Africa

A Tutsi on the verge of being killed by Hutu extremists in 1994 recalls how his life was saved as those who had come to kill him realised he played for one of Rwanda’s top clubs.

By Maged Srour
ROME, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

In a groundbreaking ruling in January 2020, the International Court of Justice demanded that Myanmar halt all measures that contribute to the genocide of the Rohingya community.

The order was lauded by international bodies and organisations who have been involved with and/or closely following the case since the Gambia filed a lawsuit against Myanmar for human rights violations against the Rohingya community.

The United Nations Secretary General has said he “welcomes” the order and “will promptly transmit the notice of the provisional measures ordered by the Court to the Security Council,”

The Rohingya refugees continue to remain in camps in Bangladesh, where they are vulnerable to human trafficking and other forms of violence.

IPS has been reporting extensively on the Rohingya tragedy over the past several years.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/experts-laud-international-court-justice-order-myanmar-halt-genocidal-conduct/

Here, IPS brings together a select number of powerful images from the Rohingya community seen through the lens of Mohammad Rakibul Hassan, a Bangladeshi photojournalist, filmmaker and visual artist.

The post What Future for the Rohingyas after the ICJ Ruling? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The 24-year-old had rushed a seriously ill toddler for treatment after being saved from drowning.


Schoolgirls in Peshawar. Section 89 Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), which allowed for the use of corporal punishment by parents, guardians and teachers "in good faith for the benefit”, was suspended last week by the Islamabad High Court. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Zofeen Ebrahim
ISLAMABAD , Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

“He struck his head, his side, his stomach and went on hitting him. When Hunain said he could not breathe, the teacher slammed him against the wall, saying, ‘Being dramatic are we?’” This is the eye witness account from a classmate of 17-year-old Pakistani student, Hunain Bilal, who was allegedly beaten to death by his teacher after he failed to memorise his lessons.

It was a story that had sent shockwaves through Lahore after Bilal died from his injuries in September. But Section 89 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) allowed for the use of corporal punishment by parents, guardians and teachers “in good faith for the benefit” meant that the teacher accused of Bilal’s death could not be tried for murder.

Bilal’s cousin, 21-year old media studies student Rimsha Naeem, has been concerned that the small social media uproar that placed a spotlight on the issue of corporal punishment in Pakistan was only fleeting. And that instead the memory her cousin’s tragic death would slowly fade as and the government appeared to be soft-peddling the issue.

“The murderer did not have to bear any consequences and is out on bail,” she said explaining why it was imperative that a law be put in place to stop “such barbarity so no parent should ever have to bear this tragedy”.

Last week, however, saw a victory for the rights of school kids across the country when singer and rights activist Shehzad Roy filed a successful petition with the Islamabad High Court to ban the practice of corporal punishment of children up to the age of 12.

“It was a huge win for us!” said a jubilant Roy, speaking to IPS after the court suspended Section 89 of the PPC. He is happy as now the children of the Islamabad Capital Territory, the only area in Pakistan where they remained unprotected by law or any administrative order, will hopefully be spared the rod.     

• In 2017, Sindh became the first province to ban corporal punishment by enacting a law — the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act — because the “child has the right to be shown respect for his personality and individuality” it states. Moreover it has made it a criminal offence.
• By eliminating smacking, spanking and even verbal lashing, it is hoped the child will no longer be humiliated in a classroom setting, a seminary, or at home.
• Other provinces in the country have administrative orders against corporal punishment, but these are not enforceable.

Roy said corporal punishment only caused harm and often led to a child dropping out of school or running away from home. Dr. Murad Khan, Professor Emeritus at Karachi’s Aga Khan University’s Department of Psychiatry, endorsed this. “The more damaging effect is that it leads to poor performance, loss of confidence and self-esteem, a sense of helplessness, anger (that can turn into violence towards others and self), anxiety and depression. In addition there is humiliation, shame and loss of dignity. All this affects a person mental health and well being,” he added.

Referring to a Harvard study, Roy told IPS that corporal punishment affected the same part of the brain area that is affected by severe physical and sexual abuse.

And the scars never heal, said Khan.

“The effect of corporal punishment on different individuals is different. Some grow up to be abusers themselves; some grow up angry at parents and family for not protecting them. Others grow up with poor self confidence and self esteem. Many hate all authority figures and have difficulty in forming trusting relationships.”

Khan also pointed out that in terms of behaviour change there is enough research to show that corporal punishment never works “neither as a deterrent nor in terms of changing a student’s behaviour”. He told IPS students should certainly be disciplined for any transgression – academic, social, behaviour etc. but never physically.

But Roy’s work is far from over. In the absence of a bill, the other three provinces, namely Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, have standing administrative orders barring corporal punishment to be inflicted. To this, Sami Mustafa, an educationist who has been running a school system in Karachi for over four decades, said tersely, “When was the last time these court orders worked in improving the educational culture of schools?”

“These administrative orders do not mean much,” agreed Roy because these “do not criminalise the act” and so like in the case of Bilal, the teacher cannot be tried for murder. What’s more, “it is an interim order and so far is limited to schools” pointed out human rights lawyer, Sara Malkani. Nevertheless she found “filing this petition is an important step” and one which was “in the right direction”. “The goal now is to get a final order that permanently bans corporal punishment,” she told IPS.

Roy, too, is aiming for a more permanent solution. “I want to re-ignite a conversation whereby the legislators in these provinces can find it upon themselves to legislate.”

And with a “good law” to take cue from, according to Shahab Usto, who is representing Roy, the work for other provinces in law-making should not be too difficult. 

“Sindh’s law is quite comprehensive and can be replicated in other provinces,” he told IPS. “It encompasses all the possible situations where a child faces punishment be it school, work, rehabilitation centre, jail or other places. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, it will only take more time,” he said.

He further said the Sindh Child Protection Authority Act 2011 could be brought in aid to reinforce the implementation of the Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act, as the former contains provisions for institutional arrangement.

“Both laws, if implemented in a mutually supplementary way, could make a substantive improvement towards protecting the child human rights in Sindh, for now,” he said. 

With Pakistan having ratified and becoming a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child back in 1990, which mandates member states to legislate the laws protecting children, Usto pointed out that Pakistan was “already behind schedule by 30 years”.    

Roy and Usto may be happy with the IHC’s verdict for now, but child rights activist and senior lawyer, Anees Jillani, has his misgivings about “judicial interventions” in matters that should “ideally be handled by the parliament and provincial assemblies coming up with a comprehensive law handling this issue”. He said this new trend by the judiciary overstepping its domain to “attract media attention” rather “unhealthy”.

“I don’t want his life to have gone in vain,” said Naeem, Bilal’s cousin. “This unfortunate event may well have gone unnoticed by society had my cousin not died from his injuries which created an uproar on the social media, after which the mainstream media took it up…This happens to scores of kids every day, and is seen by our society as an acceptable way of disciplining a child.”

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• Inclusive Education Still Evades People with Disabilities

The post Popular Pakistani Singer Pushes for Corporal Punishment be Made a Crime appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A Malawian nurse at a training session. A report looking into the discontinuation of U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, says that the ban is affecting the population in Malawi. Credit:Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

A report released last week has detailed the complex ways in which President Donald Trump’s ‘Global Gag Rule’ (GGR), that blocks U.S. global health assistance to foreign non-governmental facilities providing abortion or abortion-related services, is affecting the population in Malawi, a country already hard hit with numerous climate change disasters. 

The report, titled ‘A Powerful Force: U.S. Global Health Assistance and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Malawi’ was released on Feb. 10 by Washington, D.C.-based sexual and reproductive health rights organisation CHANGE, the Center for Health and Gender Equity. 

Serra Sippel, president of CHANGE, told IPS they chose to study Malawi in part because the country is a recipient of U.S. assistance in the three key fields of sexual and reproductive health: family planning, maternal and child health, and HIV and AIDS. 

“The GGR impacts health structures and when health structures are impacted, it is often the marginalised and criminalised groups who bear the brunt of the impact,” Sippel told IPS. “This includes people living in rural areas, adolescent girls and young women, and female sex workers.”

The report details the numerous ways in which GGR affects the fabric of a country where many communities are already averse to abortion, often owing to religious concerns. This means that when a young woman needs to get an abortion, they might do so in unsafe ways in order to keep them secret. 

One partner organisation is quoted in the report as saying, sometimes a girl “would drink a potion like a solution of washing powder and some will use sticks” to engineer her own abortion. 

In the Sub-Saharan country, where abortion is a taboo and can even lead to 14 years in prison in cases where there is no “life endangerment” of the pregnant person, more than 50,000 women suffer annually from unsafe abortion practices, according to the report. 

Marie Stopes International (MSI), which doesn’t have direct services in Malawi, estimates that about 78,000 women undergo unsafe abortion practices in the country, according to the report. Abebe Shibru, MSI’s country director in Zimbabwe, shared with IPS the general effect it’s having in sub-Saharan Africa.  

“The GGR continues to aggravate the situation of undermining women’s right for choice,” Shibru told IPS. “Lack of adequate services for family planning, increasing rate of teen age pregnancy and increasing maternal mortality, mostly from unsafe abortions, are some of the issues that the GGR contributes to.”   

Sippel told IPS that the local MSI affiliate Banja La Mtsogolo (BLM) was “forced to end their participation in the U.S. PEPFAR DREAMS Partnership, a highly effective HIV prevention programme, because of the GGR”.

Some of the impact is top-down from the government. In 2015, the Termination of Pregnancy Bill, introduced in Malawi to ensure safe abortion in cases of incest, rape, fetal anomaly, was “slowed down” by the Minister of Health given their fears that it would affect U.S. foreign aid in the country while President Trump is in office, according to the report. 

“We also met with the International Planned Parenthood Federation affiliate Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) who was forced to stop their participation in the LINKAGES project which provides HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services for key populations. Because of the GGR they were forced to close four clinics,” Sippel added. 

There is also a further effect on a community that’s hard hit by climate change, and vulnerable to a range of climate concerns such as intense rainfall and droughts, among many other issues. These issues, although not directly related to GGR, further amplify the negative effects such foreign policy has on those at the center of the crisis, according to advocates.

“When women are displaced because of climate change, their risk of exposure to gender-based violence often increases,” Sippel told IPS. “They are walking longer distances to get water and firewood. Also, as women enter camps post-disaster, their access to SRHR services can often be limited.”

 

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The post U.S. President’s Global Gag Rule is Having Negative Impact on the Health of Malawians: Report appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Togo's Emmanuel Adebayor says his ex-team-mate Roque Santa Cruz and the six-year-old son of Olimpia's club president convinced him to move to Paraguay.

By Jonathan Rozen
NEW YORK, Feb 19 2020 (IPS)

As reporters for Nigeria’s Premium Times newspaper, Samuel Ogundipe and Azeezat Adedigba told CPJ they spoke often over the phone. They had no idea that their regular conversations about work and their personal lives were creating a record of their friendship.

On August 9, 2018, Ogundipe published an article about a communication between Nigeria’s police chief and vice president. Days later, police investigating his source issued a written summons, CPJ reported at the time.

It was not addressed to Ogundipe and made no mention of his article or the charges he would later face of theft and possession of police documents. Instead, as Ogundipe recounted, police called Adedigba for questioning in connection with a slew of serious crimes, allegations that evaporated after police used her phone to summon her friend to the station.

Ogundipe’s experience is one of at least three cases since 2017 where police from across Nigeria used phone records to lure and then arrest journalists currently facing criminal charges for their work.

In each case, police used the records to identify people with a relationship to a targeted journalist, detained those people, and then forced them to facilitate the arrest.

The police methods reinforce the value of internet-based, encrypted communications at a time when authorities have also targeted journalists’ phones and computers to reveal their sources. Those prosecuted in all three cases are free on bail.

Nigerian journalist Samuel Ogundipe (Photo: Samuel Ogundipe)

“If the police called me and said we have something to ask you, I would go there…this is just their tactics,” Ogundipe said.

Ogundipe and Adedigba told CPJ that police made no secret of the way they had established their relationship, showing them each call records they claimed to have obtained from the pair’s cellphone network providers—Nigeria-based 9mobile, a subsidiary of the UAE-based Etisalat telecom company, and South Africa-based MTN, respectively.

“[Police have] been checking who I’ve been talking to…[in order to] see who was close enough to me to be used as bait,” Ogundipe added.

CPJ’s repeated calls in late 2019 and early 2020 to Nigerian police spokesperson Frank Mba rang unanswered.

The 2003 Nigerian Communications Act mandates that network service providers assist authorities in preventing crime and protecting national security. Regulations for enforcing it grant senior police officials the power to authorize requests to obtain “call data” from telecom companies without a judicial warrant, according to CPJ’s review.

That data includes where and when regular phone calls and SMS messages took place and between which numbers, according to documents reviewed by CPJ and interviews with three individuals with knowledge of police requests for call data in Nigeria. All three requested not to be named for fear of reprisal.

Nigeria has over 184 million active mobile phone lines, with roughly two million lines added every month to service its estimated 190 million people, according to 2019 data released by the national telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). SIM card ownership for these lines is tracked under a 2011 regulation, which CPJ reviewed, mandating the collection of personal information, including fingerprints and photos, that police can access without a warrant as long as a senior-ranking officer gives written approval.

Other NCC regulations, released in October 2019 and reviewed by CPJ, detail police permissions to intercept communications under certain circumstances.

At the time of publishing, Ogundipe told CPJ his next court date had yet to be scheduled, but two journalists who were taken into custody at the end of 2019–Gidado Yushau and Alfred Olufemi–were preparing for their fifth hearing scheduled in Kwara State for March 4.

Similar to Ogundipe and Adedigba, police used call records to identify individuals that could be used to lead them to their targets, those affected told CPJ.

Nigerian journalist Gidado Yushau (Photo: Gidado Yushau)

Yushau, publisher of The News Digest website, and Olufemi, a freelance reporter, were charged in November 2019 with criminal conspiracy and criminal defamation in connection with a complaint over a May 2018 News Digest report Olufemi wrote about a factory owned by Sarah Alade, now special adviser to Nigeria’s president. Alade and other representatives of the factory did not answer calls or declined comment when CPJ reported on the case.

The first journalist police used to track down Yushau and Olufemi worked in another city for an unrelated news outlet. Wunmi Ashafa, a Lagos-based journalist with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), told CPJ that police tricked her into meeting, then made her summon her colleague, Yusuf Yunus, who in turn was used to facilitate the arrest of the Digest’s web developer, Adebowale Adekoya. The officers claimed to know they were connected from their call records.

Police were “tracking all the people that are calling me, that I’m talking to,” Yunus told CPJ in an interview. “The network provider has said that this line and this line have spoken at this particular hour,” he said police told him. Ashafa and Yunus said they were released after police detained Adekoya.

“I don’t know why they decided to do that,” Ashafa told CPJ, adding that she missed a meeting at her daughter’s school because police involved her. “They apologized to us, to myself and Yunus, that that was the only way they could get [Adekoya].”

Mistaken for the Digest’s publisher, Adekoya described being held for five nights, driven over 1,200 kilometers—including to Abuja and Kwara State—and threatened with detention if he did not lead the officers to Yushau and promise to help bring Olufemi into custody, before his release.

Nigerian journalist Alfred Olufemi. (Photo: Alfred Olufemi)

CPJ reached Peter Okasanmi, a spokesperson with the Kwara State police, by phone in January. He declined to comment on Yushau and Olufemi’s case because the trial was ongoing, but described how police regularly used telecommunications information to make arrests.

“We are able to track the culprits by use of technology through the SIM [cards] that were registered,” Okasanmi said. “Suspects, they are usually like kidnappers…we use all of those gadgets to track their locations and get them arrested…we have our own equipment we are using,” he added, without elaborating.

On November 4, CPJ contacted NCC spokesperson Henry Nkemadu by phone and upon his request sent questions regarding security agencies’ access to communications data, but received no response. Subsequent calls to Nkemadu and other NCC officials went unanswered.

Police used a similar tactic in 2017 to arrest Tega Oghenedoro, the Uyo city-based publisher of the Secret Reporters news website who writes under the pseudonym Fejiro Oliver, CPJ reported this month.

He faces cybercrime charges related to reports alleging corruption in a Lagos-based Nigerian bank and is due in court on May 28, CPJ reported.

Isaac Omomedia, an aide to the governor of Delta State, told CPJ in October 2019 that he did not know Oliver, but that they had a mutual acquaintance, Prince Kpokpogri, the publisher of Integrity Watchdog magazine.

In March 2017, Omomedia arrived at a hotel in Asaba, the Delta State capital where he lives, after receiving a call to collect a parcel from the DHL delivery company, he told CPJ.

Instead, he was met by six police officers who questioned him about Kpokpogri, someone they claimed to know he was in touch with by reviewing his call records. On their instructions, Omomedia said he invited Kpokpogri to a meeting.

Kpokpogri told CPJ that police arrested him upon arrival, drove him over 200 kilometers to Uyo, and told him, in turn, to summon Oliver. The officers had identified him because they had “bugged” both his and Oliver’s phone lines, he remembered them saying. Kpokpogri said police arrested Oliver when he arrived and drove them both over 350 kilometers to Benin City; Oliver was then flown to Lagos and Kpokpogri was released without charge.

Kenneth Ogbeifun, the Lagos-based investigating officer in Oliver’s case, requested emailed questions when contacted for comment by CPJ in January 2020. Follow-up emails and messages went unanswered.

CPJ also reached an officer who confirmed his name as Moses and that he was part of the team that arrested Oliver on behalf of Lagos police, but when asked about how Omomedia and Kpokpogri were used in the arrest, the line disconnected.

Those involved in Oliver’s arrest, and the chain leading to Yushau and Olufemi, told CPJ they relied on the Nigeria-based Globacom, also known as Glo, India-based Airtel, or MTN for their cell phone service.

“I will give you the number used to commit the crime and you have only 60 minutes to produce the details,” the Premium Times quoted Isa Pantami, Nigeria’s minister of communications and digital economy, as saying in late 2019. Operators that failed to produce data would be sanctioned, according to that report.

CPJ called the ministry of communications and digital economy in mid-January. Philomena Oshodin, a deputy director, said that she was not the relevant person to comment before the line went silent; follow up messages went unanswered.

Between November 2019 and January 2020, CPJ reached out to public relations departments at MTN, 9mobile, Airtel, and Glo, and emailed questions to representatives for each about security agencies’ access to telecom user data in Nigeria. None replied with answers by date of publication.

“You’re reporting as a journalist, which is not a crime…[but] you feel you’re being punished,” Ogundipe told CPJ, reflecting on his arrest and prosecution. “It’s very scary…it’s difficult to predict how far these guys will go.”

For information on digital safety, consult CPJ’s Digital Safety Kit.

*Jonathan Rozen is CPJ’s senior Africa researcher. Previously, he worked in South Africa, Mozambique, and Canada with the Institute for Security Studies, assessing Mozambican peace-building processes. Rozen was a U.N. correspondent for IPS News and has written for Al-Jazeera English and the International Peace Institute. He speaks English and French.

The post How Nigeria’s Police used Telecom Surveillance to Lure & Arrest Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Jonathan Rozen* is Senior Africa Researcher at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)

The post How Nigeria’s Police used Telecom Surveillance to Lure & Arrest Journalists appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The UN-backed government says it cannot continue at the negotiations if it is under bombardment.

Morocco submits a bid to host the finals of this year's Caf club competitions - in both the African Champions League and the African Confederation Cup.

Uganda coach Johnny McKinstry says the Cranes are 'in a good position' to go beyond the group stage of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) for the first time.

Artist Sokari Douglas Camp wanted to honour Nigerian environmentalist Ken Saro Wiwa who was controversially executed in 1995

There is no cure for a type of elephantiasis caused by minerals in western Uganda's volcanic soil.

The men may face a jail sentence or fines of up to $40,000 under the country's strict laws.

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the 193-member General Assembly last December, he focused on the smoldering climate crisis– pointing out that the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

Ice caps are melting, he said, In Greenland alone, 179 billion tonnes of ice melted in July. Permafrost in the Arctic is thawing 70 years ahead of projections. Antarctica is melting three times as fast as a decade ago.

“Ocean levels are rising quicker than expected, putting some of our biggest and most economically important cities at risk. More than two-thirds of the world’s megacities are located by the sea. And while the oceans are rising, they are also being poisoned,” Guterres warned.

And as the planet burns, one million species in the world’s eco-system are in near-term danger of extinction
According to a new survey of 222 leading scientists from 52 countries conducted by Future Earth, there are five global risks — failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation; extreme weather events; major biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse; food crises; and water crises. And four of them — climate change, extreme weather, biodiversity loss, and water crises — were deemed as most likely to occur?

Asked about the impending disaster, Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) told IPS that climate change, extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and food and water crises are already happening, primarily as a result of human activities, and they are deeply impacting the lives of people around the world.

“It is therefore imperative for the science and expert community to make their voices heard – as Future Earth has done, building on the key messages of the IPBES Global Assessment Report – to provide decision-makers with the evidence and options they need to act.”

Of real significance, however, is that it is not just the voice of science that is now speaking up for nature – consider that the global business community has also become increasingly vocal about the risks of the nature crisis and the need for evidence-informed action.

For example, in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Risk Report, the top five perceived risks are all environmental and “systems-level thinking,” as called for.

Decision-makers have a wide range of options across sectors, systems and scales to shift to more sustainable pathways.

Dr. Anne Larigauderie

One million species face extinction, but the solutions to the nature crisis are still within our reach, said Dr Larigauderie, in an interview with IPS.

In the run-up to October’s historic UN Biodiversity Conference, officials and experts will convene at FAO headquarters, Rome, 24-29 Feb. for negotiations on the initial draft of a landmark post-2020 global biodiversity framework and targets for nature to 2030.

The new framework will be considered by the 196 Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the 2020 UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15), Kunming, China, 15-28 Oct.

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: How many of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets—including the integration of biodiversity values into national and local development and poverty reduction strategies – have been achieved so far/will still be achieved even as the 2020 deadline is looming over the horizon?

Dr Larigauderie: The IPBES Global Assessment Report shows that, of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets, good progress has been made towards components of just 4 target, moderate progress towards components of 7 more targets, with poor progress towards all components of 6 other targets. Conservation actions, including protected areas, efforts to manage unsustainable use and address the illegal capture and trade of species, and the translocation and eradication of invasive species, have been successful in preventing the extinction of some species.

Good progress has been made on less than 10% of the 54 total elements. On 39% of the elements, poor progress and even some loss of progress has been seen.

As a result, the state of nature overall continues to decline, with 12 of 16 indicators showing significantly worsening trends.

It has never been more urgent for decision-makers at every level to have the best evidence and heed the warnings of science, for the decisions made now will have direct implications for our shared future.

IPS: How is the world doing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially as regards the impact of the nature crisis and the likely missing of most of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets on efforts to achieve these?

Dr Larigauderie: Human development depends directly on nature – from food and water security, to jobs, health and general well-being. The rapid declines we are seeing now in biodiversity, and many of nature’s contributions to people, mean that most international development goals will not be achieved – unless we make fundamental, system-wide changes. The IPBES Global Assessment Report found that 80% of assessed SDG targets will be undermined by negative trends in nature.

The Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets are closely connected, with many of the Aichi Targets having been integrated into the SDGs.

Our failure to achieve the Aichi Targets does not bode well for efforts to achieve the SDGs – unless we see fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values – to tackle the direct and the indirect drives of the nature crisis.

Besides clear connections to climate, oceans and land, the nature crisis has direct implications for poverty, hunger, health, water, and cities in addition to more a complex relationship to education, gender equality, reducing inequalities, and promoting peace and justice.

Without transformative change addressing both the direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, we will not achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

IPS: How will the rising global population — from the current 7.6 billion to an estimated 8.6 billion in 2030, with 43 cities reaching over 10 million each by 2030– have an impact on biodiversity targets? There are already warnings that the increase in population will have negative implications on the demand for resources, including food, infrastructure and land use.

Dr Larigauderie: Population growth is a major indirect driver of change in nature. Since 1970, the human population has more than doubled, but at the same time, per capita consumption has also risen sharply [15% since 1980], the global economy has grown nearly fourfold, global trade has grown tenfold, and the environmental and social costs of production and consumption have shifted away from those most directly responsible.

In other words, population growth is important but is only one of many key indirect drivers of change underpinning the unsustainable use of our natural resources. Other important indirect drivers include economy and technology, institutions and governance and conflicts, all of these being dependant on our values and behaviours.

Addressing all of the indirect drivers, including population growth, in an integrated and holistic way, will best enable us to achieve our shared global development goals.

Indeed, as the co-chairs of the CBD’s Open-ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework note, “the wide-ranging changes that are needed to reach the 2050 Vison will require an unprecedented degree of collaboration and whole-of-society engagement.” (Zero draft, page 3, 6(f))

IPS: In this important “super year” for nature, with major milestones expected on both climate change and biodiversity, what plans are there to bring the science/expert communities from both climate and biodiversity together to help best inform the decisions and actions for the coming decade?

Dr Larigauderie: 2020 has real potential to be a turning point for society, where we can begin to holistically transform our relationship with nature. The ‘Super Year for Nature’ is an opportunity for decision-makers at every level of society to listen and act on the science on both biodiversity and climate change. The stakes could not be higher.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are inseparable challenges that must be addressed together, in the scientific community as well as in policy and business.

From 12 –14 May this year, well before the two major UN biodiversity and climate conferences in 2020, IPBES and the IPCC will co-sponsor a workshop – the first of its kind – to bring leading scientists together to focus on the opportunities to meet both of these challenges and on the risks of addressing them separately from one another.

The workshop report will be an important document informing the CBD and UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties (COP15 and COP 26, respectively) regarding implementation of the Paris Agreement, the post-2020 biodiversity framework and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The IPBES Global Assessment found that nature-based solutions can provide more than one-third of climate mitigation needed to keep warming below 2°C.

Enquiries: Rob Spaull, IPBES Head of Communications Robert.spaull@ipbes.net

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

The post As Planet Burns, One Million Species in World’s Eco-System in Danger of Extinction appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The ravenous pests have devoured crops and pasture threatening a food crisis in East Africa.

South Africa could host either the Champions League final or the Confederation Cup finals if they find a willing city.

Undercover filming showed the Ghanaian academics breaching university policies on sexual harassment.

The post Will Zimbabwe Allow Freedom of Airwaves and Freedom of Speech too? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

In an annual ritual early in the year, most major economic organizations have released forecasts for the global economy in 2020. Incredibly, almost as a reminder of where financial power resides in this day and age, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its forecasts at the World Economic Forum’s 50th annual meeting in Davos.

Anis Chowdhury

Although the IMF revised its global economic growth prognosis slightly downwards from its October 2019 forecast, it still offers the most optimistic prospect of 3.3% growth in 2020. The World Bank’s forecast of 2.5% – identical to the United Nations (UN) estimate – is the lowest, with the OECD’s at 2.9%.

The IMF justified its optimism by improved market sentiments following the Phase One US-China Trade Deal and diminished fears of a ‘no-deal Brexit’. Goldman Sachs describes these developments as ‘A Break in the Clouds’, forecasting global growth at 3.4% in 2020, while Morgan Stanley sees ‘Calmer Waters Ahead’, expecting 3.2% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2021.

Perils of ‘talking up’
It is not unusual for these organizations to be optimistic: after all, they do not want to be seen as naysayers, or prophets of doom, especially if their pronouncements are later denounced as self-fulfilling prophecies.

But ‘talking up the economy’ can have grave consequences, as with the 2008-2009 global financial crisis (GFC). Then, the IMF revised its forecast upward in July 2007, a month before the US ‘sub-prime’ mortgage crisis morphed into the worst global downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the OECD was confident that any US ‘soft-landing’ would be offset by robust European economic performance. Such forecasts fostered a false and ultimately dangerous sense of invulnerability and complacence before the storm broke.

Policymakers ignored warnings by the United Nations since 2005 about fundamental weaknesses, including growing global imbalances and the debt-financed US housing bubble. As is now well known, the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market brought down world finance and, eventually, the global economy.

Hazards of forecasting
Thankfully, it is customary to include some cautionary notes with these annual forecasts, even when optimistic. For example, the IMF now warns of more downside risks, including geopolitical tensions, social unrest, trade tensions, and developing economies’ financial turmoil.

Both the UN and the IMF fear that the climate crisis can trigger financial stress, further slowing economic growth. To make matters worse, ignoring fundamental weaknesses and focusing excessively on ephemeral short-term trends can be dangerously misleading.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

To be sure, forecasting is extremely hazardous, and sometimes compared unfavourably to astrology. Forecasters factor in plausible developments, but completely unpredictable ‘black swan’ events, such as the novel coronavirus pandemic, can upset even the best of forecasts.

Meanwhile, the World Bank warns of ballooning debt, both public and private. The UN and the World Bank also note that the sharp productivity growth slowdown since the GFC has reduced long-term growth and poverty reduction prospects; furthermore, high inequality will also delay such progress.

Both the UN and the IMF note that high and rising inequality also engenders greater social and political polarization, unrest and instability. Additionally, the UN also warns of deepening political polarization and growing scepticism about multilateralism as significant downside risks.

But none mention that the long-run effects of income inequality on both consumption and output can be quite large, delaying economic recovery by limiting aggregate demand and capacity utilization.

Policy failure
Such fundamental weaknesses owe much to policy failures. Unlike the New Deal following the Great Depression of the 1930s, all too many contemporary policymakers shy away from addressing core problems, such as financial excesses, rising household debt, exorbitant executive salaries vis-à-vis stagnant, if not declining real wages, that also contributed to the GFC.

Low (negative) interest rates, due to unconventional monetary policy, especially ‘quantitative easing’ (QE), have not promoted productive investments, and allowed less-productive firms to survive. Thus, QE failed to boost productivity.

‘Easy money’ has been used for share buy-backs, mergers, acquisitions and inflated executive remuneration. Thus, as before the GFC, ‘fictitious capital’ is being systemically generated once again, contributing to asset price bubbles and endangering financial stability.

‘Easy money’ from developed economies has also flowed to developing countries in search of better returns, making them more vulnerable, besides raising their indebtedness yet again.

QE has also contributed to rising inequality. Meanwhile, major central banks have exhausted much of their means for lending at very low or even negative interest rates as they have very limited room to cut interest rates further.

No fiscal saviour
Besides reducing overall revenue collection and marginal income tax rates, the longstanding trend from direct to indirect taxation has shifted tax incidence from incomes to consumption, largely at the expense of the middle class.

Pursuing fiscal austerity under various guises, governments have slashed social and infrastructure spending in favour of public-private partnerships skewed in favour of influential corporate interests. Fiscal austerity also slowed economic recovery and technology adoption to the detriment of productivity growth.

Such fiscal reforms have not only exacerbated inequality, but also kept countries and households in debt bondage. And as governments have less fiscal space with rising debt, their ability to respond to crises – financial, climate or pandemic – is severely compromised.

Missed opportunity
Had national policymakers, led by the G20, embraced the UN recommendation for a Global Green New Deal to stimulate recovery, address the climate crisis and reverse growing inequality, the global economy could have been put on a more inclusive and sustainable path.

Such hopes remain even more elusive in an increasingly fractured world where multilateralism itself has been discredited and deliberately undermined by ethno-populism’s relegitimization of jingoism.

The post Global Economy Still Slowing, Dangerously Vulnerable appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Angus Wright, Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer
OAKLAND, California, Feb 18 2020 (IPS)

When we were children, a long auto trip would require a stop every hour or so to clean the windshield of the insects that had been intercepted.

Today’s windshields are spared this indignity—a convenience for motorists but a terrifying signpost of danger for the well being of the planet and humanity.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the current peril we face as we push forward into what is now understood as the beginning of a new mass extinction. Yet efforts to curb this potential catastrophe are hindered by limited understanding of the relevant sciences, both natural and social.

And a keystone issue is agriculture, both as partial cause of the crisis, and potential contributor to its solution. This is understood technically, but restricted limits of debate continue to force a restricted set of proposed solutions.

To take an extreme example, E. O. Wilson, one of the world’s best-known biologists, recently proposed that half of the Earth’s surface should be put into protected status for the sole purpose of preserving biodiversity.

While his proposal is unusually bold, the general idea of a vast expansion of protected areas is common among some conservationists in the United States and elsewhere. At present, something less than fifteen percent of planetary surface is in some kind of protected status, with various international agencies committed to expanding protected areas to seventeen percent.

Implementation of what Wilson calls a “Half-Earth” strategy would require that more than three times as much land than at present be designated as “protected” areas for the primary purpose of biodiversity protection.1

Wilson acknowledges that a Half-Earth approach would require an extreme intensification of agricultural production on land outside protected areas in order to provide enough food for human needs. He does little to contemplate what kind of intensification would be required.

Neither does he acknowledge the impact conventional intensification would have on biodiversity. Since he relies on previous production gains under industrial agriculture as evidence of the possibility of greater gains using similar techniques, he apparently does not see any serious drawbacks to such techniques.

Some conservationists who favor strategies similar to Wilson’s, speak of agricultural land as “sacrifice zones,” in which intensification, making liberal use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and other industrial style techniques, would necessarily reduce non-food organisms to a bare minimum, a “sacrifice” necessary for the pesky species Homo sapiens.

Ironically, these conservationists’ support for land-sparing converges with agribusiness’ interests to increase industrial agricultural intensification.

In the growing scientific literature, this perspective has come to be called “land-sparing,” with the idea that agricultural intensification must be used to spare as much land as possible from human activity in order to leave the rest for the flourishing of non-human species.

In contrast to the land-sparing approach, others who are equally as interested in biodiversity conservation have proposed a “land sharing” approach, in which it is argued that high food production and biodiversity conservation may be achieved most efficiently if pursued simultaneously in a planned fashion.

This point of view is suspicious of what they call the “fortress” protection ideology, in which areas are designated to be free of any human activity, assuming that in such areas all species initially there will survive in perpetuity.

The land-sharing point of view is frequently characterized, perhaps incorrectly, as one in which the agricultural activity itself needs to be sufficiently benign for all the biodiversity in the area, such that purely protected areas are unnecessary.

Either-or Versus Both-and

The land-sparers emphasize increasing agricultural production to minimize land-use devoted to agriculture. The land-sharers emphasize the need to have an agriculture that is favorable for the survival of species.

The first sees the protected area as the only place where biodiversity is conserved; the second sees a benign form of agriculture that itself contains the whole of the biodiversity. In the second edition of our book, Nature’s Matrix, we argue that both sides of this debate are wrong.

Most of Earth’s terrestrial surface contains patches of natural, unmanaged, vegetation. The “landscape” is, by definition, those patches plus the “matrix” in which they are located.

A simplified summary suggests that for one side, the only thing that matters are the patches of natural vegetation (and thus they need to be protected), while for the other side the only thing that matters is a matrix that is conducive to the survival of species. Both sides are wrong.

Very basic ecology acknowledges that local extinctions of species occur regularly, even in the most protected of areas. Local extinctions are, in fact, a normal part of nature. What determines ultimate survival is whether the matrix of the landscape allows for migration and/or reproduction.

Protected areas are very seldom large enough to provide conditions for the survival of most species. If species do not move freely through that matrix, then local extinctions can balloon into regional, and even global, extinctions. Thus, the ability for organisms to migrate and reproduce in agricultural areas is critical. The survival of a species in even the most protected areas will be otherwise undermined by surrounding industrial agricultural “sacrifice zones.”

What we propose in our second edition of Nature’s Matrix is not a strictly “land sharing’ approach, since we recognize the need for maintaining protected areas.

However, we also recognize that the goal of producing enough food to satisfy human nutritional demand does not require the conversion of those protected areas to agriculture, no matter how biodiversity friendly.

We agree with Kremen’s recent analysis of the debate, noting that instead of an either-or approach, we need a “both–and” approach that “favors both large, protected regions and favorable surrounding matrices.”2 We further argue that a matrix favorable to biodiversity can only be achieved by an alliance of diverse social movements and organizations.

Promoting the Nature’s Matrix Approach

In the United States and other industrialized nations, there are a variety of organizations that implicitly or explicitly favor this “nature’s matrix” perspective, including most environmental organizations.

Among the most important are land trust organizations that sign contracts with land owners to create or maintain agriculture that is supportive of relatively high species diversity. Organizations bringing together practitioners and researchers of low input or organic agriculture, agroecology, rotational grazing, and production of perennial crops all usually favor species friendly production techniques.

In Europe, and to a lesser degree in the United States, governments offer cash payments or other reimbursements to farmers who adopt production plans that directly and indirectly favor wildlife.3 These initiatives are complemented in many urban areas by planning for parks, parkways, and greenbelts that offer wildlife-friendly areas within urban boundaries, and in the best of circumstances, connect urban landscapes directly to biodiversity friendly agriculture.

In the biodiverse tropics, support for high quality matrices include organizations of those who are already practicing biodiversity-friendly agriculture, such as those cultivating shade grown coffee and cacao. These organizations are supported by trade certification schemes for “shade grown” and “bird friendly” products.

In Asia, there are smallholder rice systems which support high biodiversity, and organizations which support them. Frequently these organizations include land reform movements, organizations of producers within designated extractive reserves, indigenous peoples, and family farm confederations, most of which have officially adopted policies promoting agroecological farming techniques that tend to create high-quality, biodiversity-friendly matrices.

The organization La Via Campesina, an international alliance of peasant and small-scale agricultural producers, promotes such approaches. There is a general recognition among such organizations that, for a variety of reasons, their members have often practiced agriculture that tends to destroy or degrade species-rich environments, but that understanding strengthens their resolve to support positive change that, they believe, will tend to support more successful, small-scale agricultural production as well as biodiverse landscapes.

As in industrialized countries, a substantial portion of the environmental movement in the global south supports policies promoting agroecological approaches to agriculture that promote complex landscapes friendly to high levels of biodiversity.

New Coffee Plants at a Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee Farm in Guatemala. Photo courtesy of USAID Biodiversity and Rainforestry (CC BY-NC 2.0).

The Search for Empirical Validation

Empirical study of the two strategies has been less than convincing, due to limitations in both time and space. How long a time period is appropriate? Useful studies must begin with actually occurring landscapes, landscapes in which an intricate dance involving agriculture and species survival has a long history.

Counting insect splats on our windshield over the average period of five years will not likely lead us to the same conclusions as 50 year personal observations. Indeed, there is virtually uniform acknowledgment from the community of scientific ecologists that local extinctions are extensive, leading some to refer to the “extinction debt” of particular landscape patterns.

This reality means that we have little idea of when the dance might be declared over, making it exceedingly difficult to set empirically appropriate beginnings and ends to studies. We may be able to measure population density at a given point in time, but knowing whether any given population is decreasing its numbers to near extinction is a difficult empirical problem.5

Similarly, if two such landscape level approaches are to be compared, where does one draw the boundary between one approach and the other? Most actually occurring landscapes seem to be a blend of the two strategies in ways that make it very difficult to compare because only an arbitrary spatial boundary can be determined, and yet, if none is determined, what should be measured?

In addition, very few advocates of either position insist on a simple either/or dichotomy and are compelled to recognize that all regional landscapes are some kind of a mix. In contrast to Wilson’s sharply arbitrary “half-earth” suggestion, most involved in the debate on both sides understand that it is a matter of emphasis rather than a question of choosing between polar opposites.

Not surprisingly, a proliferation of carefully designed studies meant to compare sparing and sharing approaches have led to conclusions that add detail to understanding the problem but that fall far short of demonstrating the superiority of one approach over the other.

In spite of a very measured and reasonable effort by Kremen in 2015 to put an end to an increasingly polarized debate, Wilson and others continue efforts to sharpen the idea of an “either-or” approach by vastly increasing the territorial ambitions of the land-sparing advocates while avoiding critical discussion of the damaging effects of industrial agriculture.

And the growing attempt to study the problem empirically may confuse rather than enlighten. Despite a significant amount of research, convincing empirical evidence establishing one approach over the other is not to be found.

There are a number of reasons for this lack of resolution, reasons that are fundamental to the nature of the problem and unlikely to be resolved.

For those of us who argue for a landscape approach, where both natural vegetation patches and a high quality matrix comprise the landscape, the essential problem with the land-sparing perspective can be summarized in two related points: first, land-sparing strategies assume that protected areas are far more protective of biodiversity than is the case; and, second, the strategies assume that the negative effect of industrial agriculture on biodiversity is minimal and can remain so even under measures to intensify production. Both of these assumptions rest on an idea of control over nature that is illusory.

The insects flying out of a reserve understand little of the poison that awaits them in the neighboring soybean landscape. This false sense of control over both human life and ecological processes derives at least partially from a particular way of thinking shaped by a particular moment in political time and space, and is not likely to serve either humanity or biodiversity well.

The post Biodiversity & Agriculture: Nature’s Matrix & Future of Conservation appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Angus Wright, Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer, authors, Food First, Institute for Food and Development Policy

The post Biodiversity & Agriculture: Nature’s Matrix & Future of Conservation appeared first on Inter Press Service.