Africa

Women working in government-owned nurseries in Haripur, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. Pakistan has launched one of the largest reforestation initiatives in the world — the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jun 4 2021 (IPS)

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has been making sure that all foreign dignitaries visiting the country get their hands dirty. With a shovel and a watering can, they are invited to plant a tree for one of the largest reforestation initiatives in the world — the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme or TBTTP.

The TBTTP is part of a series of “nature-based solutions” to fight the climate change crisis. Other initiatives include increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix to 60 percent by 2030 and to helping preserve the environment of national parks. In addition, Pakistan has provided over 85,000 green jobs (to be increased to 100,000 by the end of the year) through a Green Stimulus Package following COVID-19.

These strategies fit perfectly with this year’s World Environment Day (WED) theme of ecosystem restoration (ER) as Pakistan readies to host, in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the event tomorrow, Jun. 5.

“This WED is of global significance as it kicks off the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 with focus on reversing the loss to natural ecosystems to fight the climate crises,” Malik Amin Aslam, Minister for Climate Change and special assistant to the Prime Minister on climate change, told IPS.

“We hope to lead the world towards climate mitigation as well as restoration of ecosystems, ” Aslam said via What’s App.

“Pakistan’s agenda on environment has been validated and our role in ecosystem restoration has been accepted,” a pleased Muhammad Irfan Tariq, Director General of environment and climate change at Pakistan’s Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC), told IPS by phone from Islamabad. He was referring to the TBTTP, which aims to target one million hectares of forest restoration by 2023.  

“We are not doing this for show,” said Prime Minister Khan, referring to the TBTTP. “We are doing this so that we can leave behind a better country for our future generations. The biggest impact of climate change is that it will affect our future generation,” he said while addressing a TBTTP programme last week.

Incidentally, Pakistan contributes less than one percent to global emissions, yet it is among the top 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change.

Pakistan has world’s seventh-largest mangrove forest in Sindh, located along the Arabian Sea coastline in the Indus deltaic swamps, and comprising some 667,000 hectares. These mangroves are in Kakapir village, located around 15 kilometres to the west of Karachi, along the Indus delta. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS

Building a relationship with nature

Environmentalist Vaqar Zakaria, however, remained wary of the methods employed by the government saying “greenwashing done in the name of restoration” cannot bring the “bees and the birds” back.

But there must be something right about the TBTTP as Saudi Arabia recently announced its intention of planting 10 billion trees in the coming decades to reduce carbon emissions and combat pollution and land degradation. 

Still, Zakaria favours protecting over restoration.

“It is better to protect because nature will heal itself back,” he said, explaining that restoration required sophisticated techniques and should be carried out with caution. “The right trees must be grown at the right place,” Zakaria, who spends hours in nature re-establishing his “connection to nature”, told IPS via phone from Islamabad. He believes that only after spending time outdoors, will “our hearts be in it and will be able to guide our future decisions”.   

Perhaps that is why the government is carrying out the Protected Areas Initiative (PAI), for “rebalancing” mankind’s relationship with nature as Aslam pointed out with plans to increase Pakistan’s terrestrial and marine protected area to 15 percent and 10 percent by 2023 respectively.

“Already our national parks have increased from 30 to 45 in number,” said the minister.

Recharging aquifers

Recharge Pakistan is a project where the government, in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-Pakistan, is building water storage that aims to benefit 10 million people.

“The focus is on building Pakistan’s resilience to climate change in water-stressed areas,” explained Hammad Naqi Khan, Director General, WWF-Pakistan. Along with increasing the water storage capacity, the project aims to restore the wetland ecosystem.

“But most importantly, it will benefit more than 10 million people (or five percent) of Pakistan’s population directly and 20 million people across 50 vulnerable districts of Pakistan indirectly,” Khan told IPS.

Minister Aslam emphasised these were not mere plans but are actually being implemented with “solid performance to show on the ground”.

Simi Kamal, chair and CEO of Karachi-based think tank Hisaar Foundation that looks at water, food and livelihood security, said: it was “still too early to see results” in the project but that it would have to “be a huge programme to make visible impact”.

Fortunately, the one-year project preparation phase has been approved by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Pakistan will be able to conduct site feasibility studies and prepare a detailed proposal.

“Going beyond the currently underfunded GCF, there is an urgent need for developed countries to establish a truly ambitious climate reparations financing mechanism to provide assistance for adaptation projects and building resilience in many developing regions faced with potentially serious impacts of climate change,” A. Karim Ahmed, a board member of the Washington D.C- based Global Council for Science and the Environment, told IPS via email.

Blue Carbon

Another feather in Pakistan’s cap is a comprehensive assessment on blue carbon (carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems) that was recently completed.

“Conservation, rehabilitation, and management of blue carbon ecosystems can provide one-third of the economic mitigation needed until 2030,” climate change expert Hadika Jamshaid told IPS via What’s App.

Among the coastal wetlands, mangroves provide a huge potential to sequestering carbon. “Pakistan has done tremendously well in expanding its mangrove plantation,” said Tariq, Director General of environment and climate change at MoCC.

Pakistan has world’s seventh-largest mangrove forest in Sindh, located along the Arabian Sea coastline in the Indus deltaic swamps, and comprising some 667,000 hectares.

But in the absence of data, this blue carbon remains precluded from both the reported mitigation potential and fiscal benefits for Pakistan.

“Protection of these forests can help Pakistan achieve the country’s NDCs [nationally determined contributions],” said Jamshaid, expressing his support of the MoCC in the revision and implementation process of its NDC document. 

Meanwhile, under the TBTTP the central government will plant mangroves over 40,000 hectares, of which 15,000 hectares have already been planted, Riaz Wagan, chief conservator of forests in Sindh province, told IPS.

In addition, the Sindh government, under a public-private partnership model, is doing its own bit to restore ecosystems. It has signed an agreement with Indus Delta Capital Private Limited under the Delta Blue Carbon to plant and protect mangroves over 350,000 hectares, said Wagan, who is also leading the this Indus Delta Mangroves REDD+ Project.

 

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

• Life Below Water – the UN Calls for Action on Ocean Protection
• Is Sharing More than Water the Key to Transboundary Governance in the Meghna River Basin?
• Tired with Tokenism, Youth Launch ‘Stronger Campaign’ for UN Biodiversity Day

Excerpt:

On Saturday Jun. 5, Pakistan is hosting World Environment Day in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme. IPS takes a look at the country’s progress in ecosystem restoration, which is this year’s theme of World Environment Day

A selection of the week's best photos from across the continent.

The multinational effort to stave off an encroaching takeover by Islamist militants faces severe challenges.

The French government demands guarantees about a return to civilian rule in the West African nation.

Stop Islamophobia

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Jun 3 2021 (IPS)

A Muslim call centre operator at a COVID-19 ‘war room’, who once saw himself a COVID-warrior, is now unemployed after being falsely branded by a top politician as a key member of a bed-for-bribe scam. He is a victim of the rise in Islamophobia in India as the country grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic – with scant evidence of condemnation from the authorities, say activists.

Early in May, a member of Parliament for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Tejasvi Surya, stormed into a COVID-19 ‘war room’ ostensibly to expose an alleged bed-for-bribe scam.

In a video live streamed on his social media and later repeatedly shown by many media houses, he read out 16 names, cherry-picked out of the 205 municipal helpline operators. All the 16 names were Muslims.

In the video, BJP member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and Surya’s uncle, Ravi Subramanya, asks: “Have you appointed them to some sort of a madrasa (Islamic school) or a corporation?”.

The ‘war room’ is a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) South zone COVID-19 war room with 400 lines and receives about 3 000 calls from citizens across the city every day, according to reports.

What followed were WhatsApp texts with the names listed by Surya – with the named employees labelled as “terrorists”. The viral messages on social media claimed this “team of terrorists” were scamming patients by offering Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds at exorbitant fees and even reserving those beds for those in the Muslim community.

According to reports, the 16 were fired. IPS reached out to one of the named call centre operators who spoke to us on condition of anonymity.

“In April this year, I would proudly call myself a ‘COVID warrior’, helping those who needed urgent information related to the disease,” Faiz Akhtar (name changed) said in an exclusive interview. “My heart sank when I saw the term ‘terrorist’ written next to my name in WhatsApp messages soon after the MP called my name out in public alleging corruption against me.”

He told IPS he was taken in a van, like a common criminal, to the police station and had his pictures taken as if he had committed a crime. “Having a Muslim name perhaps was my crime,” he said.

Faiz, who is the sole supporter of his family, said that despite there being no evidence against him and the other 16 people named, he is yet to be reinstated into his job. This despite assurances from the BBMP south zone management.

While India was (and is) reeling under the second wave of Covid-19, which at its height recorded more than 300 000 cases a day, the blatant Islamophobia around the pandemic and misinformation around Indian Muslims and their link to the virus continues.

The past year saw Muslims labelled as ‘corona spreaders’, and this trend has not stopped.

Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, Delhi Minorities Commission former chairperson, in an exclusive interview to IPS, said when the national lockdown was declared in India last year, the Tableeghi Jamaat people were removed from their centre by the police “like they were criminals”.

The Tableeghi Jamaat are an international group of Muslims who gather in Delhi each year for a religious congregation.

The eviction and arrests received significant live media coverage.

The group had already started its annual conference at its centre in the Nizamuddin area in Delhi before the official lockdown was announced.

“They were taken to various ‘quarantine centres’ across Delhi. But these ‘quarantine centres’ were like jails where they were locked up with little care, untimely food, no medicine or doctors,” Khan said.

As the Delhi Minorities Commission chairperson at the time, he relentlessly lobbied authorities in the Delhi government until the conditions of the inmates improved.

Reports indicate that the centre continued to be targeted by police after the COVID-19 emergency was declared.

Later the courts criticized the scapegoating of the congregation, many of whom were foreigners, for the pandemic.

“This was a golden opportunity for the godi (lapdog) media which started a narrative saying that Muslims were executing a heinous and planned conspiracy to spread the coronavirus in the country, and the term “Corona Jihad” was coined to describe this so-called conspiracy,” Khan added.

What aids and abets a stereotype is when it appears to get government sanction and when those seemingly liberal and anti-communal use their position of privilege to further the witch-hunt that a community is facing. There are significant indications that this is the case in India.

Surya’s open pronouncement of select Muslim employees allegedly involved in the bed scam in Bangalore and the Delhi State Government and the Central Government giving separate figures of Tablighi Jamaat related COVID-19 patients in their daily press briefings has made life very difficult for the Muslim minority in India.

Khan wrote a letter to the Health Minister of Delhi saying that it was unfair that the Jamaat cases were mentioned separately – when no other religious communities’ figures were singled out.

“The health minister conceded to my request, and two days later, separate mention of the Jamaat in daily briefings was stopped. A day later, the central government also stopped this questionable practice,” said Khan.

Prateek Sinha, one of the co-founders of a leading fact-checking platform called Altnews, told IPS how communal information had been the mainstay of the Indian misinformation scene right since they started their platform.

“We saw a deliberate attempt to show Muslims in a bad light, trying to ascribe blame for different things that are happening in the country to Muslims,” said Sinha.

During the pandemic, there had been misinformation of all kinds. However, the way Muslims have been made scapegoats by the media, by political parties and liberals alike had been a worrying trend.

From being called Corona Jihadi (a term used to falsely ascribe the spread of the disease by Muslims as a conspiracy to kill non-Muslims) to being singled out in alleged scams without any substantiated evidence, India’s largest minority continues to face a pandemic of discrimination and scapegoating, within the larger pandemic that the world is facing.

Mariya Salim is a fellow at 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');  

Nigerian authorities say the country will not be able to host the African Athletics Championships after all.

A proposal to change Nigeria's name has got some social media users very excited.

By External Source
Jun 3 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Facing the triple threat of climate change, loss of nature and pollution, the world must deliver on its commitment to restore at least one billion degraded hectares of land in the next decade – an area about the size of China. Countries also need to add similar commitments for oceans, according to a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), launched as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 gets underway.

The report, #GenerationRestoration: Ecosystem restoration for People, Nature and Climate, highlights that humanity is using about 1.6 times the amount of services that nature can provide sustainably.

That means conservation efforts alone are insufficient to prevent large-scale ecosystem collapse and biodiversity loss. Global terrestrial restoration costs – not including costs of restoring marine ecosystems – are estimated to be at least USD 200 billion per year by 2030. The report outlines that every 1 USD invested in restoration creates up to USD 30 in economic benefits.

Ecosystems requiring urgent restoration include farmlands, forests, grasslands and savannahs, mountains, peatlands, urban areas, freshwaters, and oceans.
Communities living across almost two billion of degraded hectares of land include some of the world’s poorest and marginalized.

“This report presents the case for why we must all throw our weight behind a global restoration effort. Drawing on the latest scientific evidence, it sets out the crucial role played by ecosystems, from forests and farmland to rivers and oceans, and it charts the losses that result from a poor stewardship of the planet,” UNEP Executive Director, Inger Andersen, and FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, wrote in the report’s foreword.

“Degradation is already affecting the well-being of an estimated 3.2 billion people – that is 40 percent of the world’s population. Every single year we lose ecosystem services worth more than 10 percent of our global economic output,” they added, stressing that “massive gains await us” by reversing these trends.

Ecosystem restoration is the process of halting and overturning degradation, resulting in cleaner air and water, extreme weather mitigation, better human health, and recovered biodiversity, including improved pollination of plants. Restoration encompasses a wide continuum of practices, from reforestation to re-wetting peatlands and coral rehabilitation.

It contributes to the realization of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including health, clean water, and peace and security, and to the objectives of the three ‘Rio Conventions’ on Climate, Biodiversity, and Desertification.

Actions that prevent, halt and reverse degradation are necessary to meet the Paris Agreement target of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius.
Restoration, if combined with stopping further conversion of natural ecosystems, may help avoid 60 percent of expected biodiversity extinctions.

It can be highly efficient in producing multiple economic, social and ecological benefits concurrently – for example, agroforestry alone has the potential to increase food security for 1.3 billion people, while investments in agriculture, mangrove protection and water management will help adapt to climate change, with benefits around four times the original investment.

Reliable monitoring of restoration efforts is essential, both to track progress and to attract private and public investments. In support of this effort, FAO and UNEP also launch today the Digital Hub for the UN Decade, which includes the Framework for Ecosystem Restoration Monitoring.

The Framework enables countries and communities to measure the progress of restoration projects across key ecosystems, helping to build ownership and trust in restoration efforts. It also incorporates the Drylands Restoration Initiatives Platform, which collects and analyses data, shares lessons and assists in the design of drylands restoration projects, and an interactive geospatial mapping tool to assess the best locations for forest restoration.

Restoration must involve all stakeholders including individuals, businesses, associations, and governments. Crucially, it must respect the needs and rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and incorporate their knowledge, experience and capacities to ensure restoration plans are implemented and sustained.

*******

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 is a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. It aims to halt the degradation of ecosystems and restore them to achieve global goals. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the UN Decade and it is led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The UN Decade is building a strong, broad-based global movement to ramp up restoration and put the world on track for a sustainable future. That will include building political momentum for restoration as well as thousands of initiatives on the ground.

About the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

About the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)
The FAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and transform agri-food systems, making them more resilient, sustainable and inclusive. Our goal is to achieve food security for all and make sure that people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, healthy lives. With over 194 Members, FAO works in over 130 countries worldwide.

Excerpt:

Launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, UN calls on countries to meet commitments to restore 1 billion hectares of land

A young Sudanese girl holding a baby in the Al Salam internally displaced persons camp. Credit: Sven Torfinn/CC By 2.0

By External Source
NAIROBI, Jun 3 2021 (IPS)

The number of girls who marry before their 15th birthday has remained unchanged for 20 years in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The region has the highest rate of child marriage, with nearly four in 10 girls married before age 18. In Niger, for example, over 77% of girls are married before the age of 18.

This is despite efforts by governments, developmental partners and civil society organisations to end the practice. There are many reasons why it continues. These include inequitable gender norms, laws that permit children to be married in some settings in sub-Saharan Africa, inadequate investment in girls’ education, poverty and unintended pregnancy. In addition, child marriage is backed and justified by culture and religion.

The effects of child marriage on the health and wellbeing of girls are far-reaching and lifelong. It harms their overall health and socioeconomic wellbeing, the survival of their children, and the prosperity of their family and community. Because child marriage harms girls’ physical health and socioeconomic wellbeing, it is considered a human right violation

The effects of child marriage on the health and wellbeing of girls are far-reaching and lifelong. It harms their overall health and socioeconomic wellbeing, the survival of their children, and the prosperity of their family and community. Because child marriage harms girls’ physical health and socioeconomic wellbeing, it is considered a human right violation.

The health consequences of child marriage have received significant attention. But only a few studies have examined the relationship between child marriage and intimate partner violence. One study done in Vietnam in 2013 found that there was a link between the two.

Our study examined the relationship between child marriage and intimate violence in sub-Saharan Africa. We analysed the most recent demographic and health survey data of over 28,000 young women in 16 countries in the region. The survey data encompasses several health and wellbeing indicators including domestic violence. We extracted relevant information about domestic violence as well as the background characteristics of the respondents.

We found that girls aged 20-24 years who married before they turned 18 were 20% more likely to experience intimate partner violence than those who married as adults.

 

Our research

Our principal aim was to assess the association between child marriage and intimate partner violence – physical, sexual or emotional – from a partner. We also compared the rate of intimate partner violence between those who married as adults and those who married as children in the past 12 months.

We analysed data of countries from all four sub-regions within sub-Saharan Africa. In Central Africa, we included Angola, Cameroon and Chad. From West Africa we included Benin, Mali and Nigeria and from the east Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Within Southern Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe were selected.

Countries were selected on the basis of the availability of recent survey datasets.

The demographic and health survey had questions to measure each of the indicators. These questions relate to the experience of:

• Physical violence: women had been asked whether their partners had ever pushed, shaken or thrown something at them, slapped or punched them, kicked or dragged them.
• Emotional violence: women had been asked if their partner ever humiliated them, threatened them with harm, insulted or made them feel bad.
• Sexual violence: questions had included whether the partner ever physically forced the respondent into unwanted sexual acts.

Our analysis of the demographic and health survey data showed that child marriage prevalence ranged from 13.5% in Rwanda to 77% in Chad. Intimate partner violence ranged from 17.5% in Mozambique to 42% in Uganda.

Past year experience of intimate partner violence was higher among young women who married or began cohabiting before the age of 18 (36.9%) than those who did at age 18 or more (32.5%).

This result was consistent for all forms of violence: physical violence (22.7% vs 19.7%), emotional violence (25.3% vs 21.9%), and sexual violence (12% vs 10.4%).

After accounting for the contributions of important socio-demographic characteristics such as educational level, place of residence, wealth status and exposure to mass media, we found that child marriage had a higher association with intimate partner violence than marriage at adulthood.

 

Ways forward

Overall, our findings reaffirm the link between child marriage and intimate partner violence. We found that there was a higher likelihood of intimate partner violence in 14 of the 16 countries. Angola and Chad stood out as exceptions.

As our results show, child marriage is associated with a higher likelihood of intimate partner violence in most sub-Saharan African countries. This suggests that ending child marriage would result in a substantial reduction.

There is therefore a need to institute policies to support and protect women who marry as children from abusive relationship.

Fighting cultural norms that make men unaccountable is critical to ending both child marriage and intimate partner violence. And this can be done through the creation of strict laws. Currently, 43 of the 55 African Union member states have legal frameworks that put the minimum age of marriage at 18 years old or above for both boys and girls. However, 27 of these states allow child marriage with parental or guardian consent and the approval of a judge, court or state. Ten countries allow for the marriage of girls as young as 10. One, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, has no law against child marriage.

All countries should have laws. And these should be strictly enforced.

Community sensitisation on the damaging effects of both child marriage and intimate partner violence is equally critical. This could be implemented with the involvement of various stakeholders, including community and religious leaders.

Anthony Idowu Ajayi, Associate research scientist, African Population and Health Research Center

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Credit: World Food Programme WFP

By Lauren Baker
TORONTO, Canada, Jun 3 2021 (IPS)

This week*, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) is expected to endorse recommendations on agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable food systems, after an intense period of negotiation involving governments, UN agencies and institutions, Indigenous People’s organizations, civil society, and the private sector.

As they do so, they must also take a stance against the creeping co-option and “greenwashing” of agroecology and uphold the social and political foundations of agroecology. It is these inherent characteristics that are so crucial for the deep structural transformation of global food systems that we so urgently need.

As a vital science, practice, and movement, with inextricably linked ecological, social, and political elements, agroecology is gaining more acceptance globally. From our work convening food systems actors working in agroecology, regenerative agriculture, and Indigenous foodways, coupled with the launch of recent studies on the need for investment in agroecology and this review on agroecology’s contribution to food security and nutrition, we know the evidence clearly supports it as a transformative approach.

In particular, agroecology combines ecological principles of diversity, resilience and recycling (for example) and the co-creation of knowledge, contextual factors like culture and tradition with responsible governance and the importance of circular and solidarity economies.

Yet, there is an emerging and real risk that agroecological messages, approaches, and methods are being cherry-picked and absorbed into the public narrative without recognition of the deeply transformative elements that define agroecology and how they lead to a healthy and sustainable future of food for all.

COVID-19 has been a brutal demonstration of what goes wrong when we do not recognize the deep interconnections between human, animal, and ecological health. It has disrupted food systems — and subsequently people’s livelihoods and health — on a global scale and, unlike anything before, has called into question the unsustainable and vulnerable industrialized food systems currently at play.

Support for the industrialized model of food and agriculture — which is premised on a mindset that commodifies food, externalizes its true environmental and social costs and is upheld by short-term, unambitious policies and funding streams — needs to change.

The industrial model marginalizes the world’s majority food producers — smallholder farmers, food provisioners and workers, Indigenous Peoples, and their innovative solutions, while causing far-reaching and detrimental environmental impacts. It is estimated that food systems account for approximately 30% of global emissions.

The pandemic recovery moment cannot be left to pass and instead must be harnessed as a moment for real change.

There is a growing diversity of voices and communities from around the world laying claim to agroecology’s transformative effects: 600,000 farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India, are transitioning to natural farming with support from the state government working in partnership with civil society organizations, while other countries like Costa Rica, Senegal, and Germany are setting meaningful targets and transitioning their support towards agroecology and organic agriculture.

There are increasing numbers of local, regional, and global farmers’ networks advocating for this approach. This is all happening even in spite of the fact that most agriculture and food subsidies, policies and programs, and donor activity, are still geared towards shoring up an industrialized model of food production.

With the UN Food Systems Summit and COP26 just a matter of months away, it’s never been more important to embrace systems-based approaches and protect all that they stand for. In order to unlock the real benefits of agroecology, we need to see adapted policies, public investments, institutions, and research that promote a whole-systems approach and the advancement of agroecological and regenerative approaches that embed social and political principles.

Decision-makers must, from the get-go: acknowledge the strong role that local institutions and communities have; protect and expand rights, investment in infrastructure; and, embrace the central role of smallholder farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and women.

Crucially, this will involve actively resisting the rise of so-called “junk agroecology” and, concurrently, widening the frame of the evidence used to influence and inform decision-making.

A narrow focus just on scientific evidence (though critically necessary) at the expense of other types of evidence, diverse perspectives, and ways of knowing will only continue to jeopardize our understanding of the interconnected challenges we face and hold us back from mobilizing around the transformative opportunities across our food systems that are readily available — and within reach.

This is an urgent call to action.

*The Special Session of the 48th Plenary of CFS will take place virtually on Friday, 4 June 2021 to endorse the CFS Policy Recommendations on Agroecological and Other Innovative Approaches. The endorsement of the Policy Recommendations was moved from CFS 47 (held in February 2021) as their negotiations and completion was delayed due to COVID-19.

Dr Lauren Baker, PhD, is Senior Director of Programs at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. She has more than 20 years of experience facilitating cross-sectoral research, policy and advocacy for sustainable food systems in non-profit, academic, business, policy and philanthropic contexts. Previously, she led the Toronto Food Policy Council, a citizen advisory group embedded within the City of Toronto’s Public Health Division, and was the Founding Director of Sustain Ontario — the Alliance for Healthy Food and Farming. Lauren teaches in the Global Food Equity program at the University of Toronto, and is a research associate with Ryerson University’s Centre for Studies in Food Security.

 

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');  

Kenya's Margaret Wambui says there should be a third category in athletics for competitors who have "Differences of Sexual Development".

The editor and owner of a newspaper in Uganda have been summoned after reporting on police killings.

The French leader tries to improve links with Africa but his undiplomatic language may get in the way.

David Diop and translator Anna Moschovakis win for the novel At Night All Blood is Black.

The government defends Muhammadu Buhari's tweet on how he will treat "misbehaving" people.

A female Tanzanian MP was told to leave parliament after a male MP complained about her outfit.

There is no health without mental health. Credit: Unsplash /Melanie Wasser.

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
ABUJA, Jun 2 2021 (IPS)

Recently, Naomi Osaka, the number 2 ranked women’s tennis player in the world, said she would not participate in the press conference at the French Open (Rolland-Garros) because she wanted to protect her mental health.

The organizers of the tournament were incensed, imposed a fine on her and threatened to disqualify her.  Would the organizers have reacted differently if Naomi Osaka said she could not participate in the tournament’s press briefing because of a physical illness, such as abdominal pain? Your guess is as good as mine, but I believe the organizers would have been more empathetic and would have provided her with the best medical treatment. The same should happen for mental health.

Osaka was stigmatized because people do not understand mental health and feel she should “man up” and attend a press conference. Further, athletes like her are all too often viewed as superhuman and incapable of showing weakness

It is wrong for the organizers to impose a fine of $15,000 on Osaka and threaten to suspend her for missing the press conference. Such reactions contribute to why mental health is still so widely misunderstood, shrouded in mystery and stigmatized.

There is no other way to put this. Osaka was stigmatized because people do not understand mental health and feel she should “man up” and attend a press conference. Further, athletes like her are all too often viewed as superhuman and incapable of showing weakness.

Due to the backlash, Osaka has withdrawn from the French Open, apologized and the French Tennis Federation President has also apologized for the way this episode was handled. However, as regrettable as the events are, it can serve as a teachable moment for everyone.

Here are five ways to ensure mental health illnesses receives the same prominence as physical illnesses.

First, there is no health without mental health. The World Health Organization defines mental health as a state of well-being in which an individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.

Surely, from this definition, Osaka could not handle the stress which comes with participating in press conferences. She said so. She mentioned her experience with depression. Participating in the tournament press conference could have worsened her health and well-being. She was right to have withdrawn from the press conference and the tournament. Her health trumps all other concerns.

Second, revealing one’s mental health challenge is a strength and not a weakness. This wrong perception of mental health is ubiquitous.

For instance, EpiAFRIC and Africa Polling Institute interviewed more than 5,000 in a nationwide mental health survey in Nigeria. Some respondents said they will use force and other extreme measures on sufferers of mental health illness.

For example, 4% said they would lock up the sufferer while 2% said they will beat the disease out of the person. The way the French Open organizers responded to Osaka’s cry for help is wrong and must be condemned by all. It is great to see the support extended to Osaka by other Black elite athletes, Serena Williams and Stephen Curry.

Third, sports tournaments must develop a comprehensive mental health support policy for athletes. This is not the first time a major athlete cried out for help in dealing with a mental health challenge.

Naomi Osaka October 28th 2020 during the semi-final match of the women’s Cincinnati Masters played at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center’s Grandstand court. Credit: AndrewHenkelman / Creative Commons.

According to Athletes for Hope, 35% of elite professional athletes suffer from a mental health crisis which may manifest as stress, eating disorders, burnout, or depression and anxiety. Too many athletes are suffering in silence.

Due to their achievements and celebrity status, they are being shamed into silence. To help deal with this silent pandemic, sports tournaments must develop comprehensive mental health support policy. Elite athletes such as Osaka should have mental health counsellors as part of their medical teams. No athlete should have to suffer in silence because the consequences of that could be fatal.

Fourth, we must stop viewing Black women as having higher pain threshold. It is a common misconception for Blacks to be seen to tolerate pain better than other races. According to Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, 40% of first- and second-year medical students were of the belief that “Black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s.”

Even at childbirth, Black women are sometimes refused pain medications because of this wrong belief. This leads to verbal and physical abuse of someone dealing with a debilitating health condition. When Osaka said speaking at the press conference would negatively impact her mental health, she should have been believed. She is dealing with the pain of depression and needs all the support she can get.

Finally, media outlets must train reporters on writing about mental health with empathy. The Daily Mail UK article, in which the writer accused Osaka for “cynical exploitation of mental health to silence the media” is harsh and not the way to describe someone who is dealing with depression. Such articles worsen Osaka’s battle with depression and discourages other athletes from speaking out about mental health challenges they face.

Osaka is 23 years old. At such a young age, she should be celebrated for her boldness in confronting depression and being vocal about it. I hope she gets all the recuperation she needs. I pray she becomes stronger and can play in her next tennis tournament.

 

Dr. Ifeanyi McWilliams Nsofor is a graduate of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He is a Senior New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity at George Washington University. Ifeanyi is the Director Policy and Advocacy at Nigeria Health Watch.

Isha Johansen, Africa's only female football association president, decides not to seek re-election in Sierra Leone.

Beachfront hotels and yachts at Pigeon Point, Saint Lucia. The ocean supports a myriad of livelihoods on the small island states of the OECS – amounting to 30% of the labour force in some countries. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2 2021 (IPS)

President of the United Nations General Assembly Volkan Bozkir has told a high-level debate on oceans that the world cannot afford to delay action on ocean protection. “There is simply no scenario wherein we live on a planet without an ocean,” he said.

The debate, which focused on the ocean and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water, took place on Jun. 1 at the UN Headquarters in New York.

It comes ahead of the Jun. 8 observance of World Oceans Day and against the backdrop of the pandemic-related postponement of the 2nd UN Ocean Conference – a major international gathering which seeks science-based solutions to sustainable ocean use.

The high-level debate was billed as a ‘drumbeat’ to maintain momentum ahead of the conference, now expected to take place in Lisbon next year.

The General Assembly President said the pandemic has revealed an “appetite for change” among people who do not want to live in a world of “one crisis after the next”. He said this change is possible.

“As our understanding of the true benefit of a healthy planet grows, policymakers are increasingly aware of how central a healthy ocean is to a healthy economy,” he said.

“We have seen this in countries and cities that prioritised coastal and marine areas over-tourism, we have seen this in protected wetlands, we have seen this in efforts to address illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, and regulate shipping and resource extraction. Why then can we not combine and scale up our efforts?”

The UN has been at the forefront of efforts to mobilise financial, scientific, volunteer and community support for oceans, through initiatives such as the 2021-2030 Decade of Ocean Science.

The high-level debate builds on those ocean conservation and sustainable use measures.

Pigeon Point, Saint Lucia. With 97 percent of the water on the earth’s surface, the ocean is vast. It serves as a source of food and energy, while facilitating commerce, transportation and communication. Sustainable Development Goal 14 lists specific targets to reduce pollution, protect marine ecosystems, tackle illegal and over-fishing and oversee sustainable resource use. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Oceans Peter Thomson told the forum that while there have been improvements on this front, including increased marine protected area coverage and a better understanding of the issues that impact the ocean, progress has not been adequate to address the ocean crisis.

“How can we claim success when a third of assessed global fish stocks are being overfished? When with no tangible end in sight, we have dumped around 150 million metric tons of accumulating plastic waste, microplastics and discarded fishing gear into the ocean? And while the rates of ocean acidification, deoxygenation and warmth are all continuing to head in the wrong direction?”

With 97 percent of the water on the earth’s surface, the ocean is vast. It serves as a source of food and energy, while facilitating commerce, transportation and communication. Sustainable Development Goal 14 lists specific targets to reduce pollution, protect marine ecosystems, tackle illegal and over-fishing and oversee sustainable resource use.

One region taking action to address ocean issues and achieve SDG 14 is the Eastern Caribbean.

In 2012, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) established an Oceans Governance Team, a regional body that oversees work on oceans governance. The team helped to develop the Eastern Caribbean Regional Ocean Policy (ECROP) which articulates the countries’ vision for the ocean and principles of ocean governance.

One of the major ECROP initiatives is the Caribbean Regional Oceanscape Project, known as CROP. Through a partnership with the World Bank, CROP, with its tagline ‘championing resilient oceans for prosperity,’ is helping the Caribbean transition to a blue economy.

“We focus on economic growth, but we also ensure that we are conserving the resources, so that we are not damaging them and impairing our future benefits. It’s really the same sustainable development agenda, focusing on the economics, the environment and the social aspects relating to the oceans,” Susanna Debeauville-Scott, Project Manager in the Ocean Governance and Fisheries Unit at the OECS Secretariat, based in Saint Lucia, told IPS.

For the Caribbean, the goal is to propel discussion on ocean issues and action for the protection and sustainable use of its resources. The Unit is overseeing initiatives like Building Resilience in the Eastern Caribbean through a Reduction in Marine Pollution (ReMLit) to tackle marine waste.

A ‘tag an artiste’ drive based on the theme ‘more than just islands’ hopes to get entertainers in the region singing about oceans and promoting the islands’ blue space as ideal for a thriving blue economy.

The unit is hoping to highlight the critical importance of oceans and get journalists onboard through a special journalism challenge.

Debeauville-Scott told IPS that the Unit is gearing up for a virtual event on Jun. 8th – World Oceans Day. That activity will focus on mapping ocean wealth and marine spatial planning data and tools for improved decision-making in the Caribbean.

 

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

• Q&A: All Sustainable Development Goals Relate in Some Way to the Oceans
• Is Sharing More than Water the Key to Transboundary Governance in the Meghna River Basin?
• Latin America & the Caribbean Assess Climate Ambition and Action Ahead of COP26

Excerpt:

Ahead of World Oceans Day 2021 and the second UN Ocean Conference next year, UN officials stressed the need for ‘clear, transformative and actionable’ solutions to the ocean crisis.

Sunrise in the Ebro Delta in Spain's Catalonia region. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said last month there was a 40% chance of the watershed global warming mark being met during the time frame, and these odds are increasing with time. Credit: WMO/Agusti Descarrega Sola

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jun 2 2021 (IPS)

With the climate negotiations getting more and more intense in the light of ensuring meaningful achievements in the upcoming COP- 26 summit in Edinburgh, an event that is key to move forward the pathway towards a net zero future started in Paris, this year World Environment Day on June 5 assumes an even more emblematic meaning.

While the ongoing climate negotiations have finally found relevance not only among policymakers but also among the masses thanks to new level of civic mobilization that is instrumental in creating a new global consciousness about the real perils of climate change, we are at risk of overlooking an equal important issue that is connected to the core of the climate challenge.

Fortunately, the World Environment Day 2021 could not choose a better topic to bring remedy here, finally highlighting the linkages between the dangers of a world economy driven by carbon fossils and the repercussions that emissions stemming from them and other types of human activities are having on the planet’s biodiversity.

To stress the new sense of urgency, that with “Ecosystem Restoration” as theme, World Environment Day is launching the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration that will be focusing on restoring, supporting and enhancing the planet’s different habitats in which life, of different forms and species, should supposedly abound and thrive rather than being at risk of extinction.

Restoring ecosystems should be therefore seen as a rallying cry, a call for action to ensure that biodiversity claims its due visibility in the broader call for a sustainable future under the banner of the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Policy makers are right now under pressure to come up with bolder and stronger emission targets and it is encouraging how a global leadership movement is emerging to tackle climate change.

If the Petersberg Climate Dialogue has now become a traditional forum, many other leaders from parts of the world’s previously less engaged on climate action, are stepping up.

Just days ago, the P4G Seoul Summit 2021 was held showing a new commitment from the Government of South Korea to become a trailblazer in matter of climate actions.

Yet, with so much discussions on climate change going on, the hope is not just that global leaders will muster the foresight and determination to truly lay out a long term “build forward better” vision of their countries but will also be able to bridge the gap that separate discussions on climate change from those focused on the planet’s endangered biodiversity.

Worryingly enough, the public opinion and consequentially the world leaders did not yet broaden their focus yet from the COP 26 discussions, enlarging their horizons to include another strategic summit that will be held from 11 to 24 of October in Kunming, formally the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Unfortunately, the global governance mechanisms do not facilitate cross cutting thematic linkages and therefore so far Edinburgh got much higher levels of attention than Kunming.

Yet, the same consensus existing now that new ambitious carbon emissions targets are essential for our survival, should also imply an acknowledgement on the need to elevate biodiversity to the same levels of attention and urgency that climate now musters.

The ninth Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity held in 2019 could not make a better case for such recognition.

“Scientists warn that we are heading for fundamental change in Earth systems as a result of changes in the biosphere” while stressing that “there are close links between the biodiversity and climate agendas, and it is well understood that a temperature rise of 1.5˚C will have impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function and services”.

With such high stakes at play it is baffling how we tend to neglect the importance of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets that were endorsed during the Tenth meeting of the Conference to the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held Nagoya, Japan, 18-29 October 2010

Kunming is even more important because it will adopt a post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework that will be considered as “a steppingstone towards the 2050 vision of living in harmony with nature, where by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and widely used, maintaining ecosystem services sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essentials for all people”.

The vision of a “2050 living in harmony” was agreed in Nagoya but it needs an urgent rebooting and this is what Kunming should deliver, a new ambitious agenda that is able to be mainstreamed across the policy spectrum.

Indeed, mainstreaming is one of the biggest issues being discussed in the preparations to the Kunming summit.

In the regional consultation workshop on the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for Asia and Pacific, participants highlighted the missing linkages between work in the field of biodiversity, climate change and the overall SDGs framework.

“With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, there is a need to consider how future biodiversity targets will relate to or compliment the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, the need to link future biodiversity targets to the climate change agenda was also noted”, the report of the workshop explains.

Fortunately, there are some good news for us.

In the last official review of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, Protected Planet Report, there have been good progress in the extension of lands and oceans being protected but “a third of key biodiversity areas lack any coverage, and less than 8% of land is both protected and connected”.

In addition, the overall “quality” of such protected areas remains a question that must be addressed urgently, a concern well highlighted by Naville Ash with UNEP:

An interesting though much unexplored linkage between efforts on biodiversity and climate action is the “importance of nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation and adaptation” and this is a huge area open for a global brainstorming and ideation process, reimagining different, more biodiverse and sustainable living settings.

These days the third session of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI-3) of the Convention on Biological Diversity is taking place virtually in order to make the next biodiversity framework more effective, more streamlined and better relevant to the discussions taking in place around climate change.

We need to formulate a new narrative about biodiversity because at the end of the day it is a different side of the same coin and policy makers must be educated on strong linkages between climate change and biodiversity loss.

It is not surprising that resources needed for such “coupling” approach are going to be huge. According to the State of Finance for Nature report, released on the 27th of May, making a much-needed contribution in linking the two areas of biodiversity and climate, a total investment in nature of USD 8.1 trillion is required between now and 2050.

As you can see this year World Environment Day is not like any previous one.

There are two questions that this day should help reflect over: Will the celebrations ensure that the new UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is going to be aligned with climate change discussions and Agenda 2030?

And will it help create a new sense of awareness and urgency that tackling climate change requires the protection and expansion of our wealth expressed in biodiversity and, at the same time, gigantic resources?

Answering these two questions in the right way will determine the odds human beings will have to truly thrive in the decades ahead.

The Author, is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not for profit in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives. He can be reached at simone_engage@yahoo.com

 

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');  

Excerpt:

The following Oped is part of a series of articles to commemorate World Environment Day June 5