CWS Update September 2009
Dates to note:
- 8 September - International Literacy Day
- 15 September - Day of Democracy
- 16 September- Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
- 21 September - Day of Prayer for Peace
>>Climate change – A new study highlights threats to food
supplies for Africa. New varieties of grains that will surviver in the
new climate need to be developed now. Read more
>>Agriculture and climate change – Climate change
compounds the challenges facing agriculture. Nine billion people will
live on our planet by 2050, an increase of 50 percent over today. Even
without climate change, meeting this increased demand, while preserving
our natural resources would be difficult. Read more
>>West Papua - A call for solidarity and protection of the area’s natural resources and human rights. Read more
>>DRC Congo – attacks continue as US Secretary of State visits. Read more
>>International Decade for Water 2005-2015 - Debates on water management. Read more. Contact CWS for our latest issue of @world featuring more on the state of the world’s water.
>>Hope is our song – Hymnbook trust conference on peace, justice and creation, Labour Weekend. More information
AFRICA: What Will We Eat in the Future?
It will take at least ten years to develop a variety of staple grain
that will survive in the climates caused by global warming in most
parts of Africa, and the continent has less than two decades in which
to do it, warn the authors of a new study. The countries have to start
developing varieties now, but many of these countries don’t have
breeding programmes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), an international scientific body, has predicted that food
production in Africa could halve by 2020 as global warming pushes
temperatures up and droughts become more intense.
In an earlier study researchers projected that maize production,
southern Africa’s staple food, could drop by as much as 30 percent in
another two decades. The new study by researchers at Stanford
University’s Programme on Food Security and the Environment, in the US,
and the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust noted that, “For a
majority of Africa’s farmers, warming will rapidly take climate not
only beyond the range of their personal experience, but also beyond the
experience of farmers within their own country.”
Many farmers will find staple crop varieties in other African
countries, where current temperatures and conditions are similar to
what they might experience in future. For example, farmers in Lesotho,
with one of the coolest climates in Africa, could find maize varieties
grown now in parts of Mali, one of the hottest countries in Africa,
which would be tolerant to the very high temperatures they would face
in another 20 years. Six countries in the Sahel - Senegal, Chad, Mali,
Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone, the hottest in Africa - are of
major concern to the researchers, as they will face conditions unlike
any currently encountered by farmers on the continent. Parts of these
countries will never be able to grow maize, which is more heat
sensitive and would have to settle for drought-tolerant sorghum. Many
parts of Africa would no longer be able to grow anything.
It would be possible to develop crop varieties in simulated
conditions, based on projections for the Sahel belt, but very few
traditional primary cereal crops - African varieties of maize, millet
and sorghum - selected by farmers over the centuries for their unique
suitability to local growing conditions were available in genebanks,
having been all but wiped out by the introduction of european-style
crops and methods.
So climate change calls for closer collaboration, sharing of
resources and more investment. The researchers’ call to help African
countries comes during the global debate over a legally binding funding
mechanism to help poor countries adapt to climate change.
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Agriculture: The Case for Copenhagen
By
2050 we will need to produce enough food to feed nine billion people.
Gerald C. Nelson, a Senior Research Fellow at the US-based
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), makes a case for
agriculture in the run-up to the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen
in December to reach a global accord on cutting greenhouse gas
emissions.
“Climate change compounds the challenges facing agriculture. Nine
billion people will live on our planet by 2050, an increase of 50
percent over today. Most of the growth will occur in what is now the
developing world. We all hope that they will live better lives than
their parents, with adequate food and higher-quality diets. Even
without climate change, meeting this increased demand, while preserving
our natural resources would be difficult.
“Agriculture also contributes to climate change, accounting for
almost 15 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The developing
world accounts for nearly half of global agricultural emissions, with
80 percent of those emissions due to changes in land use and forestry.
But it can also mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from elsewhere,
sequestering carbon above and below ground. Climate change negotiators
should recognise and act on three key points: (1) Improve our
understanding of the impact of climate change on agriculture (2) Help
poor farmers in the developing world adapt to climate change (3) Pursue
climate change mitigation through agriculture. We must start research,
adaptation investments and policy reform now, if we are to feed the
world sustainably and reduce poverty in future.
“The goal is to find and fund the most cost-effective ways to help the poor adapt…A key first step is a
pro-growth, pro-poor development agenda that supports agricultural
sustainability. Adaptation is easier when people have more resources
and operate in a flexible economic environment. Crop and livestock
research, including biotechnology, should be urgently pursued to help
overcome hotter temperatures, drought and new diseases. Improvements in
water productivity are critical. The distribution and quantity of
rainfall will become more variable, increasing the need for better
water harvesting, storage and management. Encouraging agricultural
water users to conserve is equally important…
“Improved agricultural practices have the potential to mitigate
climate change. Carbon can be stored above and below ground by plants -
there are many cost-effective options. Changes in management practices
can reduce methane and nitrous oxide emissions , two extremely potent
greenhouse gases that account for much of agriculture’s share. Funding
for research to improve understanding and prediction of the
interactions between climate change and agriculture is crucial.
“Farmer education is important. Changing the types of crops can
increase soil carbon and restore the quality of degraded soils,
enhancing soil fertility and increasing production.
“Many changes to cropping systems that make them more resilient to
climate change also increase carbon sequestration. Conservation tillage
increases soil water retention in drought conditions while also
sequestering carbon below ground. Small-scale irrigation facilities not
only conserve water, but also increase crop productivity and soil
carbon. It will take time to implement the necessary changes in
policies and practices, but the world cannot afford the luxury of
delay. Now is the time to put agriculture on the Copenhagen agenda.”
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West Papuans See Peaceful Dialogue
In
August, CWS supported the visit of Paula Makabory, a human rights
campaigner from West Papua, currently living in exile in Australia.
She was here to raise the plight of West Papuans, who face considerable
suffering in their own land and their struggle for self-determination.
One focus of her visit was the campaign against the use of kwila in
outdoor furniture, much of which is logged in her country. She also
highlighted the tremendous damage done by Freeport which operates the
world’s largest gold mine and third largest copper mine near Timika.
The massive mine has created considerable tension with local Papuans
who receive no benefit, but rather deal with huge environmental damage
and periodic persecution by Indonesian Security Forces.
Paula, a member of the Evangelical Christian Church in the Papua
Land, worked with human rights group Elsham to document the abuses of
local people and press for greater protection of their rights. While
in New Zealand she asked for solidarity, “We are rich in natural
resources. We cannot cry to Europe. It is too far away. You are
Pacific Islanders like me.”
Forty years after the signing of the so-called Act of Free Choice
enabling Indonesia to take control of the government, the province of
Irian Jaya as it is called, remains the poorest with very high levels
of HIV and AIDS, cholera, malaria and other diseases. Indigenous
Papuans make up just over half the population, the remainder are
Indonesians from other provinces. In 2000 a broad section of Papuans
united to declare the country a Land of Peace, a message that they want
to take to the world in an effort to foster peaceful dialogue about
their future. For more information or to borrow the DVD, Morning Star,
the story of West Papua, contact CWS
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DCR/Congo: Will Clinton’s Promise Help?
Three days before US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s much
publicised visit to Eastern Congo, the ‘Lord’s Resistance Army’ (LRA)
carried out one of its repeated attacks in the region (55 in July, 57
in May and June) causing at least 12,000 more people to flee their
homes. Since the International Criminal Court caused an end to peace
talks between the Ugandan government and LRA leader Joseph Kony by
indicting him on humanitarian grounds, the carnage has increased.
Since September 2007, from their base in Southern Sudan (whose people
also suffer murderous attacks) LRA fighters have killed 1,273 people,
abducted more than 2,000, nearly a third of them children and caused
some 268,000 people to be displaced from their villages.
But the LRA is not the only threat to the suffering people of the
region. There is also the 6,000-strong FDLR militia (the rebel
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) dominated by fighters
believed to have participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. There are
other local militias, born of inter-tribal rivalry and illegal mining
activities. The militias control large swathes of land, mainly in the
mineral-rich Kivu provinces; the illegal minerals trade helps to
finance the various wars.
Then there is the FARDC (the Congolese Armed Forces) which is
supposedly battling the militias. However, along with the militias, it
is blamed for massive human rights abuses in North and South Kivu,
including widespread rape and sexual violence. At least 200,000 cases
of sexual violence have been recorded in eastern DRC since 1996,
according to the UN. Across the country, an estimated 2.1 million
people have been displaced by conflict, about 1.7 million of them in
the two Kivu Provinces. According to the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, sexual and gender-based violence
cases in South Kivu have already increased by 30 percent in 2009
compared with 2008.
During her visit the US Secretary of State described the widespread
sexual violence against women in the DRC as “a crime against humanity”.
She pledged US$17 million to combat the scourge. “The US condemns the
perpetrators of sexual violence, and all those who abet such violence
and permit impunity to continue,” Clinton said. “These individuals harm
not only individuals, families, villages and regions, but shred the
very fabric that weaves us together as human beings.”
Asked what should be done, she told UN Radio Okapi, “It is going to
take NGOs and civil society. It has to start with making sure that the
military of the DRC does not engage in any sexual and gender-based
violence, and there has to be no impunity for anyone who does [and] an
effort to cut off the funding for the militias and resolve the
underlying political tensions in the east.”
Before Clinton’s visit, a coalition of 88 humanitarian and human
rights organisations urged her to press the government and UN
peacekeepers to offer more protection to civilians. Will her
multi-million dollar pledge have the desired effect?
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Water: International Decade 2005-2015
The
International Decade for Action is titled ‘Water for Life’. It is run
by the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP), founded in 2000, which
is the flagship programme of UN-Water, housed in UNESCO. WWAP monitors
freshwater issues in order to provide recommendations, develop case
studies, enhance assessment capacity at a national level and inform the
decision-making process. Its primary product, the World Water
Development Report (WWDR), is a periodic, comprehensive review
providing an authoritative picture of the state of the world’s
freshwater resources. Over the years it has held consultations which
have resulted in various ministerial declarations, as follows:
“Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be
recognised as an economic good. Within this principle, it is vital to
recognise first the basic right of all human beings to have access to
clean water and sanitation at an affordable price. Past failure to
recognise the economic value of water has led to wasteful and
environmentally damaging uses of the resource. Managing water as an
economic good is an important way of achieving efficient and equitable
use, and of encouraging conservation and protection of water resources.
“Water should be regarded as a finite resource having an economic value
with significant social and economic implications regarding the
importance of meeting basic needs.”
“To manage water in a way that reflects its economic, social,
environmental and cultural values for all its uses, and to move towards
pricing water services to reflect the cost of their provision. This
approach should take account of the need for equity and the basic needs
of the poor and the vulnerable.”
“‘Funds should be raised by adopting cost recovery approaches which
suit local climatic, environmental and social conditions and the
‘polluter-pays’ principle, with due consideration to the poor. All
sources of financing, both public and private, national and
international, must be mobilized and used in the most efficient and
effective way.”
The debate is still very much alive, especially in developing
countries, where CWS partners are concerned about the trend to
‘commercialise’ water supplies, which can leave the poorest people
unable to access this vital resource. We support them as they raise
their voices to protect the right of all people ‘to access clean water
at an affordable price’.
– See the video/DVD, ‘Water Who Owns It?’ Contact CWS or order online
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Hope is Our Song : Peace, Justice, Creation
“Hope is our Song” is the title of The Hymnbook Trust conference to be
held over the coming Labour Weekend in Palmerston North. It is also
the title of the Trust’s new book, to be launched at the conference.
Keynote speakers will include Clive Pearson, Jim Strathdee from
California and Colin Gibson. NZHymnbook Trust Manager, John Thornley,
says the conference will “address the public issues and explore how our
own hymns can energise and support us in our struggles to achieve the
Kingdom of God on earth…” For full information about the conference
and registrations see Hymnbook Trust website or email info@hymns.org.nz (PO Box 4142, Manawatu Mail Centre 4442)
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