Africa

On the day Bola Tinubu has been declared president-elect, Nigerians have different reactions to the election result.

Veteran politician, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been declared Nigeria’s president-elect.

How credible are the opposition claims of fraud in Nigeria's presidential election?

Members of Sierra Leone's new generation of internationals are targeting 'limitless' success as they seek qualification for the next Africa Cup of Nations.

Bola Tinubu, 70, is declared the winner of Nigeria's election despite opposition calls for a rerun.

A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute, finds WWF report. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)

Wildlife is indeed far much more than a safari or an ‘exotic’ ornament: as many as four billion people –or an entire half the whole world’s population– rely on wild species for income, food, medicines and wood fuel for cooking.

In spite of that, one million species of plants and animals are already facing extinction due to the voracious profit-making, over-exploitative, illegal trade and the relentless depletion of the variety of life on Planet Earth.

In fact, billions of people, both in developed and developing nations, benefit daily from the use of wild species for food, energy, materials, medicine, recreation, and many other vital contributions to human well-being, as duly reports the UN on the occasion of the 2023 World Wildlife Day (3 March).

The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. And you can’t solve one without solving the other

Carter Roberts, head of WWF-US

Much so that 50,000 wild species meet the needs of billions worldwide. And 1 in 5 people around the world rely on wild species for income and food, while 2.4 billion people depend on wood fuel for cooking.

The world’s major multilateral body reminds us of the “urgent need to step up the fight against wildlife crime and human-induced reduction of species, which have wide-ranging economic, environmental and social impacts.”

 

Variety of life, lost at an “alarming rate”

A world organisation leading in wildlife conservation and protection of endangered species: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns that unfortunately, we’re losing biodiversity — the rich variety of life on Earth — at an “alarming rate.”

“We’ve seen a 69% average decline in the number of birds, amphibians, mammals, fish, and reptiles since 1970, according to the 2022 Living Planet Report.

“A million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, we have lost half of the world’s corals and lose forest areas the size of 27 football fields every minute.”

WWF highlights the following findings, among several others:

• 69% average decline in wildlife populations since 1970,
• Wildlife populations in Latin America and the Caribbean plummeting at a staggering rate of 94%,
• Freshwater species populations have suffered an 83% fall.

 

Major causes

The 2022 Living Planet Report points out some of the major causes leading to the shocking loss of the world’s biodiversity.

“The biggest driver of biodiversity loss is the way in which people use the land and sea. How we grow food, harvest materials such as wood or minerals from the ocean floor, and build our towns and cities all have an impact on the natural environment and the biodiversity that lives there.”

Food systems: the biggest cause of Nature loss: according to findings provided by WWF, food production has caused 70% of biodiversity loss on land and 50% in freshwater. It is also responsible for around 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

As a global population, what we’re eating and how we’re producing it right now is good for neither us nor the planet. While over 800 million people are going hungry, over two billion of those who do have enough food are obese or overweight.

The WWF provided findings also indicate that meat tends to have the highest environmental impact, partially because livestock produce methane emissions through their digestive process – something called enteric fermentation – but also because most meat comes from livestock fed with crops.

And that around 850 million people around the world are thought to rely on coral reefs for their food and livelihoods.

WWF’ report also refers to the invasive non-native species: Invasive non-native species are those that arrive in places where they historically didn’t live and out-compete local biodiversity for resources such as sunlight and water. This causes the native species to die out, causing a shift in the makeup of the natural ecosystem.

 

Future depends on reversing the loss of Nature

“The world is waking up to the fact that our future depends on reversing the loss of nature just as much as it depends on addressing climate change. And you can’t solve one without solving the other,” said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US.

“These plunges in wildlife populations can have dire consequences for our health and economies,” says Rebecca Shaw, global chief scientist of WWF.

“When wildlife populations decline to this degree, it means dramatic changes are impacting their habitats and the food and water they rely on. We should care deeply about the unravelling of natural systems because these same resources sustain human life.”

In view of all the above, the causes of the fast destruction of the variety of life have been scientifically identified as well as the dangerous consequences. However, the dominant private business continues to see more profits in destroying than in saving.

In July 2021, widespread civil unrest spread across KwaZulu Natal and other South African provinces. While it followed the incarceration of former President Jacob Zuma, analysts also attributed it to widespread unemployment and inequality. Credit: Lyse Comins/IPS

By Lyse Comins
DURBAN, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)

South Africa’s almost record level food price inflation, load shedding, rising energy costs, and further fuel and interest rate hike forecast have eroded workers’ disposable incomes and further disadvantaging the poor – leaving analysts predicting that the country was at heightened risk, including civil unrest.

Head of Policy Analysis at the Centre for Risk Analysis, Chris Hattingh, cautioned that the lower fuel price, which the latest Statistics SA data showed last week, had largely contributed to driving annual consumer inflation down from 7,2 percent in December 2022 to 6,9 percent in January, could prove to be only a temporary reprieve. The fuel price index declined by 10.5 percent between December 2022 and January, the data showed.

United Trade Union of SA (UASA) spokesperson Abigail Moyo said the state’s failure to supply food producers and retailers with sufficient water and electricity to run businesses efficiently had fuelled inflation that eroded workers’ disposable income.

“Economically driven financial stress through no fault of their own has been a factor in workers’ lives for years. With items such as maize meal going up 36,5 percent since January last year, onions up 48.7 percent, samp up 29.6 percent, and instant coffee up 26.4 percent, it is clear that difficult times are not nearly over for households,” she said.

Business Leadership South Africa chief executive Busisiwe Mavuso also warned that unless there were “meaningful and targeted interventions,” the country could face an Arab Spring-type revolt.

Hattingh added: “This inflation relief afforded by the lower fuel price could prove to be temporary. The reopening of the Chinese economy will likely drive international oil prices higher, impacting down the line in the form of higher fuel prices. South Africa is also more exposed to imported inflation. Should the costs and prices of manufactured and consumer goods and inputs increase, this will then drive inflation higher locally.”

“Of great concern regarding pressure on consumers is that the food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rate was recorded at 13.4 percent (annually) in January. The previous time this reading was so high was April 2009, at 13.6 percent,” he said.

Additionally, the category of bread and cereals recorded the biggest increase of any product group at 21.8 percent, while meat inflation rose from 9.7 percent in December 2022 to 11.2 percent in January.

“A fundamental weakness in the economy – unreliable electricity supply – could likely push prices and inflation higher throughout the year. This will result in more pressure on consumers and businesses and add to the potential for civil unrest,” he said.

He said load shedding was now a priced-in “feature of South African life,” as shown by the Rand weakening to R19 against the US Dollar.

Annual inflation, at 6.9 percent, was also outside the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) target range of 3 – 6 percent.

“With the latest data for January now in, the SARB could continue its rate hiking cycle with another 25 basis points increase at the next meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee,” Hattingh said.

Independent crime and policing expert and a former senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Dr Johan Burger, warned that signs of potential unrest due to the rising cost of living and disillusionment were visible across the country.

He said most households in the middle and higher income brackets had been forced to cut back on spending due to higher interest rates and the rising prices of basic foods.

“Those of us with a relatively stable income are already finding it increasingly difficult and have to think twice before we buy something, so one can only imagine the pressure people in lower income groups must be feeling,” he said.

“For many, this has been the situation for many years, and it has become worse. Unemployment is at 32,9 percent, and the unofficial unemployment rate is even higher. High levels of unemployment lead to high levels of poverty, creating all sorts of social problems,” he said.

Burger said during the looting in July 2021, much of what was stolen was foodstuffs and goods that could be sold for cash.

“In some cases, people who went out to shop for food were attacked and robbed of their food. Other instances that we see now are when a truck breaks down on the road near a community, and all of a sudden, a flood of people come in and strip it of whatever it’s carrying – whether food or something they can exchange for food,” he said.

Burger said these incidents showed a “general instability” against the backdrop of a weakened criminal justice system that cannot deal effectively with criminals.

“The potential for large-scale disruptions and looting and for large groups of people to come together and engage in popular uprisings could happen. When large groups of people are exposed to extreme levels of property over a long period of time, they build resentment and feel neglected by the state. They feel their needs are not acknowledged, and with this resentment comes a disregard for the state, its laws, and the police, and they feel they have the right to rise up and take what they need,” Burger said.

“And if they rise up in large enough numbers, it will be very difficult for the state to suppress this kind of uprising. The potential for this to happen is very real – it’s almost visible; it’s just beneath the surface,” he said.

Burger said all that was needed to spark unrest was a potential trigger, as had occurred in KwaZulu-Natal with a pro (former president Jacob Zuma campaign ahead of the July 2021 riots.

“The danger is it could spread very quickly because those levels of poverty and deprivation exist in almost all our communities across the nation. In 2008 the Xenophobic riots spread in a question of days, and we saw 69 people killed and many more injured and displaced,” he said.

He warned that localized protests about service delivery had been occurring for years, and if left unattended, these could also get to a point where “resistance will explode.”

“It is growing dissatisfaction with their situation, and many of poor communities see themselves as the neglected part of South Africa. They have not shared in anything promised when democracy came in terms of employment and service, and they go hungry once this happens; there is a division between a part of our population and the institutions that govern us, which is why there is real potential for large scale insurrection,” Burger said.

Head of the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies,  Gareth Newham, said rising food security and hunger, with around 60 percent of the population now living in poverty and a large proportion of households facing hunger weekly, created a high level of despair and frustration.

“This challenge has been around some time, and increasing food prices could make that worse,” he said.

However, he said the current causes of most public violence were labor-related disputes and service delivery failures.

“We historically don’t have an issue where food insecurity has been a major driver of public violence, but it doesn’t mean it won’t be. There could arguably be a level of hunger that does lead to it,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The theme for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2023 is, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. This theme is aligned with the priority theme for the upcoming 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (6-17 March 2023), “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”.

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
BANGKOK, Thailand, Mar 1 2023 (IPS)

New technologies and innovations are reshaping our world and its future, often at a dizzying pace. Yet women and girls continue to be left behind in this burgeoning digital universe. How, then, can we harness these developments to create a better future for all of us?

This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” seeks to answer exactly that question.

We know that women and girls are less likely than men and boys to use the internet or own a smartphone. In fact, only 54 per cent of women in Asia and the Pacific have digital access, cut off from opportunities to move any digital needles forward.

The root causes are many and varied: deep-rooted discriminatory social norms, increased gender-based violence (including online violence), and the unequal distribution of unpaid care and domestic work. Addressing these impediments to women realizing their full potential requires our joint and immediate attention and response.

One child, one teacher, one pen

When and where women and girls are discouraged from studying and working in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields, we let them down. And we have left a whole generation of women and girls behind. We need the talents and voices of women and girls brought to the boardrooms and coding rooms.

Today many innovations in AI, medicine, entertainment, transportation, work and other fields treat men as the standard and ignore women’s physical and social differences – to the detriment of half of the world’s population.

Getting more women into careers in technology starts with breaking down the gender stereotypes that prevent girls from studying STEM subjects. Comprehensive changes to the way STEM subjects are taught and targeted programs to support girls’ learning are needed.

In Viet Nam, the Ministry of Education and Training has updated the country’s National Early Childhood Education curriculum on “de-stereotyping” women and girls and has included gender-sensitive budgeting into the Education Sector Plan. Through changes such as these, governments can foster girls’ enthusiasm for technology, expanding the future digital workforce.

Harnessing technology to support women entrepreneurs

Women entrepreneurs play a key role in developing economies. Supporting them to start and grow businesses through technology will lead to more sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Women have historically struggled to access capital because they are less aware of funding options.

They are less likely to own land or have large savings to offer as collateral and have not been included in traditional financial networks. Technological innovations provide an opportunity to connect women entrepreneurs across the region with new financing models that cater to their particular needs.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship project has unlocked almost USD 65 million in capital to support women entrepreneurs in several countries.

Through identifying and backing a number of experimental technology-driven business models, the project has supported women-led micro, small and medium enterprises through a range of technology solutions such as payment platforms, online marketplaces, bookkeeping and inventory management.

Enabling women to become drivers of inclusive innovation

If we pair the untapped potential of women and girls to contribute to our common future together with the potential of the innovations of digitalization, science and technologies, we may well have cracked the code to rectifying many of the inequalities and injustices created by generations past.

Women have the know-how to harness technology and innovation. Given equal opportunities, they will flourish and contribute to creative solutions to tackle the world’s multi-faceted challenges.

Women leaders in Asia and the Pacific are already using technology to address inequalities and gender-based violence. Founded by Virginia Tan, Rhea See, and Leanne Robers, She Loves Tech, headquartered in Singapore, runs the world’s largest start-up competition for women and technology and aims to unlock over USD 1 billion in capital by 2030 for women-led businesses.

Safecity is a crowd-mapping platform for people to share experiences of sexual harassment in public spaces and allows communities to identify problems and work towards solutions. The platform was launched by three women, including current leader Elsa Marie D’Silva, in response to incidents of gender-based violence in the region.

“We can all do our part to unleash our world’s enormous untapped talent – starting with filling classrooms, laboratories, and boardrooms with women scientists,” said United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently. Indeed, we need women in leadership roles in all science and technology spaces to accelerate inclusive innovation.

Let’s work together towards our dream of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. What better way to do so than to use innovations and new technologies to overcome inequalities in the digital age?

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

The writer is Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
 
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.

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Shahd, a 12-year-old girl with a hearing disability, stands in front of a window facing her father, in the house her family live in, Azaz, Aleppo, Syria. Credit: Human Rights Watch.

By Emina Ćerimović
NEW YORK, Feb 28 2023 (IPS)

A few days ago, I saw a photo shared to Twitter of Sham, a young Syrian girl rescued from under the rubble in northwest Syria, sitting upright in her hospital bed, According to the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer humanitarian group also known as the White Helmets, Sham will lose both her legs because of injuries from the quake.

Looking at her photo, I couldn’t help but think of the additional human rights abuses Sham will experience on the basis of her disability. She will join the ranks of all the children with disabilities who are surviving the 12-year-conflict in Syria without equal access to humanitarian aid.

And so will others who experienced traumatic physical and psychological injuries in the wake of the earthquakes: a girl who had spent 30 hours under the rubble in the heavily affected town of Jindires in northwest Syria and who had lost both her legs; a 3-year-old boy in Jinderis who was trapped for 42 hours and whose left leg was amputated; a young Syrian man living in Gaziantep, Turkey, whose right hand was amputated.

In Syria, approximately 28 percent of the current population – nearly double the global average – are estimated to have a disability, and their rights and needs are largely unmet

As issues of humanitarian aid access to various affected parts of Syria dominate the news, relief efforts should not overlook the short and long-term needs of people with disabilities and the thousands of earthquake survivors who have sustained physical and psychological injuries that could lead to permanent disabilities.

As two more powerful earthquakes struck the region on February 20, panic and fear spread among earthquake survivors in both Syria and Turkey, bringing into sharp focus the psychological trauma caused by the natural hazard and, for Syrians, by over 12 years of war.

In Syria, approximately 28 percent of the current population – nearly double the global average – are estimated to have a disability, and their rights and needs are largely unmet. As I found in my September report on the greater risk of harm and lack of access to basic rights for children with disabilities caught up in the Syrian war, the design and delivery of humanitarian programs in Syria are not taking into account the particular needs of children with disabilities. In some cases, such programs explicitly exclude them.

As an example, some educational activities and child-friendly spaces excluded children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Children with disabilities are growing up without safety, basic necessities, education, assistive devices, or psychosocial support, in ways that put their lives and rights at risk.

They experience stigma, psychological harm, and higher levels of poverty. The situation is no better for adults with disabilities who also face systematic challenges in accessing humanitarian services on an equal basis with others.

This crisis should serve as a wake-up call for UN agencies, donor states, humanitarian organizations, and charities to properly respond to all children’s rights by ensuring the rights and needs of children with disabilities are also met.

They should develop and implement their response and recovery action plans with people with disabilities at their core. The attention and investment in children – like Sham – and adults with disabilities will enhance human rights for everyone.

 

Excerpt:

Emina Cerimovic is a senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Swatch.

One of the key virtues of criminalizing ecocide is that it would give a means of redress for the peoples of the Global South who are the biggest victims of it, says Sue Miller, Head of Global Networks for the Stop Ecocide campaign. Photo courtesy of StopEcocide.

By Paul Virgo
ROME, Feb 28 2023 (IPS)

Genocide, war crimes, aggression, ecocide, crimes against humanity – which is the odd one out? The right answer is ecocide – destroying, polluting or damaging the natural living world on a large scale is not among the crimes that can be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

So ecocide, which literally means to “kill one’s home”, can take place constantly in much of the world at the moment and no one is held responsible.

Deforestation, oil spills, air contamination – the corporations behind episodes of severe environmental harm like this may sometimes be sued, and occasionally fined, but they can simply budget for this. No one gets arrested, so there is no real disincentive.

A growing global network of lawyers, diplomats and activists are campaigning to rectify this and have ecocide join this exclusive club of ‘crimes against peace’ that the International Criminal Court can punish in order to make the perpetrators liable to prosecution.

“We call ecocide the missing crime,” Sue Miller, the Head of Global Networks for the Stop Ecocide campaign, told IPS.

At the moment, it is predominantly corporations based in the Global North that are causing environmental damage in the Global South, where the rule of law is often not as strong. An International law of ecocide will not only strengthen national laws, but will also provide a court of last resort for those affected by ecocide who cannot obtain justice in their own countries

“Right now, corporations are causing serious environmental damage in pursuit of profits. Mostly they get away with it.

“If they are called to account, they may end up paying a fine, some civil damages or even possibly a bribe to make the problem go away.

“Whatever the penalty, it is monetary and can sit on the company’s balance sheet as a business expense”.

One of the key virtues of criminalizing ecocide is that it would give a means of redress for the peoples of the Global South who are the biggest victims of it.

“At the moment, it is predominantly corporations based in the Global North that are causing environmental damage in the Global South, where the rule of law is often not as strong,” said Miller.

“An International law of ecocide will not only strengthen national laws, but will also provide a court of last resort for those affected by ecocide who cannot obtain justice in their own countries”.

But, above all, it would also create a deterrent to trashing the environment that currently does not exist.

Miller believes that this would be a game-changer when it comes to business practices.

“A new crime of ecocide would place personal criminal liability on the key decision makers – the controlling minds – in most cases the company directors,” she said.

“As such, an ecocide law will reach into the boardrooms where the decisions are made and act as a brake on the projects which cause the worst environmental harms.

“Faced with prosecution and possible imprisonment, company directors are likely to be far more circumspect about the projects they approve.

“Funding and insurance for potentially ecocidal projects will dry up and funds, effort and talent will be diverted into healthier, more sustainable practices.

“Whilst it will enable justice to be pursued if damage is done, more importantly, an ecocide law has the power to stop the damage happening in the first place”.

Rather than being hostile to the law, Miller argues that many CEOs actually want legislation that would forbid them from making profit at the expense of the natural world.

“There is no business on a dead planet and many businesses are coming to that realisation now,” she said.

“They are also realising that there are advantages to working with, rather than against, nature.

“These include: unlocking innovation; stimulating investment in new, regenerative business models; levelling the playing field for sustainable enterprise; stabilising operational and reputational risk; and providing a steer towards more sustainable business practices”.

These are among the reasons that make Miller confident the drive to have ecocide criminalized will ultimately be successful, despite the power of lobbies who opposite it.

The campaign has won the backing of figures including United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Pope Francis, Greta Thunberg and Paul McCartney.

In June 2021 an independent expert panel presented its formal definition of the proposed crime of ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.

When discussions were taking place for the creation of the International Criminal Court at the end of the 1990s and in the early 2000s, ecocide was one of the crimes which was going to be included alongside genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – aggression, the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, integrity or independence of another State, did not come under its jurisdiction until 2018.

In the end, ecocide was dropped during a closed doors meeting for reasons that remain unclear.

The world today would likely be a better place if it had been in there from the start.

“If it had been in place, so many events since might not only have been punished but might not have happened at all,” Miller said.

“Had ecocide law been in place it is unlikely, for example, that (former Brazilian president) Jair Bolsonaro would have been so keen to encourage destruction of the Amazon in Brazil.

“It is unlikely that corporations would now be prospecting for deep sea mining sites.

“So much of the damage we are now seeing could have been avoided”.

 

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Source: https://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2022/

By Kwan Soo-Chen and David McCoy
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 28 2023 (IPS)

Global warming and climate breakdown are going to be disruptive to say the least. Humanity’s insistence on unsustainable development and rising greenhouse gas emissions will make the settlements of millions of people increasingly prone to extreme weather events and full-blown natural disasters.

Many places will also become uninhabitable. As a consequence, many people are going to have to move from their current homes, either temporarily or permanently.

The term ‘climate mobility’ is used to describe three forms of climate-induced movement of populations: displacement, where people are forced to leave their homes; migration, where movement is to some degree voluntary; and planned relocation, where movement in proactively instigated, supervised and carried out by the state.

In reality, these three forms of mobility overlap and may occur concurrently, making it difficult to accurately quantify and monitor trends over time. Furthermore, when considering the impacts of climate change on human mobility, there is a need to consider the inability or unwillingness of communities to move despite being at risk from harm, loss and damage.

There are several drivers of ‘climate mobility’. The most obvious is the direct destruction of homes and infrastructure by acute severe weather events and floodings. Less obvious drivers include the more chronic impact of sea level rise, soil erosion, erratic weather patterns, salination and forest degradation on water supply, agriculture and livelihoods.

Data on climate mobility are sketchy and it is hard to attribute any instance of displacement or forced migration to only one set of factors. Political and economic factors may often be significant co-factors. Similarly, movements and migration attributed to economic forces or armed conflicts may have some underlying relationship to environmental degradation.

According to the 2022 Global Report of Internal Displacements (GRID) by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) in Geneva, there were 38 million individual instances of displacement in 2021 globally, with 14.3 million (37.6%) coming from the East Asia and Pacific region.

These numbers include people who were displaced more than once. More than half of these displacements (23.7 million) globally, and 95% in the East and Pacific region were due to weather-related disasters, and most of these were concentrated in LMICs.

In the Asia Pacific region, 225.3 million internal displacements caused by disasters have been recorded from 2010 to 2021, where 95% were weather related and the other 5% were geophysical. The Southeast Asian countries with the highest incidence of displacements due to natural disasters in 2021 were the Philippines (5,681,000), Indonesia (749,000), Vietnam (780,000) and Myanmar (158,000).

The two biggest causes of disaster-related displacements in the region are floods and storms which were responsible for over 80% of disaster-related displacements between 2008 and 2020.

Attempts are also being made to monitor the scale of planned relocations. One study, for example, identified 308 planned relocations globally in 2021, of which more than half were in Asia (160). This included 29 cases in the Philippines, and 17 in both Vietnam and Indonesia.

Importantly however, half all of these ‘planned relocations’ involved populations in rural areas including the indigenous communities, and half of them had already been displaced by acute weather events. The number of households involved in each planned relocation ranged from as little as four households to 1,000 households, with the majority involving less than 250 households.

Although Southeast Asia is known as being a ‘hot spot’ for acute severe weather events, it is also vulnerable to the effects of more chronic environmental degradation. For example, the large low-lying coastal areas of the region – such as in Vietnam and Thailand and around the Mekong delta – are already being affected by sea level rise and its impacts on settlements through coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion.

Although projections of the scale of future climate mobility are uncertain, significant growth is indicated. Already we have seen the number of internal displacements increased from 3.9 million per year in 2008-2010 to 6.4 million per year in 2019-2021.

According to the Groundswell Report of the World Bank, the number of internal climate migrants in the East Asia and Pacific region will reach 49 million by 2050, representing 2% of the regional population. The lower Mekong subregion in Southeast Asia is projected to see between 3.3 million and 6.3 million new climate migrants between now and 2050 (1.4% to 2.7% of the country population) depending on different scenarios.

The high-risk outmigration hotspots include the coastal areas of Vietnam (threatened by sea level rise) and central Thailand and Myanmar (threatened by water scarcity and reduced agriculture productivity).

While most climate mobility occurs within a country, there will be growing pressure on national borders as climate change worsens. However, there appears to be little modelling of future scenarios involving cross-border migration due to climate change and environmental breakdown.

Such pressure might be expected around land borers within the Greater Mekong sub-region affecting Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. But given the physical geography of the region, cross-border migration by sea may become an issue as the effects of climate change worsen.

Clearly this will pose international security as well as humanitarian challenges. Currently however, the 1951 Refugee Convention does not give people fleeing from environmental disasters or climate-related threats the right to be recognized as refugees, even though the term ‘climate refugees’ is increasingly used in popular and academic discourse.

The non-binding Global Compact for Migration which was developed in line with the SDG target 10.7 on migration policies and adopted by majority of the UN Member States in December 2018 is a good start to strengthening international cooperation in tackling the challenges and human rights-related aspects of cross border migrants from climate change.

The negative health impacts of being forcibly moved from one’s home are significant, but will also depend on the form of migration (temporary or permanent, short or long distance, internal or cross-border) and the social, economic and political conditions of their home and new environments.

Furthermore, there are different health needs and impacts for populations on the move and those that are settled, as well as for receiving communities and those that are left behind. While certain risks and threats will be reduced by movement, many will face new health hazards in their new settings including a lack of economic opportunities, as well as the mental health risks associated with social and cultural loss.

Climate mobility is a current and pressing issue in Southeast Asia. Even if everything is done to mitigate further global warming, millions of people in the region will likely be forced to move from their current settlements over the next few decades.

Whether we are adequately prepared for this is at best an open question. What is clear however is that the responsibilities of governments towards both current and future climate migrants is considerable.

Crucially, health systems will have to provide for both physical safety and health of vulnerable populations, as well as the burden of mental illness produced by forced migration.

Kwan Soo-Chen is a Postdoctoral Fellow and David McCoy is a Research Lead at the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH).

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Miguel Barraza, secretary of the Chigualoco fisherpersons union in northern Chile, leans against a pile of Chilean kelp that has been drying in the sun for three days. The kelp used to fetch 1.5 dollars per kg, but the price has collapsed. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Feb 28 2023 (IPS)

Management areas in Chile for benthic organisims, which live on the bottom of the sea, are successfully combating the overexploitation of this food source thanks to the efforts of organized shellfish and seaweed harvesters and divers.

Benthic organisms are commercially valuable marine species that live at the lowest level of a body of water, including sub-surface layers, such as molluscs and algae.

The most widely harvested molluscs in Chile include the Chilean abalone (Concholepas concholepas), razor clam (Mesodesma donacium) and Chilean mussel (Mytilus chilensis), and the most harvested algae is Chilean kelp (Lessonia berteorana).“When there is free unregulated access, the resources do not recover, they tend to be overexploited and in the end there is nothing left. The only places where you can see these resources is in the management areas because fisherpersons are obliged to take care of them and help them recover.” -- Luis Durán Zambra

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The Undersecretariat for Fisheries and Aquaculture told IPS that in this country with a long coastline on the Pacific Ocean there are currently 853 Benthic Resources Management and Exploitation Areas (AMERB), with a total combined surface area of ​​close to 130,000 hectares.

The areas vary in size from one to 4,000 hectares, although 91 percent are under 300 hectares and the average is 150 hectares. They range from beaches and rocky coastal areas to places that are a maximum of five nautical miles offshore.

They were created in 1991, when geographical sectors were established within reserve areas for artisanal fishing in order to implement management plans, which set closed seasons, regulated catches and outlined recovery measures, and which are only assigned to organizations of legally registered artisanal fisherpersons.

The aim is to regulate artisanal fishing activity, restricting access to benthic organisms, under the supervision of the authorities.

Leaders of three local fishing coves or inlets that operate as production units where artisanal fisherpersons extract and sell marine resources told IPS about the efforts made to prevent poaching, and underscored the benefits of sustainable exploitation of these resources.

They said they managed to make a living from their work but expressed fears about the future.

This South American country of 19.2 million people has 6,350 km of coastline along the Pacific ocean and is among the world’s top 10 producers of fish.

 

Luis Durán Zambra presides over the Association of Guanaqueros Fisherpersons in Chile, which brings together 170 members, 70 of whom are registered for the assigned management area. Durán poses in his boat where he drives up to 20 tourists around the bay, an activity with which he earns extra income during the southern hemisphere summer. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

 

It has 99,557 registered artisanal fisherpersons, of whom 25,181 are women. There are 13,123 registered artisanal fishing vessels and 403 industrial fishing vessel owners. The country also has 456 fishing plants that employ 38,014 people, according to data provided by the Undersecretariat of Fisheries in response to questions from IPS.

As of October 2022, there were 1,538 aquaculture centers and 3,295 aquaculture concessions, 69 percent of which involved companies that employ a total of 10,719 people.

The Undersecretariat said it is in the process of creating 516 new AMERBs, and that in more than 30 years under the system 435 proposals have been rejected and the status of 34 sectors has been canceled.

 

Leaders of fisherpersons unions describe different realities

Luis Durán Zambra, president of the Fisherpersons Association of Guanaqueros, a town in the Coquimbo region, 430 kilometers north of Santiago, said that these areas have been very successful.

“When there is free unregulated access, the resources do not recover, they tend to be overexploited and in the end there is nothing left. The only places where you can see these resources is in the management areas because fisherpersons are obliged to take care of them and help them recover,” he told IPS during an interview in his cove.

Durán, 64, is the fifth generation of fishermen in his family.

The unions, advised by marine biologists, analyze each management area, its conditions, the reproduction of resources and then inform the Undersecretariat of Fisheries to authorize the size of the annual harvest.

 

Tasting seafood and fish ceviches – a local dish – in the market of the Tongoy resort town, in the Coquimbo region in northern Chile, is also an opportunity to educate tourists on the flavor and nutritional value of these products fresh from the sea. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

 

Miguel Tellez, president of the Mar Adentro de Chepu Artisanal Fisherpersons Union, on the island of Chiloé, 1,100 kilometers south of Santiago, told IPS that they have worked for 20 years in four 300-hectare management areas that start at the Chepu River, where they harvest different molluscs.

The main species they harvest is the Chilean abalone, although there are also mussels, sea urchins (Echinoidea) and red seaweed (Sarcothalia crispata) that is harvested in the southern hemisphere summer. The production of Chilean abalone varies, but in a good year 400,000 are caught.

“We are 34 active members, half of us divers, who monitor the entire year, with four people taking turns overseeing day and night for six days,” Tellez said from his home in the town of Chepu.

He explained that poaching “has been our main problem, especially when we just started.”

He was referring to illegal fishermen and divers who enter the management zones, affecting the efforts of those legally assigned to exploit and protect them.

His union installed surveillance booths on the coast of Parque Ahuenco, a reserve belonging to some fifty families that preserve 1,200 hectares along the sea.

Tellez is worried about the future because the average age of union members is 40 years old.

“I don’t know how much longer we can do this. There are very few young people and because of their studies they are involved in other things,” he said.

In Chepu, fisherpersons sell Chilean abalone in the shell to a factory in the nearby town of Calbuco where they are cleaned and packaged for sale within Chile or for export. The price depends on the market. It has now dropped to 60 cents of a dollar per abalone.

“This is a low price given that we have to oversee the shellfish year-round, paying dearly for fuel, motors and boats and making a tremendous investment. An outboard motor, like the ones we use, costs 40 million pesos (about 50,000 dollars),” said Tellez.

 

At the pier in Tongoy, a seaside resort in northern Chile, shellfish divers prepare piures (a kind of sea squirt), which they try to sell to tourists by explaining how to eat them. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

 

He is dubious about moving towards industrialization, asking “How much more could we harvest and how much more would we have to invest?”

Proudly, he said his was “one of the best unions in the country. Partly because we are from the same area,” since all of the members live in Chepu or nearby towns.

In the Coquimbo region, Miguel Barraza, secretary of the Chigualoco fisherpersons union, 248 kilometers north of Santiago, is enthusiastic about transforming his cove.

At the cove, he told IPS that “1.1 billion pesos (1.37 million dollars) are going to be invested to make this a model cove. A new breakwater will be built, along with a bypass on the freeway and facilities to serve tourists.”

The new breakwater will protect boats from waves as they enter and exit the cove.

Thirty members and their families, including shellfish divers, fisherpersons and kelp harvesters, live in Chigualoco.

They have three management areas, the largest of which is 5000 square meters in size. From these areas they harvest 100,000 Chilean abalones and 300 tons of Chilean kelp a year.

“We earn enough to live year-round,” Barraza said, adding that they were not interested in processing their catch because “fishermen like to come ashore and sell.”

“We have overseers, but poachers come in from various sides. They are stealing a lot. We won a project to buy a drone to monitor the shore to find them,” he said.

In Guanaqueros, where Durán’s union is located, despite their seniority they have only now registered a management zone in their overexploited fishing area.

“We have an area that is not yet well developed. It has been difficult for us because most of us are fisherpersons. But the area is going to recover. The marine biologist says that 100,000 abalones could be harvested annually,” said Durán, looking for a shady spot to chat in his cove.

Today the area is looked after. It is about three kilometers in size and before it began to be regulated, people harvested abalone there for more than half a century without any limits.

“People are used to just harvesting without regulations and it is difficult to change that behavior. It’s a constant struggle and a problem to prevent disputes between fisherpersons…Many do not understand that the resources are there because other people take care of them,” he said.

 

As soon as fisherpersons and divers unload their products at the Tongoy pier, in the northern Chilean region of Coquimbo, crowded with tourists during the southern hemisphere summer, they are approached by customers seeking to buy products directly, without the need for intermediaries. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

 

Low consumption of seafood, a public health problem

Durán lamented the low levels of consumption of fish and shellfish in Chile, despite the country’s abundant seafood.

“We don’t have culinary habits like in Peru (a country on Chile’s northern border) and we eat what we shouldn’t. There is no government promotion or policy that calls for consumption and it is a public health issue,” he said.

“I can’t conceive of the fact that there is a plant making fishmeal from Chilean jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) and that children are eating tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus),” a farmed fish, he added.

The Undersecretariat informed IPS that the annual consumption of seafood in 2021 was 16.6 kg per inhabitant, below the global average of 20 kg.

In Chile, fishing is the third largest economic activity, contributing around five billion dollars a year to the economy.

Chile is among the 10 largest fish producing countries in the world and is the global leader in aquaculture, second in salmon production and first in mussel exports.

The Undersecretariat is currently drafting a new law on the exploitation and conservation of seafood, for which it organized 150 meetings with artisanal fishermen and another 22 with representatives of industrial fishing and sector professionals.
The Undersecretariat told IPS that the objective is to promote and diversify the activity not only as a development strategy but also as a resource conservation strategy.

Zimbabwe is losing 262 000 hectares of forests destroyed every year. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

By Jeffrey Moyo
HARARE, Feb 28 2023 (IPS)

In New Ashdon Park, a medium-density area in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, at new homes that have replaced a once thriving forest, makeshift fireplaces have become common sights as residents solely depend on firewood for energy.

City dwellers like 34-year-old Neliet Mbariro, a married mother of four, live in a house that has not yet been connected to electricity.

Like many of her neighbors, Mbariro has had to depend on cutting down some trees just across an unpaved road near her home.

“We cut the few remaining trees you see here so we can make fire for cooking every day. We can’t do anything about it because we have no electricity in this area,” Mbariro told IPS.

Hundreds of trees that used to define Mbariro’s area, where homes have fast emerged, have disappeared over the past two years since construction began.

As building structures rise, vast acres of natural forests are falling as construction of dwellings and indigenous industrial facilities gather pace in Zimbabwe.

Arnold Shumba (32), a builder operating in New Ashdon Park, said with his team working in the area, they have had to do away with hundreds of trees to build homes for their clients.

“I remember there were plenty of trees; in fact, there was a huge forest area here, but those trees are no more now because as we worked, we cut them down. You only see houses now,” Shumba told IPS.

According to environmentalists, the impact of deforestation is problematic.

“Very soon, towns and cities will have no more trees left as buildings take their place,” Marylin Mahamba, an independent environmental activist in Harare, told IPS.

For instance, as Mahamba notes, Harare is no longer the same, with scores of open urban spaces taken over for construction and trees uprooted.

Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, is even worse, with Mahamba claiming the city has been pummeled by deforestation left, right, and center as more residential areas rise.

Yet it is not only the rise of more buildings across towns and cities here that has led to deforestation but electricity deficits, according to climate change experts.

“The Zimbabwe Power Company is also to blame for failing to provide enough electricity. Gas is expensive, and many people can’t afford it. They opt for firewood because it is cheaper, and that’s why more urban trees are now vanishing,” Kudakwashe Makanda, a climate change expert based in Zimbabwe, told IPS.

But Makanda also pinned the blame for urban deforestation on rural-to-urban migration.

“There is now excessive expansion of towns in Zimbabwe. Obviously, this does not spare the forests. By nature, people would want to settle in urban areas, and by virtue of people wanting to settle in towns, people cut down trees establishing homes,” said Makanda.

Makanda also blamed local authorities for fueling urban deforestation, saying, “the town councils are to blame. They allow people to occupy land not suitable for occupation resulting in trees being felled.”

With joblessness affecting as many as 90 percent of Zimbabwe’s population, according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Makanda said in towns and cities, many have switched to firewood for livelihood.

“People are making a livelihood out of firewood, meaning more trees are disappearing in towns as dealers sell firewood which has become a source of income for many who are not formally employed,” said Makanda.

But for areas like New Ashdon Park with no electricity and with many residents like Mbariro having to depend on firewood while other areas contend with regular power outages, Makanda also said, “power cuts are causing deforestation in towns, especially in areas with no power connection, people rely on firewood.”

Yet stung by joblessness, Makanda said urban dwellers are clearing unoccupied pieces of land to farm in towns and cities, but at the cost of the trees that must be removed.

To fix the growing menace of urban deforestation in Zimbabwe, climate change experts like Makanda have said, “there is a need for incentivizing alternative power sources like solar so that they become affordable in order to save the remaining urban forests.”

Denis Munangatire, an environmentalist with a degree in environmental studies from the Midlands State University, claimed 4000 trees are getting destroyed annually across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities.

According to this country’s Forestry commission, these are among the 262 000 hectares of forests destroyed every year in Zimbabwe.

Like Makanda, Munangatire heaped the blame on local authorities in towns and cities for fueling deforestation.

“Urban councils are responsible for the disappearance of trees in towns and cities because they are leaving land developers wiping out forests, leaving few or no trees standing in areas they develop,” Munangatire told IPS.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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