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PODCAST – Lester Brown on Climate Change and Energy Security
›November 13, 2008 // By Wilson Center Staff“When looking at what we need to do, I think stabilizing climate, stabilizing population are the two big ones. If we fail at either of those…civilization is in serious trouble,” warns Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC, in the latest podcast from the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). Following a recent event, “Thinking Outside the Grid: An Aggressive Approach to Climate and Energy,” co-sponsored by Wilson Center on the Hill and ECSP, Brown elaborated on the themes of his latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, and addressed climate change’s impact on natural resources, food security, and energy independence. He argues that the United States must critically re-examine its energy infrastructure and invest heavily in alternative energy technologies. -
Caroline Thomas: Environmental, Human Security Pioneer
›November 12, 2008 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoI never met Caroline Thomas. But I certainly benefited from her human security insights.
The Southampton University professor passed away last month at 49, leaving behind notable contributions to the field of environment and human security. In her 1987 volume In Search of Security: The Third World in International Relations, Thomas was one of the first to enunciate the insufficiency of traditional security approaches. She explained that statist security perspectives said little about the immediate environment, development, and health threats facing the majority of the world’s population—residents of the so-called Third World.
Thomas’ call for a broader definition of security was rooted in her focus on pressing threats to human well-being in developing countries. In an obituary of Thomas in The Guardian, Tony Evans describes the book’s contributions:While today the term is used in a variety of contexts – environmental security, food security, fresh water security, health security and so on – this was not the case until the 1980s. Security previously meant only the military security of the state. In proposing to broaden the agenda beyond its narrow focus on war and arms control, Caroline sought to include issues that confront the people of the developing nations, rather than their states….Caroline argued that questions of security and insecurity were qualitatively different for people in developing nations because the imperial powers had withdrawn, having paid little regard for their future. The people of decolonised states were left in conditions of economic, political, social and military turmoil, with fewer resources for avoiding future misery.
Reflecting a common British academic perspective, Thomas highlighted power inequities between the global North and South in the post-colonial era. At the same time, she did not undercut the utility of her arguments by descending into over-the-top caricatures or creating straw-man arguments, blunders that other British critics of environmental and human security research have not always managed to avoid.
Thomas’ focus on power extended to inequities in market relationships. Much of the early environment and conflict work spent too little time considering international trade in natural resources between developing and developed countries and consumer behavior in industrialized nations. Too often, early environment and conflict research focused narrowly on the local dynamics of natural resource extraction or environmental scarcity and what roles they played in contributing to violent conflict.
Thomas’s work should place her permanently on the short list of key early contributors responsible for broadening security’s definitions. -
Weekly Reading
›Military leaders and climate experts gathered in Paris for a November 3-5 conference on the role of the military in combating climate change. A conference report will include “proven strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving military effectiveness.”
The 2008 Africa Population Data Sheet, a joint project of the Population Reference Bureau and the African Population and Health Research Center, reveals significant differences between northern and sub-Saharan Africa. Also from PRB, “Reproductive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa” examines family planning use, family size, maternal mortality, and HIV/AIDS in major subregions of sub-Saharan Africa.
In the October 2008 issue of Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Alexander Tyler of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for Somalia argues that longer-term livelihoods projects must be incorporated into emergency humanitarian relief efforts. The authors of the Center for American Progress report The Cost of Reaction: The Long-Term Costs of Short-Term Cures (reviewed on the New Security Beat) would likely agree; they argue that although emergency aid is necessary, “what is true in our own lives is true on the international stage—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
The Dining & Wine section of the New York Times profiles a Quichua community in the Ecuadorian Amazon that has formed a successful chocolate cooperative with the help of a volunteer for a biodiversity foundation. “They wanted to find a way to survive and thrive as they faced pressure from companies that sought to log their hardwood trees, drill on their land for oil and mine for gold,” reports the Times. -
Fertile Fringes: Population Growth Near Protected Areas
›November 7, 2008 // By Rachel Weisshaar
“Protected areas are the backbone of biodiversity conservation strategies,” so it is critical to examine how population growth is affecting them, said Justin Brashares of the University of California, Berkeley, at “Fertile Fringes: Population Growth at Protected-Area Edges,” an October 22, 2008, meeting sponsored by the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). “Biodiversity conservation objectives are being impacted by higher deforestation rates, [natural resource] offtake rates, [and] increasing pressure on the protected area” due to high local population growth, explained George Wittemyer of Colorado State University. Brashares and Wittemyer, who recently co-authored an article on population and protected areas in Science, were joined by Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau.
To Stay or To Go?
“Many of the protected areas that we have today in sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America are carryovers of areas set aside by colonial governments,” said Brashares, “and for many researchers and for many communities, the creation of parks is seen to come at the cost of local communities.” Yet certain features can encourage people to move near protected areas, including:- Services made available by foreign assistance, such as health care, education, and livelihoods programs;
- Employment opportunities as park staff or in the tourism industry;
- Better ecosystem services, including food, water, wood, and traditional medicine;
- Easier access to markets, due to roads built to attract tourism; and
- Improved security provided by park guards and government staff.
Other features of protected areas deter migrants, including:
- Land-use restrictions;
- Conflict with wildlife (e.g., attacks on livestock and crops);
- Disadvantages associated with tourism, including higher cost of living and potential loss of cultural heritage;
- Isolation from urban centers; and
- Conflict with park staff, government representatives, or rural militias.
Higher Population Growth Near Protected Areas
Brashares and Wittemyer examined IUCN Category I and II protected areas in Africa and Latin America—which limit human activity within their boundaries—and excluded potentially confounding urban, marine, and new parks. Using UN Environment Programme population data from 1960-2000, they compared population growth in a 10-kilometer “buffer zone” surrounding each protected area with average rural population growth for that country. In 245 of the 306 parks they examined—and 38 of the 45 countries—population growth at protected-area edges was significantly higher than average national rural population growth.
Brashares and Wittemyer found three factors correlated with higher levels of population growth: more money for parks (as measured by protected-area funds from the Global Environment Facility); more park employees; and more deforestation on the edges of protected areas. Brashares emphasized, however, that there could be equally relevant correlations between population growth and employment in extractive industries, but that “the timber industry won’t give us their data and the mining industry and the oil industries aren’t so happy to share.” Thus, the study might inadvertently penalize NGOs and international organizations for their transparency.
Some researchers hypothesized that because protected areas are usually located in ecologically dynamic areas, this ecological wealth might be attracting new residents, rather than the protected areas themselves. But Brashares and Wittemyer found that proximity to a protected area, not general ecological abundance, was driving the trend. Others suspected that population grows at protected-area edges because the people who have been displaced by the creation of a park move to the park’s border. But population growth rates within the parks have been mostly stable or positive, so Brashares and Wittemyer doubt this is driving the trend.
Implications for Conservation
Brashares and Wittemyer outlined several policy implications of their research:- Emerging infectious diseases are a serious risk in areas with high human density close to wildlife populations, so governments and international organizations should try to limit potential outbreaks near protected areas.
- If the effectiveness of a protected area is measured by its ability to preserve biodiversity for generations, then community development programs must be executed carefully. For instance, roads and schools should not be built in an ecologically fragile corridor between two parks.
- Multi-use buffer zones that make core areas less accessible can allow individuals to continue to benefit from their proximity to nature while protecting biodiversity. “Some of the best protection of biodiversity is through isolation,” said Brashares.
Bremner took issue with some of Brashares’ and Wittemyer’s methods and conclusions; his full critique is available on the New Security Beat. Although Bremner agreed that migration—not natural increase—is likely driving higher population growth around protected areas, he believed the authors did not provide adequate evidence to demonstrate that this migration is driven by investments in conservation. “I hope that publishing this conclusion here in Science doesn’t provide our detractors, those who don’t want us to be spending on conservation, with the means to limit future spending for international conservation,” said Bremner.
Photo: Justin Brashares. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.
For more information, including a webcast of this event, visit ECSP’s website. To receive invitations to future events, e-mail ecsp@wilsoncenter.org. -
Field Trips: Success Stories from PHE Programs in Kenya, DRC, and Madagascar
›November 7, 2008 // By Will Rogers
People in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (
Improving Health, Conservation, Livelihoods in an Insecure Region
According to Merlo, charcoal production, illegal mining, poaching, and ongoing conflict have converged to create a punishing environment for conservationists in Landscape 10, a 50,000-square kilometer region in eastern
For instance, a micro-hydroelectric power plant in Kasugho village—backed by the
The
Healthy Communities Lead to Healthy Environments
“People on the forefront [of conservation] need to be healthy…in order to be able to accomplish conservation,” argued
A Dose of a Vaccine, a Dose of Conservation
“Although we protect marine turtles on our side of the border, they are butchered across the border” in
In
WWF implemented a fishing-gear exchange program to reduce the incidence of illegal gear; improve fishermen’s income by using legal, larger mesh nets that catch bigger fish; and bolster the health of the environment. WWF has also supported beach cleanup by creating programs where local residents turn flotsam like flip-flops into art—in some instances increasing household income by US $130 per month.
“By and large, the conservation world is practiced by biologists, and therefore we may not know how to deal with changing peoples’ behaviors and attitudes,” Weru said. To be truly effective in implementing a PHE program, “you need skills beyond the biological, the ecological skills—you need social skills.”
Photo: Sam Weru. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.
For more information, including a webcast of this event, visit ECSP’s website. To receive invitations to future events, e-mail ecsp@wilsoncenter.org. -
United Nations Observes International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict
›November 6, 2008 // By Rachel Weisshaar
Each November 6, the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict passes by, largely unnoticed. But as the UN General Assembly noted in 2001 when it gave the day official status, “damage to the environment in times of armed conflict”—including poisoning of water supplies and agricultural land; habitat and crop destruction; and damage resulting from the use of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons—“impairs ecosystems and natural resources long beyond beyond the period of conflict, and often extends beyond the limits of national territories and the present generation.”
In a written statement issued today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon points out that although natural resources are often exploited during war, they are also essential to establishing peace:The environment and natural resources are crucial in consolidating peace within and between war-torn societies. Several countries in the Great Lakes Region of Africa established trans-boundary cooperation to manage their shared natural resources. Lasting peace in Darfur will depend in part on resolving the underlying competition for water and fertile land. And there can be no durable peace in Afghanistan if the natural resources that sustain livelihoods and ecosystems are destroyed.
As the Development Gateway Foundation’s Environment and Development Community emphasizes, “[e]nvironmental security, both for reducing the threats of war, and in successfully rehabilitating a country following conflict, must no longer be viewed as a luxury but needs to be seen as a fundamental part of a long lasting peace policy.”
Some of the United Nations’ most important contributions to illuminating the links between conflict and environmental degradation are the excellent post-conflict environmental assessments that the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Disasters and Conflicts Programme has carried out in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Sudan, among other countries. UNEP is currently preparing to conduct an assessment of Rwanda’s environment.
Photo: A Kuwaiti oil field set afire by retreating Iraqi troops burns in the distance beyond an abandoned Iraqi tank following Operation Desert Storm. Courtesy of Flickr user Leitmotiv. -
Support Grows for Integrating Environment, Energy, Economy, Security in U.S. Government
›November 5, 2008 // By Rachel WeisshaarA new presidential administration always gives rise to a certain amount of bureaucratic restructuring. But for months now, momentum has been building behind the notion that governments need to improve the integration of their environmental, energy, economic, and security policies. Last month, Edward Miliband was named head of the UK government’s new department of energy and climate change. Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper tapped former industry minister Jim Prentice to lead a new ministry of environment, economy, and energy security. “I think that, as more and more countries are coming to realize, we cannot separate environmental and economic policy,” said Harper.
Yesterday, Grist’s David Roberts, noting that responsibility for addressing climate change is currently spread among the departments of State, Defense, Interior, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and Energy, offered several possibilities for restructuring the U.S. government to improve its ability to address climate change and energy, including creating a cabinet-level Secretary of Climate; expanding and empowering the Department of Energy or the Environmental Protection Agency; or—my favorite—appointing “some kind of czar,” because “[e]verybody loves a czar.”
Initiatives linking these challenges are popping up in Congress, universities, and the military. Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) frequently speaks of the interrelated challenges of energy, environment, security, and economic growth “[O]ur addiction to foreign oil is a threat to our economic security, environmental security, and national security,” he said last year. The University of Colorado Law School recently established the Center for Energy and Environmental Security, which develops practical solutions to help move the world toward a sustainable energy future. In addition, the 2008 National Defense Strategy explicitly links energy, environment, and security: “Over the next twenty years physical pressures—population, resource, energy, climatic and environmental—could combine with rapid social, cultural, technological and geopolitical change to create greater uncertainty.”
A few small-scale initiatives to integrate environmental, economic, energy, and security policies within the U.S. government already exist. Yesterday, Carol Dumaine, deputy director for energy and environmental security at the Department of Energy, delivered a talk at the Harvard University Center for the Environment where she discussed a fledgling project to use unclassified data and a global network of experts in government, industry, and NGOs to identify interrelated environmental and energy security threats. Dumaine presented on the same project at a September 2008 conference on open-source intelligence sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will continue this and other ongoing projects, or instead launch new projects of its own on these issues. -
Probing Population Growth Near Protected Areas
›Justin Brashares and George Wittemyer’s recent article in Science, “Accelerated Human Population Growth at Protected Area Edges,” presents data showing that average population growth at the edges of protected areas in Africa and Latin America is nearly double average rural population growth in the same countries. The authors argue that this phenomenon is due to migration, as people from surrounding areas are drawn to the health-care and livelihoods programs made available to people expelled from the parks.
It’s not news that high population growth rates have implications for conservation, both in terms of land-cover change and biodiversity loss. Yet at last month’s World Conservation Congress, I heard scarcely a mention of population growth or other demographic factors. So I appreciate that the authors are urging us to look at this aspect of conservation. In addition, by studying a large number of countries and protected areas, their work helps move our thinking beyond the inherent limitations of case studies focused on a single protected area.
I feel obligated to take issue with a few of the authors’ assumptions, methods, and conclusions, however. For instance, the authors compare growth rates for individual protected areas with national rural rates, and find the former are significantly higher in the vast majority of cases. I wonder why they don’t make the comparisons with the rural population growth rates for the region in which the protected area is located, since that seems as if it would make for an even more compelling argument.
My second issue is a note of caution regarding gridded population data. The creation of a gridded population layer depends both on the size of the population data units and the way in which the population is distributed. Given the inherent inaccuracies in this process at detailed levels of analysis, how can we be sure that the populations for the 10 km “buffer areas” surrounding the protected areas are accurate? Is there any way to validate these data, and how would errors impact the authors’ analysis? This issue is particularly important because rural areas tend to have large administrative units and sparse populations.
My third issue is with the authors’ examination of infant mortality rates as a proxy for poverty. The authors analyzed poverty in an attempt to determine whether poverty-driven population growth was informing their result; they concluded it was not. Measures of infant mortality are notoriously poor at the local level, and the authors need to go further in assessing what portion of growth is due to migration and what portion due to natural increase. While such an analysis would take time, it is necessary, given higher fertility in remote rural areas.
Despite my reservations about how the authors came to their conclusion, I tend to agree that migration is driving higher population growth in areas of high biodiversity and around protected areas. The reasons for migration, however, are diverse, and my fourth issue is that I don’t think the authors provide adequate evidence to demonstrate that conservation investments are driving migration to these areas. My three main reasons for taking issue with this finding:- The number of protected areas in the world has grown rapidly over the last 40 years, and they are generally located in sparsely populated areas. During this same period, the populations of most African and Latin American countries have doubled at least once. Thus, people have migrated to new frontiers—often near protected areas—seeking available agricultural land.
- Extractive industries—including timber, mining, oil and gas, and industrial agriculture—often provide lucrative jobs near protected areas. These jobs offer migrants far greater economic benefits than the meager amounts spent on conservation. Tourism is likely the only industry than can compete with these industries in attracting migrants, and only in areas with high numbers of visitors.
- The correlations the authors found between population growth and Global Environment Facility spending and population growth and protected area staff could, as the authors note, simply mean that conservationists are wisely spending their limited dollars on the protected areas facing the greatest threats.
Jason Bremner is program director of the Population Reference Bureau’s Population, Health, and Environment Program.
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