Africa

An argument over payment for a delivery of snails for MP Alex Ikwechegh is filmed by a taxi driver.

An argument over payment for a delivery of snails for MP Alex Ikwechegh is filmed by a taxi driver.

Police say a crime syndicate stole the identities of unsuspecting women to give visas to foreign men.

Libya will "go to the highest levels of litigation" to challenge sanctions imposed on them after Nigeria boycotted an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.

More than 700 authors representing 90 different nationalities written the AR6 for IPCC | Credit: Margaret López/IPS

By Margaret López
CARACAS, Oct 29 2024 (IPS)

Climate finance will be at the epicenter of the discussion at the UN Climate Change Conference 2024 (COP29). The focus will be on strengthening the fund and defining the conditions under which the countries of the Global South will be able to access this money. However, little is said about the scientific research that is required to gather the evidence and data to prove the loss and damage caused by the impact of climate change in developing countries.

One of the points under discussion is the need for countries of the Global South to provide comprehensive, scientifically backed reports on how they are being directly affected by the impacts of climate change. This requirement guarantees that money will flow to the most affected countries, but it ignores the inequality present in scientific research networks in the Global South.

Floods and the effects of storms or hurricanes are not the only topics we are discussing.  For example, will Latin American countries, such as Brazil or Argentina, be ready to provide data and evidence of how global warming precipitated an increase in dengue cases among their citizens in 2024?

Dengue cases in Latin America tripled compared to the same period in 2023. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) compiled reports of more than 12 million cases of dengue fever in the region up to middle October and, undoubtedly, this additional health burden is part of the less talked about impacts of climate change.

Research centers in Brazil or Argentina, two of the countries with the best scientific networks in the region, can surely deliver the studies to support a financial request to cover these health-related damages. But the scenario is very different if we look at the scientific networks of other Latin American countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, or my native Venezuela.

More than 3,000 Venezuelan scientists have left the country for lack of support and financial problems in its laboratories since 2009, according to the follow-up done by researcher Jaime Requena, a member of the Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences (Acfiman, its acronym in Spanish). This is equivalent to half of the Venezuelan scientific force, considering that Venezuela had 6,831 active researchers in the Researcher Promotion Program (PPI) in 2009.

Only 11 Venezuelan scientists participated as authors in all the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In AR6, the most recent IPCC report, only three authors were Venezuelan.

Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay were also represented by three researchers in AR6, while other countries such as Paraguay and Bolivia did not even manage to add a scientist to the group of more than 700 authors.

Climatologist Paola Andrea Arias was part of the Colombian representation. She is one of those promoting that the IPCC broaden the diversity of authors in the next report on the effects of climate change in the world.

“We all do science with different perspectives; we will follow the same methods and the same standards, but we have different perspectives. We ask different questions and have different priorities. We see in science the possibility of answering or solving different problems and, obviously, that will be very focused on your reality, the world in which you live, the country or city where you are,” said Arias when I asked her about her participation in AR6.

The low participation of Latin American scientists in global research on climate change, such as that of the IPCC, also means less space and dissemination for those studies that try to track the impacts of climate change in the region. This pattern is also repeated in Africa and Asia.

Promoting more research on the damages and impacts of climate change in the Global South, in the end, is not something that can be separated from climate finance. A clear example is that the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) has just created a scientific committee for its biodiversity conservation fund, as announced during COP16 on biodiversity in Cali, Colombia.

CAF explained that this new biodiversity committee will have “a key role” with recommendations based on scientific evidence to invest in environmental projects. The first tasks of this scientific committee will be focused on providing recommendations for conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of ecosystems in the Amazon, Cerrado, and Chocó, a program that will have access to 300 million dollars.

The creation of a scientific committee to deliver climate finance can be a first step, as shown by CAF’s experience in biodiversity. To move forward on this path, however, it is necessary to promote more funding for Latin American, African, and Asian scientists to do more local research on the impacts of climate change. It’s the only way to gather the scientific evidence to support the contention that the climate crisis represents an obstacle to development in those countries with the largest populations and the greatest number of disadvantages.

This opinion piece is published with the support of Open Society Foundations.
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Explainer: Why Venezuela Needs To Reduce Its Gas Flaring
• Explainer: Why Is It Important for Venezuela to Adopt Escazú Agreement in the Coming Year?

Excerpt:

Climate finance will come under intense scrutiny during COP29, and its distribution aligned with scientific analysis of the impacts of climate change, but the methodology ignores the inequality in research networks of the Global South.

Woman farmer with her chicken, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu

By Christian Tiambo
CALI, Colombia, Oct 29 2024 (IPS)

As the UN’s COP16 biodiversity conference continues, the temptation is to focus on the wild flora and fauna under threat.

But there is another, less obvious yet just as critical biodiversity crisis unfolding around the world that also deserves attention.

A quarter of livestock breeds – from chickens, ducks and geese to horses, camels and cattle – are classified at risk of extinction. Even more concerning is the fact that a lack of data means the status of more than 50 per cent of breeds remains unknown. More than 200 livestock breeds have gone extinct since 2000, some without having ever been recorded.

Just 40 out of thousands of species of mammals and birds have been domesticated for food and agriculture yet these domesticated food-producing animals contribute an average of 40 per cent of the world’s agricultural gross domestic product. Eight of these species provide more than 95 per cent of the human food supply from livestock.

The erosion of local and locally adapted livestock diversity poses an especially serious threat to developing countries, where livestock-keeping generates as much as 80 per cent of agricultural GDP, providing much-needed food, fibre, fuel and draught power.

A shrinking pool of commercially improved livestock provides increasingly limited potential for animals to support food security, economic growth, climate adaptation and even ecosystem services that protect biodiversity more broadly. Maintaining agricultural biodiversity is essential for diverse, healthy diets and resilient, diversified forms of rural livelihoods.

It is therefore vital that negotiators at COP16 include livestock as well as wildlife in their National Biodiversity Strategies and Adaptation Plans (NBSAPs), including agreements to compensate countries for indigenous livestock DNA sequences.

As a minimum, countries should include specific targets for protecting livestock breeds within their NBSAPs to help enshrine the preservation of genetic diversity.

Setting actionable targets is a fundamental step towards maintaining a rich variety of livestock breeds, which is essential for breeding more resilient, heat tolerant and healthy animals.

The ability to improve livestock and make use of the locally adapted characteristics of indigenous breeds is becoming increasingly valuable as the impacts of climate change threaten conventional and exotic breeds. The diversity of local, locally adapted and non-conventional livestock constitute an essential resource that will ensure animal production is able to adapt to climate change, respond to new market opportunities and deal with new disease threats.

For example, the hardy Red Maasai sheep that is indigenous to East Africa and can cope with arid and hot conditions, was on the brink of extinction after many farmers replaced their flocks with South Africa’s Dorper breed to produce more meat. But unlike the Red Maasai, Dorper sheep are less able to thrive in drought conditions. Thankfully, the preservation of the Red Maasai by researchers at the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI) Kapiti Research Station has supported their reintroduction, as well as crossbreeding programs to harness the beneficial traits of both.

Plans to compensate countries for recording such genetic resources, known as digital sequence information, and the associated traditional knowledge, must include livestock so that countries across Africa and the Global South can benefit and use this funding to re-invest in livestock conservation.

Countries should also include protections for the conservation of forages that feed livestock and wild herbivores in their NBSAPs. This is equally important for identifying resilient and low-emissions crops that can meet the nutritional needs of livestock.

Koronivia grass, for example, is native to Africa and is among the collection of germplasm stored at the Future Seeds genebank in Colombia. Breeders produced an improved variety of the grass that was shown to increase levels of soil carbon on tropical savannas by 15 per cent while also reducing nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from grazing cattle by a factor of 10.

Leveraging the full range of the world’s biodiversity can unlock improved breeds and varieties of forages to support sustainable livestock production and maximise its benefits for human development.

Alongside such protections for genetic resources and agricultural biodiversity, governments should also include sustainable livestock production within their NBSAPs to support rangeland restoration and achieve their biodiversity goals.

Livestock systems that integrate sustainable practices like managed grazing can enhance soil health, increase carbon sequestration, and promote ecosystem diversity while generating emissions that are comparable to wild herbivores.

For example, livestock manure already provides 14 per cent of the nitrogen used for crop production globally and a quarter of that used for crop production on mixed crop-and-livestock farms. These closed nutrient cycles replenish soils with nitrogen while also enhancing soil structure and organic matter, improving the nutrient- and water-holding capacities of soils and reducing soil erosion.

The natural world thrives when the balance of biodiversity is maintained, and this includes local and non-conventional livestock as well as wild animals.

For the countries where the right livestock breeds can determine hunger or health, poverty or prosperity, it is essential that the biodiversity talks include cattle, pigs and chickens alongside pandas, rhinos and cheetahs.

To fully take advantage of the diversity of livestock, the global community must conserve genetic resources and put them to use to enable communities to cope with climate change, meet changing market demands, resist diseases, and enhance global food security.

Dr. Christian Tiambo, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Critics see the announced deal as an affront to South Africa's long relationship with Russia.

Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, addresses the UN General Assembly’s 75th session September 2020. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Norman Solomon
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Oct 29 2024 (IPS)

The conclusion that Donald Trump is a fascist has gone mainstream, gaining wide publicity and affirmation in recent weeks. Such understanding is a problem for Trump and his boosters.

At the same time, potentially pivotal in this close election, a small proportion of people who consider themselves to be progressive still assert that any differences between Trump and Kamala Harris are not significant enough to vote for Harris in swing states. Opposition to fascism has long been a guiding light in movements against racism and for social justice.

Speaking to a conference of the African National Congress in 1951, Nelson Mandela warned that “South African capitalism has developed [into] monopolism and is now reaching the final stage of monopoly capitalism gone mad, namely, fascism.”

Before Fred Hampton was murdered by local police officers colluding with the FBI in 1969, the visionary young Illinois Black Panther Party leader said: “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”

But now, for some who lay claim to being on the left, stopping fascism is not a priority. Disconnected from the magnitude of this fateful moment, the danger of a fascist president leading a fanatical movement becomes an abstraction.

One cogent critic of capitalism ended a column in mid-October this way: “Pick your poison. Destruction by corporate power or destruction by oligarchy. The end result is the same. That is what the two ruling parties offer in November. Nothing else.”

The difference between a woman’s right to an abortion vs. abortion being illegal is nothing?

“The end result is the same” — so it shouldn’t matter to us whether Trump becomes president after campaigning with a continuous barrage against immigrants, calling them “vermin,” “stone-cold killers,” and “animals,” while warning against the “bad genes” of immigrants who aren’t white, and raising bigoted alarms about immigration of “blood thirty criminals” who “prey upon innocent American citizens” and will “cut your throat”?

If “the end result is the same,” a mish-mash of ideology and fatalism can ignore the foreseeable results of a Republican Party gaining control of the federal government with a 2024 platform that pledges to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” Or getting a second Trump term after the first one allowed him to put three right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court.

Will the end result be the same if Trump fulfills his apparent threat to deploy the U.S. military against his political opponents, whom he describes as “radical left lunatics” and “the enemy from within”?

Capacities to protect civil liberties matter. So do savage Republican cuts in programs for minimal health care, nutrition and other vital aspects of a frayed social safety net. But those cuts are less likely to matter to the polemicists who will not experience the institutionalized cruelties firsthand.

Rather than being for personal absolution, voting is a tool in the political toolbox — if the goal is to avert the worst and improve the chances for constructing a future worthy of humanity.

Trump has pledged to be even more directly complicit in Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian people in Gaza than President Biden has been. No wonder, as the Washington Post reports, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has shown a clear preference for Trump in this election.” During a call this month, Trump told Netanyahu: “Do what you have to do.”

Palestinians, Muslim leaders and other activists in the swing state of Arizona issued an open letter days ago that makes a case for defeating Trump. “We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter says. “We understand this sentiment.”

“Many of us have felt that way ourselves, even until very recently. Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones.”

The letter goes on:

As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities. We know that some will strongly disagree. We only ask that you consider our case with an open mind and heart, respecting that we are doing what we believe is right in an awful situation where only flawed choices are available.

In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement. It would be an existential threat to our democracy and our whole planet.

Exercising conscience in the most humane sense isn’t about feeling personal virtue. It’s about concern for impacts on the well-being of other people. It’s about collective solidarity.

The consequences of declining to help stop fascism are not confined to the individual voter. In the process, vast numbers of people can pay the price for individuals’ self-focused concept of conscience.

Last week, the insightful article “7 Strategic Axioms for the Anxious Progressive Voter” offered a forward-looking way to put this presidential election in a future context: “Vote for the candidate you want to organize against!”

Do we want to be organizing against a fascistic militaristic President Trump, with no realistic hope of changing policies . . . or against a neoliberal militaristic President Harris, with the possibility of changing policies?

For progressives, the answer should be clear.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in paperback this fall with a new afterword about the Gaza war.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Seedlings from the Seeds of Resilience initiative amid destruction in north Gaza. Credit: Bisan Okasha

By Dawn Clancy
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 29 2024 (IPS)

It was two weeks before October 7—when Hamas attacked Israel—that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood behind the rostrum in the United Nations General Assembly hall clutching a crude map of what he called the “new Middle East,” a visual that erased the land of Palestine.

A year later, Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has accelerated, including the destruction of Palestine’s agricultural lands, tipping Netanyahu’s vision of a Middle East without Palestine closer to reality.

According to a recent report by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “as of September 1st, 2024, 67.6 percent of Gaza’s cropland has been damaged,” and much of its agricultural infrastructure, including “greenhouses, agricultural wells and solar panels,” has been destroyed.

“There is no agricultural sector anymore,” said Hani Al Ramlawi, director of operations for the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC). Ramlawi is from Gaza City but relocated to Egypt six months after the conflict began.

Ramwali told IPS that over the past year, no agricultural supplies have made it into the Strip. Ongoing water and electricity shortages have made fuel, used to power generators and solar panels, too expensive and caused the cost of produce in local markets to soar. In the north of Gaza, Ramlawi said one kilo of potatoes, roughly two pounds, costs $80, a kilo of tomatoes around $90 and one kilo of garlic is $200, and the prices fluctuate daily. Less than 10 percent of farmers have access to their land, and the soil is “diseased” due to ongoing military activities.

Everyone in Gaza is “food insecure,” Ramlawi said. Additionally, the International Labor Organization (ILO), a UN agency, estimates that after a year of war, Gaza’s unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 80 percent.

Seedlings waiting to be distributed to home gardens in displacement camps in north Gaza. Credit: Bisan Okasha

A new Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report has found that between Sept. and Oct. 2024, 1.84 million or 90 percent of people across the Gaza Strip are experiencing crisis levels of food insecurity. “The risk of famine persists across the whole Gaza Strip,” the report added. “Given the recent surge in hostilities, there are growing concerns that this worst-case scenario may materialize.”

Starvation in Gaza, in the context of conflict, is not unique—a group of UN experts published a statement on Oct. 17 warning that “97 percent of Sudan’s IDPs” are facing severe levels of hunger due to “starvation tactics” implemented by the warring parties—but what is different about Gaza, said Michael Fakhri, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, is the “speed” and the “intensity” at which starvation has spread across the Strip.

“This is the fastest instance of starvation we’ve ever seen in modern history,” said Fakhri. “How is Israel able to starve 2.3 million people so quickly and so completely? It’s almost like they pushed a button or flipped a switch.”

What is happening in Gaza, according to Fakhri, is not entirely a humanitarian crisis brought on by prolonged armed conflict but rather a byproduct of decades of illegal land grabs, forced displacement, punitive economic policies and the physical destruction of Palestinian croplands—whether by bulldozers or ever-widening military buffer zones—by the Israeli government. Practices that began in the late nineteenth century, when the first wave of European Jews emigrated to Palestine, long before the State of Israel was established in 1948.

“There’s a consistent through line” that predates the horrors of October 7, said Fakhri. “What is happening today is not new,” he added, or limited to the Gaza Strip.

Relatedly, in response to Fakhri’s latest report examining food and starvation in Palestine, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon sent a letter of complaint to Secretary-General António Guterres on October 17, calling on him to retract Fakhri’s “disgraceful” and antisemitic report.

Meanwhile in the West Bank, according to Ubai Al-Aboudi, executive director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development—a Palestinian think tank based in Ramallah—the destruction of crop lands and the targeting of farmers, primarily by Israeli settlers, is “systematic.”

“Now is olive season,” Al-Aboudi told IPS. “And we have this tradition; almost all Palestinian families in the West Bank have their olive trees that they go to in the olive picking season.” But with increased settler attacks, villagers now coordinate, Al-Aboudi said, and harvest collectively to protect their lands, their farmers and one another.

According to estimates from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of Oct. 7, 2023, over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, close to 100,000 injured and 1.9 million have been displaced. (OCHA relies on Gaza’s Ministry of Health for casualty figures.) However, a recent report from The Lancet, a weekly medical journal, suggests that the number of dead in Gaza is likely much higher.

While an official tally of the number of farmers killed in the Strip is not available, members of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a Palestinian NGO in Gaza, estimate that since Oct. 7, no fewer than 500 farmers out of roughly 30,000 have been killed.

“You know, the farmers and their families are experiencing the same as what we are witnessing for all the population,” said Mahmoud Alsaqqa in a phone interview with IPS. Alsaqqa is Oxfam’s food security and livelihood lead. He is based in Deir Al-Balah.

But, for the remaining farmers, accessing their lands, most of which are located on the eastern edge of the Strip next to the Israeli border, means risking death or sustaining life-altering injuries. “They become an easy target for the military,” said Alsaqqa. And when farmers are killed, their decade’s worth of agricultural knowledge and know-how dies with them.

“There is significant concern about the challenge of rebuilding the knowledge base in Gaza,” UAWC told IPS. “Many universities have been destroyed, and this creates a major fear regarding the re-establishment of academic and agricultural expertise in the region.”

Still, despite ongoing hostilities and sharp decreases in the availability of humanitarian aid, since Oct. 7, Alsaqqa with Oxfam said that more Palestinians are relying on urban or home gardening to feed their families and others in need.

Before the war, Bisan Okasha’s home garden in the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza was bursting with olive, palm and banana trees, citrus fruits, grapes and mint and basil seedlings. However, after Oct. 7, when her home and garden were destroyed and the threat of famine loomed large, Okasha’s father, determined to rebuild, cleared their land of debris and planted 70 eggplant seedlings on a mound of soil that covered the rubbled chunks of their home.

The effort was “successful,” said Okasha in a series of texts with IPS. The experience left her feeling inspired, and soon after, Okasha, despite being displaced three times, created Seeds of Resilience, a collaborative, community-driven initiative designed to revive and establish home gardens in the north by providing and planting seedlings and seeds for free. So far, Okasha and her team—all volunteers—have planted eggplant, cauliflower, chili, and peppers in multiple home gardens.

“My dad’s personal effort to change the reality we were living in is what gave me the belief that I can create change in my entire community and take a real, practical step to prepare the people in Northern Gaza for any future crisis that may threaten their lives,” said Okasha.

“Wars and disasters in this world show no mercy to souls,” she added.

According to the FAO report, out of the five governorates in Gaza, North Gaza, where the Jabalia camp is located, has the highest proportion of damaged cropland at 78 percent. Khan Younis has the largest amount of damaged agricultural infrastructure—animal shelters, home barns, agricultural houses, and cattle farms—while the Gaza governorate has the largest number of damaged wells, reducing access to water. Relatedly, OCHA estimates that over 70,000 housing units have been destroyed across Gaza.

The Israeli mission to the UN, based in New York, declined to comment on the FAO report, and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not respond.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• Will the UN’s Pact of The Future Modernize the World’s Outdated Multilateral Systems?
• Overwhelmed Healthcare Systems in Gaza Struggle Through Evacuation Orders

The lawyer for opposition figure Patricia Kaliati says that the ex-minister maintains her innocence.

No suspects have been named but the president has ordered a counter-mission to root out the culprits.

Zambian football is in mourning after seven players from Chavuma Town Council FC were killed in a bus crash.

By Mawdudur Rahman and Habib Siddiqui
BOSTON / PHILADELPHIA, Oct 28 2024 (IPS)

The students and the common people of Bangladesh dared to do something in 36 days of July-August that was considered simply impossible by most people just days before August 5, 2024. They said ‘enough is enough’ to an old order that outraged their humanity, robbed their dignity and the rulers imagined that their citadel of power was simply impenetrable. The revolutionists refused to bow down to the murderous regime that knew no bounds to its cruelty and plundering. They were ready to sacrifice their lives for the freedom of the besieged nation.

Mawdudur Rahman

This revolution is unique in so many ways. It is a revolution in the digital age that is rooted in meta-modernist philosophy. The old political leadership with its moribund appeal and bankrupt philosophy proved irrelevant in this agenda. As Professor Yunus, the Chief Advisor to the Interim Government, has rightly said, ‘Now is the era of a new generation’.

Meta-modernism is the cultural philosophy of the digital age, coined by Mas’ud Zavarzadeh in 1975. meta-modernism is the Age of the Internet or more balanced worldview. As one analyst puts it, we went from modernism — “Make it new!” Let’s shape History! – to postmodernism — everything sucks! Nothing really matters! — to meta-modernism – maybe things are not this black-and-white, maybe there’s a middle ground.

Meta-modernist thinkers perceive the present world around them as a threat to their very existence. They work with pragmatic idealism and have no grand narrative thinking or any orthodox certainties. In other words, they try to strike a balance between all of this. They recognize that they have to face the problems of the society.

Habib Siddiqui

Arguably, all the activities of Bangladeshi revolutionists including their wall posters, followed a framework of Meta-Modernism. It is understood that the new Bangladesh is defined in a new ideology. Student revolutionaries have said that our ideology is reflected through the language we use. The basis of the new ideology is language. It is a revolution of change from the cultural context of fascist imperialist language to the native (spoken) language of the people. In other words, new ideals will be reflected through the language of the people.

It would be wrong to think that this people’s revolution was all about a change of government. Its victory is unlike 1947 and 1971. In both those cases, there was a change of government without any structural change. As a result, the incoming government followed imperialist practices of exploitation left behind by the British. Subsequent governments turned the country into a failed democracy, in order to control, exploit and subjugate its citizens. The police were used as an enabling force to subjugate the citizens, while the legislature and judiciary worked as the rubber stamps to sustain the total control of the government. This evil social system has corrupted the mindset and behavior of our people. An immoral society was formed with no fear of accountability, whose driving force was unfathomed greed and mantra — the ‘rule and exploitation by repression’. Government employees saw themselves as bosses and not as public servants. They thrived upon corruption at all levels.

There are now two competing ideologies in front of Bangladesh – one of decaying fascism that wants to resurface under old leadership and the other is the young leadership of equality and morality. As the revolution demonstrated, the ‘New Bangladesh’ does not approve fascist-supporting corrupt institutions. It desires a corruption-free new society. It is for paradigm shift – a transformational change.

The Chief Advisor and Student Coordinators have clearly highlighted the ideals of New Bangladesh through their speeches and interviews. Dr. Yunus said, ‘We are all one nation’. This is a clarion call to establish a holistic change in society. Such a radical change in society requires a change in values. A change in values lies in the change in public ideology.

The new Bangladesh is not the old Bangladesh with a new cover. It demands a change in the fundamental values of human behavior, actions, and beliefs. These include structural changes, personal changes, expectations.

To understand the ideology of this change, one has to listen carefully to the speech of Mahfuz Alam, the ‘thinker’ of the movement. Five points can be deduced from his recent talks: (1) unity, (2) ‘language is their inspiration’, (3) group leadership, (4) they are children of time, and that (5) they are not a slave to traditional thinking. His views reflect today’s meta-modernism.

For any transformational change to succeed, the change agents must own it, direct it, and ultimately excel in it. We think that this revolution of holistic change can benefit from the revolutionary approaches adopted in China and Cuba that were also led by youths. They owned the revolution and did not allow it to be hijacked by the reactionaries. We see some of these characteristics in the minds and mission of the Bangladeshi revolutionaries.

The bottom line is, bringing any changes in old culture habits was never an easy task. This revolution has presented an opportunity to change the destiny of Bangladesh as never before.

The meta-modernist youths of Bangladesh have come to lead and move forward; they will not go back to the old ways. Their message is clear: if you do not join us, the country will not wait for you. If older generations do not adopt the new view of change, we fear further instability and chaos to come, whose outcome cannot be pleasant.

Dr. Mawdudur Rahman, Professor Emeritus, Suffolk University, Boston, USA. He can be contacted at: mrahman@suffolk.edu.

Dr. Habib Siddiqui is a peace and human rights activists. His latest book – ‘Bangladesh: a polarized and divided nation?’ is available in the Amazon.com. Both are members of the steering committee of Esho Desh Gori – Let’s Build Bangladesh.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Transit Site in Roriak, Unity State, South Sudan. People receive support after fleeing conflict in Sudan. Credit: UNICEF/South Sudan

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 2024 (IPS)

Critical levels of nationwide hunger in Sudan has only increased to critical levels since the start of the Sudanese civil war in April 2023. Escalated hostilities between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have led to limited mobility and repeated blockages of humanitarian aid. This, coupled with the volatile floods and droughts, have decimated crop fields which has only exacerbated famine levels greatly. All of these factors have left nearly 25 million people in Sudan in need of humanitarian assistance in 2024.

“The situation in Sudan can now only be described as a humanitarian disaster of the highest level. All sides are committing atrocities, as recently confirmed by the United Nations fact-finding mission. The war, now in its second year, has pushed parts of North Darfur into famine conditions, with the situation expected to deteriorate,” said the European Union (EU) Commissioner for Crisis Management, H.E. Mr. Janez Lenarčič.

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) estimates that since the wake of the conflict, there have been over 5,170 violent conflicts in the nation, culminating in the deaths of 14,790 civilians. Early figures from the World Food Programme (WFP) show that there has been little improvement in food security since relief efforts began. Heavy torrential rains and floods have led to the destruction of farmland. Continued fighting between the RSF and the SAF have made it difficult for farmers to cultivate and harvest crops. Approximately 25.6 million people are facing acute food insecurity in Sudan. 13 areas of the country are at risk of experiencing severe famine in the coming months.

The United Nations (UN) reports that sustained violence has led to over 10.7 million people being internally displaced and an additional 2.3 million fleeing to neighbouring countries. Humanitarian organizations are concerned about the scale of Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries, fearing that this could overwhelm economies in northeast Africa.

“This brutal war has uprooted millions of people, forcing them to leave their homes, schools and jobs behind in search of safety. Countries neighbouring Sudan are generously hosting a rising number of refugees, but cannot shoulder that responsibility alone. The stability of the whole region hangs in the balance,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a report on October 25 predicting that the Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, and Ethiopia could be the most negatively impacted from adopting Sudanese refugees. “A number of these countries that are neighbors are also fragile countries with their own challenges. And then to be confronted with the refugees, the security issues, the trade issues, is very challenging for their growth,” said Catherine Pattillo, IMF’s deputy director.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is expected to address the Security Council next week on initiatives to take to prevent further suffering in Sudan and its neighbouring countries. The African Union has expressed concern that the escalating situation in Sudan could become a genocide. As is the African Union report into the Rwanda Genocide: “Each case of modern genocide has taken the world by surprise. Even when, in retrospect, it is clear that unmistakable warning signs and statements of intent were there in advance for all to see.”

The UN and its affiliated nations are on the frontlines providing humanitarian assistance to affected communities. In August, Sudanese officials approved requests to open the Adre border in Darfur to allow for aid missions to access critical areas. The World Food Programme has delivered food assistance to over 360,000 people in Darfur. WFP is also mobilized to scale up efforts in Zamzam, aiming to assist more than 180,000 people.

The 2024 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan for Sudan has requested 2.7 billion dollars to help over 14 million people until the end of the year. With funding having reached only 49 percent, the UN urges donor contributions as conditions grow more dire every day.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

The Busher nuclear power plant in Iran. IAEA/Paolo Contri
 
Israel’s strikes against Hezbollah and Hamas weaken Iran. The country’s will to cross the nuclear threshold is growing.

By Ruslan Suleymanov
CAIRO, Egypt, Oct 28 2024 (IPS)

Violence in the Middle East has escalated dramatically since the Hamas terrorist attack in October 2023 and the fallout that has since followed. There is tension, if not a state of war, between all the major opponents on the ground.

Israel is directly facing off with mainly non-state actors from other countries, who have more firepower than their country’s national armies. Think of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen and Shia militias in Iraq. Together with Hamas, they form the ‘Axis of Resistance’, an armed pro-Iranian alliance in the region.

For years, Tehran’s military doctrine was based on keeping any conflict with a potential enemy far away from its own borders. Now things are different. Iran has launched massive attacks against Israel from its own territory. The country’s shift in foreign policy is primarily a product of events in the Gaza Strip.

Although there is no evidence that Iran was involved in the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, officials in Tehran have openly welcomed the events that killed at least 1 200 people. ‘What they have done signifies pride, glory and strength; God will support them’, said then-Iranian-President Ebrahim Raisi as he congratulated Hamas.

Israel’s subsequent campaign in Gaza has now been going on for a year, claiming the lives of 40 000 civilians. The fate of many Israeli hostages remains unknown.

Israel has now shifted its strategy to intelligence operations. These include the assassination of the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July, the killing of numerous Hezbollah fighters through exploding communications devices, and the assassinations of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in October.

All of these were huge moral blows to Iran, showing that it cannot protect its puppets’ commanders even in their own countries — hence Tehran’s response to Israel’s attacks.

The only success that the Israelis’ ground invasion has achieved is that it has diverted the world’s attention away from the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has lost at least 10 high-ranking leaders, not least Nasrallah, in Israel’s attacks. The militia seems to be on the ground in the long term, but how important it will be in the future is being questioned. Still, it’s too early to write off Hezbollah.

The group has around 100 000 fighters in its ranks, and its arsenal still consists of up to 150 000 missiles. History shows that these groups are quick to replace high-ranking leaders with other militants who can carry on the group’s work seamlessly. In 2004, Israel took out two Hamas leaders. But that only brought the group even greater popularity and influence.

The fact that the militia is still capable of resisting the Israeli government is demonstrated in its drone attack on 13 October this year. To date, more than 80 000 Israeli citizens have had to flee their homes in the north of the country and cannot return home because of coming under constant fire from Lebanon.

The only success that the Israelis’ ground invasion has achieved is that it has diverted the world’s attention away from the Gaza Strip. The situation there is dire: the prospects of freeing the remaining hostages are still slim, and Hamas continues to thrive. After all, Sinwar’s assassination does not mean Hamas has been defeated.

According to ACLED’s US analysts, the group has lost only about 8 500 of its 25 000 to 30 000 fighters in clashes with Israel. These losses are offset by unknown quantities of new Palestinian recruits, who lost friends and relatives in Israel’s attacks.

The attack on Lebanon also triggered the second massive Iranian missile attack on Israel within a year. Both attacks were calculated not in a way to cause maximum damage, but to send a symbolic message. Bold words from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued after the attack showed that Israel’s continued response is still unclear.

All-out war is not as likely as it is sometimes made out to be. This is also due to the great distance between Iran and Israel – at their nearest points, it is 1 200 kilometres. But it’s not just that …

Israel knows that attacking Tehran’s oil industry would send global prices in the crude oil market shooting up and upset its own allies, most notably the US.

Iran has mustered around 40 000 Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani and Syrian militants together in Syria. Iran has not tried to use them against Israel yet, as the Tehran leadership only knows too well that doing so would be suicide. What’s more, the situation in the oil market is preventing escalation on both sides.

While Iran relies on its oil revenues, Israel knows that attacking Tehran’s oil industry would send global prices in the crude oil market shooting up and upset its own allies, most notably the US. Ultimately, a massive attack on Iran with civilian casualties would rally its population around the otherwise unpopular government.

So, despite its military inferiority, the Iranian regime is actually in quite a favourable situation if it comes to direct conflict. Any escalation could only end up strengthening it.

And then there’s the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Officials in Iran have been clear in recent years that when it comes to nuclear weapons, their aim is to maintain what they call a ‘threshold status’, i.e. to be capable of producing nuclear weapons quickly, but only if needed.

The situation has changed dramatically here too. International observers have raised concerns that Iran could soon start developing a nuclear bomb, with US intelligence agencies reporting in July that active preparations were underway.

Shortly afterwards, the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that it could no longer be confident that Iran’s nuclear programme was for peaceful purposes.

It might sound paradoxical, but despite high inflation, more and more people in Iran support the idea of producing nuclear weapons. In a survey conducted by IranPoll, nearly 70 per cent of Iranians surveyed said that the country should possess its own nuclear weapons.

The more pressure that Israel or the West puts on Iran, the more determined the country will be to cross that nuclear threshold to deter a conventionally superior opponent if it deems it necessary.

Ruslan Suleymanov is a Russian orientalist and journalist. He was the senior Middle East correspondent of the TASS news agency in Cairo until February 2022. He resigned from this post in protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Credit: UNRWA

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 28 2024 (IPS)

As it continues to leave a mounting trail of death and destruction in Gaza, Israel has come under severe attack from the international community, including the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies, Western allies, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and scores of human rights experts.

During a conference in Paris, focusing on the new crisis unfolding in Lebanon, President Emmanuel Macron of France, a longtime Western ally and one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council, had “sharp words for Israel reflecting the view, even among Israel’s allies, that it has used excessive force against its enemies, resulting in disproportionate casualties and destruction,” according to the New York Times October 25.

“I am not sure you can defend a civilization by sowing barbarism yourself,” Macron declared.

Meanwhile, the rising death toll in Gaza has topped over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in retaliation for the 1,200 killed by Hamas inside Israel on October 7

And last week, over 150 civil society and non-governmental organizations (CSOs/NGOs) made a joint appeal to world governments to do “everything in their power to end this growing catastrophe and cycle of impunity. It is not only a moral imperative but a legal obligation.”

The CSOs urged all 193 UN Member States to “prevent further atrocities and ensure that those responsible for any violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, are held accountable.”

Failure to act now risks further eroding international norms and emboldening perpetrators. The cycle of violence against civilians needs to stop, the CSOs declare.

The signatories include CIVICUS, Oxfam, United Nations Association — UK, Norwegian Refugee Council, International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), Saferworld, and the Jewish Network for Palestine, among others.

https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-resources/news/7372-open-call-for-a-ceasefire-in-gaza-lebanon-and-israel-and-end-to-impunity-amid-a-spiralling-humanitarian-catastrophe-and-escalating-regional-conflict

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Interim Co-Secretary General, CIVICUS, told IPS “it’s deeply unfortunate that the United States government for all its talk of human rights continues to engage in moral dualism by providing diplomatic cover to the Israeli government.”

This is happening, he pointed out, despite overwhelming evidence of the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by Israeli forces. “It’s fair to conclude that there’s an element of inherent racism in how the Biden administration has approached the situation in Palestine.”

In the face of a relentless assault by an occupying force, the plight of the Palestinian people matters less to America’s top diplomats than the plight of the Ukrainian people to whom the same administration has extended all sorts of moral and material support, he added

“Until Israel’s politicians and military brass are brought before an international tribunal to face justice the cycle of violence in the Middle-East will continue to repeat itself,” warned Tiwana.

Even the US, one of Israel’s closest allies, couldn’t restraint itself.

Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on October 16, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US Ambassador to the UN, said she “watched in horror as images from central Gaza poured across my screen.”

“There were no words, simply no words, to describe what we saw. Israel has a responsibility to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties, even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields. We have made this clear to Israel,” she said.

“Just as we have made clear to the Israeli government at the highest levels, that it must do more to address the intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” the US ambassador said.

Dr. James Jennings, President of Conscience International, told IPS that “Gaza’s horror defies description”.

For Israel to bomb the enclave day and night for a full year is certainly criminal, he argued, but to impose an embargo on vital medicine and food needed by millions for survival is the absolute depth of inhumanity.

Lately it has been almost impossible to get volunteer teams of doctors and life-saving medical supplies into the enclave. Shipments of food aid are now embargoed with no explanation or reason. Besides being inhumane, it makes no military sense, unless the objective is to punish the entire population, which is a war crime, he said.

International outrage is needed to force the gates of Gaza open again, declared Dr. Jennings.

The NGO letter says: Israel’s war in Gaza, following the deadly attacks by Palestinian armed groups on 7 October 2023, is the latest and most horrific onslaught of violence in the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

After a year of unfathomable killing and destruction, patterns of civilian harm by Israeli forces are spreading and escalating from Gaza to Lebanon, while rocket attacks by armed groups in Lebanon continue. We are now on the precipice of even greater devastation across the region.

Failure to act now is a choice – a choice that will fail to stop and prevent future atrocities. The UN Commission of Inquiry concluded last week that Israel has committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities in Gaza, and called on member states to “cease aiding or assisting in the commission of violations.”

Over the last 12 months, the UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Gaza, including one calling for a ceasefire, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of the Genocide Convention.

The ICJ also issued an Advisory Opinion that found that Israel’s occupation1 and annexation of Palestinian territory is illegal, and the UN General Assembly passed a resolution demanding that Israel end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) within 12 months. Despite this, none of these measures have been implemented or adhered to.

“The international community’s egregious disregard for international law and the government of Israel’s unchecked impunity in Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon, has set dangerous new precedents for the conduct of war,” says the letter.

For civilians in the occupied Palestinian territory and Lebanon, this has resulted in:

• Israeli military actions killing over 43,000 Palestinians across the oPt and more than 2,000 people in Lebanon.
• Israeli forces issuing displacement orders covering over 84% of Gaza’s territory and now 25% of Lebanon’s territory. These orders, combined with Israel’s bombardment, have forcibly displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population and over 800,000 people in Lebanon.
• An estimated 400,000 Palestinians are under siege and relentless bombardment in northern Gaza without access to food, water, fuel, or medical care. (UNRWA)
• The killing of over 300 Palestinian and international aid workers, and over 1000 health care workers in Gaza and 95 in Lebanon. UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon are also coming under attack by Israeli forces (UNIFIL). Israeli military attacks on hospitals, clinics, and ambulances have decimated the health care system in Gaza, and are destroying it in Lebanon – leaving millions without access to care.
• Countless children and adults are dying of malnutrition and facing the risk of starvation, directly induced by the Israeli government’s siege on Gaza, which includes systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid and essential services. (IPC)
• The killing of nearly 1,200 people in Israel during the Palestinian armed group led attacks on October 7, 2023 (OCHA).
• Rockets fired by Palestinian and Lebanese armed groups have killed and injured dozens of people (Amnesty International) and displaced over 140,000 Israelis.
• 101 hostages remain held by Palestinian armed groups, and thousands of Palestinians are unlawfully detained by Israeli forces in detention centers, including children, many whose whereabouts are unknown and have effectively

Many among us, says the letter, have repeatedly called for a permanent and unconditional ceasefire, hostage release, a halt to arms transfers, and de-escalation of tensions in the region, and yet the violence only appears to be intensifying.

Again, we call on all Heads of State and Governments, the UN Security Council, and actors on the ground to prioritise the preservation of human life above all else by:

• Securing an immediate ceasefire by all parties to the conflict and an end to the indiscriminate attacks that kill civilians and
destroy civilian infrastructure;
• Halting the transfer of weapons, parts, and ammunition to parties to the conflict that may be used to commit violations of international humanitarian law (IHL);
• Enabling unhindered humanitarian access for the delivery of lifesaving assistance, including food, medical supplies and fuel, and the safe movements of civilians and aid workers.
• Ensuring the protection of civilians from further forced displacement, and the right to return for those forcibly displaced. Civilians who choose to stay or are unable to leave remain protected under international law.
• Securing the release of all hostages and
• Immediately activating independent international investigations into all apparent violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes committed by all parties.

Governments must do everything in their power to end this growing catastrophe and cycle of impunity. It is not only a moral imperative but a legal obligation.

All Member States must prevent further atrocities and ensure that those responsible for any violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, are held accountable. Failure to act now risks further eroding international norms and emboldening perpetrators. The cycle of violence against civilians needs to stop.

For more on what international humanitarian law says about occupation, please see commentary by ICRC.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Three-Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco, the flag bearer of circular gastronomy, which aims to align food and nature. Credit: Mirazur

By Busani Bafana
CALI, Columbia & BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Oct 28 2024 (IPS)

“How we prepare and eat food should not be at the expense of our biodiversity,” says 3-Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco, who is on a mission to change our relationship with food and what we choose to eat.

Colagreco, the owner of Mirazur, an award-winning restaurant in Menton, France, is a tribute to gastronomy. Among other world rankings, Mirazur’s fine food and service have earned it first place in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. In the 2020 edition of the “100 Chefs” world ranking, Colagreco’s peers named him the Best Chef in the World and Chef of the Year in 2019. 

A passion for cooking and the love of nature shaped Colagreco’s philosophy on gastronomy.

“Feeding others, for me, is the first act of love,” Colagreco told IPS in an interview. “You know, when I was looking at my son being born, the first thing my wife did after giving birth was to feed the baby. For me, it was super strong to see that, and I always think about that, and that, for me, is the first act of love.”

Eating Without Eating the Planet

For over two decades, Colagreco has been the flag bearer of circular gastronomy, a culinary movement he initiated when he opened Mirazur in 2006.

Circular gastronomy aims to reconnect with nature while reconciling the perfect mastery of the techniques of cuisine with a genuine commitment to society’s wellbeing.

The principles of Colagreco’s circular gastronomy are captured in a manifesto that brings together food, nature and sustainability. It proposes a profound change in our relationship with food by making food choices that respect nature. Some of the principles call for the consumption of fresh, local, seasonal, organically or biodynamically grown produce. There is also a particular focus on the restoration of the soil and cooking that preserves plant and animal biodiversity.

In 2022, Colagreco was named the first ever Chef Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity by the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) in recognition of his promotion and protection of biodiversity. At the onset of COP16 in Cali, Colombia, which is discussing global biodiversity, IPS spoke with Colagreco about sustainable food and nature-positive eating.

UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay with Mauro Colagreco when he was announced as the first Chef Goodwill Ambassador. Credit: UNESCO

Here are excerpts from the interview:

IPS: You were appointed the first ever Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity? Why would a 3-Michelin-starred chef accept a role like this and what do you see yourself bringing to the role of a global ambassador for biodiversity?

Mauro Colagreco: Well, first of all, it is with deep gratitude and pride. I was super happy to accept this because I am very involved in the implementation of sustainability practices in my restaurant, Mirazur. I am involved with regenerative agriculture, the fight against plastic use, waste management, and all kinds of things we can do to make our footprint more sustainable. This role gives a lot of power to our message and our practices. It is an opportunity for bigger action to democratize a necessary vision for gastronomy—a more circular gastronomy. I believe that, as chefs, if we can act together, we will have a real impact.

This new role of ambassador recognizes that our responsibility as chefs is bigger than our kitchens. It shows that from the soil to the plate, everything is connected, and that we can lead a paradigm shift.

I am a day-to-day peaceful activist, and I’m a campaigner; we can’t be silent anymore. We must take action!

So, that’s why I accepted this role of goodwill ambassador, and what can I bring? I think first of all, I can bring my knowledge of the food industry. I know how it works now, and I know how it can be reshaped to work better. I can bring my experience because we have spent years testing and learning about several topics where we can have a real influence in our industry, in our region, and on our planet. My mission is to save biodiversity, save our food traditions, and make our food more sustainable. For me, the plan to follow is to educate everyone. The key is education.

With my fellow chefs through the Relais & Châteaux Association, of which I am the vice president, we regularly educate chefs about the challenge of biodiversity. For example, we are now continuing a major campaign to stop serving endangered species like eel in all the 800 restaurants of the network. Also, I have initiated a big program that will turn the chefs of Relais & Châteaux into local biodiversity ambassadors on a daily basis. This is a huge program with UNESCO, which we will announce in the coming weeks.

IPS: What motivated your commitment to sustainable food in the first place? What are your personal convictions? Can you explain more about this?

Colagreco: Yes, my personal conviction is that by choosing what we eat and what we cook, we choose the world we want to live in and that is really my motto.

To me, everything is interdependent and interconnected. We cannot isolate one aspect of life from another. If we change the way we grow food, we change our actual food;  we change the way our society works; we change our values. That is my life vision and mission.

What motivates me even more is to propose a real alternative to resolve the alarming situation we are facing. I understood that when I opened Mirazur in 2006. I had a bit of land at the restaurant, and I started gardening on a very small plot.

At that moment, I started to read a lot about agriculture, many books, and one especially, The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, really influenced me. This book changed my mind.

That is when I began to understand the profound link between gastronomy and the environment. I understood the importance of biodiversity for our cuisine, for cuisine in general, and, of course, for our planet. And then the small land where I started turned into five hectares of permaculture and biodynamic gardens, where I grew more than 1,500 species and varieties of vegetables. We produce nearly 70 percent of what we serve at the restaurant. So, what we propose, in the end, is a seed-to-plate gastronomy, because we take care of the whole process

IPS: What does it mean to reconcile the environmental impact of the world’s most exclusive fine dining with concerns about sustainability and better stewardship of nature?

Colagreco: That means that making food can no longer be at the expense of the planet. We need to reconnect with nature and rediscover the joy of feeding people in harmony with the planet.

Again, we can no longer eat while eating the planet; that is sure, but the problem is not haute gastronomy. In high gastronomy, you touch a very small segment of the population. The problem is mass consumption. You know, it is how we will feed the 8 billion people on the planet.

That is a huge thing, but that is not a problem because we have great news: we can take the same respectful methods we use in haute gastronomy, apply them to more accessible cuisine, and scale them up. Circular gastronomy, as I say, is not just for the rich elite but for everyone. We’ve tested it, and it works.

Mauro Colagreco believes feeding people is a first act of love and believes food, nature and sustainability should be one. Credit: Mirazur

IPS: You are attending the big Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, this week. What are some of the things that you hope will be achieved by governments around the world at this meeting, and what do you personally hope to do at the COP?

Colagreco: I’m more than honored to be part of this important meeting. All the countries will be there, all the major organizations will be there, and we will all be looking at what we can do to save our biodiversity.

So, for me, in this situation of crisis, we need more ambitious policies to save where we live and our food, fundamentally change the way we live and consume, and fundamentally reorganize the way our society works.

As IPBES says, we need a common strategy because we are all in this together. My role as ambassador is to encourage change and show by example that there are solutions.

What I really want to do is make a solemn appeal to all governments, international organizations, chefs, educators, and citizens around the world to join forces and create and implement a global programme of good nutrition education for our children. I believe that this is the most important action to change the food system. Education is the key.

We need to create a generation that is aware of the importance of biodiversity and committed to making the right food choices. That’s why I really believe this appeal is important, and it is what I want to personally do at the COP.

IPS: You are clearly more than just a chef—your restaurants are exceptionally successful businesses as well. Why does sustainable food make good business sense?

Colagreco: Well, first, because I really believe it is the business of the future. To continue with our current paradigm is like a crime against humanity. The choice of circular gastronomy is a choice of awareness—it’s a choice of values. It means something to everyone. I’m delighted to see the younger generation becoming more aware of that. When I see my children, my sons, I tell myself that we are doing this for them to pass on the right message.

It is a real choice to work for sustainable food—it is usually more demanding—let’s face it. But what I find interesting is that it is like a sport. At first, it is hard to run a mile because you have not built up the muscles, but once you are trained, you can easily run for an hour or even more. So, it is the same for sustainable food and sustainable business; we need to start and be more physically ready.

To change habits is a choice. We must change habits. Of course, it is an effort; it is not easy to go out of your comfort zone. But we must. It is an obligation. Sustainable food is good business.

IPS: You are from Argentina—a country of the Global South—but you have restaurants in France, China, Thailand, and Japan. What role should the developing countries and the hospitality industries in the Global South play in sustainable food and biodiversity conservation?

Colagreco: We have to be careful because my role as ambassador is to lead by example and amplify the voice of biodiversity. We have about 30 restaurants worldwide, and it’s very interesting because the more I travel, the more I realize that the challenges are different everywhere. Situations vary so much that, of course, there is no one way.

It is not the same situation in Asia, South America, the United States, Europe, or Africa. Even in every area, you have very different situations

My first priority when settling in a new country is to identify the local committed producer, with whom I can work to implement our circular gastronomy. My aim is always the same: to cook as much local, fresh and well-grown produce as possible. It is a question of respect for our clients and for the communities that work hard to offer a better food alternative. It’s a question of respecting our planet.

Everyone needs to contribute, and my role is not to point fingers. The role of governments is to support their sustainable agriculture, their sustainable fishing industry, to protect their waste management, to regulate it and to fight against all unsustainable practices.

And the role of hospitality leaders is to have the courage to let circular gastronomy define their food and beverage offers.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• IPBES Calls for Holistic Solutions, Transformative Change in Tackling Biodiversity Loss
• Narrow Valuation of Nature is Widening Biodiversity Loss
• At COP16, Biodiversity Credits Raising Hopes and Protests

BBC Africa Eye investigates the "silent exodus" from France of those fed up with racism and discrimination.

Ethiopian athlete Yomif Kejelcha sets a new world record on his way to winning the Valencia Half Marathon.

President Masisi hopes to lead his party to victory, but the opposition says the nation needs to be saved.