Wangari Maathai: "If the rivers stop flowing, people will fight."

Wednesday the 6th of July 2011 Wangari Maathai received a honorary doctorate at Copenhagen University and spoke about her work with the Green Belt movement, the Taking Roots movie and more. Watch her speech, I recorded it for you:

[15:39] Protecting forests is extremely important [...] also very important for conflict [...] many of the local conflicts that we were having, especially in East Africa, [...] were being fed by competition over resources. Especially over land, [?], farming land, water, watering points [?]. And many of these conflicts are unavoidable unless we learn to manage the resources in a responsible way, in an accountable way and also we learn to share these resources in a more equitable way. Now, these are words, but when you translate them into practicalities on the ground it is actually [?] possible to stop people fighting. If there is no water and there is only one watering point people will fight over that watering point. If the rivers stop flowing [...] people will fight. And usually when people fight, that's when [the developed, rich world hear about the developing, 3rd world and begin to wonder] 'why are they fighting?'. Well they are fighting over resources because either those resources are degraded, they are diminished or they are exhausted or they are not being shared equitably.

Russia: Unknown People in Masks and Police Attack Environmentalists

As seen on Global Voices: Russia: Unknown People in Masks and Police Attack Environmentalists

From 20 to 40 young people in white masks attacked the camp of the defenders of the Khimki forest park [RUS], Igor Podgorny [RUS] and Novaya Gazeta [RUS] reported. The police intervention didn't help – instead several environmentalists and journalists were detained.

Sounds nasty. By now a couple of main stream international media have picked up the story. Like AP: Police detain Moscow forest activists

Russian police on Friday detained two journalists and 15 protesters at a suburban Moscow forest where they have been living to try to protect the woods from destruction. [...] The forest in Khimki has been the focus of controversy for years over plans to chop down much of it for highway construction. Khimki lies on the increasingly jammed route from Moscow to Sheremetyevo International Airport and St. Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city. A local newspaper editor who reported extensively on the issue was severely beaten in 2008 and left wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged. [...] The activists called the police at the break of dawn on Friday when a group of some 100 young men who had covered their faces blocked the campsite, thus allowing the [tree chopping in an alledgedly illegal area] work to resume, Moscow Regional police said in a statement.

An associated protest was similarly cracked down upon reports The Moscow Times: 5 Detained in Bid to Give Khimki Timber to Putin

“The police swooped down on us and detained us, acting in a very rude and harsh fashion and turning a peaceful event into a brawl,” [head of the Left Front group, Sergei] Udaltsov said

Google Maps shows North Korea logging endangered tigers' protected forest

This scandal has been reported on several websites:

The sharp images from Google Earth clearly shows the North Korean communist dictatorship is logging forest areas in a UN national park. Not only does the megalomaniac Kim Jong-il seek to build a nuclear armament, impoverish his subdued people and occasionally sink South Korean ships – he's also cutting down trees in the fragile, ancient forest where the last Siberian tigers live.
International researchers have long been monitoring the NASA satellite images of the area since they are not allowed to inspect it on ground. They were wondering why the green color of the forest was fading to brownish. But the precise satellite images from Google Earth now shows why: The North Koreans have been secretly logging in strips no wider than 10 meters – too slim to stand out on the old NASA images.
“I have applied for a permit to visit the area but have been denied access”, says scientist Lina Tang.

Or maybe not. The above text is typical but it's not really a quote. It has been further dramatized in order to illustrate the symptomatic: There are two “good stories” in the recent academic research published in Biological Conservation. One is in the tale of the reckless North Koreans. The other in the coolness of Google.

Wait a second – what are we talking about?

Forest areas surrounding a mountain on the border between North Korea and China. The Koreans call the mountain Baekdu-san, the Chinese call it Changbaishan and Wikipedia calls it Baekdu Mountain. At it's peak is a picturesque lake – sacred to some, probably tourist attraction to more – called Heaven Lake. Down its slope the climate changes from freezing tundra to temperate forest. It is home to many plants and animals; including the endangered Siberian tiger and wild ginseng.

Show larger map

So, what did the article by Lina Tang and the eight co-authors really say? Below is a summary.

Forest degradation deepens around and within protected areas in East Asia

It is true that the NASA Landsat images didn't show the finer details. But they do show a story going back to 1985. The methods chapter is interesting for people into geeky stuff about image analysis. It is indeed also true that the forests have suffered degradation on both sides of the border.
The Changbaishan and Baekdu-san were established as UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in 1979 and 1989 respectively to protect the ecosystem there which is home to the highest plant biodiversity in the cool temperate zone and – as mentioned – many endangered species. But there are many differences in the way the forests have been managed and much more is known about the Chinese parts.
The Chinese government has successfully enforced a ban on logging but areas has been severely damaged by storms and are still recovering. From 1985 to 2007 about 6% of the forest was lost. On the other hand, poaching has occurred and wild ginseng has been collected into obscurity. Right outside the reserve the Chinese have extensively logged the pine forest, doing some reforestation with birch and aspen.
On the Korean side about half the reserve area had suffered strip logging by 2007. This was clear only recently as the strips are about 10 meters wide, whereas in the older satellite images each pixel cover about 30 meters. The Koreans have cleared about 39% of the forest outside the reserve for agriculture.
Another thing the older satellite images didn't reveal was seed collecting and tourism. From the year 2000 to 2007 it was allowed to gather pine seeds in the Chinese reserve, a cherished food ingredient and valuable source of income for locals. In those years very few seeds were left to enter the natural cycle (animal food source and natural reforestation) and today nearly every tree bears wounds from climbing spurs. Also, in 2006 administration was moved from the Forestry Bureau to the Tourism Bureau. The number of visitors has rocketed from about 30,000 per year in the 1980ies to as much as 10,000 a day now. Much less is known about how the Koreans administrate the reserve but they do allow tourism.
The researchers estimate the “truly well-protected” reserve forest areas to be 44.9% in China and 34.6% in Korea. But these areas are ecologically isolated due to the extensive deforestation of the areas surrounding the reserves.

Second thoughts

Before raising an environmentalist call to relieve Kim Jong-il of his duties let us consider the following: The North Koreans are probably at least as effective as the Chinese in banning illegal logging, the Chinese side has suffered similar levels of deforestation and unfortunately this situation isn't exactly unique.
We're having problems with ecological isolation, illegal logging, poaching, severe weather events, climate change in many places around the world. The difference is in how to influence the leader(s) of this country – a problem similar to what we see in places like Zimbabwe.
Writing about development we are encouraged to not portray the third world as the victims of the story. Norht Korea, however, despite its few glimmers of progress and success is a unique tragedy. One with the bomb.

---

This story elsewhere: Treehugger / North Korea Logging in Protected Forest Discovered With Google, NASA Data, Mongabay / NASA, Google Earth catch North Korea logging protected area, UPI / Study: North Korea logs in protected area.
The Primary source is, of course:

Tang, L., Shao, G., Piao, Z., Dai, L., Jenkins, M., Wang, S., Wu, G., Wu, J., & Zhao, J. (2010). Forest degradation deepens around and within protected areas in East Asia Biological Conservation, 143 (5), 1295-1298 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.01.024



This article is also posted at TH!NK ABOUT IT #3: Developing World.

Our mobiles are bleeding

We don't want to think too much about it. But every time we buy a new gadget we support a mining industry of questionable ethics. In the case of the mines in eastern Congo it is extraordinary brutal.

In a time of desperate need for re-forestation to fight climate change, in Congo wide swaths of jungle have been cleared to make way for 15,000-25,000 poor boys and men working under slave-like conditions, living in tents on mud, guarded by "autonomous" army units, earning little while risking their lives. Although a violent environment the biggest killers are diseases and collapsing caves.

A movie about these mines, Blood in the Mobile, is in the works. The trailer is ready:



(If you haven't seen Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain at least watch the trailer for the music which is taken from that film. Beautiful!)


As they say:

"Different armed groups are fighting to gain control over the mine."

Furthermore, TreeHugger.com has a slideshow of 34 photographs: The Incredible Story of Conflict Mineral Mining in Images.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, scene of the deadliest conflict since World War II, remains mired in violence in significant part because of the international demand for electronic products that requires minerals found in the eastern Congo. The minerals mined here are used to make our iPhones, laptops and MP3 players, but at a great expense. Armed groups finance themselves through the illicit conflict mineral trade and fight over control of mines and taxation points inside Congo.

Congo is mentioned in the 100 Places to Remember project (see previous post). But it only concerns the deforestation of the precious original Itubi forest; home to the Mbuti pygmy people, endangered leopards, chimps, okapis etc. Deforestation not only removes essential carbon sinks it releases CO₂ corresponding to about a fourth of the worlds fossil fuel use.

More: Official Blood in the Mobile website, Raise Hope for Congo.

Environmental Trouble = Political Trouble -- Missing pieces from Jared Diamonds 'Collapse'

I have mentioned Jared Diamond before - professor of geography and author of several outstanding books. But so far I haven't mentioned the most obvious: the illustration on page 497 of (my Penguin Books paperback edition of) Collapse there is an illustration of two world maps, one highlighting "Political Trouble Spots of the Modern World" the other "Environmental Trouble Spots of the Modern World". The message is, of course, that those two maps highlight exactly the same countries.

Some of these I have already written and/or linked to stories about: Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Philippines. So far I haven't blogged about Burundi, Madagascar, Nepal, Mongolia and Solomon Islands but these places are also marked on Diamonds map. What did I miss?

Catching up: Diamonds trouble spots

Burundi is on Diamonds map because it was involved in the Rwandan territorial dispute and overpopulation inspired genocide and seems to be in sort of the same situation. Solomon Islands is experiencing what some sources describe as the worst illegal logging in the world and so much corruption and violence of all sorts it is being called a "failed state". It has depended on Australia and New Zealand to intervene and restore some order. Basically consisting of rain forest and beach it is also rich in minerals but most live from fishing and subsistence farming.

The other three countries is in neither contents (chapter headlines) or index of the book. Weird. But Madagascar has experienced quite a bit of violence and struggle for control since its independence - including a period of military dictatorship and an coup d'état attempt November 2006 [Wikipedia]. It has a unique and rich ecology but is subject to massive deforestation due to both primitive agriculture, mining and logging. Don't forget corruption and poverty. Nepal we have all heard of, right? When the crown prince killed his parents the Queen and the King in 2001 from alleged love sickness. Now it's a young republic, still a biodiversity hotspot receiving many refugees from Bhutan, China and elsewhere. When Collapse was published it was still in civil war with a Maoist guerilla. Google quickly turned up Environment Assessment of Nepal – Emerging Issues and Challenges mentioning deforestation, hydropower income, melting glaciers and so on.

Regarding Mongolia I must be missing out on something. It's poor and basically a steppe with some mineral resources. But it seems to be enjoying rather peaceful relations with most countries.

That's all just from about half an hour of browsing Wikipedia and the CIA facts site.

Adding up: The World Map of Trouble

I gladly add the missing pieces you provide to my puzzle.

But Professor Diamond, why did you exclude Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia, Congo, Azerbaijan and many of the other countries featured on my Ecowar Battlefields map? My map is hardly Nobel Prize material - these conflicts and environmental issues are secret only to those who willingly close their eyes to them.


Vis The Ecowar battlefields på et større kort

In conclusions: Main issues and lessons

Jared Diamond seems to merely provide his map as an after thought, some left hand work. And it is only meant to underline one of many points of his book. Before reading this final chapter one has been painstakingly dragged through the major environmental and political convergences of known history. I'll just real quick sum up the main messages.

Deforestation, deforestation, deforestation. We never seem to learn though cutting down trees planting nothing in return has brought down many societies of our past. What we have erred in over and over throughout history we are now repeating on a global scale. People just can't seem to get into their heads that mankind is dependent on trees. Deforestation plus the fact that all the problems are linked, every corner of our ecosystem invaluable.

"Deforestation was a or the major factor in all of the collapses of past societies described in this book [that's Collapse ...] Other valuable natural habitats besides forests are also being destroyed. [...] But biodiversity losses of small inedible species often provokes the response, "Who cares?" [... But] Elimination of lots of lousy little species regularly causes big harmful consequences for humans, just as does randomly knocking out many of the lousy little rivets holding together an airplane."

[Collapse p. 488-489]

The problems are there and they are only growing in size. We can choose to ignore them for some time but sooner or later we will address them. But how?

"Thus, because we are rapidly advancing along this non-sustainable course, the world's environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults alive today. The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies. While all of those grim phenomena have been endemic to humanity throughout our history, their frequency increases with environmental degradation, population pressure, and the resulting poverty and political instability."

[Collapse p. 498]

If you don't have the book there is always the internet. Here are three Jared Diamond related articles, just for starters:

• Financial Times / Lunch with the FT: Jared Diamond


• The end is not necessarily nigh


• TreeHugger / Learning From Past Civilizations

Workers of polluting and nature exploiting industries in violent attacks against environmentalists

Remember October 2008 when Old growth forest lumberjacks attack[ed] environmentalist protestors?

Now fishermen have assaulted Greenpeace activists who suspected foul play.

[As activst Emma boarded the vessel on sea] they punched her, pulled her hair, picked her up and threw her overboard [and later on the pier] She was viciously assaulted by a burly sailor twice her size, holding her down and punching her repeatedly in the face.

Read A black eye for Emma and another step forward for bluefin tuna at the Greenpeace Staff Blog.

An interestingly identical video appeared even before I managed to blog the above: Coal mine workers verbally abuse anti-coal protesters at what appears to be a quite cozy event. See Treehuggers Pro-Coal Thugs Crash Peaceful Anti-Coal Event in West Virginia - This is Getting Ugly (Video) or click play right away:


Both the big fat lumberjacks and the big, fat and half naked coal miner are just physically intimidating while intellectually challenged. But notice the female coal worker says:

"You may have another way of earning a living, but we don't."

That might as well be a quote by the equally bone headed oil industry. Rather than exploring new ways of "earning a living" they sponsor anti-environmentalist propaganda organizations (just a quick search immediately found a note about Exxon at SourceWatch.org and a website called "Follow the Oil Money".)

Indigenous Peruvians and police in deadly clashes at oil and mining protests

Sometimes researchers are blamed of being alarmists stirring up fears of a fictional dystopia by the business-as-usual crowd. But it seems a forewarning of conflict over oil in Peru is proceeding according to exactly such a warning. The news first...

40+ dead at protest

In extension of free trade agreements the Peruvian government has plans for 'developing' the Amazon homelands of many indigenous communities - opening it for oil, mineral, logging, and agricultural exploitation. Locals have been protesting some of these initiatives claiming they are unconstitutional and in violation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. When police intervened fighting erupted. Body counts wary; one is as high as 81.

President Alan Garcia Perez is claimed to have been behind a massacre on suspects of being Maoist guerrillas in 1986. A former army colonel turned politician is siding with the protesters. An arrest warrant has been issued on protest leader Alberto Pizango who has gone into hiding.

Sources: Upside Down World / 50 Days of Protest and One Massacre in the Peruvian Amazon | Peruanista blog | The New York Times / 9 Hostage Officers Killed at Peruvian Oil Facility | AP / 9 more police killed in Amazon protests in Peru | AP / At least 31 killed in Peru Amazon clashes | Mongobay / Oil or Death in the Amazon

Peer reviewed prophesies

A 2008 paper on PLoS ONE discussed this ongoing and accelerating exploitation in "the most species-rich part of the Amazon". From the paper:

Without improved policies, the increasing scope and magnitude of planned extraction means that environmental and social impacts are likely to intensify. [... We] consider the conflicts where the blocks overlap indigenous peoples' territories.

Oil and gas development in the western Amazon has already caused major environmental and social impacts. Direct impacts include deforestation for access roads, drilling platforms, and pipelines, and contamination from oil spills and wastewater discharges.

In Peru, hydrocarbon blocks now overlap 20 protected areas. Thirteen of these protected areas preceded creation of the oil blocks and lack compatibility studies required by the Protected Areas Law.

the history of oil and gas extraction in the western Amazon is one of massive ecological and social disruption, the future need not repeat the past.

No, it need not. But it just did. Heed the warnings of those who reason with statistics and logic.


Finer, M., Jenkins, C., Pimm, S., Keane, B., & Ross, C. (2008). Oil and Gas Projects in the Western Amazon: Threats to Wilderness, Biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples PLoS ONE, 3 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002932



Vis stort kort
The lands of the Incas are endowed with copper, silver, gold, petroleum, timber, fish, iron ore, coal, phosphate, potash, hydropower and natural gas while troubled by deforestation, illegal logging, overgrazing, soil erosion, desertification, air and water pollution (including pollution from mining wastes). (Source: CIA Factbook)

Highlights: CNN's Planet in Peril - Battle Lines

CNN has been so kind to produce the Ecowar TV-series: I have been watching a bit of their Planet in Peril - Battle Lines series lately.



World's most valuable resource, a curse for most Nigerians

Hundreds of billions of dollars has been made from the Niger Delta's oil reserves and many people have gotten very rich. Conversely, the average Nigerian has suffered as a result of the country's oil prosperity. [...] there have been more than 6,000 oil spills in the Niger Delta -- that is equal to more than 10 times the amount spilled from the Exxon Valdez in 1989. Yet, there is no international outcry and rarely are the spills reported

Surveying elephants with jubilation and horror

over the last four decades, the number of Central African elephants has dwindled from nearly two hundred thousand to several thousand: the pace of the loss has been hugely shocking and disturbing. The global demand for ivory combined with war in neighboring Sudan has nearly killed off the Central African elephant.

Polar bears resort to cannibalism as Arctic ice shrinks

"The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears," according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don't have access to their usual food sources."

Legal battle over forest is victory for Paraguayan Indians

A small tribe of Indians in Paraguay who have had virtually no contact with the outside world won a legal battle this week when rights groups stopped a Brazilian company from continuing to bulldoze the forest to clear land for cattle ranches.

Global warming could increase terrorism, official says

Climate change "will aggravate existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions," Thomas Fingar said. "All of this threatens the domestic stability of a number of African, Asian, Central American and Central Asian countries."

Another Darfur Casualty: Trees

On top of the human toll, the conflict in Darfur is afflicting the environment [...] on Mount Marra, the highest peak in the area, there were about 100 trees for each acre of land in the 1990s, on average; by 2001 that was down to 50, and it is now about 20.

Desertification helped spark the war in Darfur in the first place. To boil it down in its simplest terms, the mostly nomadic Arab tribes began clashing with the settled African clans over shrinking grazing lands and scarce water in Darfur

Congo fighting is about water, timber and diamonds

"The natural environment enjoys protection under Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions. But this protection is often violated during war and armed conflict. Water wells are polluted, crops torched, forests cut down, soils poisoned, and animals killed, all in order to gain military advantage.

[...]

We have seen how environmental damage and the collapse of institutions are threatening human health, livelihoods and security. These risks can also jeopardize fragile peace and development in post-conflict societies. The environment and natural resources are crucial in consolidating peace within and between war-torn societies.

The United Nations attaches great importance to ensuring that action on the environment is part of our approach to peace. Protecting the environment can help countries create employment opportunities, promote development and avoid a relapse into armed conflict. On this International Day, let us renew our commitment to preventing the exploitation of the environment in times of conflict, and to protecting the environment as a pillar of our work for peace."

Quote United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. My emphasis. Said on the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict, which is observed each year on November 6 while on his way to negotiate peace in Congo.

Since the outbreak of fighting in August 1998, the conflicts have been rooted in struggles for control of natural resources such as water, timber, diamonds and other minerals as well as various political agendas

Via Environment News Service.

Iraq scarred by war waste

"War destroys countries' environments, not just their people. War and its effects have led to changes in the social, economic and environmental fabric [...] It will take centuries to restore the natural environment of Iraq. [...] Most of the infectious diseases and cancer are environmental diseases. When we talk about the environment we mean health."

- Iraqi Environment Minister Nermeen Othman

Old growth forest lumberjacks attack environmentalist protestors

The financial crisis: nothing special

Even the relatively progressive newspaper I subscribe to (Danish Information) has been front page worried about the financial crisis bringing an end to environmental initiatives. Although it's probably going to be true in many cases I have thought of it as fossilized thinking that going green should equal spending green. The key is to try and think of what we have to accomplish in terms of what investments will take us there.

Today ENN has two articles that agree:

US focus on climate could ease financial crisis

"My very strong belief is that we need to reorient our investments toward this transition to a clean energy economy, and it will be the engine of growth for getting us out of the doldrums that we've gotten in right now" - Cathy Zoi

Cost of deforestation is vastly greater than that of the current financial crisis

"Whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year" - Deutche Bank economist

Also remember that the financial crisis has left few physical marks. All that has suffered are the capitalist fantasies of some investors (and of course some everyday dreams of common people too who have been more or less forced into the financial fantasies by the resulting market changes - my apologies to you for being cynical on behalf of the environment).

"The Role of Forests in Climate Change"

Forest conservation can fight climate change and poverty

"For the first time on this unprecedented scale, forest leaders, business representatives, donors, and community groups not only agreed on the pivotal role that forests can play in mitigating climate change but also mapped out a consensus action plan on concrete next steps. We now ask the world to work with us in putting these guiding principles into action"

[...]

Of all the options for responding to climate change, forest-related mitigation measures are, in the short to medium term, among the most practicable and cost-effective. They also have very low opportunity costs and can make an immediate and direct contribution to sustainable development and rural livelihoods.

[...]

By providing adaptability and supporting livelihoods, sustainable forest management offers an efficient win-win solution. It can ensure healthy and productive forests, underpin robust rural livelihoods, and deliver a wide range of products and ecosystem services that societies demand. It can also be an economically, environmentally, and socially effective way of addressing climate change globally.

Forest CO2 storage plans should aid poor

Forest protection can help fight climate change but any UN-led projects must also ease poverty and safeguard rights of indigenous peoples

[...]

"Forests have a unique ability to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions, capture carbon and lessen the vulnerability of people and ecosystems to climate change"

[...]

By some estimates, destruction of the natural world represents losses of a staggering $2-$5 trillion a year.

"A few billion dollars is a very good buy. The costs are marginal compared to the benefits"