-
Role-Playing—for a Serious Purpose
›December 10, 2007 // By Gib ClarkeThe country of Arborlind is in bad shape. It falls in the bottom quarter of countries on the Human Development Index, and much of the majority-rural population lives on $1 a day. In addition, Arborlind is experiencing rapid population growth, and 40 percent of the population is under the age of 15. Deforestation and environmental degradation continue unabated in Arborlind, as families depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, and agriculture is often carried out unsustainably.
Nevertheless, there is hope that Arborlind’s natural beauty, impressive landscapes, and unique flora and fauna will translate into an adventure tourism market that will help turn around the country’s economy. This is particularly true in Floriana National Park, home not only to unique plants and animals, but also to the indigenous Sedentaire and—for part of the year—Wandran tribes.
The future of Floriana is a topic of much debate in Arborlind. The Conservonly Foundation of California wants to preserve it, but demands that all people be removed and prevented from re-entering. Civil society prioritizes poverty alleviation and livelihood generation, and is also fighting for improving human health and the environment. The private sector wants a positive regulatory environment that allows the tourism and agribusiness industries access to land and water resources. Finally, the government of Arborlind wants to improve the economy and protect the tribes, but more than anything else wants to prevent the conflict between these groups from turning into an embarrassing scene just two months before it hosts soccer’s African Cup.
This was the situation that health and environment practitioners, policymakers, scholars, and journalists were presented with at a conference last month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The participants in the Arborlind simulation—written by ECSP’s Geoff Dabelko and Gib Clarke, along with Shewaye Deribe Woldeyohannes of the Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resources Association—switched roles for an afternoon, as they sought solutions to the problems in Arborlind. Wearing different hats—a health minister playing the part of a hotelier, for example—participants reported gaining new perspectives and increased understanding of sustainable development challenges and potential solutions.
The simulation exercise was part of the “Population, Health, and Environment: Integrated Development for East Africa” conference, attended by more than 200 people from Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and 17 other countries. Participants presented real-world solutions to problems very similar to those in Arborlind, explaining how all parties can—and must—come together to address people’s multifaceted needs.
I have attended more conferences than I care to remember. But this conference was unique: There was tremendous excitement about the potential of integrated programs to address population, health, environment, and other challenges in East Africa. There was also a palpable sense of community, as different organizations from different countries realized that there were others like them, also seeking to solve complicated problems with integrated solutions. Hopefully, the lessons learned and the networks formed will sustain the energy that came out of the conference, and lead to an increase in the number and sophistication of integrated programs in East Africa. -
Water Causing Tension in Central Asia
›December 7, 2007 // By Rachel Weisshaar“The water crisis in Central Asia is due to the way water has been allocated and managed; it is not a crisis of quantity but of distribution,” asserts Jeremy Allouche, a visiting fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, in “The governance of Central Asian waters: national interests versus regional cooperation,” available in the latest issue of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research’s Disarmament Forum.
The shrinking of the Aral Sea, which began in the 1960s, first drew international attention to the region’s water issues. The Aral Sea has been an ecological disaster, but Central Asia now has another, equally serious hydrological problem: how to divide the region’s limited water among competing countries that need it for irrigation, hydropower, and other uses. Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Krygystan have had largely hostile relations over water distribution since they achieved independence in 1992, and these tensions could boil over into violent conflict unless the countries can implement a functional regional water agreement.
Allouche offers a concise, lucid overview of the challenges of the region’s post-independence water governance system, including analyses of how the water policies of Central Asia’s major players (which also include Afghanistan, China, and Russia) affect regional tensions over water. -
PODCAST – Simulated Negotiations for Integrated Development in East Africa
›December 7, 2007 // By Geoffrey D. DabelkoI recently traveled to Ethiopia to attend “Population, Health, and Environment: Integrated Development for East Africa,” a conference sponsored by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and LEM Ethiopia. The conference was attended by more than 200 development practitioners from around the world, including many from Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia.For the meeting, I worked with my colleague Gib Clarke and Shewaye Deribe (pictured above) of the Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resources Association to write and conduct a role-playing simulation designed to bring to life the connections between population growth, natural resource management and environmental health, and development priorities. Participants worked with a scenario involving competing interests and rising tensions among a range of internal and external stakeholders in the fictional nation of Arborlind.
Four teams representing government, civil society, a donor, and the private sector negotiated responses to short-term opportunities and long-term risks.
This podcast gives you a taste of the trip–specifically the simulation. We begin and end the audio with the voices of local children welcoming some of us to their school at the Berga Wetland Project, an especially inspiring inauguration to a valuable conference. -
Illegal Logging Threatens Ecosystems, Communities
›December 4, 2007 // By Miles BrundageThe soaring global demand for timber, driven in part by China’s economic growth, is making it increasingly tempting for timber companies to ignore the law when seeking new sources of wood. When they do not ask indigenous people’s permission for the use of their land or compensate them for it, illegal loggers jeopardize communities’ livelihoods, threaten traditional customs and values, and, of course, deprive them of the revenue gained from the sale timber.
No one knows this better than Frederick Sagisolo, chief of the Knasaimos people of Seremuk, in the Indonesian province of Papua, who gives a startling account of the plundering of his community’s land by illegal loggers. Despite being head of the Knasaimos tribal council, Sagisolo says he was not contacted by the company that logged his community’s forest. “Instead it did an illegal deal with one individual from our community, and this created many problems for us. But the company was backed by a local military officer, so what could we do?” The logging finally stopped in 2005, when the Indonesian government launched a major initiative against illegal logging, part of which targeted Papua.
Illegal logging can be fueled by problems that face many countries, including a lack of equitable law enforcement in scarcely populated areas and graft involving local officials and foreign companies. As a result of these and other issues, forests are being logged illegally in places as varied as Brazil and Estonia.
Despite President Bush’s initiative against illegal logging and many other efforts around the world, economic incentives to supply cheap and illegal timber seem to be increasing. If more isn’t done to curb illegal logging, we will continue seeing its effects crop up around the world, ranging from ecosystem destruction to increased damage from natural disasters. -
Environmentalists and Indigenous Peoples: Natural Allies?
›December 4, 2007 // By Thomas RenardThe Gran Chaco of Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil is one of South America’s most extensive biogeographical regions. It is characterized by diverse ecosystems and is inhabited by, among others, the 10,000 indigenous Guaraní people known as the Isoceños. However, Bolivia’s Chaco, the most unspoiled portion, is being degraded by ranching, farming, commercial hunting, highway construction, and the development of Bolivia’s natural gas industry, threatening the livelihoods of the Isoceños.
In 1991, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Capitanía de Alto y Bajo Izozog (CABI), an indigenous organization representing the Isoceños, began working together to protect the Bolivian Chaco. The cooperation was highly successful, resulting in the creation of the Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park and Integrated Management Area in 1995, which designates millions of hectares as a protected national park and another million as “indigenous territory.” For WCS, this successful collaboration is evidence that environmental groups and indigenous peoples can—and should—work together to maximize their influence.
More recently, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), environmental and Pygmy organizations united to press the World Bank to cease industrial logging in the DRC; grant the Pygmies greater input into forest issues; carry out a comprehensive assessment of logging’s environmental impacts; and encourage the development of environmentally friendly industries.
Conservationists and indigenous peoples have more leverage when they speak with one voice. However, there is often distrust between the two sides. Conservationists may accuse indigenous peoples of contributing to the degradation of a fragile ecosystem. Conversely, indigenous peoples can fear their livelihoods will be threatened by the creation of protected areas. In India, for instance, members of aboriginal tribes are now banned from gathering non-timber forest products such as honey, wild herbs, and fruits from parks and wildlife sanctuaries for commercial purposes. In the past, many of these tribes relied heavily on gathering and selling these products for their livelihoods.
In the future, the challenge will be finding sustainable solutions that satisfy both groups. This problem has no silver bullet. Instead, the commitment, imagination, and negotiating skills of the actors will make the difference. -
New UN Report Highlights Climate Change, Poverty
›November 29, 2007 // By Sean PeoplesMitigating the effects of global climate change will require an integrated approach, says the UN Development Program’s (UNDP) new report, Human Development Report 2007/2008, which focuses on the human dimensions of a warming planet and highlights the challenges vulnerable populations face in adapting to climatic shifts.
According to the report:Violent conflicts, insufficient resources, lack of coordination and weak policies continue to slow down development progress, particularly in Africa. Nonetheless in many countries there have been real advances…This development progress is increasingly going to be hindered by climate change. So we must see the fight against poverty and the fight against the effects of climate change as interrelated efforts. They must reinforce each other and success must be achieved on both fronts jointly.
This report has abundant company: In the last year, studies highlighting the climate-security nexus have been published by the CNA Corporation, the Center for a New American Security, the UN Development Program, and International Alert. These studies advocate bold new policies, enumerate the short-term and long-term costs of inaction, and connect climate change to other salient issues, such as security and poverty.
It is becoming impossible to ignore the growing body of scientific evidence and chorus of voices advocating immediate action on climate change. But global leaders have not reached consensus on the issue, due in large part to the U.S. government’s objections to binding emissions limits. The next UN climate change conference meets in Bali next month, but major revelations and ambitious new policies are unlikely. Although the U.S. government has begun to shift its rhetoric, few expect it to change its policies soon.
According to the UNDP report, developed nations account for 15 percent of the global population, but nearly half of global CO2 emissions. If greenhouse gas emissions are not cut by at least 30 percent in the next 15 years, the UNDP projects the Earth’s average temperature will increase by as much as two degrees Celsius. These projections have sobering consequences, especially in developing nations, where climate change “will undermine efforts to build a more inclusive pattern of globalization, reinforcing the vast disparities between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.” -
Environmental Peacemaking in the Golan Heights?
›November 26, 2007 // By Rachel WeisshaarThe United States and Israel could garner more meaningful engagement from Syria in the Middle East peace process by proposing the creation of a peace park in the disputed Golan Heights area, say University of Vermont Associate Professor Saleem Ali, a recent speaker at the Wilson Center, and Rabbi Michael Cohen of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Israel in “Salvaging Peace with Syria,” available on the Carnegie Council’s “Policy Innovations” website. Noting that transboundary conservation areas have helped resolve past conflicts—as with the Cordillera del Cóndor Transboundary Protected Area, established between Peru and Ecuador in 1995—the authors argue that a Golan Heights peace park should be on the agenda at tomorrow’s Middle East peace conference in Annapolis. -
Green Helmets for Gorillas? Weighing the Case for Ecological Intervention
›November 25, 2007 // By Thomas RenardCan environmental destruction justify military intervention? Robyn Eckersley, a professor of environmental politics at the University of Melbourne, Australia, explores the morality, legality, and legitimacy of such involvement in “Ecological Intervention: Prospects and Limits,” which appears in the latest issue of Ethics and International Affairs.
Eckersley argues that the United Nations—particularly the Security Council—possesses the authority to assume a larger role in protecting the environment. This idea is not original, however: Klaus Töpfer, former head of the UN Environment Programme, and Mikhail Gorbachev have both called for the creation of a “green helmets” force to respond to environmental crises.
Eckersley identifies three categories of environmental harm that could justify an ecological intervention—which she defines as “the threat or use of force by a state or coalition of states within the territory of another state and without the consent of that state in order to prevent grave environmental damage”—or the launch of an ecological defense—which she defines as “the preventive use of force in response to the threat of serious and immediate environmental harm flowing into the territory of a ‘victim’ state.”- A major environmental emergency with transboundary spillover effects. As an illustration, Eckersley hypothesizes a Chernobyl-like nuclear accident in a country that lacks the capacity to cope with the catastrophe but refuses foreign assistance. She argues that the notion of “territorial integrity” inscribed in the UN Charter can readily be interpreted to include “ecosystem integrity”—and therefore justify an intervention by an affected state. Currently, a country affected by another country’s nuclear accident can only hope for monetary reparations.
- An ecocide—the result of intentional, systematic acts that cause widespread, long-term, and severe damage to the environment—involving serious human rights violations. Saddam Hussein’s decimation of the marsh region that was home to the Madan, or Marsh Arabs, is a case in point. Eckersley’s legal argument here relies on an expansive interpretation of the UN Charter’s notion of “threat to the peace.”
- An ecocide involving no serious harm to human beings. An illustration of this situation would be the deployment of troops in the Great Lakes to protect the mountain gorillas. Contending that biodiversity is a “common concern of humankind,” Eckersley argues that states have a responsibility to other states to protect their environment, as the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development suggests.
Eckersley’s proposition, though interesting, suffers from a number of pitfalls. One major problem is that her argument could open the door to an extremely wide range of military interventions. For instance, her call for interventions to protect endangered species is extremely impractical—if not impossible—given the prediction that climate change will threaten the existences of millions of species will be at risk by 2050. One option—though not without serious problems of its own—would be to establish a list of “indispensable” species.
Another weakness of Eckersley’s article is that it neglects the role of incentives, focusing instead on the use of force, even though governments are often more receptive to the former. The army is probably not the organization best-suited to protecting coral or chimpanzees. Troop deployments are both financially and morally costly: Developing countries might view an increasing number of interventions by the Security Council as a violation of their sovereignty or a new form of colonization. Furthermore, it will take far more than military interventions to ensure the health of the environment.
Additional flaws in Eckersley’s argument include her attempt to build the case for ecological interventions on that of still-controversial humanitarian interventions, and her wish to saddle the United Nations with additional responsibilities.
Ecological intervention and ecological defense are interesting concepts, anticipating the future importance of the environment in foreign policy. However, Eckersley’s argument goes too far. Few countries would send troops into hostile territory solely to protect the local environment or wildlife. The necessary intermediate step is to continue studying the links between conflict and the environment, biodiversity, and climate change. That research will make possible the development of pragmatic, environment-centered conflict-prevention and conflict-resolution strategies.