Monthly Archives: September 2014

World Bank ‘failing to protect Kenya forest dwellers’





A leaked copy of a World Bank investigation seen by The Guardian has accused the bank of failing to protect the rights of one of Kenya’s last groups of forest people, who are being evicted from their ancestral lands in the name of climate change and conservation.

Thousands of homes belonging to hunter-gatherer Sengwer people living in the Embobut forest in the Cherangani hills were burned down earlier this year by Kenya forest service guards who had been ordered to clear the forest as part of a carbon offset project that aimed to reduce emissions from deforestation.

The result has been that more than 1,000 people living near the town of Eldoret have been classed as squatters and forced to flee what they say has been government harassment, intimidation and arrest.

UN condemnation – but no change in policy

The evictions were condemned in February by the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination.

They also drew in the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, who expressed alarm at what was described by 360 national and international civil society organisations and individuals as “cultural genocide”.

An Avaaz petition collected 950,000 names calling for the bank to urgently halt the “illegal” evictions.

Following a request by the Sengwer to assess the impact of the bank’s funding of the project, the bank’s inspection panel decided in May that it had violated safeguards in several areas. At the same time, the bank’s management decided to ignore most of the independent panel’s recommendations.

“Unfortunately, the World Bank’s own leaked management response to the report denies many of the findings, evidently sees little importance in the fact that violation of safeguard policies has occurred, and presents an inadequate action plan to be considered by the bank’s board. It simply proposes more training for forest service staff, and a meeting to examine what can be learnt”, said a spokesman for the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme.

“President Kim said the bank would not be bystanders, but only by taking seriously the many breaches of its own safeguards and approving the action plan requested by the Sengwer people themselves to overcome the human rights violations that these breaches have contributed to will the bank be able to demonstrate that the president has been true to his word”, said Peter Kitelo, a representative of Kenya’s Forest Indigenous Peoples Network.

World Bank directors to decide the Sengwer’s fate today

A final decision on the project is due today when the World Bank board meets in Washington under the chairmanship of Kim to decide on the bank’s response to the inspection panel report.

If the board decides to endorse the action plan, the evictions are certain to be completed. More than half the people evicted are thought to have returned to their lands.

“The eviction of such ancestral communities leaves the indigenous forests open to exploitation and destruction; whereas securing such communities rights to their lands and responsibility to continue traditional conservation practices, protects their forests”, said the Forest Peoples Programme.

 


 

John Vidal is Environment Editor for The Guardian.

This article was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced with thanks via The Guardian Environment Network.

 

 






Deconstructing Defaunation

Many species globally are threatened by numerous biotic and abiotic stressors, resulting in declining population and shifts in ecosystem functioning.

Many species globally are threatened by numerous biotic and abiotic stressors, resulting in declining population and shifts in ecosystem functioning.

Science recently released a special issue on defaunation, which spanned seven articles detailing the recent decline in animal species diversity and abundance.  Among others, the issue included two peer-reviewed articles, an opinion piece, and an analysis of national policies tied to global and local conservation strategies.  The statistics associated with defaunation are sobering, but the issue presents a few solutions to help us curb this global environmental crisis.

First, a damage assessment.  According to Defaunation in the Anthropocene, between 11,000 and 58,000 species go extinct each year.  At least 16% of all vertebrate species are endangered or threatened, and there’s been a 28% decline in their abundances since the 1970s.  Approximately 40% of invertebrate species are considered threatened, though less than 1% of described invertebrates have been assessed.  There is data to suggest that invertebrate species’ abundances are also decreasing, but it’s difficult to put an exact number on that decline since they are not as well monitored as vertebrates.  On a global scale, these statistics may be underestimated because our monitoring practices bias our data toward specific taxa.  Groups of large and charismatic organisms, like mammals and birds, get most of the attention because they are easier to monitor and more sympathetic than invertebrates, amphibians, and reptiles.  In some systems this is beneficial, where large mammals and birds are the most threatened and contribute significantly greater function to an ecosystem than smaller organisms.  However the opposite can be true in other instances, so it is critical that we prioritize greater sampling of underrepresented groups.

Additionally, there is concern that such measures of declines in species and abundance may not reflect the true extent of our ecological troubles.  Shifts in ecosystem compositions may not be reflected in a given measurement of biodiversity, yet are nonetheless indicative of environmental change.  The primary goal behind many conservation strategies has been to restore a species or population to a certain number.  While population viability is critical for any species, the authors argue that ecosystem functionality is a useful yet underutilized goal for conservationists.  With this goal, the composition of an ecosystem (i.e. the identity and abundance of resident species) can be more flexible, as long as the ecosystem functions in a similar way.  The issue with this then becomes how to measure ecosystem function, or rather, against what do we compare it?  Do we set an arbitrary time in history that we would like to restore it to, or do we attempt to maintain its function while integrated with a unique environment managed by humans?  Some proponents of the latter strategy see historical comparisons as unrealistic and uninformative, especially given our changing climate.  Regardless, restoring the functionality of ecosystems is a key predictor of the future success of not only animal and plant populations, but the human population as well.

One of the strongest arguments this issue makes derives from its use of specific economic values of animals and ecosystems.  According to the article Wildlife decline and social conflict, the harvest of land and sea animals accounts for $400 billion annually around the world.  Defaunation in the Anthropocene claims that pest control by native U.S. predators is worth approximately $4.5 billion annually, and that the decline in North American bat populations (a specific type of pest controller) has cost the agriculture industry $22 billion in lost productivity.  Insect pollinators are required for about 75% of the world’s food crops, and are therefore responsible for approximately 10% of the economic value of the entire world’s food supply.  According to the World Bank, food and agriculture represents about 10% of global GDP, which in 2012 was estimated at $72 trillion.  If we take total food supply to be approximately $7.2 trillion (again, estimating), then insect pollinators are worth around $72 billion dollars.  These estimates apply tangible figures to a broad and occasionally overwhelming issue, and may be good starting points to unite many different stakeholders under a common currency.

The article Reversing defaunation: Restoring species in a changing world details the different strategies conservationists use to preserve species abundances and their associated ecosystem functions.  These strategies can broadly be grouped into two categories, translocations and introductions.  Translocations involve moving individuals within their indigenous range to either reinforce a local population or to reintroduce them following a local extinction.  Introductions, on the other hand, move species outside of their indigenous range to prevent a global extinction of a species or to replace a lost ecosystem function.  Though planning a conservation strategy in terms of these labels can be useful for setting long-term goals, they are not mutually exclusive.  Certain strategies can incorporate aspects of both translocation and introduction, or can introduce a species both to preserve its numbers and to restore ecosystem functionality.  Therefore, it’s best to use these terms as guidelines for how to measure the success of any plan rather than as constraining requirements.

These losses in biodiversity, and their associated shifts in ecosystem functioning, are primarily driven by a combination of over-hunting, habitat destruction, impacts of invasive species, climate change, and disease.  The Defaunation articles make a point of addressing national policies aimed at preventing species extinctions, namely those regarding over-hunting and poaching.  Many of these policies simply impose penalties for illegal hunting rather than address the underlying causes of the issue, poverty and starvation.  While it’s unrealistic to expect a conservation plan to alleviate world hunger and income inequality, it may be useful to consider animal overexploitation as an unintended side-effect of the economic cycle caused by scarcity.  Supply and demand states that as a species becomes less common, its value on the market rises.  However, this scarcity also leads to a reduction in the amount caught per unit effort.  The rise in price drives a greater hunting effort by the sellers, further decreasing the population, and the cycle begins again.  Since many of these hunters are using their profits to feed themselves or their families, simply enacting penalties for poaching may not have the intended effect.  Overhunting is not a simple problem, and most likely will not have a simple solution.  However, the only way we can begin to address it is by determining its causes.

September 30, 2014

World Bank ‘failing to protect Kenya forest dwellers’





A leaked copy of a World Bank investigation seen by The Guardian has accused the bank of failing to protect the rights of one of Kenya’s last groups of forest people, who are being evicted from their ancestral lands in the name of climate change and conservation.

Thousands of homes belonging to hunter-gatherer Sengwer people living in the Embobut forest in the Cherangani hills were burned down earlier this year by Kenya forest service guards who had been ordered to clear the forest as part of a carbon offset project that aimed to reduce emissions from deforestation.

The result has been that more than 1,000 people living near the town of Eldoret have been classed as squatters and forced to flee what they say has been government harassment, intimidation and arrest.

UN condemnation – but no change in policy

The evictions were condemned in February by the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the UN committee on the elimination of racial discrimination.

They also drew in the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, who expressed alarm at what was described by 360 national and international civil society organisations and individuals as “cultural genocide”.

An Avaaz petition collected 950,000 names calling for the bank to urgently halt the “illegal” evictions.

Following a request by the Sengwer to assess the impact of the bank’s funding of the project, the bank’s inspection panel decided in May that it had violated safeguards in several areas. At the same time, the bank’s management decided to ignore most of the independent panel’s recommendations.

“Unfortunately, the World Bank’s own leaked management response to the report denies many of the findings, evidently sees little importance in the fact that violation of safeguard policies has occurred, and presents an inadequate action plan to be considered by the bank’s board. It simply proposes more training for forest service staff, and a meeting to examine what can be learnt”, said a spokesman for the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme.

“President Kim said the bank would not be bystanders, but only by taking seriously the many breaches of its own safeguards and approving the action plan requested by the Sengwer people themselves to overcome the human rights violations that these breaches have contributed to will the bank be able to demonstrate that the president has been true to his word”, said Peter Kitelo, a representative of Kenya’s Forest Indigenous Peoples Network.

World Bank directors to decide the Sengwer’s fate today

A final decision on the project is due today when the World Bank board meets in Washington under the chairmanship of Kim to decide on the bank’s response to the inspection panel report.

If the board decides to endorse the action plan, the evictions are certain to be completed. More than half the people evicted are thought to have returned to their lands.

“The eviction of such ancestral communities leaves the indigenous forests open to exploitation and destruction; whereas securing such communities rights to their lands and responsibility to continue traditional conservation practices, protects their forests”, said the Forest Peoples Programme.

 


 

John Vidal is Environment Editor for The Guardian.

This article was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced with thanks via The Guardian Environment Network.

 

 






What causes dialects in bat?

Bat acoustic signals might seem rather simple. yet, there are individual differences. The background to these variations are studied in the Early View paper “Geographical variation in echolocation vocalizations of the Himalayan leaf-nosed bat: contribution of morphological variation and cultural drift” by Aiquing Lin and co-workers. below is their summary of the study:

Animals’ acoustic signals often vary geographically—but how and why? We studied the geographical variation in echolocation vocalizations of a widespread bat species Hipposideros armiger sampled from 17 localities in South China. We asked whether there was detectable population divergence in the vocalizations and whether the acoustic divergence was related to the variation in morphological (forearm length), climatic (mean annual temperature, mean annual relative humidity, and mean annual precipitable water), geographical (latitude, longitude, elevation, and geographical distance), or genetic (genetic distance and population genetic structure) factors. We found remarkable geographical variation in the peak frequency of echolocation pulses of H. armiger, which clustered into three groups: Eastern and Western China, Hainan, and Southern Yunnan. The acoustic divergence was significantly related to morphological differences and geographical distance, but not significantly related to climatic (after controlling for morphological distance) or genetic variation. We also found a correlation between population differences in morphology and climatic variation (mean annual temperature). Our results suggest the action of both indirect ecological selection and cultural drift promote divergence in echolocation vocalizations of individuals within geographically distributed populations.

Bat1

Figure 1 Himalayan leaf-nosed bat (Hipposideros armiger)

 

 

Figure 2 Oscillogram (above) and Spectrogram (below) of an echolocation pulse of Hipposideros armiger. fpeak = peak frequency.

Figure 2 Oscillogram (above) and Spectrogram (below) of an echolocation pulse of Hipposideros armiger. fpeak = peak frequency.

Corporate-smart greenwash: the Global Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture





We, the undersigned civil society organisations, hereby manifest our rejection of the proposed Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture launched at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Change Leaders’ Summit.

This proposed alliance is a deceptive and deeply contradictory initiative.

Food producers and providers – farmers, fisherfolk, and pastoralists – together with our food systems, are on the front lines of climate change.

We know that urgent action must be taken to cool the planet, to help farming systems – and particularly small-scale farmers – adapt to a changing climate, and to revive and reclaim the agroecological systems on which future sustainable food production depends.

The Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, however, will not deliver the solutions that we so urgently need. Instead, ‘climate-smart’ agriculture provides a dangerous platform for corporations to implement the very activities we oppose.

Our concerns have been ignored

By endorsing the activities of the planet’s worst climate offenders in agribusiness and industrial agriculture, the Alliance will undermine the very objectives that it claims to aim for.

Some organizations have constructively engaged in good faith for several months with the Alliance to express serious concerns through a number of different routes – including a sign-on letter signed by over 80 organisations, participation in the Friends of the Alliance conference calls, and attending a meeting of the Alliance in the Hague in July 2014.

But the concerns have been ignored. Instead, the Alliance is clearly being structured to serve big business interests, not to address the climate crisis.

We reject ‘climate-smart’ agriculture and the Global Alliance for a number of reasons already articulated in previous efforts to interface with the promoters, including:

1. No environmental or social criteria

The final framework of the Alliance does not contain any criteria or definitions for what can – or cannot – be considered ‘climate-smart agriculture’.

Industrial approaches that increase greenhouse gas emissions and farmers’ vulnerability by driving deforestation, using genetically modified (GM) seeds, increasing synthetic fertiliser use or intensifying industrial livestock production, are all apparently welcome to use the ‘climate-smart’ label to promote their practices as solutions to climate change.

2. Carbon trading

The originators of ‘climate-smart’ agriculture – the FAO and the World Bank – have a vision that ‘climate-smart’ projects will be funded in part by carbon offset schemes.

Many of our groups question the environmental and social integrity of carbon offsetting. Carbon sequestration in soils is not permanent and is easily reversible, and should be especially excluded from schemes to offset emissions.

Carbon offset schemes in agriculture will create one more driver of land dispossession of smallholder farmers, particularly in the Global South, and unfairly place the burden of mitigation on those who are most vulnerable to, but have least contributed to, the climate crisis.

3. A new space for promoting agribusiness and industrial agriculture

Companies with activities resulting in dire social impacts on farmers and communities, such as those driving land grabbing or promoting GM seeds, already claim that they are ‘climate-smart’.

Yara (the world’s largest fertilizer manufacturer), Syngenta (GM seeds), McDonald’s and Walmart are all at the ‘climate-smart’ table. Climate-smart agriculture will serve as a new promotional space for the planet’s worst social and environmental offenders in agriculture.

The proposed Global Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture seems to be yet another strategy by powerful players to prop up industrial agriculture, which undermines the basic human right to food. It is nothing new, nothing innovative, and not what we need.

A covert promotion of industrial agriculture

We do urgently need climate action! Unfortunately, the Alliance seriously misses the mark. Real climate solutions are already out there in farmers’ fields – based on agroecological practices and the relocalisation of food systems to effectively fight hunger.

Instead of creating one more body for business-as-usual, governments, funding agencies, and international organizations should be taking bold action: committing to shift resources away from climate-damaging practices of chemical-intensive industrial agriculture and meat production and towards investment in and commitment to agroecology, food sovereignty, and support to small-scale food producers.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development concluded in 2008 that business-as-usual in agriculture is not an option. Instead, a thorough and radical overhaul of present international and agricultural policies is essential to meet the challenges of the future.

We reject the Global Alliance as one more step by a small percentage of the UN’s total membership to promote industrial agriculture against all the evidence of its destructive impacts on people, biodiversity, seed, water, soils, and climate.

It is merely one more attempt to block the real change needed to fix our broken food systems and our broken climate – change which instead must be based on food sovereignty and agroecological approaches for agriculture and food production and the effective reduction of greenhouse gases.

 


 

Source: Climate Smart Ag Concerns. This article is a minimally edited version of the original letter. Signatories are listed below:

International Organisations & Farmers’ Movements

ActionAid International
Centro de Estudios Internacionales y de Agricultura Internacional (CERAI)
CIDSE
Coalition pour la Protection du Patrimoine Genetique African (COPAGEN)
Corporate Europe Observatory
Earth in Brackets
Foro Rural Mundial (FRM)
Friends of the Earth International
IBON International
Inades-Formation
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)
International-Lawyers.Org (INTLawyers)
GRET
LDC Watch
Mesa de Coordinación Latinoamericana de Comercio Justo
Send a Cow
South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)
South Asia Peasants Coalition
Third World Network

National Organisations & Farmers’ Movements

Abalimi Bezekhaya (Farmers of Hope), South Africa
ACRA-CCS Foundation, Italy
Action Contre la Faim, France
Africa Europe Faith & Justice Network (AEFJN), Brussels
Agrosolidaria Federacion el Tambo Cauca, Colombia
Alliance International sur les OMD (AIOMD), Niger
All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPFa), Nepal
Antenne Nationale du Niger (AAIOMD-Niger)
Asemblea Nacional Ambiental (ANA), República Dominicana
Asociacion de Prosumidores Agroecologicos “Agrosolidaria Seccional Viani” Colombia
Asociacion Nacional de Produtores Ecologistas del Peru (ANPE)
Asociacion Viva Amazonica de San Martin, Peru
Association Malienne pour la Sécurité et la Souverainté Alimentaires (AMASSA)
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
Beyond Copenhagen, India
Biofuelwatch, UK
Biowatch South Africa
Bolivian Platform on Climate Change, Bolivia
Campaign for Climate Justice Nepal (CCJN)
Carbon Market Watch, Belgium
CCFD-Terre Solidaire, France
Centre for community economics and development consultants society (CECOEDECON), India
Cecosesola, Barquisimeto, Venezuela
Centre d’Actions et de Réalisations Internationales (CARI), France
Centre for Learning on Sustainable Agriculture (ILEIA), the Netherlands
Community Development Association (CDA), Bangladesh
Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), South Sudan
CONCEPT ONG, Sénégal
EcoFrut, Colombia
EcoNexus, UK
Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh (EquityBD).
Family Farmers’ Association, UK
Farm & Garden Trust, South Africa
Farms Not Factories, UK
Féderation des Eglises Evangéliques des Frères (FEEF), the Central African Republic
Federacion Nacional de Cooperativas Agropecuarias y Agroindustriales de Nicaragua (FENACOOP)
Find Your Feet, UK
Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN) Nepal
Forum des Femmes Africaines pour l’Education (FAWECOM), Comoros
Friends of Siberian Forests, Russia
Friends of the Earth – England, Wales & Northern Ireland
Friends of the Earth – Latvia
Fundación Caminos de Indentidad (FUCAI) Colombia
Fundación Lonxanet para la Pesca Sostenible, Spain
Fundación Solidaridad, Bolivia
Harvest of Hope, South Africa
Gramya Resource Centre for Women, India
Groupe d’Action de Paix et de Formation pour la Transformation (GAPAFOT), Central African Republic
Human Rights (HR) Alliance, Nepal
Human Rights Organisation of Bhutan (HUROB)
INHURED International, Nepal
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), USA
Instituto de Cultura Popular, Argentina
Jagaran Nepal
Jubilee South Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD), Philippines
Karnataka State Red Gram Growers Association, India
Labour, Health and Human Rights Development Centre, Nigeria
L’Association des Jeunes Filles Pour la Promotion de l’Espace Francophone (Membre du CNOSCG), Republic of Guinea
MADGE Australia
MASIPAG, Philippines
National Civic Forum, Sudan
National Federation of Youth Organisations in Bangladesh
National Network on Right to Food, Nepal (RtFN)
Organización Casa de Semillas Criollas Atenas, Costa Rica
Pakistan Fisher Folk Forum (PFF), Pakistan
Partners for the Land & Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples (PLANT), USA
People’s Alliance of Central-East India (PACE-India)
PHE Ethiopia Consortium
Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (PAPDA), Haïti
Plateforme pour le Commerce Equitable, France
Public Advocacy Initiatives for Rights and Values in India (PAIRVI)
Red Ecologista Autónoma de la Cuenca de México
Red Nicaraguense de Comercio Comunitario (RENICC)
Red Peruana de Comercio Justo y Consumo Ético, Perú
Rural Reconstruction Nepal (RRN)
SADF ONG, Democratic Republic of Congo
Sanayee Development Organisation, Afghanistan
Secours Catholique (Caritas), France
SOCDA (Somali Organization for Community Development Activities)
Sudan Peace and Education Development Program (SPEDP), South Sudan
Texas Drought Project, USA
Unión Nacional de Agricultores y Ganaderos de Nicaragua (UNAG)
Unión LatinoAmerica de Technicos Rurales y Agrarios, Argentina
UK Food Group, UK
Vicaria del Sur, Diócesis de Florencia, Colombia
Voluntary Action for the fight against climate change and the adverse effects of Sulfur Diesel, (AVOCHACLISD), Burundi
World Development Movement, UK
Youth Network for MDGs, Madagascar

 

 






Wyoming’s Gray Wolves win back federal protection – for now





Federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming have been reinstated after a judge invalidated the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2012 statewide Endangered Species Act delisting of the species.

The ruling from the US District Court halts the management of wolves by Wyoming, a state with a long history of extreme anti-wolf policies.

In an unusual ‘summary judgment’ the Court concluded that it was “arbitrary and capricious for the Service to rely on the state’s nonbinding promises to maintain a particular number of wolves when the availability of that specific numerical buffer was such a critical aspect of the delisting decision.”

The September 2012 federal delisting of wolves in Wyoming turned wolf management over to the state – which opened up over 80% of its land to unlimited wolf killing and provided weak protections for wolves in the remainder. Since the delisting, 219 wolves have been killed under Wyoming’s management.

Prior to the 2012 reversal of its position, the Fish and Wildlife Service denied Wyoming the authority to manage wolves in the state due to its anti-wolf laws and policies.

A victory for the wolves, at last!

“The court has ruled and Wyoming’s kill-on-sight approach to wolf management throughout much of the state must stop”, said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso, who represented Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The ruling, he added “restores much-needed federal protection to wolves throughout Wyoming, which allowed killing along the borders of Yellowstone National Park and throughout national forest lands south of Jackson Hole where wolves were treated as vermin under state management.

“If Wyoming wants to resume management of wolves, it must develop a legitimate conservation plan that ensures a vibrant wolf population in the Northern Rockies.”

The conservation groups joined to challenge the 2012 decision on grounds that Wyoming law authorized unlimited wolf killing in a ‘predator zone’ that extended throughout most of the state, and provided inadequate protection for wolves even where killing was regulated.

Now, an even bigger battle ahead

An even bigger battle is now looming, as the Fish and Wildlife Service is currently proposing to remove Endangered Species Act protection for most gray wolves across the United States. A final decision could be made later this year.

However the judgement on Wyoming’s wolves may force the Fish and Wildlife Service into a rethink as it ponders its implications. In particular, any reliance on non-binding assurances by states on matters of importance in wolf management would likely be subject to sucessful challenge.

“Delisting gray wolves in Wyoming by the Obama administration was premature and a violation of federal law”, observed Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark.

Bonnie Rice of the Sierra Club’s Greater Yellowstone Our Wild America Campaign commented: “The court has rightly recognized the deep flaws in Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Wolves in Wyoming must have federal protection until the state gets it right.

“That means developing a science-based management plan that recognizes the many benefits wolves bring to the region instead of vermin that can be shot on sight in the majority of the state.”

The Court did not support other elements of the plaintiff’s case in its summary judgment. For example, it did “not find the Service’s conclusion that the predator zone is not a significant portion of the wolves’ range to be arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with the law.”

However it is highly probable that this and other questions will be subject to future legal challenge if Fish & Wildlife persists with its devolution policy.

From 2 million gray wolves, to 5,500

There were once up to 2 million gray wolves living in North America, but the animals were driven to near-extinction in the lower 48 states by the early 1900s.

After passage of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973 and protection of the wolf as endangered, federal recovery programs resulted in the rebound of wolf populations in limited parts of the country.

Roughly 5,500 wolves currently live in the continental United States – a fraction of the species’ historic numbers.

 

 






EU Parliament must reject Juncker’s anti-environment Commission





The Green10 are concerned that the structure of the new European Commission, the mission letters, and the choice of Commissioners, as presented, reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of existing EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action.

This would represent a betrayal of the interests of EU citizens, a vast majority of whom feel strongly about the environment.

The special Eurobarometer 416 from 8 September 2014 shows that despite the economic crisis, 95% of the 28,000 interviewed citizens said that protecting the environment is important to them personally and that more should be done. It shows a solid majority of citizens support EU environmental legislation and asks for more forceful implementation.

It shows no public demand for environmental deregulation. This would also represent an unacceptable de facto scrapping of the 7th Environmental Action Programme (7EAP), a legally binding commitment that was negotiated and agreed by Commission, Member States and European Parliament little over a year ago.

In practice, President-elect Juncker appears to ignore these legally binding priorities.

What can the European Parliament do? The European Parliament must react forcefully to prevent an agenda which seems to erase 30 years of EU environment policy without democratic debate. As a minimum the Parliament must demand to:

1. Establish a Vice-President for Sustainability coordinating the environment, fisheries, agriculture and regional policy portfolios. This would allow a proper space for environmental and resource efficiency policies.

In addition to that the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness needs to mainstream environment in his agenda explicitly.

2. Upgrade the Vice-President for Energy Union to a Vice-President for ‘Climate Action and Energy Union’ and have this reflected in her mandate. This would mean that the Commission representative within the international climate negotiations would have a clear mandate to address the climate crisis.

Furthermore climate action should become a cornerstone for the work of all eight members of the Project Team for a Resilient Energy Union and a Forward- Looking Climate Change Policy.

3. Ensure the Environment portfolio is reinstated, restoring its competences and providing the Commissioner with a new mandate to respect the European 2 Parliament’s work and implement the 7th EAP.

The Parliament must furthermore demand that the mandate to the environment commissioner to weaken the Nature Directives is replaced with an instruction to strongly implement nature conservation legislation and to work to achieve the EU 2020 biodiversity target.

He should also continue to give priority to protecting people’s health by strengthening, not weakening key legislation on air quality and chemicals, and move the responsibility for biocides and pesticides back to DG ENV.

4. Resolve potential conflicts of interest for the nominees, and notably for the Climate and Energy portfolio.

A number of key concerns also arose from the new Commission set-up, as presented on 10 September:

For the first time in 25 years there will be no fully empowered Commissioner for the Environment

The move from a Commissioner with dedicated responsibilities for environment to having this policy area shared with other demanding dossiers represents a clear relegation of environmental issues in the order of political priorities.

The downgrading of the environment portfolio is hugely reinforced by the virtual lack of any reference to environment in the responsibilities of the Vice-Presidents. Environment will now fall under the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness who does not have the environment mentioned in his mandate.

Furthermore, the shift of the responsibility for relations with the European Chemicals Agency, whose job is to protect European citizens from harmful chemicals, from DG Environment to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment and flies in the face of the objectives of the REACH Regulation.

Sustainability has disappeared from EU priorities

Environmental sustainability, resource efficiency and the green economy are not covered at all at Vice-President level, except for a meager reference to ‘green growth’ in the mandate of the Energy Union Commissioner.

This implies a Commission that will be operating on the basis of an outdated paradigm of economic growth, one that benefits the industries and jobs of the past over those of the future, and detached from real world constraints and limits and in many cases with huge external environmental and healthcare costs.

But the implications are much more far reaching. President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker made it clear that only Vice-Presidents will be able to bring forward legislation and only legislation in line with his priorities will be accepted. In his mandate to his Commissioners, Junckers stated:

“As a general rule, I will not include a new initiative in the Commission Work Programme or place it on the agenda of the College unless this is recommended to me by one of the Vice-Presidents on the basis of sound arguments and a clear narrative that is coherent with the priority projects of the Political Guidelines.”

As the environment is completely absent from the priority list, and no Vice-President is charged with promoting it, this means a de-facto shut down of EU environmental policy making.

The mandate to the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner is entirely centered on deregulation

Commissioner Vella is asked to overhaul and consider merging and “modernizing” the Birds and Habitats Directives. These are well known code-words used by those seeking to lower the level of nature protection in the EU.

This is outrageous as the EU is still failing to achieve its biodiversity target and to live up to its international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

On a formal level, this pre-empts the ongoing fitness check process as the Commission is currently conducting an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of the Birds and Habitats Directives.

This is even more troubling as the Environment portfolio is given to a Commissioner whose government is under intense international criticism for failing to implement EU bird conservation legislation.

MEPs have repeatedly criticized Malta for the large scale killing of migratory birds in contradiction to EU law. Now a member of the Maltese government condemned for breaking this law is charged with amending it.

The mandates furthermore explicitly orders Commissioner Vella to stop and assess the two most relevant policy packages inherited from the current Commission: the air quality package and the Circular Economy package.

While we appreciate that the written mandate to Commissioner Vella refers to implementing the Common Fisheries Policy in a sustainable manner, we are shocked that it omits to mention any of the EU’s environmental objectives that are laid out in the 7EAP including the EU 2020 biodiversity target, and instead focuses on simplification and burden reduction for business.

It does not mention the need to actually achieve any already agreed EU objectives, let alone take new initiatives. This reads as a mandate for inaction and erosion of current levels of environmental protection.

Putting people’s health at risk

Threats to health from environmental pollution and degradation are a key concern for Europeans. Environment & health is one of the three priorities of the 7th EAP.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s priorities and structural re-shifting would put citizens health at risk: the shift of several responsibilities on regulation of harmful chemicals from DG Environment and DG SANCO to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment.

The announcement to review the air quality package suggests that Jean-Claude Juncker is willing to continue to let European citizens pay the staggering bill of up to €900 bn annually in health costs due to air pollution.

The merging of the climate and energy portfolios and putting this Commissioner under a Vice-President for Energy Union implies that climate action is considered subordinate to energy market considerations.

Relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy

Bringing climate action and energy policy under one Commissioner and the absence of climate from the mandate of the Vice-President for Energy Union (and the title given to that VP) suggests the relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy.

This is unacceptable at time when scientific consensus is that climate change is one of the greatest threats to mankind and has far reaching implications for the economy, security, immigration etc.

A conflicted choice of Climate and Energy Commissioner

The choice of a Climate and Energy Commissioner with well-known links to the fossil fuel industry raises issues of conflict of interest.

According to his declaration in the context of the 2014 European Parliament election, Commissioner Cañete owns shares in oil business making it a clear conflict of interest.

The role he has personally played on Spain’s environment, agriculture, fisheries and climate policies over the last years has been consistently criticized as regressive by civil society.

 


 

Action: Write to your MEPs asking them to vote against approving the European Commision. Feel free to copy and paste from this article or refer to them to it in its entirely.

Green10 includes: Birdlife, CEE Bankwatch Network, CAN-Europe, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), HEAL, Friends of the Earth Europe, Transport & Environment, Naturfreunde, Greenpeace and WWF.

 

 






Wyoming’s Gray Wolves win back federal protection – for now





Federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming have been reinstated after a judge invalidated the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2012 statewide Endangered Species Act delisting of the species.

The ruling from the US District Court halts the management of wolves by Wyoming, a state with a long history of extreme anti-wolf policies.

In an unusual ‘summary judgment’ the Court concluded that it was “arbitrary and capricious for the Service to rely on the state’s nonbinding promises to maintain a particular number of wolves when the availability of that specific numerical buffer was such a critical aspect of the delisting decision.”

The September 2012 federal delisting of wolves in Wyoming turned wolf management over to the state – which opened up over 80% of its land to unlimited wolf killing and provided weak protections for wolves in the remainder. Since the delisting, 219 wolves have been killed under Wyoming’s management.

Prior to the 2012 reversal of its position, the Fish and Wildlife Service denied Wyoming the authority to manage wolves in the state due to its anti-wolf laws and policies.

A victory for the wolves, at last!

“The court has ruled and Wyoming’s kill-on-sight approach to wolf management throughout much of the state must stop”, said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso, who represented Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The ruling, he added “restores much-needed federal protection to wolves throughout Wyoming, which allowed killing along the borders of Yellowstone National Park and throughout national forest lands south of Jackson Hole where wolves were treated as vermin under state management.

“If Wyoming wants to resume management of wolves, it must develop a legitimate conservation plan that ensures a vibrant wolf population in the Northern Rockies.”

The conservation groups joined to challenge the 2012 decision on grounds that Wyoming law authorized unlimited wolf killing in a ‘predator zone’ that extended throughout most of the state, and provided inadequate protection for wolves even where killing was regulated.

Now, an even bigger battle ahead

An even bigger battle is now looming, as the Fish and Wildlife Service is currently proposing to remove Endangered Species Act protection for most gray wolves across the United States. A final decision could be made later this year.

However the judgement on Wyoming’s wolves may force the Fish and Wildlife Service into a rethink as it ponders its implications. In particular, any reliance on non-binding assurances by states on matters of importance in wolf management would likely be subject to sucessful challenge.

“Delisting gray wolves in Wyoming by the Obama administration was premature and a violation of federal law”, observed Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark.

Bonnie Rice of the Sierra Club’s Greater Yellowstone Our Wild America Campaign commented: “The court has rightly recognized the deep flaws in Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Wolves in Wyoming must have federal protection until the state gets it right.

“That means developing a science-based management plan that recognizes the many benefits wolves bring to the region instead of vermin that can be shot on sight in the majority of the state.”

The Court did not support other elements of the plaintiff’s case in its summary judgment. For example, it did “not find the Service’s conclusion that the predator zone is not a significant portion of the wolves’ range to be arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with the law.”

However it is highly probable that this and other questions will be subject to future legal challenge if Fish & Wildlife persists with its devolution policy.

From 2 million gray wolves, to 5,500

There were once up to 2 million gray wolves living in North America, but the animals were driven to near-extinction in the lower 48 states by the early 1900s.

After passage of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973 and protection of the wolf as endangered, federal recovery programs resulted in the rebound of wolf populations in limited parts of the country.

Roughly 5,500 wolves currently live in the continental United States – a fraction of the species’ historic numbers.

 

 






EU Parliament must reject Juncker’s anti-environment Commission





The Green10 are concerned that the structure of the new European Commission, the mission letters, and the choice of Commissioners, as presented, reveal a serious downgrading of environment and a roll back of existing EU commitments to sustainable development, resource efficiency, air quality, biodiversity protection and climate action.

This would represent a betrayal of the interests of EU citizens, a vast majority of whom feel strongly about the environment.

The special Eurobarometer 416 from 8 September 2014 shows that despite the economic crisis, 95% of the 28,000 interviewed citizens said that protecting the environment is important to them personally and that more should be done. It shows a solid majority of citizens support EU environmental legislation and asks for more forceful implementation.

It shows no public demand for environmental deregulation. This would also represent an unacceptable de facto scrapping of the 7th Environmental Action Programme (7EAP), a legally binding commitment that was negotiated and agreed by Commission, Member States and European Parliament little over a year ago.

In practice, President-elect Juncker appears to ignore these legally binding priorities.

What can the European Parliament do? The European Parliament must react forcefully to prevent an agenda which seems to erase 30 years of EU environment policy without democratic debate. As a minimum the Parliament must demand to:

1. Establish a Vice-President for Sustainability coordinating the environment, fisheries, agriculture and regional policy portfolios. This would allow a proper space for environmental and resource efficiency policies.

In addition to that the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness needs to mainstream environment in his agenda explicitly.

2. Upgrade the Vice-President for Energy Union to a Vice-President for ‘Climate Action and Energy Union’ and have this reflected in her mandate. This would mean that the Commission representative within the international climate negotiations would have a clear mandate to address the climate crisis.

Furthermore climate action should become a cornerstone for the work of all eight members of the Project Team for a Resilient Energy Union and a Forward- Looking Climate Change Policy.

3. Ensure the Environment portfolio is reinstated, restoring its competences and providing the Commissioner with a new mandate to respect the European 2 Parliament’s work and implement the 7th EAP.

The Parliament must furthermore demand that the mandate to the environment commissioner to weaken the Nature Directives is replaced with an instruction to strongly implement nature conservation legislation and to work to achieve the EU 2020 biodiversity target.

He should also continue to give priority to protecting people’s health by strengthening, not weakening key legislation on air quality and chemicals, and move the responsibility for biocides and pesticides back to DG ENV.

4. Resolve potential conflicts of interest for the nominees, and notably for the Climate and Energy portfolio.

A number of key concerns also arose from the new Commission set-up, as presented on 10 September:

For the first time in 25 years there will be no fully empowered Commissioner for the Environment

The move from a Commissioner with dedicated responsibilities for environment to having this policy area shared with other demanding dossiers represents a clear relegation of environmental issues in the order of political priorities.

The downgrading of the environment portfolio is hugely reinforced by the virtual lack of any reference to environment in the responsibilities of the Vice-Presidents. Environment will now fall under the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness who does not have the environment mentioned in his mandate.

Furthermore, the shift of the responsibility for relations with the European Chemicals Agency, whose job is to protect European citizens from harmful chemicals, from DG Environment to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment and flies in the face of the objectives of the REACH Regulation.

Sustainability has disappeared from EU priorities

Environmental sustainability, resource efficiency and the green economy are not covered at all at Vice-President level, except for a meager reference to ‘green growth’ in the mandate of the Energy Union Commissioner.

This implies a Commission that will be operating on the basis of an outdated paradigm of economic growth, one that benefits the industries and jobs of the past over those of the future, and detached from real world constraints and limits and in many cases with huge external environmental and healthcare costs.

But the implications are much more far reaching. President-elect Jean-Claude Juncker made it clear that only Vice-Presidents will be able to bring forward legislation and only legislation in line with his priorities will be accepted. In his mandate to his Commissioners, Junckers stated:

“As a general rule, I will not include a new initiative in the Commission Work Programme or place it on the agenda of the College unless this is recommended to me by one of the Vice-Presidents on the basis of sound arguments and a clear narrative that is coherent with the priority projects of the Political Guidelines.”

As the environment is completely absent from the priority list, and no Vice-President is charged with promoting it, this means a de-facto shut down of EU environmental policy making.

The mandate to the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner is entirely centered on deregulation

Commissioner Vella is asked to overhaul and consider merging and “modernizing” the Birds and Habitats Directives. These are well known code-words used by those seeking to lower the level of nature protection in the EU.

This is outrageous as the EU is still failing to achieve its biodiversity target and to live up to its international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

On a formal level, this pre-empts the ongoing fitness check process as the Commission is currently conducting an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of the Birds and Habitats Directives.

This is even more troubling as the Environment portfolio is given to a Commissioner whose government is under intense international criticism for failing to implement EU bird conservation legislation.

MEPs have repeatedly criticized Malta for the large scale killing of migratory birds in contradiction to EU law. Now a member of the Maltese government condemned for breaking this law is charged with amending it.

The mandates furthermore explicitly orders Commissioner Vella to stop and assess the two most relevant policy packages inherited from the current Commission: the air quality package and the Circular Economy package.

While we appreciate that the written mandate to Commissioner Vella refers to implementing the Common Fisheries Policy in a sustainable manner, we are shocked that it omits to mention any of the EU’s environmental objectives that are laid out in the 7EAP including the EU 2020 biodiversity target, and instead focuses on simplification and burden reduction for business.

It does not mention the need to actually achieve any already agreed EU objectives, let alone take new initiatives. This reads as a mandate for inaction and erosion of current levels of environmental protection.

Putting people’s health at risk

Threats to health from environmental pollution and degradation are a key concern for Europeans. Environment & health is one of the three priorities of the 7th EAP.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s priorities and structural re-shifting would put citizens health at risk: the shift of several responsibilities on regulation of harmful chemicals from DG Environment and DG SANCO to DG Enterprise shows a clear bias towards prioritizing business interests over protection of human health and the environment.

The announcement to review the air quality package suggests that Jean-Claude Juncker is willing to continue to let European citizens pay the staggering bill of up to €900 bn annually in health costs due to air pollution.

The merging of the climate and energy portfolios and putting this Commissioner under a Vice-President for Energy Union implies that climate action is considered subordinate to energy market considerations.

Relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy

Bringing climate action and energy policy under one Commissioner and the absence of climate from the mandate of the Vice-President for Energy Union (and the title given to that VP) suggests the relegation of climate action to a marginal element within a yet to be defined energy policy.

This is unacceptable at time when scientific consensus is that climate change is one of the greatest threats to mankind and has far reaching implications for the economy, security, immigration etc.

A conflicted choice of Climate and Energy Commissioner

The choice of a Climate and Energy Commissioner with well-known links to the fossil fuel industry raises issues of conflict of interest.

According to his declaration in the context of the 2014 European Parliament election, Commissioner Cañete owns shares in oil business making it a clear conflict of interest.

The role he has personally played on Spain’s environment, agriculture, fisheries and climate policies over the last years has been consistently criticized as regressive by civil society.

 


 

Action: Write to your MEPs asking them to vote against approving the European Commision. Feel free to copy and paste from this article or refer to them to it in its entirely.

Green10 includes: Birdlife, CEE Bankwatch Network, CAN-Europe, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), HEAL, Friends of the Earth Europe, Transport & Environment, Naturfreunde, Greenpeace and WWF.

 

 






Wyoming’s Gray Wolves win back federal protection – for now





Federal protections for gray wolves in Wyoming have been reinstated after a judge invalidated the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2012 statewide Endangered Species Act delisting of the species.

The ruling from the US District Court halts the management of wolves by Wyoming, a state with a long history of extreme anti-wolf policies.

In an unusual ‘summary judgment’ the Court concluded that it was “arbitrary and capricious for the Service to rely on the state’s nonbinding promises to maintain a particular number of wolves when the availability of that specific numerical buffer was such a critical aspect of the delisting decision.”

The September 2012 federal delisting of wolves in Wyoming turned wolf management over to the state – which opened up over 80% of its land to unlimited wolf killing and provided weak protections for wolves in the remainder. Since the delisting, 219 wolves have been killed under Wyoming’s management.

Prior to the 2012 reversal of its position, the Fish and Wildlife Service denied Wyoming the authority to manage wolves in the state due to its anti-wolf laws and policies.

A victory for the wolves, at last!

“The court has ruled and Wyoming’s kill-on-sight approach to wolf management throughout much of the state must stop”, said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso, who represented Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The ruling, he added “restores much-needed federal protection to wolves throughout Wyoming, which allowed killing along the borders of Yellowstone National Park and throughout national forest lands south of Jackson Hole where wolves were treated as vermin under state management.

“If Wyoming wants to resume management of wolves, it must develop a legitimate conservation plan that ensures a vibrant wolf population in the Northern Rockies.”

The conservation groups joined to challenge the 2012 decision on grounds that Wyoming law authorized unlimited wolf killing in a ‘predator zone’ that extended throughout most of the state, and provided inadequate protection for wolves even where killing was regulated.

Now, an even bigger battle ahead

An even bigger battle is now looming, as the Fish and Wildlife Service is currently proposing to remove Endangered Species Act protection for most gray wolves across the United States. A final decision could be made later this year.

However the judgement on Wyoming’s wolves may force the Fish and Wildlife Service into a rethink as it ponders its implications. In particular, any reliance on non-binding assurances by states on matters of importance in wolf management would likely be subject to sucessful challenge.

“Delisting gray wolves in Wyoming by the Obama administration was premature and a violation of federal law”, observed Defenders of Wildlife President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark.

Bonnie Rice of the Sierra Club’s Greater Yellowstone Our Wild America Campaign commented: “The court has rightly recognized the deep flaws in Wyoming’s wolf management plan. Wolves in Wyoming must have federal protection until the state gets it right.

“That means developing a science-based management plan that recognizes the many benefits wolves bring to the region instead of vermin that can be shot on sight in the majority of the state.”

The Court did not support other elements of the plaintiff’s case in its summary judgment. For example, it did “not find the Service’s conclusion that the predator zone is not a significant portion of the wolves’ range to be arbitrary, capricious, or not in accordance with the law.”

However it is highly probable that this and other questions will be subject to future legal challenge if Fish & Wildlife persists with its devolution policy.

From 2 million gray wolves, to 5,500

There were once up to 2 million gray wolves living in North America, but the animals were driven to near-extinction in the lower 48 states by the early 1900s.

After passage of the federal Endangered Species Act in 1973 and protection of the wolf as endangered, federal recovery programs resulted in the rebound of wolf populations in limited parts of the country.

Roughly 5,500 wolves currently live in the continental United States – a fraction of the species’ historic numbers.