Bees living in suburban habitats are still being exposed to significant levels of pesticides despite the EU ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops, new research from University of Sussex scientists shows.

While the introduction of new EU restrictions on the use of neonicotinoid chemicals five years ago has reduced exposure of bees living in farmland, the study found that overall more than half of all pollen and nectar samples collected from bee nests in Sussex, Hertfordshire and Scotland between 2013 and 2015 were contaminated.

The study is the first of its kind to highlight the risk to bees in urban areas posed by garden use of pesticides.

Bee-attractive

The scientists at the University of Sussex are urging gardeners to ditch their bug sprays immediately in favour of encouraging natural predators such as ladybirds or lacewings, and the use of physical methods such as hand-removal of pests, and netting or sticky traps.

Dr Beth Nicholls, postdoctoral research fellow in evolution, behaviour and environment at the University of Sussex and the study’s lead author, said: “Our findings suggest that the EU’s recent decision to extend the neonicotinoid moratorium to include all field crops is likely to have a positive effect on bees, relieving some of the stress on our already struggling pollinator populations.

“However, given that bees in suburban gardens appear to remain at risk post-moratorium, further work is needed to understand the sources of neonicotinoid exposure in these areas and to find ways to reduce it.

“Our study indicates that limiting the public sale and use of neonicotinoid-based bug sprays, which are currently unaffected by the moratorium, is needed if we are to protect bee populations living in and around our towns and cities.”

In 2013 the European Commission instated a EU-wide moratorium on the use of three types of neonicotinoid (thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid) on bee-attractive flowering crops such as oilseed rape. The ban will be expanded to include all field crops from 2019.

Continued contamination

The study, with colleagues at Stirling University and Rothamsted Research, found that neonicotinoid exposure for rural bumblebees declined after the ban’s implementation in 2015 but the risk to bumblebees in suburban gardens remained largely the same.

As well as bug sprays, contaminated ornamental plants sold in garden centres play a key role in spreading neonicotinoids through suburban areas. A previous study by the University of Sussex revealed that 70 percent of bee-friendly plants sold at a range of garden centres had traces of neonicotinoids.

For nectar samples collected from rural bumblebee colonies, concentrations of the pesticide thiacloprid, an active ingredient in many bug sprays sold in garden centres and not included in the EU restriction, significantly increased between 2013 and 2015, replacing the banned chemicals.

Researchers were also concerned to find bee food was often contaminated with imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid which is very rarely used against crop pests any more.

Its continued presence raises concerns about the persistence of chemicals in agro-environments even after their application has stopped. The researchers believe that the continued contamination could also be due to pet flea treatments, which still often contain this chemical.

Vegetables and flowers

The study found many bee populations are still subject to pesticide levels that previous studies have shown could lead to slower colony growth and the production of fewer new queens, as well as detrimental impacts on foraging and navigation, immunity and worker mortality.

Professor Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex, said: “Who knows what Brexit will mean for the future of this country but one thing it desperately needs to include is the continuation of the EU’s ban on neonicotinoids.

“Gardeners can do their bit; for there is no need for pesticides in gardens. I grow lots of fruits, vegetables and flowers in my garden without chemicals – there is just no need.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is the editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a press release from the University of Sussex.

We have associated them with light, summer and the promise of sweetness – honeybees, Apis mellifera. They have been mythologised perhaps more than any other creature.

Cave paintings depicting humans collecting honey from wild bees demonstrate our long association; we have sanctified them with stories as the beehive became a metaphor for the ordered and charitable life.

Now we know more about this sensitive, complex, intelligent organism, and we understand that bees are under pressure. Colonies are sickening and collapsing, and bees are threatened.

Matt Somerville is a skilled woodworker based in Hampshire who, after realising that bees were disappearing from his orchard, was prompted to take action.

Armed with his know­ledge of trees and tools, and inspired by successful bee programmes in Poland and France, he began to produce “bee-kind” hives. This form of sympathetic, natural beekeeping is designed to bene­fit the health and sustainability of bee colonies, enabling them to thrive.

‘Freedom hives’

As Winnie-the-Pooh observed, bees like to be high up in the trees – away from the cold ground, and out of reach of predators.

Matt has designed log hives to be placed in trees – these ‘freedom hives’ are chosen by bees naturally. They are better-insulated and more sparsely placed than the more intensive hives we have used in recent times, thus reducing stress and the spread of disease.

“About 150 years ago the thin-walled hive was invented,” Matt told me. “The important development was the removable frame. Up to then, bees were kept in straw skeps [baskets], and harvesting consisted of cutting the comb out and pressing it to recover the honey.

“Most villages would have a skep or two in their orchards, and swarms were captured locally every May. In some cases the colonies were killed in the process of harvesting honey.

“The new hives gave the beekeeper more access to the colony, and with the use of excluders to restrict the movement of the queen, a smaller ‘super’ box could be added.

“This method allowed for honey to be easily harvested and the comb reused after the beekeeper had spun off the honey, facilitating management of a colony.”

Because they are removing excessive amounts of honey, beekeepers feed sugar to their bees, but this has none of the natural minerals and other nutritional ingredients bees need.

Couple with this the loss of traditional wild-flower foraging, the use of systemic insecticides, and the arrival of new pests and diseases, and we can begin to see why bees might be becoming increasingly stressed.

“Bees want to choose and build their own structures more naturally, but the comb that is fixed in an artificial, thin-walled hive could present an added stress to the bee,” says Matt.

Comb sheets, known as foundation, are imprinted with hexagons determining the size of each cell. The cells are the size of worker bees – the infertile, ever-busy females.

But bees in the wild normally choose to make up to 17% percent drone comb, which has larger cells. Although drones are believed to only serve to mate with the queen, and only about 15 drones will actually mate with her, the colony has evolved to want these male bees.

Matt explained the issue of the special properties of wax in the natural comb. “Part of a natural comb’s job is to remove any toxins from the hive, and these are absorbed into the wax, but in the artificial comb is a cocktail of chem­icals that the bees don’t like. If there is no other option bees will build on it, but a swarm will never choose to go into a hive with this prospect. Another stress.”

Bee kind 

A further issue beekeepers should consider, he says, is propolis, a substance the bees make using plant saps and resins, which is the immune system for the bee.

It is antifungal and antiviral and is useful for sticking things together in the hive. Bees can use it to envelop a foreign body – even covering a whole mouse corpse in it – to stop the spread of disease. In a wild colony it is spread everywhere.

Bees particularly like rough surfaces, but a thin-walled hive is made from planed timber and they often only deposit propolis in corners and use it to stick the top board down. This is an irritation to the beekeeper, who might miss the point of why propolis is so important to the bee.

Thomas Seeley, the author of Honeybee Democracy, says we need to acknowledge that the bee is the best beekeeper. He suggests that the bee knows what it wants and that we need to listen.

He has coined the term “Darwinian beekeeping”, whereby we allow natural selection to choose the right bee instead of trying to select bees that may not be as well adapted as we think.

Matt Somerville’s bee-kind hives, designed for minimum intervention, reduce stress and disease in the bees.

Many beekeepers are well-intentioned and want to help bees; a shift towards bee-kind log and freedom hives that are insulated, placed high in trees or on strong stilts designed to avoid too many interventions, may be just what the bees need. Matt runs courses to help aspiring natural beekeepers make their own hives. 

Bees evolved over millions of years, and the threats and challenges they now face are complex; bee-kind hives may be one way of helping.

The highly evolved super-organism of the swarm is able to choose what it needs. With a shift towards this form of sustainable beekeeping, we can take a step back and trust while the bee colony is ‘rewild­ed’, regaining resilience and beginning to thrive once more.

Matt Somerville’s four ways to help the bees

1. Flowers/forage

Grow more plants and trees that feed bees and other insects through each season. Stop poisoning them with neonicotinoids and other pesticides. Only harvest honey when there is a genuine surplus.

2. Fur

Keep bees in warm, insulated hives.

3. Freedom

Allow bees to organise the inside of the hive as they wish. Bees don’t choose preformed wax sheets or plastic comb. They like to design their own deep comb, with the queen free to roam.

4. Faith

Bees have been around for millions of years and have survived through many climate changes. We need to have faith that they will continue to survive without our interference. We must restrain ourselves from fiddling, and let the weaker bees die to allow for natural selection to take back control.

This Author

Miriam Darlington’s latest book, Owl Sense, is published by Guardian Faber. The Natural Beekeeping Trust is organising a conference, Learning from the Bees, in Holland this autumn. 

This article was first published in the current issue of Resurgence & Ecologist magazine, which is available now. 

Major companies face serious material business risks for their involvement in creating plastic waste, a new report shows.

The report Risk unwrapped: Plastic pollution as material business risk details four types of business risk that companies may be exposed to and sets out the legal obligations on their directors to take action to deal with these risks.

These include companies facing significant transition risks from fast-moving regulation, as well as major reputational damage for being perceived to be exacerbating the plastic crisis.

Unresponsive

The report’s author, ClientEarth wildlife lawyer Tatiana Lujan, said: “With the amount of plastic waste literally choking our marine environment, there are serious risks for companies that don’t move fast enough in responding to the business risk associated with plastic waste.

“Governments are acting really quickly on regulation and companies in general are unprepared. Within the space of a few months, we’ve already seen outright bans on single-use products and higher recycling targets as well as proposals for new taxes and expensive ‘polluter pays’ type schemes.

“Earlier this year the share price of European packaging producer RPC fell 15 percent over fears of potential plastic regulation. And with as much as three quarters of company value tied to reputation, brand damage is a significant risk for plastic-intensive companies unresponsive to their consumers, shareholders and investors.”

Loss or damage

The four main areas of material business risk include:

Transition risks – including increased regulatory burdens arising from the transition to a more circular economy, with unresponsive firms hit with new laws and reforms that will have a significant impact on the demand for plastic products and materials.

Reputational risks – companies perceived to be a source of plastic pollution could suffer reputational damage, with a loss of value to their corporate brand, a loss of investor interest and the potential danger of losing their licence to operate, e.g.- recent pressure on major coffee retailers over waste caused by single-use disposable cups.

Physical risks – arising from plastic pollution in the environment, which will impact infrastructure and productivity, while disrupting supply chains and causing resource scarcity, e.g.- the impact of plastic marine litter on the fishing and tourism industries, and

Liability risks – companies could face legal challenges from parties who have suffered loss or damage from plastic pollution. The results of asbestos, tobacco and ongoing climate litigation should alert intensive plastics users or producers to future liability risks of what many still consider a risk-free business model.

corporate regulation

Lujan added: “Currently plastic waste is an externality for most companies, with society and the natural world bearing the burden of plastic pollution. Little thought is given to things like packaging once the product it contained has been consumed and profits generated for its creator.

“However, this is changing and plastic-intensive companies need to be prepared for transitional, reputational, physical and legal risks from their involvement in the plastic pollution crisis.”

The report reminds companies that the law requires them to manage and disclose these risks. It also recommends that existing corporate governance, risk management and disclosure practices be revisited to ensure corporate regulation keeps up with the public and political momentum demanding action to reduce plastic pollution.

Lujan will present the findings of the report during a speech on the topic at a Klosters Forum event today in Switzerland.

This Article

This article is based on a press release from ClientEarth.

You’ve probably seen the startling headlines — “Air pollution linked to spikes in hospital and GP visits”, “Air pollution causes nearly 15,000 cases of type 2 diabetes in UK each year”, “Young girl’s death first to be linked to illegal levels of air pollution”.

It’s obvious that the UK has a major air pollution problem.

Earlier this year, the World Health Organisation found 47 UK towns and cities had either reached at or had gone beyond air pollution limits. The issue has been widely covered, with the NGOs, the press and opposition politicians quick to criticise government inaction.

Industrial traffic

The backdrop to all this is the ‘dieselgate’ scandal. As far back as 2015, car manufacturers including German giant VW were accused of cheating emissions tests, with their vehicles found to be much dirtier than the companies suggested. Ever since, cars’ contribution to the UK’s poor air quality has come under deep scrutiny.

But it can’t just be cars, can it?

After three years, countless pages of analysis and enquiry and multiple court cases, policymakers must finally be getting on top of the ‘car issue’, right? Surely, something else must be driving the country’s terrible air quality?

DeSmog UK spent six months trawling through local data and air quality reports to find places where air pollution wasn’t just a road traffic problem. There weren’t many.

The problem is that almost all roads are clogged up by commuter and industrial traffic.

Entirely urban

Nonetheless, our detailed analysis of hundreds of pages of local authority reports did throw up some examples of where local idiosyncrasies exacerbate the car problem. And councils are being asked to deal with the problem, despite lacking the resources and expertise to do so, as a previous DeSmog UK investigation revealed.

From volcanic hills to river causeways, slurry to home heating, and Russian winds to Mediterranean cruise ships, here are four cases from each of the home nations where something other than commuter traffic is creating dirty air.

Dundee, Scotland’s fourth largest city, was somewhat surprisingly the only UK-entry in Lonely Planet’s latest guide to ‘must see cities in Europe’, and was described as a “thriving, creative” place. But tourists beware: It also has a serious air pollution problem.

Scotland has stricter air pollution limits than the rest of the UK. And the whole of Dundee has been declared a special Air Quality Management Area (AQMA), with certain spots in the city regularly breaching standards.

Dundee is almost entirely urban and suburban. But it is also a hub for many inland transport routes.

Slopey roads

It is connected to Fife by the Tay road and rail bridges. The biggest inroad for road traffic, the A92, crosses the Tay and emerges in the centre of Dundee. There is an inner ring road, the Marketgait, and five arterial routes.

Many of these roads get congested, with the air pollution exacerbated by a quirk of Dundee’s topography — the city was built on top of an old volcano.

That means many of the main roads are on a gradient, causing cars to emit more as they drive up hill, with high buildings creating a roofless tunnell where the emissions accumulate.

Friends of the Earth Scotland conducted an analysis of Scotland’s road pollution, and found 10 streets continued to breach European limits. Two of those streets — Seagate and Lochee Road — are in Dundee, with both roads having nitrogen dioxide levels over the limit.

But Dundee’s air pollution problems reach far beyond its volcanic, slopey roads.

Car journeys

Every now and again, on a windy day, Dundee’s air pollution levels will spike significantly due to agriculture not in farms surrounding the city, but in fields in Russia and continental Europe.

As Dundee is on Scotland’s east coast, pollution from farms in Russia and Northern Europe can travel swiftly and largely uninterrupted across the North Sea on windy days. Chemicals in fertilisers and emissions from livestock can be converted to harmful particulate matter as they travel several days over the seas to reach the Scottish coastline.

Once or more a year, this causes levels of a specific pollutant, a large particulate matter called PM10, to get so high that emissions from traffic seem comparatively insignificant.

This causes quite some headache for Dundee’s local policymakers. Not only do they have to tackle the challenge currently defeating the rest of the UK – getting people out of their cars – but they also have to compete with issues caused by an ancient volcano and Putin’s farmers, too.

Still, the council identifies road traffic emissions as “the main source of pollution in the area”, with “additional emissions from industrial sources”. Across Scotland in 2016 an estimated two thirds of car journeys were for just one person.

Nitrogen dioxide

The city recently unveiled a fleet of 400 low emissions buses, ahead of a low emissions zone being implemented. And Dundee council is running a series of events on Clean Air Day on June 22nd to highlight the “small changes we can all make that will contribute to cleaner air”.

Every year, 1.7 million ruddy-faced holidaymakers pass through Southampton’s port, boarding mega-ships to take them on adventures through Norway’s fjords or to the white beaches of Spain’s Costa Blanca.

Perhaps unwittingly, they’re also bringing a lot of air pollution with them.

The WHO identified Southampton as one of 17 places in the UK that was on the limit of breaching its air quality standards. Southampton Council estimates that exposure to Particulate Matter alone is estimated to contribute to 110 premature deaths each year.

Currently there are 10 hotspots in Southampton. All 10 of Southampton’s AQMAs exceeded the annual nitrogen dioxide air quality standard. Recent estimates suggest that around 60 to 70 percent of nitrous oxide emissions come from road traffic. But while congestion on the roads is the main cause of this, the port also has a significant role to play.

Principal routes

Southampton’s port is the busiest cruise terminal and second largest container port in the UK. Its continued success is vital to the city’s economy. But it is responsible for about seven percent of the city’s nitrogen dioxide emissions, according to local council analysis.

Analysis of activity at the docks showed ships ‘hotelling’ — using their engines while docked — was the main component of port emissions. The effects are felt city-wide; docked ships account for up to 6% of nitrous oxide emissions throughout Southampton.

Dr Matt Loxham, an air pollution toxicologist at the University of Southampton, previously told the Independent, “Cars are not the only sources of emissions in our air. Ships are more fuel efficient than road vehicles, but they use fuels which produce greater levels of emissions than road diesel”.

“This, in combination with the concentration of vessels in relatively small port areas and shipping lanes, is the reason why there is concern around shipping emissions.”

As part of an effort to clean the air, Southampton City Council has declared a number of AQMAs around some of the principal access routes to and from the Port.

Hilly topography

But as the port grows, so will emissions. Government analysis suggests pollution from the port will increase until at least 2035.

And the port continues to sow the seeds of the country’s major air pollution foe — it is the UK’s biggest importer of cars.

Southampton does have plans to try and limit the damage from air pollution: including a mandatory Clean Air Zone by 2020with a charge of £100 per day for heavily polluting HGVs and buses.

It is currently consulting on a new Clean Air Zone, with plans to charge the most polluting vehicles. It says that “importantly,  the charges will be set at levels designed to reduce pollution, not to raise additional revenue beyond recovering the costs of the scheme”.

Derry is characterised by its distinctively hilly topography. The River Foyle forms a deep valley as it flows through the city, making Derry a place of very steep streets and sudden, startling views.

Ammonia emissions

Derry & Strabane District Council has eight special air quality management areas (AQMAs): the highest no. for any district council in Northern Ireland. In 2010, the council estimated that annually 339 years of life were lost due to air pollution in the area.

The AQMAs for nitrogen dioxide are mainly small areas with very localised pollution — these are busy narrow streets, often on roads with houses near to kerb. Northern Ireland was found to have the highest proportion of vehicles with a cheat device in the UK, with 20 percent of those inspected fitted with the device, compared to nine percent registered in Great Britain.

Where there are AQMAs for PM10 in the area, it’s normally due to emissions from domestic fuel burning. Many use wood, gas or oil to fuel their heating systems. Derry’s cold, calm weather conditions exacerbate the problem.

The city is also surrounded by agriculture, which brings more unusual problems.

In 2017, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) recommended the rejection of plans for a farm with around 60,000 pigs in the area. It said it wanted further detail on how nitrogen deposition from ammonia emissions might impact sites around the facility and in areas where slurry would be spread.

Additional funding

A government report from December 2017 described how ammonia emissions can cause health problems by reacting with other molecules in the atmosphere to form compounds that are precursors to particulate matter.

A working group for Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture found that about 91 percent of the country’s ammonia emissions came from agriculture. It said the issue of reducing these emissions had started to cause delays in agricultural planning applications.

The WHO found Derry’s particulate matter emissions to be just above safe levels in May 2018. There’s no space for complacency however, as air pollution from a car-use culture persists at above-safe levels.

The local authority is making efforts to improve — some obvious, some a little more creative.

In 2016, then Environment Minister Mark Durgan announced that Derry would be one of ten councils in Northern Ireland to receive additional funding to tackle air quality.

Gradual replacement

The funding will enable councils to continue monitoring air pollution, including funding for staff and equipment.

Derry City and Strabane district council was awarded £24,206, the second highest amount in the UK after Glasgow.

And in February 2018, Derry announced The Life Tree project, where every birth, death and marriage will be marked by planting a tree in a bid to cut air pollution.

Newport — you’ve probably driven through it. And that’s precisely the problem.

Newport is the third largest city in Wales, with a population of just over 140,000. There has been a steady decline in heavy industry over the past three decades resulting in the gradual replacement of industrial buildings with new residential housing.

The most significant single source of air pollution in the authority is the thing Newport is probably most famous for — the M4 motorway — that transects several of Newport’s residential suburbs.

Worsen pollution

There are currently nine air quality management areas in Newport. They are all small, and along stretches of road. Four of the nine relate to pollution from the M4. Newport Council is expecting an increase in traffic when the toll on the M4 bridge is dropped in January 2019.

Pollution levels are particularly high at Junction 25 of the M4. Just behind a bank of vegetation lies a stretch of housing and a secondary school.

A relief road is being considered by Welsh Government. The new route, once completed, should generally improve air quality by diverting traffic away from particular hotspots.

But the build-time for that road is expected to be around four years. Ironically, the construction of the road would likely worsen pollution during that time.

If anywhere is proof that road traffic is the problem, it’s Newport.

Easy solution

A council spokesperson told the South Wales Argus in November 2017, when the World Health Organisation highlighted the city’s illegal levels of air pollution:

“The city’s road network has developed over hundreds of years and been adapted to accommodate an ever increasing number of motor vehicles.

“Data from the Department for Transport indicates a 17 per cent increase in road vehicles in Newport over the last 15 years.

“In most cases little can be done to the road network, given the current traffic volumes. Ultimately, to improve air quality, the volume of road vehicle traffic needs to be reduced.”

There’s clearly no easy solution. Cars need motorways and the M4 is and will remain one of the UK’s main arteries, pumping exhaust pipes through Newport.

Limits expected

But at least local authorities and the Welsh government are starting to take the issue seriously.

In January 2018, Newport City Council announced four new air quality management areas, which it said in a statement showed “the council’s commitment to improve the environment and wellbeing of the city”.

And in April 2018, Wales’ Environment Minister Hannah Blythyn announced a £20 million package of measures to improve Wales’ air quality. The announcement came after the Welsh government was taken to court by environmental lawyers Client Earth in January.

At the High Court hearing, the government admitted its plans were insufficient and pledged to work with experts to formulate an effective strategy.

One of the Welsh government’s new proposals is for a clean air zone between Junctions 25 and 26 on the M4, with a 50mph speed limits expected to reduce emissions by up to 18 percent.

Air quality crisis

So the problem is road traffic. Pretty much every official DeSmog UK spoke to made this point: If road traffic could be alleviated, better air quality is a given.

But that’s a big ask. Getting people out of their cars requires investment in better public transport and road networks. It requires a plan to make petrol vehicles cleaner and, ultimately, electric.

The national government has been slow to take the lead.

It’s ‘Road to Zero’ strategy, launched in July 2018, promises policies to ensure all new cars are “effectively” zero-emissions by 2040. But critics say that in the context of the UK’s air quality crisis, that’s simply not soon enough.

Reacting to the plan, Jon Lamonte, chief executive of Transport for Greater Manchester told Air Quality News:

Smog thickens

“The government’s road to zero strategy is heading in the right direction, but at the wrong speed. We need to act far sooner than 2040 to ban conventional vehicles if we are to improve air quality within our cities. The lack of incentives to discourage people from using conventional cars – particularly diesel vehicles – will also make it more difficult to reduce emissions.”

Official government advisor, the Committee on Climate Change, also criticised the plan for failing to provide enough clarity on how the UK would actually transition to a low carbon transport, saying the plan fell “short of expectations”.

There are some problems local authorities simply can’t solve — from Volcanic topography to the direction of polluted winds. There are others that government can address, however — like getting people out of dirty diesels into freshly charged EVs.

But progress is slow. And while the public waits, the smog thickens.

This Article 

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is stepping-up its game – after building a new coal-fired power plant in Stanari just two years ago. Two more power plants are in the final phase of financial planning, while five more are in the earlier stages. Serbia and Greece are also building new coal-fired power plants.

Most of the projects in Bosnia have been financed or built by Chinese companies and banks. The 300MW power plant in Stanari was financed by the China Development Bank. Block 7 of the Tuzla Thermal Power Plant, and the proposed power plant in Banovići will be financed by Chinese banks.

State guarantees ensure that these developments come at a low financial risk for Chinese banks. Most of these projects have been planned by state-owned power companies, placing the burden of payment on citizens.

Greater risks

Block 7 is in the final phase of financial agreement. The World Health Organisation has already identified its home, the town of Tuzla, as having the second highest air pollution levels in Europe. Bosnia and Herzegovina has the second highest morality rate from air pollution in Europe. 

Denis Žiško, programme coordinator from the Center for Ecology and Energy (CEE) in Tuzla, argued: “Newer technologies might lower the pollution, but not entirely. For these kind of projects to be cost-effective, power plants have to work for at least 40 or 50 years, so in this case our citizens would be poisoned for decades to come.

“To somebody who has lung cancer or some other pollution-related disease, it does not matter if the pollution came from coal combustion in a new or in an old power plant.” 

A CEE analysis showed that there is likely a connection between pollution from the power plant and increasing rates of disease and death among residents living close to the plant and its landfill of slag and ashes. 

Citizens of Tuzla could be at increased risk of respiratory diseases, malignant tumours and cardiovascular problems.

Systemic failure

Žiško complained that the media is presenting new power plants as significant “postwar investments that will save thousands of workplaces”.

Advocates of coal-fired plants argue that all the coal burned locally is also mined locally, and that miners’ jobs need to be saved. This local coal is brown coal or lignite, whose combustion is most devastating for the environment and people’s health.

All five power plants currently operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina have environmental permits, which prescribe the measures of protection the owners are obliged to follow. This system is not functioning and is far behind the standards of Western Europe.

Žiško claimed that: “it is very rare that inspectors conclude that some law has been violated, and even rarer that the perpetrators are punished.”

‘Stranded assets’

Bosnia and Herzegovina is already producing enough energy for its needs. In 2015, Bankwatch, the University of Groningen, and The Advisory House investigated what would happen if Balkan countries actually built all the planned centres for electricity production. They calculated that the region would export 56% of the electricity. 

Pippa Gallop from Bankwatch, an international NGO specialising in monitoring public finance institutions, noted: “It is obvious that a country with 3.8 million people does not need that many power plants, especially with the existing hydropower plants and the new coal power plant that just started working in 2016.

“There is a very big risk that these new projects might become ‘stranded assets’. If the electrical energy is not cheap enough, nobody will buy it.” 

In 2014, the multinational electricity company Enel announced that 23 Italian coal and gas power stations, with a combined capacity of 13GW, are to be scrapped within five years.  For comparison, coal power plants from the Western Balkans have a combined production capacity of 8.3GW.  

Gallop continued: “As far as cost-effectiveness is concerned, there is very little information publicly available. We have some information for the Kostolac B3 plant in Serbia, and Gacko II in Bosnia and it is unlikely that they will be profitable.

“For an example, they did not account for the costs of CO2 emissions that will have to be paid in the future, and also the calculations are based on the overestimated price of electricity.”

EU directives

Gallop argues that “the Balkans offer a gateway to Europe”. 

The majority of these projects don’t comply with EU pollution control standards, and environmental impact studies are of a low quality. As the EU is not offering the Balkans quick access to the Union, encouraging them to comply with standards is a difficult task.

Gallop stressed that while the EU focusses on regional issues such as Kosovo and migration, it has a long way to go in other sectors:

“All the Western Balkan countries have signed the Energy Community Treaty, which obliged them to follow EU directives on energy and environment. The Energy Community Secretariat in Vienna is really trying to assure that the laws are followed but they don’t always have the support from European Commission.

“The EU must offer concrete advantages for these countries if they follow EU directives, either through the increase of EU funds available to them or through mutual cooperation mechanisms.

“They should also be much more strict about corruption and judiciary system functioning and adjust funds accordingly.”

Local action

Despite Chinese funding and European passivity, Žiško looked closer to home: “We should stop blaming others for our mistakes. Nobody is making our politicians build coal power plants, or hydropower plants on every stream in Bosnia and Herzegovina”

He argued that it is local politicians who make these decisions: “The only question is how much they profit from it.”

This Author

Marina Kelava is an environmental journalist based in Zagreb, Croatia.

Two hundred years ago, in 1818, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, a novel that showed what might happen if human pride and ambition overreached themselves in a bid to emulate God.

At the time, scientists had just discovered that they could make a dead frog twitch by delivering jolts of electricity to the corpse. There were theories that a divine, life-giving force might have been discovered.

Shelley created a terrifying scenario in which a scientist applied that force and then refused to take responsibility for the creature that was created.

Genes in insects

One hundred and seventy-five years later, in 1993, the film Jurassic Park showed resurrected dinosaurs running amok because scientists had let their enthusiasm and curiosity get the better of them. Once again, the moral of the story was that revolutionary knowledge and godlike powers can cost us dearly.

Moving forward to present day, we are on the threshold of being able to recreate lost creatures, reconstruct wild species, and even create entirely new forms of life that would never have come into being unaided. What do we do with that knowledge? Is it a good idea to resurrect lost animal species?

Because of Jurassic Park, everyone thinks they know how to go about bringing dinosaurs back to life.

In the film, the scientists take a fine piece of amber containing a perfectly preserved mosquito, drill a tiny hole, and extract the blood that formed the bloated mosquito’s last meal. They manage to extract the dinosaur’s genetic material from the dregs of blood and sequence its genome — and then all they have to do is set about producing a dinosaur egg.

Real-life researchers have, in fact, tried to do that very thing, searching for genes in insects that are astonishingly well preserved in amber. The problem is this: scientists can’t find any dinosaur DNA in mosquitoes.

Scientific adviser

Given the DNA molecule’s fragility, the oldest creature from which scientists have extracted fragments of sequenceable genetic material is 700,000 years old. That is quite remarkable, considering how new the technique is. Still, it remains a far cry from the 65 million years that a dinosaur genome would have had to survive to be analysed.

However, that doesn’t mean that the dream of being able to see a dinosaur one day is dead. There really are scientists who are working to achieve just that, though not in the way you might imagine.

Jack Horner found his first dinosaur bones at the age of eight and decided to become a palaeontologist. He dug up his first sizeable dinosaur aged 13 and has continued to make spectacular finds ever since.

His discoveries have played a decisive role in giving scientists the understanding of dinosaurs they have today. For instance, Jack was the first to discover that these creatures built nests to lay their eggs in, nurtured their young, and lived in herds — a far cry from earlier views of dinosaurs as clumsy, primitive dimwits.

Jack was the model for Dr Grant in the Jurassic Park films and acted as a scientific adviser on the series. His link with Hollywood goes even further: producer George Lucas is now funding his dinosaur resurrection project.

Evolutionary process

Jack’s ambition is ‘to build a dinosaur’. Since it’s impossible to investigate the genetic make-up of the dinosaurs because of the lack of DNA, he has had to find another way. His plan is to take a chicken as the starting-point and to try to coax forth its inner saurian.

Biologically speaking, birds are dinosaurs. Not only are they descended from them, they actually constitute a group within the dinosaurs’ family tree, just as lions belong to the feline family and rats to the family of rodents. It’s just that all the other branches of the tree have withered away.

There are four things that distinguish birds from other types of dinosaurs. Chickens have wings rather than arms and hands, and a beak instead of a snout. They are toothless and have a short, compact rump instead of the long tail characteristic of a dinosaur.

Everything else, from their feathers to the wishbone people squabble over after a roast-chicken dinner, are features they share with dinosaurs, Jack tells me. The group of dinosaurs Jack thinks that modern birds share the most characteristics with are therapods, the group from which birds evolved. Therapods included species such as tyrannosaurs, velociraptors, and other two-legged dinosaurs with long, narrow heads and long tails.

‘What we’re trying to do is reverse the evolutionary process and get an embryonic chick to develop into a dinosaur instead.’

Many dinosaurs

It may be possible to transform a chicken into a miniature dinosaur by choosing to remove certain genes and simply replacing them by others.

His team plans to take chicken embryos as a starting point and steer the development of the foetus, controlling the genes that are active while the embryonic chick is developing inside the egg. In this way, they aim to reverse 150 million years of evolution and produce a more archaic creature.

I ask Jack what it would take for him to feel he had completed his project. ‘It would be when we can take a chicken — or any kind of bird, really — and activate genes so they produce teeth, change its mouth, give it a long tail, and alter its arms and hands.

So in practice that would mean hatching a creature with a head like a dinosaur, with teeth in its mouth, arms and hands, and a long tail. It would look just like a miniature modern-day therapod.’

If he managed this, the animal would still be feathered, just like many dinosaurs, and it would be no bigger than a chicken.

Nature’s masters

Jack’s boundless optimism is infectious. It’s clear he’s going to enjoy himself tremendously, no matter whether he succeeds or not. I hope he will, though I have enormous doubts.

There is no way in which a lost species can really be brought back to life. The nearest thing we can manage is a substitute. When I ask my non-scientist friends why they think anyone would want to resurrect dinosaurs, the reply is mostly: ‘Because they can!’

Few of the scientists working in the field draw attention to this aspect, but I think it’s significant. These projects are driven by curiosity, passion, and the desire to achieve the impossible. These are wonderful wellsprings of motivation, but they also hark back to the hubris of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Are we just playing at being God?

When I began writing about humanity’s attempts to revive species, I thought my book would focus on nostalgia and the yearning for a vanished world.

I discovered that it has more to do with the future, with the present, in which we humans have made ourselves nature’s masters — and with scientists’ unbridled desire to discover the new.

This Author

Torill Kornfeldt is a Swedish science journalist and author of The Re-Origin of Species. This extract was translated by Hannah Graham.

The major palm oil company Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) and its primary investor Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) stand accused of environmental and human rights abuses in a new report from Friends of the Earth US, Sustainable Development Institute, and Milieudefensie. 

The report, entitled High Risk in the Rainforest: Golden Agri-Resources and Golden Veroleum’s Palm Oil Project in Liberia, states that ongoing operations identified through recently conducted GPS mapping are in direct violation of both GVL’s and GAR’s sustainability policies.

The also breach the “No Deforestation” policies of many of GAR’s largest customers, which include Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and PZ Cussons, according to the report. The report specifically calls on GAR’s shareholders to address the risks inherent in their investments in the palm oil sector.

Forested land

Jeff Conant, senior international forests program manager with Friends of the Earth US, said: “GVL’s forest destruction and its disregard for human rights poses serious material and reputational risks for both investors and commercial palm oil buyers.

“Stakeholders in these rogue companies need to recognize the risks and the wrongdoing and use their leverage to pull the brakes on GVL’s destruction.”

The report cites numerous testimonies from local residents finding that GVL continues to violate communities’ land rights, following a pattern of abuse that has been documented since the company began operations in 2012.

These findings echo a February 2018 decision by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) affirming that GVL has failed to implement adequate free, prior, and informed consent procedures and has sown conflict by destroying sacred sites and using coercion and intimidation to maintain its operations in disputed areas.

The RSPO has ordered GVL to cease operations in multiple locations, but GVL has rejected the RSPO’s findings and continues to clear forested land and build facilities in areas of conflict.

Communities’ rights

“The Liberian experience with palm oil companies like GVL reinforces the need for secure land rights to ensure that investment benefits local communities. Otherwise, companies like GVL will continue destroying the forests Liberians depend on for their livelihoods,” says James Otto, campaigner with the Sustainable Development Institute.

GVL is owned by a private equity firm controlled largely by the Indonesian billionaire Franky Widjaja, CEO of GAR.

While the Widjaja family controls the majority of shares in GAR, minority investors include the U.S. firms BlackRock, Vanguard, Dimensional Fund Advisors, TIAA, and CalPERS and the Dutch firm Robeco. Citibank, Rabobank and several Asian banks also have financial ties to the company.

In 2017, GAR became the first palm oil company listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, despite civil society concerns about the company’s unsustainable practices.

The new revelations about GVL’s ongoing violations come as Liberia’s Legislature is considering passage of a historic Land Rights Act that would recognise communities’ rights to own and manage their lands, following the recent election of President George Weah.

The report is accompanied by photos and testimonies and is available in a full-length version and an abridged version with key findings.

This Author

Patrick Davis is press officer at Friends of the Earth US.

Industry sectors based on fossil fuels significantly outspent environmental groups and renewable energy companies on climate change lobbying, new research has found.

In a study published today in the journal Climatic Change, Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle shows that between 2000 and 2016, lobbyists spent more than $2 billion trying to influence climate legislation in the US Congress.

Brulle found that electric utilities spent the largest sums during this timeframe followed by the oil, gas, and coal industries, and transportation sector, respectively by analysing data from lobbying reports made available on the website OpenSecrets.org. 

Climate lobbying

Overall, lobbying by corporate sectors involved in the production or use of fossil fuels overshadowed that of environmental organizations and the renewable energy sector by a ratio of approximately 10 to 1.

Brulle acknowledges that the leading spenders do not take monolithic approaches and at times lobby in support of climate legislation.

“Different corporations typically push for whatever positions are advantageous to their economic well-being,” writes Brulle. He says that further research is required to parse out the effect of such variable lobbying positions on climate legislation.   

Though climate lobbying only accounted for 3.9 percent of the total amount spent on legislative lobbying between 2000 to 2016, its rates fluctuated considerably. Early on, relatively little money — only about $50 million, or 2 percent of all lobbying — was spent trying to sway federal legislators’ opinions during the years leading up to and including 2006.

But in the years that followed, climate lobbying expenditures shot up, reaching a high point of $362 million in 2009, which accounted for 9 percent of all lobbying that year alone. The next year, 2010, saw only a slight drop, before climate lobbying efforts plunged, eventually reaching about 3 percent of total lobbying after 2011.

Inter-industry competition

Of course, 2009 marked the year that the House of Representatives narrowly passed the landmark climate legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill. However, that effort died on the floor of the Senate just over a year later.

To explain these fluctuations, Brulle argues that climate lobbying grows as the potential to enact climate legislation increases. This is especially true when one party, that has campaigned on passing climate legislation, controls government – findings that have troubling implications for American democracy.

“What we have is a group of unelected lobbyists representing special interests negotiating with Congressional Representatives on climate legislation,” Brulle told DeSmog via email. 

“The minimal representation of environmental groups means that arguments for climate action to protect the common interest will be marginal considerations. Instead, special interests dominate the conversation, all working for a particular advantage for their industry. The common good is not represented.”

According to Brulle, that this has important implications for the fate, outcome, and nature of future climate legislation, which is largely determined by intra-sector and inter-industry competition.

Meaningful action

He says that the activities of environmental and nonprofit organizations often constitute one-time, short-term mobilization efforts. This is a clear disadvantage, given the vast expenditures and continuous and established presence of professional lobbyists in DC. 

“Lobbying is conducted away from the public eye. There is no open debate or refutation of viewpoints offered by professional lobbyists meeting in private with government officials,” writes Brulle.

“Control over the nature and flow of information to government decision-makers can be significantly altered by the lobbying process and creates a situation of systematically distorted communication.”

Brulle told DeSmog his findings partially explain the lack of forceful action on the climate crisis in the U.S. “For over 30 years, the science of climate change has been well understood,” he said. “But no meaningful action has been taken by the US Lobbying by special interests has played a role in this outcome.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

Moves by the disputed President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila to grant oil and logging licences in the world’s second largest rainforest have thrown efforts to protect the area into disarray, potentially weakening the push to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

Congo’s environment ministry reestablished three industrial logging concessions in the Congo Basin rainforest to Chinese-owned companies in February and set a process in motion to hand out 14 more.

Later the government signed oil prospecting concessions in two World Heritage Sites, Salonga and Virunga national parks.

Logging moratorium

The news has cast doubt on the future of the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), a multi-million dollar development and conservation project, established by the Norwegian government with international support in 2015.

Funding for the project has been suspended for months. With one CAFI member of staff telling Unearthed the organisation was “very concerned” to hear about the new concessions.

The Congo Basin rainforest stretches across six countries, from west to central Africa.

At over 500 million acres, more than three times the size of France, the rainforest is home to eight World Heritage Sites and an array of endangered species, including mountain gorillas and forest elephants.

Around 60 percent of the forest is located in DRC and despite having a logging moratorium in place since 2002, the country lost an area of forest ten times the size of Greater London between 2010 and 2014.

Mountain gorillas

Data submitted by the organisation Redd+ to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change shows that the DRC portion of the Congo Basin rainforest lost 1.6 million hectares in that four year period, the most recent available, equivalent to more than 6,177  square miles.

With long-delayed elections scheduled for December 23 and Kabila’s administration busy signing logging and oil licences there are fears that the country and the rainforest is entering a tense moment.

The government’s decision to open up parts of two protected forests to oil exploration has also proved controversial.

One of the concessions allocated to Compagnies Minières Congolaise (Comico) encroaches on the Salonga National Park. The remote nature reserve is home to bonobos and Congo peafowls. Centrale Oil and Gas, the Guernsey-based company, owned by diamond magnate Adonis Pouroulis, has a 40% stake in Comico.

According to a report in The Times in May, exploration licences have been signed for a fifth of Virunga national park, an iconic World Heritage Site, home to mountain gorillas.

Industrial logging

Pouroulis confirmed to Unearthed that Centrale holds a 40 percent stake in Comico.  He said: “CoMiCo is committed to environmental conservation and will not cut down virgin rainforest – whether it be within or without of any National Park or other protected regions.  I can also confirm that CoMiCo will not drill for oil within the boundaries of the Salonga National Park.”

Oil drilling is not permitted in World Heritage Sites, but according to reports from May the DRC government is looking to reclassify portions of the two protected areas to allow for drilling.

British oil company Soco International previously carried out seismic testing in Virunga national park, but let its license lapse in 2015. A company spokesman told Unearthed that the company “no longer has any oil and gas interests in the DRC”.

Just last year, scientists discovered a massive area of carbon-rich soil, or peatlands, in the Cuvette Centrale region of DRC, adding urgency to global efforts to preserve the rainforest. The peatlands cover an area larger than England and could contain the equivalent of three years worth of global carbon emissions.

Two of the three logging concessions awarded in February overlap the peatlands and there is concern that any industrial logging in the area could cause huge volumes of greenhouse gases to be released into the atmosphere.

Constitutional change

Professor Simon Lewis, who was part of the team that discovered the peatlands, told Unearthed that allowing logging in this part of Congo would be “irresponsible”.

He said: “These peat forests are some of the most carbon-dense ecosystems in the world and should to be left for local people to continue to manage them sustainably. In my view, the way to approach much-needed local development is to work with communities and not give their resources to overseas logging companies.”

DRC’s environment ministry has insisted that the peatlands would not be harmed as they are in an area that is geographically unexploitable”. 

Ben Shepherd, Chatham House fellow on the Africa programme, suggested that there is a risk of Kabila’s government using DRC’s vast natural resources to build a “war chest” to fight elections.

It is unclear whether President Kabila will run in December’s election. Doing so would require a constitutional change. But reports that he is considering taking part in the election have added to political unrest in the country.

In March, the bodies of two UN investigators and 40 decapitated policemen were found in the central province of Kasai, a stronghold of opponents to President Kabila. The violence was part of a new conflict in the region that has reportedly seen over a million people displaced.

Shepherd told Unearthed: “One of the things that people allege is that the government is looking to use Congo’s assets and natural resources to build a war chest to fight elections. Kabila is not popular, but he does have resources and a degree of political organisation across the country. In a place like Congo, as with other countries, money goes a long way in politics. And it’s fairly axiomatic in Congo that money going into the government’s coffers doesn’t all get accounted for.”

Conservation deal

The revelations have severely affected an international effort to protect the Congo Basin.

Berta Pesti, from the UN Development Programme, who works as a senior technical advisor on the UK government backed CAFI project told Unearthed that no one thought working in DRC “was going to be an easy ride”.

She said that CAFI was “very concerned” to hear about the new concessions. A logging moratorium, established in order to prevent a rush for resources at the end of the conflict in DRC, has been in place since 2002. But there have been numerous attempts by the government to grant logging concessions and reports of timber leaving the country illegally.

Pesti is clear that CAFI’s position is that “the moratorium is in place and until the conditions in DRC’s own legal framework are met, no new contracts should be signed.”

The situation in DRC has not played out well in Norway, which is the main funder of CAFI. The country has long funded forest conservation projects in South America, south-east Asia and central Africa. But a recent report by the country’s Office of the Auditor General criticised its International Forests and Climate Initiative, stating: “progress and results are delayed, that current measures have uncertain feasibility and effect, and that the risk of fraud is not well-managed”

Benefit of all

Responding to this report, Norway’s environment minister Ola Elvestuen told Unearthed that the government took the concerns it raised “very seriously”, but added that not engaging in DRC was “not an alternative”. [Full responses here].

Elvestuen said: “This forest is key to the future of humanity. Without protecting the Congo Basin forests, it is hard to see how we can meet the 1.5-2 degrees climate goals.”

Asked what leverage CAFI had to force the DRC government’s hand, Pesti said that the body could look to withhold funding, but admitted that the ‘letter of intent’, signed by all parties at the start of the agreement is not a legal document.

“The letter of intent is not a real contract. No tribunal is going to enforce it. But it’s an agreement. It’s a moral agreement and there are people in the DRC government who take that agreement seriously,” she said.

“We have dialogue, we have policy networks. You’re talking to people and you’re trying to convince them it’s for the benefit of all.”

She insisted that despite recent disappointment, no one working on CAFI is demotivated.

“We cannot just stop. We cannot just give up,” she said. “If it was easy it would have already been solved. We are aware that this is going to be a long process. We are aware that it’s going to be tough. But we are prepared to fight.”

This article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace also covered by Mongabay.

Dear Rainforest Alliance and UTZ,

Congratulations – on January 9 2018, your two organisations officially merged. The merger is one of the biggest shifts in the landscape of certification for a decade and this moment provides an exciting opportunity, as you write a new, combined standard.

Ethical Consumer and The Ecologist hope that you will use the chance to unite your respective strengths. Rainforest Alliance has set a high bar for environmental protections; UTZ in workers’ rights.

You have promised to produce a certification that brings ‘together the best elements of both standards’. We hope to see this promise followed through.

Exceptional circumstances

But we also fear that the merger could compromise some of these standards. We urge you not to water down any of the principles that you have developed as independent organisations. This will mean taking and maintaining the clauses on which each of you has shown the greatest strength.

In terms of workers rights, we urge you to maintain:
    • UTZ’s demands that workers are paid monthly and that any workers’ complaints can be made anonymously.
    • UTZ’s expectation that workers living on site are allowed to express social, religious and cultural identities freely.  
    • UTZ’s clauses on unionisation: ensuring that all workers, including the employees of smallholders – who even when they rely primarily on family labour, often do also employ some workers – have the right to unionise, and that they are allowed to elect representatives in countries where unionisation is outlawed.
    • UTZ’s clause regarding working hours and overtime: not allowing employers to ask for working weeks over 60 hours, even in ‘exceptional circumstances’ (as permitted by RA).
      
These are issues that we believe are not currently addressed adequately by the Rainforest Alliance standards.

Recently deforested

Conversely, there are several key workers’ rights clauses upheld by Rainforest Alliance that do not appear in UTZ’s criteria, and that we also believe should appear in the new standard.

Rainforest Alliance has a clearer definition of ‘forced labour’, specifically prohibiting the use of debt servitude and prison labour. It specifies that workers should be paid 1.5 times their normal wage for overtime, where no law or bargaining agreement states otherwise.

It specifies that working hours rules apply to everyone, rather than adding exceptions for certain jobs. And it states that not more than 30 percent of a workers’ wage should be paid ‘in-kind’ – where UTZ refers only to local law (allowing up to 68 percent in some countries).

In terms of the environment, we ask that Rainforest Alliance’s more stringent requirements are upheld (it tackles many issues not currently addressed in UTZ’s standards).

In particular, Rainforest Alliance specifies that land cannot have been recently deforested, whereas UTZ allows deforestation of secondary forest.

Standards maintained

Rainforest Alliance surpasses UTZ with regards to protecting ecosystem biodiversity, with clauses on the preservation of native plants and the containment of invasive species, and a preference for organic fertilisers.

We also urge you to maintain Rainforest Alliance’s prohibition of environmentally damaging activities and substances, such as hunting and use of GMO crops.

On many topics, though, your approach would be strongest if your criteria were combined – as is true in terms of maternal rights, living wage, water management and housing conditions for workers living on-site.

Finally, Rainforest Alliance has very weak rules on the use of the logo on packaging, which can be used when just 30 percent of one ingredient is certified. These rules need to be strengthened.

Above, we have highlighted only those areas in which a choice must be made based on the differences between UTZ and Rainforest Alliance’s standards as they currently stand. Where your approaches already coincide, we of course expect the standards to be maintained.

Market price

While this letter has focussed on the strengths that already exist in the two standards, the merger is an opportunity to add new features that don’t currently exist in either standard.

We draw your attention to the amount of material that identifies low and volatile prices for commodities such as cocoa and coffee as the underlying cause of many of the problems– such as child labour and deforestation – that certification aims to prevent.

We urge you to consider regulating prices directly as Fairtrade does, and to look, for example, at the “Cocoa Barometer’s” suggestion of a flexible premium that goes up when the market price goes down, in order to guard vulnerable farmers against the worst effects of fluctuating prices.

Yours sincerely,

Ethical Consumer and The Ecologist

Workers’ Rights:

    1. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s more precise definition of bonded labour: which includes prison labour and labour based on debt even where this is legal in the country. UTZ does not explicitly address prison labour or debt-based servitude in its ban on forced labour for certified producers.

    2. Maintain UTZ’s rule that a working week must not exceed 60 hours including overtime: and that workers are provided with safe transport home, if during anti-social hours. Rainforest Alliance currently allows longer working weeks in ‘exceptional circumstances’.

    3. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s blanket working hours rules. UTZ currently includes an exemption for “Watchmen” whose regular working hours are not allowed to exceed 56 hours per week on average per year, rather than the 48 afforded to everyone else.

    4. Maintain UTZ criteria for an anonymous, accessible complaints system for all workers, buyers and suppliers, or anyone else who would wish to make a code of conduct complaint. This must not interfere with other complaint mechanisms, (e.g. judicial or collective agreements). Rainforest Alliance states that management must have complaint mechanisms in place, but does not outline the nature of these or specify any further criteria.

    5. Maintain UTZ’s provisions for illegal freedom of association: accredited businesses must allow workers to elect representatives to discuss working conditions with farm management, in countries where unionisation is illegal. Rainforest Alliance does not address the issue of association in countries where joining a union is illegal.
       
    6. Maintain UTZ’s requirement that all employees should have the right to unionise and bargain collectively. Rainforest Alliance specifically excludes smallholders from this requirement. Whilst it defines smallholders as a farmer that ‘primarily relies on family or household labour, or reciprocal workforce exchange with other members of the community’, smallholders that meet this description do often still employ a small number of, particularly seasonal, workers and therefore should not be exempt from this clause.  
       
    7. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s requirement that no more than 30 percent of wage is paid in-kind. The current UTZ criteria allows payment-in-kind up to the national legal requirement, which in some countries is up to 68 percent.
       
    8. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s requirement that pay for overtime is 1.5 times the usual rate in absence of applicable local law or collective bargaining agreement. UTZ does not specify rate of overtime pay in absence of law or bargaining agreement.
       
    9. Maintain UTZ’s requirements that wages are paid at least monthly: and that these are given with a payslip. Rainforest Alliance does not specify how regularly wages must be paid, nor that a payslip be provided.
       
    10. Maintain UTZ’s requirement that on-site workers are given access to healthcare by year four of certification.  Access to health care for all workers must currently be provided by year 6 of certification under Rainforest Alliance standards.
       
    11. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s specific criteria with regards to space and the safety of toilet facilities for workers living on-site. Rainforest Alliance outlines specific room sizes per number of inhabitants and the safety of toilet facilities for women and children as continuous improvement criteria. UTZ currently outlines basic, mandatory outlines for living conditions (as does RA) but provides no further, more specific guidance for continuous improvement.

    12. Combine your respective strengths with regards to maternal rights: this means maintaining Rainforest’s requirement for 6 weeks full-paid maternity leave as a continuous improvement criteria; and UTZ’s requirements for on-site access to childcare; and no discrimination post-maternity leave, including security of pay and position.

    13. Combine your respective strengths with regards to living wage: combine UTZ’s emphasis on progress from day one, with Rainforest Alliance’s explicit criteria for payment of living wage in order to cut the time within which this goal will be achieved by certified farms. Currently, UTZ requires progress towards living wage as a minimum criteria for certification but does not give a hard deadline for its payment. Rainforest Alliance requires a plan towards living wage only after year 3. It lists payment of living wage as a Level A criteria. However, only 50 percent of Level A criteria must ever be met.      

Ethical Consumer and The Ecologist would like to see a) progress towards living wage as a mandatory criteria from the first year of certification; b) payment of a living wage as a compulsory ‘Continuous Improvement’ criteria; and c) payment of a living wage required earlier than the sixth year of certification.

Environment:

    1. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s much stricter policies on the prior destruction of forest or High Conservation Value areas: RA specifies that there must have been no destruction of forest or other natural ecosystems in the prior 5 years and no destruction of any High Conservation Value areas since November 2005. UTZ only specifies that primary forest must not have been destroyed since 2008 and specifically allows some exceptions for secondary forest destruction.
       
    2. Maintain UTZ’s demand that there is no production within 2km of protected conservation areas. Rainforest Alliance has no such requirement for a buffer zone around protected areas.
       
    3. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s clear policy against GMOs. UTZ does not currently prohibit the use of GMOs, but requires that it is recorded.

    4. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s preference for organic fertilizers: demonstration of which is required by the third year of certification. UTZ encourages the use of organic fertilizer, but does not require it at any stage for ongoing certification.

    5. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s requirement for a management plan on energy efficiency. This would represent the next step for UTZ’s current requirement for consideration of energy efficiency.

    6. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s prohibition of hunting apart from smallholders and of pests. UTZ only prohibits hunting of endangered or threatened species.

    7. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s requirement that efforts must be made to contain and reduce invasive species in order to ensure biodiversity. UTZ does not currently address invasive species.

    8. Maintain Rainforest Alliance’s provisions on preserving native plant species: that farms with shade-tolerant crops have at least 15% native vegetation coverage.

    9. Combine your water management criteria: Rainforest Alliance demands a clear policy against sewage being released into water systems, which addresses erosion. It states that irrigation systems should be maintained and new systems to improve productivity must be designed to minimize water waste, erosion. This should be combined with UTZ’s requirement for a water efficiency plan by the fourth year of certification.

Implementation

    1. Maintain UTZ’s stricter rules on the use of the logo. UTZ’s rules on the use of the logo depend on the product, but are substantially stricter than Rainforest Alliance. In the case of products based on coffee, cocoa or hazelnuts, at least 60 percent of the total product must be coffee, cocoa or hazelnuts, and at least 90 percent of that must be certified. We hope that the new standard keeps the stricter rules, as weak rules undermine the logo’s reputation. Rainforest Alliance has weak rules regarding the use of its logo on packaging. It can be used if only 30 percent of the one ingredient is certified, and that ingredient does not even need to make up a large amount of the product.

Sources

UTZ criteria based on Core Code of Conduct for individual and multi-site certification, 2015, Version 1.1 and Core Code of Conduct for group and multi-group certification, 2015, Version 1.1; and Rainforest Alliance criteria based on Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard for farms and producer groups involved in crop and cattle production, July 2017, Version 1.2 unless otherwise specified.

Antonie Fountain and Friedel Huetz-Adams, the Cocoa Barometer 2018

UTZ, Labeling and Trademark Policy For claims and logo use, October 2015

Rainforest Alliance, Requirements and Guidelines for Use of the Rainforest Alliance Trademarks, 2016