|
Sustainable Development Update Issue 1, Volume 7, 2007 The Sustainable Development Update (SDU) focuses on the links between ecology, society and the economy. It is produced by Albaeco, an independent non-profit organisation. SDU is produced with support from Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Environment Policy Division. Dr. Fredrik Moberg, Editor Click the miniature below to download in pdf-format: 
To read the PDF you need Acrobat reader, download for free here: http://www.adobe.com 
 | |||||||
| Guest Editorial | |||||||
A new era for the environment… and this newsletter We at Sida’s Environment Policy Division have contributed both finance and advisory support to this newsletter since its first issue in late 2001. The idea of supporting a newsletter focussing on recent research findings on the connections between ecology, society and economy stemmed from a long-growing realisation that without environmental protection, there will be no sustainable development, and no successful poverty reduction. /Mats Segnestam |
|||||||
| SDU - Feature | Turning the back to the sea: Why a coastal people in Madagascar starve rather than fish
 Currently half of the world’s population live within 150 kilometres from the coast and the numbers are growing. The Aquatic Ape Theory followers – that believe that mankind developed by the ocean and not on the savannahs – may say that it is only natural. Deep down we all want to live the Brazilian or Australian beach way of life. If it were so, the Tandroy people are a most definite exception. In 1958 the ethnologist Susanne Frère described the situation like this: “The people that live close to the coast all seem to have turned their backs to [the ocean]; nowhere along the coast you find villages…because the Tandroy are neither sailors nor fishermen.” This would perhaps not be so strange were the Tandroy well-off from agriculture and livestock. But they are not. Androy is considered to be one of the poorest regions of Madagascar. This stems from the vulnerability of the society to the droughts that hit the region with regular intervals, roughly once every decade. The result is a gradual loss of the cattle zebu, the source of security, leaving the people left with nothing and having to rebuild their stock, knowing that soon a new drought will hit with the same result. This situation was well described already in the 1920s by the colonial administrator Raymond Decary in his writings about Androy. Yet, Decary never proposed that fishing in the ocean could be a way out of this poverty trap. Hence, it would seem natural to assume that the coast of Androy is not fit for fishing. However, marine biologist Petit, mentions several suitable fishing sites in Androy in his book L’industries des Pêches à Madagascar (1931). But briefly explains that the Tandroy people themselves do not fish. Why is this? Two years ago I had the opportunity to visit one of the sites mentioned by Petit, Lavanono, a small village beautifully situated at the bottom of a valley. During the lobster fishing season cars come here weekly to buy the catch. At this date however, there was no fish to be found at all in the entire village. I could see a couple of dugout canoes on the beach, and there were fishermen there. But they did not seem to be like the fishermen I am used to. Fortunately, I met with three French tourists that had brought spear guns and caught us something to eat. They also told me that there was a lot out there. “God made the ocean salty to show that it is sacred and belongs to him” The first Tandroy that I talked to about the ocean told me that fishing was a kind of “faly” taboo. It was not strictly taboo, like eating tortoise (which it the worst thing a Tandroy can do), rather it is “something a Tandroy does not do”. Like an old woman said: “Just because I may be hungry, it does not mean that I will eat anything”. French ethnographer Guèrin (1977) writes that the Tandroy believe that God made the ocean salty to show that it is sacred and belongs to him. Similarly, a Tandroy official in the regional development office told me that people see it as a border to the spiritual world that one should not cross. I hoped that Morabe and Fingana (on the photo above) would be able to give me some context. They live in Ambonaivo village, six kilometres away from the coast and I ask them why they don’t fish during the dry spells, like now, when people have nothing to eat. – It is not our custom to know the ocean. If you go to the ocean, it means that you want to die and I do not know anything about the ocean. Let us talk about something else, like the faly, Fingana said hopefully.  The Tandroy love talking about their taboos and the ancestral legends. But this was the first time Fingana told me that he “did not know anything” about something. The same thing repeated itself with Morabe. End of discussion. Never been to the sea – 6 km away Then, during the weekend we decided to try and find a way down to the coast. Morabe explained in the car that he had not yet been there and wanted to see what it looked like up close. It was maybe six kilometres away, which is closer than the cattle market in Ambovombe that the men walk to every Monday morning. Every day in the morning you could sense the humidity from the ocean in the wind. Glancing at the landscape you would see how the trees had been shaped from it, their backs crooked in a northwesterly direction. The children would play with shells and their parents talk about where to take the cattle to find green grass, and curse the fine grains of sand that had moved into the fields during the night.  “The best fisherman in Faux Cap” Later, I visited another village called Maroalomainte, situated closer to the ocean. Here things were different, the mayor Gaston and his brother Armand had no problems to talk about the ocean. Most of the Tandroy in the village fish when they need to. But traditionally, they said, the Tandroy have never liked salt. Salty food makes you thirsty, which is bad in a region where there is no water. Also, people believe that it brings bad luck. A Tandroy saying, there are many, goes something like “Salt will erode your wealth, just like salt disappears when it dissolves in water.” One key reason for fishing to start at all, the mayor explained, was that the elders- responsible for the laws of the ancestors, along with the children, were the first to die during heavy droughts. That was how it began. With a drought, they tell me. A few people from the community began to collect sea food, simply by walking along the beach. Then they grilled whatever they found, on the beach. If, however, you brought sea food over the fields, close to the cattle or into the village, people would accuse you of bringing misfortune. Still, for the longest time people did not go into the ocean, they were afraid of everything, even the waves, the mayor says. – When I was young, I did not dare to go deeper than to my chest. It was people from the outside that brought change. The neighbouring people, the Vezo and the Tanosy, arrived and got married with the Tandroy and taught their traditional fishing techniques, swimming, diving and using a canoe. But the missionaries also played an important part. They saw the inherent potential of using the ocean during droughts and preached Bible stories, for example about Peter who had been a fisherman before he became a disciple. Before they did not know the ocean, now they are like the Vezo “Go to Faux-Cap if you want to meet Tandroy that know how to fish”, Many people told me. Faux Cap, “the wrong cape”, is the second most southerly tip of Madagascar. It was here that eighty fishermen died in the cyclone 2005 – roughly a fourth of the total estimated fishing fleet in Androy. They had been surprised by the storm at sea, in the small dugout canoes, some could not even swim. Faux Cap is a beautiful peninsula with a small hotel called “le Cactus”. The hotel manager Marie-Angela is from the Vezo people, “the people of the sea” and the natural authority of fishing in the area. She told me the history of how fishing became the primary occupation in Faux Cap. Just like in Maroalomainte it was the neighbouring people, the Vezo, that arrived with knowledge. This was in the 1950s and they came in search of new fishing waters. Some stayed and married with the local people. Later, in the 1970s, Mr. Balzer, a charismatic Frenchman who knew nothing about fishing, launched a fishing development project in the area. They built a freezing chamber and an airplane came weekly to collect fish. It was slowly developing into a small business. Subsequently came the years of the Second Republic when the Malagasy seized power and most of the French left or were thrown out. In the “Deborah” cyclone in 1978, the freezing chambers broke and disappeared.  Marie-Angela, Hotel Manager. “Today, the Tandroy are almost as good fishermen as the Vezo”, Marie-Angela said. “They dive for lobsters, know how to sail and to use nets”. The best fisherman in Faux Cap is actually a young Tandroy with “the Vezo haircut” (carrot orange coloured hair bleached by the salty water and the sun). He is always in the water and can dive to ten metre depths to hunt for lobsters. “Every time I avoid the dangerous ocean I survive” In Androy generation after generation of Tandroy clans have lived on the border to poverty. They have followed a cycle growing cattle during the good years, and losing the wealth during the serious droughts that hit once in ten years and so on. Some droughts have been more severe than others, for example the drought in 1928-30, that people refer to as the drought of “many bones”. Looking for food during times of famine you inevitably reach the coast and you will see crabs running on the beach or mussels on the corals during low tide. Would you not try to eat them? Apparently not if the social pressure is so strong and your identity in your clan would be at stake. Generations before you have turned their backs to the ocean. It is understandable. For non-fishing Tandroy, the only impact the ocean generates is a negative one. If it is not moving sand dunes, wind stress and cyclones, it is slave traders and colonials with weapons. On top of that you might die if you go into it, like the fishermen two years ago. If the experience is “every time I avoid the ocean, I survive” and vice versa, thus the society will eventually become blind to its embedded potential. But that is not the entire explanation. Fingana, one of the two elders from Ambonaivo village, once told me that he knew that “the ocean is full of everything you can think of.” So he knew that there was food in it. Only it was not “Tandroy food”. Maslowian model does not apply The psychologist Maslow’s famous model “the Hierarchy of Needs” ranks the human needs, starting with the most basic, “food” and “water”, somewhere in the middle you have the “family” and at the very top you have values like morality or problem solving. If you apply this model to the Tandroy society, you will see that it does not fit. The Maslowian model rather seems to be flipped over: people starve and keep their backs to available food, as consuming it would go against society’s norms and practices. Try giving a starving Hindu a steak, or an orthodox Jew crayfish and you will have a similar problem. Maybe it sounds too simple, but it would not surprise me if many poverty alleviation projects have failed for this particular reason. Say an international conference is held where it is decided to launch a project against starvation in Sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is lack of food. In Androy the solution would be to turn the pastoralist Tandroy into fishermen. The program is established. Three years later the evaluation shows that practically nothing has happened. The project is a failure. A new conference sets a new agenda, while everyone present wonder how it is possible that Africa continues to stand still. /Jacob von Heland Sources:
Raymond Decary, L’Androy. 1928-31 Paris Michel Guérin, Le défi: l’Androy et l’appel à la vie. Fianarantsoa 1977 Etienne de flacourt, l’histoire de le grand ile. de Madagascar, 1658 Paris Susanne Frère. Panorama de l’Androy, 1958 Paris Why quick fixes tend to be dirty...
”Environment” is not your regular science journal, full of scientific jargon that hopelessly divides specialties and excludes the general reader. It even has a nice layout, lots of colour photos and is much more readable than specialized journals in its analysis of the interactions between environment and development issues.
In the December issue of 2006 environmental economist Thomas Sterner from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and 16 colleagues conclude that successful solutions to environmental problems requires a systemic view and treatment of the causes of problems (like poverty, inequity, property rights, consumption patterns, lifestyle, population growth and economic policies) not the symptoms. – I think we will see many different types of quick fixes to environmental problems in the future. This is not a problem in itself as long as these do not aggravate the causes of problems or decrease our efforts in dealing with them, says Max Troell, one of the authors and associate professor at The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics in Stockholm.  Sterner, Troell and their co-authors walk us through a number of case studies from poor and rich regions of the world, from hurricane Katrina via the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea to pandemics like SARS and the Avian flu. Even though the group of researchers admits that there are indeed quick fixes that work (like the liming of Scandinavian lakes that bought time as acidic emissions were reduced) they show convincingly that reactive short-sighted responses to large-scale environmental disturbances are all too common. Such policy responses, they write, tend to lead to uncertainty and surprises in flows of natural resources and ecosystem services to society: “Policy responses that treat the symptoms of environmental problems can undermine sustainability by increasing the probability of future environmental disasters, the damage caused by those disasters, or both. Worse, they can mask ongoing deterioration that ultimately leads to irreversible environmental damage.” Working with nature instead Often quick fixes seem very appealing at first glance as their long-term costs tend to be masked and their short-term benefits exaggerated. This is among other things caused by conventional discount rates that tend to favour current consumers at the expense of future generations by discounting their costs. Many problems, like the hurricane Katrina and the avian flu, do require quick-fixes to minimize immediate suffering, but they are often caused, in the first place, by the gradual effects of previous short-sighted policies. Nonetheless, politicians tend to prefer spending money on such quick fixes rather than bearing the political costs of more fundamental solutions. This, argue the authors, is due to “lack of understanding of ecological mechanisms, failure to recognize the gravity of the problem, vested interests, and absence of institutions to address public goods and intergenerational choices effectively”. So, what do the authors behind the Environment-article prescribe then? Which are the more fundamental and sustainable solutions? In the case of New Orleans, where thoughtless management led to the 2005 flood catastrophe, they suggest restoring the river to its natural course and rebuilding the floodplains and delta that once gave the city protection. This strategy is based on the notion that working with instead of against nature by restoring ecosystem services is better in the long run. Similar choices between quick fixes and more fundamental solutions exist for a number of other current environmental problems, the authors claim. Global climate change due to increased emissions of greenhouse gases is one example: – We have now developed sophisticated engineering solutions for carbon storage underground, both on land and in the sea. This is probably something good in the short run, however, the long-term solution involves fundamental changes in how we live and produce things, says Max Troell. Treating symptoms and causes The long-term solution is of course to decrease the burning of oil, coal and gas, but many quick-fixes have emerged. These include construction of seawalls in coastal areas; shifting to less climate-sensitive crops; and fertilizing the sea with iron in order to increase the capacity of phytoplankton to convert carbon dioxide into organic carbon. However, such an emphasis on quick fixes instead of emissions reductions increases the risk of crossing unexpected and abrupt thresholds in climate and ecological systems, probably causing irreversible changes.  Today, the authors conclude, politicians often prefer to invest in quick fixes even when they reduce long-term options due to losses in biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services that human societies and economies rely on. Therefore, the authors suggest a new kind of systems thinking in policy making that pay much more attention to the negative side-effects of quick-fixes and see the numerous possibilities in investing in sustainable use of ecosystems and their services. /Fredrik Moberg
Source:
Sterner T., Troell M., Vincent J., Aniyar S., Barrett S., Brock W., Carpenter S., Chopra K., Ehrlich P., Hoel M., Levin S., Mäler K-G., Norberg J., Pihl L., Söderqvist T., Wilen J., Xepapadeas A. (2006) Quick fixes for the environment- part of the solution or part of the problem?. Environment 48(10): 20-27. |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
| Sustainability School | |||||||
Invasive species: Foreign species include animals, plants, mushrooms, or microorganisms that have spread beyond their natural boundaries with the help of humans. Intentionally or by mistake. Some of these foreign species influence their new environment in a serious and undesirable way, and are called invasive species. While some foreign species have had positive economic and/or ecological impacts in their new ecosystems alien invasive species is now acknowledged by scientists and governments to be one of the world’s major threats to native biological diversity. As such, the damage caused by invasive species can sometimes even slow nations’ efforts to cut poverty rates, according to UN’s environmental programme UNEP. The total global economic damage caused by invasive alien species has been estimated at US$400 billion per year. As the damage runs into such a massive amount of money annually this issue is no longer only a concern for conservationists. It is getting higher and higher on the agenda of economists and planners as global trade and communication are leading to the mixing of plant and animal species worldwide. Golden snails and giant fish The Nile perch, that was introduced in Lake Victoria in 1954 to promote fishing, is one of the most notorious examples. It grows to a length of 2 metres and feeds on almost anything that moves. The Nile perches have caused the complete or near extinction of 200 local fish species that were important to local fishermen. Today, the perch are shipped around the globe where, in contrast to the poor local population, people can afford to buy them. Another example is the Golden apple snails that originated in the Amazon and were introduced in Southeast Asia for cultivation as human food in 1980. But the snails spread to rice fields and wetlands where they consume many rice and water plants. Without water plants, more nutrients are left for phytoplankton. This results in algae blooms and threatens biodiversity and an economically poor population that depends on rice and fish. /Fredrik Moberg
| |||||||
| In Brief | |||||||
The inequity of the climate threat to coral reefs
SDU has frequently reported how coral reefs, providers of vital goods and services for coastal communities, are being threatened by climate change. In the March-issue of the science journal BioScience Simon Donner and David Potere, based at Princeton University, show that 75 percent of the people living within 100 km of coral reefs (a total of 424 million) are in the poorest developing countries. The majority of these people live in rural settings and are directly dependent on the goods and services provided by coral reefs.
Ironically then, the same people who are most dependent on coral reefs are responsible for only a tiny fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The per capita greenhouse gas emission of the same set of people was calculated to be 1.78 metric tons per person of carbon dioxide. By comparison, greenhouse gas emissions average 20.1 metric tons per person in the United States and 11.4 metric tons in Europe, Japan and Russia. Too much focus on the aesthetics
/Albert Norström
Source:
Donner, S. & Potere, D. 2007. The Inequity of the Global Threat to Coral Reefs. BioScience 57, pp 214-215: http://www.simondonner.com "Return of water hyacinths plagues Lake Victoria"
NASA’s Earth Observatory recently published a set of images showing the speed with which the beautiful but noxious water hyacinth has reinvaded Lake Victoria. It was introduced to Africa over a century ago from South America and produces large floating carpets of fleshy flowers that block waterways, clog irrigation canals, disrupt hydropower, decrease fishing and create habitat for disease-carrying mosquitoes. NASA’s Earth Observatory publishes a new astonishing satellite image every day. Recently they published a set of images showing how the South American water hyacinth has reinvaded Lake Victoria. The plant was introduced to Africa over a century ago, but it did not become a problem until the early 1990s. It grew extremely fast and produced large floating carpets of fleshy flowers that covered substantial areas blocking waterways, clogging irrigation canals, disrupting hydropower, and decreasing the profitability of fishing. Moreover, it can also crowd out other species and prevent sunlight and oxygen from reaching plant and animal life below. It also creates new habitat for disease-carrying insects like mosquitoes. However, hyacinths also provided refugia for some species from another invasive species, the introduced Nile Perch. Beautiful but destructive Subsequently, the hyacinths almost disappeared from the lake in the late 90s, perhaps, but not clearly, due to the introduction of a weevil used for biological control. Now following a wet year, which increased nutrient runoff into the lake, the beautiful but destructive plant has returned. The NASA images above show the Winam Gulf in Kenya. The gulf was the most severely affected region during the first hyacinth outbreak in 1998. By 2000, the area covered by water hyacinth was down to only a few percent of the area covered in 1998. When the right image was taken, December 2005, the hyacinths were almost entirely gone. In late 2006, however, unusually heavy rains and floods swept agricultural run-off and nutrient-rich sediment into the lake making the Winam Gulf brown in the top left image in 2006. The huge inflow not only turned the water brown, but it also resulted in a return of water hyacinths turning large parts of the Winam Gulf bright green in the left image. /Garry Peterson and Fredrik Moberg
More at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/ NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17560 http://rs.resalliance.org/2007/02/22/water-hyacinth-re-invades-lake-victoria/ Will carbon trading really reduce rich countries’ carbon dioxide emissions and deliver sustainable development for poorer countries? Or will it only lead to “carbon laundering” – a situation where rich countries continue their unsustainable lifestyles at the expense of the developing world? In 1994 the United Nations Framework of Climate Change, UNFCC, entered into force. The effort is meant to stabilize the concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHG) at a level where the planet’s climate integrity will be kept. Launching different strategies for decreasing emissions and adapting to impacts is part of the responsibility, also including the provision of financial and technological support to developing countries. Today almost all nations (parties) in the world have ratified the convention. /Maria Mutt More at: http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/mechanisms/items/1673.php http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/ http://www.energimyndigheten.se/english  The Gapminder software that converts international development statistics into moving and interactive graphics is now available through Google. Now even more people will get the chance to discover the software that “turn boring numbers into enjoyable animations that make sense of the world”.
Each year almost 2 million children die from diarrhoea that Google is now hosting the Gapminder development visualisation software produced by a Swedish NGO. It allows the interactive visualisation and animation of several world development statistics, showing world development trends over roughly the past thirty years (ranges vary among data sources). Indicators include: CO2 emissions/capita, Child mortality, Fertility, Economic growth, Income/capita, Life expectancy, Military budget, Girl/Boys in School, Population, and Urbanization. /Garry Peterson
“Raising income and protecting the environment: The Finalists for the Equator Prize announced.“ This year’s version of the UN-backed Equator Initiative has announced its 25 finalists. This time innovative ecotourism, community fishery cooperatives and sustainable crocodile-egg harvesting are among the nominees. The Equator Prize is a prestigious international award for outstanding local efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. – Local communities of the developing world are the source of many of the most innovative and imaginative responses to the challenges of sustainable development, said Professor Jeffrey Sachs, jury member and advisor to former UN Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals. The Equator Initiative was launched in 2002 by the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Partners include Governments, civil society groups, local communities and the private sector. The reason why the equatorial region has its own prize is that it is home to the world’s greatest concentrations of biological diversity, while many of its countries are among the poorest. The five Prize winners, chosen from more than 300 nominations from 70 countries will be announced in Germany on World Environment Day on 5 June. http://www.undp.org/equatorinitiative/
The quote: “In the book, a cheese-loving king’s castle is infested with mice. So the king brings in cats to get rid of the mice. Then the castle’s overrun with cats, so he brings in dogs to get rid of them, then lions to get rid of the dogs, elephants to get rid of the lions, and finally, mice to get rid of the elephants.” Climate scientist Andrew Weaver considers the idea of tinkering with Earth’s air, water or sunlight to fight global warming... and remembers the lessons of a children’s book. |
The water hyacinth, known as one of the world’s most noxious invasive weeds, now returns to plague Lake Victoria. Left: December 18 2006. Right: December 17 2005.