Jess Dexter, a Vancouver dancer, has worked for the last 3 years in Abramz Tekya's Breakdance Project Uganda -- in Gulu, Kampala, Ntinda and Gganda -- with university, primary & secondary school students, reform-school and street kids, and this year in hip-hop, capoeira and yoga with orphans at Niteo Resource Centre. This clip from a forthcoming feature length doc shows her at work:
About the "problem with Ben" in the video, she explains:
Ben was a man who had a "community project" called Kin Initiative. He was never supposed to house children...and for the last 10 years he has been, and the local probation officer knew what he was doing, but was just as corrupt. He didn't allow any of the kids' relatives to visit, nor the kids to visit them...Right now, for their first time, they are visiting with their respective relatives! It is really touching to also find out, only now, that 6 of them are related!!
This man was taking money from all types of donations including priests in Europe..There was never any accountability and he even bought land with this money! Safari trucks used to pass by the orphanage, watch the kids sing and dance, make a donation and leave.
Eventually his scam became obvious when he stole thousands of dollars from one American volunteer and slowly his empire crumbled beneath him. I came to Uganda to get the kids out of there because I had lived with them in 2007 and had made a lifetime commitment to them. When volunteers weren't coming anymore, and the money trickled in, he began to go mad... beating the kids for no reason, neglecting their medical needs, sexually harassing them and under-nourishing them. I went in there and pretended not to know any of this so that I could ask if I could take them for the weekend... Giving them dance classes and taking them to dance shows. He accepted to let me take the boys, but refused the girls... They got so angry they packed their bags anyways, getting him outraged which led to a rescue... They lived with me for 15 days until a home was found for them and are living happily and healthfully!
See also Jess Dexter's blog, her professional website, videos of Niteo Resource Centre, a Breakdance Uganda performance and rehearsal; the BC-based NGOs Niteo and InnovativeCommunities.org that support her work. She recommends volunteering for kidsworldwide.org which has projects on several continents.
Friday, 28 August, 2009
Monday, 24 August, 2009
Earth Democracy - by Vandana Shiva
Excepts from an interview by Sarah Ruth van Gelder in Yes! magazine (Winter 2003), with Vandana Shiva: scientist, feminist, author, founder of the nonviolent “tree-hugger” Chipko movement in the 1970s, of Navdanya, of the organic agriculture college Bija Vidyapeeth and (with others in 1994) of the International Forum on Globalization whose principles include living democracy, subsidiarity, ecological sustainability, fair sharing of the commons, diversity, human rights, jobs and livelihoods, food security, equity, and the precautionary principle. By earth democracy she means right sharing of seed, food, water and land.
Vandana: There is, I think, a spontaneous resurgence of thinking that centers on protection of life, celebrating life, enjoying life as both our highest duty and our most powerful form of resistance against a violent and brutal system that globalizes not just trade, but fascism, and denies civil liberties and freedoms.
[The Earth Democracy movement] comes from a very ancient category in Indian thought. Just like Chief Seattle talked about being in the web of life, in India we talk about vasudhaiva kutumbkam, which means the earth family. Indian cosmology has never separated the human from the non-human—we are a continuum.
When the issue of the patenting of life emerged, for example, there were two levels of response from those opposing this practice in India. The one level was resistance: “This is immoral. Life is not an invention. Life cannot be a monopoly. You cannot sell us the seeds you stole from us, and you cannot charge us royalties for the product of nature's intelligence and centuries of human innovation.”
The second level was the reclaiming of democracy: people claimed the right to look after their biodiversity and use it sustainably. This came out of discussions among the movements we've been building at the grassroots.
I remember one meeting of 200 villagers who had been involved in seed saving and seed sharing with Navdanya, the trust that I founded to save seeds and promote organic agriculture. These 200 villagers gathered on World Environment Day in 1998 and declared sovereignty over their biodiversity — not sovereignty to rape and destroy, sovereignty to conserve. These 200 villagers, gathered in a high mountain village near a tributary of the Ganges, said, “We've received our medicinal plants, our seeds, our forests from nature through our ancestors; we owe it to them to conserve it for the future. We pledge we will never allow their erosion or their theft. We pledge we will never accept patenting, genetic modification, or allow our biodiversity to be polluted in any form, and we pledge that we will act as the peoples of this biodiversity.”
[Letters were written all over India] under the village trees and addressed to Ricetec, Inc., which patented Basmati rice, and to the Grace Corporation, which patented the name. The letters said, “We've used Basmati for centuries. ... Now we hear you've got a patent number for this, and you claim to have invented it. This kind of piracy and theft we know happens. There are people who steal in our village, and we treat them with understanding. We call them and ask them to explain what is the compulsion that led them to steal. So we invite you to come to our village and explain to us the compulsion that made you steal from us.”
These communities started in years past by saving locally bred seeds and saving biodiversity. Now they are seeking self-governance over food systems, water systems, and biodiversity systems.... Living democracy then is the democracy that is custodian of the living wealth on which people depend.
Sarah: You've written about four types of insecurities— ecological, economic, cultural, and political—and how each results in violence.
ecological insecurity
Vandana: The ecological crisis is a severe form of insecurity, especially in conditions of poverty when rivers are polluted and you have no clean drinking water, when groundwater is exhausted and you're forced to migrate. There couldn't be a deeper insecurity than this. Many conflicts within Third World countries are related to the practice of exploiting resources faster than nature can renew them or diverting them away from where people need them. Dams in every society have become major sources of conflict. As water scarcity grows, neighbors, families turn against each other.
Sarah: Many people assume that scarcity has always been part of the human condition and that scarcity is closely related to population increases.
Vandana: In my 25 years of work on resource and environmental issues, one thing I have learned is that different parts of the planet are endowed in different ways. There may be little rainfall in the deserts of Rajasthan, but the culture of Rajasthan evolved to manage that amount of rainfall, and they have developed miraculous technologies for harvesting and storing what rain they get. They have sophisticated underground storage systems and water-harvesting systems so that not a drop is wasted. These technologies still sustain cities like Jodhpur and Jaipur. They have enough drinking water because they've developed a conservation culture, and they grow crops that don't need much water. The moment you think the desert of Rajasthan should be growing rice paddy or cotton, you create scarcity.
economic insecurity: theft of the commons
Scarcity is not a result of uneven endowments—that is diversity. Scarcity is having a mismatch between a culture and nature's giving. Cultures have evolved cultural diversity to mimic the biological diversity of climates and ecosystems. It's when that relationship is disrupted that you get unsustainable population growth.
There is no society in which you've had so-called population explosions as long as societies have lived within the context of their rights to the resources and the ability to conserve those resources for the future. Just look at two situations. In England, the population explosion started with the enclosures of the commons—when peasants were uprooted from the land and had to depend on selling their labor. In India, 1800 is the watershed for the consolidation of colonial regimes. For centuries before 1800 our population had been stable. When you depend on the land, you know there are five people who can be supported. You work your society out so you have five. When you are selling your labor power on an uncertain basis, in an unstable wage market, you know that having ten is better than having five. So dispossession from the Earth's natural wealth is at the root of instability and population growth....
Instead of leaving seeds in the hands of the peasants who co-evolve them in partnership with nature, seeds become a monopoly in the hands of five or six global corporations. Instead of water belonging to millions of local communities, water too is to be controlled by five or six global water giants. These are recipes that use economic systems to appropriate for the few the base of survival of the majority. The 80 percent who are dispossessed of the wealth of nature move into economic insecurity, because their livelihood as peasants, as fishermen, as farmers, as tribals, as forest dwellers, all depend on having the fisheries, the land, the forest, to make a living. When those rights are taken away, they become economic refugees — they become disposable people.
This economic model rested on the assumption that the favored 20 percent would gain security as a result of these policies. But recent events on Wall Street show us that this model creates economic insecurity both for the 80 percent who rely on natural wealth and for the 20 percent who rely on virtual wealth, because virtual money is a construct, and that construct can disappear as easily as it is created.
Either way, economic insecurity is the legacy of a finance-driven, capital-driven, corporate-driven economic model that is destroying our natural capital and the resilience of local economies.
cultural insecurity
Sarah: The third type of insecurity is cultural. You've made a connection between globalization and the rise of nationalist violence and right-wing repression....
Vandana: Well I'm a physicist, not a social scientist. But as a citizen of India, I have had to suffer the violence and brutality that comes with rising fundamentalism, and I've asked myself how a society that is the cradle of peace, the land of Gandhi and Buddha, could be reduced to one of the most volatile societies in the world.
One incident that contributed to my understanding of these links was the violence that erupted in the Punjab in the 1980s. As the magic of the Green Revolution started to disappear, as subsidies were removed and an artificial system of prosperity started to decay, the Punjab became the birthplace for anger and discontent. When you look at why people were fighting, you find they were fighting for their rivers, for fair prices, for a say on when dam waters should be released. None of this was decided locally or regionally—it was all decided from the capital, Delhi. So the discontent was against centralized regimes in which people had no share in shaping their future. [For example Narmada Dam, and mass suicides in 2009]
More recently there have been clear indicators of how fundamentalism is growing out of the economic insecurity of globalization. Let me just give you two examples. In the late 1990s, because of the pressures of globalization, onion prices went up from 2 rupees to 100 rupees. The ruling party lost what became known as “the onion elections” of 1998 because they allowed this price increase. The opposition parties used the onion as the symbol of their fight against globalization, and they won in every state. Immediately after that we saw a round of fundamentalist violence.
In Gujarat, we had another set of regional elections, and the WTO, agriculture, and farmers' survival were the major issues. Farmers said they were being destroyed by globalization policies, and they voted the ruling party out of power. Immediately after that the fundamentalist wave erupted, the genocide and warmongering started, and while public attention focused on the violence, the globalization agenda was pushed further.
political insecurity
As decision making is centralized away from local communities to national governments — and ultimately to corporate board rooms, financial markets, institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO — representative democracy loses its base in economic democracy. As local and national governments lose control over economic resources and priorities, elected leaders can no longer build a political base by championing programs responsive to family and community needs. Political demagogues of the far right emerge to fill the void by channeling the anger and insecurity created by empire's program of scarcity, injustice, and exclusion into an us-versus-them politics that blames particular national, racial, culture, or religious groups [for example] Le Pen in France, Fortuyn in Netherlands, Haider in Austria, and Narendra Modi in India.... So there is a strong affinity between the forces of empire and a politics of hate that justifies policies of domination and exclusion. So long as people's attention is focused on fear and hatred of foreigners or members of a particular religious group, such as Muslims, they are distracted from organizing to deal with the system of institutional domination and exploitation that is the real source of their insecurity... It's a vicious cycle, and we need instead to create virtuous cycles that allow economic democracy to feed political democracy, cultural identities, and cultural diversity.
earth democracy
It comes back to deepening of democracy. What we have at this moment is democracy reduced to the rule of lies—lies in the way the popular will is being counted, as we saw in Florida in 2000, and lies in the way the people's wealth is being counted, as we see in [2002 Enron] accounting scandals. That false wealth is influencing who will rule—it's all just too false now.
Our system of food security is being destroyed in the name of economic growth and economic liberalization, and people don't have enough food to eat. Our farmers are being ravished by seed companies, being pushed into debt, and committing suicide. This system is going to cost lives even in the US, where people don't know how they'll pay for their health or retirement.
The way out of this violent cycle is to deepen democracy — to bring decisions that directly affect people's lives as close as possible to where people are and to where they can take responsibility. If a river is flowing through some communities, those communities should have the power and the responsibility to decide how the water is used and whether it is to be polluted. The state has no business giving to Coca-Cola the groundwater of a valley in Kerala, resulting in rich farmland going totally dry. Communities need to take back sovereignty and delegate trusteeship to the state only as appropriate.
What we have now is a regime of absolute rights in the hands of corporations with zero responsibility for the environmental and social devastation and the political instabilities they are creating. If we want to reactivate and rejuvenate democracy, we have to bring back the economic content.
Sarah: Every time I've heard you speak or met you, you've had so much energy, not only intellectual energy, but personal or spiritual energy...what keeps you so alive?
Vandana: I've learned from the Bhagavad Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me always to take on the next challenge because I don't cripple myself, I don't tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each other not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.
See also her contribution in Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st Century, an anthology by Ranchor Prime; Wikipedia on ecofeminism; and IFG book Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible (Berrett-Koehler 2002, revised 2004, online).
Vandana: There is, I think, a spontaneous resurgence of thinking that centers on protection of life, celebrating life, enjoying life as both our highest duty and our most powerful form of resistance against a violent and brutal system that globalizes not just trade, but fascism, and denies civil liberties and freedoms.[The Earth Democracy movement] comes from a very ancient category in Indian thought. Just like Chief Seattle talked about being in the web of life, in India we talk about vasudhaiva kutumbkam, which means the earth family. Indian cosmology has never separated the human from the non-human—we are a continuum.
When the issue of the patenting of life emerged, for example, there were two levels of response from those opposing this practice in India. The one level was resistance: “This is immoral. Life is not an invention. Life cannot be a monopoly. You cannot sell us the seeds you stole from us, and you cannot charge us royalties for the product of nature's intelligence and centuries of human innovation.”
The second level was the reclaiming of democracy: people claimed the right to look after their biodiversity and use it sustainably. This came out of discussions among the movements we've been building at the grassroots.
I remember one meeting of 200 villagers who had been involved in seed saving and seed sharing with Navdanya, the trust that I founded to save seeds and promote organic agriculture. These 200 villagers gathered on World Environment Day in 1998 and declared sovereignty over their biodiversity — not sovereignty to rape and destroy, sovereignty to conserve. These 200 villagers, gathered in a high mountain village near a tributary of the Ganges, said, “We've received our medicinal plants, our seeds, our forests from nature through our ancestors; we owe it to them to conserve it for the future. We pledge we will never allow their erosion or their theft. We pledge we will never accept patenting, genetic modification, or allow our biodiversity to be polluted in any form, and we pledge that we will act as the peoples of this biodiversity.”
[Letters were written all over India] under the village trees and addressed to Ricetec, Inc., which patented Basmati rice, and to the Grace Corporation, which patented the name. The letters said, “We've used Basmati for centuries. ... Now we hear you've got a patent number for this, and you claim to have invented it. This kind of piracy and theft we know happens. There are people who steal in our village, and we treat them with understanding. We call them and ask them to explain what is the compulsion that led them to steal. So we invite you to come to our village and explain to us the compulsion that made you steal from us.”
These communities started in years past by saving locally bred seeds and saving biodiversity. Now they are seeking self-governance over food systems, water systems, and biodiversity systems.... Living democracy then is the democracy that is custodian of the living wealth on which people depend.
Sarah: You've written about four types of insecurities— ecological, economic, cultural, and political—and how each results in violence.
ecological insecurity
Vandana: The ecological crisis is a severe form of insecurity, especially in conditions of poverty when rivers are polluted and you have no clean drinking water, when groundwater is exhausted and you're forced to migrate. There couldn't be a deeper insecurity than this. Many conflicts within Third World countries are related to the practice of exploiting resources faster than nature can renew them or diverting them away from where people need them. Dams in every society have become major sources of conflict. As water scarcity grows, neighbors, families turn against each other.
Sarah: Many people assume that scarcity has always been part of the human condition and that scarcity is closely related to population increases.
Vandana: In my 25 years of work on resource and environmental issues, one thing I have learned is that different parts of the planet are endowed in different ways. There may be little rainfall in the deserts of Rajasthan, but the culture of Rajasthan evolved to manage that amount of rainfall, and they have developed miraculous technologies for harvesting and storing what rain they get. They have sophisticated underground storage systems and water-harvesting systems so that not a drop is wasted. These technologies still sustain cities like Jodhpur and Jaipur. They have enough drinking water because they've developed a conservation culture, and they grow crops that don't need much water. The moment you think the desert of Rajasthan should be growing rice paddy or cotton, you create scarcity.
economic insecurity: theft of the commons
Scarcity is not a result of uneven endowments—that is diversity. Scarcity is having a mismatch between a culture and nature's giving. Cultures have evolved cultural diversity to mimic the biological diversity of climates and ecosystems. It's when that relationship is disrupted that you get unsustainable population growth.
There is no society in which you've had so-called population explosions as long as societies have lived within the context of their rights to the resources and the ability to conserve those resources for the future. Just look at two situations. In England, the population explosion started with the enclosures of the commons—when peasants were uprooted from the land and had to depend on selling their labor. In India, 1800 is the watershed for the consolidation of colonial regimes. For centuries before 1800 our population had been stable. When you depend on the land, you know there are five people who can be supported. You work your society out so you have five. When you are selling your labor power on an uncertain basis, in an unstable wage market, you know that having ten is better than having five. So dispossession from the Earth's natural wealth is at the root of instability and population growth....
Instead of leaving seeds in the hands of the peasants who co-evolve them in partnership with nature, seeds become a monopoly in the hands of five or six global corporations. Instead of water belonging to millions of local communities, water too is to be controlled by five or six global water giants. These are recipes that use economic systems to appropriate for the few the base of survival of the majority. The 80 percent who are dispossessed of the wealth of nature move into economic insecurity, because their livelihood as peasants, as fishermen, as farmers, as tribals, as forest dwellers, all depend on having the fisheries, the land, the forest, to make a living. When those rights are taken away, they become economic refugees — they become disposable people.
This economic model rested on the assumption that the favored 20 percent would gain security as a result of these policies. But recent events on Wall Street show us that this model creates economic insecurity both for the 80 percent who rely on natural wealth and for the 20 percent who rely on virtual wealth, because virtual money is a construct, and that construct can disappear as easily as it is created.
Either way, economic insecurity is the legacy of a finance-driven, capital-driven, corporate-driven economic model that is destroying our natural capital and the resilience of local economies.
cultural insecurity
Sarah: The third type of insecurity is cultural. You've made a connection between globalization and the rise of nationalist violence and right-wing repression....
Vandana: Well I'm a physicist, not a social scientist. But as a citizen of India, I have had to suffer the violence and brutality that comes with rising fundamentalism, and I've asked myself how a society that is the cradle of peace, the land of Gandhi and Buddha, could be reduced to one of the most volatile societies in the world.
One incident that contributed to my understanding of these links was the violence that erupted in the Punjab in the 1980s. As the magic of the Green Revolution started to disappear, as subsidies were removed and an artificial system of prosperity started to decay, the Punjab became the birthplace for anger and discontent. When you look at why people were fighting, you find they were fighting for their rivers, for fair prices, for a say on when dam waters should be released. None of this was decided locally or regionally—it was all decided from the capital, Delhi. So the discontent was against centralized regimes in which people had no share in shaping their future. [For example Narmada Dam, and mass suicides in 2009]
More recently there have been clear indicators of how fundamentalism is growing out of the economic insecurity of globalization. Let me just give you two examples. In the late 1990s, because of the pressures of globalization, onion prices went up from 2 rupees to 100 rupees. The ruling party lost what became known as “the onion elections” of 1998 because they allowed this price increase. The opposition parties used the onion as the symbol of their fight against globalization, and they won in every state. Immediately after that we saw a round of fundamentalist violence.
In Gujarat, we had another set of regional elections, and the WTO, agriculture, and farmers' survival were the major issues. Farmers said they were being destroyed by globalization policies, and they voted the ruling party out of power. Immediately after that the fundamentalist wave erupted, the genocide and warmongering started, and while public attention focused on the violence, the globalization agenda was pushed further.
political insecurity
As decision making is centralized away from local communities to national governments — and ultimately to corporate board rooms, financial markets, institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO — representative democracy loses its base in economic democracy. As local and national governments lose control over economic resources and priorities, elected leaders can no longer build a political base by championing programs responsive to family and community needs. Political demagogues of the far right emerge to fill the void by channeling the anger and insecurity created by empire's program of scarcity, injustice, and exclusion into an us-versus-them politics that blames particular national, racial, culture, or religious groups [for example] Le Pen in France, Fortuyn in Netherlands, Haider in Austria, and Narendra Modi in India.... So there is a strong affinity between the forces of empire and a politics of hate that justifies policies of domination and exclusion. So long as people's attention is focused on fear and hatred of foreigners or members of a particular religious group, such as Muslims, they are distracted from organizing to deal with the system of institutional domination and exploitation that is the real source of their insecurity... It's a vicious cycle, and we need instead to create virtuous cycles that allow economic democracy to feed political democracy, cultural identities, and cultural diversity.
earth democracy
It comes back to deepening of democracy. What we have at this moment is democracy reduced to the rule of lies—lies in the way the popular will is being counted, as we saw in Florida in 2000, and lies in the way the people's wealth is being counted, as we see in [2002 Enron] accounting scandals. That false wealth is influencing who will rule—it's all just too false now.
Our system of food security is being destroyed in the name of economic growth and economic liberalization, and people don't have enough food to eat. Our farmers are being ravished by seed companies, being pushed into debt, and committing suicide. This system is going to cost lives even in the US, where people don't know how they'll pay for their health or retirement.
The way out of this violent cycle is to deepen democracy — to bring decisions that directly affect people's lives as close as possible to where people are and to where they can take responsibility. If a river is flowing through some communities, those communities should have the power and the responsibility to decide how the water is used and whether it is to be polluted. The state has no business giving to Coca-Cola the groundwater of a valley in Kerala, resulting in rich farmland going totally dry. Communities need to take back sovereignty and delegate trusteeship to the state only as appropriate.
What we have now is a regime of absolute rights in the hands of corporations with zero responsibility for the environmental and social devastation and the political instabilities they are creating. If we want to reactivate and rejuvenate democracy, we have to bring back the economic content.
Sarah: Every time I've heard you speak or met you, you've had so much energy, not only intellectual energy, but personal or spiritual energy...what keeps you so alive?
Vandana: I've learned from the Bhagavad Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me always to take on the next challenge because I don't cripple myself, I don't tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each other not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.
*****
Vandana Shiva videos: 15 Apr 2008 on the the world food crisis created by the World Bank, IMF, commodity speculation, Rockefeller-Gates Foundations' plans for industrial farming in Africa, and climate change; the alternative, she says, is ecological agriculture -- and 23 July 2009 The Future of Food on GMO seeds part 1, part 2, part 3. She says, "Finance is not life, but soil and seeds are life. If I were an 18 year old today, I would be an organic farmer -- a scientist, health provider and peacemaker."See also her contribution in Vedic Ecology: Practical Wisdom for Surviving the 21st Century, an anthology by Ranchor Prime; Wikipedia on ecofeminism; and IFG book Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World is Possible (Berrett-Koehler 2002, revised 2004, online).
Sunday, 23 August, 2009
Another tipping point passed: methane plumes from Arctic seabed
Graph and research report 6 Aug 09 by National Oceanography Centre Southampton, UK.
The following is a summary of a geochemist's report on DailyKos 19 Aug 09:
Oil and coal companies more than doubled their millions to K Street lobbyists over two years to pressure the US Congress to weaken climate legislation. The companies argue that global warming is not an immediate problem.
Scientists' discovery of methane plumes from the Arctic seabed, just announced, shows otherwise. Frozen methane is now being released as a gas. This is another major tipping point passed. Methane has 23 times the warming power of CO2, and the USGS says the volume of methane frozen in clathrates is "conservatively" twice the volume of all known fossil fuels on earth.
Scientific conclusion: world leaders must act immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in order to stop ocean warming from triggering massive releases of methane.
Methane release from a frozen lake: U of Alaska Nov 2007. For details of this research see "The Peril below the ice" in Scientific American Earth 3.0 June 2009
The following is a summary of a geochemist's report on DailyKos 19 Aug 09:Oil and coal companies more than doubled their millions to K Street lobbyists over two years to pressure the US Congress to weaken climate legislation. The companies argue that global warming is not an immediate problem.
Scientists' discovery of methane plumes from the Arctic seabed, just announced, shows otherwise. Frozen methane is now being released as a gas. This is another major tipping point passed. Methane has 23 times the warming power of CO2, and the USGS says the volume of methane frozen in clathrates is "conservatively" twice the volume of all known fossil fuels on earth.
Scientific conclusion: world leaders must act immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in order to stop ocean warming from triggering massive releases of methane.
Methane release from a frozen lake: U of Alaska Nov 2007. For details of this research see "The Peril below the ice" in Scientific American Earth 3.0 June 2009
Friday, 14 August, 2009
Invest in women - GCAP
The interviews below by Sabina Zaccaro appeared in IPS news 8 July 09.
"If we invest in women, many problems will be solved. We know that from microfinance and from many other examples," says Sylvia Borren of the GCAP gender task force. "With food prices doubling they had to choose which child to feed..." Stories collected by women's organizations* show that if you invest in women and the family, economies become sustainable.
2.8 million more children could die by 2015 because of the the triple aid, economic and food crises. The problem is funding. The World Bank estimates $60 billion are needed to fight infectious diseases and strengthen health systems in the developing world. G8 leaders agreed in 2008 but allocated no funds.
"Investing in women's health as part of aid policies has to be considered a priority, as it will give to the poorer countries a better chance to solve the crisis in a prospect of development," 56 women parliamentarians from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas begged the G8 2009 summit. Sexual and reproductive diseases cause huge economic losses in developing economies, reducing women's productivity by 20-25 percent. The problem, said Cristiana Scoppa of Women in Development (Italy), is even worse in Africa where companies are asking "the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and trade unions to find solutions".
"Where adaptation to climate change is already a reality, women are not acting as passive victims," said Beatrice Costa of ActionAid. "Women farmers [in the Ganges basin] are now starting to replace rice with bananas, because these are more resistant to floods or drought." They know they must "diversify and adapt" but they need specific programmes and dedicated funds. (photo courtesy of IAAHP)
"Of course it's about money, and the money is there," said Sylvia Borren. "Not even a third of the 30 billion dollars requested at the UN high level meeting on the food crisis one year ago has been forthcoming, when $20 trillion dollars have gone to the corporate bailout and the banks. G8 leaders have made the wrong choices. "They have chosen to desperately bail out an economic system that we all agree is broken, they are not listening to the Stiglitz Commission (of experts of the UN General Assembly on reform of the international monetary and financial system), which has provided us with 400 pages of good solutions...they are not listening to the trade unions, the ILO, the civil society."
"If we invest in women, many problems will be solved. We know that from microfinance and from many other examples," says Sylvia Borren of the GCAP gender task force. "With food prices doubling they had to choose which child to feed..." Stories collected by women's organizations* show that if you invest in women and the family, economies become sustainable.2.8 million more children could die by 2015 because of the the triple aid, economic and food crises. The problem is funding. The World Bank estimates $60 billion are needed to fight infectious diseases and strengthen health systems in the developing world. G8 leaders agreed in 2008 but allocated no funds.
"Investing in women's health as part of aid policies has to be considered a priority, as it will give to the poorer countries a better chance to solve the crisis in a prospect of development," 56 women parliamentarians from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas begged the G8 2009 summit. Sexual and reproductive diseases cause huge economic losses in developing economies, reducing women's productivity by 20-25 percent. The problem, said Cristiana Scoppa of Women in Development (Italy), is even worse in Africa where companies are asking "the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and trade unions to find solutions".
"Where adaptation to climate change is already a reality, women are not acting as passive victims," said Beatrice Costa of ActionAid. "Women farmers [in the Ganges basin] are now starting to replace rice with bananas, because these are more resistant to floods or drought." They know they must "diversify and adapt" but they need specific programmes and dedicated funds. (photo courtesy of IAAHP)"Of course it's about money, and the money is there," said Sylvia Borren. "Not even a third of the 30 billion dollars requested at the UN high level meeting on the food crisis one year ago has been forthcoming, when $20 trillion dollars have gone to the corporate bailout and the banks. G8 leaders have made the wrong choices. "They have chosen to desperately bail out an economic system that we all agree is broken, they are not listening to the Stiglitz Commission (of experts of the UN General Assembly on reform of the international monetary and financial system), which has provided us with 400 pages of good solutions...they are not listening to the trade unions, the ILO, the civil society."
In March 2009 the Stiglitz commission called for a new reserve currency and a UN global economic council to replace the outmoded Bretton Woods system -- the dollar-based IMF and World Bank, which are controlled by the rich nations and serve their aims, to the detriment of the poor, creating a permanent cycle of debt and underdevelopment, often called the new colonialism.
*See women's stories from South Africa by Agenda, from Indonesia by John Pilger in The New Rulers of the World (2002, part 1 & part 2); from Uganda, A survivor's guide: Annabella's story (2006) a teenager surviving HIV/AIDS; video Against All Odds: Women Partnering for Change in a Time of Crisis (2007); Radio Feminista podcasts of US women activists at USSF 2007 y en español; indigenous mothers of Huelga Mundial in Bolivia.
*See women's stories from South Africa by Agenda, from Indonesia by John Pilger in The New Rulers of the World (2002, part 1 & part 2); from Uganda, A survivor's guide: Annabella's story (2006) a teenager surviving HIV/AIDS; video Against All Odds: Women Partnering for Change in a Time of Crisis (2007); Radio Feminista podcasts of US women activists at USSF 2007 y en español; indigenous mothers of Huelga Mundial in Bolivia.
Tuesday, 11 August, 2009
The need for ecojustice: Wall Street, the City, Zurich take food out of the mouths of babes
MDG 2005 in Grid-Arendal. The 2009 report turns many more squares red. Click to see details.
Gains since the 1990s have been wiped out in one year, says the recent UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2009. Careful reading (summary below) suggests the need for a world social movement combining faith and aid groups, human rights, and environmental NGOs. Join the Quaker discussion on QEWnet.ning.com.
Gains since the 1990s have been wiped out in one year, says the recent UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2009. Careful reading (summary below) suggests the need for a world social movement combining faith and aid groups, human rights, and environmental NGOs. Join the Quaker discussion on QEWnet.ning.com.The following analysis cites the UN statistics, but goes beyond its polite phraseology.
Hunger which had dropped by 16% since 1990, reversed course during the 2008 food crisis -- largely due to commodities speculation and the ethanol craze. East Asia was particularly hard hit. This means 20 years' of gains under the Washington consensus "globalization" were lost in one year to the vampires of Wall Street, the City and Zurich.
Longterm trends to hunger [not in the MDG report]: Scientific data show other tipping points have been passed: peak fish in the 1990s, peak fertility for food crops a few years ago, peak water in the next decade, peak oil which raises cost of fuel and fertilizer
In 2009 global unemployment will reach 6.1-7 % for men and 6.5-7.4% for women, reversing slow gains in gender equality. (See summary of 2007 ILO report)
The fight against poverty has stalled. In 2009, an estimated 55 million to 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty.
Child nutrition will fail to meet the 2015 MDG target. Even before the food crisis, more than 1/4 of children in poor countries were underweight for their age.
Rich countries have cut aid for family planning since the mid-1990s, on a per woman basis, despite the undeniable contribution of such programmes to maternal and child health. (See also ECOSOC and WHO criticism.)
Poor countries are unable to finance their own programmes. The debt service to export ratio has suddenly increased, as exports have fallen. But the World Bank will insist on its pound of flesh. Despite promises, its SAP policies (renamed PRSP) have changed little but the name.
Rich countries have broken their aid promises in NEPAD 2001 and Gleneagles 2005. Even if the promises were kept, actual aid (because it is calculated as a percentage of national income) would fall as a result of the financial meltdown. Remember the bailout bonuses and golden parachutes! Taking food out of babies' mouths.
Before the 2008 food and finance crisis
the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day had decreased from 1.8 billion to 1.4 billion.
Primary education had reached 88%
Child deaths under age 5 decreased; even in sub-Saharan Africa, malaria nets and measles immunization had made dramatic progress.
The rate of infection by HIV (and of AIDS deaths) had peaked and declined. However, the provision of retroviral drugs to poor countries is once again in doubt due to Big Pharma lobbying and fewer donations.
In his introduction to the MDG report, UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon puts the best face on it: if we act,there is hope. "We cannot allow an unfavourable economic climate to prevent us from realizing the commitments made in 2000. The global community cannot turn its back on the poor and the vulnerable. Now is the time to accelerate progress towards the MDGs. The goals are within reach, even in the very poor countries, with strong political commitment and sufficient and sustained funding." Those who have been following the climate negotiations will recognize a familiar pattern. When corporations make money, the rich nations are generous -- at least in promises. Otherwise, nothing. Could a new church-led Jubilee movement, this time in combination with climate NGOs, put enough pressure on our governments to change this? There has been talk of repaying ecological debt. On June 24 Ban Ki-moon begged the G8 meeting (which turned deaf ears to him and to the Pope) Further references (an incomplete list) Youth actions1. to remedy its $20 million annual shortfall in promised aid to Africa,
2. to make "ambitious and firm commitments" to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent, the levels the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says are required on the part of industrialized countries to ward off the worst effects of global warming" and
3. to "commit to a specific timetable and modalities to deliver the billions of dollars needed during the next few years to assist the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to climate change."
Peace concerns also coincide with eco-justice. The theme of the UN's 9-11 September 2009 DPI/NGO Conference in Mexico City is "For Peace and Development: Disarm Now!”. Launching this campaign, Ban Ki-moon said, "We must disarm to save lives. We must disarm so that we can redirect precious resources to health, education and development."
For more details and campaigns:
Jubilee Research UK
Third World Network Singapore
Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP): coalition of over 100 NGOs incl One.org (USA), Make Poverty History (UK, Canada), Global Poverty Project (Australia). Their demands: trade justice, drop the debt, more and better aid
Kairoscanada info in English and French
The Trade to Climate Caravan in Europe Nov-Dec 2009: details in QEWnet Forum - Drewery
Quaker Right Sharing of World Resources USA
The Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) New York
UNICEF Voices of Youth
Oxfam International Youth Partnerships
CARE youth corps
UNEP /GRID Arendal graphs, newsletter Environment and Poverty Times
IFPRI Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture (Sep 2009)
John Breen's Poverty.com and FreeRice
Anup Shah's Global Issues raises questions about poverty, inequality, environment, militarism
Poverty mapping for researchers - includes environmental factors
Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) research
World Bank PovertyNet tends to be technical and self-congratulatory; its research section is better.
Saturday, 8 August, 2009
Eco-art: an exploration
melting animals by Kawano Takeshi, Japan
Thanks to Milan Ilnyckyj, whose blog on climate change art blazed this trail. I spent a couple of hours chasing links and looking up old notes -- but this is only a sampling. Suggest other links in your comments.
art and sculpture
Strandbeest by Theo Jansen, Netherlands (see the video below)
Kawano Takeshi, Japan
Art at the Cheese Factory, Marin County CA
Reuben Margolin, kinetic sculptor, Los Angeles CA
RCA Arts and Ecology, London UK
Design for the Other 90% exhibition, book, Cooper-Hewitt, New York
Design and the Elastic Mind: Organic Design MOMA New York
Another Limited Rebellion by Noah Scalin Chicago IL
Wunderkammer by Jenny Kendler, Chicago IL
Naturemorph by Amy Ross, Boston MA
Recycle-Roanji by Judith Selby Lang, San Francisco CA
global warming with 50 lb of chocolate bunnies by EclecticAsylum, Colorado Springs CO. The title is misspelled, should be Dies Irae (day of wrath)
Bioephemera by Jessica Palmer, biologist & artist in Washington, DC
performance / ideas
Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal and Eva Blue photos
99 Actions: What You Can Do With the City Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal QC
We Make Money not Art by Régine Debatty, Europe
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home, UK
networking
The Art of Engagement created by Caffyn Kelley, Saltspring Is. BC
Green Museum USA
Eco Arts Space, USA
Inhabitat USA
Olympia Dumpster Divers WA
Earth Artists Network, Vancouver BC
Art and Environment, Nevada Museum of Art
The Ashden Directory UK
Translocal.org Europe
theatre
Green Theatre Initiative Portland OR
Ecotheater
Mo'olelo Performing Arts newsletter San Diego CA
Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts CA
dance
SEEDS Somatic Experiments in Earth, Dance and Science CA
Dance Brigade led by Nina Fichter and Krissy Keefer, San Francisco in "Song of the Earth" 2005: David Millar photo
Abigail Doan of NYC, Sofia, and Italy
Brandon Jan Blommaert's Biosphere
Canstruction New York
An Art and Ecology Notebook by Cathy Fitzgerald, Ireland
ecohistory
W. Kovarik's environmental history timeline
Voices of the Colorado Plateau one of my favourite oral history sites
CHE, U. of Wisconsin online resources
my environment, peace and social justice links - see lesson plans, plans de leçon
Theo Jansen's wind-powered strandbeesten; music by Emir Diril.
Thursday, 6 August, 2009
Industrial forestry in South Africa - Geasphere
SAPPI Ngodwana Pulp and Paper Mill near Nelspruit, South Africa, depends on alien tree plantations that destroy biodiversity of the southern African mist belt region in Npumalalanga, formerly known as Transvaal. SAPPI is planning to expand mill operations by 70% – wihout creating new jobs there. Despite severe impacts on soil, scarce water resources, local species and communities, 80% of these monoculture plantations are FSC-certified as "responsibly managed forests". They offer little benefit to Africans and export to rich countries of the north which waste three times as much paper per capita. Philip Owen of Geasphere talks about these and other issues: SAPPI conservation measures alleged in Wikipedia may be “greenwash”. In 2007 Chris Lang of the World Rainforest Movement reported on its alien tree plantations, careless treatment of contract workers, and the dubious nature of FSC certification – based on promises of future improvements. He also found evidence near SAPPI's Usutu mill in Swaziland (a notoriously corrupt royal dictatorship) of clearcuts, streams often black with mill effluent and hot to the touch, and wildfires. Blaming timber loss, the Usutu mill shut down in 2009; 600 Swazis lost their jobs. 
Lang's book Plantations, Poverty and Power (available online, 2009) compares industrial tree plantations in Africa, Asia and South America. He highlights the environmental irresponsibility of international "development" finance and hired "hitman"consultants. He says that paper can and should be produced
See also his warnings about REDD in The gaping chasm between climate science and climate negotiations 30 Jun 09.
Clearcut of plantations in Usutu: Chris Lang photo
Lang's book Plantations, Poverty and Power (available online, 2009) compares industrial tree plantations in Africa, Asia and South America. He highlights the environmental irresponsibility of international "development" finance and hired "hitman"consultants. He says that paper can and should be produced- without destroying native forests
- without establishing large scale monoculture tree plantations
- without impacting on local peoples’ rights and access to land and livelihoods
- without resulting in extensive environmental impacts: depletion of water resources, biodiversity loss, introduction of invasive species
- without polluting air, water and soils
- without benefiting from government direct or indirect subsidies (including ECAs, multilateral banks, or bilateral aid).
See also his warnings about REDD in The gaping chasm between climate science and climate negotiations 30 Jun 09.
Tuesday, 4 August, 2009
Health impacts of climate change - ECOSOC
The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), meeting 6-9 July 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, has officially declared that climate change will create severe health risks. Therefore even greater commitment of funds will be required for Millenium Development Goals.“Climate change is a gradual and now inevitable event", but the effects of more frequent and more extreme weather events will be abrupt and acutely felt” said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan in a keynote speech (our emphasis). “The need for humanitarian assistance, for victims of floods, droughts, storms, and famine will grow at a time when all countries are stressed, to one degree or another, by climate change... crop yields in some parts of Africa are expected to drop by 50% in the coming decade.
"Among Africa’s poor, 90% depend on agriculture for their livelihoods...There is no surplus. There is no coping capacity. There is no cushion to absorb the shocks.” She reminded governments, “A focus on health as a worthy pursuit for its own sake is the surest route to that moral dimension that is so sadly lacking in international systems of governance.” ....................mothers in Benin: photo courtesy of UNICEFJapan's delegate called the Ministerial Declaration's omission of all references to human security "extremely regrettable". Others called for greatly increased funding for family planning and maternal health. Family planning in international population assistance had "come down from 55 per cent in 1995 to less than 5 per cent today", thus slowing progress toward the MDGs, said Harry Jooseery of PPD. "Women form the majority of the poorest and the most vulnerable segments of societies."See the official UN press release and draft Declaration; Wikipedia on human security (economic, health, food, environment, communal and human rights) and Millenium Development Goals; UNICEF report on progress toward MDGs; Global Poverty Project founded 2008.
Monday, 3 August, 2009
Bois de déstruction - Greenpeace
Coupe à blanc près de Val d'or: globalforestwatch.ca (cliquez pour mieux voir en détail). English summary of threats to boreal forests.
Dix ans après le film-choc L'erreur boréale du Richard Desjardins, le Québec tarde encore une réforme urgent du domaine forestier. Il y a cinq ans déjà, le rapport Coulombe posait 81 recommandations, dont aucune n'est encore réalisée.
Selon Greenpeace, le projet de loi actuel (Bill 57) entraînerait la disparition des dernières forêts intactes du Québec. Moins de 5% de la forêt boréale commerciale est actuellement protégée et Québec n’a toujours pas démontré sa volonté de préserver les secteurs forestiers les plus menacés.
Dix ans après le film-choc L'erreur boréale du Richard Desjardins, le Québec tarde encore une réforme urgent du domaine forestier. Il y a cinq ans déjà, le rapport Coulombe posait 81 recommandations, dont aucune n'est encore réalisée.Selon Greenpeace, le projet de loi actuel (Bill 57) entraînerait la disparition des dernières forêts intactes du Québec. Moins de 5% de la forêt boréale commerciale est actuellement protégée et Québec n’a toujours pas démontré sa volonté de préserver les secteurs forestiers les plus menacés.
Le 27 juillet, seize activistes se sont enchaînés aux portes du Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la faune (dont la contradiction entre exploitation et conservation saute aux yeux). Tous étaient arrêtés, mais la ministre leur a finalement accordé une entrevue.
Les demandes de Greenpeace:
Inclure la création d’une stratégie de sauvegarde de nos dernières forêts intactes conjointement avec le Ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et des Parcs, dans une section de la Loi dédiée spécifiquement à la création d’aires protégées. Actuellement aucune section ne traite de la création d’aires protégées dans le projet de loi. [nb : jusqu'ici l'exploitation l'a toujours emporté sur les lois environnementaux]
Adopter la principale recommandation de la Commission Coulombe qui visait à mettre réellement en place l’aménagement écosystémique au coeur de la gestion forestière québécoise. Actuellement le thème « aménagement écosystémique » n’apparait pas dans le projet de loi.
Donner comme mandat au Forestier en chef de maintenir une marge de manoeuvre pour la conservation dans ses calculs de possibilité forestière. Actuellement le Forestier en chef a pour mandat de maintenir ou d’optimiser la possibilité forestière et représente donc un frein majeur à la protection des forêts intactes.
La riposte n'a pas tardé. Le 1 août, le Conseil de l'industrie forestière du Québec menace une grève d'investissement si la ministre cède aux écolos. C'est l'ancien ministre Guy Chevrette (PQ), devenu PDQ du Conseil, qui donne interview au Gazette anglophone, signe s'il en est une de la porte tournante qui existe entre gouvernements et lobbys corporatifs. Son remplaçant au Ministère, le dentiste Pierre Corbeil (Lib), a trouvé la reforme forestière plus difficile qu'arracher les dents. Il ne s'est fait reélire qu'en promettant un gros soutien financier aux compagnies. L'actuelle ministre Nathalie Normandeau ne pèse pas lourd dans le cabinet de Jean Charest, dont le Plan Nord, soi-disant protéger la moitié du territoire boréal, annonce au fait la déstruction du reste.
Voir le plan Nord en version officielle et son analyse critique. Bilan de la politique forestière par Richard Desjardins d'Action boréale au Devoir 10 juin 2009 : « Dix ans après ».
Saturday, 1 August, 2009
Fisheries must conserve or collapse -- Boris Worm
UN Grid-Arendahl graph: its caption states that 3/4 of the world’s marine fish stocks are being harvested faster than they can reproduce. Bycatch (other species for which the fishing gear was not intended) accounted for a quarter of the total catch -- much of it is wasted. Click on graph to see details.
Marine biologists Boris Worm and Ray Hilborn fought bitterly three years ago over Worm's prediction in Science that world food fisheries would collapse in 2048. Hilborn called it "mindbogglingly stupid". But they have just collaborated on a review article in Science July 2009, which not only confirms the earlier warning but says the crisis can be avoided -- if overfishing can be halted.
"Two scientists who once held opposing views about the state of ocean fisheries now agree about the significance of global fisheries declines and the solutions needed to reverse these trends," says Rebecca Goldburg, director of Marine Science at the Pew Environment Group. The Food and Agriculture Organisation says 80 percent of the planet's fish stocks are already fully exploited or in decline.
The problem is rogue fleets mostly from the developed world, poaching in the waters of poor countries without coast guards or adequate regulation. Heavily subsidized by home governments and investors, these high-tech ships are capable of wiping out entire species, literally "shooting fish in a barrel". And under pressure from international finance, they must fish stocks to extinction to pay off the loans. The fleets hail from Canada, Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Turkey and EU, China, Ecuador, Bolivia, Russia, Philippines and other states. In 2007 Greenpeace published a list of shame of vessels engaged in IUU (illegal, unregulated and unreported) fishing. See RIIA updates. It is this "pirate" fishing, Worm and Hilborn agree after an exhaustive review of scientific research, that threatens 75% of food fish worldwide.
On the other hand, there is dramatic recovery in areas with good fisheries management and coast guards (unfortunately, many are the rich countries that now send their fleets to poach elsewhere). Examples are Georges Bank between Maine and NS (where all but cod and flounder have rebounded, Iceland, southern Australia, and the US West Coast. Successful management includes controls on net size, bycatch and trawling bans, onboard inspections, scientific catch shares, managing for biodiversity rather than so-called "maximum sustainable catch", and no-take zones aka "marine protected areas".
"When you go region by region, you can see some solutions emerging," says Worm. "But when you look at the whole world, the situation still looks pretty grim." The big question is whether the rich nations will gather the political will to rein in their financiers and rogue fleets -- and thereby avoid the collapses that will inevitably occur in the waters of the poor countries, where fish is desperately needed for human survival. Will our grandchildren see a series of disasters similar to the Newfoundland cod collapse?
Marine biologists Boris Worm and Ray Hilborn fought bitterly three years ago over Worm's prediction in Science that world food fisheries would collapse in 2048. Hilborn called it "mindbogglingly stupid". But they have just collaborated on a review article in Science July 2009, which not only confirms the earlier warning but says the crisis can be avoided -- if overfishing can be halted."Two scientists who once held opposing views about the state of ocean fisheries now agree about the significance of global fisheries declines and the solutions needed to reverse these trends," says Rebecca Goldburg, director of Marine Science at the Pew Environment Group. The Food and Agriculture Organisation says 80 percent of the planet's fish stocks are already fully exploited or in decline.
The problem is rogue fleets mostly from the developed world, poaching in the waters of poor countries without coast guards or adequate regulation. Heavily subsidized by home governments and investors, these high-tech ships are capable of wiping out entire species, literally "shooting fish in a barrel". And under pressure from international finance, they must fish stocks to extinction to pay off the loans. The fleets hail from Canada, Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Turkey and EU, China, Ecuador, Bolivia, Russia, Philippines and other states. In 2007 Greenpeace published a list of shame of vessels engaged in IUU (illegal, unregulated and unreported) fishing. See RIIA updates. It is this "pirate" fishing, Worm and Hilborn agree after an exhaustive review of scientific research, that threatens 75% of food fish worldwide.
On the other hand, there is dramatic recovery in areas with good fisheries management and coast guards (unfortunately, many are the rich countries that now send their fleets to poach elsewhere). Examples are Georges Bank between Maine and NS (where all but cod and flounder have rebounded, Iceland, southern Australia, and the US West Coast. Successful management includes controls on net size, bycatch and trawling bans, onboard inspections, scientific catch shares, managing for biodiversity rather than so-called "maximum sustainable catch", and no-take zones aka "marine protected areas".
"When you go region by region, you can see some solutions emerging," says Worm. "But when you look at the whole world, the situation still looks pretty grim." The big question is whether the rich nations will gather the political will to rein in their financiers and rogue fleets -- and thereby avoid the collapses that will inevitably occur in the waters of the poor countries, where fish is desperately needed for human survival. Will our grandchildren see a series of disasters similar to the Newfoundland cod collapse?
*****
See Time magazine 1 Aug 2009 summary of the Worm-Hilborn Science July 2009 article, which is not yet publicly available. For scientific details see another review article by Worm et al, "Management Effectiveness of the World's Marine Fisheries", published in PLOS Biology 23 June 2009. see reports and graphs from Dalhousie University's Worm Lab which asksSee also Wikipedia on overfishing, IUU and marine protected areas; UNEP article and graph on overfishing. Latest news from IPS 6 Aug 09 and trailer for Rupert Murray film End of the Line.How is marine biodiversity distributed across the globe? How is marine biodiversity changing over time? What are the consequences of biodiversity change? What management solutions really work in preventing biodiversity loss?
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