Cattle clashes: The case of Tanzania {part one}

Summary:

Conflict of interests between sedentary agriculturalists and nomadic pastoralists is a common cause of violent clashes in many places around the world - but not the rule.

In many cases the two ways of securing livelihoods may be complementary and to mutual advantage (cattle, as an example, provide free fertilizer).

Problems arise when drought, intensification of agriculture, or overly large herds cross the line of sustainability for both ways of livelihood.

In Tanzania, there is a decade-old conflict between Maasai pastoralists and farmers. In December 2000, violent clashes left 31 people dead.

IPCC outlines strategies for responding to the impacts of human-caused climate change

Emissions cuts, sustainable development and early measures to adapt could reduce humanity’s vulnerability

Brussels, 6 April 2007 – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has finalized a new report that assesses the current and future impacts of global warming and explores opportunities for proactively adapting to them.


The report concludes that the world’s rivers, lakes, wildlife, glaciers, permafrost, coastal zones, disease carriers and many other elements of the natural and physical environment are already responding to the effects of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions.


Rising temperatures are accelerating the hydrological cycle and causing rivers and lakes to freeze later in the autumn and birds to migrate and nest earlier in the spring.


Scientists are increasingly confident that, as global warming continues, certain weather events and extremes will become more frequent, widespread or intense.


Over the coming decades, the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, small island states, low-lying coasts, natural ecosystems and water resources and agricultural production in certain regions will be at particular risk.


Dramatic sea-level rises and some other events have the potential to cause very large impacts, especially after the 21st century.


However, the IPCC also finds that early action to improve seasonal climate forecasts, food security, freshwater supplies, disaster and emergency response, famine early-warning systems and insurance coverage can minimize the damage from future climate change while generating many immediate practical benefits.


“Scientists owe much of their new understanding of how climate change will affect the planet to the greater number of field studies and data sets now available to them, as well as to improved consistency between observations and climate model results,” said Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

“We need to strengthen our research and monitoring even further and gain more practical experience in how best to adapt to our new climate,” he said.


Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said, “The invoice for the future impact costs of climate change has been put on the table today by the IPCC. It is not a bill that we would have to pay in full if the world decides now to make deep and decisive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.”


“The report also emphasizes that adaptation – in developed but especially vulnerable developing countries – is also needed to cope with the climate change already underway. ‘Climate proofing’ infrastructure and agriculture to health care services and communities will require investment but equally intelligent planning so that it is central to decision-making rather than on the periphery,” he added.


The IPCC illustrates the potential for adaptation by describing activities being undertaken in various parts of the world to adapt to current climate change.


Examples include partial drainage of the Tsho Rolpa glacial lake in Nepal, changes in livelihood strategies in response to permafrost melt by the Inuit in Nunavut, Canada, and the increased use of artificial snow-making by the ski industry in Europe, Australia and North America.


Measures being taken in anticipation of future climate change include the consideration of sea-level rise in the design of infrastructure such as the Confederation Bridge in Canada and in coastal zone management in the USA and The Netherlands.

Environmental Terrorism - Identifying the Risks

Summary:

Most recent discussions of terrorism have focused on the identity of the terrorists, their possible motivations, and the increasingly destructive potential of the weapons at their disposal. However, to date, there has been very little discussion about their choice of targets.

An examination of environmental terrorism

requires understanding motivations, identifying vulnerabilities and risks, and working on effective solutions.

At a time when populations all over the world are increasing, the existing resource base (water, energy, soils, and more) is being stretched to provide for more people, and is being consumed at a faster rate. As the value and vulnerability of these resources increases, so does their attractiveness as terrorist targets.

The report examines

the nature and risks of terrorist attacks that use the environment both as a target and a tool. Finally, several ideas for reducing the risk of environmental terrorism are discussed.


Terrorists

often choose their targets because of what they represent, thus skyscrapers and federal buildings. Rivaling both of those, however, for the amount of long-term damage that can be inflicted upon a country, environmental resources should be included as being at risk.

Environmental terrorism is defined ,as.....

in the report as "the unlawful use of force against in situ environmental resources so as to deprive populations of their benefit(s) and/or destroy other property". Readers should take care not to confuse the term with "eco-terrorism".

At first glance,

the distinction between environmental terrorism and eco-terrorism might seem academic. However, operationally there is a significant difference.

Environmental terrorism involves targeting natural resources. Eco-terrorism involves targeting built environment such as roads, buildings and trucks, ostensibly in defense of natural resources.

A second distinction is made between environmental terrorism and more conventional environmental warfare.

It is a distinction that mirrors the larger difference between terrorism and warfare in general.

The easy distinction, that warfare is conducted by states and terrorism by rebel groups, obscures the uncomfortable fact that unlawful acts against non-combatants are often carried out by states. Rather, warfare is governed by two complementary criteria: jus ad bellum (war must be declared for a good reason) and jus in bello (war must be conducted in a just fashion).

Because there is no universally accepted judgment as to what constitutes rightness of cause, applying the first criterion (jus ad bellum) to terrorism is problematic.

Terrorism

however clearly violates the jus in bello criterion, since targeting non-combatants lies at the very core of its strategy. That the target is environmental and not human does not blur the distinction between warfare and terrorism.

The objective of environmental terrorism, however,

is to have a psychological effect on the target population, and just as terrorists do not apply the jus in bello criterion to human non-combatants, neither do they apply it to the environment.

Risk of Environmental Terrorism:

There are two components to measuring the risk of terrorism:
severity of the attack, and the probability of a particular scenario actually occurring.

This is where the approximately $7 billion 16 spent to analyze WMD [weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear bombs] attacks may be misspent: scenarios such as detonation of a nuclear device or deployment of a biological weapon in a populated area, while frightening, fall into the high-consequence/low-probability category.

As risky are the common,

low-consequence/high-probability scenarios such as bombings or kidnapping (low-consequence only in that the number of people directly affected is relatively small compared to a large-scale WMD incident).

Environmental terrorism has the potential to combine the worst of both of these scenarios: it can have higher consequences than conventional civil terrorism because the potential damage from an environmental attack can be long-lasting and widespread, and it is more likely than WMD terrorism because it can be carried out using conventional explosives or poisons.

WMDs.......

are still extremely difficult to obtain and deploy successfully, and are consequently out of range for most amateur terrorist individuals or groups. As a result, terrorists may increase their destructive potential by directing conventional methods against environmental targets, where they are likely to cause more human health and economic damage with less risk to themselves.

The report considers two further types of environmental terrorism: resource-as-tool terrorism and resource-as-target terrorism.

For example, terrorists wishing to inflict damage using resource-as-tool terrorism on a town below a reservoir might poison the water supply.

Using the same example, terrorists wishing to employ resource-as-target terrorism might blow up the dam and flood the town.

Vulnerable resources identified and discussed more fully in the report are:
water resource sites, agriculture and forest sites, mineral and petroleum sites, plus wildlife and ecosystem sites.

Finally,

the most reliable way identified in the report for a nation to protect itself against the disruption caused by environmental terrorism is to diversify resource use wherever possible.

Multiple sources of food, water, and energy mean each individual source is less attractive as a target, and equitable distribution of resources between users contributes to reducing tension over resource scarcity. This may lessen the political motivation of terrorists who take action on behalf of the “oppressed.”

Where are the poor? Experiences with the development and use of poverty maps

Increase effectiveness of poverty reduction efforts through spatial analysis of ecosystem services.

Policymakers will understand and act on linkages between poverty and ecosystem services and improve implementation of national strategies and plans.



Where are the poor?

Experiences with the development and use of poverty maps.

(2002 - 66 pages) The report highlights the use and impact of poverty maps -- the spatial representation and analysis of human well-being and poverty indicators -- in 14 countries and identifies lessons that can guide future poverty mapping efforts

Synopsis: The report highlights the use and impact of poverty maps -- the spatial representation and analysis of human well-being and poverty indicators -- in 14 countries and identifies lessons that can guide future poverty mapping efforts.




Poverty mapping

-- the spatial representation and analysis of indicators of human well-being and poverty -- is becoming an increasingly important instrument for investigating and discussing social, economic, and environmental problems.

Decision-makers need information tools such as poverty maps to help them identify areas where development lags and where investments in infrastructure and services could have the greatest impact.

Once largely the domain of economists and social scientists, poverty maps are now being used by policymakers and many non-governmental entities, including civil society groups, academic institutions, and private businesses.

However, the new and diverse applications of poverty mapping emerging over the past five years have not been well documented.

The World Resources Institute (WRI)

in collaboration with UNEP/GRID-Arendal has conducted a study examining the uses and impacts of poverty maps. Drawing on case studies from 14 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the report reviews how poverty maps were used and some of the factors constraining their use in a wide variety of geographic and institutional settings.

From such experiences come lessons that can guide future poverty mapping initiatives in other countries. Recommendations aimed at national and international actors sketch a plan for sustaining poverty mapping in the countries studied and expanding its frontiers to all developed and developing countries.

EFFECTS of Climate Change: Snow-free Mt Kilimanjaro wake-up call

Formerly snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro

The volcanic crater at the summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, as it has not been seen before in 11,000 years.

Summary:

A photo of Mount Kilimanjaro stripped of its snowcap for the first time in 11,000 years was used as dramatic testimony for action against global warming as ministers from the world's biggest polluters met in March 2005.

Gathering in London for a two-day brainstorming session on the environment agenda of Britain's presidency of the Group of Eight rich nations, the environment and energy ministers from 20 countries were handed a book containing the stark image of Africa's tallest mountain, among others

Mount Kilimanjaro Photo Wake-Up Call for Action Against Global Warming

"This is a wake-up call and an unequivocal message that a low-carbon global economy is necessary, achievable and affordable," said Steve Howard of the Climate Group charity which organised the book and an associated exhibition.

"We are breaking climate change out of the environment box. This crisis affects all of us. This is a global challenge and we need real leadership to address these major problems - and these ministers can give that leadership," he told Reuters.

The pictures include one of Kilimanjaro almost bare of its icecap because of global warming, and coastal defences in the Marshall Islands threatened with swamping from rising sea levels.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed to make climate change and Africa the twin targets of Britain's presidencies of both the G8 and European Union this year - bringing both to the fore at a summit meeting in Gleneagles in Scotland in July.

The Kyoto Protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases came into force in February but is still shunned by the world's biggest emitter, the United States, and puts scant limits on China, rising fast up the ranks.

Informal information exchange

Senior officials from both countries will be at the London meeting, whose main thrust is how to achieve the environmental Holy Grail of a sustainably growing low carbon economy.

"There is an attempt to draw the United States in after its refusal to sign Kyoto," said a spokeswoman for environmental pressure group Greenpeace.

"It is very sensitive given that the developing countries are trying to climb the development curve and the developed countries must not be seen to be doing anything to hold them back," she told Reuters.

A senior official at Britain's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which is co-organising the meeting - the first of environment and energy ministers from developed and developing nations - said the aim was to find common ground.

"This is a chance for people to get together and by not forcing them to negotiate a very concrete outcome ... allow them to explore common interests," she said.

"There are plenty of technologies out there which we can deploy which can help with that shift (to a low-carbon economy) straight away. We know that energy efficiency can already deliver huge carbon savings at a net benefit to our society," she told Reuters.

British think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research

has proposed a multi-tiered approach, calling for progressively deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by rich nations but more flexible commitments from the developing world.

These should be made against the backdrop of long-term efforts to take Kyoto - with the United States and Australia aboard in some form - beyond

the end of its first phase in 2012, it said.