Poor Farmers Mustn’t Be the Losers in the Fight Against Climate Change

/by

Now that countries around the world have agreed on a global deal to tackle climate change, attention has shifted to how we’re going to do it. If we’re to meet the ambitious targets in the Paris climate agreement, we need to reduce our emissions and do it fast. Bioenergy and carbon capture storage – a plan to take carbon dioxide and trap it under the ground rather than releasing it into the atmosphere – have become a controversial part of the discussions on how we do this.

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the amount of biofuels to be used in the United States in 2016 and there has been much discussion on Capitol Hill of the Renewable Fuel Standard (the U.S. biofuel mandate) and its benefits in the fight against climate change. As the food versus fuel debate continues, a new study was published arguing that biofuels are actually good for food security. However, the study is seriously flawed. Not only are the authors unable to make their case that biofuels support food security, but they also fail to discredit the evidence that biofuels contribute to hunger globally. By underestimating the competition for land and ignoring the impact that such large land deals are having on local farmers around the world, the authors fail to take into account important evidence which shows that U.S. biofuels policies are increasing hunger around the world.

Where we can agree is on the importance of investing in agriculture. But the authors overlook the importance of how the investment is made and who it benefits. They argue that demand for biofuels will result in increased investment in agriculture because of higher and more stable commodity prices, which will increase food security in the long run. But private sector investment driven by high commodity prices will not be focused on food security for local communities. Instead, it will focus on increasing production, likely by using expensive machinery, or only focus on a handful of bioenergy feedstocks. This will only continue to support an agricultural model that leaves millions hungry and millions more sick from consuming too much of the wrong food.

A false solution to our energy needs

Another claim is that biofuel production will add value and diversify production, leading to higher and more stable rural incomes, and therefore reduced hunger. Increasing incomes for local farmers is important, but biofuels aren’t going to do this. Producing biofuels efficiently means growing biofuel crops at scale, which means large plantations – so poor farmers are unlikely to benefit. What ActionAid is seeing in the communities where it works across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia, is that demand for large amounts of biofuels is fueling land grabs. Local family farmers are being kicked off their land to make way for biofuels plantations. Some companies will then offer some of the displaced farmers a job, but these are often poorly paid and seasonal, meaning they can be laid off at any time. Added to this, the jobs are often not available to women, leaving them without the means to support their families.

KEEP READING ON FOOD TANK

Beans’ talk

/by

The idea that plants have developed a subterranean internet, which they use to raise the alarm when danger threatens, sounds more like the science-fiction of James Cameron’s film “Avatar” than any sort of science fact. But fact it seems to be, if work by David Johnson of the University of Aberdeen is anything to go by. For Dr Johnson believes he has shown that just such an internet, with fungal hyphae standing in for local Wi-Fi, alerts beanstalks to danger if one of their neighbours is attacked by aphids.

The experiment which suggests this was following up the discovery, made in 2010 by a Chinese team, that when a tomato plant gets infected with leaf blight, nearby plants start activating genes that help ward the infection off—even if all airflow between the plants in question has been eliminated. The researchers who conducted this study knew that soil fungi whose hyphae are symbiotic with tomatoes (providing them with minerals in exchange for food) also form a network connecting one plant to another. They speculated, though they could not prove, that molecules signalling danger were passing through this fungal network.

Dr Johnson knew from his own past work that when broad-bean plants are attacked by aphids they respond with volatile chemicals that both irritate the parasites and attract aphid-hunting wasps. He did not know, though, whether the message could spread, tomato-like, from plant to plant. So he set out to find out—and to do so in a way which would show if fungi were the messengers.

As they report in Ecology Letters, he and his colleagues set up eight “mesocosms”, each containing five beanstalks. The plants were allowed to grow for four months, and during this time every plant could interact with symbiotic fungi in the soil.

KEEP READING ON THE ECONOMIST

While BBQ Season Sizzles, a Case for Healthy Farms and Better Beef

/by

Author: Marcia DeLonge

Friends and acquaintances often ask me about what to eat (or not eat) if they are concerned about the impacts of their food choices on the world around them. One of the foods that comes up most frequently in this regard is beef, and that’s what I’d like to talk about today.

It is appropriate for thoughtful people to ask questions about beef production, because it is implicated in climate change, pollution, and deforestation. But it’s also true that well-managed grazing lands offer a lot of benefits for the environment and biodiversity. These include the opportunity for farmers to grow cattle feed as a part of healthy soil-building crop rotations, as well as the possibility that manure—rather than becoming a waste product to be managed—can be productively used on farms to recycle nutrients and reduce reliance on chemical fertilizers. With these factors in mind, if you choose to eat beef, it’s important to look at how and where it’s produced.

Better beef requires better farming systems, from the ground up

Let’s start by looking at some of the land management practices that are responsible for unsustainable beef production.

  • Deforested areas. Millions of beef cattle are produced in the deforested tropics, and my colleagues have identified this as a key driver of deforestation, with devastating implications for climate change, biodiversity, and more. However, it’s also important to note that the factors causing deforestation are complex, and that most beef is consumed in the country where it is produced. This means that reducing beef consumption in the US may help alleviate deforestation by making a small dent in global demand, but directly confronting responsible companies is likely to be more effective.
  • Degraded grasslands. It’s common to hear about grasslands destroyed by overgrazing. The exact meaning and utility of this term is often debated (read this interesting blog for one perspective, or this paper for an academic review), and there’s still uncertainty about what level of stocking rate is too high in any given ecosystem and management system. However, there is agreement that grazing mismanagement can be very destructive to ecosystems, leading to degraded landscapes. At the same time, good land management (including grazing management) has been shown to improve degraded areas, and there are many degraded lands with significant potential for improvement.
KEEP READING ON UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

Loss Of Animals’ Poop Disrupts Nutrient Cycles, New Study Shows

/by

Author: Samantha Mathewson

Believe it or not, we rely more heavily on animals’ feces than you would think. Essentially, the poop from wild animals keeps the planet fertile by transporting nutrients deep from the ocean floor all the way to mountain tops, a recent study revealed. This makes the extinction of large animals even more devastating.

“This once was a world that had ten times more whales; twenty times more anadromous fish, like salmon; double the number of seabirds; and ten times more large herbivores–giant sloths and mastodons and mammoths,” Joe Roman, a biologist at the University of Vermont (UVW) and co-author of the recent study, said in a news release. “This broken global cycle may weaken ecosystem health, fisheries, and agriculture.”

The ability of animals to readily transport nutrients over a wide area has significantly decreased since the mass extinction following the end of the last ice age, according to researchers from UVM. This proves that animals act as major “distribution pumps” that transport large amounts of nutrients to areas that would otherwise be less productive, including surface waters and remote inland areas.

Basically, the more animals eat, the more they poop. When animals eat a lot of plant matter, they release nutrients from vegetation through processes of digestion. Then they transport these nutrients from feeding areas, or nutrient-rich “hot spots,” to more remote areas. The valuable nutrients are introduced to scarce areas when animals excrete poop and urine, or when their bodies decompose after death, the release explained.

So how do nutrients cycle through different ecosystems? Marine animals transport vital nutrients, such as phosphorous, to the surface from otherwise unreachable areas deep within the ocean. Then, seabirds and fish spread the nutrients across seas, up rivers and deep inland, where land animals then help transport the nutrients to high mountainous areas, researchers explained. Humans, in turn, depend on these fertilized ecosystems to perform natural life-sustaining functions, such as agriculture or carbon storage.

KEEP READING ON NATURE WORLD NEWS

Learning to Communicate the Lessons of the Loess Plateau

/by

Author: John D Liu

John D. Liu, Director of the EEMP, has documented the rehabilitation of the Loess Plateau since 1995, and since then has presented his findings and the images of the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project to over 300 audiences in China, Europe, Africa, and USA.

Here is a clip from a recent interview with Liu where he recalls the significance of the project:

RI: Apart from the ecosystem benefits, the Loess Plateau project also helped lift 2.5 million people in four of the poorest provinces in China out of poverty. Is that correct?

Liu: Well, there are different ways to look at it because the Loess Plateau project influenced more than just the project areas. It changed national policy. Some of the negative behaviors, such as slope farming, tree cutting or free ranging of goats and sheep—behaviors that were devastating to biodiversity, biomass and organic material—were banned nationwide because of the work done on the Loess Plateau.

Landscape restoration does not only change ecological function, it changes the socio-economic function and when you get down to it, it changes the intention of human society. So if the intention of human society is to extract, to manufacture, to buy and sell things, then we are still going to have a lot of problems. But when we generate an understanding that the natural ecological functions that create air, water, food and energy are vastly more valuable than anything that has ever been produced or bought and sold, or anything that ever will be produced and bought and sold – this is the point where we turn the corner to a consciousness which is much more sustainable.”

Liu later produced a report that outlines lessons learned from the project.

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT FROM ACADEMIA

 

Goats ‘Mow’ Calgary Parks in Pilot Program to Control Invasive Weeds

/by

Author: Danielle Nerman

Dandelions and weeds are no match for these lawn mowers.

More than 100 goats arrived at Confluence Park (West Nose Creek) on Monday to start their new job for the City of Calgary.

For the next two weeks, they’ll be chomping down on weeds and thistle as part of a pilot to test goats as a way to manage invasive species in Calgary’s parks.

“We have a whole schwack of breeds, from angora and boer to kiko,” said Jeannette Hall, the professional herder managing the goats.

Hall, who owns Baaah’d Plant Management and Reclamation, said the herd is targeting about 16 weeds in the park, but will take care of “quite a few more.”

“It will make a heck of a difference. They work pretty quick,” she told the Calgary Eyeopener on Tuesday.

Goats have been used to manage weeds in other cities before. Amazon even rents out goat grazers.

KEEP READING ON CBC NEWS

Climate Change’s Costs are Still Escalating

/by

Author: Paul Brown

LONDON, 19 July, 2015 − The massive economic and health losses that climate change is already causing across the world are detailed in six scientific papers published today.

Perhaps most striking is the warning about large productivity losses already being experienced due to heat stress, which can already be calculated for 43 countries. The paper estimates that in South-East Asia alone “as much as 15% to 20% of annual work hours may already be lost in heat-exposed jobs”.

And that figure may double by 2030 as the planet continues warming − with poor manual labourers who work outdoors being the worst affected.

The release of the papers coincides with the start of a conference on disaster risk reduction, held in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, and jointly sponsored by the International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) and the UN Development Programme.

The aim is to alert delegates to the already pressing scale of the problem and the need to take measures to protect the health of people, and to outline the economic costs of not taking action.

Substantial health risks

In an introduction to the six-paper collection, UNU-IIGH research fellows Jamal Hisham Hashim and José Siri write that humanity faces “substantial health risks from the degradation of the natural life support systems which are critical for human survival. It has become increasingly apparent that actions to mitigate environmental change have powerful co-benefits for health.”

KEEP READING ON CLIMATE NEWS NETWORK

The Dirty Way to Feed More People and Help Stop Climate Change

/by

Author: Tove Danovich 

Modern agriculture has not been kind to the soil. Since intensive agriculture took off in the 1950s, farming in the United States has emphasized harvest yields over environmental (or taste) concerns. Then, with the Green Revolution in the 1960s, we exported those ideas around the world. Yet over the last decade, it’s become apparent that treating the soil to maximize yield can strip both our food and the soil of important nutrients.

On average, 70 percent of all land has degraded soil, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. In an overview on land degradation, the NRCS wrote, “The productivity of some lands has declined by 50% due to soil erosion and desertification.” In Africa, poor soil may have caused yield reductions of as much as 40 percent. Globally, loss caused by degradation “costs the world about $400 billion per year,” according to the NRCS.

But in the fight against climate change and global hunger, lowly soil may be our greatest resource.

Schoolchildren learn that trees and plants turn “bad” air into “good,” and adults know that deforestation exacerbates rising levels of greenhouse gases. “But those trees have roots,” pointed out Ephraim Nkonya, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute who specializes in land management and natural-resource use in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia. “We see trees above the ground and get fixated on their importance,” Nkonya said. But stopping climate change is less about planting more trees to make up for losses owing to deforestation than about taking better care of the land we have. Changing agricultural practices to focus on better land management and decreased deforestation could reduce nearly a third of carbon emissions.

Plants—all plants, not just trees—draw carbon out of the air to help them grow, and what they don’t need is drawn through their roots into the soil. Eighty percent of all terrestrial carbon resides in the soil, according to a 2012 Nature article by two members of the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University. While two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions come from burning fossil fuels, a third comes from soil organic carbon loss “due to land use change such as the clearing of forests and the cultivation of land for food production,” the authors wrote.

KEEP READING ON TAKEPART

MSU Researcher Who Linked Farming Technique to Cooler Temps Wins Award

/by

Author: Skip Anderson

BOZEMAN — A Montana State University researcher studying farming practices that may decrease summertime temperatures recently received a $500,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation.

The CAREER Award is the NSF’s most prestigious award to support early career development of faculty researchers. It’s particularly notable because it is awarded to a single person instead of a team, honoring outstanding faculty who haven’t yet received tenure.

The grant will further the work of Paul Stoy, assistant professor of land resources and environmental sciences in the MSU College of Agriculture. Stoy, who has an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from Duke University, studies the exchange of water, energy and trace gases between the land surface and the atmosphere. His work quantifies how land-use change and land management, including conservation, impact climate.

“There is a large region in the Dakotas that extends well into Canada that has been cooling in summer, which bucks the global warming trend,” Stoy said. “Very few people have studied the mechanisms that underlie this, and that’s partly because it’s so difficult to model cloud formation and convective precipitation.”

Stoy’s current research focuses upon the benefits believed to be brought about through planting crops instead of leaving fields unplanted for a growing season, a practice known as fallowing. In the Northern Great Plains, farmers have reduced the amount of land held in fallow in favor of no-till planting techniques, which may be responsible for the region’s decades-long cooling trend.

KEEP READING ON NORTHERN AG

Un Panel de Distinguidos Jueces Internacionales Compone el Tribunal Internacional Monsanto

/by

[ English | Español ]

Dos Prestigiosos Magistrados Internacionales También se Comprometieron a Servir en el Tribunal

PARA PUBLICACIÓN INMEDIATA

12 de julio de 2016

Contacto:

Países Bajos: Tjerk Dalhuisen,, tjerk@monsanto-tribunal.org, +31-614699126

Estados Unidos: Katherine Paul, katherine@regenerationinternational.org, 207-653-3090

México, América Latina: Ercilia Sahores, ercilia@regenerationinternational.org +52 55 6257 7901

LA HAYA, Países Bajos—Los organizadores del Tribunal Internacional Monsanto https://www.monsanto-tribunal.org/ anunciaron el día de hoy el nombramiento de tres jueces internacionales quienes co-presidirán el tribunal ciudadano, que tendrá lugar los días 15 y 16 de octubre en La Haya, Países Bajos. Los tres jueces son: Dior Fall Sow, de Senegal, ex abogada general del Tribunal Penal Internacional para Ruanda; Francoise Tulkens, Belga, ex vice-presidenta del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos y Upendra Baxi, de la India, ex- presidente de la Sociedad India de Derecho Internacional.

Los organizadores del Tribunal también anunciaron los nombres de dos de los abogados que participarán en el Tribunal. El Dr. Jackson Nyamuya Maogoto, del Reino Unido, preparará el caso contra Monsanto basándose en la pregunta de si Monsanto es cómplice de crímenes de guerra según la definición contenida en el Artículo 8(2) de la Corte Penal Internacional.

Maogoto afirmó, “El potencial que tienen las empresas como autores de crímenes internacionales fue reconocido legalmente por el Tribunal de Nuremeberg, que responsabilizó a empresarios del sector privado alemán por su apoyo en el esfuerzo bélico de ese país. Este importante legado de Nuremberg ha sido silenciosamente subsumido por el complejo militar-industrial durante décadas. Es tiempo de que se reactive el caso sobre la complicidad y la responsabilidad de las corporaciones. El Tribunal Internacional contra Monsanto servirá para resucitar el legado de Nuremberg, para “recordar” y proveer de nuevas energías al marco del derecho internacional-las empresas pueden también estar involucradas en crímenes internacionales.”

El Dr Gwynn MacCarrick servirá como amicus curiae (o amigo del Tribunal) en los casos de ecocidio. Abogado y académico, preparará los documentos jurídicos en relación a la cuestión de si las actividades pasadas y presentes de Monsanto constituyen un crimen de ecocidio, entendido como causante de daño grave o destrucción al medio ambiente que pudiera alterar de manera significativa y y duradera los bienes comunes globales o el ecosistema del cual dependen grupos humanos.

MacCarrick afirmó, “El trabajo del Tribunal Internacional Monsanto sin lugar a dudas contribuirá al desarrollo progresivo del derecho internacional, aclarando el contenido de las responsabilidades de las empresas en torno a los derechos humanos e informando el debate respecto de si el derecho penal internacional debería evolucionar para incluir el crimen de ecocidio.”

Antecedentes de los jueces

Dior Fall Sow, Senegal, es consultora de la Corte Penal Internacional. Fue Abogada General de la Corte Penal Internacional de Ruanda y es miembro fundadora y presidenta honoraria de la Asociación de Abogados de Senegal (AJS). La primer mujer en ser nombrada procuradora general en Senegal, Sow también ha servido como oficial y caballero de la Order National du Mérite (Senegal). Ha participado en numerosas conferencias y seminarios en torno a temas de derechos humanos, paz y seguridad, derecho humanitario internacional y derecho penal internacional en numerosos países, incluyendo Suiza, Bélgica, Austria, Italia y los Estados Unidos. Es también autora de muchas investigaciones en temáticas jurídicas. A lo largo de su carrera ha ocupado diferentes cargos como: directora nacional de Centros Educativos y Correccionales para Jóvenes y Bienestar Social; directora a cargo de asuntos jurídicos de SONATEL; abogada general de la oficina de la Procuraduría del TPIR; y abogada general principal de la División de Apelaciones del ICTR.

Françoise Tulkens, Bélgica, tiene un Doctorado en Leyes, una Maestría en Criminología y un certificado de altos estudios en Leyes. Fue profesora de la Universidad de Lovaina (Bélgica) y ha enseñado en Bélgica y en el exterior. Ha sido profesora visitante en las Universidades de Génova, Lovaina, Ottawa, Paris I, Estrasburgo y la Universidad Estatal de Louisiana, en los campos de derecho penal general, derecho penal comparado y Europeo, justicia juvenil y protección de derechos humanos. Desde noviembre de 1998 a septiembre de 2012, fue jueza del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos, sirviendo como presidenta de sección desde enero de 2007 y luego como vice-presidenta de la corte, desde febrero de 2011. Ha sido miembro asociada de la Real Academia Belga desde 2011. De 2011 a 2015 presidió la Junta Directiva de la Fundación King Baudouin. En septiembre de 2012 fue nombrada integrante del Panel Consultivo de Derechos Humanos de Kosovo de las Naciones Unidas. Desde junio de 2013 es integrante del Comité Científico de la Agencia de Derechos Fundamentales de la Unión Europea (FRA) de la cual es actualmente vice-presidenta. Tulkens ha escrito numerosas publicaciones en el área de derechos humanos y derecho penal y es también co-autora de numersosos libros de referencia. Posee Doctorados honoríficos de las Universidades de Génova, Limoges, Ottawa, Gante, Lieja y Brighton.

Upendra Baxi, India, es un jurista y profesor de leyes de la Universidad de Warwick, en el Reino Unido. Fue vicecanciller de la Universidad de Delhi y de la Universidad de South Gujarat, en Surat, India. Enseñó derecho en la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Delhi, donde también sirvió como rector y vicecanciller. Ha impartido cursos en las Universidades de Sydney, Duke, American, en el Programa Global de la Escuela de Derecho de la Universidad de Nueva York y la Universidad de Toronto. También ha servido como director honorario (investigador) en lel Instituto de Derecho de la India y presidente de la Sociedad India de Derecho International. Los campos de especialidad de Baxi como profesor e investigador incluyen derecho constitucional comparado, teoría social de derechos humanos, responsabilidad en el área de derechos humanos en la gobernanza corporativa y conducta empresarial, y materialidad de la globalización. En 2011, Baxi recibió el premio Padma Shir, el cuarto premio cívico de mayor importancia en la India, otorgado por el Gobierno de ese país. Ha escrito numerosos artículos académicos, incluyendo, “The Struggle for Human Rights”, Rethinking Human Rights. Editado por S Kothari y H Sethi. Bombay: Tripathy, 1989.

Antecedentes de los Abogados

Dr. Gwynn MacCarrick, Australia, fue funcionario judicial de la Oficina del Procurador en la Corte Penal Internacional de la ex-Yugoslavia y fue consejero abogado defensor de un comandante imputado en 23 cargos de crímenes contra la humanidad ante el Panel Especial de las Naciones Unidas para Crímenes Graves en Dili, Timor del Este.

Jackson Nyamuya Maogoto, RU, es catedrático de Derecho Internacional de la Universidad de Manchester (RU) Sus intereses en derecho internacional abarcan los campos de derecho penal internacional, derechos humanos y derecho internacional humanitario, uso de la fuerza y mantenimiento de la paz y compañías militares privadas en el ejercicio de la guerra. Sus vínculos profesionales incluyen: el Instituto Australiano de Relaciones Internacionales; Abogados Australianos para los Derechos Humanos; la Sociedad Americana de Derecho Intenacional; la Sociedad Australiana y de Nueva Zelanda de Derecho Internacionl, la Sociedad de Derecho de Newcastle, la Asociación Internacional de Derecho, el Instituto Internacional de Derecho Espacial, la Sociedad Internacional de Leyes Militares y Leyes Marciales, la Asociación para Reforma de la Ley (Australia) el Real Instituto de Asuntos Internacionales y la Fundación Nuclear Age. Es autor de siete libros, docenas de capítulos para libros y artículos referidos en general y en particular en publicaciones europeas, afircanas, americanas y australianas. Ha participado en y dictado numerosas conferencias en foros regionales, nacionales e internacionales.

Antecedentes del Tribunal Internacional Monsanto aquí https://www.monsanto-tribunal.org/ y aquí https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/international-monsanto-tribunal-frequently-asked-questions

El Tribunal Internacional Monsanto es una iniciativa de la sociedad civil para que Monsanto se responsabilice por violaciones a derechos humanos, crímenes contra la humanidad y ecocidio. Prestigiosos jueces escucharán testimonies de víctimas y brindarán una opinión consultiva siguiendo los procedimientos de la Corte Penal Internacional de Justicia. Una asamblea popular paralela brindará la oportunidad para que los movimientos sociales puedan congregarse y planear el futuro que queremos. El Tribunal y la Asamblea Popular se llevarán a cabo entre el 14 y el 16 de octubre de 2016 en La Haya, Países Bajos.

###

LEE MÁS ARTÍCULOS EN ESPAÑOL