Showing posts from category environment.
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‘Marketplace’ and ‘NewsHour’ Highlight Population, Health, and Environment Program in the Philippines
›The Danajon reef is the only double barrier reef in the Philippines, “one of the richest marine biodiversity hot spots in the world,” and it’s being devastated as the country’s exploding population depends on its waters for their food and livelihoods, reported Sam Eaton in a recent two-part series on population, health, and environment issues in the Philippines broadcast last month for American Public Media’s Marketplace and the PBS NewsHour.
The report is part of joint project called Food for 9 Billion, with Homelands Productions, the Center for Investigative Reporting, APM, and PBS. Previous reports examined food security in East Africa and Egypt.
The Philippines “import more rice than any other country on the planet,” said Eaton. The “highest population growth rates in all of Southeast Asia” as well as dwindling natural resources – nearly 100 million people live in a land area the size of Arizona – have created a cycle of poverty. The first step to breaking that cycle, he said, is improving access to family planning.
Growing Families, Growing Poverty
The Canayong family, living on the edge of a garbage dump in a Manila slum, offers a vivid example of what poverty means in the Philippines. Clarissa Canayong has had 14 children – 4 died from measles and dengue fever, the remaining 10 spend their days alongside Clarissa, sifting through the dump for things they need and things they can sell. At the end of a good day, the family has earned around $7 to survive on. All in all, Clarissa’s “inability to provide enough food, and to pay for her children’s education, all but guarantees she and her family will remain poor,” said Eaton.
The archipelago adds about two million people every year, putting population on track to double in size sometime around 2080. “And that’s only if something is done to close the birth control gap,” said Eaton, as those projections build in an expectation that growth will slow.
“As cities all across the country expand, the displaced often end up migrating to urban slums,” he said. “Population growth among poor Filipinos is twice the national average,” meaning that once a family enters poverty, they end up in a cycle “that’s nearly impossible to break.”
The Difference Family Planning Can Make
If Clarissa had had access to family planning, she told Eaton, she would have wanted to have only two children. In Humayhumay, where residents have access to a community-based family planning distribution program started by PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc., families have that luxury of choice.
Working through local partners, the PATH Foundation identifies and trains community-based vendors to sell contraception – both pills and condoms, said Dr. Joan Castro, who began the program in Humayhumay. The idea is to make buying contraceptives “as easy as buying soft drinks or matches.”
Both Jason Bostero, a farmer and fisherman in Humayhuay, and his wife, Crisna, grew up in large families – so large, in Crisna’s case, that “sometimes, we would only eat once a day because we were so poor. We couldn’t go to school. I did not finish school because there were just so many of us,” she told Eaton.
Now that they have access to contraceptives, a smaller family size means their income is “just right” to feed everyone three times a day. For the community as a whole, smaller family sizes mean that the nearby fish stocks that provide the community with food and income have a chance to replenish themselves in the absence of overfishing.
“In just six years since the program was first established here,” reported Eaton, “family sizes have plummeted from as many as 12 children to a maximum of about 4 today.”
Exception to the Rule
Humayhumay is an exception to the rule in the Philippines. There is no state funding for birth control in the country, and over the past few years, major international donors like USAID and the United Nations have ended their family planning work in the country. More than a quarter of poor Filipinos have no access to any type of family planning service, and more than half of all pregnancies are unintended, said Eaton.
Family planning has long been a contentious issue in the country. Eaton spoke to Congressman Walden Bello, who has spent more than a decade trying to pass legislation to establish universal access to birth control and improve other family planning and reproductive services. The Catholic Church, said Bello, is a powerful (80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic) and consistent opponent. In October 2010, the Church went so far as to threaten President Benigno Aquino with excommunication after he voiced support for access to contraception.
Rather than limit population growth, the Church argues the country should increase food production. But land is limited, rice imports are already the highest in the world, and, “according to the World Bank, every major species of fish here shows signs of severe overfishing,” said Eaton.
Looking Forward and Abroad
Eaton pointed to the Philippines’ neighbors as examples to emulate: “A long history of government-supported family planning has…paved the way for Thailand to become one of the world’s biggest rice exporters” and helped to cut back poverty in the country, said Eaton.
Indonesia too, he pointed out, has largely avoided the population growth-resource depletion-poverty cycle, thanks in part to a state- and faith-backed family planning program. (As Elizabeth Leahy Madsen wrote in a recent New Security Beat post, the decision of Indonesia’s religious leaders to throw their support behind family planning in the 1960s was a key factor in success there.)
Considering the obstacles, the Philippines face an uphill battle before family planning services become similarly universal. But the political tides may already be turning: last April, the President said he would support the reproductive health legislation even if it meant excommunication.
Meanwhile, PATH Foundation’s Castro is hopeful that Humayhumay’s success story will lay the seeds for widespread public support for family planning. “The vision of the project is in this community you see more children educated who are able to become leaders and speak out for themselves in the future and be able to become stewards of their own sexuality and the future environment,” said Castro. “This is the legacy.”
Sources: BBC, Bloomberg News, Catholic News Agency, The Guardian, Population Reference Bureau, TIME Magazine, US Agency for International Development, U.S. Catholic. -
Eric Zuehlke, Population Reference Bureau
Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar Connect Family Planning With Environmental Health
›February 10, 2012 // By Wilson Center StaffRemote rural communities in developing countries typically face the related challenges of extreme poverty, poor health, and environmental degradation. And population growth often exacerbates these challenges. In communities that face environmental challenges along with high fertility and high maternal and child mortality, health programs that include family planning can have great benefits for the health and well-being of women and families, with positive influences on the local environment. Meeting the reproductive health needs of women and ensuring environmental sustainability by connecting family planning with environment programs has proven to be a “win-win” strategy. Yet this connection has often been seen as controversial or irrelevant to environmental policymaking.
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Kim Lovell, Sierra Club
Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations
›February 8, 2012 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Kim Lovell, appeared on the Sierra Club’s activist network.
“Population, development, and climate should be a single discussion,” explained Jacques van Zuydam of South Africa’s National Population Unit. Van Zuydam, speaking to a sparsely filled room at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban last month, centers his work around the concept that climate matters because people matter.
Given the focus on the Green Climate Fund, climate change adaptation, and the effects of sea-level rise and changing weather patterns on some of the world’s most vulnerable populations, it would have made sense for discussions about population to play a central role at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP-17). Yet despite these obvious links – and lead negotiator Jonathan Pershing’s admission to the U.S. youth delegation that population plays a central role when discussing climate impacts – the issue gained little traction in the formal negotiations.
Pershing said he considers population “too controversial” to play a role in the international climate talks, and recommended raising the issue elsewhere. But where better to talk about the need for increased access to voluntary family planning services than among a group of world leaders considering solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change?
As Brian O’Neill and his colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research explained in a 2010 paper, meeting the unmet need for contraceptive services worldwide could reduce emissions in 2050 by 1.4 to 2.5 billion tons of carbon per year, or 16 to 29 percent of the emissions reductions necessary to avoid dangerous changes to our climate. And beyond the potential effects on carbon, increasing access to education and family planning resources will have a huge impact on the ability of women and families to adapt to the effects of climate change that are already altering weather patterns, water availability, and agricultural production around the globe.
Continue reading at Sierra Club.
Sources: Amplify.
Image Credit: UNFCCC/Climate Change Information Center of Armenia. -
Ryan Britton: Addressing Population in Science Media for ‘EarthSky’
›“What we do is educate the general public and advocate on behalf of science to the general public,” said EarthSky Managing Partner Ryan Britton in this interview with ECSP. “Ultimately we try to bring science to people who don’t normally get science information.”
Part of that effort is addressing population dynamics – growth, aging, youth, food security, etc. – which is often a challenging subject. EarthSky’s coverage over the last year included a series of radio shows on global food security and the “year of seven billion,” which won them a second Global Media Award from the Population Institute in January (alongside New Security Beat!).
EarthSky productions appear on television, radio, online, and in multiple languages. “For us, it’s about getting science out to the general public as best we can,” said Britton.
In terms of population-related issues, he said, allocation of resources, how growing population is affecting ecology and biodiversity, and the effects of climate change are all topics on their radar. “But we do it within the lens of talking about humanity and our continued prosperity,” Britton said. “That’s important for people to hear – what are the solutions, how are we going to get through this, how are we going to be OK? And so those are the questions we’ll keep asking.” -
Water and Population: Limits to Growth?
›February 3, 2012 // By Laurie MazurWater – essential, finite, and increasingly scarce – has been dubbed “the new oil.” Experts debate whether human societies are approaching “peak water,” beyond which lies a bleak future of diminishing supplies and soaring demand. Others observe that, for many, the water crisis has already arrived.
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Paul Francis, Deirdre LaPin, and Paula Rossiasco for the Africa Program
Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta: A Social and Conflict Analysis for Change
›Excerpted below is the introduction by Steve McDonald. The full report is available for download from the Wilson Center’s Africa Program.
This study, Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta: A Social and Conflict Analysis for Change, draws together a vast range of information about Nigeria’s delta region not previously available in a single publication. It richly illuminates the social history and underlying causes of unrest in the area. Equally important, the study adds to the empirical research available to us about conflict prevention and approaches to post-conflict reconstruction in regions harmed by the extraction of natural resources.
It examines the complex interactions between the social, political, economic, environmental, and security factors that drive and sustain conflict. It also reviews the main policy responses and initiatives that have already been brought to bear in the delta and maps out key policy options for the future.
Encouragingly, the study finds that many of the elements of sustainable pathways to development and peace already exist or can readily be realized. What is needed is a systematic framework and, most critically, a leadership consensus and the political will to marshal them. Nigeria’s development partners are already showing a renewed commitment to support solutions to the delta’s challenges. Imaginative dialogue and partnership between them and with critical stakeholders in government, the private sector, civil society, and communities holds the promise of yielding effective strategies for sustainable development and peace that befit the region’s unique character and history.
This study, then, emerges at a time of particular opportunity and hope. And yet it must be noted that the present time also holds a considerable potential risk. Without appropriate and thoughtful action, the legitimate aspirations of the citizens of the delta and their compatriots in Nigeria as a whole will, yet again, go unrewarded. For the Niger Delta today, any plan or project must be rooted in practical and active understanding of the origins and risks of conflict in order to sustain the momentum of peaceful development and avoid planning that does not take into account the dynamics of conflict and its core causes.
Finally, the importance of the issues dealt with in this study extends beyond the delta or Nigeria as a nation. They are much broader when viewed from Nigeria’s place in the sub-region and the world economy. While the delta is unique, there are also lessons that can be learned for other conflict situations, and especially for the expanding number of new oil producing countries along the Guinea coast. For all, the key lesson is that peace is hard work. It requires a leadership committed to equitable government, dialogue with citizens, and sustainable development.
Download the full report from the Wilson Center. -
What Would It Take To Help People ‘and’ the Planet?
›February 1, 2012 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoThe original version of this article first appeared in the “Scientist’s Soapbox” column of Momentum magazine’s special issue on “what would it take” to craft solutions to some of the Earth’s toughest challenges.
People living in the most biodiverse areas of the world tend to be poor, isolated, and dependent on natural resources. They often lack reliable access to alternative livelihoods and health services and thus can place stress on these ecologically unique regions.
Conservation efforts will merely slow habitat loss if they don’t fundamentally address the living conditions of the human residents as well as the flora and fauna. But programs to assist these communities have commonly focused on one problem at a time, reflecting the interests of the funders: Environmental groups focus on conservation, while health organizations concentrate on disease. We must ask whether investments to protect biologically rich areas are effective and sustainable if they don’t respond to the many needs of the people who live there.
But the problems faced by people in these remote areas don’t fit our traditional sectors. The way we disburse our funds, divide our bureaucracies, demarcate our disciplines, and measure success ignores the reality of intersecting needs. Such stovepiping can disrespect the communities’ scarce resources, especially their time. It can waste development aid on duplicate supplies and staff. And it can lead us to miss how the solution to one problem (e.g., providing antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS) can be undercut by another (e.g., lacking access to safe water with which to take the pills).
So, what would it take to help particularly vulnerable populations while protecting particularly important ecological systems?
We need to strategically target our help by addressing HELP – health, environment, livelihoods, and population – through a truly integrated approach to sustainable development in these areas. Evidence suggests tackling problems concurrently can be more efficient and effective. Key donors such as the U.S. Agency for International Development are increasingly prioritizing integrated responses, providing some funding for sustainable development innovators and supporting evaluation of the results. But we need more evidence that these efforts can achieve results that match or exceed the outcomes of single-sector projects. To rigorously test this approach, more projects must be funded, implemented and analyzed, over longer periods of time and at bigger scales.
To date, some promising projects and research in diverse locations – Ethiopia, Nepal, Madagascar, Rwanda, the Philippines, and Uganda – suggest that the HELP approach offers greater benefits than traditional programs.
In the Philippines, for example, the PATH Foundation Philippines’ Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) program addresses pressing needs for both family planning services and sustainable environmental stewardship in densely populated coastal communities, where local fisheries have been depleted because of increased demand for food. IPOPCORM helps create marine protected areas and promotes alternative economic livelihoods such as seaweed harvesting, thus allowing critical local fish stocks to recover. Concurrently, the initiative mitigates human-induced pressures on the environment and lowers the vulnerability of this underserved population by providing voluntary family planning services. Since its launch in 2001, the IPOPCORM program’s approach has yielded measurable benefits, simultaneously reducing program costs and improving health and environmental outcomes – and outperforming compartmentalized, side-by-side sector interventions.
How can we bring HELP to biodiversity-rich communities? First, we can encourage scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers to step outside their stovepipes by producing and distributing manuals, for example, based on lessons learned from existing cross-disciplinary projects. Second, we must bridge the gap between analysis and field-based programs by developing new metrics that better assess the impact of integrated programs. Third, we must open up bureaucratic funding structures by demonstrating not only the short-term savings but also the synergies that bolster long-term sustainability.
The challenges are significant, but I see promising new opportunities for overcoming them. For example, the new Pathfinder International-led projects around Lake Victoria in Uganda and Kenya mark the entry of a respected health organization into the environmental arena and the return of a leading private funder – the MacArthur Foundation – to HELP programs. With some of Africa’s highest population densities, poverty, ethnic diversity, and biodiversity, the Great Lakes region is one of the most volatile intersections of human development and environmental change.
Through these and other community-based, integrated projects, we can truly help people and the planet at the same time.
Photo Credit: “Boy on road east of Addis,” courtesy of Geoff Dabelko/Wilson Center. -
Richard Black: Future Climate-Migration Interactions Will Stress Cities, “Trap” Vulnerable Populations
›“In a 50-year time span, climate change, in particular, is likely to have a quite a strong impact on the drivers of migration,” said Richard Black, professor of human geography at University of Sussex and lead author of Migration and Global Environmental Change: Future Challenges and Opportunities. “But in a way that is different to what has been understood until now.”
