Knowledge-sharing and sustainability: Pastoral Development in Senegal

Small projects made in small places can make the difference, just by acting and introducing knowledge in a community. A group of researchers situated in the Canary Island of Tenerife, which form part of ICIA (Instituto Canario de Investigación Agraria) have carried out the technical direction of a pastoral project in Senegal, specifically in the region of St. Louis, where we can find the Peul ethnic group who have a ranching tradition.

Good projects such as this should be praised and supported. This is a community with a clear competence: they are farmers (belonging to a cattle cooperative) and they know how to develop this work. Why not giving them the right tools to create a competitive advantage from it?

This is the main objective of the project: to provide them with the hardware to produce their own supplies of meat and milk. Senegal is a country characterized by its dryness, poor fodder, and poor production of milk and meat and, on the social side, discrimination of women in this sector. The project’s task was to fight against all these problems and the approach they had was through a pilot farm.

In this pilot farm they taught the Senegalese in livestock management issues and management of forage that could withstand high temperatures and sufficient nutrients for the production of milk and meat. They also introduced a Canarian goat, which comes for the island of Fuerteventura. It  is a very dry island, and this specie of goat is used to shortage of food and water. Unlike the Senegalese goat, it´s a great producer of milk, and therefore seemed to be the best species to introduce in the area.

 

The Senegalese are used to producing milk for their daily consumption, but what can they do with their surplus? Conservation of milk for future consumption is still unimaginable in Senegal, which is why they need another way to cope with that surplus. In the village of Richard Toll, the ICIA team created a small dairy plant where all this surplus of milk can be taken and transformed into different products, creating a connection between the farmers.

The community also faced the problem of the less productive breeds of goat, as it is difficult for them to access water and livestock food. Added to these problems are low rainfall and lack of training in this area.

This is where the role of women came in.  Women became the centre of this activity, as they were the ones responsible for the transformation of milk and also the financial accounting of the dairy plant. They formed an association of 50 women, which specialized in the production of a type of yogurt called Lait Caillé.  As there were other products that they could produce with the milk, the  team assisted with the transference of this knowledge. They taught them, for example, how to produce cheese.

 

 

This new role that women began to have in society gave them status and a control over an issue where men were not present. Also, they had a new responsibility, not only about learning how to maintain the dairy plant but also about the development of their community; transferring information to other areas and looking for the engagement and participation of their society.

Overall it seems as a great project and has been received with enthusiasm by the community with new learning, new tools and new knowledge. However, we should ask ourselves:  is it the correct knowledge?

The problem with projects led by richer countries is that they are difficult to continue because of lack of funding which can provoke incomplete implementation of knowledge in the community. A time is stated for the development of the project (in this case 3 years), but small details are not taken into account, for example: are there any difficulties in the process? Do we have new information from the community, which can help us understand what they really need?  Are they able to develop the activity by themselves? Is there remote monitoring of the project?

Researchers devoted to this type of project try to develop them and try to transfer the knowledge, but if institutions decide when a project ends, there is little that they can do to ensure that knowledge-transfer is sustainable. This is where countries that give this type of service to Southern countries should question themselves: is it better to give non-donor countries an incomplete piece of the pie or should donor countries give them the whole pie?

In order to try and address these issues, the G-20 developing group, through the Seoul Multi-Year Action Plan, is trying to implement better ways of knowledge-sharing to deliver tools, information and technology to those countries that demand it. They believe that triangular cooperation could create equilibrium in the way this demand is achieved, as there would be a participation of three main agents: the donor countries, middle-income countries and low-income countries. Through this cooperation strategy, a win-win-win horizontal partnership could be achieved.

Cooperation should be the tool used to move into other stages, to improve bidirectional knowledge, to motivate parts to ensure the best accomplishment, a way of motivating to achieve the goal and also to ensure long-term knowledge, where both parts are constantly enriching their know-how and their capacity of performance. Sharing will drive us to the best equal and sustainable development.

 

Sources:

• Proyecto Para El Incremento De La Seguridad Alimentaria En El Norte De Senegal (Comunidades Ganaderas Rurales Del Departamento De Dagana) (2011-2013) PROYECTO CONCEDIDO AECID CORDINATED BY TECHNICAL DIRECTION ICIA
• Scaling Up Knowledge sharing for Development- A Working Paper for the G-20 Development Working Group, Pillar 9 (23 p.p.) http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/Data/wbi/wbicms/files/drupal-acquia/wbi/4%20G-20%20DWG%20Report%20on%20Knowledge%20Sharing.pdf

 

Comments Off on Knowledge-sharing and sustainability: Pastoral Development in Senegal / 09 Jan 2014 por mariagutierrez
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Greening Forward: an NGO made by young people for young people

I found Greening Forward almost a year ago when I was reading an article about young entrepreneurs. I read about Charles Orgbon, who founded Recycling Education when he was only 12, and which two years later became Greening Forward. I liked his idea so, almost immediately, I contacted him and since then have been proud to help them.

Greening Forward is a youth-driven organization which believes that young people can lead the way towards sustainable community change. I believe in this idea because young people have the courage and the spirit to be change-makers. We need to provide them with capacity-building resources so that we create support for youth as new leaders.

I firmly believe (and this is the reason I joined them), that we as young people should be the ones who begin to make changes to the world that we live in. More than 50% of the global population is under 25 years old and, just as  we don’t wait for young people to grow up to teach them how to read or write, in the 21st century we cannot wait to provide them with environmental education or to give them the tools that they need to make the difference. Greening Forward is a good platform for young people to create networks that stimulate synergies, improve their capacity-building and promote ideas in their communities. We think that changes begin and grow out of small communities and that by working in these activities young people will learn during the process so that in the future they will be prepared for the really big issues that we will face in the future.

As I wanted my IMSD Colleagues to have the opportunity to read about the partnerships and fund-raising activities developed by this NGO, I sent the CEO, Charles Orgbon, some questions that I thought that would be interesting and also provide a real case of the issues that we have studied in the Development Perspectives module.

When and why did you create this NGO?

In 2008, I founded a non-profit organization, Greening Forward, which works to support a youth-driven, youth-imagined environmental movement across the world. Founding Greening Forward as a 12-year-old 5^th grader was my personal response to becoming aware of the environmental issues in our world. Greening Forward at the time was mostly a website and blog. However, as I began taking a leadership role in my community around environmental issues, I saw a void in the environmental movement that was failing to support young people with big ideas for community environmental improvement.  Therefore, Greening Forward evolved into an organization that would support other young environmental leaders.

 

How has Greening Forward developed since since it started and what changes has it made?

Our volunteer staff of students works with over 1,500 young people in over 15 communities who impact another 10,000 community members through 50 community partners. Currently, I am an 11^th grade student, but over the years, I have been able to fundraise over $100,000 to support this cause to empower young environmental leaders; although, most of this support came from a game-changing grant this past year that allowed us to take our work to a new level. We recently hosted the first International Young Environmentalists Youth Summit with 140 young leaders and distributed over $50,000 in grants to young environmental changemakers working on water quality issues. Consequently, our environmental impact in our communities include planting over 300 trees, building over 80 compost bins, installing over 200 rain barrels, monitoring 11 streams, recycling 60 tons of waste, and advocating for a number of environmental issues.

How hard or easy is it for an NGO like Greening Forward to find funds, create partnerships or create new projects?

Being a youth-driven organization has a double-edged sword. First, a part of our organization is attractive to adults because what we are doing is unique and unparalleled. Through Greening Forward, the idea of truly youth-driven, youth-imagined, youth-executed changemaking is quite unheard of at this scale and with this kind of impact within the environmental movement. For that reason, the partnerships we are able to build, are often cherished because we find folks who are genuinely passionate about the work we are doing, want to be plugged into that work, and are interested in creating win-win partnerships. However, because we are a young organization, we are still trying to figure out how to create long lasting funding partnerships. I just believe that we have not meet all of the right people yet, but soon others will continue to “buy-in” to this idea of young people powering the environmental changes they would like to see in their communities. The idea of authentic youth leadership and youthful social entrepreneurship is becoming popular and gaining momentum, and finally adults are able to see more clearly the power of young people to lead transformational social and environmental changes.

Which key points are important for the success of Greening Forward? Do you think that are the same for all NGOs?

We are very genuine to the core beliefs of our organization. Youth are leading the massive environmental change through Greening Forward, and our message of authentic youth leadership provides a missing voice that echoes into many of our partner organizations as well. NGOs must find their niche in their communities and seek every day to make sure it is in alignment with the same mission that it had set out to do.

Are partnerships the most important thing for a NGO?

Partnerships are critical to the survival of any venture. Soon organizations are going to have to realize that we are in this boat together. We share the same sandbox, we have similar journeys, and eventually we must work together. I challenge organizations to re-think what collaborative partnership looks like. It is an awful lot more than sharing each other’s media promotions on Twitter and Facebook. It is about coming to the decision-making table with all stakeholders to produce collective impact. Who brings what to the table? How can we magnify each other’s contributions to create meaningful, substantive change? Today’s global, complex issues that NGOs are hoping to solve were not created independently and they cannot be solved independently.

Comments Off on Greening Forward: an NGO made by young people for young people / 09 Jan 2014 por marioescamilla
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Can new economic activities be created in cities?

The economic inequality and poverty that I have seen during my whole life in my city -Buenos Aires- and in all of the Latin American cities I´ve been to, is something I always considered unacceptable. Knowing that it´s not only an issue in my home-town or Latin America because in cities all over the world more and more people are daily drawn into poverty or born in these conditions,   makes it even worst. With the hope that our societies can find workable solutions to handle the complexity of poverty in urban centers is that I raise several questions to some of the current approaches to this issue.

Near 4 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day in the world[1], and an estimated one quarter of the world´s total poor are urban residents[2]. Urban areas are seen by the population as wealthier places, with much more opportunities to make a decent living. Migration from rural to urban areas is going on for years since industrialization, causing a “pathological growth” as E. F. Schumacher defines it[3].   Much has been and is being discussed in how to prevent this migration, focusing mainly in promoting sustainable economic activities in rural areas. There are successful experiences in local community development and a lot of ongoing projects.

Urban poverty is different from rural poverty. It has different characteristics and therefore different challenges. So creating “islands” of successful experiences of developing projects in local communities might not be possible to export to the cities.

So what about the people that live in poverty in the cities? The traditional way of making a living in a city is by being an employee. But unemployment has dragged millions of people into poverty. Governments and NGOs, and different types of private charity, work to alleviate the impact of this situation, but this is not a sustainable solution.

 

One of the solutions that are becoming more popular every day is the promotion of entrepreneurship in this demographic segment also known as Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP). This boom of entrepreneurship also is promoted by governments for middle class population that is unemployed but has the education and resources that could allow them to achieve a successful enterprise. But is this solution for everyone? Can the promotion of innovation, creativity, fundraising skills and network building be applied to the poorest population?

Muhammed Yunnus and the Grameen Bank´s experience give as a hint that it is possible, and that it can work out for many people. With a different kind of approach and training, funding through microcredits give poor people the chance of making a living out of their own enterprise. Nevertheless the question is still there, is this a solution for the 4 billion people in the BoP? Is it possible for all to become entrepreneurs and succeed?

Another path encouraged by Yunnus is Social Businesses. In his words “they are just like any other business; but for social objectives and not for personal gain or dividend.”[4] The driver for investors is a social outcome and all the gains should be reinvested. According to Yunnus´ proposal, this type of businesses can´t be mixed with Profit Making Businesses. Won´t this leads us to create a divided economy, into an economy for the poor and an economy for the rich?

Different type of Social Enterprises, meaning organizations that “operate in an entrepreneurial fashion while accomplishing the charitable goals of the organizations that house them”[5], don´t propose this separation. But for these Social Enterprises not to fail large businesses need to be involved.

Can large companies be part of the creation of new types of economic activities for urban residents in order to reduce poverty?

Porter and Kramer propose creating “Shared Value”[6]. This is not a redistribution approach but “about expanding the total pool of economic and social value.” Companies and business leaders that understand  that “a business needs a successful community, not only to create demand for its products but also to provide critical public assets and a supportive environment. A community needs successful businesses to provide jobs and wealth creation opportunities for its citizens” will look new ways to include the BoP in the business strategies. This demographic segment can´t be approached in the conventional business-way, population needs have to be understood and innovative ideas and technology are needed in order to create products and services that create social inclusion and are still profitable. Environmental issues have to be considered too, because some of the experiences that have been made base in selling small units of sale with low margins of profits but this creates a waste problem.

Businesses are needed on board if the goal is to eradicate poverty. The challenge by including them is that as important as it is to create sustainable economic activities that create profit, the inclusion of 4 billion people that live in poverty shouldn´t be seen only as expanding into a new market.  At the end of the day (and at the beginning) the BoP is PEOPLE. Including them to the market can be profitable but our goal should be improving their life conditions. Can businesses be the guardians of that goal?

Different new types of economic activities are being developed; none of them seem to be the only solution. Could they all be? Could the interaction of all of them be the solution for poverty? The answers will be in the learnings of all the practical experiences that are being carried out globally.

 

References:

• Baker, J.L. “Urban Poverty: A Global View”. The World Bank Group, 2008.
• Kasturi Rangan, V.; Chu M.; and Petkosk, D. “Segmenting The Base of The Pyramid”. Harvard Business Review, 2011.
• Porter M. and Kramer M. “Creating Shared Value”. Harvard Business Review, 2011.
• Prahalad, C.K. and Hart, S.L. “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.” Strategy+Business, 2002.
• Schumacher, E.F. “Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered.”
• Social Enterprise Alliance.“Succeeding at Hard-Won Lessons for Nonprofi ts and Social Entrepreneurs”. San Francisco, 2010
• Yunnus, M. “Creating a World Without Povery”.

 

Comments Off on Can new economic activities be created in cities? / 09 Jan 2014 por celinalesta
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Food Security: Present and Future Challenge

I have always been concerned about managing resources in a limited world; specially, those which satisfy basic human needs, such as food or water. However, even though resources are scarce, I am strongly convinced that a proper management of them could produce an equal allocation. Moreover, as a sociologist, I always enjoy linking issues with external factors like demographics, economics or politics. For these reasons, I have decided to write a post about food security, and what is expected in the near future due to an increase in the world population.

The agriculture and food industry are fundamental sectors for every society in today’s world. Nowadays, 870 million people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition; and 98% of them are living in developing countries. Nevertheless, this problem is not rooted in the lack of food, as the current food production levels could feed around 12.000 million people. In addition, about 25% of that food is thrown away after being purchased. This demonstrates that hunger is not a problem of productivity, but a problem of poverty originated in a shortage of access.

On the other hand, we are going to face new challenges in the next coming years. The world population is expected to reach 9.1 billion people by 2050. Satisfying the basic needs of those people will suppose a challenge for governments and society.

Additionally, the economy will triple the size due to the growth of developed countries.

Due to this tendency, the demand of food will increase seriously as the result of population growth and economic development. For those reasons, it is likely that prices will rise. That’s why hunger problems will probably expand in the coming years. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the demand of food will increase by 70% until 2050. The world could develop this big capacity, but some changes are needed in order to feed the whole population.

Firstly, regulation over food and agriculture need to be excluded from the World Trade Organization jurisdiction. The market is determining the unequal distribution of food around the world, because economic interests prevail over basic needs satisfaction. Planet resources are being exploded, but these resources are unequally distributed. These unsustainable patterns must be stopped.

Secondly, developed countries need to change their way of thinking and acting. It is necessary to tackle the issue of wasted food and esthetic requirements in supermarkets. Moreover, developing countries could improve their technology in the agricultural sector in order to optimize their production.

Therefore, hunger is one of the most important problems at this moment. Wide-spread hunger could be an actual scenario in the upcoming years for the above-mentioned reasons. However, we can deal with it by changing our practices.

References:

Díaz Salazar, R. (2002) Justicia global: Las alternativas de los movimientos del Foro de Porto Alegre, Icaria Editorial, Intermón Oxfam.ISBN 8484521621

FAO (2009) How to Feed the World in 2050

Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2010) Population: One Planet, Too many People?

Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2013) Global Food: Waste Not, Want Not

OXFAM INTERNATIONAL (2011) Growing a Better Future: Food justice in a resource-constrained world

Comments Off on Food Security: Present and Future Challenge / 09 Jan 2014 por martagomezmanchon
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The Pharmaceutical Industry: a key player in development

In 1996 a meningococcal meningitis epidemic was declared in Kano’s State, Nigeria. Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières) responded sending a team of volunteer physicians to the city of Kano, capital of the region and second largest city of Nigeria. They treated patients with chloamphenicol, one of the two antibiotics, as well as ceftriaxone, recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to treat meningococcal meningitis in areas that have limited health care resources of Africa.

At the time of the epidemic, the US pharmaceutical Pfizer was trying to obtain the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration for the antibiotic Trovan (Trovafloxacin). In order to gain a better knowledge of its effects in children, Pfizer sent a research team to Kano, depicted as philanthropic work.

They treated 200 children, half of them with Trovan and the other half with ceftriaxone, as comparison group. However, in an effort to save time, the ceftriaxone was not administrated following the standards of the manufacturer: the dosage was reduced to one third of the recommended and it was injected in the buttocks instead of into a vein.

After three weeks, the Pfizer’s team was unable to determinate the effectiveness of the treatment and abandoned Kano. By the end of Nigeria’s epidemic, at least 8,000 people had died, many of whom were children, and more than 75,000 had been infected (WHO, 2011).

In 2002, Pfizer was sued by a group of Nigerian Trovan affected, alleging that “they suffered grave injuries from an experimental antibiotic administered by Pfizer without their informed consent”.

Plaintiffs alleged that those administered with Trovan that didn’t die, suffered from impairing side effects. After 4 judicial opinions from different courts, in 2009, Pfizer settled the case out of court with a $75 million settlement that was subject to a confidentiality clause.

 

The Kano Case had not only consequences in terms of those directly affected by the clinical research, but also related to following health initiatives. The 2005 program of the WHO to eradicate poliomyelitis clashed with the resistance of Kano’s radical Islamist authorities, opposing to the vaccination and spreading the mistrust to the surrounding areas.

The big picture

This case shows the important role that pharmaceutical companies play in development. This importance is more obvious considering the fact that 3 of the 8 Millennium Development Goals for 2015 are related to health: reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

The global pharmaceuticals market is worth US$300 billion a year, a figure expected to rise to US$400 billion within three years (WHO). North America, Europe and Japan account for the 74% of the market.

This means that approximately 5.7 billion people (80% of the world population) share only the 26% of the global pharmaceutical market. Although low-income countries spend higher percentage of their budgets in pharmaceutical products than high-income countries, in absolute figures, the expenditure is so small that many drug developers don’t even bother to take out patents in poor countries.

 

Moreover, the low people’s purchasing power in developing countries not only limits their access to drugs but also determines the development of new ones. The research and development (R&D) of new drugs is mostly controlled by the private sector, which spend billions of dollars each year in the search of new products for the mass market. Though developing countries have been benefited with the development of new drugs, the main focus of private sector’s R&D is in the drugs that are more likely to provide a high return on the company’s investment. Consequently, the development of drugs for treating diseases common in high-income countries is prioritized over those that affect low-income countries.

“Pecoul et al. (1999) report that of the 1.233 drugs licensed worldwide between 1975 and 1997, only 13 were for tropical diseases. Of these, five came from veterinary research, two were modifications of existing medicines, and two were produced for the U.S. military. Only four were developed by commercial pharmaceutical firms specifically for tropical diseases of humans.” Michel Kremer, 2002

As a consequence of the disregard to the highly spread diseases in tropical areas, the term neglected tropical diseases (NTD) was coined. The WHO acknowledges 17 NTD at the moment, ranging from leprosy to rabies. The relation between NTD and poverty is so tight that the first can be use as an indicator of extreme poverty, associated with the lack of fresh water and sanitation.

But not only is the lack of specific medication for certain diseases the cause of mortality. Most of the low-income countries have very weak or non-existing at all health systems. Qualified personnel are scarce and have a huge workload, resulting in wrong prognosis. Furthermore, subjective perception influences in the prescription of inappropriate treatment. Such is the case in Africa, where injections are often prescribed rather than pills, as many patients see these as more powerful (Kremer, 2002).

In addition, self-prescription and self-medication are more extended the poorer is the country. Patients purchase and consume medication without the supervision of a physician, and in most of the cases, the treatment is not completed in its entire course. This leads to the development of drug-resistant forms of diseases, which increase the threat also to high-income countries.

Breaking the circle

Disease is not a cause of poverty, but an outcome of it that contributes to impoverish even more. It affects people undernourished, dwelling in slums and without pure water or sanitation. It impairs their capacity to work, turning them incapable to provide for themselves. This is the vicious circle of poverty-disease.

In order to break the circle, the access to medicines is the key factor. Although a simple concept, it is a very complex issue to achieve. Taking in consideration that expenditure on pharmaceutical products accounts for the major proportion of health cost in low-income countries (WHO); then, access to treatment is heavily dependent on the availability of affordable medicines. In terms of affordability, the WHO proposes different solution, such as differential pricing or equity pricing. But low pricing alone does not secure access to treatment. Efficient health care systems, well provisioned and with qualified professional, are key.

The primary role of the pharmaceutical industry is to develop pharmacological products that can be sold in markets at a profit. In most of the cases, a drug or vaccine has high fixed costs in the R&D process, while the marginal costs of production are, comparatively, very low. The willingness to pay in low-income countries borders this marginal cost, meaning that the research on neglected diseases (with no presence in high-income market) would not pay off. This may imply that in order to tackle the issue of the NTD, a new paradigm of how to allocate the resources is needed, both from national governments and aid agencies. From governments, reallocating the budget to the most cost-effective measures in terms of health care. Development aid agencies should consider diverting resources from tangible goods (such as infrastructure projects) to R&D projects.

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Main sources

1. Cózar, A (2009) “Un tormento llamado Trovan” in El País, retrieved from http://elpais.com/diario/2009/04/19/domingo/1240113154_850215.html.
   
2. Kremer, M (2002) “Pharmaceuticals and the Developing World” in The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 16,  Number 4, pp. 67-90.
3. Lassen, L C and Thomsen, M K (2007) “Global health: the ethical responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry” in Danish Medical Bulletin, Volume 54, Number 1, pp. 35-36.
   
4. Leisinger, K M (2012) “Meeting the global health challenge: the role of the pharmaceutical industry” in Making It Magazine, retrieved from http://www.makingitmagazine.net/?p=6046.
5. Loue, S (2013) ‘Forensic Epidemiology in the Global Context: A Case Study of Pfizer and the Trovafloxacin Trial’ in Loue, S (Ed.) Forensic Epidemiology in the Global Context, Springer.

Comments Off on The Pharmaceutical Industry: a key player in development / 08 Jan 2014 por juancarlosgomezmartin
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Where our paths begin and theirs end – Landscape fragmentation and Habitat corridors

Having lived in several places, I’ve driven past ‘deer crossing’, ‘iguana crossing’ and even ‘kangaroo crossing’ signs. I’ve often wondered why an animal would think to come so close to a noisy highway; never realising that they may have no other choice. Just as we commute to university or work each day and have to leave our houses to buy food, animals have their own daily errands to complete. Therefore, just as we demand good roads and sturdy bridges from our governments, we should provide such pathways for animals, so that they too can access their bare necessities.

In order to make up for the infrastructural obstacles we have built, ecologists are now working to create habitat corridors, which allow for dispersal, commuting and migration[1]. Dispersal is a one-way movement, which ensures biodiversity and reduces the chance of a species becoming extinct by staying in one area. Commuting, on the other hand, is a regular movement – in search of food or water, for example – but is generally restricted to smaller areas. Then there is migration. Many species carry out a yearly migration so as to escape the winter, but as this is generally a long journey it is increasingly difficult for them to travel through the maze of highways and fences we have constructed.

In order to allow animals to travel through increasingly fragmented landscapes, ecologists protect specific routes, such as the Mesoamerican biological corridor[2], which allow animals to commute to and from protected areas. Where highways have already been built and have disrupted migration, ecologists have come up with innovative ideas to protect animals from these dangers. In the USA, for example, they built a grassy overpass, so that Pronghorn dear can migrate each winter[3]. Though this new obstacle was first approached with caution, the dear have gradually accepted it, showing that there are changes we can make to protect animals without limiting our own travel opportunities.

Copyright: WCS JBurrell. Trappers Point fall 2012 crossing. Retrieved from: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/06/path-of-the-pronghorn-leading-to-new-passages-part-3/

Though there are increasingly more protected areas, there is another obstacle which may be harder to deal with in the coming years. Climate change is a growing problem which forces animals to change their habits. Though we can buy air-conditioning units or warm clothing, animals have no choice but to escape from areas which are no longer adequate for them. Climate change can dry up water sources and kill plants, for which reason we need to create pathways for animals to move from warm zones to cooler areas where they can find food.[4]

Sadly unless we stop contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and start investing more in habitat corridors to help animals adapt, in the future we may never again see wildlife crossing signs.

 

Comments Off on Where our paths begin and theirs end – Landscape fragmentation and Habitat corridors / 08 Jan 2014 por anabeatriceacuna
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Are we using Natural Resources in a Sustainable Way?

During the first session of Environment and Natural Resources Management we discussed the difference between sustained and sustainable practices. To use the example from the class, a sustained practice would be cutting 4 trees and then planting 4 trees again; a sustainable practice would consider other factors, for instance, the affected species that live in those trees.

While doing some research for the next post I’m going to publish about a key development issue, the topic of factory farming came up after I was told to read the blog post of a former IMSD student called Daniel Salter. It really caught my attention, but I want to focus on the following ideas he highlighed and quoted from the Animals Autralia video:

“According to the UN, raising animals for food, contributes more to climate change than all of the world’s trains, planes and automobiles combined… not to mention water pollution, species extinction, and almost every other major environmental threat.”

“The reality is, factory farms use more food than they produce, which means less food for everyone else. At a time when globally, more than one billion people are suffering from malnutrition, one third of the worlds edible cereal harvest is being fed to farm animals… that cereal would be enough to feed around three billion people.”

I wasn’t aware of this issue, I see factory farming as a cruel practice, but I never thought about it from the point of view of how sustainable it is based on the amount of food livestock needs. The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) talks about this challenge in the document Why animals matter in achieving “The Future we Want”, they believe that it is necesssary to include animal welfare in the Sustainable Development Goals (Rio+20) to have a positive impact in poverty eradication and economic development, food security, public health, climate change and the preservation of biodiversity.

The figures are really disturbing, the WSPA states that, globally, 53% of all oil crops (soybeans, palm oil and rapeseed) and 38% of all cereals (mainly wheat, maize and some rice) are used for livestock feed, and this production occupies large areas of land and forest. When it comes to the food chain, meat production accounts for 18-25% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and by 2050 this number could increase to 70%. The increasing use of livestock production is generating overexploitation of the ecosystems, affecting biodiversity and the natural habitat for animals.

The American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) also raises factory farming and climate change as one of the Grand Challenges 2012, where they mention that animal agriculture affects climate change, but it also works the other way around. According to them, the major concern is the prediction that the global human population will double by 2050. As a result, animal agriculture will have to produce more food with fewer resources in a changing environment.

Philip Lymbery is the Chief Executive of Compassion in World Farming and in the following video he exposes the competition between feeding people and feeding farmed animals, as well as the impact on the environment and our resources:

Pinche aquí para ver el vídeo

In another video Philip Lymbery talks about the commission they formed with Friends of the Earth, The Institute for Social Ecology (Austria) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Germany) to find a way to feed the world without factory farming and moving to a model that is better for the people, for the animals and for the planet. Compassion in World Farming prepared a report with a series of recommendations to provide humane conditions to animals and at the same time face the challenge of the increasing population. One of them is changing our diet into a sustainable one by eating a better quality meat, but less of it.

To complement the recommendations from the report, I think sometimes it is useful to go back to basics and think about how indigenous people lived and adapt it to our reality. Apparently this strategy has been successful to the WWF, as they state the following:

“(…) We can often learn from the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples. Their local wisdom and survival skills, often learned and passed down over generations, can teach us a lot about the natural world and how to live in harmony with it.

Our community-based projects show that with local people involved it’s possible to find the delicate balance between development and conservation.”

Maybe not for our own sake, but for the ones to come, we better  reflect on how we can contribute as consumers to tackle this issue.

Comments Off on Are we using Natural Resources in a Sustainable Way? / 08 Jan 2014 por yvonneroca
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Diving into a new world – Thoughts on Environment and Natural Resource Management

Quite some time went by since I took biology as an intensive class in high school and I have not studied the environment and natural resource management any further since then. That is why the first class in this above mentioned area was really interesting to me. Of course some concepts of ecology and biogeography sounded familiar and I remember drawing different ecological cycles in school, but I have to admit that I have not paid close attention to this topic over the last years..

However, as the class went by I realized that I am confronted with many of these concepts in my everyday life through media and that I am aware of many of these issues. Just to give you some examples: Most of us know that the regeneration rate of the rainforest cannot cope with the speed in which humankind destroys it and most of us know that there is only a limited capacity of what the ecosystems can carry without becoming less resilient or completely destroyed. But are we really aware of how much damage our actions can cost? Just have a look at the picture below which depicts the consequences of overfishing.

It is important that we understand that biodiversity guarantees the ecosystem service production and that inflicting damage on it has wide-ranging consequences. Therefore the protection of biodiversity needs to play a greater role in politics and national accounts. Having these various issues in mind and being confronted with them through media almost every day, it is even more appalling to read the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) where it is stated that the goal which has been set “by the world’s Governments in 2002, ‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss […] as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth’, has not been met”. One has to acknowledge that the target helped to initiate actions to protect biodiversity and that some significant and measurable results can be seen.

Nevertheless, we need to take on further actions and raise awareness towards a sustainable natural resource management. Almost all of our actions have an impact on the environment and we can’t blame the responsibilities on others.

Comments Off on Diving into a new world – Thoughts on Environment and Natural Resource Management / 06 Jan 2014 por claravalentinakupper
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Cloth donations – causing more harm than good?

Being a student in my twenties I have moved a lot in the past few years. From Germany to Austria, to the Czech Republic (…) and finally my last relocation to Spain. Thanks to a limited amount of luggage that I am able to carry with me in trains and airplanes, I learned to cut back on the amount of clothes I own. Just like many other people I decided to give some of my clothing to charity, believing that I would help others with my donation. However, growing up in Germany I realized more and more that I have quite a Eurocentric way of thinking. At one point I started to question my decisions and to look behind the business that is made through the collection of old clothes and the potential harm it causes.

There are different organizations who collect ones clothes. Depending on the organization, a little percentage of the donated items is kept by the organization and sold in thrift shops or given away to people in need. For free, without trying to make profit out of it. Threadbare and useless fabric are sold to textile recycling firms. As one can see, there is already a business made with the donated clothes and we do not always know if the profit is reinvested into charitable projects. In many cases a high percentage of the clothing is shipped to Sub Saharan countries or to other continents. And here comes the point where I try to look behind this kind of business. I realize that I, among many people, have a huge misunderstanding of what people in so called underdeveloped countries need and that we should question our decisions more frequently. Most people do not know that there is a huge market of old clothes in African countries, which is destroying its local textile industry. In this blogpost I will only concentrate on this continent, because that is where the market began in the early 1980′s¹. So, one could say who are we to think, that dumping our clothes in another country will help the economy and the people living there? I will try to look at both sides of the coin, when trying to evaluate this kind of Business.

On the one hand, you need to take into account that these imports ruin the domestic textile industry which used to be a major industry in many countries. I would like to stress the word “used to”, because since cloth donations started in the 1980s, the clothing industry across Africa suffered a 40% decline in production and a high drop of the unemployment rate. According to G. Frazer² and his paper “Used-Clothing Donations and Apparel Production in Africa” the imports of used-clothing have a statistically significant effect on the textile and the apparel production in African countries². Local factories are not competitive with second hand fabrics from America or European countries. Since those clothes have been donated, there are only little costs such as administrative, sorting or transportation expenses. As a consequence to those low prices, many local factories had to shut down. In addition to the cheap clothes from donors, which are also known as “Mitumbas”, low quality products from China are threatening the market as well. Therefore the only niche for the local industry seem to be the production of traditional robes, school uniforms or work clothes, which cannot be found on the second hand markets or from the Chinese factories^2,3,4.

On the other hand, a whole economy with different jobs is generated through the business with donated clothes. Once the organization who received the donations has gone through the clothes and sorted out useless items, a wholesaler is buying a container full of ballots with old clothes from Europe or America and sells the ballots to another broker. After several steps the retailer purchases a ballot without knowing its value and tries to sell everything at the highest price at a market. One of the biggest markets is the Gikomba Market in Kenya. However, most of the time the journey of the old cloth has not come to an end yet and more jobs are created. Intermediaries are trying to find the best deal at the market in order to resell them in offices or to tailor new garments out of useless pieces. Besides those jobs there are others, such as ballot carries, security staff, tailors and many more linked to the business with old clothing^3,5. As one can imagine, profit is made by each intermediary, but the money is not necessarily going to people in need. Furthermore you have to keep in mind that this kind of industry always depends on the donations of others.

The donation of clothes can be seen as very controversy. I do not think that the solution would be to throw away unwanted clothes, but one should consider that money is made with those donations and that this money is usually not helping the people in great need. Furthermore, the local industry is suffering through those donations. At first glance the business with donated clothes seems to be reasonable, because it creates jobs and people are able to buy used clothes for a cheap price. One can say that any kind of business opportunity is an import step, but the new business established will always depend on the donations of others. Do you think that this kind of dependency really helps the economy? Wouldn’t it be more helpful and sustainable to strengthen the local industry by the money which is spend through financing the whole logistical and administrative process?

In my opinion actions are needed to set an end to this habit and to invest in the local textile industry to help it recover. The European Union as well as the countries which receive those donations should work together to strengthen the industry. 12 countries in Africa have already banned those textile imports in order to protect their own local industry⁴. However, as a response to a parliamentary question the European Parliament states, that they do not “take measures limiting either trade in used garments or export of these products, since such exports take place outside normal commercial circuits and often as small scale initiatives”. Therefore it seems to be in the responsibility of each country to adopt precaution through trade policy, but it is also the responsibility of everyone who is donating clothing.

There is not an easy answer whether to stop donating clothes or not, because other factors, such as the influence of cheap clothing from China, can ruin the local industry as well. Beyond that,  monetary help is not the key factor to success either, since it is hard to track where and how the money is actually spend⁷. I believe that we should not try to sooth our conscience by “doing something good”, if we do not really know the consequences. Instead we should rather invest into long lasting and sustainable projects which are not trying to impose an idea to a community while destroying its local industry. However, I recognise that this topic is very controversy, just like the effect of many other developing or charitable projects – but this is another huge topic which I will not get into any further at this point…

 

Main sources

1Brooks, A. and Simon D. (2012) “Unravelling the Relationship between Used-Clothing Imports and the Decline of African Clothing Industries”, Development and Change, 2012, vol. 43, issue 6, pages 1265–1290.

²Frazer, G. (2008) “Used-clothing Donations and Apparel Production in Africa”, Economic Journal, 118(532), pages 1764–84.

³Höft, M. (2011) “Das Kilo für 1,20 Dollar – Das große Geschäft mit den Kleiderspenden aus Deutschland”, Zeit online

⁴Mark, M. (2012) „Europe’s secondhand clothes brings mixed blessings to Africa“, The Quardian, (last access 5/12/2013)

⁵NDR Fernsehen (2013) “Die Altkleiderlüge – Wie Spenden zum Geschäft werden” (last access 28/11/2013)

⁶European Parliament (2012), Answer to a written question (last acces 3/1/2014)

⁷Easterly W., Pfutze T. (2007) “Where does the money go? Best and worse practices in foreign aid”, Global Economy & Development, Working Paper 21 | June 2008

Comments Off on Cloth donations – causing more harm than good? / 06 Jan 2014 por claravalentinakupper
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Responsible Hunting – The paradox of Natural Resource Management

Coming from Costa Rica, the first Latin American country to ban hunting as a sport, never would I have imagined myself even considering the benefits of hunting. Yet, when the concept was presented to me, I decided it was time to question whether it is now possible, or even necessary, to permit ‘responsible’ hunting.

Before us humans came along, animals had the freedom to roam the planet and migrate once the resources of their ecosystem had been worn down. This in turn allowed ecosystems time to recover their functions. Now, however, we have essentially caged animals within specific areas – for our and their protection – and have created problems of overexploitation. White-tailed deer for instance are a greater threat than climate change for forests[1], according to the Nature Conservancy, given that they have pushed the carrying capacity of these areas to their very limits.

It is evident that in order to protect the deer’s habitat and other species which rely on these ecosystems, we have to control the population within these regions. My question is why is hunting the answer?

Even in Costa Rica, exceptions are made for hunting when used for species control, as long as there is scientific proof that the overpopulation of a particular species endangers its own existence, that of another species or the ecosystem it inhabits[2]. It is clear that the overpopulation of white-tailed deer is detrimental to forests, but in addition to adequate reasons, we need adequate hunting tactics to solve this problem.

According to the University of Illinois, killing male deer does little to control population, but it is this that brings hunters the most prestige. If hunters focus on killing does, the community “allow them to shoot deer with exceptional antler”[3], but how can we guarantee that not all deer will suddenly have exceptional antlers? We must not forget that hunting is after all a sport. In order to compete, hunters tend to target the strongest animals, but in order to mimic nature’s population control, they should actually only hunt the most vulnerable ones. If only weak animals are left, they may not be able to hunt enough or offer enough protection to keep the rest of their herd safe.

On the other hand, according to Wildlife Ecology and Management “mortality is frequently compensatory because it usually increases the life expectancy of individuals surviving the hunt, promotes higher reproductive rates, or does both.”[4] Here, Bolen and Robinson argue that, hunting is not even effective, since it reduces competition for food, so that the animals that remain are stronger and more likely to reproduce. Nonetheless, hunting can also have psychological impacts on animals – and not just the ones it is targeting.

The noise from hunting affects migration and hibernation, as well as animals’ eating and mating instincts. If an adult flees, their young are left to defend themselves and if a goose or wolf lose their partner they may not be able to recover, since they mate for life.[5] Additionally, many animals are killed accidently or are subject to diseases, which hunting is supposed to control, but spreads instead. [6]

Given all these losses, we have to ask ourselves: aren’t there any other, more humane, options? According to the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University “deer become increasingly habituated to deterrent measures such as repellents and fencing”[7] so these measures are not cost-effective. In the same manner, the University of Illinois argues that sterilisation, is very costly and often ineffective since it is difficult to monitor the deer which have been treated[8]. This leaves us with animals’ natural solution, relocation. However, when this is performed by people, it often creates so much stress that the animals don’t live long afterwards.

Given the costs of other population control methods, it is clear why hunting is increasingly popular. According to Peta, wildlife reserves in the US are financed by the revenues from hunting licenses and taxes, so paradoxically they actually benefit from an increase in hunters. All we can hope for is that they are educated properly so that their diversions protect our ecosystems, and that the exceptions we permit for hunting don’t become loopholes for careless killing.

 

Comments Off on Responsible Hunting – The paradox of Natural Resource Management / 06 Jan 2014 por anabeatriceacuna
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