“I have had a woman say to me, ‘This PHE [population-health-environment approach] makes sense to me because I do not live my life in silos. I live my life in a way that all these things are integrated, and what you are saying to me makes sense, because my life is one of integration,’” said the Sierra Club’s Roger-Mark De Souza, in his lilting Trinidadian baritone.

A study published in Conservation Letters finds that emphasizing the ways the environment benefits the world’s poor “is a substantial improvement over dollar-based, ecosystem-service valuations that undervalue the requirements of the world’s poor” and “offers great hope for reconciling conservation and human development goals.”

In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement, launched at the climate negotiations this week in Bonn, represents a major step forward in the effort to determine how environmental shocks and stresses precipitated by climate change will compel populations to migrate.

According to Family Planning and Economic Well-Being: New Evidence From Bangladesh, a report from the Population Reference Bureau, “long-term investment in an integrated family planning and maternal and child health (FPMCH) program contributes to improved economic security for families, households, and communities through larger incomes, greater accumulation of wealth, and higher levels of education.”

A YouTube video from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows how Darfuri refugees are struggling to manage scarce natural resources in refugee camps in Chad.

Facing Global Environmental Change: Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health, and Water Security Concepts, the fourth volume of the Hexagon Series on Human and Environmental Security and Peace, was launched at a side event to the 17th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development.

The Obama Plan for Energy and Climate Security: Conference Proceedings and Final Recommendations lays out the Center for a New American Security’s recommendations to President Obama for achieving his climate and energy goals.

Wildlife 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.

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Land grab or development opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa, a study conducted by IIED, FAO, and IFAD, is the first detailed study to examine large land acquisitions in sub-Saharan Africa.

The latest issue of Population and Environment (subscription required) includes articles on land, education, and fertility in Kenya; indigenous women and fertility in the Ecuadorian Amazon; and the impact of chemical exposure on sex ratios in Greece.

A partnership between local villages and the Bonobo Conservation Initiative has led to the establishment of a 1,847 square mile reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reports Mongabay.

A new article in the Encyclopedia of the Earth lists population growth rates (including births, deaths, and migration) by country, based on CIA data.

Integrated population-health-environment (PHE) programs “are very cost-effective ways” to develop “community capacity—to strengthen their know-how, and bring…in some additional appropriate technologies” to promote livelihoods, says Leona D’Agnes in this short expert analysis from the Environmental Change and Security Program.

The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof aptly describes the connections between poverty and lack of access to family planning in a recent op-ed, using a Haitian woman named Nahomie as an example. He rightly argues that we won’t be able to end poverty until women are able to choose how many children to have. He also notes that relative funding levels for family planning have decreased in recent decades, and that development professionals’ attention has shifted to other issues. Yet 201 million women around the world still have an unmet need for family planning.

One of the few off notes in Kristof’s article, I think, is his portrayal of family planning as a difficult, challenging intervention. Of course, it is more complicated than simply giving birth control pills to women and condoms to men. But community health workers with little formal education have been successfully trained to deliver family-planning services to remote communities in developing countries.

While I recognize he has space limitations, Kristof neglected to mention that in Haiti, poverty and lack of access to family planning are linked to severe environmental degradation and natural disasters. A 2006 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) report found that “the root causes of environmental disaster in Haiti are acute poverty, rapid population growth, and unplanned urbanization.” To meet their daily needs, the rapidly growing population resorts to unsustainable agricultural and energy practices that deforest and erode the countryside—or move to increasingly crowded cities.

At a Wilson Center presentation in August 2006, USAID’s Rochelle Rainey reported that 40 percent of Haitian women wished to use contraception but did not have access to it. Modern contraceptive methods are used by only 23 percent of the population, contributing to a total fertility rate of 4.9 children per woman. As Ronald Toussaint, a Haitian biodiversity specialist, said: “If we don’t address population issues, it is like the Creole phrase, ‘wash your hands and then rub them in the dirt.’”

Photo: Children in Haiti. Courtesy of Flickr user Billtacular.

“The idea of being a citizen of the world is still controversial,” said Strobe Talbott at a March 12, 2009, event examining the “great experiment” of global governance. Nevertheless, Talbott, president of The Brookings Institution, argued that global governance will be key to solving three of the greatest challenges the world faces: nuclear proliferation, climate change, and the financial crisis. This event was co-sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program and the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital.

From Imperialism to Internationalism: The “Great Experiment” of Global Governance

“Bad news has often been the mother of good news” in the long history of global governance, Talbott said. Imperialism “brought fractious tribes and cultures together under a single authority—an attempt at global governance that ultimately failed.”

In the wake of World War I’s destruction came the League of Nations, a stab at global governance that lacked American support and “failed abysmally at preventing the Second World War,” Talbott noted. World War II spawned the United Nations, which was more successful due to the United States’ participation and influence.

From the ashes of the Cold War rose a more interconnected Europe, which Talbott affectionately referred to as the “Euro-mess”—a “system in which multiple countries make common cause in the face of common challenges,” he said. “Part of what we must hope for in the years ahead is the emergence of a more robust ‘globo-mess’—the creation and strengthening of regional and global organizations.”

Global Governance for Global Challenges

According to Talbott, the nuclear arms control treaties exemplify effective global governance in the pursuit of the ultimate common goal: the survival of the human race. “We need to build on past experiences and existing institutions to address challenges like climate change and financial regulation,” he said.

Talbott suggested that we use the existing nuclear nonproliferation regime to build an effective climate control system that ensures that “civilian nuclear power—which we are going to be seeing a lot more of—will be safe and confined to peaceful purposes.”

Similarly, a global financial regime could help bolster the effectiveness of a climate regime by stabilizing the world’s credit markets, enabling them to help “finance commercially viable technologies to end our dependence on fossil fuel,” Talbott said. “If we’re going to have efficient, equitable markets in which to trade in carbon allotments,” we will need a robust global economic regime, as well, he said.

With global governance, “progress has almost always been reactive. But in dealing with climate change, progress needs to be proactive,” as when the world has come together to prevent nuclear war, Talbott said. “If we fail to recognize our own obligations as citizens of the world,” he warned, “we risk, if not our own lives, then the lives of our children and their children.”

Photo: Strobe Talbott. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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