save your enviroment..save your life..make the WORLD a better place..

Conserving wildlife in Tanzania, Africa's most biodiverse country....

2007-08-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

With ecosystems ranging from Lake Tanganyika to Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania is the most biodiverse country in Africa.

Though Tanzania is world famous for its safari animals, the country is also home to two major biodiversity hotspots: the Eastern Arc Mountains and the Albertine Rift surrounding Lake Tanganyika.

Tanzania has set aside nearly a quarter of its land mass in a network of protected areas and more than one-sixth of the country's income is derived from tourism, much of which comes from nature-oriented travel.

Despite these conservation achievements, Tanzania's wildlands and biodiversity are not safe. Fueled by surging population growth and poverty, subsistence agriculture, fuelwood collection, and timber extraction have fragmented and degraded extensive areas that are nominally protected.

Hunting and unsustainable use of forest products have further imperiled ecosystems and species. In the near future, climate change looms as a major threat not only to Mt. Kilimanjaro's glaciers, which are expected to disappear within ten years, but also to Tanzania's many endemic plants and animals found in its montane forests.

Working to better understand these threats and safeguard Tanzania's biodiversity for future generations is Tim Davenport, Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Tanzania. Davenport, who co-discovered a species of monkey in the Southern Highlands region of Tanzania in 2003, has been working in Tanzania with WCS since 1999.

In Nov. 2006, Davenport kindly answered some questions on the Conserving wildlife in Tanzania, Africa's most biodiverse country

He says that though "humans are not by nature a sustainable animal", conservation success in Tanzania is possible through education, better understanding of local economics, and sustainable development. To future conservationists, Davenport offers this key advice: "don't give up."

i will give part of the interview with him in next chapter.

you are welcome!!!!

Discussing Global Warming in the Security Council: Premature and a Distraction from More Pressing Crises..part 5

2007-05-24T04:57:00.000-07:00

An Affront to the Suffering

In essence, the United Kingdom is asking the Security Council to replicate the work of other forums in order to discuss a threat that, even if it develops as predicted, will not result in a tangible threat to international peace and security for decades.

This effort is an affront to the millions currently suffering from the depredations of dictatorial regimes around the world and those facing the near-term threats posed by proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, transnational terrorism, and conflict.

Consider the plight of the people in the Darfur region of Sudan or in Zimbabwe. Both situations involve millions of displaced persons and directly affect the security and stability of neighboring nations Yet the Council has been either silent or ineffective in both cases. Similarly, the Council has long been silent on human rights violations in numerous other countries.

On the issue of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the Council has proven to be a paper tiger in its dealings with North Korea and Iran, which are leading the charge toward widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons technology.

The Security Council has similarly proven unable to address the issue of transnational terrorism. It has not condemned state sponsors of terrorism despite ample evidence of links to international terrorist groups and has demonstrated little concern about encouraging and supporting those groups in their efforts to attack citizens of U.N. member states. The U.N. has been unable even to define what constitutes terrorism.

As of February 2007, the total number of personnel serving in 18 United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations-led peace operations and political missions was over 100,000 individuals.

This number is expected to increase sharply. The U.N. has more troops deployed than any nation in the world except for the United States. The unprecedented frequency and size of recent U.N. deployments and the resulting financial demands have challenged the willingness of member states to contribute uniformed personnel in support of U.N.

peace operations and have overwhelmed the capabilities of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and other parts of the Secretariat that support peace operations. This has lead to mismanagement, misconduct, poor planning, corruption, sexual abuse, unclear mandates, and other weaknesses. Yet the Security Council has been largely silent about how these weaknesses affect its decisions and mandates.

The Security Council has a full docket of immediate threats to international peace and security that would benefit from more deliberation and action. Focusing on the speculative threats that may result from global warming distracts from these vital issues and undermines the seriousness and stature of the body by reducing it to a political theatre.

Discussing Global Warming in the Security Council: Premature and a Distraction from More Pressing Crises..part 4

2007-05-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

Alternative Forums

Another global forum to debate global warming is unnecessary and counterproductive. The list of international organizations and forums focused on researching global warming includes many national environmental ministries and agencies and innumerable non-governmental organizations focused on environmental issues.

Within the U.N. system, UNEP and other specialized bodies like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are already dedicating massive resources to this issue. Treaties focusing on global warming include the Kyoto Protocol, which has been in force since 2005, and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.

Two high-level multilateral institutions are expected to grapple with the issue of global warming in the coming months:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 to examine the issue of global warming through joint effort of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. The IPCC seeks to forge a consensus among climate experts on the state of climate science relating to global warming every five to seven years and present a report for consideration by world leaders.

The IPCC issued assessments in 1990, 1996, and 2001. Its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) is being released in stages this year and will serve as justification for a post-Kyoto climate treaty at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007.

The 33rd G8 summit, hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will be held on June 6–8, 2007, in Heiligendamm, Germany and will focus on climate change. Merkel has promised to make global warming "an important issue once again on the agenda during our G8 presidency."

The agenda will build on the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit in Scotland, which adopted a statement on the importance of climate change and an agreement to "act with resolve and urgency now."

The statement concluded that"greenhouse gas emissions need to slow, peak and reverse and that G8 countries need to make ‘substantial cuts' in emissions."

Gleneagles also saw the creation of the G8+5 Group comprised of the G8 and Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, China, and India. The mission of this group is to advance deeper cooperation on climate change and trade.

It is difficult to imagine how additional debate in the Security Council will contribute to these efforts. The Security Council lacks the expertise of existing forums or of dissenting groups and scientists and can contribute little of value to the overall discussion.

Between these high-level forums and incessant media coverage, it is impossible to justify placing the issue of global warming on the agenda of the Security Council as necessary to increase international awareness of global warming.

Discussing Global Warming in the Security Council: Premature and a Distraction from More Pressing Crises...part 3

2007-05-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

The Current Evidence

The state of current scientific understanding undermines the case for consideration of global warming in the U.N. Security Council.

A review of the evidence reveals fundamental uncertainties and projected harms that, even under worst-case scenarios, are not pressing threats requiring immediate attention by the Security Council.

To what extent is warming caused by human activity? The earth's average temperature has increased over the last 30 years, and many point to this as evidence of harmful, human-induced warming. But temperatures have risen and fallen many times in the past. For example, the Medieval Warm Period was likely as warm as the present.

While it is likely that mankind's activities have made a contribution to warming, current temperatures are within the historical range of natural variability.

How much of an immediate and dire threat is posed by warming? Given that the current upward trend in temperatures is not unprecedented, it stands to reason that such minor warming will not lead to unprecedented catastrophes, and scientific evidence is independently confirming this.

The planet and its inhabitants are much more resilient to temperature variability than had been previously assumed, and the warming over the last few decades has not been particularly harmful to humans or the environment.[5] Indeed, the rise in greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures over this period has been accompanied by declining damages from natural disasters, not the opposite.[

In sum, the more alarming predictions

—dramatic sea level rises, increased storms, wider spread of malaria, etc.

—are not extrapolations of current trends, but radical departures from them. At the very least, they are highly implausible in the near term and so not an imminent threat to international peace and stability, which is the claim made to justify consideration before the U.N. Security Council.

Is reducing CO2 emissions worth the costs? China, which will soon overtake the U.S. as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, and other developing nations are exempt under Kyoto, and most of the European signatories to the Protocol are not on track to meet its requirements, with several actually seeing their emissions since 2000 rising faster than in the U.S. Britain's emissions are at a ten-year high.

Even if the U.S. had ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and even if Europe and others were in full compliance with it, the treaty would avert an inconsequential 0.07 degree Celsius temperature increase by 2050[, at a cost to the U.S. of $100 billion to $400 billion annually.[

This would directly impact the public with higher gasoline and electricity prices as well as fewer jobs and other consequences. In other words, the Kyoto approach leads to great economic pain and almost no environmental gain.
Even if global warming occurs as envisioned, it is far from clear that acting now to address the threat is the most efficient use of resources.

Many of the disasters predicted by alarmists (e.g., floods, droughts, crop-failures, storms, and vector-borne diseases) will occur from time to time whether or not global warming makes them more frequent or severe. These threats should be faced directly, irrespective of global warming. Costly measures like Kyoto, however, will do almost nothing to cool the planet but would damage economies and sap resources away from more useful and direct efforts to fight these problems.

For example, the Copenhagen Consensus Conference brought together leading economists, scientists, and specialists in May 2004 to prioritize how to best allocate limited resources to address the most pressing global problems. In June 2006, the Copenhagen Consensus Conference brought together U.N. ambassadors, including the U.S., Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani ambassadors, for the same purpose.

In both cases, "[Participants] agreed that the world's top spending priorities should be around the areas of health, water, education and hunger. And, perhaps more courageously, they also said what should not come at the top—financial instability and climate change ranked at the bottom of the list."

Discussing Global Warming in the Security Council: Premature and a Distraction from More Pressing Crises...part 2

2007-05-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

The Uncertainty Surrounding Catastrophic Global Warming

Global warming is a legitimate environmental concern, but does it really rise to the level of a security crisis? British policy on climate change subscribes to the European Union position of accepting and pursuing policies based upon worst-case scenarios of global warming.

Substantive political debate on global warming in the U.K. is minimal, and Prime Minister Tony Blair, Chancellor of the Treasury Gordon Brown, and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron are competing to out-do one another with their green credentials and proposals to tax, cap, or otherwise regulate greenhouse gases.

Most leading British scientists, institutions, and policy advisers support extensive, binding international regulatory initiatives on climate change. Specifically, the U.K. has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the multilateral treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Sir David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to the U.K. Government, argues that without immediate action to address global warming, particularly by the U.S., millions of people around the world will fall victim to extensive flooding, drought, hunger, and debilitating diseases such as malaria. King has argued that global warming is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism. Indeed, King believes that "climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today."

Such certainty is not supported by the evidence. Contrary to the impression given in press coverage, considerable scientific uncertainties and debate exist.

This is particularly true regarding the more alarming predictions of harm which are invoked to justify the unusual step of the Security Council addressing an issue more appropriately within the purview of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) and other bodies.

Discussing Global Warming in the Security Council: Premature and a Distraction from More Pressing Crises ..part 1

2007-05-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

On April 17,
the United Nations Security Council will discuss the security implications of global warming for the first time. The issue was placed on the agenda by the United Kingdom, which assumed the rotating presidency of the Council for April. According to Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett:

The destruction described in [the recently released summary of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] is a threat not only to the UK's prosperity but also to international peace and security. That is why, at the UK's initiative, the UN Security Council will on the 17th April hold its first ever discussion on the security implications of climate change. We hope that this discussion will foster a shared understanding of the way in which climate stress is likely to amplify other drivers of conflict and tension, and thereby strengthen the commitment of the international community to the collective action that we urgently need.[1]

The United Kingdom is wrong to foist this issue on the Council. First, the extent, source, and consequences of global warming are subject to debate, and the possible implications of global warming, particularly the security implications, are speculative. Even if these consequences occur as predicted in the IPCC report, they are not immediate security threats.

Second, numerous policy initiatives, forums, and organizations are focused on studying and evaluating the consequences of global warming. The focus of these efforts and discussions is to clarify the science of global warming and weigh the costs of action to address global warming against the risks of inaction. A debate in the Security Council is unlikely to contribute to these ongoing efforts.

Finally, the Security Council has a full docket of immediate threats to international peace and security that is has failed to resolve. Focusing on speculative threats that may arise decades in the future undermines the seriousness of the body and is an affront to those suffering from immediate crises. Worse, it distracts the Council from pressing threats to international peace and security.

The case of TANZANIA: Cattle clash sparks bitter feud

2007-05-01T02:59:00.000-07:00

Nairobi, 14 December (IRIN) - Over 400 people fled their homes in the eastern Tanzanian region of Morogoro for fear of being attacked by Maasai pastoralists after a bloody clash there on 8 December between the pastoralists and farmers left 31 people, mostly women and children, dead.

The clashes between Maasai nomads and farmers in Morogoro had been in progress since the end of October, but worsened during four days of fighting last week, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Tuesday.

The 8 December attack was in revenge for the killing of two Maasai tribesmen and the slaughtering of 35 cows by the farmers, AP said.

The combination of revenge and sheer anger at the confiscation of their herds compounded a conflict over land use to which there is no clear solution in sight.

The clashes started after farmers in Kilosa confiscated herds which had strayed into their fields and held them pending receipt of compensation.

The practice is not uncommon in Morogoro, one of the few regions in Tanzania relatively spared by the drought, where pastoralists and farmers live side by side.

The attraction of pasture land was such that, according to recent research, there were 250,000 head of cattle belonging to the Maasai in the region's Kilosa District, the Tanzanian newspaper the 'Guardian' reported on Tuesday.

The conflict had been ongoing for the past 10 years, Dr E. de Pauw, land use consultant with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), told IRIN.

"There is no proper demarcation between agricultural land and pastoral land," de Pauw said. Herders in possession of excessive stocks of cattle, by virtue of their concentration in Morogoro, grazed them in farmlands, either knowingly or by accident, thereby arousing hostility on the part of the farmers, he said.

President Benjamin Mkapa's new government, formed after the October national elections, is injecting a new impetus to the livestock sector, according to the Pan African News Agency, (PANA). The government had adopted a policy to demarcate pastoralist areas, but its implementation would be difficult, de Pauw said.

The Maasai follow a semi-nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place, seeking pasture and water.

They would "always seek after the best land [and] no pastoralists will ever move their animals to semi-arid regions", de Pauw told IRIN. Competition for the best land is harsh, especially in times of drought.

Political factors are also at play, the Tanzanian media has reported.

Villagers claimed that the prime minister's office (PMO) had been aware of the conflict between Maasai pastoralists and the farmers as far back as 1997, when farmer representatives sent an appeal to the PMO, but no action was taken, the 'Guardian' reported on Thursday.

The villagers then resorted to forming traditional defence groups, called 'sungusungu'.

"However, the sungusungu were not effective, because they did not get police cooperation," a farmers' representative told the 'Guardian'. Kilosa District Commissioner Edith Tumbo was suspended on Monday by Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye, according to the 'Guardian'.

Cattle clashes: The case of Tanzania {part one}

2007-04-24T02:14:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Conflict of interests between sedentary agriculturalists and nomadic pastoralists is a common cause of violent clashes in many places around the world - but not the rule.

In many cases the two ways of securing livelihoods may be complementary and to mutual advantage (cattle, as an example, provide free fertilizer).

Problems arise when drought, intensification of agriculture, or overly large herds cross the line of sustainability for both ways of livelihood.

In Tanzania, there is a decade-old conflict between Maasai pastoralists and farmers. In December 2000, violent clashes left 31 people dead.

IPCC outlines strategies for responding to the impacts of human-caused climate change

2007-04-19T06:46:00.000-07:00

Emissions cuts, sustainable development and early measures to adapt could reduce humanity’s vulnerability

Brussels, 6 April 2007 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has finalized a new report that assesses the current and future impacts of global warming and explores opportunities for proactively adapting to them.

The report concludes that the world’s rivers, lakes, wildlife, glaciers, permafrost, coastal zones, disease carriers and many other elements of the natural and physical environment are already responding to the effects of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Rising temperatures are accelerating the hydrological cycle and causing rivers and lakes to freeze later in the autumn and birds to migrate and nest earlier in the spring.

Scientists are increasingly confident that, as global warming continues, certain weather events and extremes will become more frequent, widespread or intense.

Over the coming decades, the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, small island states, low-lying coasts, natural ecosystems and water resources and agricultural production in certain regions will be at particular risk.

Dramatic sea-level rises and some other events have the potential to cause very large impacts, especially after the 21st century.

However, the IPCC also finds that early action to improve seasonal climate forecasts, food security, freshwater supplies, disaster and emergency response, famine early-warning systems and insurance coverage can minimize the damage from future climate change while generating many immediate practical benefits.

“Scientists owe much of their new understanding of how climate change will affect the planet to the greater number of field studies and data sets now available to them, as well as to improved consistency between observations and climate model results,” said Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

“We need to strengthen our research and monitoring even further and gain more practical experience in how best to adapt to our new climate,” he said.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said, “The invoice for the future impact costs of climate change has been put on the table today by the IPCC. It is not a bill that we would have to pay in full if the world decides now to make deep and decisive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”

“The report also emphasizes that adaptation – in developed but especially vulnerable developing countries – is also needed to cope with the climate change already underway. ‘Climate proofing’ infrastructure and agriculture to health care services and communities will require investment but equally intelligent planning so that it is central to decision-making rather than on the periphery,” he added.

The IPCC illustrates the potential for adaptation by describing activities being undertaken in various parts of the world to adapt to current climate change.

Examples include partial drainage of the Tsho Rolpa glacial lake in Nepal, changes in livelihood strategies in response to permafrost melt by the Inuit in Nunavut, Canada, and the increased use of artificial snow-making by the ski industry in Europe, Australia and North America.

Measures being taken in anticipation of future climate change include the consideration of sea-level rise in the design of infrastructure such as the Confederation Bridge in Canada and in coastal zone management in the USA and The Netherlands.

Environmental Terrorism - Identifying the Risks

2007-04-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Most recent discussions of terrorism have focused on the identity of the terrorists, their possible motivations, and the increasingly destructive potential of the weapons at their disposal. However, to date, there has been very little discussion about their choice of targets.

An examination of environmental terrorism

requires understanding motivations, identifying vulnerabilities and risks, and working on effective solutions.

At a time when populations all over the world are increasing, the existing resource base (water, energy, soils, and more) is being stretched to provide for more people, and is being consumed at a faster rate. As the value and vulnerability of these resources increases, so does their attractiveness as terrorist targets.

The report examines

the nature and risks of terrorist attacks that use the environment both as a target and a tool. Finally, several ideas for reducing the risk of environmental terrorism are discussed.

Terrorists

often choose their targets because of what they represent, thus skyscrapers and federal buildings. Rivaling both of those, however, for the amount of long-term damage that can be inflicted upon a country, environmental resources should be included as being at risk.

Environmental terrorism is defined ,as.....

in the report as "the unlawful use of force against in situ environmental resources so as to deprive populations of their benefit(s) and/or destroy other property". Readers should take care not to confuse the term with "eco-terrorism".

At first glance,

the distinction between environmental terrorism and eco-terrorism might seem academic. However, operationally there is a significant difference.

Environmental terrorism involves targeting natural resources. Eco-terrorism involves targeting built environment such as roads, buildings and trucks, ostensibly in defense of natural resources.

A second distinction is made between environmental terrorism and more conventional environmental warfare.

It is a distinction that mirrors the larger difference between terrorism and warfare in general.

The easy distinction, that warfare is conducted by states and terrorism by rebel groups, obscures the uncomfortable fact that unlawful acts against non-combatants are often carried out by states. Rather, warfare is governed by two complementary criteria: jus ad bellum (war must be declared for a good reason) and jus in bello (war must be conducted in a just fashion).

Because there is no universally accepted judgment as to what constitutes rightness of cause, applying the first criterion (jus ad bellum) to terrorism is problematic.

Terrorism

however clearly violates the jus in bello criterion, since targeting non-combatants lies at the very core of its strategy. That the target is environmental and not human does not blur the distinction between warfare and terrorism.

The objective of environmental terrorism, however,

is to have a psychological effect on the target population, and just as terrorists do not apply the jus in bello criterion to human non-combatants, neither do they apply it to the environment.

Risk of Environmental Terrorism:

There are two components to measuring the risk of terrorism:
severity of the attack, and the probability of a particular scenario actually occurring.

This is where the approximately $7 billion 16 spent to analyze WMD [weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs] attacks may be misspent: scenarios such as detonation of a nuclear device or deployment of a biological weapon in a populated area, while frightening, fall into the high-consequence/low-probability category.

As risky are the common,

low-consequence/high-probability scenarios such as bombings or kidnapping (low-consequence only in that the number of people directly affected is relatively small compared to a large-scale WMD incident).

Environmental terrorism has the potential to combine the worst of both of these scenarios: it can have higher consequences than conventional civil terrorism because the potential damage from an environmental attack can be long-lasting and widespread, and it is more likely than WMD terrorism because it can be carried out using conventional explosives or poisons.

WMDs.......

are still extremely difficult to obtain and deploy successfully, and are consequently out of range for most amateur terrorist individuals or groups. As a result, terrorists may increase their destructive potential by directing conventional methods against environmental targets, where they are likely to cause more human health and economic damage with less risk to themselves.

The report considers two further types of environmental terrorism: resource-as-tool terrorism and resource-as-target terrorism.

For example, terrorists wishing to inflict damage using resource-as-tool terrorism on a town below a reservoir might poison the water supply.

Using the same example, terrorists wishing to employ resource-as-target terrorism might blow up the dam and flood the town.

Vulnerable resources identified and discussed more fully in the report are:
water resource sites, agriculture and forest sites, mineral and petroleum sites, plus wildlife and ecosystem sites.

Finally,

the most reliable way identified in the report for a nation to protect itself against the disruption caused by environmental terrorism is to diversify resource use wherever possible.

Multiple sources of food, water, and energy mean each individual source is less attractive as a target, and equitable distribution of resources between users contributes to reducing tension over resource scarcity. This may lessen the political motivation of terrorists who take action on behalf of the “oppressed.”

Where are the poor? Experiences with the development and use of poverty maps

2007-04-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

Increase effectiveness of poverty reduction efforts through spatial analysis of ecosystem services.

Policymakers will understand and act on linkages between poverty and ecosystem services and improve implementation of national strategies and plans.

Where are the poor?

Experiences with the development and use of poverty maps.

(2002 - 66 pages) The report highlights the use and impact of poverty maps -- the spatial representation and analysis of human well-being and poverty indicators -- in 14 countries and identifies lessons that can guide future poverty mapping efforts

Synopsis: The report highlights the use and impact of poverty maps -- the spatial representation and analysis of human well-being and poverty indicators -- in 14 countries and identifies lessons that can guide future poverty mapping efforts.

Poverty mapping

-- the spatial representation and analysis of indicators of human well-being and poverty -- is becoming an increasingly important instrument for investigating and discussing social, economic, and environmental problems.

Decision-makers need information tools such as poverty maps to help them identify areas where development lags and where investments in infrastructure and services could have the greatest impact.

Once largely the domain of economists and social scientists, poverty maps are now being used by policymakers and many non-governmental entities, including civil society groups, academic institutions, and private businesses.

However, the new and diverse applications of poverty mapping emerging over the past five years have not been well documented.

The World Resources Institute (WRI)

in collaboration with UNEP/GRID-Arendal has conducted a study examining the uses and impacts of poverty maps. Drawing on case studies from 14 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the report reviews how poverty maps were used and some of the factors constraining their use in a wide variety of geographic and institutional settings.

From such experiences come lessons that can guide future poverty mapping initiatives in other countries. Recommendations aimed at national and international actors sketch a plan for sustaining poverty mapping in the countries studied and expanding its frontiers to all developed and developing countries.

EFFECTS of Climate Change: Snow-free Mt Kilimanjaro wake-up call

2007-04-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

Formerly snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro

The volcanic crater at the summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, as it has not been seen before in 11,000 years.

Summary:

A photo of Mount Kilimanjaro stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years was used as dramatic testimony for action against global warming as ministers from the world's biggest polluters met in March 2005.

Gathering in London for a two-day brainstorming session on the environment agenda of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight rich nations, the environment and energy ministers from 20 countries were handed a book containing the stark image of Africa's tallest mountain, among others

Mount Kilimanjaro Photo Wake-Up Call for Action Against Global Warming

"This is a wake-up call and an unequivocal message that a low-carbon global economy is necessary, achievable and affordable," said Steve Howard of the Climate Group charity which organised the book and an associated exhibition.

"We are breaking climate change out of the environment box. This crisis affects all of us. This is a global challenge and we need real leadership to address these major problems - and these ministers can give that leadership," he told Reuters.

The pictures include one of Kilimanjaro almost bare of its icecap because of global warming, and coastal defences in the Marshall Islands threatened with swamping from rising sea levels.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed to make climate change and Africa the twin targets of Britain's presidencies of both the G8 and European Union this year - bringing both to the fore at a summit meeting in Gleneagles in Scotland in July.

The Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases came into force in February but is still shunned by the world's biggest emitter, the United States, and puts scant limits on China, rising fast up the ranks.

Informal information exchange

Senior officials from both countries will be at the London meeting, whose main thrust is how to achieve the environmental Holy Grail of a sustainably growing low carbon economy.

"There is an attempt to draw the United States in after its refusal to sign Kyoto," said a spokeswoman for environmental pressure group Greenpeace.

"It is very sensitive given that the developing countries are trying to climb the development curve and the developed countries must not be seen to be doing anything to hold them back," she told Reuters.

A senior official at Britain's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is co-organising the meeting - the first of environment and energy ministers from developed and developing nations - said the aim was to find common ground.

"This is a chance for people to get together and by not forcing them to negotiate a very concrete outcome ... allow them to explore common interests," she said.

"There are plenty of technologies out there which we can deploy which can help with that shift (to a low-carbon economy) straight away. We know that energy efficiency can already deliver huge carbon savings at a net benefit to our society," she told Reuters.

British think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research

has proposed a multi-tiered approach, calling for progressively deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by rich nations but more flexible commitments from the developing world.

These should be made against the backdrop of long-term efforts to take Kyoto - with the United States and Australia aboard in some form - beyond

the end of its first phase in 2012, it said.

China failing on environment: report......

2007-03-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

China has failed to make any progress in protecting the environment in the past three years, state media cited an official report as saying, despite government pledges to put the issue at the top of its agenda.

China ranked 100 out of 118 countries in terms of environmental protection in the China Modernisation Report 2007 - the same level as in 2004, the China Daily newspaper said.

"Compared with its social and economic modernisation, China's ecological modernisation lags far behind," the paper quoted He Chuanqi, head of the research group that put together the report, as saying.

It was assembled by experts and academics from the Chinese Academy of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology and some of the country's top universities, the China Daily said.

Large swathes of China are affected by chronic air pollution from factories, vehicles and coal-burning power plants. Water and land pollution has poisoned many other parts of the country.

The "ecological modernisation" category measured indicators such as carbon emissions, sewage treatment and drinking water availability, the newspaper said.

"The government needs to ensure that economic development will not result in further environmental deterioration in the next 50 years," he said.

But the report said that by 2015, China's social and economic indicators should be on par with developed countries in the 1960s, by which stage China will have completed its transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial one.

China had done well at raising life expectancy, adult literacy and access to higher education, though work remained in other sectors, such as adjusting the proportion of the population living in the countryside. It did not elaborate.

To better address China's development problems, the report recommended the government set up three new bodies - environmental and energy ministries and a regional development agency.

After years of promoting economic growth at almost any cost, Beijing is now struggling to change official attitudes, despite a raft of new policies including tying civil servants' career prospects to their energy-saving achievements.

Urban challenges for sustainable development

2007-03-23T03:09:00.000-07:00

This night-time map constructed by NASA shows the increasingly urban nature of the planet.

More than half of the world’s population now live in cities.

Two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities within 50 years.

Already today a third of the world’s urban population dwell in the slums. The fate of the planet depends more and more on the future of cities.

At the eve of New Year 2007 we are facing a historic urban transition – for the first time in history the world’s urban population is exceeding the rural population.

This is a rapid transformation considering that in 1950 only one-third of the world’s population lived in cities.

The absolute majority, up to 95 per cent, of future urban growth will occur in cities in the developing world.

Although cities are centers for economic growth and culture the accelerating global urbanisation also implies huge challenges, since the regions predicted to account for the greater part of the growth are also the regions least equipped to deal with this rapid urbanization.

The growing slums
The pace of urbanization continues to accelerate. The number of cities in the world with populations exceeding one million increased from 17 in 1900 to 388 in 2000.

Most of the world’s megacities with over 10 million inhabitants are in the developing world.

An increasingly urban planet is really not in itself good or bad. The key issue is rather how this predicted growth can take place in best possible way.

How can we avoid problems such as air and water pollution, loss of farmland, and isolation from nature? How do we make urbanization more sustainable?

for more open here....!!

ZAMBIA: Solar power improves everyday life

2007-03-21T04:12:00.000-07:00

Several Zambian villages in remote parts of the country that have not been connected to the national power grid have benefited from an initiative to provide solar-power to their communities.

In the modest offices of Nyimba Energy Service Company (NESCO), in eastern Zambia, a sign reads: "Solar is good ... even in thatched houses, it will reach you wherever you are."

NESCO has pioneered a solar energy project, supported by the Swedish International Development Agency(SIDA), that has transformed everyday life in the rural areas where it has been piloted.

One such area is Nyimba, a remote district 320 kilometres east of the capital Lusaka, where residents are no longer restricted to candlelight or paraffin lamps.

At Katalila, a village in the district, Abina Lungu now has a booming business grinding villagers' maize well into the night with the help of solar lighting. Metres away from the grinding mill, Lungu's house is also solar-powered.

"I pay K30,000 [about US $6.25] as a rental charge every month to NESCO but we now want to buy our own solar systems because this has helped us a lot," he told IRIN.

Lungu has calculated that it would be cheaper to buy a solar-power system rather than rent one, as he expects prices for the systems to rise, given their popularity.

To get solar-power into a home, shop or business, NESCO installs a system which includes a solar panel, battery, charge controller and power points at K160,000 [US $33.33], including the contract fee. Thereafter, consumers pay a monthly rental fee.

"For me, it works out cheaper to use solar because paraffin is more expensive and even if electricity comes to Nyimba, not all the people will get connected," said Lungu.

He keeps a battery in his house, in a lockable ventilated cabinet with access for maintenance inspection, while a solar panel absorbs sun rays from the roof to light the bulb in his home.

Lungu is one of a hundred NESCO customers fortunate enough to be connected, among them a clinic, a shop and a hotel. About 360 people are on NESCO's waiting list.

"We are struggling to satisfy demand," said Nesco project manager, Stanslas Sankhani.

The Nyimba district's traditional leader, Chief Ndake, and his subjects have embraced solar-power as a stop-gap measure before Zambia's rural electrification programme extends to their area.

He said the district had potential, as it was endowed with fertile soil and a fair amount of precious stones, but this remained untapped due to the lack of electricity.

The Energy Regulation Board (ERB), Zambia's power regulator, is closely monitoring the Nyimba project and similar ones in Chipata, the provincial capital, and Lundaz, another Eastern province town.

The ERB said there was a need to investigate energy alternatives, given the cost of connecting rural parts of the country to the national power grid.

Currently, only 20 percent of Zambia's total population, and just two percent of the rural population, has access to electricity. This is despite the fact that Zambia is a net producer and exporter of hydro-electricity.

"We have to look at alternative means to provide power to people and this pilot project has scored a fair amount of success. We need a combination of approaches and a way forward to get most parts of Zambia electrified. In some areas it makes economic sense to electrify, or develop mini-hydros, while other places will be difficult to connect to the grid," said ERB spokesperson, Agnes Banda.

The government has set a target to achieve 50 percent access to electricity by the year 2010. In the case of isolated areas, solar-power could be an alternative.

However, the main problem with solar energy is the relatively high initial investment costs, noted a report,

'Issues and Options for Rural Electrification in Zambia', released in March 2002.

But the document, prepared by CORE International, a US Agency for International Development partner, recognised the usefulness of solar power in rural areas - particularly for electrifying villages, pumping water and refrigeration in health clinics.

CORE International described solar as a practical alternative to extending power distribution lines to remote and low-density populations.

"It has been widely used in rural areas around the world. It has also been used in many urban areas because of its environmental benefits and its potential to reduce demand for fossil fuels," the report noted.

ZAMBIA: (1) Lead poisoning concern in mining town

2007-03-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

Summary:
Children, as well as adults, in the defunct mining town of Kabwe, Zambia, runt the risk of serious lead poisoning.
Serious symptoms for a long time were thought to be a local strain of malaria, but most probably are lead poisoning.

Children play and bathe in a canal running through the township, and originating at the old mine.

Cleaning-up attempts require people to move, but so far the local population has resisted, since they have nowhere to move to.

Mapping technology to fight poverty

2007-03-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

Example from the report: mapping poverty and the spread of cholera in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, January 2001.

A new report highlights the use and impact of poverty maps - the spatial representation and analysis of human well-being and poverty indicators.

In November, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the UN Environment Programme/GRID-Arendal released a report describing the uses of poverty mapping in 14 countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Maps are powerful tools for presenting information on social, economic, and environmental problems to non specialists.

WRI emphasises that poverty maps can never become a panacea for understanding or solving poverty problems. However, the new report indicates that poverty maps have helped policy makers and stakeholders promote the development of assets that are key to poverty reduction, such as agro-ecological resources and ownership.

Efforts to reduce poverty in developing countries often rely on resources and services from ecosystems that are becoming degraded.

Combining natural resources maps with maps of poverty distribution and population density can identify the location of vulnerable populations and suggest specific locations for policy action.

“20 litres of clean water a day a human right

2007-03-17T04:31:00.000-07:00

This year’s Human Development Report calls for 20 litres of clean water a day for all as a human right.

It also concludes that the global water crisis is a silent emergency experienced mostly by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it.

The water crisis in poor countries costs lives, deprives people their dignity and keeps children out of school. It is now high time to really start doing something about it, says Kevin Watkins, lead author of the 2006 Human Development Report:
– When it comes to water and sanitation, the world suffers from a surplus of conference activity and a deficit of credible action.

Watkins frustrations stems from two facts:

1) there is well-documented and enormous suffering around the world due to the lack of safe drinking water and sufficient sanitation;

2) why is not more done when report findings show that each $1 invested in water and sanitation would yield an economic return of about $8?

Half what rich countries spend on mineral water

Each year almost 2 million children die from diarrhoea that could be prevented with access to clean water and sufficient sanitation.

Moreover, 443 million school days are lost as a consequence of water-related illnesses and almost 50 percent of all people in developing countries are suffering from health problems caused by a lack of water and sanitation.

Altogether, this crisis in water and sanitation is holding back poverty reduction and economic growth in some of the world’s poorest countries.

– Like hunger, it is a silent emergency experienced by the poor and tolerated by those with the resources, the technology and the political power to end it, says the authors of the report.

This needs to change, stress the authors. So, what would it cost to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 on access to water and sanitation? About $10 billion a year, says the report.

It might seem a large sum, but it actually represents less than five days’ global military spending and less than half what rich countries spend each year on mineral water. The benefits for Sub-Saharan Africa would represent 60 percent of its 2003 aid flows.

Hence, the question is not whether the world can afford solve the global water crisis, but rather if the world can afford not to make the investments.

During the Swedish launch of the report in Stockholm recently, Sweden’s Ministry for the Environment, Andreas Carlgren, agreed:
– It will be enormously cost-effective to invest in the water sector and it reminds me of what we now see when it comes to the climate issue.

One thing that is, however, not put forward enough in the report is the increased need for water in agriculture in the future. Production of food for feeding the growing human population is highly water-consuming.

It takes more than 500 litres of water to produce enough flour for one loaf of bread and up to 7000 litres of water to produce 100 grams of beef in developed countries.

At the same time, urbanisation and increasing wealth are changing food preferences with significant increases in the demand for water-intensive commodities like meat and dairy products.

This involves large-scale groundwater overexploitation and widespread river depletion, which pose a major threat to biodiversity and aquatic ecosystems.

The resulting environmental degradation and loss of production potential caused by water pollution from agricultural chemicals, water logging and salinisation is of course of major importance for human development, especially in the world’s poor regions.

HDR 2006 recommendations:

1. Make water a human right:

Everyone should have at least 20 litres of clean water per day and the poor should get it for free.

2. Draw up national strategies for water and sanitation: Governments should aim to spend a minimum of one percent GDP on water and sanitation

3. Increased international aid:

to bring the MDG on water and sanitation into reach, aid flows will have to double.

Reviews: (3) Poverty and climate change: reducing the vulnerability of the poor

2007-03-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

This consultation draft was intended as a contribution to the eighth conference of the parties to the United Nations framework convention on climate change.

It addresses the issue of the expected disproportionate impact of climate change on the worlds poor both through direct impacts and through the exacerbation of existing vulnerabilities.

The initial section of the paper looks in detail at this vulnerability of the poor to climate variability; the potential livlihoods, economic and health impacts and the implications for poverty reduction.

The paper then discusses the lessons for action which can be deduced from, amongst other things, attempts by countries to cope with existing climate variability. These include:

+ Improving governance to cope with climate change

+ Enhancing the resilience of the poor

+ Improving the quality of growth

+ Reforming international and industrial-country policies

Finally the paper examines the way forward concluding "The most effective way to address the increased vulnerabilities due to climate variability and change is by integrating climate concerns in the development process". This might be achieved by:

+ Mainstreaming climate concerns in the development process through interventions that both reorient policies and practices that already integrate current climate variability and filling policy gaps.

+ Assessments of the "expected vulnerability increase" in order to assess the appropriateness and effectiveness of interventions.

+ Strengthening human and institutional capacity in national and international development agencies and in appropriate civil-society organisations.

+ Capturing local knowledge, reviewing and assessing its applicability, and disseminating it to other communities and agencies.

+ The appropriate financing of these enabling activities

Reviews: (2) Impact of climate change in South Africa ...

2007-03-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

The scope of effects of climate change in developing countries has been discussed for a long time but there are have been few studies available.

The Centre for Energy and Development Research at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, recently produced a study outlining the predicted economic impacts of climate change in South Africa.

The study attempts to provide preliminary estimates based on secondary data from the findings of the Vulnerability and Adaptation Study for the South African Country Study on Climate Change (1999).

"..The impacts on natural, agricultural, human-made and human capital are addressed using the change in production approach..."

Findings include the following:

+ Tourism may be affected due to a loss of habitats and biodiversity, and due to changes in temperature, humidity and malaria risk, and represents the biggest potential economic loss since tourism contributes as much as 10% of GDP.

+ Changes in ecosystem function, the loss of biodiversity and non-market impacts, brought about by changes in temperature and precipitation, represent the second largest potential economic impact.

+ Significant decrease in river flow in the southern and western catchments are predicted, leading to a shrinkage of areas amenable to the country's biomes to about half of their current extent, with huge losses in biodiversity.

+ The productivity of rangelands increases due to a CO2 fertilisation effect.

+ Whilst changes in terrestrial animal diversity could not be predicted accurately, the study suggests huge losses of species due to range shifts.

+ Forests, small but locally valuable in terms of commercial production of timber and non-timber products stand to be entirely lost.

+ Savannas, important for grazing and the subsistence harvest of numerous resources may be radically reduced, leading to large losses of productive value.

+ Agricultural systems are not nearly as affected as natural systems with the impacts on crop production relatively minor in relation to the value of the sector as a whole.

+ Finally,

the impacts of climate change on human health are considered, concentrating on the increased incidence of malaria, the proportion of deaths being expected to increase and the costs in terms of the treatment costs of the sick and the loss of earnings of the sick or their carers.

Reviews:(1) The End of Development? Global warming, disasters and the great reversal of human progress

2007-03-12T06:19:00.000-07:00

After decades of painfully slow human advancement, global warming and bad development threaten a great reversal of human progress.

To illustrate this argument the author documents examples of some of the wider social and environmental implications of policy failures by the international community in addressing climate change and development.

These include weather related disasters, food security, migration, provision of fresh water, and debt

The report goes on to identify some key measures that rich nations must take without delay,

in order to mitigate the worst effects of climate change and inequitable development on the world's poorest people:

+ View every policy through the lens of disaster risk reduction and mitigation

+ Carry out a global assessment of the local impacts of climate change and the costs of adaptation

+ Commit resources to help threatened countries adapt to global warming.

+ Direct a greater proportion of aid towards reducing the risk of weather-related disasters at community level in the world's least developed countries

+ Increase the capacities of national authorities and civil society to address the adverse impacts of climate change and disasters.

+ Make sure aid is spent according to humanitarian need, not according to geo-strategic priorities.

+ Restructure economic adjustment strategies to allow governments to spend more on disaster risk reduction measures and social safety nets for the most vulnerable.

+ Switch investment from fossil fuels to in clean technologies.

+ Plan a progressive reduction in resource consumption by rich nations.

The impact of climate change: "End of development"?

2007-03-11T08:30:00.001-07:00

Summary:

A most serious and thought-provoking addition to the debate on the development challenges posed by a failure to address climate change comes from the editor of the renowned World Disasters Report, and the policy director of the New Economics Foundation.

"...They argue that human development faces potentially the biggest U-turn in its history....."

The argument is underlined by a research report on the impact of climate change in South Africa, produced at the Centre for Energy and Development Research at the University of Cape Town.

The policy response is mirrored in a recent consultation draft on reducing the vulnerability of the poor, produced by the World Bank.

Challenges of Global Sustainable Development and the Responses of the Multilateral System

2007-03-10T08:34:00.000-08:00

Climate change - impacts & mitigation efforts:Warming oceans main cause of unprecedented Amazon drought

2007-03-08T04:41:00.000-08:00

The mighty Amazon river, one of the most water-rich rivers in the world, at this moment is reduced to a trickle in places. Where boats usually transport goods, people are now walking or bicycling. Rotting fish is lying around on the now dried river bottom. The governor of the Amazonas state has declared a crisis due to the drought.
A renowned Brazilian scientists says the unprecedented drought has one main cause: Warming of the oceans. To this should be added reduced evapotranspiration from the vegetation, and forest burning.

Greenpeace campaigners and scientists say the Amazonas may be on a verge of a tipping point, where the continued march towards savannization of the whole area is unavoidable.

The Amazon River is being reduced to a trickle in places. The people of the Amazon rely on the river and its tributaries for everything from food to transportation.
(Photo: Greenpeace via ENS)

Read a review of an ENS report, plus links to previous studies in EDC News.

NIGERIA: World's broken electronics pile up in Lagos, creating toxic dumps

2007-03-06T04:15:00.000-08:00

Nigeria is becoming a digital dump, the recipient of vast numbers of broken gadgets from the West that can leak dangerous substances into water supplies and create cancer-causing particles when burnt, a toxic waste watchdog reports.

Basel Action Network,

a US-based lobby group that recently conducted an investigation in Africa's most populous country, found that around 500 giant containers, packed with old computers, televisions and mobile phones, were arriving every month at the main city and port, Lagos.

These electronics are supposed to be for repair and re-use, but BAN estimates that 75 percent of the items are neither repairable nor of any economic value.

So they often end up being dumped at official landfill sites or offloaded illegally by the side of the road or in swamps where they are either burnt or simply left.

BAN says chemicals like lead can leak into the groundwater. And materials used in circuit boards, although safe when the computer is on a desk, can produce carcinogenic particles once set alight.

"Residents breathing in the fumes from the fires or drawing water from contaminated areas are going to be taking in some seriously dangerous substances," Jim Puckett, the BAN official who led the investigation,

told IRIN by phone from the group's headquarters in Seattle

Re-use is a good thing, bridging the digital divide is a good thing, but exporting loads of techno-trash in the name of these lofty ideals and seriously damaging the environment and health of poor communities in developing countries is criminal," he said.

The organisation traces most of the items back to the United States and Europe, and says the export of useless electronic equipment is illegal under the Basel Convention governing the international movement of toxic waste.

Washington has not ratified the treaty, and BAN says many other governments fail to enforce the laws by not certifying that electronic items are fit for re-use before they are shipped abroad.

When repairable products do arrive among the sea of junk, researchers noted that Lagos does have a legitimate and healthy market for restoring old electronic equipment.

Oludayo Dada of the pollution control unit at the Environment Ministry, says that the flow of electronic waste arriving on Nigerian shores has caught the authorities' attention.

"We are still trying to quantify the magnitude of the electronic waste we have in Nigeria and the components that are toxic," Dada told IRIN, adding that the government would need to update its laws to criminalise the import of such products.

"We have regulations covering toxic products in general, but we need to zero in on electronic waste," Dada said.

BAN says another solution is for manufacturers to stop using toxic chemicals in their products, such as brominated flame retardants, beryllium alloys, lead-based solders and mercury lamps.

"Things are completely out of control," said activist Puckett.

"It's time we all get serious about what is now a tsunami of toxic techno-trash making its way from rich to poorer countries........."

Crack-down on Chemicals Criminals in Asia Pacific Registers First Successes

2007-03-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

Customs Officers Intercept Illegal Ozone Damaging Substances Under UNEP-Backed Project Skyhole Patching

Bangkok, 12 February 2007

â€“ A new initiative to monitor and curb illegal trade in chemicals that damage the ozone layer-- the Earthâ€™s protective shield-- has begun registering some of it first promising results.

Today it was announced that seizures of up to 64.8 tons of illegal ozone depleting substance (ODS) have been reported in China, India, Thailand and other countries following the start of Project Skyhole Patching.

China Customs seized nearly 8.2 tons of Dichlorodifluoromethane (CFC-12), used in refrigerant and air conditioning systems, in the Guandong Province between September and November 2006 â€“ 752 kg in Shengzhen and 7.5 tons in Huanpu Port.

In West Bengal, India, customs and enforcement officials seized nearly 6 tons of illegal chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) between October and November 2006. Nearly 49 tones of illegal ODS were seized from other countries participating. More is expected to come.

Months after he attended a workshop in Wuxi, China, a Chinese customs officer in Huanpu Port intercepted the illegal ODS using methods he learned there. It is encouraging to see that our training efforts, involving customs and enforcement officers in the 18 participating countries is beginning to have payoffs, said Ms. Ludgarde Coppens, Policy and Enforcement Officer, UNEP.

Project Skyhole Patching, to combat illegal trade in ODS and hazardous waste in the Asia Pacific region began 1 September 2006.

It involves 20 customs and environmental authorities from 18 countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Maldives, Mongolia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

Since the project began, customs in Hong Kong, India and Thailand have played an active role in sharing information on ODS. Some countries like Viet Nam and Cambodia are holding bilateral discussions on illegal ODS trade.

This timely information exchange among customs and environmental agencies in these countries has helped to monitor the movement of ODS in the region as well as other regions, said Mr. Liu Xiaohui, Head of Regional Intelligence Liaison Office for Asia and the Pacific.

Project Sky Hole Patching is now entering its second phase, which will focus on hazardous waste and begin 1 March 2007. Phase 1 of the project focused on ODS.

CFCs are among ozone depleting substances targeted for phase out under the Montreal Protocol. Now entering its 20th year, the Montreal Protocol, one of the most successful environmental agreements to date, has succeeded in phasing out ODS in developed countries, led to the closure of many ODS producing plants and deterred the creation of industries that use them.

However, phase out of ODS becomes more crucial as the date for complete phaseout fast approaches for developing countries - 38 in Asia Pacific - who have committed to complete phaseout by 2010.

Illegal trade in CFCs and other ODS is expected to grow as a complete ban is enforced. Studies indicate that trade in illegal ODS represents nearly 10-20% of all trade in ODS.

CFCs alone account for 7,000-14000 tons of this trade, valued at US$25-60 million.

The 20th Anniversary of the Montreal Protocol will be marked by a series of events and campaigns. This will include an Asia Pacific Regional Media Workshop to be held in Singapore in April this year, which will look at ozone layer protection and linkages to climate change.

ENVIROMENTAL EDUCATION ;Resources for the Future, Inc. / Quality of the Environment Division

2007-03-03T04:14:00.000-08:00

Though theoretically,there is enviromental policy in TANZANIA,
Practically,there is no implementation of that policy and even its LAWS,remain a mare paper tiger.

This cause serious and non end enviromenta destruction in tanzania,

And since there is no stong implemented ENVIROMENTAL EDUCATION from primary to higher learning institutions level,

there is no even independent education to University students and colledges of TANZANIA,

in my submission,
i think,to educate "even at basic level" higher institutions students,that means University and Colledge students on enviromental issue and protection,will create large number of intellectualls

who could help the nation on preventing enviroments and education their societies the benefit and protection of enviroments.

vivid example, there is no even enviromental clubs at out respectives universities and colledges,

and my simple poll show that,graduates now nothing about enviromental issues and protections, save only those who take couse/study in that fields as part of their studies or degree.

SO that we must establish COMPULSORY ENVIROMETAL STUDIES TO THE HIGHER LEARNING INSTITUTIONS STUDENTS or strong enviromental protection campaigns,

SCOPE: Environmental problems, including interdisciplinary team projects applying regional design to environmental situations and opportunities in wilderness and wilderness fringe areas; rural communities; and urban, urban fringe,

and inner city areas throughout upper midwest. Works with state agencies, community groups, and corporations in identifying and developing creative options involving physical changes protecting human and environmental rights.

Risk analysis, global environmental change, environment and development, and technological hazards.
PUBLICATIONS: CENTED Reprints; CENTED Research Reports; CENTED Monographs; CENTED Working Papers. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES: Distinguished Lecture Series.
and Focus Newsletter.

Resources for the Future;
SCOPE: Management of air, water, and land pollution and the conservation of natural and environmental resources. Focuses on the environmental consequences of human activity and how public decisions affecting the environment are made.

Past research projects include an estimate of the recreation benefits accruing from water pollution control, the health benefits from reducing drinking water contamination, the crop damages avoided by reducing ground-level ozone concentrations, the relationship between air pollution and lung infection, the economics of controlling groundwater pollution, development of an improved methodology for determining the costs of regulation, design of studies for development of fish and wildlife mitigation policies, and development of alternatives for reducing generation of hazardous wastes, and assessment of natural resource damage from oil spills and releases of hazardous substances.

SERVICES: Provides congressional testimony; Prepares articles, for national newspapers. EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES: Workshops and Seminars.

Global Environmental Technologies

SCOPE: Interdisciplinary research in environmental problems that cross international boundaries, including stratospheric ozone depletion, global warming, acid rain, and protection of the global commons. Specific projects include assessment of the impact of international environmental treaties, development of new engineering approaches to reduce reliance on halons, recycling/recovery of chemicals restricted by international treaties, assessment of alternative cleaning technologies, and development of alternatives to ozone-depleting technologies. SERVICES: Technology transfer, to developing nations.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES: Conferences.

Global Change and Environmental Quality Program;
SCOPE: Global change and environmental quality research, including global climate change, local and regional environmental quality, and sustainable development.

rule of law...in international law

2007-03-02T05:19:00.000-08:00

IV. Protecting our common environment
21. We must spare no effort to free all of humanity, and above all our children and
grandchildren, from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by
human activities, and whose resources would no longer be sufficient for their
needs.

22. We reaffirm our support for the principles of sustainable development,
including those set out in Agenda 21,7 agreed upon at the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development.

23. We resolve therefore to adopt in all our environmental actions a new ethic of
conservation and stewardship and, as first steps, we resolve:

• To make every effort to ensure the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol,
preferably by the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in 2002, and to embark on the required
reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases.

• To intensify our collective efforts for the management, conservation and
sustainable development of all types of forests.

• To press for the full implementation of the Convention on Biological
Diversity8 and the Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries
Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa.9

• To stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources by developing water
management strategies at the regional, national and local levels, which
promote both equitable access and adequate supplies.

• To intensify cooperation to reduce the number and effects of natural and manmade
disasters.

• To ensure free access to information on the human genome sequence.

V. Human rights, democracy and good governance

24. We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law,
as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and
fundamental freedoms, including the right to development.

Rule of Law in International Relations

2007-02-28T03:31:00.000-08:00

The United Nations Millennium Declaration, See paras. 9, 24 and 25 of General Assembly resolultion A/RES/55/2

IV. Protecting our common environment
21. We must spare no effort to free all of humanity, and above all our children and
grandchildren, from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by
human activities, and whose resources would no longer be sufficient for their
needs.

22. We reaffirm our support for the principles of sustainable development
including those set out in Agenda 21,7 agreed upon at the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development.

23. We resolve therefore to adopt in all our environmental actions a new ethic of
conservation and stewardship and, as first steps, we resolve:

• To make every effort to ensure the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol,
preferably by the tenth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in 2002, and to embark on the required
reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases.

• To intensify our collective efforts for the management, conservation and
sustainable development of all types of forests.

• To press for the full implementation of the Convention on Biological
Diversity8 and the Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries
Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa.9

• To stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources by developing water
management strategies at the regional, national and local levels, which
promote both equitable access and adequate supplies.

• To intensify cooperation to reduce the number and effects of natural and manmade
disasters.

• To ensure free access to information on the human genome sequence.

V. Human rights, democracy and good governance
24. We will spare no effort to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law,
as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and
fundamental freedoms, including the right to development

http://untreaty.un.org/ola/legal_counsel9.aspx

Environmental impacts of continued population increase:Africa Lakes under strain as populations rise - the UNEP atlas

2007-02-27T04:10:00.000-08:00

Lake Songor Lagoon in Ghana 1990-2000:

The two satellite images show a vivid change in the environment.

The 2000 image (above) shows a conspicuous reduction in the lakes volumen and biodiversity, as compared to the 1990 image. A salt extraction site is located on the western part of the lake.

Summary:
Africa's 600-plus lakes are under unprecedented strain from rising populations and must be managed better if demand for fresh water is not to stir instability, a UNEP report says .

Africa's 600-plus lakes are under unprecedented strain from rising populations and must be managed better if demand for fresh water is not to stir instability, a UNEP report says .

The dramatic and, in some cases damaging environmental changes sweeping Africa’s lakes are brought into sharp focus in a new atlas.

Produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Atlas of African Lakes compares and contrasts spectacular satellite images of the past few decades with contemporary ones.

The rapid shrinking of Lake Songor in Ghana, partly as a result of intensive salt production, and the extraordinary changes in the Zambezi river system as a result of the building of the Cabora Basa dam site beside more familiar images of the near 90 per cent shrinkage of Lake Chad.

Other impacts, some natural and some human-made and which can only be truly appreciated from space, include the extensive deforestation around Lake Nakuru in Kenya.

Satellite measurements, detailing the falling water levels of Lake Victoria are also mapped. Africa’s largest freshwater lake is now about a meter lower than it was in the early 1990s.

The fact that lakes are actually shrinking due to deforestation, climate change or poor farming methods, demonstrates the need for better cross-border cooperation to ensure access to life's most precious resource, UNEP says.

Some Lake Facts and Figures

The precise number of lakes, both natural and human-made (dams and reservoirs), in Africa is unknown.
But the WORLDLAKE database puts the number at 677.

Globally there are an estimated 50,000 natural and 7,500 human-made ‘lakes’.

In Africa Uganda,

with 69 lakes has the highest number followed by
Kenya, 64;
Cameroon, 59;
Tanzania, 49 and....
Ethiopia, 46.

Gabon, with just eight lakes has the fewest in Africa,
followed by Botswana, 12 and Malawi; 13.

Africa has about 30,000 cubic kilometers of water in its large lakes making it the largest volume of any Continent in the world.

The annual freshwater fish catch in Africa is around 1.4 million tones of which 14 per cent comes from Egypt.

However the damming of rivers across the Continent allied to the disposal of untreated sewage and industrial pollution has reduced the catch particularly in the Nile Delta and Lake Chad.

Wetlands, often associated with lakes and river systems, are important for wildlife, water supplies and filtering of pollutants.

The most important include those in the Okavango Delta, the Sudd in the Upper Nile, Lake Victoria and Chad basins and the floodplains and deltas of the Congo, Niger and Zambezi rivers.

However, many of being drained as pest control measures or for agriculture.

Niger, for example, has lost more than 80 per cent of its freshwater wetlands over the past 20 or so years.

Close to 90 per cent of water in Africa is used in agriculture of which 40 to 60 per cent is lost to seepage and evaporation, says the Atlas.

Lake Songor

A brackish coastal lagoon in Ghana emerges as one of the most dramatic visual changes in the Atlas.
The lake in size is home to fish and globally threatened turtles, like the Olive Ridley and green turtle, as well as important bird populations.

In December 1990,
it shows as a solid blue mass of water some 74 square kilometers in size. But by December 2000, the water body is a pale shadow of its former self. [See images at the top of the page.]

Intensive salt production and evaporation at the western end, seen as dark blue and turquoise squares, is thought to be largely to blame. Agricultural extraction of water from feeder rivers like the Sege and Zano may be also taking its toll.

Lake Victoria

The lake, with some 30 million people living around it, supports one of the densest and one of poorest populations in the world.

Around 1,200 people per square kilometer live in and around the lake. Average annual income is less than $250.

An estimated 150,000 square kilometers, equal to 25,000 football pitches, of land has been affected by soil degradation of which 13 per cent has been severely degraded.

The efforts needed to meet the needs of an additional five million people over the next two decades will be immense.

The water level of the lake rose in 1998 as a result of the El Nino rains but, over the last 10 years, it has dropped by about a meter according to measurements by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite.

Invasive, water hyacinth, has caused havoc to shipping and the fishing industry. However the introduction of a pest to control the weed has had some impact.

Satellite images from 1995 and 2001 show that the green swirls of hyacinth have disappeared from many of the Ugandan bays like Buka, Gobero, Wazimenya and Murchison.

Lake Djoudj

Located 60km from St Louis in Senegal,
this lake is a haven for some three million birds such as Great White Pelicans and the Arabian Bustard. It once was a series of thin lakes surrounded by streams, ponds and back waters.

Satellite images underline how the lake and its surrounding area have been changed dramatically since the building in 1986 of the Diama Dam 23 kilometers from the mouth of the Senegal River.

The sheer volume of water available has now shifted local agriculture from seasonal, flood-based farming, to year round irrigation-based agriculture.

The atlas highlights other dramatic changes linked with dams such as the formation of the Lake Cobora Basa on the Zambezi River after the building of a barrage in the 1970s.

The atlas links many ecological and other changes that have occurred since the natural river flow was changed. These include the decline of flood-dependent grasslands, the drying out of mangroves and the fall in water levels on the tributary Shire river which has significantly affected navigation.

The dramatic loss of vegetation and deforestation around Lake Nakuru in Kenya is also vividly seen from space. This may be part of the reason why the lake, according to UNEP experts, declined in area from about 43 kilometers to 40 in 2000.

Satellite images of other key African lakes covered in the atlas include Lake Alaotra in Madagascar; Lake Bin El Ouidane in Morocco; Lake Ichkeul in Tunisia; Lake Kariba in Zambia/Zimbabwe; Lake Nyos in Cameroon; Lake Sibaya in South Africa; Lake St Lucia in South Africa, Lake Tana in Ethiopia and Lake Tonga in Algeria.

Tanzania: High Growth Still to Benefit the Poor.....

2007-02-24T03:07:00.000-08:00

Just more than a year

after Jakaya Kikwete was elected president of Tanzania his name was mentioned in the halls at the Africa Union (AU) summit in January in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as the possible new chairperson of the AU.

In the end the job went to John Kufuor, president of Ghana,

to celebrate that country's 50th year of independence. But the fact that Kikwete's name was mentioned made delegates take note of the progress Tanzania has made under his leadershipûnot least towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

"Kikwete is interested in working out the details of attaining the MDGs," says Bernard Olayo, health systems specialist at the MDG Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.

The MDG Centre was set up by the United Nations (UN) to work with different countries to develop financial plans for the achievement of the MDGs.

Olayo met Kikwete in January this year when he visited Tanzania with Jeffrey Sachs, chief of the UN Millennium Project which has been involved in developing an action plan against poverty.

According to Olayo, he found Kikwete to be positive about finding solutions to problems.

He recounts an anecdote: "When Kikwete was recently asked to give the opening address at a seminar about poverty reduction, he did not just want to give the address but insisted on participating in the whole seminar." This is unusual as politicians frequently sweep in and out of conferences without making further inputs.

Olayo praises the Tanzanian government's programme to supply free primary school education to all children.

But the Kikwete administration has been tainted by two incidents.

In 2006 there was excitement about the American Richmond company's plan to install power generators as the country is plagued by power shortages. The company did not deliver on the 172 million US dollar deal.

Cabinet ministers were implicated but Kikwete reacted by merely reshuffling his cabinet.

In January this year

the UK's "Guardian" newspaper reported that a British defence company, BAE Systems, in 2001 allegedly paid a Tanzanian middleman a commission of 12 million US dollars to ensure that it got the contract for a radar system.

Even though this deal was signed before he came to power, Kikwete's refusal to comment on the investigations has angered critics.

The registration of primary school learners has shot up from four to eight million children between 2000 and 2007.

Africa is a continent with a high incidence of children leaving school after completing their primary school education due to factors such as school fees and a lack of facilities.

Now thousands of young Tanzanians are being encouraged to continue their schooling thanks to a project where the government helps communities to build secondary schools across the country.

"The best way to develop a nation is to improve the educational system so that its citizens can take their place in the world markets," Olayo argues.

Tanzania has many assets which should aid it in its quest towards achieving the MDGs.

The country has vast mineral wealth - tanzanite, gold and copper - and is famous for agricultural produce including cloves, coffee, cotton and tea. Several companies are currently busy with oil exploration.

Tanzania offers an extremely investor-friendly climate.

This includes reduced rates of import duties and sales tax on capital goods.

The government also allows the unconditional repatriationùin freely convertible currencyùof net profits, foreign loans, royalties, fees, charges in respect of foreign technology, remittance of proceeds and payment of salaries and other benefits to foreign employees working in Tanzania.

All investments in Tanzania are guaranteed against nationalisation and expropriation.

The government has also completed its national strategy for growth and reduction of poverty (which is known by its Kiswahili acronym Mkukuta) in June 2005.

According to a report by the International Monetary Fund and the International Development Association, Tanzania has made progress in reducing income poverty (MDG 1), malnutrition (MDG 1), gender inequality in primary education (MDG 3) and child mortality (MDG 4).

But a lot more is needed to address maternal mortality (MDG 5).

The backdrop for these developments has been higher rates of real economic growth.
Tanzania's gross domestic product grew by 6.8 percent in 2005 compared to 6.7 percent in 2004. Manufacturing contributed growth of 9 percent in 2005, slightly up from 8.6 percent in 2004.

Agriculture showed a small drop to 5.2 percent in 2005, down from 5.8 percent in 2004.

Poverty is still rife in the rural areas.

Especially small-holder farmers barely manage to eke out a living.

More than 80 percent of the Tanzanian population rely on agriculture," says Josephat Mshighati, programme coordinator of the Right to be Heard programme of Oxfam in Tanzania.

"Although health education and agriculture are given high priority in the Mkukuta growth plan, more is needed to help agriculture. The government should look more to this sector where national subsidies are badly needed.

"Farmers run around looking for inputs like fertilizer, improved seeds and insecticides which are often prohibitively expensive," Mshighati points out.

In Tanzania more than 90 percent of the agricultural workforce consists of women. Many of them are single mothers who keep the rural economy alive. Not only do they work on their own pieces of land, but they also make up the greater part of the workforce on commercial farms where they are often underpaid.

Kikwete's presidency brought a ray of hope to the agricultural sector as he has initiated the agricultural sector development programme which, over nine years, aims to transform rural agriculture to becoming more productive.

for more click here....

UNITED NATION Statistics and Statistical Methods Publications ;for sustainable development.

2007-02-17T03:05:00.000-08:00

PLEASE VISIT THE WEBSITE FOR MORE DETAILS OF UNITED NATION ENVIROMENTAL PUBLICATIONS;

Handbook of National Accounting: Use of Macro Accounts in Policy Analysis
Series: F, No.81
Sales number: 02.XVII.5
Languages: [Arabic]; [English]; [French]; [Russian]; [Spanish]
Price: $30

Handbook of National Accounting: Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting -- An Operational Manual

Series: F, No.78
Sales number: 00.XVII.17
Languages: [Arabic]; [Chinese]; [English]; [French]; [Russian]; [Spanish]
Price: $30

Glossary of Environment Statistics

Series: F, No.67
Sales number: 96.XVII.12
Languages: *[Arabic]; *[Chinese]; [English]; [French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $25

Handbook of National Accounting -- Integrated Environment and Economic Accounting

Series: F, No.61
Sales number: 93.XVII.12
Languages: *[Arabic]; *[Chinese]; *[English]; *[French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $45

Concepts and Methods of Environment Statistics--Statistics of the Natural Environment

Series: F, No.57
Sales number: 91.XVII.18
Languages: *[Arabic]; *[Chinese]; *[English]; *[French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $22

Concepts and Methods of Environment Statistics: Human Settlements Statistics?A Technical Report

Series: F, No.51
Sales number: 88.XVII.14
Languages: *[Arabic]; *[Chinese]; *[English]; *[French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $8.5

Studies in the Integration of Social Statistics--A Technical Report

Series: F, No.24
Sales number: 79.XVII.4
Languages: *[English]; *[French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $

Feasibility of Welfare-Oriented Measures to Supplement the National Accounts and Balances--A Technical Report

Series: F, No.22
Sales number: 77.XVII.12
Languages: *[English]; *[French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $

System of National Accounts 1993, CD-ROM

Series: F, No.2, Rev. 4
Sales number: 96.XVII.3
Languages: [English] only
Price: $120
Revision: Rev.4

Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics

Series: M, No.78
Sales number: 84.XVII.12
Languages: *[Arabic]; *[Chinese]; *[English]; *[French]; *[Russian]; *[Spanish]
Price: $

Provisional Guidelines on Standard International Age Classifications

Series: M, No.74
Sales number: 82.XVII.5
Languages: *[English]; *[French]; *[Spanish]
Price: $

Statistical Yearbook, forty-ninth issue

Series: S, No.25
Sales number: E/F.05.XVII.1
Languages: [English]/[French]
Price: $145

FOR MORE OPEN HERE....

The Environment Statistics Section of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)

2007-02-16T02:51:00.000-08:00

Data Collection 2006
The UNSD/UNEP Questionnaire 2006 on Environment Statistics was the fourth round of UNSD’s biennial data collection activities including all countries except those who are covered by the OECD/Eurostat Joint Questionnaire on the State of the Environment.

To date, a total of 78 countries or areas have replied and sent relevant national data. Response rates vary strongly by region. The best response rates are from Latin America and the Caribbean and Eastern Europe. Africa, Western Asia, Asia and the Pacific show low response rates. The best reported subject areas are water resources, public water supply, municipal waste and hazardous waste.

Following a thorough validation process selected data sets will be published on the Main Indicators pages by the end of February 2007. Additional data will later be available on the website in the form of country snapshots.

UNSD thanks all responding countries for their great efforts in filling in the questionnaire. All countries are still encouraged to send available or updated data to UNSD as they become available. The Questionnaires received from the countries will be made available on the Country Data pages on the website.

Global Assessment of Environment Statistics and Environmental-Economic Accounting
To assess the state of national implementation of Environment Statistics and Environmental-Economic Accounting Programmes and to identify priorities and future plans in these fields, a global assessment has been carried out under the aegis of the UN Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting (UNCEEA) in collaboration with the Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Environment Statistics (IWG-ENV).

To date, 99 countries responded to the questionnaire. A detailed analysis of the responses will be posted on the web.

The questionnaire of the Global Assessment is posted on the UNSD website at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/ceea/ceeaSurvey.asp.

Countries who have not yet replied are encouraged to send the completed questionnaires to UNSD.

The Global Assessment will continue in May 2007 with a second phase when countries will receive follow-up questions tailored to the subject areas they cover in their programmes.

Strategic Plan for the Institutionalization and Development of Environment and Energy Statistics in the ECOWAS Region

As a follow-up to the UNSD/ECOWAS project “Strengthening Statistical Capacity-building in Support of the Millennium Development Goals in the region of the Economic Community of West African States”,

the ECOWAS Secretariat, with the technical assistance of UNSD, developed two strategic frameworks, including the establishment of a Regional Technical Committee, for institutionalizing and strengthening capacity in energy and environment statistics in ECOWAS Member States.

The strategic framework for environment statistics is available here in English and French

for more click here.....

enviromental crisis in the making in Tanzania...

2007-02-15T05:03:00.000-08:00

In a metaphrrical sense one could compare the imminent danger of environmental degradation which we are about to face in this country, with a sword of Damocles ready to strike a fatal blow.

Yet this danger can be avoided if timely and appropriate measures are taken to contain it.

That there is an imminent danger of environmental degradation in Tanzania to day, cannot be disputed nor ignored.

This crisis is characterised among other things by prolonged droughts, increasing number of armed conflicts between farmers and pastoralists, country wide scarcity of water, extensive deforestation, poor harvests and acute conditions of all forms of soil erosion.

With the exeption of prolonged droughts, all those remaining factors can be tackled with relative case, given the will and resolve of this nation to protect its environment.

But because of lack of a comprehensive policy towards environmental protection, the measures we have so far taken, yield little positive impact on the protection of our eco-system as a whole.

What is encouraging however, is the pro-environment alttitude of the new government. The newly elected President has made it clear that fighting against environmental degradation is not only a paramount task of his administration, but he said that it is a matter of life and death.

These strong words are reinforced by his own remarks when he said that all our hopes and dreams, would remian unfulfilled if we fail to contain the damage done to our environment.

In fact he was quite right because all this talk of sustainable development cannot be achieved under the condition of a degraded environment.

Because creating an independent ministry reponsible for environmental issues, the president went a little farther than his predecessor.

In fact he has created an environment where our youngsters from the university with degrees in environmental sciences, would find a ready market for employment.

As an academic object the introduction of environemntal sciences would definitely widen the scope, understanding and awareness towards the meaning and importance of our eco-system. There would certainly be a more position thinking towards protecting it.

One of the main reasons for environmental destruction in our country, overdependency on one source of energy, namely the biomass. This is why charcoal trade is growing phenomenally especially in all urban centres.

Charcoal is the cheapest form of energy and because of this reason, it has attracted so many people. As a result of this, extensive deforestation has taken place and is continuing to take place now.

Although it is not possible to prohibit entirely the use of biomass, yet it is possible to manage the rate of tree felling for the purpose of making charcoal.

This can be done at village and district levels, by insisting on planting trees as a precondition for obtaining a licence to harvest the forest.

But we can also institute country - wide compaigns aimed at promoting the ..... of biogas, whose technology has already been acquired by SIDO.

The aim is to increase the use of biogas nationwide, as a way of reducing our overdependency on biomass.

The success of these compaigns would depend very much on the political will, determination and resolve of village and district governments.

As far as water scarcity is concerned, we can prohibit the cultivation of natural vegetation around areas of water sources.

This can be achieved by launching a strong compaign, geared towards achieving the basic aims of protecting our eco-system, around sources of rivers and lakes.

By using visual aids, electronic media, television and radio, in addition to well publicised political meetings, this objective can be achieved.

A single major obstacle in the protection of our environment is this free moverment of literally thousands of people (mainly pastoralists), accompanied by their huge herds of cattle, under the protect that Tanzanians are free to live anywhere in Tanzania without let or hindrance.

Yet this is basically wrong, because it aggravates the destroction of our environment by ensuring overgrazing, as in the case of Usangu basin in Mbeya.
Not only do they destroy sources of rivers and lakes region but they also disturb the natural environment. These activities should be banned by law.

It is for this specific reason that there is a pressuing need for the establishment of an environmental court, emplowered to impose senteces on defaulters of our eco-system. Without such a legal framework, it would be extremely difficult to protect our environment from destructive forces.

The majority of our people are overwhemingly in support of the policies of this new government. It is for example a very good more in trying to obtain a solution to the environmental degradation now facing the farmer Usangu Basin in Mbeya region.

There has been consultations between the government and representatives of farmers and pastoralists, who invaled that area from as far a field as Mwanza and Manyara. This is extremely an encouraging more in trying to get a solution to the problem of environemntal degradation of this crucially important area.

As a result of this move including other measures taken to protect our eco-system, a sense of public confidence in the new government has been created. People are optimistic that even this difficult and thoring problem of environmental protection would find a suitable solution.

Although not all our socio-economic problems can be solved at one stroke, it is our hope that the government is laying strong foundations in tackling this problem of environmental degradation. Once this problem is resolved, the question of sustainable development would not present a major obstacle.

Securing development in the face of climate change

2007-02-14T05:10:00.000-08:00

Climate change
poses a potentially major challenge to social and economic development in all countries. It is widely accepted that at least part of the earth’s 0.6°C warming during the last 100 years is due to emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, caused by human activities.

During this century, the world is expected to continue warming, by between 1.4 and 5.8°C. Other predicted impacts are a rise in global sea level of between 0.09 and 0.88m by 2100, and changes in weather patterns, including an increased frequency and severity of extreme events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts. How can developing countries and development policies ensure progress in a changing climate?

Climate change means
‘global warming’ or the ‘greenhouse effect’.

This is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere through human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels.

In this issue we consider the challenge of climate change from a development perspective in terms of adaptation: how can developing countries anticipate and respond to the threats and opportunities brought by climate change?

During the last few years,
scientific consensus and many people’s own perceptions have moved to an acceptance that climate change is ‘real’ and that we are now experiencing its early stages. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which represents the international scientific consensus of governments and independent scientists,

stated that
“most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities”. Perceptions are also changing across the world.

Examples of this are found in a recent book by Mark Lynas which draws on peoples’ experiences of changing climate, including Alaskan Eskimos, South Sea islanders, and Chinese sheep-herders.

Scientific and policy debates about climate change focus on the following questions:

-How fast and to what extent will climate change occur?

-What will the implications be for natural and societal systems?

-How much can we do to prevent it (and at what cost)?

-How can we adapt to the changes it brings?

-What are the limits to adaptation?

From a development perspective, we are interested in these questions, but others are also important. These include:

How will climate change interact with other factors driving change in society, such as population growth?

How will climate change interact with social and economic vulnerability?

How can efforts to reduce vulnerability be coordinated with activities to adapt to climate change?

Major challenges also surround the equity issues of climate change, particularly between developed and developing countries, in terms of historically unequal emissions of GHGs, constraints on future emissions and unequal exposure and capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change.

These are questions to which the developing world and the development community can bring considerable insights.

Mitigation and adaptation

Mitigation of climate change tackles the problem by reducing GHG emissions at source or ‘locking them up’ into ocean and terrestrial stores,

through measures such as afforestation programmes. Adaptation relates to the ability of human and ecological systems to manage or cope with a changing climate.

We are now committed to some climate change because industrial nations have already emitted vast amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere, and emissions by developing countries are also increasing.

Furthermore, the economic development pathways of many countries remain fundamentally based on fossil fuels.

This means societies are going to experience some degree of climate change and will have to implement a combination of reactive and anticipatory measures to adapt.

There is still much uncertainty about how the climate is likely to change, at both regional and national levels.

In this issue of insights, Stainforth explains how climate models are used to predict future climate and where the key uncertainties lie.

These include our understanding of the climate system and its response to GHGs, the ability of models to represent the climate system and at what rate GHG emissions will increase.

Policy makers and planners often require information about climate change at scales which have high levels of uncertainty. Responses to extreme weather and anticipatory planning for climate change therefore need to build in flexibility and resilience to a much wider range of climate conditions than are currently experienced.

They must also do this on the basis of limited knowledge.

For various reasons,
more attention in climate change research and policy has been given to mitigation than adaptation.

Tompkins and Adger explain the differences between mitigation and adaptation, noting that they share the same underlying factors and are not substitutes for each other, but are essentially complementary.

From studying adaptation, the authors’ highlight that it is place-specific and context-specific, i.e. it may be difficult to generalise about how it occurs and how strategies can be used.

Adaptation actions may be in response to or in anticipation of events, and implemented through the actions of individuals, governments or other groups.

International policies on climate change

There are growing international efforts to fund and facilitate adaptation in developing countries, as explained by Huq.

These are primarily through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

However, important questions still need to be resolved about the funding of the incremental costs of adaptation to climate change, how much responsibility developed countries will bear and whether and how assistance will be allocated among and between vulnerable groups.

It is unclear how or whether there will be coordination between funding and activities through international polices on climate change and normal development assistance.

This question is considered by Agrawala in a discussion of mainstreaming climate change responses within development organisations.

Some aid organisations have begun the process of considering how climate change may affect their activities and how they in turn could address the issue. However, much remains to be done.

For example, results from an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) review of donor programmes in six developing countries show that a significant amount of funding goes to sectors potentially exposed to climatic hazards but there are few examples where climate change is given clear consideration.

Vulnerable people and vulnerable places

Uncertainty about the details of climate change, such as whether rainfall will increase or decrease and the timescales over which climate change will occur, are likely to influence decision-making about funding priorities and target activities.

There is, however, close agreement between development agendas and the effects of climate change in areas with high climate variability and extremes of weather.

It is in these situations that climate change will most directly affect vulnerable people, such as those in small island states or low-lying coastal areas, subsistence farmers, flood prone communities and urban dwellers exposed to extreme temperatures and potential increases in disease transmission.

Development work can provide valuable insights into the context-specific and socially mediated links between vulnerability and extremes of weather.

Cause and effect between hazard and disaster occurs through human agency and it is here that development research has much to offer our understanding of climate-society interactions. Devereux and Edwards consider these issues in relation to drought and food security.

Whilst climate change globally may lead to increases in staple crop yields, there will be considerable local variations.

Many tropical regions and developing countries are expected to experience lower yields, due to reduced water availability, smaller fertilisation effects from carbon dioxide and interactions with non-climate factors, such as reduced capacity to adapt to climate change.

The context-specific exposure to climate-related risk and activities currently in place to address adaptation are outlined in two short country examples, South Africa and Pacific Islands, by Vogel and Lefale and McFadzien. Together, the articles in this issue highlight some of the key cross-cutting themes in international development and climate change.

Source(s):
‘Summary for policymakers’, A report of working group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, 2001 Full document.

‘High Tide: News from a Warming World’, Flamingo Press, M. Lynas, 2004
‘Securing development in the face of climate change’ insights# 53 Full document.

WB: Promote clean growth for atmospheric stabilisation

2007-02-14T03:50:00.000-08:00

The World Bank has exposed pros and cons of globalization cautioning that growth prospects are strong but social and environmental pressures from globalization need more attention.

The caution is in a just released 57-page World Bank Report on ``Global Economic Prospects - Managing the Next Wave of Globalization 2007.``

Among other things it notes that globalization could spur faster growth in average incomes in the next 25 years than during 1980 - 2005 with developing countries playing a central role.

The World Bank Report instantly cautions that, unless managed carefully, it could be accompanied by growing income inequality and potentially severe environmental pressures.

It points out further that growth in developing countries will reach a near record of 7 per cent this year adding that between this year and 2008, growth will probably slow, but still likely to exceed 6 per cent, more than twice the rate in high-income countries, which is expected to be 2.6 per cent.

It is for instance, exemplified that in Sub-Saharan Africa, GDP is estimated to have increased to an impressive 5.3 per cent in 2006, down marginally from 5.5 per cent in 2005 and marking the third year of more than 5 per cent growth.

It attributes the deceleration in growth mainly to a moderate slowdown in South Africa, the region`s largest economy.

Excluding South Africa,

regional growth was steady at 5.8 per cent, with oil exporters growing 6.9 per cent and small oil importers 4.7 per cent, reveals the report.

It contends that the apparent robust growth is portrayed as reflecting favorable international conditions and a substantially improved domestic policy environment that has improved countries supply potential.

The report adds: ``At the same time, debt relief combined with lower interest rates and risks have reduced debt-servicing costs, increasing public funds available for productive investment.``

Heartening too is the observation that growth in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to remain above 5 per cent over the next two years as small oil-importing economies continue to grow by about 4.8 per cent .

It reveals that growth in oil exporters is on the acceleration due to increasing capacity in countries like Angola and Equatorial Guinea as well as a normalization of production levels in Nigeria.

On globalization, the report predicts that the global economy will expand from US$35 trillion in 2005 to $72 trillion in 2030.

The report further portrays that broad-based growth in developing countries sustained over the period would significantly affect global poverty and that the number of people living on less than $1 a day could be cut in half, from 1.1 billion now to 550 million in the year 2030.

It however,

cautions that some regions notably Africa, are at risk of being left behind. Moreover, income inequality could widen within many countries compounding current concerns over inequality between countries.

According to Francois Bourguignon, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President in his observation in the report says global trade in goods and services could rise more than threefold to $27 trillion in 2030.

He adds that trade as a share of the global economy will rise from one-quarter today to more than one-third out of which he says roughly half of the increase is likely to come from developing countries.

It is further portrayed that developing countries that only two decades ago provided 14 per cent of manufactured imports of rich countries, today supply 40 per cent, and by 2030 are likely to supply over 65 per cent.

Further revealed is the contention that import demand from developing countries is projected to emerge as a locomotive of the global economy.

The report says continuing integration of markets will make jobs around the world more subject to competitive pressures.

``As trade expands and technologies rapidly diffuse to developing countries, unskilled workers around the world - as well as some lower-skilled white collar workers - will face increasing competition across borders,`` notes in the report Uri Dadush, Director of the World Banks Development Economics Prospect Group.

According to the report,

global warming is a serious risk with estimation having it that rising output means that annual emissions of greenhouse gases will increase roughly by 50 per cent by 2030 and probably double by 2050 in the absence of widespread policy changes.

To avoid these policies will have to promote ``clean``growth so as to limit emissions to levels that will eventually stabilize atmospheric concentrations, notes the report.

It notes further that poor countries will need development assistance

to adapt to coming environmental changes including support for their participation in the carbon finance market.

Full text ; South Africa taking the lead in continent's climate change mitigation efforts

2007-02-13T04:32:00.000-08:00

SOUTH AFRICA: Focus on global warming

Every month, a few dozen people gather in Johannesburg's gritty inner city to learn how to make a solar-powered stove - a parabolic cooker that looks something like a home-made satellite dish yet can direct enough of the sun's energy to boil a pot of water in about 10 minutes.

The workshop run by the GreenHouse People's Environmental Centre Project is just one of its programmes to educate South Africans on energy efficiency and using renewable sources.

GreenHouse regularly runs identical projects in the townships and informal settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where many residents still rely on cheaper resources, like paraffin, for cooking, while others go without electricity when they can't pay the bills.

"Electricity is very expensive, and this is one way to harness a natural resource - the sun - that we have plenty of in South Africa," said Dorah Lebelo, the project's executive director.

Substitute for coal-fired electricity plants

The stoves also make environmental sense. About 92 percent of South Africa's electricity comes from coal-firing plants, making electricity production the nation's biggest contributor to greenhouse gases.

It's the artificially high levels of these gases - such as carbon monoxide, methane, and nitrous oxide - that has driven up the average global temperature by 0.6 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years, and it is predicted to climb by another 1.4 to 5.8 degrees in the next century, according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial nations, such as the United States. But South Africa is in a unique position - with parallels to Brazil, India, Mexico and China - because it straddles both the developing and developed world.

While many of South Africa's poorest households are still without electricity and contribute little to climate change, the nation's wealthier residents and infrastructure consume levels of energy comparable to those in the developed world.

As a result, the country faces increased pressure from the international community, including its African neighbours, to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

South Africa's electricity use continues to rise as government electrifies more and more households. At the end of the apartheid regime in 1994, only 36 percent of households were electrified nationwide, but the figure has grown to more than 70 percent in 10 years, according to Fani Zulu, spokesperson for Eskom, the state-owned energy company.

South Africa taking greater responsibility for Climate Change

But in recent months, some observers say, South Africa has taken a proactive role in addressing its share of responsibility for global climate change and advocating for the continent as a whole, which many have declared the region most vulnerable to global warming.

Speaking at a ministerial meeting in Nairobi last month, the South African Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said he wanted to find "a common African position" on climate change that would support "economic growth, social upliftment, and the Millennium Development Goals" of the continent.

South Africa had recently hosted two parallel conferences on the science and policy implications of climate change. The five-day event was chaired by van Schalkwyk and brought together more than 600 representatives from the nation's science, civil society, business and academic communities.

It was also attended by a number of leading government figures, including Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and the ministers of water affairs and forestry; science and technology; minerals and energy; and ariculture and land affairs; as well as the deputy minister of foreign affairs - a level of involvement that even critics deemed "extraordinary".

"This is the first government-initiated and driven event of its kind, and on this scale, in South Africa," van Schalkwyk said at the conference. "We accept that climate change is happening, that there is compelling evidence that it is being accelerated by human activity, and that it must be addressed."

The conference was held ahead of the 11th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Montreal, which starts on 28 November.

Climate Change will hit southern Africa unproportionally hard

There is increasing consensus among scientists that climate change has been responsible for a variety of environmental changes in recent years, including decreased numbers of some of Africa's indigenous animals and plants, such as the dramatic drop in species in East Africa's tropical reefs.

Other examples of climate change on the continent include the spreading 'desertification' of Africa's arid areas, the melting of glacial ice on Mount Kilimanjaro, and the shifting of the Kalahari dune system.

In Africa, climate change is likely to have a notable effect on the continent's fragile agricultural areas, which Dr Phoebe Barnard, specialist scientist at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, said could mean "significant economic cost over time".

"Those agricultural areas that are presently marginally productive will be dramatically less so in the next 50 to 80 years,"

Barnard told IRIN, adding that climate change was sure to have an impact on Africa's marginalised and poor communities, who were already struggling to make a living in agriculture and fishing.

Climate change specialists said some of the most notable commitments to come out of the October conference included those to establish a South African Energy Research Institute; to compile action plans by various government departments; and to implement a 'scenario-building' process to map how the nation would stabilise greenhouse gas emissions while also focusing on poverty alleviation and job creation.

Another key promise was made by Eskom chair Valli Moosa, who reiterated a commitment originally made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 that South Africa would reduce the percentage of coal in its energy mix by 10 percent by 2012.

The energy producer said it had made climate change "one of its key priorities", and that it would invest in new, less carbon-intensive technologies, including renewable technologies such as wind- and solar-generated power.

"We remain committed to diversifying our energy mix to include renewables, and that forms part of our response to the challenges of global warming," Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu told IRIN.

Coal is key

Yet coal remains one of South Africa's most abundant and cheapest energy sources, and it would take a massive economic reinvestment to transform energy plants that currently use coal. In early October, van Schalkwyk said South Africa's needs "will, for the foreseeable future, remain heavily dependent on coal."

"Our current power stations have residual life spans of 20 years or more and cannot economically or realistically be replaced before then," he said at the opening session of the UN Parliamentary Forum on Energy Legislation and Sustainable Development in Cape Town.

That's disappointing to climate change activists, because some of the coal-burning power stations are very old, and the older they are, the less efficient. Many activists say Eskom should expand beyond its handful of renewable energy projects, while simultaneously modernising existing power plants to make them less wasteful.

"We'd like to see these stations use the best available technology to create minimal emissions from coal-burning," said Elin Lorimer, secretary for the South African Climate Action Network, based in Johannesburg.

Lorimer observed that it wasn't clear whether the aspirations Eskom had mentioned at the conference marked a meaningful shift in the energy-producer's policy, and that despite talk about renewable energy and energy efficiency, "they're not challenging us to do anything more than business as usual".

Ultimately, Lorimer said, South Africans must take personal responsibility to reduce the unnecessary use of electricity, particularly because making energy more attainable was crucial to the nation's goals for economic development. South Africa has pledged to grow the national economy by six percent a year by 2014.

"We need to start shifting our energy sources in a way that doesn't limit people's access to energy," Lorimer pointed out.

Alternative technologies

But how?

Dr Guy F. Midgley,

a scientist with the Global Change Research Group at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, told IRIN that the international community of climate change scientists was now debating alternative technologies, including nuclear power.

Other technologies being considered included refitting South Africa's electricity-producing plants to burn natural gas instead of coal, and "carbon sequestration" - essentially, capturing carbon gases, liquefying them, and storing them underground.

"What's emerging is the need to recognise a much broader menu of solutions, going into the future," Midgley said, particularly as Eskom was the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases in South Africa and the continent. Yet he noted that other nations also bore considerable responsibility to address climate change.

"There's a sense from South Africa's government that there's a moral stance to be taken here, that if we want to say that the developed world must come to the table, we do need to play the game as well," he commented.

"The horrible reality is, no matter how much we do to reduce emissions, what South Africa does is trivial on the world stage, because we only produce between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of all the emissions in the world," Midgley added.

"This problem needs a multilateral global solution; it is a problem of the global commons on an epic scale."

Lester Brown's "Plan B": Poverty reduction and environmental reconstruction

2007-02-12T03:45:00.000-08:00

Although it is obvious that no society can survive the decline of its environmental support systems, many people are not yet convinced of the need for economic restructuring.

But this is changing now that China has eclipsed the United States in the consumption of most basic resources, notes Lester Brown in an updated version of his book "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble".

Integral part of this "Plan B" are poverty eradication and environmental reconstruction. Creating an economy which will sustain economic progress requires hope and a functioning natural resource base. Both needs to be recreated and reconstructed, and they go toghether.

If we fail, says Brown,

Although it is obvious that no society can survive the decline of its environmental support systems, many people are not yet convinced of the need for economic restructuring. But this is changing now that China has eclipsed the United States in the consumption of most basic resources, notes Lester Brown in an updated version of his book "Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble".

Integral part of this "Plan B" are poverty eradication and environmental reconstruction. Creating an economy which will sustain economic progress requires hope and a functioning natural resource base. Both needs to be recreated and reconstructed, and they go toghether.

If we fail, says Brown,

it will not be because of lack of fiscal resources. Even if the US would take on the costs alone, and deduct the whole cost from its present military budget, it would still leave enough room for military spending surpassing all NATO countires, plus Russia and China, combined.

Lester Brown

China forcing World to rethink its economic future

"Environmental scientists have been saying for some time that the global economy is being slowly undermined by environmental trends of human origin, including shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, eroding soils, collapsing fisheries, rising temperatures, melting ice, rising seas, and increasingly destructive storms," says Brown, President and Founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based independent environmental research organization.

Among the basic commodities -

grain and meat in the food sector, oil and coal in the energy sector, and steel in the industrial sector - China now consumes more than the United States of each of these except for oil.

It consumes nearly twice as much meat (67 million tons compared with 39 million tons) and more than twice as much steel (258 million to 104 million tons).

Western model will not work for China, nor for India - and nor for the West itself

These numbers are about total consumption. "But what if China reaches the U.S. consumption level per person?" asks Brown. "If China's economy continues to expand at 8 percent a year, its income per person will reach the current U.S. level in 2031.

"If at that point China's per capita resource consumption were the same as in the United States today, then its projected 1.45 billion people would consume the equivalent of two thirds of the current world grain harvest. China's paper consumption would be double the world's current production. There go the world's forests."

If China one day has three cars for every four people, U.S. style, it will have 1.1 billion cars. The whole world today has 800 million cars. To provide the roads, highways, and parking lots to accommodate such a vast fleet, China would have to pave an area equal to the land it now plants in rice. It would need 99 million barrels of oil a day.

Yet the world currently produces 84 million barrels per day and may never produce much more.

The western economic model -

the fossil-fuel-based, auto-centered, throwaway economy - is not going to work for China. If it does not work for China, it will not work for India, which by 2031 is projected to have a population even larger than China's. Nor will it work for the 3 billion other people in developing countries who are also dreaming the "American dream."

And, Brown notes, in an increasingly integrated world economy, where all countries are competing for the same oil, grain, and steel, the existing economic model will not work for industrial countries either. China is helping us see that the days of the old economy are numbered.

Time for "Plan B"

Sustaining our early twenty-first century global civilization now depends on shifting to a renewable-energy-based, reuse/recycle economy with a diversified transport system.

Business as usual - Plan A - cannot take us where we want to go. It is time for Plan B, time to build a new economy and a new world.

Plan B has three components -

(1) a restructuring of the global economy so that it can sustain civilization;

(2) an all-out effort to eradicate poverty, stabilize population, and restore hope in order to elicit participation of the developing countries; and

(3) a systematic effort to restore natural systems.

Glimpses of the new economy can be seen in the wind farms of Western Europe, the solar rooftops of Japan, the fast-growing hybrid car fleet of the United States, the reforested mountains of South Korea, and the bicycle-friendly streets of Amsterdam.

"Virtually everything we need to do to build an economy that will sustain economic progress is already being done in one or more countries," says Brown.

"Among the new sources of energy - wind, solar cells, solar thermal, geothermal, small-scale hydro, biomass - wind is emerging as a major energy source.

In Europe, which is leading the world into the wind era, some 40 million people now get their residential electricity from wind farms. The European Wind Energy Association projects that by 2020, half of the region's population - 195 million Europeans - will be getting their residential electricity from wind.

"Wind energy is growing fast for six reasons: It is abundant, cheap, inexhaustible, widely distributed, clean, and climate-benign. No other energy source has this combination of attributes."

Fuel economy

For the U.S. automotive fuel economy, the key to greatly reducing oil use and carbon emissions is gas-electric hybrid cars. The average new car sold in the United States last year got 22 miles to the gallon, compared with 55 miles per gallon for the Toyota Prius.

If the United States decided for oil security and climate stabilization reasons to replace its entire fleet of passenger vehicles with super-efficient gas-electric hybrids over the next 10 years, gasoline use could easily be cut in half.

This would involve no change in the number of cars or miles driven, only a shift to the most efficient automotive propulsion technology now available.

Beyond this, a gas-electric hybrid with an additional storage battery and a plug-in capacity would allow us to use electricity for short distance driving, such as the daily commute or grocery shopping.

This could cut U.S. gasoline use by an additional 20 percent, for a total reduction of 70 percent. Then if we invest in thousands of wind farms across the country to feed cheap electricity into the grid, we could do most short-distance driving with wind energy, dramatically reducing both carbon emissions and the pressure on world oil supplies.

Using timers to recharge batteries with electricity coming from wind farms during the low demand hours between 1 and 6 a.m. costs the equivalent of 50¢-a-gallon gasoline. We have not only an inexhaustible alternative to dwindling reserves of oil, but an incredibly cheap one.

The link between poverty eradication and environmental reconstruction

"Building an economy that will sustain economic progress requires a cooperative worldwide effort," notes Brown.

"This means eradicating poverty and stabilizing population - in effect, restoring hope among the world's poor. Eradicating poverty accelerates the shift to smaller families. Smaller families in turn help to eradicate poverty."

The principal line items in the budget to eradicate poverty are investments in universal primary school education; school lunch programs for the poorest of the poor; basic village-level health care, including vaccinations for childhood diseases; and reproductive health and family planning services for all the world's women. In total, reaching these goals will take $68 billion of additional expenditures each year.

A strategy for eradicating poverty will not succeed if an economy's environmental support systems are collapsing.

Brown says, "This means putting together an earth restoration budget - one to reforest the earth, restore fisheries, eliminate overgrazing, protect biological diversity, and raise water productivity to the point where we can stabilize water tables and restore the flow of rivers. Adopted worldwide, these measures require additional expenditures of $93 billion per year."

Combining social goals and earth restoration components into a Plan B budget means an additional annual expenditure of $161 billion. Such an investment is huge, but it is not a charitable act. It is an investment in the world in which our children will live.

The money is there

"If we fail to build a new economy before decline sets in, it will not be because of a lack of fiscal resources, but rather because of obsolete priorities," adds Brown. "The world is now spending $975 billion annually for military purposes.

The U.S. 2006 military budget of $492 billion, accounting for half of the world total, goes largely to the development and production of new weapon systems. Unfortunately, these weapons are of little help in curbing terrorism, nor can they reverse the deforestation of the earth or stabilize climate.

"The military threats to national security today pale beside the trends of environmental destruction and disruption that threaten the economy and thus our early twenty-first century civilization itself. New threats call for new strategies. These threats are environmental degradation, climate change, the persistence of poverty, and the loss of hope."

The U.S. military budget is totally out of sync with these new threats. If the United States were to underwrite the entire $161 billion Plan B budget by shifting resources from the $492 billion spent on the military, it still would be spending more for military purposes than all other NATO members plus Russia and China combined.

Time is a scarce resource

Of all the resources needed to build an economy that will sustain economic progress, none is more scarce than time. With climate change we may be approaching the point of no return. The temptation is to reset the clock. But we cannot.

Nature is the timekeeper.

It is decision time. Like earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble, we can decide to stay with business as usual and watch our global economy decline and eventually collapse.

Or we can shift to Plan B, building an economy that will sustain economic progress.

"It is hard to find the words to express the gravity of our situation and the momentous nature of the decision we are about to make," says Brown. "How can we convey the urgency of moving quickly? Will tomorrow be too late?

One way or another, the decision will be made by our generation. Of that there is little doubt. But it will affect life on earth for all generations to come."

South Africa leading continent's climate change mitigation efforts;NEW REPORT.

2007-02-11T04:26:00.000-08:00

Climate Change is receiving increased attention in South Africa, both because the country, like many others such as e.g. Brazil, is positioned between developing and developed countries.

Electrification has increased vastly during the last then years, and virtually all electric power in South Africa comes from old coal-fired plants.

As South Africa increasingly is spear-heading efforts on the continent to join the international strivings to curb climate change, alternatives to fossil fuels, and coal in particular, become increasingly interesting.

Johannesburg, South Africa:
In the gritty inner city, a solar-powered stove can boil a pot of water in about 10 minutes. It may not fit in every kitchen, but cooking with a solar-powered stove means free power.

Climate Change is receiving increased attention in South Africa, both because the country, like many others such as e.g. Brazil, is positioned between developing and developed countries.

Electrification has increased vastly during the last then years, and virtually all electric power in South Africa comes from old coal-fired plants.

As South Africa increasingly is spear-heading efforts on the continent to join the international strivings to curb climate change, alternatives to fossil fuels, and coal in particular, become increasingly interesting.

Africa dumping ground for electronic waste - NEW REPORT.

2007-02-10T04:06:00.000-08:00

A tsunamni of techno-trash making its way from rich to poorer countries - that is how an environmental watchdog characterizes the electronics dumps found in Lagos, Nigeria.

In a recent report the Basel Action Network identifies the illegal export of electronic trash to Africa.

Under the Basel Convention such exports are illegal, but one of the largest exporter, the U.S., has not ratified the treaty, and many European governments are lax in upholding the laws regulating electronic exports.

There is a legitimate market for electronic re-use in Nigeria, but much of the export just gets dumped. Dangerous chemicals may then leak into the groundwater, or pollute the air when the trash is burnt.

Summary:

A tsunamni of techno-trash making its way from rich to poorer countries - that is how an environmental watchdog characterizes the electronics dumps found in Lagos, Nigeria.

In a recent report the Basel Action Network identifies the illegal export of electronic trash to Africa.

Dangerous chemicals may then leak into the groundwater, or pollute the air when the trash is burnt.

NOW DAYS THERE IS A LATEST CASE IN IVORY COAST,

concerning enviromental dumpig along the port of ivory coast....

Open Dialogue between UNEP Executive Director & Civil Society at UNEP's 8th Global Civil Society Forum

2007-02-07T05:52:00.000-08:00

Nairobi, Kenya -

An open dialogue between civil society representatives and UNEP Executive, Achim Steiner took place yesterday as part of UNEP's 8th Global Civil Society Forum, where Steiner called attention to the crucial moment we are living in.

He pointed out than now more than ever before, environmental issues such as those related to climate change come to the fore of the international agenda, emphasising that this poses fundamental challenges and demands to all those from the environmental field, both in the governmental and non-governmental spheres.He said that this also demands increasing dialogue between trade, economic, social and environmental organizations.

Steiner told civil society delegates that the upcoming Ministerial Forum on Globalization and the Environment will provide opportunities for Governments, other UN organizations and civil society to elaborate on agendas for mutual engagement.

Mr. Steiner further noted the importance of strengthening and designing more productive ways of engagement between UNEP and civil society, including business.

More than 160 participants from 65 countries are taking part in the 8th Global Civil Society Forum (GCSF) from 3 to 4 February.

The Forum is a prelude to the 24th UNEP Governing Council / Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GC / GMEF). This year’s programme of work, developed in collaboration with the newly established Global Steering Committee, aims at increasing impact and interaction with the GC / GMEF.

The Forum is the main entry point for civil society participation at the governance level in the GCSF cycle. It is built around six regional consultation meetings.

270 representatives from 94 countries have been involved through previous months in discussions on policy issues related to water, chemicals management, gender and the environment and globalization, ecosystem services and human-well-being at the regional level. This process produced the Global Civil Society Statement to the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum at its twenty-fourth session (UNEP/GC/24/INF/).

A dialogue session between the Forum and the Executive Director of UNEP will take place on Saturday 3 of February to exchange ideas and perspectives on the main themes dominating the GC agenda this year and elements of the Global Civil Society Statement to the GC.

During the course of the Forum, UNEP will present new modalities to improve the engagement of major groups, in the long term.

Modalities for discussion include: improved and continuous engagement at governance level, new forms of consultations including issue-based consultations, communication and feedback to the constituencies, linking engagement at governance, and programmatic and regional levels.

Participating in the Forum will be

E. Neuhaus, Executive Manager of the Brazilian Forum of NGOs and Social Movements for Sustainable Development (FBMOS),

and T. Hammond, Senior Program Advisor from IUCN, The World Conservation Union, who will present the position of the Global Civil Society Committee representing the 6 UNEP regions.

The Forum and panelists from various major groups will then be invited to react and share their views.

Special civil society experts taking part in the Forum this year include - K. Otto-Zimmermann,

Secretary-General, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) Local Governments for Sustainability;

J. Gerber, Chief Operating Officer, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD);

J. Mati, Research Associate, CIVICUS World Alliance For Citizen Participation;

L. Royer, Occupational Health Safety Environment and Sustainable Development Director, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC);

and J. Rockström, Executive Director, Stockholm Environment Institute.

GEO Year Book 2007 Underlines Environmental Risks and Opportunities of Globalization

2007-02-05T02:51:00.000-08:00

Global Environment Outlook Year Book 2007 Launched at UNEP’s 24th Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum

Nairobi, 5 November 2007 -

-The fate of the world’s fisheries underlines the challenges facing governments in a globalized world a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

Scientists estimate that rising demand for seafood and other marine produce will lead to a collapse of today’s commercial fish stocks by 2050-- unless better management is introduced.

Climate change may aggravate the situation by increasing the acidity of the oceans and seas and by bleaching coral reefs—important nurseries for fish.

One management technique for countering the collapse includes a dramatic expansion of the number of marine protected areas.

Experts have found that marine protected areas, which currently cover just 0.6 per cent of the world’s oceans, increase numbers of fish species by over a fifth and can boost catches in waters nearby.

Governments at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002 backed a plan to develop a network of marine reserves by 2012.

But the UNEP Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Year Book 2007
says the pace at which new marine reserves are being listed means the goal will be achieved three decades after the collapse of today’s commercial fisheries.

“At the current rate of designation, the target will not be reached until 2085,” says the GEO Year Book.

The Year Book,

the work of over 80 scientists and policy experts from across the globe, has been written to inform the debate being held by environment ministers attending UNEP’s 24th Governing Council-Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Nairobi, Kenya this week.

Here the risks and the opportunities of globalization and booming trans-national trade are high on the agenda during the five day long gathering.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary and UNEP Executive Director, said:” Globalization is one of the defining issues of our time. Wealth is being generated on an unprecedented scale and millions are being lifted out of poverty. But a big question mark hangs over its future and its sustainability for current and future generations”.

“If rising living standards and inefficient methods of production and consumption intensify pressure on nature’s natural resources—from fish, freshwater and the atmosphere to forests and fragile lands—globalization could become a spectacular failure rather than a saviour,” he added.

“The question is not whether globalization is good or bad but whether we have in place the regulations, creative economic instruments, guidelines, rules and partnerships that ensure it delivers the widest possible benefits at the minimum price to the planet and thus to its people—

in other words do we have the international environmental governance structures in place, firing on all cylinders, to match and guide the powerful engine of globalization. This is the question before us today and among the answers to a range of issues we seek from ministers attending this UNEP GC/GMEF in 2007,” said Mr Steiner.

The GEO Year Book outlines a range of options able to steer globalization onto a more intelligent, environmentally, economically responsible and sustainable course if more widely deployed and enthusiastically adopted.

The report acknowledges the importance of responsible business and the power of consumerism to direct globalization—factors that can play an increasingly significant role if governments heed calls by the private sector for 21st century regulation and consumers are fully and properly informed.

Certification
The GEO Year Book flags the challenge of forestry and the importance of certification. An estimated 10.5 million hectares- or three per cent- of ‘natural production forests-- in International Tropical Timber Organization member states are now covered under certification schemes.

These could be expanded to other natural resources and complimented by green procurement policies. Here governments need to set in place environmental standards right along the supply change says the GEO Year Book.

The Role of Financial Institutions
Environmental accountability is also emerging from lending institutions as a result of growing awareness among multinationals of the marketing advantages of adopting corporate social responsibility initiatives.

The GEO Year Book cites the case of soya production in Brazil.

Here a recent loan of $30 million by the International Finance Corporation to Grupo Andre Maggi company—which finances 500 soy producers-- was predicated on higher environmental, agricultural and social standards.

Paying for Maintaining Ecosystems
Payment for ecosystem services offers another potentially fruitful path—one that gives greater value to the wider economic benefits of ecosystems and attempts to identify and compensate the communities and the countries responsible for maintaining them.

The GEO Year Book highlights the case of the Panama Canal, an economically important man-made waterway that moves an estimated 279 million metric tonnes of goods between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The canal depends on water from reservoirs to lift boats up over the isthmus cordillera. “Over the last few decades deforestation around the high reservoirs has led to a number of problems for the Panama Canal System—especially a shortage of water in some seasons,” says the report.

A forestry re-insurance company is proposing a 25 year bond, paid for by ship owners, some of the profits from which will pay for re-afforestation of vulnerable water catchments.

Other Creative Market Mechanisms
The GEO Year Book also underlines how ‘pump priming’ and relatively small amounts of well targeted and creative financial support can radically propel markets onto a more sustainable track.

It cites the case of a three year old partnership between organizations like UNEP and two Indian banks aimed at promoting solar power on the Indian sub Continent.

By using the economic instrument of preferential interest rates, the partnership has led to the financing of over 17,000 solar home systems supplying clean energy to over 100,000 people.

A similar initiative is underway in Tunisia aimed at benefiting consumers and the international fight against climate change.

The GEO Year Book not only underscores existing challenges, that have become even more pressing through the effects of globalization, but also presents new and emerging challenges that result from rapid technological developments.

The New Opportunities and Risks of Technology—Nanotechnology
It cites the rise of nanotechnology—the engineering of surfaces and particles at sizes one billionth of a metre.

The technology, which currently accounts for around 0.1 per cent of the global manufacturing economy, is set to take 14 per cent-- or 2.6 trillion US dollars worth-- of the market by 2014.

Nanotechnologies applied to devices and techniques are being used as innovative and more effective forms of pollution monitors and as, for example, to window coatings that save energy by concentrating solar power on cool days.

Other products include more effective and targeted forms of pest contro and anti-pollution particles able to cleanse toxins from the air, land and water day in day out.

But the report warns: ”It is not clear whether current regulatory frameworks are adequate to deal with the special characteristics of nanotechnology. To date no government has developed a regulatory framework specific to nanotechnology. A balanced approach is required to maximize benefits while minimizing risks”.

Notes to Editors
The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Year Book 2007 can be found at www.unep.org/geo/yearbook

The site also carries information on previous Year Books.

The 2007 edition can be purchased at www.earthprint.com priced $20.00

Documents, reports, issues on the 24th session of UNEP’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum are available at http://www.unep.org/gc/gc24/

Evidence of Human-caused Global Warming “Unequivocal”, says IPCC

2007-02-02T02:22:00.001-08:00

Paris, 2 February 2007
– The first major global assessment of climate change science in six years has concluded that changes in the atmosphere, the oceans and glaciers and ice caps show unequivocally that the world is warming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that major advances in climate modelling and the collection and analysis of data now give scientists “very high confidence” (at least a 9 out of 10 chance of being correct) in their understanding of how human activities are causing the world to warm. This level of confidence is much greater than what could be achieved in 2001 when the IPCC issued its last major report.

Today’s report,

the first of four volumes to be released this year by the IPCC, also confirms that the marked increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) since 1750 is the result of human activities.

An even greater degree of warming would likely have occurred if emissions of pollution particles and other aerosols had not offset some of the impact of greenhouse gases, mainly by reflecting sunlight back out to space.

Three years in the making,

the report is based on a thorough review of the most-up-to-date, peer-reviewed scientific literature available worldwide.

It describes an accelerating transition to a warmer world marked by more extreme temperatures including heat waves, new wind patterns, worsening drought in some regions, heavier precipitation in others, melting glaciers and Arctic ice and rising global average sea levels.

For the first time, the report provides evidence that the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland are slowly losing mass and contributing to sea level rise.

“This report by the IPCC represents the most rigorous and comprehensive assessment possible of the current state of climate science and has considerably narrowed the uncertainties of the 2001 report,” said Michel Jarraud, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “Progress in observations and measurements of the weather and climate are keys to improved climate research, with National Meteorological and Hydrological Services playing a crucial role.”

“While the conclusions are disturbing, decision makers are now armed with the latest facts and will be better able to respond to these realities. The speed with which melting ice sheets are raising sea levels is uncertain, but the report makes clear that sea levels will rise inexorably over the coming centuries. It is a question of when and how much, and not if,” he said.

“In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which, together with WMO, established the IPCC in 1988.

“The implications of global warming over the coming decades for our industrial economy, water supplies, agriculture, biological diversity and even geopolitics are massive. Momentum for action is building; this new report should spur policymakers to get off the fence and put strong and effective policies in place to tackle greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

The report also concludes that:

• If atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases double compared to pre-industrial levels, this would “likely” cause an average warming of around 3°C (5.4°F), with a range of 2 - 4.5°C (3.6 - 8.1°F). For the first time, the IPCC is providing best estimates for the warming projected to result from particular increases in greenhouse gases that could occur after the 21st century, along with uncertainty ranges based on more comprehensive modelling.

• A GHG level of 650 ppm would “likely” warm the global climate by around 3.6°C, while 750 ppm would lead to a 4.3°C warming, 1,000 ppm to 5.5°C and 1,200 ppm to 6.3°C. Future GHG concentrations are difficult to predict and will depend on economic growth, new technologies and policies and other factors.

• The world’s average surface temperature has increased by around 0.74°C over the past 100 years (1906 - 2005). This figure is higher than the 2001 report’s 100-year estimate of 0.6°C due to the recent series of extremely warm years, with 11 of the last 12 years ranking among the 12 warmest years since modern records began around 1850. A warming of about 0.2°C is projected for each of the next two decades.

• The best estimates for sea-level rise due to ocean expansion and glacier melt by the end of the century (compared to 1989 – 1999 levels) have narrowed to 28 - 58 cm, versus 9 - 88 cm in the 2001 report, due to improved understanding. However, larger values of up to 1 m by 2100 cannot be ruled out if ice sheets continue to melt as temperature rises. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than at present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume caused the sea level to rise by 4 to 6 m.

• Sea ice is projected to shrink in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Large areas of the Arctic Ocean could lose year-round ice cover by the end of the 21st century if human emissions reach the higher end of current estimates. The extent of Arctic sea ice has already shrunk by about 2.7% per decade since 1978, with the summer minimum declining by about 7.4% per decade.

• Snow cover has decreased in most regions, especially in spring. The maximum extent of frozen ground in the winter/spring season decreased by about 7% in the Northern Hemisphere over the latter half of the 20th century.

The average freezing date for rivers and lakes in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 150 years has arrived later by some 5.8 days per century, while the average break-up date has arrived earlier by 6.5 days per century.

• It is “very likely” that precipitation will increase at high latitudes and “likely” it will decrease over most subtropical land regions. The pattern of these changes is similar to what has been observed during the 20th century.

• It is “very likely” that the upward trend in hot extremes and heat waves will continue. The duration and intensity of drought has increased over wider areas since the 1970s, particularly in the tropics and subtropics.

The Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia have already become drier during the 20th century.

• The amounts of carbon dioxide and methane now in the atmosphere far exceed pre-industrial values going back 650,000 years. As stated above, concentrations of carbon dioxide have already risen from a pre-industrial level of 280 ppm to around 379 ppm in 2005, while methane concentrations have risen from 715 parts per billion (ppb) to 1,774 in 2005.

• A number of widely discussed uncertainties have been resolved. The temperature record of the lower atmosphere from satellite measurements has been reconciled with the ground-based record.

Key remaining uncertainties involve the roles played by clouds, the cryosphere (glaciers and ice caps), oceans, deforestation and other land-use change, and the linking of climate and biogeochemical cycles.

The IPCC does not conduct new research.

Instead, its mandate is to make policy-relevant assessments of the existing worldwide literature on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change.

Its reports have played a major role in inspiring governments to adopt and implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

The Summary for Policymakers for IPCC Working Group I,

which was finalized line-by-line by governments during the course of this week, has now been posted in English at www.ipcc.ch. The full underlying report –

“Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis” – will be published by Cambridge University Press.

The report was produced by some 600 authors from 40 countries.

Over 620 expert reviewers and a large number of government reviewers also participated. Representatives from 113 governments reviewed and revised the Summary line-by-line during the course of this week before adopting it and accepting the underlying report.

The Working Group II report on climate impacts and adaptation will be launched in Brussels on 6 April. The Working Group III report on mitigation will be launched in Bangkok on 4 May.

The Synthesis Report will be adopted in Valencia, Spain on 16 November. Together, the four volumes will make up the IPCC’s fourth assessment report; previous reports were published in 1990, 1995 and 2001.

Note to journalists: For more information, please see www.ipcc.ch, www.wmo.int or www.unep.org,

Energy,Climate changes and Sustainable Developments....

2007-02-01T01:08:00.000-08:00

Discussion muts go hand in hand.....

for more information
please open here...

note that; if you have PDF ,
Adobe Reader.

The case of coastal management in Tanzania

2007-01-30T05:06:00.000-08:00

Summary: Tanzania is attempting to manage the development of coastal areas through an Integrated Coastal Management Strategy (ICM).

Development cooperation experts hail this as a great step forward, but also warn against potential conflicts. It will take time until all stakeholders perceive the value of planned development.

Tanzania's coastal areas are home to a quarter of its population.

Most of theses 8 million people are very poor, yet the coastal regions are home to 75 percent of the country's industries.

Industrial and domestic pollutions problems thus are rampant.

New Strategy Targets Tanzania’s Coastal Problems

The government of Tanzania has joined other Indian Ocean countries to launch a National Integrated Coastal Management Strategy (ICM) that will strive to improve the living standard of the coastal people and revamp national development.

The strategy is a joint initiative between the Tanzanian National Environmental Management Council, the University of Rhode Island Coastal Resource Center, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It was developed following years of community consultation and input.

Coastal erosion, as well as industrial and domestic based pollution in Tanzania coastal urban centers are viewed as critical threats to sustainable development.

According to the ICM strategy team leader Jeremiah Daffa, more than US$13.4 million have been injected into the project since 2000 from the American government through its aid agency USAID.

Daffa says the strategy is intended to improving the environment, as well as the well being and livelihood of all people who utilize coastal resources. These, he says, include the poor coastal communities who are engaged in small scale agriculture, artisanal fisheries, mariculture, use of forests and mangroves, and small scale business.

It will also support local initiatives, decision making for intersectoral development, and harmonizing national interests with local needs.

Michael Korff, counsellor for the American Embassy to Tanzania, attended the strategy's launch in April 2003. He believes that every cent put into coastal conservation is an investment. But Korff cautioned the project managers to expect some resistance when they attempt to implement the strategy, since human beings are resistant to new things regardless of their importance.

"When coastal management was introduced in the U.S. in the 1970s, many people, especially the developers, were sceptical about this management option, thinking it was about stopping development," Korff said.

"But over time, they realized that coastal management was a way to make development more predictable, sustainable and equitable. Coastal activities became more coordinated and coherent as information and decision making was shared among stakeholders, and our country has benefited from this coordination," said Korff.

Joint activities with USAID's private sector program will assist local communities to implement new wildlife and coastal resource management regulations. This support will include business planning, natural resource management and public advocacy, among other skills, to enable local populations to manage and benefit from wildlife populations.
(Map: Expedia.com)

The Tanzania coastal area stretches for over 800 kilometers (500 miles) of coastline covering five administrative regions - the capital region of Dar es Salaam, Tanga to the north of the capital, Coast in the west, and in the south Lindi and Mtwara.

About two thirds of the coastline has fringing reefs, often close to the shoreline, broken by river outlets including Rufiji, Pangani, Ruvuma, Wami, Matandu and Ruvu rivers.

The continental shelf is 5.8 kilometers (3.6 miles) wide, except for the Zanzibar and Mafia channels where the continental shelf reaches a width of about 62 kilometers (38.5 miles).

The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which extends 200 nautical miles out from the Tanzanian shoreline, has an estimated area of 223,000 square kilometers (86,100 square miles).

The five coastal regions encompass about 15 percent of the country’s land area and are home to approximately 25 percent of country’s population. This is about eight million people.

Most rural communities of the coast are very poor, earning less than US$100 per capita.

Yet the area contributes about one-third of Tanzania's Gross Domestic Product. Currently, 75 percent of the country’s industries are in urban coastal areas.

The European Union's approach to waste management is based on three principles

2007-01-25T05:37:00.000-08:00

Waste prevention: This is a key factor in any waste management strategy. If we can reduce the amount of waste generated in the first place and reduce its hazardousness by reducing the presence of dangerous substances in products, then disposing of it will automatically become simpler. Waste prevention is closely linked with improving manufacturing methods and influencing consumers to demand greener products and less packaging.

Recycling and reuse: If waste cannot be prevented, as many of the materials as possible should be recovered, preferably by recycling. The European Commission has defined several specific 'waste streams' for priority attention, the aim being to reduce their overall environmental impact.

This includes packaging waste, end-of-life vehicles, batteries, electrical and electronic waste. EU directives now require Member States to introduce legislation on waste collection, reuse, recycling and disposal of these waste streams. Several EU countries are already managing to recycle over 50% of packaging waste.

Improving final disposal and monitoring: Where possible, waste that cannot be recycled or reused should be safely incinerated, with landfill only used as a last resort. Both these methods need close monitoring because of their potential for causing severe environmental damage. The EU has recently approved a directive setting strict guidelines for landfill management.

It bans certain types of waste, such as used tyres, and sets targets for reducing quantities of biodegradable rubbish. Another recent directive lays down tough limits on emission levels from incinerators. The Union also wants to reduce emissions of dioxins and acid gases such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxides (SO2), and hydrogen chlorides (HCL), which can be harmful to human health.

We offer market place where sell and buy plastic scrap and green products made with recycled materials. Garwer srl sells consultancies, newsletters, marketing services. The easiest way to find out if we have the information you need is to contact us right now.

Work with us for a sustainable future!

ORPHANAGE FOR ELEPHANTS....

2007-01-24T04:58:00.000-08:00

Conservationists are warning of a new threat to Africa's elephant population - after a surge in ivory poaching.

The illegal trade has been boosted by growing demand from China, and renewed conflict in Somalia - with poachers selling ivory to buy guns. The result is an increase in orphaned baby elephants.

But as Sky News' Africa Correspondent Emma Hurd reports, a British charity based in Kenya is doing its best to help them...

At the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, just outside Nairobi, four tiny elephant calves snuggle up to their keepers, relying on them for food, warmth and reassurance - everything they would have received from their mothers in the wild.

The "babies", as they're known at the orphanage, were each rescued from certain death.

The 'babies' are fed milk Lempaute, the youngest and the boldest, was found wandering alone in Northern Kenya, after becoming separated from her herd and Shimba was discovered clinging to his dead mother, who'd been killed by poachers.

Galdessa was found in the generator room of a safari lodge, no one knows how he got there and Lesanju, was hauled out of a deep well by local tribesman.

The children of the tribe cut her ears before she was rescued, but at the orphanage she's learned to trust humans again.

"I see them as my children," Edwin Lusichi, the head keeper at the orphanage told me, as the two-month-old calves played around his feet.

"When I came here I was afraid of elephants, but now I know they're friendly and kind."

Edwin, like most of the young Kenyan men who work here, had never seen an elephant before he was employed by the trust, but now he and the other keepers have learned to think like them.

Snooze: With their carers At feeding time they hang blankets from trees so the calves can nuzzle them with trunks as they slurp from the bottles.

In the wild, their trunks would be resting against their mother's hide. At night, the keepers sleep alongside the babies, ready to provide their three hourly feeds.

The trust takes in new orphans almost every month - a steady stream of victims of the clash between wildlife and humans in Africa, where the competition for land has made elephants a hated menace for some communities.

Ivory poaching is another major threat to the elephant population.

The trade is fuelled by the continent's conflicts, with poachers selling ivory to buy weapons.

China's growing influence in Africa is also boosting the trade. Ivory is prized by the Chinese middle classes, much to the anger of the British naturalist, Dr Dame Daphne Sheldrick, who runs the orphanage.

Sky's Emma Hurd with elephants "The ivory trade has to be banned once and for all. If there is still legal ivory, then it's easy for illegal ivory to be laundered in to the system. It has to be outlawed completely."

Dame Daphne Sheldrick has spent 50 years raising elephants and preparing them to return to the wild, and she was the first person to discover the formula of milk that would keep elephant calves alive.

It is a long, labour intensive process. Elephants mirror human development, they're dependent on bottle feeds until they're two-years-old (the orphanage has 12 "toddlers") and are not mature enough to join a wild herd until they're ten.

They can live to be 70-years-old.

The little ones have a long journey to freedom ahead of them, but their keepers will be with them every step of the way.

And it is true that elephants never forget. Back in the wild they learn to be wary of humans, but they still remember and approach their visiting keepers decades after their release.

An enviromental crisis in the making in Tanzania...

2007-01-19T04:44:00.000-08:00

Can women save the planet? ...

2007-01-10T02:41:00.000-08:00

Many of Africa's women are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and environmental destruction.

Poverty forces people to take what they can from the land and environmental destruction results in yet more poverty.

In Africa, trees are being chopped down at an alarming rate.

Every year, forests roughly the size of Togo are cleared, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Many of these trees are being cut down for firewood, which is generally collected by women.
Drought, over-cultivation and overgrazing are other reasons why close to half of the continent's land is now affected by desertification.

"...Why do women damage the environment? And what are women doing to help save the planet? Do women hold the answer to Africa's environmental problems?..."

is it true that women destuct the enviroments??

CHAPTER TWO ; An interview with Tim Davenport:

2007-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

THIS IS An interview with Tim Davenport

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QUESTION: How did you get involved in conservation and why did you choose East Africa for your work?

Dr Tim Davenport after a hike in the Tanzanian forest.

Davenport: ans;I've been interested in the natural world for as long as I can remember. In fact some of my earliest memories are of looking at the pictures in National Geographic, especially those late 60's early 70's editions about sharks and chimpanzees.

My interest in biology led to a BSc in Zoology at the University of Leeds in England, although I never thought I would end up in conservation.

All the ecologists at University seemed very serious and intellectual. I was neither. But when I was given the opportunity to stay on and work for a PhD, I grabbed it.

After that I worked briefly as a Science Editor, and then applied for a position in the early 1990's with the Uganda Forest Department, assessing the biodiversity of the natural forest estate. It was a fantastic and unique experience and I have been in Africa ever since.

I never actively chose East Africa. I stayed on with the Uganda Forest Department and then worked in Bwindi Impenetrable and Mgahinga Gorilla National Parks and also Makerere University.

I ended up living in Uganda for five years.

That was followed by a completely different experience working in the forests of southwest Cameroon with the Worldwide Fund for Nature. I eventually moved to Tanzania with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in 1999.

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QUESTION: On paper Tanzania has set aside more than a quarter of the country in protected areas -- an outstanding conservation achievement.

How does this translate in practice? Are parks well-respected or do they suffer from poaching, deforestation, and other issues? Do local people take well to conversation efforts or are there conflicts?

Davenport: Parks, reserves and protected areas all over the world face problems and suffer from illegal activities. But Tanzania faces two extra hurdles. One is the poverty that dominates everyone's lives and every decision.

The other is the huge responsibility that goes with having to manage the most biodiverse country in Africa.

It's true that a large percentage of the country is nominally set aside, but in reality outside the national parks, resources to manage these areas are often very limited. That is a big challenge. Furthermore, the majority of protected areas were gazetted in colonial times and were based solely on the management of big game for hunting.

This was well before the days of biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services protection and representative PA systems. That said, progress is being made, not least with the country's newest national park, Kitulo, which was designated primarily to protect its unique wild flowers.

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QUESTION: Last year you co-discovered a monkey species that so unique that it was classified as its own genus -- the first such categorization for a monkey since 1923.

What is the outlook for this species and other wildlife in Tanzania? What are the greatest threats to biodiversity and wild lands?

Davenport: As a conservationist I am an optimist by nature, although sometimes it is difficult to stay that way.

The Kipunji is seriously threatened and will probably be designated as 'Critically Endangered'.

We are currently just finishing a complete census - one in which we have tried to locate every group in existence, and count all the individuals within each group - and we will be making this information available soon. As you can appreciate, this has been time consuming, and with the steep montane forest terrain it's also been quite tough.

However, it was important we could do this as quickly as possible, so that we can try and put in place the most effective conservation strategy. Spending so long in the forest has also enabled us to learn a lot about the ecology and behaviors of the Kipunji too, and that has been both useful and good fun.

The Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji).

Help Tim Davenport
Save the Kipunji!

On the downside though, Mt Rungwe - where the biggest numbers of Kipunji live - is in a very bad condition having had no effective management for decades.

Illegal logging, charcoal extraction and hunting are all common and the forest is badly degraded. Many of the larger mammals, such as the extremely rare Abbott's duiker, are under considerable threat from snares.

To make things worse, as a result of the poor forest, many species (including Kipunji) are forced to come out of the forest more and more to raid crops.

Consequently, they are often killed in traps set by farmers who are just trying to protect their livelihoods.

So we are working with government and local communities to see how best we can manage Mt Rungwe for the benefit of all concerned.

We are also using the Kipunji and Abbott's duiker as 'flagship species' in our education work in the villages and schools around the mountain.

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QUESTION: You've worked in the montane forests of Tanzania -- areas that seem like they could be vulnerable to climate change. Do you expect global warming to impact these forests? How much of a local threat is climate change?

Mt. Rungwe. Photo by Tim Davenport.

Davenport: It's difficult to say. Whilst I have no doubts about the negative impact mankind is having on our climate, predicting future impacts is not easy. In part because there are so many variables to consider.

If forests are shrinking (and we know they are), how much is it to do with unmanaged extraction, how much is due to fire, and how much a change in climate? Similarly, we have noticed streams and rivers drying up.

Is this a direct result of forest clearance, is it due to water being diverted for irrigation, or is the story more complex? Whilst we are trying to sort these questions out, we obviously have a responsibility to get all the facts right first.

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QUESTION: What's the best way to protect Tanzania's wildlife? How can conservation efforts be improved? Does eco-tourism have a role or can tourists be disruptive to habitats and local culture?

The Livingstone escarpment within Kitulo National Park viewed from the summit of Mt Rungwe.

Photo: Noah Mpunga / WCS The Poroto Three-horned Chameleon (Chamaeleo fuelleborni) is one of the rarest chameleons on the continent, globally restricted to just four sites in Tanzania's Southern Highlands. Reaching a length of 22 cm, the males of this arboreal species are highly territorial, using their horns to fight for females. They give birth to as many as 15 live young (Photo (c) Tim Davenport / WCS)

Davenport:ANS; Conservation is an extremely complicated business. In order to be truly successful, all the pieces of the puzzle must be in place.

The real conservation problem must be fully understood, all motives must be known, effective and appropriate incentives need to be devised and monitored, and there needs to be the political will to support any changes.

Humans are not by nature a sustainable animal. Learning to become one against a background of rising population is extremely difficult. In many ways the science of conservation is economics, and the art is politics. The biology is often just the more glamorous part that underpins it.

There may not be a single best way to protect Tanzania's wildlife, but the better current approaches are usually broad based. I'll always think, for example, that education is vital.

For conservation practioners the stakes are high. Neither governments, local communities or donors tend to tolerate failure and yet in a business that is so complex, we all need the freedom to try new methods and learn from our mistakes. Sadly, there is rarely that luxury.

Eco-tourism does have an important role, although increasingly these days the phrase has become less meaningful. All too often the word has been hijacked by less scrupulous business people in a bid to attract customers.

That said, tourism contributes 17% of Tanzania's GDP, so is clearly of massive importance to the country. It is important to remember however, that tourism is not in itself the panacea.

Many of the more remote areas (such as the Southern Highlands) are unlikely ever to raise enough from tourism to sustain conservation, and so they will have to rely on other means or funds from other sources to support conservation efforts.

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QUESTION: How can people here in the United States help with conservation efforts in Tanzania?

Photo by Tim Davenport.

Davenport: Directly, they can support any of the various non-profit organizations that work in Tanzania, or even offer to assist as a volunteer. Links between towns or schools are always good ways of helping out.

You would be amazed at how much can be done with a little imagination. We have a Kipunji Fund set up specifically to help us protect the Kipunji and its habitat, and many projects have similar campaigns. I would also strongly encourage people to visit Tanzania. It is an extraordinarily beautiful and diverse country with a sincerely welcoming people.

It has Africa's highest mountain and deepest lake. It has the Serengeti and the Indian Ocean. An important thing to remember is to try and spend as much money locally and in-country as possible.

Indirectly, I think it is extremely important that everyone helps keep the environment high on the political agenda.

Future generations will not thank us for opting for quick profits now for a few, over a more sustainable and healthier future for the majority.

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QUESTION: Finally, do you have any advice for students wanting to pursue a career in conservation?

Photo by Tim Davenport.

Davenport: Firstly, I'd say that whilst biology is the traditional route, there are many other much needed - and often underutilized - skills too, including economics, the law, sociology, IT, anthropology, politics, education, etc.

The key skills needed by a conservationist however, are a broad general knowledge and good people skills. So the more people can travel, read and listen, to as many different places, on as many different subjects and to as many different opinions as possible, the better.

And finally don't give up. If you do, you were probably not right for conservation in the first place.

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About Tim Davenport - WHO IS HE?

Tim Davenport was born in Manchester, UK and has lived and worked in three African countries since finishing his Zoology PhD.

In Uganda, he worked for the Forest Department, Makerere University and Uganda National Parks, and in Cameroon, he ran projects for the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Tim moved to Tanzania with WCS in 1999, and there he set up the Southern Highlands Conservation Program (SHCP) in southwest Tanzania, and the Southern Rift Program in Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique.

Both programs carry out research, community conservation and protected area management in key threatened habitats.

Tim has worked in over 80 African forests and reserves, and been involved in the designation of new national parks on both sides of the continent. He has published on subjects ranging from national conservation priorities to invertebrate ecology, and from the orchid trade to chimpanzee distributions.

He led the team which first discovered the Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji) on Mt Rungwe, and was lead author in a May 2006 article in the journal Science that described the Kipunji as Africa's first new genus of monkey for 83 years. His photographs have also been widely published.

In September 2006, Tim was appointed as the WCS Country Director in Tanzania. In addition to the SHCP, WCS has conservation projects in the Tarangire-Simanjiro Ecosystem in northern Tanzania, the Saba Landscape of Rungwa-Ruaha, the coastal forests of Zanzibar, as well as research projects in the Serengeti, the southern Tanganyika lakeshore forests and the Eastern Arc Mountains.

Another chance to manage plastic waste

2007-01-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

A comprehensive policy to address the plastic waste problem in TANZANIA and Kenya has been long overdue. Time has come for all stakeholders to harness their resources and get involved in the programmes designed to tackle pollution and health hazards caused by plastics.

Numerous attempts by environmentalists to control the production and use of plastics have, in most cases, been resisted vehemently by some people.

This has left our nation choked in plastic, leading to untold health hazards and flush floods in most urban centres. Experts agree that the only way out of this mess is to enact policies to regulate the production and use of plastics.

Early this year, the Tanzania Government made a bold move by banning the use of various types of plastics, bringing to almost a dozen the countries in Africa that have enacted policies to tackle the menace.

The announcement by Tanzanian Vice-President Ali Mohamed Shein has been hailed as marking the first time an African country has banned plastic bags so as to curb environmental damage.

Biodegradable alternatives

Manufacturers were given six months to phase out the harmful polythene – which takes up to 1,000 years to degrade – and switch to recyclable materials or biodegradable alternatives. Tanzania joins countries such as Rwanda and South Africa which have set the best example in plastic waste management.

In the region, Kenya stands to lose markets for some products packaged in plastic bags that have been banned by its trading partners.

Going by the recent activities, Kenya’s hope of finding a solution to the plastic problem has become a reality, through the new initiative unveiled by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.

The country’s hope rests in a joint initiative by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the National Environment Management Authority (Nema), which have launched a plastic pilot project focusing on Nairobi , before moving to other towns countrywide.

The new initiative builds on four diverse approaches in tackling the plastic problem, including policy instruments, recycling, best practices and public awareness.

The involvement of key stakeholders handling plastic issues is a clear priority, if the project is to succeed. The involvement of industrialists, community-based organisations and the media at the initial stages of this project, provides the much-needed support that was lacking in the past.

Success in addressing the plastics problem, therefore, requires political backing. Affirmed the Government’s stand on plastics when he addressed the 23rd session of the Unep Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, in Nairobi, last year, by welcoming initiatives to address the problem.

Kenyaand TANZANIA can borrow a leaf from successful cases in Africa such as South Africa and Rwanda. The latter has banned plastics materials of less than 100 microns thickness, and backed this initiative with a public awareness campaign. The result? The black plastic bag has disappeared from Kigali and other major towns.

Like Rwanda, Kenya’s pilot project has adopted a participatory approach that involves the private and public sector, consumers and other stakeholders, to come up with economic instruments and facilities to rid the country of plastic bags.

Preventing plastic pollution

There are proposals to prevent plastic pollution, while encouraging re-use and recycling of bags.

Such steps were taken in South Africa and resulted in voluntary interventions in many sectors, including the tourism sector which has introduced environmentally-friendly bags made of sail and denim.

There, should encourage all industrialists in the country to fully support the new move to save the nation from further environmental damage.

Whats New IPEP Projects UpdateS...2006

2007-01-05T05:19:00.000-08:00

IPEP has completed or is currently conducting 282 activities in 61 countries: Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Gambia, Ghana, Georgia, Guinea Bissau, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Senegal, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

New projects this period include: country situation reports in Albania, Lebanon, Mali, and Slovakia; pesticide contamination investigations in Albania, sampling breast milk for POPs pesticides in Georgia, the impact of DDT and DDE in the Russian Arctic,

and the effect of pesticide dumps in Uzbekistan; awareness-raising projects on zero waste in Bulgaria and Slovakia, POPs impacts in Congo, NIP stakeholders in Guinea Bissau, farmer communities in India, government and NGOs in Kyrgyzstan, focus on PCBs in Sri Lanka, and coastal areas in Syria;

flame retardant sampling in Czech Republic;

and burning dump and incinerator activities in the Czech Republic, Lebanon, Romania, and Thailand.

Efforts are being directed at finishing up project activities as IPEP comes to a close. Further developments in IPEP are described below.

FOR MORE NEWS ON..

Work in the Regions

Anglophone Africa ;

Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development (Tanzania) Silvani Mnganya.

The Hub has been following up with the ongoing projects for timely completion and received progress reports from four projects in Nigeria. Final comments have been made on two reports, Uganda Situation Report; and Community and Workplace Monitoring as a Tool for the Identification of POPs Exposures in Tanzania. The reports will soon be submitted to the Global Coordinator. The Hub is also working on summaries of reports and dissemination of reports to different stakeholders.

Central and Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia Countries

Francophone Africa

Latin America and Middle East

Southeast Asia AND South Asia

OPEN HERE....

Evidence of Human-caused Global Warming “Unequivocal”, says IPCC

2007-01-03T02:22:00.000-08:00

the report is based on a thorough review of the most-up-to-date, peer-reviewed scientific literature available worldwide.

Instead, its mandate is to make policy-relevant assessments of the existing worldwide literature on the scientific, technical and socio-economic aspects of climate change.

Its reports have played a major role in inspiring governments to adopt and implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

The Summary for Policymakers for IPCC Working Group I,

which was finalized line-by-line by governments during the course of this week, has now been posted in English at www.ipcc.ch. The full underlying report –

“Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis” – will be published by Cambridge University Press.

The report was produced by some 600 authors from 40 countries.