Ha Llegado un Punto de Inflexión en la Agricultura

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Autor: Naturaleza de Derechos  |  Publicado: 6 de marzo, 2017

El 27 de febrero de 2017 se presentó ante el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU, en el marco de su sesión Nro 34, el reporte sobre el derecho a la alimentación adecuada en relación a los agrotóxicos realizado por el Relator Especial sobre el derecho a la alimentación en colaboración con el Relator Especial sobre las obligaciones de derechos humanos relacionadas con la gestión y eliminación ecológicamente racionales de las sustancias y los desechos peligrosos.

En su momento, ambas relatorías habían realizado un llamamiento internacional a gobiernos, organizaciones no gubernamentales y empresas para que realizaran los aportes desde sus perspectivas para ser consideradas en el reporte.

A esa convocatoria respondieron sólo 7 Organizaciones no Gubernamentales (Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, IBFAN and GIFA, NCD Alliance, PAN India, PAN submission to UNCRC, PANAP, University of Bern and Probioma Bolivia) a las que deben sumarse el informe único por Argentina de las más de 40 organizaciones y asambleas que lo suscribieron “Agrotóxicos, Evaluación de Riegos, Salud & Alimentos en Argentina.”

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The One Item of Clothing You Should Definitely Be Buying Organic (but Probably Aren’t)

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Author: Gina Tomaine | Published: January 10, 2017 

Wouldn’t it make you happy to find a really good pair of undies—one that fits your values as well as your, erm, bottom line? Next time you’re in the market for new underwear, skip specimens made from conventional cotton—while comfy and cheap, they’re spun from a fertilizer- and pesticide-sucking crop that’s extremely hard on the planet—and spring for these high-spirited, eco-friendly underalls.

BOODY

Ready to ban chemicals—and wedgies—from your wardrobe? Undies from Australia-based Boody are made from organic bamboo, a sustainable crop that uses less water than cotton. They also come with a “no-wedge-pledge,” which we can vouch for.

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Your Next Item of Clothing Should Be so Expensive It Hurts

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Author: Marc Bain | Published: October 2, 2015

If you’ve ever found yourself buying clothes just because they’re cheap, or if shopping itself has become a form of entertainment for you, I’ve got a proposal: The next time you buy something, spend a whole lot on it. Enough that it makes you sweat a little.

The point is to make you pause and ask yourself, “How much do I really want this?”

In the US and much of the industrialized world, cheap clothes are everywhere. At any fast-fashion chain store, you’ll find piles upon piles of jeans that cost less than $20. The problem is, all that low-cost clothing is produced, sold, and finally discarded in mass quantities, which has serious consequences for the environment, the workers paid poorly to make them, and even the mental well-being of the people buying them.

As a fashion reporter, I like clothes probably more than most. But I also know all the troubling facts represented by those cheap t-shirts and jeans. For more than a year now, I’ve set myself a simple goal for every clothing purchase. It’s an entirely personal choice that I feel helps me buy less and enjoy my purchases more. My hope is that it also reduces how much I contribute to some of those issues mentioned above.

The goal is to spend at least $150 on each item of clothing. And I propose you give it a try.

Let me explain

The immediate reaction I get when I tell people about this goal—and I call it a goal because I don’t always live up to it—is that $150 is a lot to spend for a piece of clothing.

That’s especially true if your standard for pricing is a store like Primark, the insanely cheap Irish fast-fashion chain that recently opened its first US location. For designer fashion, where a t-shirt can easily clear $150, it’s actually a pretty low hurdle.

But it’s enough that it causes me to seriously hesitate, which is the real point. It forces me to think about just how much I want that item of clothing, how much I’ll wear it, and whether I think the value it offers is worth a significant cost.

Importantly, $150 is also enough that I can’t make these purchases all the time, at least not without sacrificing elsewhere or going broke. It’s an investment, rather than the cheap buzz of getting something new.But it’s enough that it causes me to seriously hesitate, which is the real point. It forces me to think about just how much I want that item of clothing, how much I’ll wear it, and whether I think the value it offers is worth a significant cost.

Now, not everyone should have the same dollar limit. Each person should determine a standard based on income and other financial responsibilities. But it should be just enough that it causes you to wince slightly. My limit—as a married, childless, working journalist, saving up to one day buy an apartment—might fall somewhere between that of a single parent on an hourly wage and that of a high roller like author Buzz Bissinger, who wrote of his addiction to Gucci in GQ. (If you’re shopping like Bissinger, though, setting a dollar floor isn’t going to solve anything.)

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Rethink Soil: A Roadmap to U.S. Soil Health

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Published: November 2016 

We need healthy soil. It’s a modern imperative for long-term agricultural production, which is growing as our global population continues to increase. In fact, global agricultural production must increase by 60 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Soil health extends well beyond farmland, though. Not only does soil provide an estimated 95 percent of food, but it’s crucial for clean water and can help reduce the impact of climate change.

A roadmap, prepared by an interdisciplinary team of Nature Conservancy scientists, environmental economists and agriculture experts, outlines how adopting soil health practices on all U.S. corn, soy and wheat croplands could deliver nearly $50 billion in social and environmental impacts annually.

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Download the Soil Health Roadmap Executive Summary Here 

These Indian Designers Are Showing the World That Fashion Can Be Eco-friendly, Ethical & Sustainable

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Author: Sohini Dey | Published: February 21, 2017 

Have you ever wondered where your outfits comes from? Are they made in factories or sweatshops? How much of the garments’ price make it to the artisans? And, what happens to discarded clothes? Clothing may be a basic need for human beings, but in the midst of a fast fashion culture, the industry has come to display serious consequences for the population and the planet.

Consider this: the fashion industry is the second-largest pollutant in the world, right behind oil. The cotton industry thrives on optimizing production with pesticides, and statistics have suggested that up to 20,000 litres of water can be consumed to produce a single pair of jeans. Add to that the effects of chemicals in synthetic clothing, diminishing crafts and toxic detergents, and we find ourselves in a vicious cycle of consumption and waste.

With consumers becoming more socially conscious, new-age Indian labels are spinning new yarns in design. Designers now incorporate fair-trade practices, recycling and upcycling, and collaborate with craftspersons in design to bring a sense of accountability in their creations.

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Sink It or Lose It: The Carbon Trade-off

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Author: Rolf Sommer | Published: March 20, 2017 

In the race to keep climate change in check, our soils are an important ally. A natural carbon sponge, they represent the earth’s largest terrestrial store of this essential, life-giving element.

And if we’re to meet the climate targets laid out in the Paris Agreement, then we must take advantage of the ability to sink carbon in soil, especially because this can offset harmful greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere.

But while we’re at the forefront of understanding how to make the most of soils to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, our research shows that we’ve still got a way to go before we can realize the full potential of long-term carbon storage – or carbon sequestration.

Before anything else, we need to be realistic about how much carbon our soils actually can store, how long this will take, how this changes from region to region, and how much this would contribute to climate change mitigation.

Evidence is improving and research advancing, but we still don’t have enough data. Not surprisingly, many aspirations are based on quite a bit of guesswork.

At the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), we have found that even using the best soil management techniques known to science, we can’t seem to store enough carbon – if any – to put a notable dent in global emission figures.

Yet what we do know is that carbon is being lost from soils, especially in the humid tropics, where there is a high turnover of the organic matter in which carbon is found. So we need to focus on reducing – and avoiding – carbon losses before we talk about carbon storage, or sequestration.

One of the contributors to carbon loss is tilling the soil, a common activity on most smallholder farms in developing countries. Here, only very small amounts of organic matter – from crop residues, manure or compost – are dug back into the soil, as these resources are usually in short supply.

It’s a tall order to call on African smallholders to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and build carbon in the soil when food insecurity, drought and other challenges are looming. For them, harvesting food – to eat or sell – is the number one priority. And, these farmers already contribute very few emissions to start with, paling in comparison with large commercial farms.

But our research shows that little changes could have tremendous impacts. For instance, quantifying the climate smartness of best soil protection and restoration practices in Kenya, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, India and Benin revealed that there are methods that can sustainably intensify farming systems without adding to greenhouse gas emissions.

If we can convince farmers to adopt small soil conservation practices, we can slow carbon loss down significantly, quickly and without too much effort. The bottom line is that we need more sophisticated management practices than the ones being advocated right now, since sustainable and smart cropping systems have not yet been widely adopted.

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The Business Case for Soil

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Author: Jess Davies | March 15, 2017 

Nobody likes dirty business, but the business world must get to grips with dirt. Soil provides food, fibres and fuels, and regulates water resources and climate. Yet most businesses are unaware that their bottom lines depend on soil; nor are they aware of the risks they face from its degradation. More must recognize that improving soil quality is a smart investment.

One-third of all soils and more than half of agricultural soils are moderately or highly degraded. Erosion, loss of organic carbon, compaction and salinization reduce soil’s fertility and ability to hold moisture1. Every year, we damage another 12 million hectares — an area the size of Bulgaria — through deforestation, overgrazing, intensive farming, urbanization and pollution2. Climate change and biodiversity loss exacerbate soil problems. Yet global needs for food and resources are rising as populations grow, lifestyles shift and the world transitions to a low-carbon economy.

Many businesses in the agricultural and forestry arenas, and some in the food sector, describe the measures they’ve taken to reduce soil impacts in their sustainability reports. Most others do not. Soil is vital to all industries that use plant or animal products in their supply chains, from fashion to pharmaceuticals and, increasingly, energy. Insurers and investors have a stake — when crops fail, they lose money, commodity prices rise and operations are disrupted.

Businesses are aware of the risks of climate change: more than 900 companies petitioned President Donald Trump for the United States to stay in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Extreme weather, water scarcity, natural disasters and climate change were listed in the top five risks in terms of impact in the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Risks Perception Survey. Soil cuts across all these environmental concerns but was not mentioned.

If the private sector is serious about sustainability and commitments to climate change, it must take action on soil. In collaboration with researchers, businesses should advocate for international legislation, assess their soil risks and impacts and invest in maintaining and enhancing this resource.

Buried treasure

Soil’s invisibility in the boardroom is the result more of unfamiliarity than apathy. For instance, last October, I ran a session on the risks and opportunities that soil presents at the annual meeting of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a chief-executive-led forum of more than 200 multinational companies. Participants from across the accounting, agriculture, chemicals, engineering and food sectors said that they were surprised to learn of soil’s roles beyond agriculture.

Water regulation is one function in which business has a stake. Soil moisture is crucial for rain-fed agriculture, which accounts for three-quarters of human usage of fresh water3. Soils that are compacted, eroded or lacking in organic material hold less water. This increases the likelihood of floods and the impact of droughts, and intensifies competition for water resources. Water scarcity is widely acknowledged as a major risk to the global economy4: in 2016, droughts and shortages cost businesses US$14 billion5. The contributions of soil to water problems and its potential for mitigating risks are uncertain, however.

Water-intensive industries such as beverages, mining and energy are taking action in the catchments where they operate. For example, the Coca-Cola Company has been working with wildlife charity WWF and communities to maintain irrigation channels in Nepal, remove invasive sugar cane from the banks of Rio Grande and reforest in Mexico to improve water availability6. It should also look at protecting local soils by, for example, reducing disturbance and promoting conservation agriculture.

Climate risk and mitigation is another area in which businesses underappreciate soil’s potential. It is the largest global reservoir of organic carbon. Land-use change and poor soil management have resulted in a loss of 42–78 gigatonnes of carbon from soils over the past century7. The majority was emitted as carbon dioxide. This compares with 450–600 gigatonnes of anthropogenic carbon emissions since the industrial revolution.

Sustainable land management can reverse this trend by increasing the amount of carbon stored in soils. On 21–23 March, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will hold the first Global Symposium on Soil Organic Carbon. The aim is to review the role of soils in climate change and integrate the issue into the regular assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

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Soil Management Could Make or Break Climate Change Response Efforts

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Published: March 21, 2017 

Warning of “colossal” negative impacts for the environment and human societies if the massive stores of carbon trapped in the Earth’s soils are released, Fijian president Jioji Konousi Konrote called for stronger management of this critical natural resource at the start of an international symposium today.

There is currently more carbon locked up in just the first meter of the planet’s soils than can be found in the atmosphere and all terrestrial plant life combined, he said during his keynote address to the Global Symposium on Soil Organic Carbon (21-23 March).

Referring to international commitments to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius made under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, Konrote warned: “If we fail to maintain our soils as a carbon reservoir, I am afraid that these discussions and negotiations would have been in vain.”

“We cannot afford to neglect a resource that could be our serious and viable ally against climate change,” he added.

Fiji and other small island developing states are on the front lines in the battle against climate change. The government of Fiji is poised to assume the presidency of the next Conference of Parties of the UN Climate Agreement that will take place in in Bonn, Germany, in November.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva in his remarks stressed that beyond their critical role as a carbon sink, healthy soils underpin multiple environmental processes upon which humankind depends and which are the foundation of global food security.

“Soils with high organic carbon content are likely to be more fertile and productive, better able to purify water, and help to increase the resilience of livelihoods to the impacts of climate change,” he noted.

This means that improving the health of the planet’s soils and boosting their organic carbon content is critical to achieving several of the international development goals established by the UN’s 2030 agenda, especially the second goal of eradicating hunger and malnutrition, FAO’s Director-General said.

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Conoce al Doctor Mexicano que Lidera la Lucha por Salvar las Abejas

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Autor: Rosa Molinero| Publicado: 29 de diciembre, 2016

El doctor Ernesto Guzmán-Novoa era tan solo un adolescente oaxaqueño cuando en la escuela aprendió las primeras lecciones sobre las abejas. Le gustaba la miel, pero rápidamente le gustaron más los insectos que producían esa miel.

Actualmente lidera un equipo que investiga las principales causas que empeoran la salud de las abejas y han descubierto que algunos hongos y ácaros las debilitan, así como también un tipo de pesticida llamado neoniconitoide.

Actualmente lidera un equipo que investiga las principales causas que empeoran la salud de las abejas y han descubierto que algunos hongos y ácaros las debilitan, así como también un tipo de pesticida llamado neoniconitoide.

Este pesticida es de reciente creación pero a su vez es el más usado en el mercado agroquímico, con unas ganancias de 200 billones de euros en 2014. Afecta a las abejas haciendo que se debilite su sistema inmune y hace que se alimenten peor.

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Teenager Is on Track to Plant a Trillion Trees

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Author: Laura Parker | Published: March 7, 2017 

Children are not often invited to speak to the United Nations General Assembly. But there stood Felix Finkbeiner, German wunderkind in his Harry Potter spectacles, gray hoodie, and mop-top haircut—with a somber question about climate change.

“We children know adults know the challenges and they know the solutions,” he said. “We don’t know why there is so little action.”

The children came up with three possible reasons to explain the lapse, he said. One is differing perspectives on the meaning of the word “future.”

“For most adults, it’s an academic question. For many of us children, it’s a question of survival,” he said. “Twenty-one hundred is still in our lifetime.”

Another explanation is climate denial. The third possibility can be glimpsed in an animal parable about monkeys that made an especially sharp point in the way that only a child delivering the message can.

“If you let a monkey choose if he wants one banana now or six bananas later, the monkey will always chose the one banana now,” he said. “From this, we children understood we cannot trust that adults alone will save our future. To do that, we have to take our future in our hands.”

At the time of his speech, Finkbeiner was four years into leading a remarkable environmental cause that has since expanded into a global network of children activists working to slow the Earth’s warming by reforesting the planet.

 Today, Finkbeiner is 19—and Plant-for-the-Planet, the environmental group he founded, together with the UN’s Billion Tree campaign, has planted more than 14 billion trees in more than 130 nations. The group has also pushed the planting goal upward to one trillion trees—150 for every person on the Earth.

The organization also prompted the first scientific, full-scale global tree count, which is now aiding NASA in an ongoing study of forests’ abilities to store carbon dioxide and their potential to better protect the Earth. In many ways, Finkbeiner has done more than any other activist to recruit youth to the climate change movement. Plant-for-the-Planet now has an army of 55,000 “climate justice ambassadors,” who have trained in one-day workshops to become climate activists in their home communities. Most of them are between the ages nine and 12.

“Felix is a combination of inspirational and articulate,” says Thomas Crowther, an ecologist who conducted the tree count while working at Yale University in Connecticut. “A lot of people are good at one of those things. Felix is really good at both.”

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