-27, a report graded 23 African and Asian origin, transit and destination countries implicated in illegal trade of ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts giving them scores of green, yellow or red for each species group.
It concluded that poaching for international trade is threatening elephants, rhinos and tigers.
.Over 250 rhinos have been killed so far this year in South Africa.
.Tens of thousands elephants are killed each year for their ivory
.There are as few as 3 200 tigers left in the wild
Laws exist to protect elephants, rhinos and tigers, but governments are not doing all they could to save them.
Criminal kingpins involved in illegal wildlife trade are according to conservation groups distributing guns, intimidating communities, exploiting the poor, and bribing officials in order to get what they want.
In 1989, Kenya under Daniel arap Moi became the first African country to burn its own stockpile of seized ivory, while Zambia torched tusks three years later. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki under the auspices of the Lusaka Task Force Agreement (LATF) last year again burnt ivory mountains.
Inspired, Gabon also burnt its ivory stockpiles worth $9,3 million sometime last month. Gabonese President Ali Bongo, who lit the pyre, said: “We believe this is a strong signal of intent . . . against poaching and illegal wildlife trade — at a time of intense poaching pressure in central Africa, where the illegal killing of elephants for ivory is at record levels.”
Should countries burn their ivory stockpiles to halt illegal trade? Were these actions popularity stunts? Can we imagine what that money could have done to change the lives of those living alongside the jumbos? Is there a way to humanely remove the tusks of elephants to make them less of a target to poachers who only kill them for the tusks?
Not at all, an elephant’s tusks are like teeth and they need them to dig, feed, and settle their differences.
The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority is currently sitting on 52 000kg of raw ivory, worth tens of millions of dollars. Zimbabwe was allowed a once-off ivory trade in 2008, but the moratorium ends in 2018.
The upsurge in poaching in Zimbabwe and other countries is cause for concern — what with some political upstarts invading conservancies. It appears to me that most countries’ policing is lax, and the laws too lenient for abusers of wildlife heritage. The influx of foreign tourists to view game in Africa should serve as a lesson.
Where will our children go for game viewing in future?
The current demand for endangered species products in Asia, especially China, is unprecedented and largely driven by demand for medicinal products, such as rhino horn and tiger parts, or as a demonstration of economic and social status, through products like ivory and rhino horn carvings or tiger bone wine.
This horrific addiction to ivory and the rhino horn can be stopped. But, as long as humanity still sees either of these two wondrous animals as a form of monetary value, the senseless killing will continue unabated.
Every night many of us must carry with them the sickening heartache that across Africa 100 elephants have breathed their last –yes, every day 100 elephants, 36 000 jumbos every year. Do we have any idea of how to picture this in our minds?
Why the Chinese — presumably the second biggest economy in the world due to their industrial revolution, a country with the biggest (20% of the world) population at 1,3 billion, with the biggest investment in the US at $1,6 trillion, who have joined the space-race, have over 50 game parks for their almost extinct pandas, who once had elephant and rhino roaming their lands (killed them off), who appear to be intelligent people, but still believe that rhino horn in traditional Chinese medicine will cure a multitude of ills including breast and cervical cancer.
If this was the case, then wouldn’t modern medical science have started “rhino farming” long ago if the rhino horn really cured all these medical ills?
The African rhino and elephant do not belong to the adults of this world (us) — they are the future gifts to the children of our world.
Should/shouldn’t Kenya, Gabon and Zambia be congratulated for making the point that ivory must be worthless, except as what it was meant to be in the first place: as part of an elephant?
email: millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Snowfall: Signs of the time
It is not just hot air. No! Climate change could also mean more snow.
Unexpected snowfall in Eastern South Africa and freezing temperatures in
Zimbabwe respectively during the last week, have been described by
climate experts as a feature of global warming.The heavy snow in South Africa triggered the closure of two of its main highways linking the capital Pretoria and nearby Johannesburg in the country’s north to Cape Town in the south, the local Road Traffic Management said.
The snow last Tuesday also disrupted air and rail transportation. The snow also forced closure of shops and schools.
According to officials, there are no alternative bypass routes. The prospects are made worse by forecasters warning that the snowfall was likely to continue until Sunday (yesterday).
Weather forecasters said: “Latest models indicate that a second cold front will move in over South Africa today (Saturday). Very cold conditions are expected over the north-western high ground of the Western Cape and southern high ground of the Northern Cape.
“Very rough seas with wave heights from 4m to 6m is expected to develop between Cape Columbine and Plettenberg Bay and gale force westerly to north-westerly wind (65km/h) is expected between Cape Point and Cape Agulhas in the afternoon.
There is also a possibility of snow on the high mountains of the Northern and Western Cape.”
Parts of South Africa usually receive a dusting about once or twice a year, but the storm that hit large parts of the eastern half of the country last week dumped up to 60 cm in some areas. “Snow is not unheard of, but it is usually not this extreme,” national weather service forecaster Karl Loots was quoted as telling Reuters.
South Africa experienced its coldest night on record two nights last week, and even in Zimbabwe it was extremely cold triggering bouts of flu. I had not been downed by flu in a very long time, but this time around it is something else and I am still recovering.
The adverse weather has shocked and surprised many locals, with forecasters warning that worse conditions could follow. Perhaps global warming sceptics would point to the heavy amount of snowfall South Africa has experienced this year. However, they could be wrong, according to a sampling of scientific opinion.
Experts caution that there may be more winters like this, where snowfall has so far nearly doubled the norm. But that would be only until it gets too hot to snow, they added.
A professor of geophysics in the US Raymond Pierrehumbert said: “ln the simulations I’ve analysed, you can get some quite big blizzards up until the year 2040. But between 2040 and 2080, it starts to get too warm to have much snow at all and it gradually sort of peters out.”
Climatologists say snowfall is more difficult to predict than rain because it depends on a broader range of factors, such as atmospheric temperature and the la Nina phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean. What they do agree on, however, is that warmer atmospheres can hold more precipitation.
Of course, one winter season can’t be taken as an indication of future climate patterns. This year’s average winter temperatures will probably end up below normal.
But this season’s precipitation levels, combined with atypical temperature fluctuations around the country, reflect what climate experts say will be some of the side effects of global warming.
A recent study suggests global warming will result in more extreme rain and snowfall as warmer temperatures speed up evaporation and allow clouds to hold more precipitation.
Snowfall is part of a continuing pattern of cold snaps across Africa that has also seen unprecedented ice storms in Kenya, resulting in four inch deep hail covering the ground.
The cold snap, which has triggered health problems within the populace in the country, arrives on the back of the sun reaching a milestone not observed in nearly 100 years.
Zimbabwe’s temperatures soaring into a heat wave last year topped over 40 degrees Celsius in areas like Kariba, Harare, Bulawayo, Gokwe, Chiredzi and elsewhere.
China experienced its coldest winter in 100 years while northeast America was hit by record snow levels — Sydney experienced its coldest August for 60 years and Britain suffered its coldest April in decades, all this happening from 2008.
Rapid decrease in solar activity is an event that has always preceded so called mini-ice age periods throughout history, no wonder then that many scientists are predicting prolonged global cooling.
Not those in Zimbabwe or South Africa, however.
In a South African Independent article titled: “Warming has a hand in recent wild weather”, Joanne Yawitch, the deputy director general of the department of environmental affairs noted that “climate change”, as in man-made climate change, was playing a role in the adverse weather patterns.
“What it raises for South Africa is the ability to develop a [resilience] to weather changes and how to deal with these,” she said then.
Her utterances echoed those of World Wildlife Fund development and sustainability programme manager Paul Toni, who told reporters in Australia that: “The freezing temperatures are proof of the urgent need to cut carbon pollution.”
Indeed — in case you weren’t aware of the new climate change catch-all explanation, man-made CO2 emissions could cause global cooling as well as global warming.
Hence, all weather events, be it snow, rainfall, storms, hurricanes, typhoons or earthquakes could also be caused by CO2 emissions. This is because none of the current weather trends fit in with the notion that has been pushed for the better part of a decade now that an overall heating of the Earth mandates the poor and middle classes be hit with multiple forms of lifestyle restriction and CO2 taxation, in order to save the planet.
email: millenniumzimbabwe@gmail.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Monday, 23 July 2012
West led Africa down the garden path
In my last installment I indicated that anti-littering should become part of our culture to save the environment.
But this can only happen if we can move our attention away slightly from
the poisoned politics that seem to dominate our environment. The reason is that the level of environmental damage in Zimbabwe is worrying. During the week, I dealt with this issue outgoing United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Charles A Ray urged Zimbabweans regardless of their strata in society to consider other important matters than get consumed in endless political debates.
Sadly, some among us in their wisdom or lack of, think that one can never be neutral — to them if you are not Zanu PF, you belong to the MDCs or vice versa. That notion is not only cynical, it is outright stupid. What matters most should be our being Zimbabweans, finish!
Yes, it is possible to be neutral in a resentful society like ours. I will not digress any further.
After taking a break on climate change, I was persuaded to deal with the recent United Nations Summit on Sustainable development (Rio+20 Earth Summit) subject once again this week. Of course, it really is still an important subject. At least it’s about our sustainability, our environment — “The Future We Want”.
By their nature, UN summits are high-profile gatherings as countries are represented at the highest level. Zimbabwe’s delegation comprised President Robert Mugabe and Environment minister Francis Nhema, among a coterie of bureaucrats.
The high-profile meeting ended on June 22, but Zimbabweans are yet to know what the country position paper contained. Curious isn’t it? The Environment ministry is yet to convene a stakeholders’ report back meeting almost a month later. What is happening here? Whose duty is it to give feedback to the people? Don’t the public need to know given the importance of the subject? I do not think people owe it to bureaucrats, (but) it is them who owe it to the citizens.
Almost all delegations to the Earth summit have reported back and admit that African leaders lost the battle at the negotiating table. It is now clear from other delegations that Africa was led down the garden path. Of course, you get what you negotiate for.
UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) on June 25 frankly said that the final outcome document, “The Future We Want”, only looked ahead towards creating “green growth” while doing nothing to hold accountable those who were primarily responsible for causing global warming.
In remarkably blunt language, Uneca made clear the deep frustrations felt by African leaders who, as usually happens in these multilateral forums, were forced to accept a bad deal rather than walk away with no deal. Although they were well aware of the “ambush” that awaited in the end, they did fall victim to it.
Basically, this means that not only will the main polluters, the industrialised countries, be doing little or nothing to pay for the damage they caused, but they will now be presenting their new environmental technologies as “part of the solution”.
These technologies will now be sold to developing countries either directly or through aid packages or soft loans with hidden terms and conditions.
The African spokesperson and political co-ordinator of the Rio+20 process, Congo President Denis Sasso N’Guesso a day before the summit ended, downplayed Africa’s limited success at the Earth Summit, saying: “We should now focus on the areas of the Rio+20 outcome document that we think needs further negotiations in the coming days and months.”
We are told African delegations saw as a deliberate tendency by developed countries to rescind all earlier commitments on poverty reduction and the economic development of the continent.
It must be recalled that the Africa Consensus statement for Rio+20 observed that not much had been achieved in any of the key areas of the statement — renewed political commitment; green economy in the context of sustainable development; means of implementation institutional framework for sustainable development and sustainable development goals.
In fact, except for means of implementation in the context of green economy, little else had been achieved.
Much to the dismay of many African delegates, the language and overall tone during general discussion at the conference was “aspirational” and non-prescriptive, as had been the case in most previous development conferences.
Indeed, throughout the final phase ofnegotiations leading up to the Rio+20 outcome document, there had been an obvious move away from straight language on rights and equity principles, led by the richest countries and reflected in attempts to leave as unagreed, 20-year-old Earth Summit principles.
The African proposal on the transformation of Unep into a UN specialised agency on environmental issues was referred to the General Assembly of the UN, which comes up next September and we must begin work on it right away, if we want to see the process go through.
The current world economic situation had made it more unlikely for development partners to deliver on their commitments towards Africa’s development.
The truth of the matter is that although Africa gained some grounds in Rio in the provision (or in fact, promise) of some resources for renewable energy, several sections of the final Rio+20 outcome document hardly satisfied delegations from the continent.
Perhaps Africa could be satisfied that it had come away from Rio having ensured that global attention had been refocused on means of implementation of sustainable development targets.
With all this in mind, I think the best thing that Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular, should be doing now, is to bear in mind that the Rio process remains ongoing and ought not be limited to the results of a single meeting.
Africa should revisit its strategies and look ahead to next September’s General Assembly meeting of the UN where they still have the possibility of making their case on all these issues.
.millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/
http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Monday, 9 July 2012
Of wild fires, rats and smokers
It is winter and veld fires are a common occurrence. Amidst the smoke and strong winds, it is common to see black-shouldered birds patiently perched on power lines and/or tress awaiting rats and mice as they flee the raging fires.
Intense fires destroy thousands acres of vegetation in protected areas such as national parks, forest ranges, major highway sideways and grazing lands across the country annually. Human life, livestock and wild animals have been lost as a result.
The grass fires are a major concern for everyone especially this period through to October; they quickly get out of control and can cause serious damage in agricultural and forested lands.
Forest fire officials encourage people not to light grass fires or burn debris. Burning dry grass in fields or yard debris can spread to nearby forests.
At the weekend government launched the National Fire Awareness Campaign or National Fire Prevention Week at Matabiswana Village in Insuza, Matabeleland North province, to raise responsiveness in the community against starting needless forest fires.
This Forestry Commission initiative is an excellent inventiveness. The campaign will be a waste of resources if stakeholders cannot sustain it and/or spread it across the country given the extent of environmental damage from unwanted forest fires started by people digging for mice and/or hunting for small game such as rabbits as well as throwing out a cigarette stub through the window of a moving vehicle. This is commonplace, but Zimbabwe must develop a culture against littering.
It is also important that the public must consider no-burn options. Many landfills offer designated days when yard debris can be disposed of at little or no cost. The Forestry Commission should also consider advising the public about composting. On-site chipping may be feasible. Limbs and other debris may be piled for wildlife habitat if located where it does not pose a wildfire hazard.
Carelessly lit and tended fires and smoking are a major concern throughout the burning season. In fact, forest guards have seen people triggering fires and in some cases the accused have managed to escape.
The phenomenon, witnessed every year, destroys flora and fauna in vast tracts of the forest area. Zimbabwe did not receive enough rain this year and most areas have gone dry. Dry weather due to absence of moisture in the air causes the fire to spread rapidly.
Without a doubt Zimbabwe’s eucalypt forest has evolved to cope with low and high-intensity bushfires situations. Eucalyptus forests in the country depend on fire for regeneration. However, indigenous forests in Matabeleland, Gokwe’s Mafungautsi Plateau, Chimanimani and many others are much more likely to be destroyed by fire.
The sensitivity of forest communities to fire is the main reason these areas have been listed as threatened under the Forestry Act.
For the record, the Matabiswana launch had its beginning in the US in 1911. It is held annually to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire. On the 40th anniversary (1911) of the Great Chicago Fire, the Fire Marshals Association of North America (FMANA), the oldest membership section of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), sponsored the first National Fire Prevention Day, deciding to observe the anniversary as a way to keep the public informed about the importance of fire prevention.
In May 1919, when the NFPA held its 23rd annual meeting in Ottawa at the invitation of the Dominion Fire Prevention Association (DFPA), the NFPA and DFPA both passed resolutions urging governments in the US and Canada to support the campaign for a common Fire Prevention Day.
This was expanded to Fire Prevention Week in 1922. The NFPA that has officially sponsored Fire Prevention Week since its inception selects the annual theme for Fire Prevention Week.
When US President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week on October 4–10 1925, he noted that in the previous year some
15 000 lives were lost to fire in the US. Calling the loss “startling”, Coolidge’s proclamation stated: “This waste results from the conditions which justify a sense of shame and horror; for the greater part of it could and ought to be prevented . . . It is highly desirable that every effort be made to reform the conditions which have made possible so vast a destruction of the national wealth.”
In Canada, the first national Fire Prevention Day proclamation was issued by the Governor-General in 1919. The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8 to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about
9 km² in Chicago, Illinois.
On the flag of Chicago, the second star commemorates the fire. The exact cause was never determined. The traditional account of the origin of the fire is that it was started by a cow kicking over a lantern in the barn owned by Patrick and Catherine O’Leary.
In 1893, Michael Ahern, the Chicago Republican reporter who wrote the O’Leary account, admitted he had made it up as “colourful copy”. The barn was the first building to be consumed by the fire, but the official report could not determine the exact cause of it.
The fire’s spread was aided by a drought prior to the fire and strong winds from the south-west that carried flying embers towards the heart of Chicago. Furthermore, the city did not react quickly enough, and at first, residents were not concerned about it, not realising the high risk of conditions.
City officials estimated that more than 300 people died in the fire and over 100 000 were left homeless.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Of leaders and green laggards
The historic Rio+20 summit has come and gone, but it was hard to find a happy soul at the end of the environmental conference — North and South.
Not within the legion of bleary-eyed government negotiators from the 191 nations who met in an abortive attempt to find a breakthrough at the United Nations conference on sustainable development.
Again, not among the thousands of activists who denounced the summit that ended last week as “dead on arrival”. Not even organisers of the UN’s largest-ever event.
UN secretary-general of the conference Sha Zukang summed the mood of the delegates saying: “This is an outcome that makes nobody happy. My job was to make everyone equally unhappy.”
And so, in the end Rio+ 20 became a conference to decide to have even more conferences. At least it’s good for the government negotiators, politicians and hangers on because it will leave them with an extra dollar from their daily subsistence allowances (DSA).
Poignantly, that result was hailed as a success by the 100 heads of state who attended the event. Why?
Because given how environmental summits have failed in recent years as global economic turmoil squashes political will to take on climate and conservation issues, the mere fact of agreeing to talk again in the future constituted victory.
After the summit last week, I spoke to a top government bureaucrat, who indicated the result fell short on many fronts. What came out clear is that the outcome of the conference simply means both developing and rich countries’ leaders are laggards. How could they contend with rescheduling future summits than tangible results in the face of environment ruin?
Faced with the real prospect of complete failure, negotiators who struggled for months to hammer out a more ambitious final document ended up opting for the lowest common denominator. Just hours before Rio+20 meeting opened, they agreed on a proposal that makes virtually no progress beyond what was signed at the original 1992 Earth Summit, removing the kind of contentious proposals activists contend were required to avoid an environmental meltdown.
The South Centre Policy executive director and a member of the UN Committee on Development Martin Khor said: “We’ve sunk so low in our expectations that reaffirming what we did 20 years ago is now considered a success.”
Why is it that we share a common future, but so little common ground?
Perhaps, the result from the lacklustre Rio+20 is that political leaders and their delegates in their wisdom or lack of it declined to bequeath it one of the grandiloquent titles normally attached to such things. It was not a Rio+20 Declaration, nor even a “roadmap”.
It was basically, clumsily, unimpressively — a “Rio+20 Outcomes Document”.
One can therefore deduce that the easy answer to the question of why government delegations could not aim higher was that the result reflected deep and stark divisions between developing and developed countries. And to some extent that was true.
Consequently, according to the Rio+20 Summit Outcomes, the word “reaffirm” is used 59 times in the 49-page document titled The Future We Want.
They reaffirm the need to achieve sustainable development (but not mandating how); reaffirm commitment to strengthening international cooperation (just not right now); and reaffirm the need to achieve economic stability (with no new funding for the poorest nations).
Some of the major issues activists wanted to see in the document that didn’t make it in included a call to end subsidies for fossil fuels, language underscoring the reproductive rights of women, and some words on how nations might mutually agree to protect the high seas, areas that fall outside any national jurisdictions.
For example the concept of the green economy, originally intended to be at the heart of Rio+20 summit was supposed to put the world back on track to place sustainability at the heart of economic decision-making.
But developing countries including Zimbabwe saw it differently. President Robert Mugabe for starters, pointed out that money to transition to the green economy does not by and large grow on trees. Like many leaders in the developing world, the leaders were wary of anything that might impose rules on how they should develop.
Nevertheless, a simple “them and us” analysis of the failings of Rio+20 overlooked an important difference between 2012 and the time of the original Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago. Nor does it even do justice to the nuances of the green economy debate.
The world has changed and consequently so too has what one delegate termed “the arithmetic” of international negotiation, making the task of achieving consensus much harder.
We live in a world where environmental leadership on various issues is not solely the domain of developed countries, for example the country’s forest protection, land degradation, panning and reforestation efforts and our landmark climate change policy currently being debated among others.
Yes the leaders shared powerful examples of sustainable development in action. But what can make a difference are serious, implementable initiatives that will advance sustainable development. Going forward, these commitments must galvanise action where it really matters – on the ground.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Not within the legion of bleary-eyed government negotiators from the 191 nations who met in an abortive attempt to find a breakthrough at the United Nations conference on sustainable development.
Again, not among the thousands of activists who denounced the summit that ended last week as “dead on arrival”. Not even organisers of the UN’s largest-ever event.
UN secretary-general of the conference Sha Zukang summed the mood of the delegates saying: “This is an outcome that makes nobody happy. My job was to make everyone equally unhappy.”
And so, in the end Rio+ 20 became a conference to decide to have even more conferences. At least it’s good for the government negotiators, politicians and hangers on because it will leave them with an extra dollar from their daily subsistence allowances (DSA).
Poignantly, that result was hailed as a success by the 100 heads of state who attended the event. Why?
Because given how environmental summits have failed in recent years as global economic turmoil squashes political will to take on climate and conservation issues, the mere fact of agreeing to talk again in the future constituted victory.
After the summit last week, I spoke to a top government bureaucrat, who indicated the result fell short on many fronts. What came out clear is that the outcome of the conference simply means both developing and rich countries’ leaders are laggards. How could they contend with rescheduling future summits than tangible results in the face of environment ruin?
Faced with the real prospect of complete failure, negotiators who struggled for months to hammer out a more ambitious final document ended up opting for the lowest common denominator. Just hours before Rio+20 meeting opened, they agreed on a proposal that makes virtually no progress beyond what was signed at the original 1992 Earth Summit, removing the kind of contentious proposals activists contend were required to avoid an environmental meltdown.
The South Centre Policy executive director and a member of the UN Committee on Development Martin Khor said: “We’ve sunk so low in our expectations that reaffirming what we did 20 years ago is now considered a success.”
Why is it that we share a common future, but so little common ground?
Perhaps, the result from the lacklustre Rio+20 is that political leaders and their delegates in their wisdom or lack of it declined to bequeath it one of the grandiloquent titles normally attached to such things. It was not a Rio+20 Declaration, nor even a “roadmap”.
It was basically, clumsily, unimpressively — a “Rio+20 Outcomes Document”.
One can therefore deduce that the easy answer to the question of why government delegations could not aim higher was that the result reflected deep and stark divisions between developing and developed countries. And to some extent that was true.
Consequently, according to the Rio+20 Summit Outcomes, the word “reaffirm” is used 59 times in the 49-page document titled The Future We Want.
They reaffirm the need to achieve sustainable development (but not mandating how); reaffirm commitment to strengthening international cooperation (just not right now); and reaffirm the need to achieve economic stability (with no new funding for the poorest nations).
Some of the major issues activists wanted to see in the document that didn’t make it in included a call to end subsidies for fossil fuels, language underscoring the reproductive rights of women, and some words on how nations might mutually agree to protect the high seas, areas that fall outside any national jurisdictions.
For example the concept of the green economy, originally intended to be at the heart of Rio+20 summit was supposed to put the world back on track to place sustainability at the heart of economic decision-making.
But developing countries including Zimbabwe saw it differently. President Robert Mugabe for starters, pointed out that money to transition to the green economy does not by and large grow on trees. Like many leaders in the developing world, the leaders were wary of anything that might impose rules on how they should develop.
Nevertheless, a simple “them and us” analysis of the failings of Rio+20 overlooked an important difference between 2012 and the time of the original Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago. Nor does it even do justice to the nuances of the green economy debate.
The world has changed and consequently so too has what one delegate termed “the arithmetic” of international negotiation, making the task of achieving consensus much harder.
We live in a world where environmental leadership on various issues is not solely the domain of developed countries, for example the country’s forest protection, land degradation, panning and reforestation efforts and our landmark climate change policy currently being debated among others.
Yes the leaders shared powerful examples of sustainable development in action. But what can make a difference are serious, implementable initiatives that will advance sustainable development. Going forward, these commitments must galvanise action where it really matters – on the ground.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Rio+20 summit — a hoax?
Rio de Janeiro is the birthplace of the United
Nations Earth Summit.So it seems appropriate that the giant beast of
sustainable development negotiations should go there to die. And where
New World Vultures smelt the wounded and circle overhead.
The UN Earth Summit was first held in Rio in June 1992. Over 191 governments took part along with
2 500 representatives of NGOs while 20 000 people attended the parallel, consultative event –the ForumGlobal.
The first summit delivered the Climate Change Convention. It was ambitious — laying the foundation of the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity. There the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which established 27 sustainable development principles, Agenda 21 and the Forest Principles were also agreed.
More importantly the first Earth Summit represented a message of hope.
Environmental concerns, from climate change to biodiversity were no longer the obsessions of green pressure groups. Global solutions were now being sought by global governments.
Former US president George H W Bush made an unexpected appearance at the summit and the newly elected British Prime Minister John Major was an enthusiastic and engaged lead for the UK delegation.
For many environmental NGOs, it was a miracle birth. For some corporations, it represented a real threat. But here we are, 20 years later, with the UN hosting the Rio+20, the largest event of its kind with sustainable development dominating the agenda.
Yet something has changed. Instead of injecting new life into the Earth Summit process, the atmosphere was one of sombre acceptance or outright grief. At the end indications are this Rio+20 will go down as the “hoax summit”.
They came, they talked, but they failed to act. Paralysed by inertia and in hock to vested interests, too many leaders were unable to join up the dots and solve the connected crisis of environment, equality and economy.
From the outset indications were that Rio+20 was never going to generate the sort of landmark accords signed at the 1992 Earth Summit.
Although the summit attracted over 50 000 people, many were disappointed that nearly 100 leaders made few specific commitments on issues ranging from energy to food security to oceans.
Reports say throughout the negotiations, the streets of central Rio and surrounding the suburban conference hall that hosted the summit were littered with demonstrations by activists ranging from Indian tribes to environmentalists to anti-nuclear protesters.
Instead of forging legally binding treaties, organisers pointed out, the purpose of the summit was to initiate a process to define a new set of development principles.
But that process, like most global diplomacy, is rife with conflicting interests and tensions between rich countries and the developing world. The storyline was certainly different from 1992. The summit recognised more than the others that not one size fits all.
President Robert Mugabe, who attended the 1992 Earth Summit, like many other leaders this time around used his time at the podium to note the markedly different needs Zimbabwe is struggling with, especially compared with the developed world. While leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa themselves big emerging nations, spoke of their need to catch up with rich countries. Yet others like Bolivia, Iran and Cuba unleashed traditional rants against capitalism and conventional definitions of growth.
One point of contention was what many emerging nations believe is a need for a global fund that could assist them pursue development goals.
Early talk of a $30 billion fund for that purpose as a possible outcome of the summit foundered.
The grand failure of Rio+20 is a reminder that short-term corporate profit rules over the interests of people. There was no doubt that Rio+20 was indeed showing signs of “rigor mortis”.
Sadly, US president Barack Obama, who was elected on a wave of euphoria at the departure of George W Bush was “too busy” fighting an election to bring presidential gravitas to the forum. On the other hand, UK premier David Cameron was caught up in the immediacy of the economic crisis tearing through Europe to turn his attention to the future ecological crisis affecting the planet.
If not dead, then Rio+20 is certainly suffering from Locked-in Syndrome, paralysed but with some signs of life around the eyes.
Brazil’s Environment minister Izabella Teixeira said it was important the negotiating process kept going, perhaps to a Rio+40.
Civil society groups from across the globe were quick to condemn world leaders — particularly from rich countries — for failing to live up to their promises or offer new vision.
Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, a pan-continental alliance of over 300 movements and networks to amplify African voices on climate change said: “Africa is at the forefront of the interlinked crises facing humanity: a broken economic system that kills the planet leaves millions in poverty scrambling for the most basic essence of human dignity. And yet developed countries’ governments came here and have not been able to live up to their meager promises on resources for sustainable development. Is this what we call renewed political commitment?”
Thus, the conference, which ended with more set piece speeches from leaders, saw the summit closing with what was widely considered a lackluster agreement, leaving many attendees convinced that individuals and companies, rather than governments, should lead efforts to improve the environment.
The reasons are that lack of consensus over those goals in Rio de Janeiro led to the agreement that even some signatory countries said lacked commitment, specifics and measurable targets.
Clearly, a series of much-hyped global summits on environmental policy has now fallen short of expectations, going back at least to a 2009 UN meeting in Copenhagen that ended in near chaos; Mexico in 2010 and Durban 2011 which went into extra time.
As a result, it tells us that progress on environmental issues must be made locally with the private sector and without the help of international accords.
Finally, the roster of promises issued at the end of the summit could be described as “pallid or gutless”.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
2 500 representatives of NGOs while 20 000 people attended the parallel, consultative event –the ForumGlobal.
The first summit delivered the Climate Change Convention. It was ambitious — laying the foundation of the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity. There the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which established 27 sustainable development principles, Agenda 21 and the Forest Principles were also agreed.
More importantly the first Earth Summit represented a message of hope.
Environmental concerns, from climate change to biodiversity were no longer the obsessions of green pressure groups. Global solutions were now being sought by global governments.
Former US president George H W Bush made an unexpected appearance at the summit and the newly elected British Prime Minister John Major was an enthusiastic and engaged lead for the UK delegation.
For many environmental NGOs, it was a miracle birth. For some corporations, it represented a real threat. But here we are, 20 years later, with the UN hosting the Rio+20, the largest event of its kind with sustainable development dominating the agenda.
Yet something has changed. Instead of injecting new life into the Earth Summit process, the atmosphere was one of sombre acceptance or outright grief. At the end indications are this Rio+20 will go down as the “hoax summit”.
They came, they talked, but they failed to act. Paralysed by inertia and in hock to vested interests, too many leaders were unable to join up the dots and solve the connected crisis of environment, equality and economy.
From the outset indications were that Rio+20 was never going to generate the sort of landmark accords signed at the 1992 Earth Summit.
Although the summit attracted over 50 000 people, many were disappointed that nearly 100 leaders made few specific commitments on issues ranging from energy to food security to oceans.
Reports say throughout the negotiations, the streets of central Rio and surrounding the suburban conference hall that hosted the summit were littered with demonstrations by activists ranging from Indian tribes to environmentalists to anti-nuclear protesters.
Instead of forging legally binding treaties, organisers pointed out, the purpose of the summit was to initiate a process to define a new set of development principles.
But that process, like most global diplomacy, is rife with conflicting interests and tensions between rich countries and the developing world. The storyline was certainly different from 1992. The summit recognised more than the others that not one size fits all.
President Robert Mugabe, who attended the 1992 Earth Summit, like many other leaders this time around used his time at the podium to note the markedly different needs Zimbabwe is struggling with, especially compared with the developed world. While leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa themselves big emerging nations, spoke of their need to catch up with rich countries. Yet others like Bolivia, Iran and Cuba unleashed traditional rants against capitalism and conventional definitions of growth.
One point of contention was what many emerging nations believe is a need for a global fund that could assist them pursue development goals.
Early talk of a $30 billion fund for that purpose as a possible outcome of the summit foundered.
The grand failure of Rio+20 is a reminder that short-term corporate profit rules over the interests of people. There was no doubt that Rio+20 was indeed showing signs of “rigor mortis”.
Sadly, US president Barack Obama, who was elected on a wave of euphoria at the departure of George W Bush was “too busy” fighting an election to bring presidential gravitas to the forum. On the other hand, UK premier David Cameron was caught up in the immediacy of the economic crisis tearing through Europe to turn his attention to the future ecological crisis affecting the planet.
If not dead, then Rio+20 is certainly suffering from Locked-in Syndrome, paralysed but with some signs of life around the eyes.
Brazil’s Environment minister Izabella Teixeira said it was important the negotiating process kept going, perhaps to a Rio+40.
Civil society groups from across the globe were quick to condemn world leaders — particularly from rich countries — for failing to live up to their promises or offer new vision.
Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, a pan-continental alliance of over 300 movements and networks to amplify African voices on climate change said: “Africa is at the forefront of the interlinked crises facing humanity: a broken economic system that kills the planet leaves millions in poverty scrambling for the most basic essence of human dignity. And yet developed countries’ governments came here and have not been able to live up to their meager promises on resources for sustainable development. Is this what we call renewed political commitment?”
Thus, the conference, which ended with more set piece speeches from leaders, saw the summit closing with what was widely considered a lackluster agreement, leaving many attendees convinced that individuals and companies, rather than governments, should lead efforts to improve the environment.
The reasons are that lack of consensus over those goals in Rio de Janeiro led to the agreement that even some signatory countries said lacked commitment, specifics and measurable targets.
Clearly, a series of much-hyped global summits on environmental policy has now fallen short of expectations, going back at least to a 2009 UN meeting in Copenhagen that ended in near chaos; Mexico in 2010 and Durban 2011 which went into extra time.
As a result, it tells us that progress on environmental issues must be made locally with the private sector and without the help of international accords.
Finally, the roster of promises issued at the end of the summit could be described as “pallid or gutless”.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Monday, 18 June 2012
Will Rio+20 Summit live up to its billing?
World leaders will this week meet in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Rio+ 20 Summit and African populations will be watching with keen interest the unfolding events at the biggest global gathering on sustainable development.
The summit, which will be attended by Zimbabwes President Robert Mugabe, among other statesmen, comes at a time the United Nations system in Africa indicates the summit is all-important for Africa, which has the second-largest forest in the world.
UNDP resident representative in Cameron Martin Zeh-Nlo said: The African countries neighbouring the Congo Basin forest should bring up negotiations on the following dilemma: on one hand, theres the international community which demands that these states should not touch the forest, but on the other side are the states which want to use the forests to develop.
What should we do, knowing that these states with their current resources will not be able to fund all the aspects of their development regarding education, health and agriculture?
This is the dilemma African countries have been battling with over the years. Although rich in terms of resources, the continent remains poor for countries do not have the means to capacitate their populations and be able to fully benefit from its vast mineral resources.
According to the fifth Global Environment Outlook (GEO) analysis, Africa is faced with a number of constraints for its development which, more than in any other continent, hamper its capacity to conserve its environment and more specifically the Congo Basin which is the second biggest forest on the planet after the Amazon in Latin America.
The GEO-5 launched on the eve of the Rio+20 Summit last week assessed 90 of the most important environmental goals and objectives and found that significant progress had only been made in four.
These are eliminating the production and use of substances that deplete the ozone layer, removal of lead from fuel, increasing access to improved water supplies and boosting research to reduce pollution of the marine environment.
Some progress was shown in 40 goals, including the expansion of protected areas such as national parks and efforts to reduce deforestation. Little or no progress was detected for 24 including climate change, fish stocks, and desertification and drought.
Further deterioration was posted for eight goals including the state of the worlds coral reefs while no assessment was made of 14 other goals due to a lack of data.
Of importance is the caution that if humanity does not urgently change its ways, several critical thresholds may be exceeded, beyond which abrupt and generally irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet could occur.
If current trends continue, if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannot be reversed and decoupled, then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation, according to UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
But its not all bad news. The GEO report says meeting an ambitious set of sustainability targets by the middle of the century is possible if current policies and strategies are changed and strengthened, and gives many examples of successful policy initiatives, including public investment, green accounting, sustainable trade, the establishment of new markets, technological innovation and capacity building.
Interestingly, where international treaties and agreements have tackled goals with specific, measurable targets such as the bans on ozone-depleting substances and lead in petrol they have demonstrated considerable success.
For this reason, African leaders attending the all-important Rio+20 Summit should call for more specific targets, with quantifiable results, across a broader range of environmental challenges.
World leaders and nations meeting at Rio+20 are reminded why a decisive and defining transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient, job-generating green economy is urgently needed.
More important, the scientific evidence, built over decades, is overwhelming and leaves little room for doubt.
So, Rio+20 is a moment to turn sustainable development from aspiration and inconsistent implementation into a genuine path to progress and prosperity for this and the next generations.
Can one imagine that each year Africa loses about 4 million hectares of forests, which is two times more than the global average?
Already half of the African ecological zones have been degraded or converted into farmlands and urban centres.
Africa currently has 2 million square kilometres of protected regions, but the coastal zones are still confronted by problems related to mining and oil drilling, uncontrolled fishing, poor management of the mangroves and development of the coastal regions.
Trees from the forests are destroyed to construct houses or produce charcoal, hence reducing the habitations for various animal species. At the same time Africa is the second most dry continent after Australia.
Some 340 million Africans out of a population of about 1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. And out of the 1,4 billion people in the world who do not have access to energy, 40% live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Even though 60% of the African population is involved in agriculture, two-thirds of African farmers practice subsistence farming.
In terms of responsibility, one cannot say that Africa is a big polluter. On the contrary, Africa has suffered due to pollution, with a high drop in agricultural production. Ironically, industrialisation of the North in the 19th century was possible due to high consumption of energy, coal and later petroleum.
Now, Africa should also be allowed to boost its economic growth by using its raw materials, and to achieve this, the continent should adopt an industrialisation process that will be focused on local value addition processes.
For the Rio+20 Summit, the entire humanity is in danger. The levels of warming experienced in Africa have been increasing year after year. This should make the big polluters countries of the North to pay for their actions. And so the Rio+ Summit should engage in negotiations with a view of safeguarding the African interests.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
The summit, which will be attended by Zimbabwes President Robert Mugabe, among other statesmen, comes at a time the United Nations system in Africa indicates the summit is all-important for Africa, which has the second-largest forest in the world.
UNDP resident representative in Cameron Martin Zeh-Nlo said: The African countries neighbouring the Congo Basin forest should bring up negotiations on the following dilemma: on one hand, theres the international community which demands that these states should not touch the forest, but on the other side are the states which want to use the forests to develop.
What should we do, knowing that these states with their current resources will not be able to fund all the aspects of their development regarding education, health and agriculture?
This is the dilemma African countries have been battling with over the years. Although rich in terms of resources, the continent remains poor for countries do not have the means to capacitate their populations and be able to fully benefit from its vast mineral resources.
According to the fifth Global Environment Outlook (GEO) analysis, Africa is faced with a number of constraints for its development which, more than in any other continent, hamper its capacity to conserve its environment and more specifically the Congo Basin which is the second biggest forest on the planet after the Amazon in Latin America.
The GEO-5 launched on the eve of the Rio+20 Summit last week assessed 90 of the most important environmental goals and objectives and found that significant progress had only been made in four.
These are eliminating the production and use of substances that deplete the ozone layer, removal of lead from fuel, increasing access to improved water supplies and boosting research to reduce pollution of the marine environment.
Some progress was shown in 40 goals, including the expansion of protected areas such as national parks and efforts to reduce deforestation. Little or no progress was detected for 24 including climate change, fish stocks, and desertification and drought.
Further deterioration was posted for eight goals including the state of the worlds coral reefs while no assessment was made of 14 other goals due to a lack of data.
Of importance is the caution that if humanity does not urgently change its ways, several critical thresholds may be exceeded, beyond which abrupt and generally irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet could occur.
If current trends continue, if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannot be reversed and decoupled, then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation, according to UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
But its not all bad news. The GEO report says meeting an ambitious set of sustainability targets by the middle of the century is possible if current policies and strategies are changed and strengthened, and gives many examples of successful policy initiatives, including public investment, green accounting, sustainable trade, the establishment of new markets, technological innovation and capacity building.
Interestingly, where international treaties and agreements have tackled goals with specific, measurable targets such as the bans on ozone-depleting substances and lead in petrol they have demonstrated considerable success.
For this reason, African leaders attending the all-important Rio+20 Summit should call for more specific targets, with quantifiable results, across a broader range of environmental challenges.
World leaders and nations meeting at Rio+20 are reminded why a decisive and defining transition towards a low-carbon, resource-efficient, job-generating green economy is urgently needed.
More important, the scientific evidence, built over decades, is overwhelming and leaves little room for doubt.
So, Rio+20 is a moment to turn sustainable development from aspiration and inconsistent implementation into a genuine path to progress and prosperity for this and the next generations.
Can one imagine that each year Africa loses about 4 million hectares of forests, which is two times more than the global average?
Already half of the African ecological zones have been degraded or converted into farmlands and urban centres.
Africa currently has 2 million square kilometres of protected regions, but the coastal zones are still confronted by problems related to mining and oil drilling, uncontrolled fishing, poor management of the mangroves and development of the coastal regions.
Trees from the forests are destroyed to construct houses or produce charcoal, hence reducing the habitations for various animal species. At the same time Africa is the second most dry continent after Australia.
Some 340 million Africans out of a population of about 1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. And out of the 1,4 billion people in the world who do not have access to energy, 40% live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Even though 60% of the African population is involved in agriculture, two-thirds of African farmers practice subsistence farming.
In terms of responsibility, one cannot say that Africa is a big polluter. On the contrary, Africa has suffered due to pollution, with a high drop in agricultural production. Ironically, industrialisation of the North in the 19th century was possible due to high consumption of energy, coal and later petroleum.
Now, Africa should also be allowed to boost its economic growth by using its raw materials, and to achieve this, the continent should adopt an industrialisation process that will be focused on local value addition processes.
For the Rio+20 Summit, the entire humanity is in danger. The levels of warming experienced in Africa have been increasing year after year. This should make the big polluters countries of the North to pay for their actions. And so the Rio+ Summit should engage in negotiations with a view of safeguarding the African interests.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Zim speeds down an unsustainable path
On the eve of the most important conference on sustainable development RIO+ 20 the world remains on unsustainable track despite hundreds of internationally agreed goals and objectives.
The world over countries commemorated the United Nations World Environment Day in style on June 5.
Officials in charge of the environment in Zimbabwe and elsewhere seemed querysome, no one had an answer to why the environment was deteriorating so fast.
The environment week was so special to the world this year than any other time in many ways. It was celebrated on the eve of the Rio+20 the most important conference on sustainable development on the UN calendar in 10 years.
It was not an irony then that when Environment minister Francis Nhema accompanied by secretary Florence Nhekairo launched the countrys environmental outlook report, he indicated Zimbabwewas living on borrowed time.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to almost all UN protocols on the environment, but a lot needs to be done on that front.
But, yes these ambitious set of sustainability targets can be met, (only) with renewed commitment and rapid scaling-up of successful policies.
Attitudes have to change, it must be an honour to keep our cities, our country and our space (where we live) free of dirt. The country must not celebrate litterbugs. People must feel ashamed of throwing away litter everywhere. This does not call for sterner measures, but change of attitude by everyone.
A fast-growing urban population, globalisation and climate change alongside a need to boost governance, are also among the challenges facing Zimbabwe and of-course Africa if we are to put ourselves firmly on the path to a sustainable future.
Clearly the continent is still lagging behind with respect to meeting internationally-agreed goals while increasing pressure on its natural resources can lead and has led to tensions and resource degradation as Africas population grows at the fastest rate in the world.
Yet many countries are adopting collaborative cross-border policies and projects that contain seeds for a more sustainable future from a renewed understanding of the value of forests to ecosystems.
In Zimbabwe that has seen a change in government policy to the network of protected areas on the countryside, for example curbing rampant forest fires, gold panning, sand poaching and deforestation.
If scaledup and accelerated, such measures could assist in a transition to a Green economy as nations across the globe prepare for the Rio+20 Summit later this month.
Some of the above measures are among the main findings for Africa from the Global Environment Outlook 5 (launched last week), which analyses the worldwide state of the environment and tracks progress towards agreed goals and targets.
International goals to reverse deforestation are off track in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular, with over three million hectares lost each year due to an expansion of agricultural lands to meet food needs and, to an extent, the international demand for biofuels.
Globally, although the Millennium Development Goal target on water supply was met in 2010, more than 600 million people will still lack access to safe drinking water in 2015.
In Africas cities, Harare among them characterised by extremes of prosperous centres and poor, informal settlements many governments struggle to provide social services including access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
Harare mayor Much Masunda at one time pointed out he was in charge in the capital and was putting measures to uplift living standards through provision of water and improved service delivery.
But residents in the capital actually spend more time without water and electricity. Hence, people may find it difficult to support Masundas (I like his intellect) push to repossess Harare power station when nothing has been done to improve the water situation in Harare, itself an environmental misnomer.
It is pertinent to understand that achieving food and energy security and managing environmental risks is also a challenge.
Exacerbating the issues is climate change, which can accelerate urbanisation and place further stress on natural resources such as freshwater and land through extreme weather events.
Weak governance means that the complex web of interwoven issues are not being dealt with, although Africas track record of collaborative projects between governments, communities and stakeholders shows progress is possible.
Perhaps it is time all politicians and not only Nhema and staff in his ministry, industry and commerce, Environmental Management Authority (EMA) director general Mutsa Chasi or Masunda himself a technocrat and businessman and many others of their ilk, pay particular attention to policy approaches, highlighting successful national and regional policies that can be scaled up and replicated elsewhere.
Emerging trends and regional priorities for action must also be explored for the benefit of everyone.
Can Zimbabwe stand up and be counted?
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
Monday, 4 June 2012
Global Warming: Time to start preparing for the worst
Its time to start protecting people from the impact of severe-weather events as the climate change conversation is shifting.
This was disclosed at a meeting of environment stakeholders in Harare last week, a precursor to the launch of Zimbabwes 3rd State of the Environment Report in Harare today to coincide with the World Environment Day (WED) on June 5. The theme for WED 2012 is Green Economy: Does it include you?
But, in the discussions, one thing which came out clear was that political attacks have made environmentalists cautious with respect to how they convey the information generated by their models and empirical studies.
For example, when environmentalists urged government to rethink its decision to permit the construction of a massive hotel on a wetland near the National Sports Stadium, they were attacked left, right and centre.
The implication was that we cannot keep the open area just for frogs. I may not be a scientist myself, but ecologically these play a huge role in terms of purifying our drinking water instead of using the nine water purification chemicals to treat water.
Does it make Harare water any safer without frogs? Besides, there appears to be discord among government departments, hence no political will to protect the environment itself a major concern to the environmental sector, a notion shared by Environment minister Francis Nhema.
Nhema told guests the ongoing trend analysis and findings of Zimbabwe Environment Outlook (ZEO)s state of the environment, has shown that rural to urban migration is a major driver of urban environmental challenges.
These challenges manifest themselves in the form of increased demand for water, energy and related services, unsustainable waste generation and pollution.
While councils have by-laws that target abatement of environmental degradation, these have been ineffective and poorly implemented.
But decision-makers must have information about worst-case scenarios that might arise, in order to prepare adequately to respond to extreme events.
For example, 100 year floods dont occur every 100 years the probability of a flood of a particular magnitude might be that it occurs once in 100 years, but it is still possible to have two floods of this magnitude take place within several years of each other.
And the changing climate is in fact causing such extreme events to occur with increasing frequency. And so guidance for policy can best be drawn from a risk management perspective, studying specifically the probability of high-impact scenarios.
In any sort of crisis situation, government must prepare for the worst. Whether a disruption of power supply might result from inclement weather, a gas explosion, or deliberate sabotage, government must have emergency plans in place to provide essential energy to hospitals and other essential services.
In the case of the future of crop production in a country, a similar type of precautionary approach is necessary to maintain food security for the population. Scientists must be given the political space to explain to decision-makers what the worst-case situations might be.
Decision-makers must take into consideration the uncertainties with which climate modellers and agriculture experts are working, and request information that reflects the range of uncertainties.
Scientists should not be frightened into downplaying the more serious impacts that are foreseen this only serves to worsen threats to food security if indeed policymakers are not prepared for the breadth and severity of possible impact on food production.
Climate change poses monumental challenges for agriculture with respect to the climate variables most important to plants and animals, temperature and rainfall.
Biological organisms have physiological limits to the amount of excessive heat they can endure.
Girding communities now to bounce back from droughts, floods, heat waves, and severe storms they currently experience will go a long way to help them adapt to long-term global warming.
That broad message is what is contained in the ZEO report which surveys the current state of scientific knowledge about the impact global warming could have on nine types of extreme-weather events.
The volume is the strongest signal yet of a sea change in thinking during the past decade on adaptation to climate change.
Although the report has dealt with the subject all along, adaptation is seen by many activist groups on global warming as a cop-out a topic aimed at diverting attention from the need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
But researchers have indicated that even if the country slammed the brakes on emissions, the climate would continue to warm because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries.
The gradual-but-relentless build-up of CO₂ in the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution is an indication that humans are pumping it into the air faster than natural processes can remove the excess.
Increasingly, some degree of adaptation has come to be seen as a necessity, not a diversion.
Teasing out trends in extreme weather and identifying global warmings fingerprint are challenging.
By definition, extreme weather events are relatively rare and require observations of consistent, high quality over long periods of time and with extremely good spatial coverage.
But enough data have been accumulating during the past years at least to begin the process. So we must pledge to make earth a better place to live in.
To spread this message and create awareness, WED commemorations this year may be the right time to initiate solutions on environmental issues.
Let us identify issues related to environment and ways to take corrective action.
The idea behind such awareness programmes is to use WED as a strong and effective platform in protecting the environment and finding solutions for a sustainable living.
Let us extend our full support to WED 2012 to prevent veldt fires, protect the forests, rivers and habitats.
millenniumzimbabwe@yahoo.com/http://twitter.com/wisdomdzungairi
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