Monthly archive for June 2009. Show all posts
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The Indian Ocean: Nexus of Environment, Energy, Trade, and Security
›June 5, 2009 // By Brian Klein“[F]or global trade, global food security, and global energy security, the Indian Ocean is critical,” says Amit Pandya in The Indian Ocean: Resource and Governance Challenges, the most recent addition to the Stimson Center’s Regional Voices: Transnational Challenges report series. “And it remains a stage for the pursuit of the global strategic and regional military interests of all world and regional powers.”
During a launch event on May 21, Pandya—the project director behind the series—sat with Stimson Director Ellen Laipson, Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, USN (Ret.), and East-West Center in Washington Director Satu Limaye to reflect on the report and discuss the myriad challenges facing Indian Ocean states in the maritime resources and governance sectors.
The 21st Century’s “Center Stage”
The Indian Ocean’s international profile has been bolstered by the region’s rising economic prowess and political clout, significant resource wealth, and critical shipping routes—which transport the vast majority of oil leaving the Persian Gulf. Journalist Robert Kaplan recently labeled the region “center stage for the 21st century” because of its importance to global trade and energy, as well as the fact that it hosts the “dynamic great-power rivalry” between India and China.
The Stimson report is divided into two sections: the first comprises several articles written by authors from Indian Ocean littoral states, while the second includes pieces from Pandya and Laipson that analyze and interpret general trends in regional ocean governance.
Ocean Resources, Maritime Security
“In the last half-century, the production of fish and fish products in the Indian Ocean (IO) region has increased tremendously as a result of improvements in fish capture technology and rising demand caused by a growing global population,” write Edward N. Kimani et al. in their article in the report, which examines southwest Indian Ocean fisheries. These trends have precipitated conflict between small-scale artisanal fishers and industrial fishers, in addition to placing enormous pressure on ocean ecosystems. Effective management mechanisms must be implemented in order to address overfishing and its consequences for global food security and ecosystems. (A forthcoming documentary, The End of the Line, takes an in-depth look at overfishing.)
In a similar vein, Mak Joon Num’s contribution, “Pirates, Barter Traders, and Fishers: Whose Rights, Whose Security?”—roundly praised by speakers at the report launch—considers the diverse range of stakeholders operating in the Straits of Malacca and the Sulu Sea. Malaysian trawler fishers, Acehnese pirates, and Filipino barter traders compete to glean their livelihoods from the ocean. All are victims and predators in their own right, Mak Joon Num argues, and climate change, poverty, and a lack of coordinated ocean governance policies exacerbate the present problems of resource scarcity, disputed sovereignty, and unsustainability.
Shifting to the northwestern littoral states of the Indian Ocean, Mustafa Alani presses the case for a comprehensive maritime security compact in the Persian Gulf, which holds more than 30 percent of the world’s known oil deposits. The Gulf Cooperation Council provides the foundational structure for such an agreement, which would likely comprise several levels of cooperation, ranging from “soft security”—managing fishing and environmental degradation, search-and-rescue coordination, and marine transport—to “strategic security”—coordinating naval exercises and anti-terrorism operations.
Questions of Governance
In order to address these challenges, concerned states must put forth “more effort at the national level to integrate civilian and military aspects of maritime policy,” Laipson concludes in the report’s final lines. “We also need a fresh look at the regional and international levels to ensure that governance of the maritime realm strives to manage the complex interplay of human and natural activity and to maintain the Indian Ocean as a sustainable zone for commerce, energy, security, and peace.”
Population: A Missing Factor?
While the report does an excellent job of illuminating the resource and governance challenges in the Indian Ocean, it fails to substantively consider one factor that will have a profound influence on all others: population growth. Burgeoning populations in Indian Ocean states will have considerable consequences for resource management, governance, poverty, and security in the region, particularly in relation to migration, human trafficking, overfishing, and ecosystem health.
Photo: Artisanal fishers off the Malabar coast of India. Courtesy Flickr user mckaysavage. -
Weekly Reading
›The International Institute for Sustainable Development has released two reports on climate change and security: Rising Temperatures, Rising Tensions: Climate change and the risk of violent conflict in the Middle East and Climate Change and Security in Africa.
In “The Changing Face of Israel,” a Foreign Policy web exclusive, Richard Cincotta and Eric Kaufmann explain how Israel’s demographics are influencing the country’s politics.
CNN’s Inside Africa reports on a bill in the U.S. Congress that seeks to quell the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by forcing American companies to disclose the sources of their minerals.
Population Action International’s Kathleen Mogelgaard reports from international climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany, on how climate change disproportionately affects women and the poor.
A Christian Science Monitor op-ed on global demographic trends cites Wilson Center Senior Scholar Martin Walker.
On Grist, Earth Policy Institute Founder Lester Brown explores the massive migration that would be precipitated by even partial melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. -
Climate-Security Links Recognized by UN General Assembly
›June 4, 2009 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe security threat of sea level rise to small island states appears to have proven so obvious as to overcome the common objections of many countries (notably P5 members China and Russia) to framing climate change as a threat to security. Just yesterday, the UN General Assembly passed by consensus a non-binding resolution linking climate and security. The final version of the resolution (GA/10830) is not yet online, but the May 18 draft resolution gives you an idea of the final language.
Symbolic, yes, but perhaps this will make it easier for climate security questions to come before the UN Security Council again. The April 2007 Security Council session on climate change and security, at the behest of the British chair at the time, was, shall we say, met with a mixed reception, but 2009 is already different than 2007 in so many ways. It will be interesting to watch where the discussion goes from here at the UN and in national capitals.
Graphic: Symbol of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). -
Wildlife Trafficking a Silent Menace to Biodiversity
›June 4, 2009 // By Alan CampanaWildlife trafficking is the third-largest criminal industry worldwide—after drugs and the sex trade—involving $20 billion in global trade each year. Illegal wildlife traffickers are difficult to track down, as they employ increasingly sophisticated methods, showing higher levels of organization and technological savvy. In addition, the resources devoted to halting wildlife trafficking are extremely limited, due in part to other issues—such as terrorism and climate change—dominating the international dialogue. Animal trafficking has become a forgotten crisis, and with devastating impacts on species’ survival and ecological health, said experts at a May 20 Wilson Center meeting.
Global Traffic Problems
The extent of wildlife trafficking is difficult to assess, in part due to the large legal trade in wildlife that often acts as cover for smugglers. Laurel Neme, author of Animal Investigators: How the World’s First Wildlife Forensics Lab is Catching Poachers, Solving Crimes, and Saving Endangered Species, pointed out that every year 25,000 primates, 2-3 million birds, 10 million reptile skins, and more than 500 million tropical fish are legally traded, and it is believed that illegal trade at least matches, and probably exceeds, these numbers. Rare and endangered species are in particular danger of being trafficked, since rare animals generally fetch a higher price on the black market. For instance, ounce for ounce, rhino horn is worth more than diamonds, fetching $50,000 per kilogram.
The scope and complexity of trafficking is the primary obstacle to confronting it. Wildlife trafficking knows no borders and involves countries in every region of the globe. Traffickers are also diverse, ranging from petty criminals to criminal organizations to terrorists. While wildlife trafficking is a global problem, the two largest participants are China and the United States.
Jamming Traffic
Kevin Garlick of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) outlined the challenges facing U.S. law enforcement officials investigating the supply side of trafficking. For one, the industry is very lucrative; a sea turtle skin that sells for $70 in Mexico can be made into boots that sell for $500 in the United States. Organized crime has become increasingly involved, resulting in detailed planning and financial support for trafficking operations, sophisticated forgery of permits, and international management of huge shipments.
In contrast, enforcement officials lack human and financial resources. The FWS has 115 wildlife inspectors who staff only 38 of the nearly 300 points of entry into the United States, as well as 199 criminal investigators who pursue leads from confiscations and tips. By way of comparison, the FBI has 2,000 and the Drug Enforcement Agency has 5,000 investigators.
China’s Wildlife Challenges
WWF’s Crawford Allen explained that increasing affluence in China is leading to increasing demand for traditional medicines, which often include parts of rare animals; unusual meats, which are considered delicacies; and luxury products such as tiger bone wine. Rising demand in China has fueled a number of wildlife crises, particularly for tiger, elephant, and freshwater turtle populations.
China’s Southeast Asian neighbors have been affected by China’s growing wealth. For instance, the pangolin, a nocturnal anteater that is sought after for its meat, as well as its skin (for fashionable leather) and scales (an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine), is now highly endangered. Today, the pangolin trade is so profitable that organized traffickers have set up processing plants to butcher and package the meat, which is shipped out via airplane and is difficult to identify. The 100 tons of pangolin seized last year in Southeast Asia are only “the tip of the iceberg,” according to Allen.
Despite the seriousness of the global wildlife-trafficking situation, the speakers agreed that there is hope in the increasing international cooperation that is taking place and in scientific improvements in investigative techniques.
By China Environment Forum Intern Alan Campana. Edited by China Environment Forum Director Jennifer Turner.Photo: Illegal medicinal products in China. Courtesy of Flickr user avlxyz. -
‘Earth 2100’ To Explore Climate, Natural Resources, Population Growth
›June 2, 2009 // By Rachel WeisshaarABC’s Earth 2100 documentary, airing tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST, will feature many ECSP speakers—including Jared Diamond and Peter Gleick—as well as the Center for a New American Security’s (CNAS) Clout and Climate Change War Game. Held in Washington, D.C., in July 2008, the war game focused on the national security implications of climate change.
Earth 2100 explores possible worst-case scenarios for this century that could be triggered by a “perfect storm” of population growth, resource depletion, and climate change. Environmental security expert Thomas Homer-Dixon tells host Bob Woodruff that “energy, climate food, population, economic pressures—any one of these challenges might be very serious in and of itself. But because they are happening all simultaneously, it’s going to be very difficult for our governments to cope.”
During the climate-change war game, “every country sort of hewed to what you would expect,” said CNAS Vice President for Natural Security Sharon Burke at an ECSP event earlier this year.
“The EU team spent the first two hours debating whether they could really be a country; the Indian team instantly came up with a negotiating strategy that sounded cooperative and brilliant but was completely impossible to execute; the Chinese team was, ‘No, we’re not going to do anything unless you pay us’; and the American team was keen to lead, only nobody was following,” she said.
One of the key lessons from the game, Burke added, was that “everything comes down to what China is prepared to do.” She also described insights from the war game in a New Security Beat guest post.
Several war-game participants are now members of the Obama administration, including Todd Stern, the lead U.S. negotiator on climate change; Michèle Flournoy, under secretary of defense for policy; and David Sandalow, assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Energy.
An ABC producer working on Earth 2100 consulted ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko earlier this year. -
VIDEO: Environment Key to Resolving Conflicts, Building Peace, Says UN Environment Programme Director Achim Steiner
›June 2, 2009 // By Rachel Weisshaar“Addressing the issue of the environment in the context of conflict resolution, conflict prevention, peacekeeping, [and] peacebuilding becomes ever more important because we know from everything we have learned—and are learning every day—about climate change that one thing is for certain: The world is going to be under more stress,” says UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Director Achim Steiner in a short expert interview on YouTube.
Yet in another original Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) video, Steiner emphasizes that environmental issues do not lead inexorably to conflict. “History shows that human societies are not prone to looking for conflict but rather for conflict resolution, particularly when it comes to fundamental elements of life support systems, be it water, or be it clean air or other issues—we have seen the model of cooperation emerge.”
Steiner was at the Wilson Center in March 2009 for the launch of From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment, a new report by UNEP’s Disasters and Conflicts Programme. According to From Conflict to Peacebuilding:- Forty percent of intrastate conflicts within the past 60 years have been strongly linked to natural resources.
- Such conflicts are twice as likely to relapse within the first five years of peace.
- Less than a quarter of peace agreements for these conflicts address natural-resource issues.
- Forty percent of intrastate conflicts within the past 60 years have been strongly linked to natural resources.
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Hans Rosling Animates DHS Data, Moves Debate
›June 1, 2009 // By Brian Klein“Statistics should be the intellectual sidewalks of a society, and people should be able to build businesses and operate on the side of them,” said Gapminder Foundation Director Hans Rosling at a discussion hosted by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program on May 26, 2009. In his spirited and often humorous remarks, Rosling praised the 25-year-old Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) program, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Macro International, Inc., as “public-private partnership at its best.” The DHS program works with countries’ health ministries to collect data on family planning, child and maternal health, disease prevalence, and other health indicators, and makes the data freely available for public use.
The Beauty Behind the Data
Rosling uses Gapminder’s signature “moving bubble” Trendalyzer software—which Google purchased and made available as “Motion Chart”—to graphically demonstrate global health, economic, and environmental trends. Gapminder uses data from several sources, including DHS surveys, to generate its illuminating displays.
“Sweden, during the last hundred years, didn’t achieve [the] Millennium Development Goal rate” for yearly reductions in child mortality, Rosling explained. “We are putting goals for Tanzania, Bangladesh that [were] never…achieved by any country in West Europe or North America.” The remarkable thing, said Rosling, is that many low-income countries are achieving or even surpassing these demanding targets.
Free Access, Unified Formatting Are Top Priorities
Rosling stressed that access to data must be free, and admonished the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and others who charge for their statistics. “They say, ‘No, we can’t give the data to the people because they will make wrong comparisons, and they will make wrong conclusions,’” Rosling continued, “and I say ‘Yes, we call it freedom.’”
Rosling cautioned against “database-hugging disorder,” or statisticians’ tendency to guard their data because of concerns about budgets or misinterpretation. A better approach, he insisted, is to embrace innovations like the Creative Commons license, which encourages sharing information by offering a range of easy-to-understand legal protections and freedoms for creative works, data, and information.
In addition, “we don’t have a unified format for data,” Rosling said, and “that’s why the transaction costs are so enormously high, and that’s why those who put data together in unified format charge for it.” He cited YouTube as an excellent medium for broadening public distribution of data. To the audience’s delight, a live Google search for “sex, money, and health” returned a YouTube clip of one of his own presentations as its top hit.
Improving Lives With Data
“The worst environmental problem today is that two million children die of diarrhea [each year], and that billions of people drink their neighbors’ lukewarm feces,” said Rosling, and yet “water and sanitation data is very, very weak.” Collecting information from remote areas—often the most impoverished—is difficult. Measuring access to potable water is complicated because it requires community-based calculations, which do not fit into DHS’ household-centric methodology.
Rosling called upon young adults to work to “eradicate unnecessary disease and poverty in the world.” He also advocated improved post-graduate training in statistics, particularly in low-income countries.
Better statistical data will foment more effective solutions to development challenges—provided there are ambassadors like Rosling willing and able to unveil the beauty behind the numbers.
Photo: Hans Rosling. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Wilson Center.