At the Third National Population-Health-Environment (PHE) Conference in Tagaytay City, Philippines, ECSP editor Meaghan Parker spoke with Joan Castro of PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc., who manages the Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management or IPOPCORM project. The Philippines’ rapidly rising population has overwhelmed the fisheries that have traditionally supported the country, but IPOPCORM’s innovative and integrative approach may save families along with the fish and their habitats. In the following podcast, Castro discusses how IPOPCORM’s integrated approach improves reproductive health and coastal resource management more than programs that focus exclusively on reproductive health or the environment—and at a lower total cost. A description of IPOPCORM and its results is available in “Fishing for Families,” the latest issue in our FOCUS series. For more information on population-health-environment connections, please visit our website, www.wilsoncenter.org/phe.

“The impact of climate change is going to be most likely so harmful that it would threaten governments,” said 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner and chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Rajendra K. Pachauri in an interview with Reuters earlier this week. Pachauri focused his remarks on Africa, whose one billion people are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and whose governments frequently lack the capacity to adapt to the impending changes.

“If the situation in Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world, then if the world has a conscience it has to remove that scar,” Pachauri said. While a number of high-profile conflicts in Africa’s recent history have revolved around natural resources, Pachauri warned that environmental change could soon eclipse the so-called “resource curse” as a driver of conflict, citing research predicting that by 2020, climate change could leave between 75 million and 250 million additional Africans without access to water and could reduce the yields of farmers who depend on rain-fed agriculture by half. “Climate change has the potential to be a problem for the maintenance of peace,” he said.

The rapidly worsening global food crisis has hit certain parts of Africa particularly hard—instigating riots in Egypt and Burkina Faso, for example—and with food and water becoming increasingly precious commodities, dire outcomes seem increasingly likely. “The answer,” Pachauri said, “is for developed nations to realize that we are living on one planet. We are all inhabitants of spaceship earth.” But, he conceded, “we are nowhere close yet.”

In his keynote address at the 5th Annual Unite for Sight International Health Conference, held earlier this month, Jeffrey Sachs argued that world leaders must redouble their efforts to alleviate poverty, protect human and environmental health, and balance economic growth and sustainable development. He advocated many of the same solutions that appear in his new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, including increasing investment in sustainable technology research and development; hastening the diffusion of sustainable technologies to the poorer regions of the world; and allocating a smaller percentage of the national budget for military spending and instead achieving the international target of 0.7 percent of GNP for foreign aid.

One part of Sachs’ presentation that was not included in his book was a memo to the next U.S. president, consisting of ten objectives to achieve global sustainability. Included in this list were the following recommendations, which illustrate Sachs’ view that human health, the environment, economic growth, and security are all integrally linked:

• “Stop putting food into the gas tank.” Sachs spoke out against the current U.S. subsidies for converting corn into ethanol. He linked the initiative to the recent global increase in food prices and the resulting turmoil in areas such as Haiti and Burkina Faso.
• Create a global forum for the leaders of dry lands. Sachs argued that it is important for leaders of areas such as Senegal, Mali, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and California to discuss water scarcity, its impact on livelihoods, and strategies to ensure human security.
• Immediately send a U.S. envoy around the world to back climate change negotiations. Sachs emphasized the need for the United States to step up as a leader on curbing climate change and its environmental and social impacts, rather than stalling international cooperation and progress, as he believes the current administration has done.
• Increase U.S. funding for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Sachs disapproved of the U.S. government’s decision to decrease its financial support of the UNFPA, which he argued is instrumental in fueling the voluntary decline of fertility rates in less developed countries. He identified access to contraceptives and reproductive services, the empowerment of girls and women, and the promotion of maternal and child health as crucial strategies for slowing population growth and maintaining resource sustainability.
• Make the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) the heart of international development policy. Sachs noted that he had heard President Bush make reference to the MDGs only once during his two terms in office. He hoped the new administration’s approach to foreign relations and international aid would put a stronger emphasis on achieving the MDGs, which aim to increase health, stability, and prosperity worldwide.

By Global Health Contributor Kai Carter.

The UN Security Council must take quick, decisive action on climate change, argue U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and George Mason University’s Michael Shank in an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor. “A concerted international strategy, on a par with the seriousness and scope of an UN Security Council resolution, is what’s needed to counter this climate crisis.”

The Environment for Development Initiative, a joint venture by U.S. NGO Resources for the Future and the Environmental Economics Unit at Göteborg University in Sweden, has released a set of discussion papers on environmental management in developing countries around the world. The papers highlight case studies from Kenya, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.

“New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears,” published earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, examines whether limited quantities of key resources—including arable land, fresh water, and oil—will curb the world’s growing prosperity. “The resource constraints foreseen by the Club of Rome are more evident today than at any time since the 1972 publication of the think tank’s famous book, ‘The Limits of Growth.’ Steady increases in the prices for oil, wheat, copper and other commodities—some of which have set record highs this month—are signs of a lasting shift in demand as yet unmatched by rising supply.”

New research suggests that strengthening local natural resource management (NRM) can also improve governance and reduce the risk of violent conflict. Community involvement in governing natural resources is vital to successful conflict prevention, however. In this ECSP podcast, Masego Madzwamuse of the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) Region of Southern Africa office describes how IUCN’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Support Programme in Botswana helps communities manage their own rangeland, forests, and water. Illustrating NRM-governance-conflict connections in a different part of the world, David Bray of Florida International University recounts his work in two adjacent watersheds in Guerrero, Mexico—one where strong community-led NRM helped prevent conflict, and another where weak community institutions contributed to violent situations.

Effective development programs require multisectoral strategies, says Roger-Mark De Souza, and succeed by building local and regional partnerships and winning the trust and participation of individuals and communities. In the following podcast, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko discusses integrated development approaches in the Philippines with De Souza, who is the director of foundation and corporate relations at the Sierra Club and formerly the technical director of the Population Reference Bureau’s population, health and environment program. De Souza shares his experiences of how local communities have successfully integrated environmental conservation and population issues to alleviate poverty and improve their quality of life. Many of the issues regarding integrated population, health, and environment approaches discussed in this podcast also appear in an article by De Souza in ECSP Report 10.

2007 was a significant year for China’s environment. An estimated 750,000 people in China died from respiratory illnesses related to air pollution, while approximately 60,000 died from waterborne diseases. China’s food processing and production sectors made headlines around the globe. Growing desertification in north and northwest China due to excessive water use and land mismanagement created more intense and frequent sand storms that affected the economy and health in China and Northeast Asia. In addition, China most likely surpassed the United States as the leading emitter of greenhouse gasses—and while the central government set laudable energy efficiency goals, it recently admitted that China had not met them.

These events have led to growing numbers of environmental health-related protests in China: 51,000 in 2005 and more than 60,000 in 2006. In June 2007, thousands of Xiamen residents protested the construction of a planned chemical plant. And last month, middle class residents of Shanghai took to the streets to oppose potential harm from an extension of China’s magnetic levitation train. As the Chinese government becomes increasingly concerned with the country’s stability, it is beginning to place greater emphasis on mitigating the effects of environmental degradation on its people. Read more about China’s environmental health problems—and what local and international NGOs, governments, and agencies are doing to address them—in China Environment Series 9, the flagship publication of the Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum.

By CEF Program Assistant Linden Ellis.

USAID’s “Adapting to Climate Variability and Change: A Guidance Manual for Development Planning” seeks to help USAID country missions and partners increase their projects’ resiliency to global climate change, though it neglects to mention the links between climate change and population.

The North-South Institute’s Canadian Development Report 2008—Fragile States or Failing Development? (free registration required) assesses reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan; Canada’s contributions to gender equality in Afghanistan and Haiti; and the destabilizing effects development aid and intervention can have in fragile Latin American states.