The 59th minute -- by David Suzuki

In his 2009 Legacy lecture, "An elder's vision for our sustainable future", David Suzuki points out that the Earth’s water, food and air are finite. If the Earth were a basketball, the biosphere — our only home -- would be thinner than a layer of varnish on its surface. What orthodox economics and our leaders assume, unlimited growth on a limited planet, is suicide.

Human population doubles every 42 years

Test Tube: this NFB animation asks what you would do "if you could find an extra minute". Just type one word and watch the 3 1/2 m video. Here's a note on how it was made using live Twitter data, constantly growing, as an analogue to the bacteria. And an app for your iPhone.

Suzuki proposes a thought experiment. Suppose we are bacteria in a test tube full of food. It’s huge compared to our tiny size, but still finite. Like humans, our population increases exponentially. 

“At time zero you have one cell; one minute you have two; two minutes you have four; three minutes you have eight; four minutes you have 16. That is exponential growth and at 60 minutes the test tube is completely full of bacteria and there is no food left, a sixty minute cycle. When is the test tube only half full? Well the answer of course is at 59 minutes; but a minute later it is filled. So at 58 minutes it is 25% full; 57 minutes 12½ % full. At 55 minutes of the 60 minute cycle it is only 3% full. 

So, if at 55 minutes one of the bacteria said to its companions that they had a population problem, the other bacteria would be incredulous because 97% of the test tube would be empty and they had been around for 55 minutes. 

Yet they would have only 5 minutes left. At the 58th minute it would only be a quarter full. At the 59th minute, half full, And if just before the hour bacteria scientists invented 3 more test tubes, they would only buy 2 minutes of life: the 60th minute, one test tube full; 61st, two full, 62nd, all four. With no food left, the population crashes. Their technology quadrupled the supply (three more Earths), and bought just TWO MINUTES.

In real life can we add even a fraction of 1% more of air, water, soil or biodiversity? We cannot. The biosphere is fixed and finite -- we are past the 59th minute -- and every biologist I have talked to agrees with me, ”

Back on Earth, right now, we see no shortage. In our air conditioned supermarkets the food is stacked to the ceiling, tap water flows in our kitchens, oxygen supplied by the trees. We are in the 59th minute. Time to change. But rightwing deniers (like this one) insist the scientists must be wrong.

Our blog in 2008 posted a 8 min animation that tells the same story: “Are humans smarter than yeast?” Read the two previous posts on this blog, The line cuts through the heart, and Letting go of honest hope. Listen to all of Suzuki's inspiring Legacy lecture, and read Bill McKibben’s Eaarth to understand what has happened to the biosphere in the last two generations, and what we must do about it.

Population mind map by Jane Genovese

Eco-economics deals with the human impact on the biosphere in the anthropocene era.
The Kaya formula  is


Some what better-known is the Commoner, Ehrlich and Holdren formula:
I=PAT
Human Impact (I) on the environment equals P= Population multiplied by A= Affluence and T= Technology. The Quaker book Right Relationship (p.76+) includes E for ethics, I=PATE, to argue that we must both for scientific and moral reasons adjust our impact, making major changes in PAT to reach a sustainable whole earth economy. “Change the system not the climate,” as the protesters chanted at the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen and later. Humanity is still far from E action. We are robbing our grandchildren of their future.

Update - Suzuki Leap Manifesto in 2015, its signatories, and recent news of the movement.

Growthbusters - the trailer

The 98 minute doc GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth examines cultural assumptions that prevent us from reacting rationally to over-population and over-consumption. Details at growthbusters.org.

Why is it so difficult to talk about? Why is "economics" more important than clean air, water, and the earth of our children and grandchildren? Why do we vote in leaders to subsidize dirty growth at any cost, destroying quality of life and increasing taxes?

We worship at the Church of Growth Everlasting. Undeterred by the facts, we’re on a collision course powered by denial and the myth that growth brings prosperity.

In fact, our dominant economic model provides neither happiness or prosperity for the 99%. But that’s good news; it means a shift to a sustainable model will be good for us. We’ll be happier and more prosperous!

Before we can tranform ourselves to true sustainability, we must become self-aware, recognize the source of our growth addiction. In GrowthBusters we hear from leading thinkers of our time – scientists, sociologists, economists – who separate fact from superstition.

Consume less -- by Richard Grossman

Reprinted with the author's permission, this article appeared in today's Durango Herald.

There is something you can do that is likely to make you happier, healthier, save money and lessen your impact on the planet. What is it? Consume less by practicing simpler living.

I usually focus on human population growth, but consumption is an issue that affects our impact on the planet just as much.

A child born in a developing country will have only a fraction of the impact that a child would have in the United States. This illustrates that it is not just the numbers of people but also the resources they use (and the pollution they cause) that really matters. Furthermore, consumption is growing faster than population growth. Worldwide our numbers are increasing by 1 % per year while consumption is skyrocketing at 2 to 4 %.

Costa Rica is a good example of a nation that approaches sustainability. We lived in Monteverde for three months recently, giving us personal experience with the differences from the USA.

The income of an average Costa Rican (or “Tico”, to use their nickname) is significantly less than that of an “American”. Our buying power is about $47,000 per person each year, but in Costa Rica it is less than a quarter of that, at $11,000. Obviously Ticos consume less than do norteamericanos.

Yet Ticos appear to be happier than Americans. One measure, the Satisfaction with Life Index, rates Ticos higher (13^th in the world) than Americans (just 23^rd).

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Could this trip be any better?

Most Ticos do not own cars, but use their feet or public transportation to travel. When we lived up in Monteverde we walked to do errands. Sometimes we enjoyed the luxury of a taxi if it was pouring or if we had a lot to carry. When we traveled from the Monteverde area we did so by bus. It cost only the equivalent of eight dollars for the four-hour trip to the capital, San José!

Doesn’t relative poverty cause poor health? No! On average, Ticos live a year or two longer than Americans! The emphasis there is on primary and preventative health care. I don’t remember seeing a really obese Tico; people are physically active and fast food is uncommon. Indeed, I lost weight when eating my favorite Costa Rican food, gallo pinto—but that’s another story.

What is the secret of Costa Rica? It is unique in the world in that it emphasizes education and health. It has no military—that’s right, none! Instead it provides free health care to all citizens and free education through high school. In contrast, the USA spends a huge fraction of our finances on the military. Part of our expenditure is to support our extravagant use of petroleum, which largely comes from far away. A large portion of our military might is used to gain and protect sources of petroleum. Furthermore, our military consumes huge amounts of oil.

Contraception is free and available to all Ticos as part of their health care. Funding for family planning in the USA, however, has been shrinking when measured in real dollars, and its very existence has been jeopardized with recent political changes. (Abortion is illegal in Costa Rica, although a few abortions are done surreptitiously.)

The saying “development is the best contraceptive” became popular during Reagan’s presidency. As people get richer, they do tend to have smaller families. Unfortunately, they also consume more and have greater impact. Furthermore, more refined studies have found that really rich people have larger families than moderately rich families.


The Tico lifestyle uses much less of the planet’s resources and adds less pollution to the environment. Costa Rica has also preserved a greater proportion of its land as parks than any other country in the world. Its rain and cloud forests have become a major tourist destination, and a major source of income. Almost all electricity in Costa Rica comes from renewable sources—hydro and wind—but it is affordable for all.

Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

The Ecological Footprint (an excellent measure of an individual's impact) of the average Tico is 2.8 hectares (6.8 acres). This is close to the average area of productive land available to each person—if we all had this EF we would be using the planet’s resources sustainably.   

We cannot all move to Costa Rica. We here in the USA can, however, endeavor to reduce our consumption. People who choose "simple living" (or a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity) work less, spend less, and enjoy life more. Most important is that they are happier and have less impact on the planet.

300 years of fossil fuel addiction in 5 minutes -- by Post-Carbon Institute

This is just one of many videos from Post Carbon Institute. Founded in 2003 by Julian Darley, PCI is a think tank focusing on climate change, renewable energy and (re-)localization, resource and water depletion, limits to growth, overpopulation, and food. For more of his ideas see Relocalize Now! Getting Ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil (2005). PCI experts now include Richard Heinberg, Bill McKibben, Majora Carter, Wes Jackson, Joshua Farley, Richard Douthwaite, Rob Hopkins of the international Transition Towns, and many others. Partners are Transition US and Energy Bulletin.net.

Safeguard Biological Diversity -- by Dick Grossman, MD

This article appeared in the Durango Herald 22 Aug 2010. It is reprinted with the author's permission. The ark painting is courtesy of Two by Two Acres farm.
Noah, then, can be seen as the first great preservationist, preventing the first great extinction. He did exactly what wildlife biologists and climatologists are trying to do today: to act on their moral convictions to conserve diversity, to protect God’s creation in the face of a flood of consumerism and indifference by a materialistic world. -- Bill Moyers

There are two ways of looking at our place in the natural world. Traditionally humans have viewed ourselves as the pinnacle of life. The more accurate and modern view is that we fit into the great web of life.

We are gradually realizing that human existence depends on many, many species. We can no longer ignore the importance of thousands of species of plants and animals for the wholesomeness of the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe.

This change in perception mirrors the change in political leadership. For instance, a king ruled a court of a small number of lords and knights during the middle ages and most people were mere peons and of little importance. Now, thank heavens, many governments are more democratic and individuals are valued much more highly.

The more we understand nature, the more we realize the importance of all components of an ecological system. There are many examples. It used to be thought that wolves were bad because they killed livestock. We now understand that they help to control the animals that are most dangerous to humans in our state—deer and elk—because of car crashes. Reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone has also proven valuable to trees. With the presence of predators, elk and moose don’t stay in one place eating the tender new shoots so forests are thriving.

We can find another example of important organisms hidden underground. Although we tend to think of fungi as problem makers (like the cause of athlete’s foot) some are very beneficial. Mycorrhizae are helpful fungi that live on or even in the rootlets of most plants and trees. The fungus helps the plant absorb water and minerals. The plant reciprocates by providing the fungus with sugars for energy.

Although mycorrhizae have been known about for a long time, knowledge of their importance is fairly new. Many crops are much more productive and resistant to diseases when these fungi are present.

We are in the midst of the sixth great extinction. Perhaps best known of the great extinctions is when the dinosaurs were killed off by some unknown force. Unfortunately there is little doubt that we humans are causing this great extinction. One in five vertebrate species is threatened or already extinct. We know much less about invertebrate species of animals, so scientists are clueless about how many of them are endangered or already have been wiped out.

We also don’t know how vital each threatened species is. The world can probably go on without many of them—but there are some species whose absence may change our planet drastically. Since it is impossible to know which species is essential we should not take the chance of losing any more.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature keeps a list—the Red List—of threatened species. Every day they feature one species.

Conservation biology is the branch of science that works to preserve biological diversity and to prevent species from becoming extinct. Conservation biologists usually cite four causes for loss of biological diversity: loss of habitat, unsustainable harvesting, pollution and invasive (non-native) species. Unfortunately, humans—our increasing population and extravagant consumption—directly or indirectly cause these hazards.

The Center for Biological Diversity has come up with a novel way to make the point about human population. On each box of their Endangered Species Condoms (shown on the right, see the video) there is a picture of an animal at risk of extinction. Inside, along with two condoms, is this statement: “Human overpopulation is destroying land, water, and wildlife habitat at an unparalleled rate, causing a massive planetary extinction crisis. In growing to 6.8 billion people, humanity has killed off tens of thousands of plants and animals. But we can still save panthers, sea turtles, wolves, and countless other endangered species by choosing to stop overpopulating the planet.”

This is the International Year of Biodiversity. Let’s recognize the underlying cause of loss of biological diversity. And let’s do what we can to preserve the integrity of the great web of life by safeguarding endangered species.

Peace Teaching: stories from North Kivu, the Congo -- by Zawadi Nikuze

Camp de Kahe IDP camp, Kitchanga: by Médecins Sans Frontières

Despite the official end of the Rwandan genocide, Burundi civil war, and the 2nd Congo War, over 5 million have died and at least 1 million have been forced from their homes, most recently by the 2005-09 violence in North Kivu with mass rape and kidnapping of child soldiers, intertribal and intra-tribal murders, which the UN force (MONUC) has been unable to stop. Kivu's gold, copper, tin, coltan,cobalt and diamonds are looted by all factions to buy arms. See this UN map for place-names in these stories from FWCC World News (2009/2) about the work of African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) Peace Teams.

Salome Mapendo Sife is a 31 year-old mother of eight. Her children range from 11 months to 14 years old.

My husband and I are originally from Shabunda in South Kivu but my husband was working in Mweso Hospital as a nurse. Life was good in Mweso, my husband was earning a good salary and I had a kitenge (African fabric) business, sold salted fish and had a small cosmetics shop. We had been living in Mweso for a year when the war erupted. That was the turning point of our life.

On September 7, 2007, war broke out in the Congo and we left with our children. We were fearful to carry anything else. The whole village was on the road, some people were able to carry a few belongings and cattle. On the way, I lost my 7 year old daughter and I got more depressed. We arrived in Bulengo internally displaced persons' camp [see photos] on September 13, 2007. By God's grace, I found my daughter in the camp with other lost children. She was with another little girl, whom we later adopted.

We were extremely hungry, tired, thirsty, dirty, and had no shelter. During the day, we were roasted by the sun and in the night we were soaked with the rain. Each family was entitled to five litres of water per day; there were only four latrines for thousands of us. Due to lack of proper sanitation, cholera broke out and many people died. Other people drowned in lake because we did not know how to safely fetch water.

Life continued to be difficult and I contemplated joining my father in Kindu. I then learnt that he had been killed with my five brothers, my three uncles, my grandparents and family friends. They had taken refuge at our farm and the killers had found them there. This made my life even more difficult and I wished I was also dead!

At the same time, my husband could not stand the suffering and joined a group of stressed men who used to drink the local brew from morning to evening. This brought a lot of quarrels and fights in the home. The children suffered the most for both my husband and I were taking our stress to them. The idea of running away with children came to my mind because my husband was becoming more violent and we were all frustrated.

When the Friends Church under the Goma [Rwanda] Relief program began the training in Bulengo camp, my husband was among the first group. After the 3 days of HROC workshops [Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities, of African Great Lakes Initiative], he shared what he learnt and he began changing a bit. He stopped spending his whole day drinking.

In October 2008, I also attended a HROC workshop and I was really blessed. The sharing moment helped me see that there are other people who are also suffering even more than me.
Johari's Window (a HROC exercise where you realize how others see you and how you see yourself) also helped me to understand myself and others. I have also attended the Alternatives to Violence workshop (AVP) which has been helpful too. Now I consult with my husband and there is no more violence against our children.

I had developed hatred against Tutsis because they are the source of our suffering but we have some Tutsi here in the camp and we are all undergoing the same suffering. I tried to find out who killed my father and all who were with him and I was shocked to learn that it was his own people, our own tribesmen. This changed my perception and I no longer discriminate. I apply all these teachings in my Women's Loan Group work, especially when there is a difficult conflict. I thank everyone, including the donors and facilitators, for the different peace workshops, they bring to us in the camps, for we live in a conflict environment.

Camp de Kahe, Kitchanga : UNHCR / S. Schulman. See more

Floribert Mushi is a 36 year old married father of five. He too has adopted a child.

I am a nurse by profession but I used to be a farmer, too. I led a good life in Ngungu. Professionally, I was well paid and my farming was also doing well. I used to harvest 30 sacks of potatoes, 20 sacks of peas, and 18 sacks of beans which I would sell in Goma [Rwanda]. I also had livestock which I used to sell in our local market. But, by the time I fled, I only had 25 sheep which were all eaten by the militias.

I fled in November 2006 with nothing. Life was difficult in the camp; no shelter, no water, no food. We slept outside for 6 months. This situation made me a bitter, unhappy man. I was developing some hatred towards some people and ethnic groups.

In May 2008, I attended the HROC workshop, then AVP, conflict transformation, mediation and I also participated in setting up the peace committee of Mugunga. All these peace teachings have helped me a lot in dealing with day-to-day conflict in the camp. My wife also got a chance of participating in HROC and this helped us manage the trauma in us and in our children.

child soldier in N. Kivu, 2003: Der Spiegel

In March this year, my tent was torched by bad people in the camp and all the belongings perished in the fire. These guys were caught and the camp directing committee was suggesting to delete their names from the list of IDPs but I said, "No, let's settle this by peaceful ways of dialogue".

Now I use these teachings in resolving differences in my family and in the community. We thank you for such teachings for it helps us in difficult situations. Please take these teachings to the people in our villages for they are suffering and are very traumatized. I was there recently and they are undergoing a lot of things. They are in conflict and there is no peaceful cohabitation between the farmers and cattle owners. I strongly believe that they will change like we did in the camp.

[Prof Carl Taylor's 2004 study for Oxfam by points to climate and overpopulation as factors in these conflicts. - Ed.]

HROC (pronounced HE-rock) is a three-day experiential reconciliation workshop modeled on AVP that deals with the personal and community trauma from the violent conflicts in the region. An advanced workshop and a special workshop for HIV+ women have also been developed. See our blog on HROC in Rwanda and the video Icyizere : Hope; also AGLI, Friends Peace Teams and FPT Peaceways magazine; CYM workcamps in Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, Uganda; Martin Gilbraith's photos of Quaker reconciliation work, videos of CEEACO Yearly Meeting and Women's Forum in S. Kivu 2008; and photos by children of Bududa Vocational Institute in Uganda.

Other sources -- N. Kivu refugee map Jan 2008, Emily Troutman's blog, Tyler Kacek's photos of Bulengo IDP camp, the work of other churches in AGLI. Women's stories in African Renewal Jan 2007. UN says Congo must prosecute rapists, offer compensation: Reuters 3 Mar 2011. On "blood minerals" see BBC 13 Nov 08, Global Post 4 Dec 09, and UN investigators' report to Security Council 23 Nov 09.

The Girl Effect

This is one of a number of videos from the Girl Effect campaign by Nike and NoVo Foundations. When girls fully realize their potential, even in poor countries, they lift up themselves, their children, relatives, communities, and nation. The fact sheet Why Should We Pay Attention to Girls? makes the following points (giving sources for each):

The Ripple Effect

• in the developing world, a girl with 7+ years of education marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children.
• each additional year of primary school adds 10-20% to her wages.
• each additional year of secondary school adds 15-25%.
• better infant and child health goes with higher levels of mothers' schooling.
• when women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families.
• today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world.
• More than 1/4 of the total population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and young women aged 10-24.
• The number of girls 10 to 24—already the largest in history—is expected to peak in the next decade.

Educational Gaps

• Approximately 1/4 of girls in developing countries are not in school.
• Girls are 70 percent of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth.

Child Marriage and Early Childbirth

• In developing countries, over 14% of girls are married before age 15; and 38% before age 18.
• In developing countries 1/4 to 1/2 become mothers before age 18
• In developing countries 14 million girls aged 15-19 give birth each year.
• In Nicaragua, 45% of girls with no schooling are married before age 18, compared to 16% of the educated. In Mozambique, the figures are 60% to 10%; in Senegal, 41% to 6%.
• A survey in India found that girls who married before age 18 were twice as likely to report being beaten, slapped, or threatened by their husbands as were girls who married later.

Health

• Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading world cause of death among girls aged 15-19. Girls of 10-14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15-19 are up to twice as likely, as those aged 19-24.
• 75% of 15-24-year-olds living with HIV in Africa are female, up from 62 percent in 2001.

Girls in Kenya could, over their lifetime, lift the nation's economy by $27.4 billion through additional education, $25 billion if they delay childbirth, and $1.6 billion if they stay free of HIV/AIDS. Yet without policy intervention, staying HIV/AIDS-free is extremely difficult, and as a result, in Nairobi's urban slums a girl is six times as likely to be HIV-positive than a boy.

The Girl Effect campaign is supported by the UN Foundation, BRAC, CARE, Center for Global Development, ICRW, Plan, the Population Council, and the White Ribbon Alliance. See also our previous posts on Millenium Development Goals (MDG). For a Canadian campaign, see Plan International Canada's Because I Am A Girl video and Sep 2009 report.

What will stop population growth? - Hans Rosling

Swedish professor Hans Rosling has just been named by Time as one of the top online profs. According to his interactive video What stops population growth it is rising life expectancy and GNP -- with Africa the current exception. His statistic presentation shows that to stop the exponential growth of population, we must ensure that poor children do not die.
.
below: a snapshot from his Gapminder video

Rosling began as a doctor in rural Africa discovering konzo, a rare paralytic disease, and its cause: malnutrition and poorly-prepared cassava. He co-founded Médecins sans Frontièrs (Doctors without Borders) in Sweden, wrote a textbook on global health, and has initiated key research as professor of international health at the Karolinska Institut in Stockholm. See the fullscreen display in his Gapminder World, with instructions on how to make your own interactive videos of UN development data. See also Quaker doctor Dick Grossman's blog population-matters.org

World food crisis severe and growing - Oxfam

photo from the 'Nature and Human: Friend or Foe' project by Indonesian youth group eighterscreativity.com
Urgent action is needed to prevent hundreds of millions more people slipping into hunger as a result of volatile food prices and increasing energy and water scarcity. Decades of underinvestment in agriculture coupled with the increasing threat of climate change mean that despite recent price falls, future food security is in jeopardy, Oxfam told a UN World Food Program conference.

Two new reports: Oxfam's A Billion Hungry People and the UK think tank Chatham House's The Feeding of the Nine Billion, call on political leaders, corporations and NGOs to deal with structural causes of chronic hunger: 1 in 6 people in the world.

They predict world food demand for food will increase almost 25% as the world's population grows by 2.5 billion, to 9.2 billion by 2050. As Frances Moore Lappé has stated many times, the problem is not absolute lack of food, but unfair trade created by market forces and maldistribution. And climate change will increase the undernourished by another 40 to 170 million.

Despite a fall in world food prices from 2008 highs, they are well above those of past years and are likely to rise sharply again in the future. Speculation, price volatility and corporate land grabs increase the hunger problem. (voir aussi l'article de Guy Debailleul en bas)

Current food shortages in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zimbabwe are evidence that the global food crisis is far from over. Even before recent price rises, over 850 million people were undernourished. Now, there are nearly a billion, as a result of the price rises, alongside other factors such as political instability and conflict.

"International institutions and donors must reverse decades of under-investment in agriculture and scrap blatantly distortionary polices such as biofuels," said Oxfam food researcher Carlos Galian. He called recent EU and USA subsidies "a retrograde step that calls into question their commitment to longer term reforms."

Oxfam urges the rich to improve humanitarian aid and demands that poor countries (with help from new carbon and mitigation funds) invest in agriculture, targeting women and small-scale producers, and increase social protection measures for the vulnerable, including cash payments and job-creation programs for those at risk of hunger. This is exactly the opposite of the World Bank's SAP/ PRSP policies for the last 20 years, backed by the Washington consensus.

The Food Crisis in Figures

• One in six of the world's population is hungry, almost a billion people.
• 13 million children are born annually with intrauterine growth restriction, meaning that stunting sets in even before children are born due to the hunger experienced by the mother.
• Between 50 and 60 % of all childhood deaths in the developing world are hunger related.
• The risk of death is 2.5 times higher for children with only mild malnutrition than it is for children who are adequately nourished.
• The proportion of overseas development assistance spent on agriculture has fallen from almost a fifth in 1980 to just 3 per cent today.
• Poor people are particularly vulnerable to changes in food prices, with many spending up to 80 per cent of their income on food.

Even before the recent crisis:

• More than 24,000 people died of hunger related causes every day
• Five million children under the age of 5 died every year of hunger related causes
• 16,000 children died every day of hunger-related causes - one every five seconds

See also Oxfam 24 Sep 08: rich countries have broken their promises on aid. Grain.org reports corporate land grabs in poor countries. Doctors with Borders warn that 10,000 children die of malnutrition each day. Pat Mooney's ETC group severely criticizes OECD countries in its H(a)LF a Loaf report. Frances Moore Lappé's Food First analyzes root causes of global hunger, poverty, and ecological degradation, and helps Third World projects. Canadian Foodgrains Bank is a similar aid group.
--
Main basse sur les terres agricoles du Sud
par Guy Debailleul (président, Plan Nagua) tiré du numéro d'Alternatives du 26 février 2009

Des États riches et des entreprises multinationales achètent ou louent à très long terme des superficies considérables de terres agricoles dans les pays en voie de développement. Portrait d’une véritable ruée, exacerbée par la crise alimentaire, qui a un fort relent de colonialisme et dont les conséquences pourraient être désastreuses.

L’Arabie Saoudite a pris le contrôle d’environ 1,6 million d’hectares de terres en Indonésie, soit à peu près les trois quarts des terres cultivées au Québec  ! Et conjointement avec les Émirats arabes unis, l’Arabie Saoudite s’est appropriée 1,4 million d’hectares dans des pays comme le Pakistan ou le Soudan. La Turquie, le Kazakhstan, le Cambodge, les Philippines, l’Ouganda sont également visés par les pays du Golfe Persique. Il s’agit là aussi d’assurer l’approvisionnement en céréales des pays investisseurs dans lesquels la rareté de l’eau limite la production agricole.

En Tanzanie, en moins d’un an, des compagnies internationales de production de biocarburants ont accaparé 11 millions d’hectares, soit pratiquement le huitième de la superficie du pays pour cultiver des plantes destinées à produire des biocarburants pour l’exportation. L’une d’entre elles, Sunbiofuels de Grande-Bretagne, a par exemple mis la main sur 40 000 ha pour produire du jatropha à des fins énergétiques, après avoir évincé les agriculteurs, qui ont reçu une maigre compensation. Comme le signale le Financial Times, qui rapportait l’événement, il sera très difficile pour le gouvernement tanzanien de récupérer ces terres afin d’y produire des aliments, puisque la concession est d’une durée de 99 ans.

À Madagascar, la compagnie sud-coréenne Daewoo avait négocié avec le gouvernement malgache la location pour 99 ans de près d’un million et demi d’hectares. Son projet était de cultiver du maïs, avec comme objectif une production annuelle de 5,5 millions de tonnes en 2023 destinées à être exportées en Corée du Sud. Ce pays asiatique importe actuellement 11 millions de tonnes de maïs par année, principalement des États-Unis. À cela, s’ajoutait la production d’huile de palme. Pour mener à bien son projet, Daewoo entendait faire venir de la main-d’œuvre principalement sud-africaine. La colère suscitée par les révélations entourant l’entente entre la compagnie et le gouvernement malgache, et par l’attitude arrogante dont la compagnie a fait preuve dans la justification de sa démarche, a eu raison du projet.

Ces exemples ne représentent qu’un petit échantillon dans une multiplication de transactions du même genre par des pays « accapareurs » (directement ou par le biais de certaines de leurs compagnies ou sociétés de placement). Ce sont aussi bien des pays européens (Grande-Bretagne, Suède), asiatiques (Chine, Corée du Sud, Japon dont les entreprises contrôlent déjà plus de 12 millions d’hectares à l’étranger), pétroliers (pays du Golfe Persique, Libye, etc.) que des compagnies de pays émergents (Brésil, Inde). Les pays cibles sont également répartis sur à peu près tous les continents : Amérique latine (Paraguay, Argentine), Asie (Birmanie, Cambodge, Laos, Indonésie, Philippines, Thaïlande, Vietnam), Europe centrale (Ukraine), Afrique (Sénégal, Mali, Malawi, Ouganda, Soudan, Tanzanie).

Ces listes non exhaustives ne font qu’illustrer un mouvement qui prend une ampleur préoccupante. Les pays et les compagnies qui investissent ainsi dans le contrôle de grandes superficies de terre agricole sont guidés par des raisons qui peuvent varier : s’assurer un approvisionnement en produits alimentaires pour les uns, accroître la production de biocarburants pour les autres ou simplement, en ces temps de débâcle financière, investir dans ce qui apparaît comme étant le meilleur véhicule de placement à long terme pour des fonds spéculatifs. Ces raisons relèvent toutes d’un même constat : la crise alimentaire et la crise énergétique ont mis en évidence le caractère limité des disponibilités en terres agricoles pour satisfaire à la fois les besoins énergétiques et les besoins alimentaires d’une population mondiale croissante et confrontée à l’épuisement des énergies fossiles. Il est ironique que les mêmes pays qui ont tenté de libéraliser le commerce des produits agricoles au cours de la ronde de Doha, en invoquant les vertus du libre-échange pour assurer les besoins de la planète, semblent soudain accorder une confiance limitée à une telle stratégie puisqu’ils optent pour le contrôle direct de la terre et des ressources productives.

Un nouveau colonialisme

Presque 50 ans après les grands mouvements de décolonisation, les terres agricoles des pays en développement sont donc en train de devenir l’objet d’une nouvelle prise de contrôle par des intérêts étrangers. C’est d’ailleurs au nom du rejet d’un néocolonialisme que le projet sud-coréen à Madagascar vient d’avorter. Mais ce recul, s’il montre qu’une mobilisation peut entraver l’aboutissement de tels projets, n’est encore qu’une exception dans un mouvement qui prend de l’ampleur.

Si le patrimoine agricole des pays en développement suscite tant de convoitise et donne lieu à de telles concessions, c’est naturellement en raison de la dépendance de ces pays à l’égard des investissements étrangers. Il est facile de faire miroiter aux agriculteurs locaux les retombées économiques et les avantages, notamment en matière de diffusion de nouvelles pratiques et technologies agricoles. D’autant plus que de nombreux pays n’ont toujours pas adopté de régimes fonciers qui assurent des titres de propriété aux paysans en place. Beaucoup d’entre eux n’ont encore accès à la terre que par le biais de droits coutumiers complexes et souvent arbitraires. Dans d’autres pays, c’est plutôt le contrôle de la plus grande partie des terres par une toute petite minorité qui empêche les paysans de disposer de quantités suffisantes de terres pour leur permettre d’en vivre. Ainsi au Paraguay, plus de 75 % des terres agricoles sont la propriété de moins de 1 % de la population. Dans de telles situations d’inégalité ou d’insécurité foncière, il est donc plus facile d’écarter les paysans au profit de grands projets.

Les pays du Nord, eux, se protègent

La plupart des pays occidentaux ont au contraire eu tendance depuis déjà plusieurs décennies à adopter des législations plus ou moins restrictives en matière d’achat de terres agricoles par des étrangers. Aux États-Unis pas moins de 28 États ont des législations qui limitent les possibilités d’acquisitions de terres par des non-résidents. Il en est de même pour une majorité des provinces au Canada. Au Manitoba ou en Saskatchewan, un non-résident ou une compagnie étrangère ne peut posséder plus de 20 hectares de terres agricoles. On trouve des restrictions du même type en Australie, en Nouvelle-Zélande et dans certains États européens. Plus les terres agricoles sont vastes et la densité de population faible, plus les besoins de protection sont manifestes, ce qui explique que des provinces comme l’Ontario ou le Québec, à forte densité de population, ne se sont pas senties autant menacées par l’achat de terres par des étrangers.

Ce mouvement d’accaparement des terres agricoles par des intérêts étrangers, qu’ils proviennent des pays occidentaux, des pays du Golfe ou des pays émergents a incontestablement des allures de nécolonialisme. Au moment où - à la faveur de la crise alimentaire - la communauté internationale réalise enfin que l’on a trop longtemps négligé l’agriculture des pays en développement, cette confiscation d’une partie de leur patrimoine foncier pour satisfaire en priorité les besoins des pays les plus riches envoie décidément un signal contradictoire avec les efforts de concertation et de mobilisation pour redonner un nouvel élan à l’agriculture des pays pauvres.

Dans les récentes négociations commerciales de la ronde de Doha, de nombreux pays en développement ont commencé à opposer le principe de souveraineté alimentaire à celui de libéralisation des échanges. Ils revendiquent ainsi le droit de définir et de mettre en place les politiques agricoles qui leur semblent appropriées, et de prendre les mesures nécessaires pour protéger leur agriculture. C’est à ces conditions que leur propre sécurité alimentaire sera possible. Devant ce mouvement de ruée vers leurs terres agricoles, on observe que la souveraineté alimentaire implique de se donner les moyens pour contrôler la ressource fondamentale dont dépend la satisfaction des besoins alimentaires, c’est-à-dire les terres agricoles. Ce contrôle sera d’autant plus efficace que les paysans pourront disposer de droits garantis et stables sur cette ressource.

A real green revolution is needed – Achim Steiner of UNEP

Starving poor led food riots in at least 33 countries in 2008; the under-funded FAO warns they are happening again this year.

The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) Nairobi meeting from 16-20 February aims at solving world environmental, financial, food and energy crises by creating a Green Economy.

“We need a Green Revolution in a Green Economy but one with a capital G”, says UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. “We need to deal with not only the way the world produces food but the way it is distributed, sold and consumed, and we need a revolution that can boost yields by working with rather than against nature. Over half of the food produced today is lost, wasted or discarded as a result of inefficiency in the human-managed food chain. There is evidence within the report that the world could feed the entire projected population growth alone by becoming more efficient while also ensuring the survival of wild animals, birds and fish on this planet. Simply ratcheting up the fertilizer and pesticide-led production methods of the 20th Century is unlikely to address the challenge. It will increasingly undermine the critical natural inputs and nature-based services for agriculture such as healthy and productive soils, the water and nutrient recycling of forests, and pollinators such as bees and bats.”

UNEP's just-released report The Environmental Food Crisis: The environment’s role in averting future food crises states:

• food prices may increase by 30-50 per cent within the next few decades, due to drought, biofuels, high oil prices, low grain stocks and commodity speculation
• the food supply of the poor has already been hit by rich countries' overfishing and ethanol subsidies
• global warming threatens 25% of world food production
• meat consumption is rising rapidly, depleting grain stocks, deforesting the tropics, and chasing the poor off the land
• “green” biofuels should be produced from food wastes, switchgrass, straw and even nutshells
• 30 million tonnes of “trash fish” and “bycatch” are dumped annually. These could be used to increase fish farming and aquaculture production, without increasing pressure on wild fish stocks.

Climate change is a key threat to feeding earth's 9 billion people by 2050 -- yet another reason, says UNEP, that “Governments at the UNFCCC negotiation in Copenhagen in 300 days’ time must agree on a deep and decisive new global deal.” UNEP proposes mechanisms to

• control global food prices
• set up an international micro-finance fund for small-scale farmer productivity in developing countries.
• end rich counties' agricultural subsidies and dumping
• develop second generation biofuels based on wastes rather than on primary crops
• mitigation measures to adapt to extreme rainfall and drought on continents such as Africa
• aid to diversified and organic farming [see below - Ed.]
• enhance the “nature-based” inputs and “environmental services”: natural pollinators, water supplies, genetic diversity.

Organic farm in Africa: courtesy of Urban Sprout blog.

UNEP cites wasteful business-as-usual practices:

• US losses and food waste are estimated at 40-50%
• US markets are not working: while food banks go empty, ~25% of freshfruits and vegetables are lost between the field and the table
• food waste is half of Australia landfill
• 30% of food purchased in the UK is not eaten
• 30% of fish landed in Africa is lost, discarded, or spoiled
• similar losses elsewhere in developing countries
• 20-40% of the potential harvest in developing countries is lost to pests and pathogens
• this will increase with global warming
• also, rotting food gives off methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases
• land degradation will reduce African yields by another 1-8 per cent
• need for regional R&D in agriculture: only 13% of global investment is in Africa, versus 33%+ in Latin America and 40%+ in Asia. What should be done? for example, Nigeria is researching use of solar dryers to preserve the onion crop
• a threat to irrigation for 50% of Asia’s cereal production, Himalaya glaciers are receding
  
• water scarcity may reduce future world crop yields by ~12 %
  
• croplands are swallowed up by urban sprawl
• Sub-Saharan Africa population will grow from o.77 to over 1.7 billion by 2050
• the phony “Green Revolution”: artificial fertilizers, pesticides, increased water use and cutting down of forests, will result in massive decline in biodiversity.
• 80 per cent of all endangered species are threatened by agricultural expansion; Europe has lost over 50 per cent of its farmland birds; similar impacts are felt in N America

Organic farming in Africa

A UNEP / UNCTAD study of 114 small-scale farms in 24 African countries found:

• organic farming doubled yields, reaching more than 125% in east Africa
• this outperformed both traditional methods, and chemical-intensive conventional farming
• environmental benefits: improved soil fertility, water retention, drought resistance
• organic markets will continue to grow from $23 billion in 2002 to $70 billion in 2012
• improved local education and community cooperation.

Similar studies have been made by FAO and IAASTD. Here is an example from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia -- TenaKebena video of a small-scale community agriculture and reclamation project.

See also 8 other UNEP videos and graphics on climate change impacts; Sustainable Land Use Forum Jan 2009 in Ethiopia; IDRC study Cities Feeding People (1994) on urban agriculture; City Farmer links; Sidewalk Sprouts blog; FAO – GIEWS Global Information and Early Warning System; Miguel Altieri, Small farms as a planetary ecological asset: five reasons...; corporate funding of African organic farms; previous posts tagged food.
Photo by John Morgan: urban agriculture project in Havana.

Teaching the mathematics of world food

Intrigued by a Saskatchewan teacher's request for a maths problem about world food distribution, we found the following resources. Thanks for suggestions to Bill Curry of Prairie MM, Professors JoAnn Jaffe and Daryl Hepting of the University of Regina.

In Oxfam's Hunger Banquet, guests draw lots to be "born" into a high-, middle-, or low-income part of the world based on World Bank Development Indicators.

• 15% with high-income are served a luxurious meal
• 35 % with middle-income get a plate of rice and beans
• 50 % (the world's poor) must glean small portions of rice and water for themselves; recent economic studies suggest that at least 1/3 of their food should be taken away and burned in a container marked "biofuel"
  

The guests may play the role of a specific person at their income level. After the meal, all guests are invited to share their thoughts. Few participants leave with full stomachs, but all possess a greater understanding of the problems of hunger and poverty and are motivated to do something about them.

Catholic lessons A-R-T "Just eating"
Protestant lessons Food for the hungry
NatGeog: (Gr 10) compare 4 different food cultures and plan a restaurant for each. Also : cross-cultural assignments for other grades; (Gr 1-8) educator's toolkit: garden activities, nutrition, companion plants, living machine etc.
Foodtimeline: (Gr K-12) food history lessons.
Friends Testimonies on Economics (Gr 10-12) Vol. I "fundamental economic concepts" and "sustainable agriculture"; Vol. I "Trees as metaphor" for I=PAT, exponential growth in "The king and the wise man", eco-economics, markets and barcodes, Vol. III p.40+ "Population issues"
Are humans smarter than yeast? video on exponential growth
SOS Children's Villages: nursery school garden project in Malawi to meet the food crisis
UNICEF Canada's school-in-a-box food aid
Save the Children Canada School Link for international discussions
UN World Food Programme; its free educational game Food Force
Craig and Marc Kielburger's Free the Children; e.g. their project in Gansu, China.
Previous postings on food in this blog.
KAIROSCanada's Re-energize.org with resources in English & français

Advanced users can access FAO statistics country-by-country. as well as some aggregate data on food and agriculture that can be manipulated on site. See also agricultural production data, to select by country, continent or world; World Bank statistics and WB's World Development Report on agriculture 2008. More lesson plans on peace, environment and social justice - in English and French.

What do women want? - Worldwatch Institute

world population: Yale University G-econ
"What women want is not more children, but more for their children." reports VP Robert Engelman of Worldwatch in his new book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. He says societies which make it easy for women to safely plan the timing of births will experience stable or gradually declining populations, making it possible to build environmentally sustainable and socially just societies.

For 25 years Engelman has interviewed women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book combines the voices of actual women with wide-ranging research across history and the social sciences.

"Those who bear children and do most of the work in raising them should have the final say in when, and when not, to do so," says Engelman. "By making their own decisions based on what's best for themselves and their children, women ultimately bring about a global good that governments could never deliver through regulation or control: a population in balance with nature's resources." Decreasing farmland, urban migration, and climate change render extremely unsure the traditional practice of raising a large family as social security for parents in their old age; improved child health, the education of girls, and fair sharing of world resources render it unnecessary.
Earth's population, now 6.7 billion will reach an estimated 9+ billions by 2050. The planet cannot survive the unrestricted birthrate of the poor -- or the unlimited consumption of the rich.
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But cultural and religious prohibitions, invented by men, force women to hide their contraceptive use, risk their lives in unsafe abortions, or (attempting to give birth at a time that is best for their child's survival) manage their fertility with dangerous or ineffective herbs. Men were so intent on social control that contraception was banned in parts of the United States from 1873 to 1965, and the Bush administration prohibits it in foreign aid. In Europe, the jealousy of male doctors made midwives, who helped women plan births, into prime targets of the 16th-17th c. witchhunts.

Engelman's study shows that in countries where women can choose the time of reproduction, they have two children or fewer. Without immigration, population gradually declines and living standards rise -- the demographic shift.

See also: Engelman interview on video, his article in Scientific American Earth 3.0 June 2009.
New Horizons lesson plans for schools.
Wikipedia on population trends, Millenium Development Goals, PRSPs, poverty reduction.
End poverty 2015 - the UN High-Level Event on MDGs Sep 2008, UN WomenWatch, and historical documents in IISD: International Institute for Sustainable Development links.
The international Population and Sustainability Network
Women for eco-justice: European Feminist Forum and GenderCC
TIG blogs by Abigail Ngulube and S.Ojeremen about women in Africa

Une 6e extinction massive des espèces est en cours - Michel Loreau

Interviewé par Hervé Kempf, Michel Loreau est professeur d'écologie à l'université McGill de Montréal. Il préside le comité scientifique de Diversitas, synthèse internationale des recherches sur la biodiversité.

Un animal ou une plante disparaîtrait toutes les vingt minutes. Abordons-nous la sixième crise de la vie ?

La disparition des espèces s'accélère. Le rythme d'extinction des vertébrés et des plantes est déjà cent fois plus important que lors des temps géologiques, il y a des dizaines de millions d'années. Cette vitesse devrait être multipliée par 100 dans les prochaines décennies, soit un rythme 10 000 fois supérieur au taux estimé comme naturel.

Pourquoi cette accélération ?

L'accélération actuelle, depuis la révolution industrielle, est principalement due à la destruction des habitats : déforestation, urbanisation, changement d'utilisation des terres...

La croissance des échanges internationaux entraîne également une propagation des espèces d'un continent à l'autre. Or une nouvelle espèce introduite peut devenir un prédateur ou un parasite très efficace des espèces locales, ce qui peut détruire une grande partie de la faune ou de la flore.

Que dire du changement climatique ?

C'est le troisième facteur qui menace la biodiversité... la planète pourrait perdre à l'horizon 2050 jusqu'au tiers des espèces existantes. (Cet estimé peut changer avec la recherche en cours.)

Quelles seront les conséquences sur les sociétés humaines en 2050 ?

A priori, pendant un certain temps, les conséquences de la perte de biodiversité ne seront pas perceptibles. Puis des catastrophes vont se produire : invasions de nouvelles espèces, émergence de maladies, y compris pour les plantes, perte de la productivité des écosystèmes. Je viens de travailler sur les pollinisateurs naturels : la pollution chimique et la destruction des habitats entraînent leur disparition. Or il est démontré expérimentalement que, en réduisant la diversité des pollinisateurs, certaines plantes se reproduisent moins bien et s'éteignent.

La planète va-t-elle manquer de ressources agricoles ?

Cela va être un problème dans certains pays... Il existe des marges de manoeuvre importantes : des terres encore non utilisées, une agriculture plus performante... Mais pour satisfaire cette demande agricole, des habitats naturels vont être détruits, ce qui va encore accélérer la perte de biodiversité et le changement de climat.

Pourrait-on fabriquer des espèces pour compenser ces pertes ?

Imaginer qu'on puisse créer une espèce en ajustant les mécanismes encore méconnus qui la régissent me paraît une perspective très lointaine. Je ne dis pas que c'est impossible, mais ce n'est pas envisageable en tout cas à l'horizon 2050.

Près de 9 milliards d'habitants peupleront la planète en 2050, soit 50 % de plus qu'aujourd'hui. Va-t-on pouvoir inverser le processus de destruction de la biodiversité ?

La période est critique. Tout se déroule actuellement à des vitesses invraisemblables. Nous détruisons, et les systèmes naturels n'ont pas le temps de s'adapter... L'humanité, c'est comme un nénuphar qui se développe dans l'étang. Il commence par en occuper une fraction infime, double de taille, se multiplie jusqu'à couvrir la moitié de l'espace. A la génération suivante, il s'est répandu sur tout l'étang et ne peut plus croître... il faut se poser des questions sur notre modèle de société.

Quels sont les moyens d'accroître la biodiversité ?

Tout d'abord, arrêter les destructions des habitats. C'est une mesure d'urgence... (Il faut) repenser la structure spatiale des villes et de la campagne... pour réaliser une fusion plus importante de la ville et de la campagne....

Dans un monde globalisé, chaque individu devrait être amené à se penser non pas comme une personne isolée dans un endroit donné, mais comme un maillon d'une chaîne qui le relie à la nature. Si on parvenait à éduquer les enfants et les citoyens à réfléchir de cette façon-là, nous serions tous beaucoup plus connectés non seulement à la nature, mais aussi aux autres.

voir: Texte complet au Monde 1 juin 08; bulletin du FAO-OAA sur les pollinisateurs; Fédération canadienne de la faune; Wikipedia sur la biodiversité; article de Niles Eldridge d'Actionbioscience.org, The 6th extinction avec liens; Créer une nouvelle forme de vie : est-ce éthique ? forum de Futura-Sciences sur les prétensions du biotechnologiste Craig Venter.