Showing posts from category global health.
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PODCAST – Jean-Yves Pirot on PHE Integration and Environmental Management
›November 17, 2008 // By Wilson Center Staff“Time is pressing, and we need all hands on deck,” says Jean-Yves Pirot, an ecologist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), on the urgent need for conservationists to look outside their sector for help in improving sustainable environmental management in developing countries. In a podcast with ECSP’s Gib Clarke, Pirot, who coordinated the “Healthy People, Healthy Environment” stream at the recent World Conservation Congress, discusses the challenges of integrating population and health into environment programs. He urges conservationists to forge synergies with health and development specialists in order to scale-up small, short-term projects and provide long-term health and environmental benefits to the poor. -
Weekly Reading
›“[T]he careful management that helped make Alaskan pollock a billion-dollar industry could unravel as the planet warms,” warns Kenneth Weiss of the Los Angeles Times. “Pollock and other fish in the Bering Sea are moving to higher latitudes as winter ice retreats and water temperatures rise. Alaskan pollock are becoming Russian pollock, swimming across an international boundary in search of food and setting off what could become a geopolitical dispute.”
Poor rains, lack of infrastructure, and a shortage of skilled technicians have contributed to water-related disease and local-level water conflicts in Zimbabwe, reports IPS News.
If the Tripa peat forests in Sumatra continue to be cleared to make way for palm oil plantations, not only will the habitat of the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan shrink further, but millions of tons of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere, accelerating global climate change, reports the Telegraph.
A report on Somalia by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that one in six Somali children under the age of five is acutely malnourished and estimates that 43 percent of the country’s population will need humanitarian assistance through the end of the year. According to the report, poor rains, in addition to the worst levels of violence since 1990, have contributed to the humanitarian crisis.
“The number of tiger attacks on people is growing in India’s Sundarban islands as habitat loss and dwindling prey caused by climate change drives them to prowl into villages for food,” says an article from Reuters.
The current issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (some abstracts available) focuses on the links between climate change and public health.
“Can Conservation Succeed with 9 Billion People?,” a panel at the recent Conservation Learning Exchange, was described as a “bang-up session” by Margaret Francis, who blogged about it. -
Weekly Reading
›In an open letter on water policy to the next U.S. president, Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute urges the next presidential administration to develop a national water policy; highlight national security issues related to water; expand the United States’ role in addressing global water problems; and integrate climate change into all federal planning and activity on water.
A recent survey conducted by Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that land disputes are a key threat to peace in Liberia, reports BBC News.
Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the former Soviet Union, called for a global glasnost, or openness, on environmental problems. “This financial turmoil, which will heavily affect the real economy, was absolutely predictable, and it is only one aspect of the wider crisis of all the current development systems,” said Gorbachev. “In fact, there are connected simultaneous crises that are rapidly emerging. These relate to energy, water, food, demography, climate change and the ecosystem devastation.”
The World Health Organization has developed a plan for research on the health impacts of climate change, reports the Science and Development Network. -
Protecting the Soldier From the Environment and the Environment From the Soldier
›The end of the Cold War coincided with a decline in the total number of armed conflicts around the world; moreover, according to the UN Peacekeeping Capstone Doctrine, civil conflicts now outnumber interstate wars. These shifts have given rise to a new generation of peace support operations in which environmental issues are playing a growing role. The number of peace support operations launched by non-UN actors—including the EU and NATO—has doubled in the past decade.
The environment can harm deployed personnel through exposure to infectious diseases or environmental contaminants, so preventive measures are typically taken to protect the health of deployed forces. However, because environmental stress caused by climate change might act as a threat multiplier—increasing the need for peace support operations—it is ever more necessary for the international community to conduct crisis management operations in an environmentally sustainable fashion. But can the deployed soldier, police officer, or search-and-rescue worker really act as an environmental steward?
I believe important steps are being taken to ensure the answer to this question is “yes.” The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations recently drafted environmental protection policies and guidelines for UN field missions and started to implement them through the UN Department of Field Services and the UN Mission in Sudan. Various pilot projects are underway, including an environmental awareness and training program and sustainable base camp activities, such as alternative energy use. These projects are coordinated by the Swedish Defence Research Agency and funded by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Within NATO, Environmental Protection Standardization Agreements increase troop-contributing nations’ ability to work together on environmental protection. The NATO Science for Peace and Security Committee is also funding a set of workshops on the “Environmental Aspects of Military Compounds.”
Furthermore, defense organizations in Finland, Sweden, and the United States have cooperated to produce an Environmental Guidebook for Military Operations. The guidebook, which may be used by any nation, reflects a shared commitment to proactively reduce the environmental impacts of military operations and to protect the health and safety of deployed forces.
While the United Nations, NATO, and individual contributing nations are trying to reduce the environmental impact of their peacekeeping operations, the EU is lagging behind. In theory, the EU should find it easy to incorporate environmental considerations into its deployments. Most EU members are also NATO members, so if they can comply with NATO environmental regulations in NATO-led operations, they should be able to do the same with similar EU regulations in EU-led operations. Yet comparable regulations do not exist, even though the EU is often considered environmentally proactive—for instance, in its regulation of chemicals. Therefore, for the EU, it is indeed time to walk the walk—especially in light of its growing contribution to peace support operations, with recent operations conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Chad, and an upcoming intervention slated for Somalia.
Clearly, no single organization can conduct all of the multifaceted tasks required to support and consolidate the processes leading to a sustainable peace; partnerships between military and civilian actors are indispensable to achieving global stability. We must do a better job mainstreaming environmental considerations into foreign policy and into the operations of all stakeholders in post-conflict settings, with the understanding that the fallout from a fragile environment obeys no organizational boundaries. One small step in this direction is an upcoming NATO workshop, “Environmental Security Concerns prior to and during Peace Support and/or Crisis Management Operations.” If militaries continue to contribute to climate change and other forms of environmental degradation, they will be partially to blame when they are called in to defuse or clean up future conflicts over scarce, degraded, or rapidly changing resources.
Annica Waleij is a senior analyst and project manager at the Swedish Defence Research Agency’s Division of Chemical, Biological, Radioactive, and Nuclear Defence and Security. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Swedish Ministry of Defence. -
Dispatches From the World Conservation Congress: Jason Bremner on Healthy Environments, Healthy People
›October 8, 2008 // By Jason Bremner
I’ve been busy the last several days attending the “Healthy Environments—Healthy People” stream of the World Conservation Congress. While there has been much talk about the connections between environmental services and people’s livelihoods and allusions to how this links with human health, I’ve been surprised by the scarcity of actual documented linkages between conservation strategies and human health.
This conundrum got me thinking about why there aren’t more people trying to actually evaluate impacts on human health. Do environmentalists simply lack the tools and expertise to evaluate human-health impacts? Are human-health benefits too hard to measure? Or does conservation not really have any human-health benefits? No, no, and no again are my answers to these questions.
I think the real problem is that “healthier people” is really just a good selling-point for conservation rather than a true objective of most conservation institutions. In other words, arguing that environmental health promotes human health is a good way for conservation organizations to expand their constituency.
Am I a jaded conference participant who has simply attended one too many sessions? I don’t think so, based on a meeting I attended last week of the EuroNGOs, a network of European organizations advocating for sexual and reproductive health. The topic of this year’s EuroNGOs meeting? The interface between population, environment, and poverty alleviation. Was this really a group of population and health organizations interested in adding an environmental dimension to their work or interested in the environmental benefits of their work? No—the real purpose was to increase funding for sexual and reproductive health by discussing the links and benefits related to environmental conservation and poverty alleviation. So these are different communities coming together for a common goal: to increase the funding for their particular missions.
Does this mean, however, that it is wrong to advocate for conservation interventions based on health benefits or wrong to advocate for health interventions based on environmental benefits? I don’t think so. I just think we need to do a better job of building bridges across communities. It would have been wonderful to have a few environmental organizations at the EuroNGOs meeting and a few more health organizations at the World Conservation Congress. Perhaps then we would do a better job evaluating the cross-sectoral benefits of our health and environment work.
Jason Bremner is program director for population, health, and environment at the Population Reference Bureau.
Photo courtesy of Geoff Dabelko. -
The More Things Change…Russia Embraces Free Trade (in Nuclear Waste)
›September 29, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. Dabelko
I was disappointed but not surprised to receive a recent e-mail from Wilson Center Senior Scholar Murray Feshbach, warning me off visiting
The beginning of a September 26 St. Petersburg Times article gives us a glimpse of this selective Russian embrace of free trade:Up to 10,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride are expected to travel through St. Petersburg in the next six months, according to the local branch of the international environmental pressure group Bellona….According to official sources, cargos containing depleted uranium hexafluoride arrive in the city on average ten times a month…radioactivity levels near the trains have significantly exceeded the norm on several occasions over the past year.
Environmental and health issues in Russia have not always looked so dire. In the early 1990s, in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, two exciting developments came out of northwest Russia from two unlikely sources: the military and civil society. In one of the most militarized regions of the world, the Russian military cooperated with the Norwegian military and eventually the
Health concerns connected to nuclear waste also formed the basis of a blossoming civil society movement in early-1990s
But even by the mid-1990s, the tide was beginning to turn back to a secretive and securitized approach to environmental data. The celebrated treason case of former Russian submarine captain Aleksandr Nikitin was merely the most visible example of the recriminalization of sharing environmental data. Nikitin’s “crime” was co-authoring the 1996 Bellona Foundation report The Russian Northern Fleet: Sources of Radioactive Contamination. Following a year of imprisonment and the achievement of Amnesty International prisoner status, Nikitin was released, but his celebrated case was succeeded by the Russian government’s broad-stroke efforts to dial back environmental openness and the rights that came with it. We may be seeing the effects of this return to environmental secrecy in the current row over nuclear waste transportation through St. Petersburg.
Photo courtesy of Woodrow Wilson Center. -
Senators McCain, Obama Announce Priorities for Alleviating Poverty, Tackling Climate Change at Clinton Global Initiative
›September 25, 2008 // By Rachel WeisshaarSpeaking at a Clinton Global Initiative plenary session (webcast; podcast) this morning, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) laid out their proposals for addressing the interconnected problems of global poverty, climate change, and disease. Excerpts from each senator’s speech are below.
Senator McCain:
“We can never guarantee our security through military means alone. True security requires a far broader approach using non-military means to reduce threats before they gather strength. This is especially true of our strategic interests in fighting disease and extreme poverty across the globe.”
“Malaria alone kills more than a million people a year, mostly in Africa….To its lasting credit, the federal government in recent years has led the way in this fight. But of course, America is more than its government. Some of the greatest advances have been the work of the Gates Foundation and other groups. And you have my pledge: Should I be elected, I will build on these and other initiatives to ensure that malaria kills no more. I will also make it a priority to improve maternal and child health. Millions around the world today—and especially pregnant women and children—suffer from easily prevented nutritional deficiencies….An international effort is needed to prevent disease and developmental disabilities among children by providing nutrients and food security. And if I am elected president, America will lead that effort, as we have done with the scourge of HIV and AIDS.”
“America helped to spark the Green Revolution in Asia, and…[we] should be at the forefront of an African Green Revolution. We should and must reform our aid programs to make sure they are serving the interests of people in need, and not just serving special interests in Washington. Aid’s not the whole answer, as we know. We need to promote economic growth and opportunities, especially for women, where they do not currently exist. Too often, trade restrictions, combined with costly agricultural subsidies for the special interests, choke off the opportunities for poor farmers and workers abroad to help themselves. That has to change.”
Senator Obama:
“Our security is shared as well. The carbon emissions in Boston or Beijing don’t just pollute the immediate atmosphere, they imperil our planet. Pockets of extreme poverty in Somalia can breed conflict that spills across borders. The child who goes to a radical madrassa outside of Karachi can end up endangering the security of my daughters in Chicago. And the deadly flu that begins in Indonesia can find its way to Indiana within days. Poverty, climate change, extremism, disease—these are issues that offend our common humanity. They also threaten our common security….We must see that none of these problems can be dealt with in isolation; nor can we deny one and effectively tackle another.”
“Our dependence on oil and gas funds terror and tyranny. It’s forced families to pay their wages at the pump, and it puts the future of our planet in peril. This is a security threat, an economic albatross, and a moral challenge of our time.”
“As we develop clean energy, we should share technology and innovations with the nations of the world. This effort to confront climate change will be part of our strategy to alleviate poverty because we know that it is the world’s poor who will feel—and may already be feeling—the effect of a warming planet. If we fail to act, famine could displace hundreds of millions, fueling competition and conflict over basic resources like food and water. We all have a stake in reducing poverty….It leads to pockets of instability that provide fertile breeding-grounds for threats like terror and the smuggling of deadly weapons that cannot be contained by the drawing of a border or the distance of an ocean. And these aren’t simply disconnected corners of an interconnected world. And that is why the second commitment that I’ll make is embracing the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. This will take more resources from the United States, and as president, I will increase our foreign assistance to provide them.”
“Disease stands in the way of progress on so many fronts. It can condemn populations to poverty, prevent a child from getting an education, and yet far too many people still die of preventable illnesses….When I am president, we will set the goal of ending all deaths from malaria by 2015. It’s time to rid the world of a disease that doesn’t have to take lives.” -
Weekly Reading
›“African and global leaders must promote better integration of environment and health sectors and sustain more effective coordination across the continent,” argues an op-ed in The Lancet addressing the recent meeting of African health and environment ministers.Strengthening Land Tenure and Property Rights in Angola evaluates a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project to bolster the land tenure and property rights of Angolans living in peri-urban and rural areas.
According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, rebel groups in the
The Sierra Leone Integrated Diamond Management Program, which “was designed to improve local incentives for clean diamond management, enable local communities to benefit from the diamond resource, and to assist the Government of Sierra Leone (GOSL) in its effort to manage this critical resource,” has achieved considerable success over a short time period, according to a final report on the program.
The 2007 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey, available in full online, covers population; family planning; fertility; child health, mortality, and nutrition; maternal health, mortality, and nutrition; malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases; gender-based violence; and a variety of other topics.
The
