Indonesia and the European Union on Thursday agreed that, beginning 15 November 2016, Indonesia can issue the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licences to verified legal timber products it exports to the EU.
The FLEGT Action Plan of 2003 is the EU’s initiative against illegal logging, which aims to reduce illegal logging by strengthening the sustainability and legality of forest management, improving forest governance and promoting trade in legally produced timber.
Illegal logging. Via the issuance of FLEGT licences, EU and Indonesia hope to combat illegal logging and associated illegal timber trade
Thursday’s decision makes Indonesia the first country in the world to achieve this major milestone in the global effort to combat illegal logging and associated illegal timber trade.
The decision was made at the 5th Joint Implementation Committee, which oversees the implementation of the Indonesia-EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade – Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT VPA). Indonesia and the EU signed the Agreement in Brussels on 30 September 2013, completing negotiations of the VPA.
Indonesia has developed a system for assuring that all timber products harvested or imported, transported, traded, processed and exported comply with national laws on environmental, social and economic aspects identified by stakeholders from government, the private sector and civil society. The country’s timber legality assurance system, called Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu (SVLK), is subject to independent monitoring by civil society and periodic evaluation by an independent auditor. The implementation of the FLEGT licence means that the Indonesian SVLK meets the requirements of the VPA with the EU.
“Indonesia has achieved great progress in bringing its forest sector under control and improving transparency, participation and other aspects of good forest governance through a process of dialogue and compromise among all stakeholder groups,” said Putera Parthama, Director General of Sustainable Forest Management at Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and co-chair of the JIC. “By addressing legality we have built the foundation for sustainable forest management and action to address climate change. We have met the high certification standards of the EU.”
In addition to improving governance and increasing government revenues, the FLEGT licence benefits timber traders. FLEGT-licensed products automatically meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation, which prohibits operators in the EU from placing illegally harvested timber and products derived from illegal timber on the EU market. EU operators can therefore place FLEGT-licensed timber on the EU market without doing due diligence.
The JIC also agreed on joint activities until the end of 2017 through which the EU and Indonesia will oversee the continual improvement of Indonesia’s timber legality assurance system and wider VPA implementation. The plan will address continuation of the multistakeholder process, data collection, independent forest monitoring, enforcement, and monitoring the EU market for FLEGT-licenced timber products.
“The decision to begin FLEGT licensing is a landmark achievement in a partnership that links EU businesses and consumers with legal traders in Indonesia,” said Vincent Guérend, the EU Ambassador to Indonesia and co-chair of the JIC. “By guaranteeing legality, FLEGT licences should not only make business more efficient for traders in both Indonesia and the EU but also strengthen governance and ensure fairness to all forest stakeholders. They are the result of increasing transparency and better accountability and stakeholder participation in decisions about forests. Today, all of Indonesia’s timber exports are from independently audited factories and forests.”
The EU has already completed internal procedures to recognise FLEGT licences from Indonesia. Competent authorities and timber importers in the 28 EU Member States are now preparing to receive the world’s first shipments of FLEGT-licensed timber.
According to the EU, FLEGT contributes to efforts to limit climate change, conserve biodiversity, protect rights and increase transparency.
When former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, signed the National Tobacco Control (NTC) Act 2015 into law four days to the end of his administration, most Nigerians heaved a sigh relief.
Paul Hopkins, tobacco industry employee-turned-whistleblower, said his job was to make sure the competition never got a breathing space
The exhilarating feeling among Nigerians was not unanticipated as the law had gone through a tortuous road, almost declared missing at a point before resurrecting to become a reality. The process proper started more than a decade before when Nigeria joined the committee of nations that signed and ratified the first global health treaty known as the World Health Organisation – Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC).
The coming into force of the FCTC on 27 February 2005 marked the first time that the WHO went as far as enacting international legal powers to address tobacco addiction and its deadly fallouts. Dr. Jonathan’s signing of the law was therefore a watershed for Nigeria as it joined the ranks of nations that have domesticated the treaty.
While the law still has loopholes such as a bureaucratic provision that the National Assembly must give its nod for implementing Regulations to be fashioned by the Ministry of Health for implementation to begin, in the overall, the NTC Act 2015 is seen as a torchlight pointing in the right direction.
A further encouraging development is the recent inauguration of the National Tobacco Control Committee (NATOCC) by Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, and Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo’s meeting with civil society where he pledged federal government’s support for quick implementation of the tobacco law.
But even as these strides thrill Nigerians, for the Ministry of Health, the need to be circumspect about the tobacco industry is instructive. This has become very important now that the tobacco industry is pulling stunts to obstruct or delay the passage of tobacco control policies across Africa.
Kenya is an example that readily comes to mind. Even after a 13-year legislative battle for the passage of her Tobacco Control Act which happened in 2007, British America Tobacco (BAT) petitioned a Kenyan court to stop the adoption of regulations that would facilitate implementation of Kenya’s Tobacco Control Act, claiming the Kenyan Ministry of Health violated due process procedures under the Constitution by not consulting with the tobacco industry in fashioning its Tobacco Control Act.
After several deliberate attempts to arm-twist the ministry, the Kenyan court ruled, among others, that, according to the documents presented to it, there were various meetings during the framing of the regulations that BAT was represented in, and consulted. The suit was thrown out.
For public health advocates the BAT lawsuit is a familiar one deliberately aimed at undermining, delaying and thwarting the strong tobacco control regulations. The company is also allegedly involved in coercing government officials to advocate on its behalf, interfering in policymaking through trade committees and third parties, and aggressively lobbying and bribing policymakers.
The recourse to litigation was as a result of the failure of the previous tactics even as the company is yet to extricate itself from allegations of systematic bribery which was exposed by Paul Hopkins, an employee-turned-whistleblower. In 2015, Hopkins revealed that BAT engaged in systematic bribery to thwart tobacco control laws throughout Central and East Africa.
Hopkins went into details to describe how BAT funded illegal corporate espionage and how its contractors bribed politicians and policymakers in countries like Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.
Hopkins, former BAT personnel, shared hundreds of secret documents which revealed he started paying bribes after being told it was the cost of doing business in Africa. His job was to facilitate the payments.
Emails he shared revealed the company made illegal payments to two members and one former member of the FCTC. An FCTC representative from Burundi, Godefroid Kamwenubusa, and a representative from the Comoros Islands, Chaibou Bedja Abdou, were alleged to have also received $3,000 while former representative from Rwanda, Bonaventure Nzeyimana, was paid $20,000. In return for the illegal payment to Kamwenubusa, a Burundian senior civil servant, BAT also wanted a draft copy of the country’s Tobacco Control Bill with an e-mail to the government official asking to “accommodate any amendments before the president signs.”
In Uganda, the company is allegedly behind financial muscle to oppose a MPs private member’s bill aimed at curbing smoking in a country where cigarettes kill 13,500 people a year.
Learning Point
Nigeria’s health ministry must learn from an observed pattern of tobacco industry booby trap as it begins developing regulations for implementation of the Tobacco Control Act. The ministry must also have Article 5.3 of the WHO-FCTC at the back of its mind as the focal agency of government to implement the law as it alerts that industry interference poses the single greatest threat to tobacco control policies. It must guard against industry influence. Only such caution will save Nigerians from lifelong addiction to tobacco. The other alternative is to wait for the industry to begin a game it knows very well to our collective peril. God forbid!
A new IEA report – World Energy Investment 2016 – shows the electricity sector leading a broad reorientation of energy investment but warns more is needed to meet climate targets and address energy security concerns
IEA Executive Director, Fatih Birol. The new report shows the electricity sector leading a broad reorientation of energy investment
In a first-ever detailed analysis of investment across the global energy system, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday in London that global energy investment fell by 8% in 2015, with a drop in oil and gas upstream spending outweighing continued robust investment in renewables, electricity networks and energy efficiency.
Total investment in the energy sector reached $1.8 trillion in 2015, down from $2.0 trillion in 2014, according to the World Energy Investment (WEI 2016).
The new annual report provides a comprehensive and detailed picture of the current investment landscape across fuels, technologies and countries. It shows that the energy system is undergoing a broad reorientation toward low-carbon energy and efficiency but investment in key clean energy technologies needs to be further ramped up to put the world economy on track for climate stabilisation.
“We see a broad shift of spending toward cleaner energy, often as a result of government policies,” said IEA Executive Director, Fatih Birol. “Our report clearly shows that such government measures can work, and are key to a successful energy transition. But while some progress has been achieved, investors need clarity and certainty from policy makers. Governments must not only maintain but heighten their commitment to achieve energy security and climate goals.”
With energy supply spending of $315 billion, China was once again the world’s largest energy investor last year thanks to robust efforts in building up low-carbon generation and electricity networks, as well as implementing energy efficiency policies.
Investment in the United States’ energy supply declined to about $280 billion in 2015, falling nearly $75 billion, due to low oil prices and cost deflation, representing half of the total decline in global energy spending. The Middle East and Russia emerged as the most resilient regions to spending cuts, thanks respectively to lower production costs and currency movements. As a result, national oil companies accounted for 44 percent of overall upstream investments, an all-time high.
Renewable energy investments of $313 billion accounted for nearly a fifth of total energy spending last year, establishing renewables as the largest source of power investment. While spending on renewable power capacity was flat between 2011 and 2015, electricity generation from the new capacity rose by one third, reflecting the steep cost declines in wind turbines and solar PV. The investment in renewable power capacity in 2015 generates more than enough to cover global electricity demand growth.
Technology innovations boosted investment in smart grids and storage, which are expected to play a crucial role in integrating large shares of wind and solar. While grid-scale battery storage investment expanded tenfold since 2010, their value is predominantly to complement the grid, which continues to absorb much larger investment.
Global gas-fired power generation investment declined by nearly 40%. Asian markets continued to favour investment in coal power. Investment activity in European gas power remained muted despite large retirements anticipated in the next decade.
With investment rising 6%, energy efficiency spending was robust in 2015 due to government policies such as minimum standards that cover a rising share of new buildings, appliances and motor vehicles. In certain countries, lower prices slowed the trend towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, most notably in the United States where the rate of improvement in efficiency was two-thirds lower than that in recent years
As the world observes the 22nd International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer on September 16, 2016, stakeholders have taken up an appraisal of efforts made in the past to protect the atmosphere and preserve man’s existence on earth.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He wants the world to commit to do more to protect the ozone layer. Photo credit: www.afrik.com
Themed: “Ozone and climate: Restored by a world united”, the 2016 International Ozone Day recognises the collective efforts of the parties to the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol towards the restoration of the ozone layer over the past three decades and the global commitment to combat climate change.
The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer is a Multilateral Environmental Agreement that was agreed upon at the Vienna Conference of 1985 and entered into force in 1988. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, on the other hand, is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion.
In a speech to commemorate the 2016 International Ozone Day, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, submitted: “On this International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, let us remember how much has already been accomplished, and commit to do more to protect our atmosphere. By working together, we can build a safer, healthier, more prosperous and resilient world for all people while protecting our planet, our only home.”
In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 16 September the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (resolution 49/114).
States were invited to devote the Day to promote activities in accordance with the objectives of the Protocol and its amendments. The ozone layer, a fragile shield of gas, protects the Earth from the harmful portion of the rays of the sun, thus helping preserve life on the planet.
The phaseout of controlled uses of ozone depleting substances and the related reductions have not only helped protect the ozone layer for this and future generations, but have also contributed significantly to global efforts to address climate change; furthermore, it has protected human health and ecosystems by limiting the harmful ultraviolet radiation from reaching the earth.
In a bid to completely phase-out hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), an ozone-depleting substance (ODS) by 2040, Nigeria recently in Lagos took a major step towards realising the goal when stakeholders gathered to review and validate the findings of a survey, preparatory to the next stage of the initiative.
HCFCs are a group of man-made compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, chlorine and fluorine atoms considered to be destructive to the ozone layer, a region of the earth’s atmosphere that absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation. HCFCs are being phased out globally under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer to reduce their abundance and protect the fragile ozone layer.
The word “fossil” is derived from Latin and primarily means, “dug up”. However, it is important we know that the old forests, which had been pressed into coal and the ocean life that was pressed into oil over millions of years back, are what is known as “fossil fuels” today.
Fossil fuel pollution: Ghana may join the league of polluters, what with its proposal to establish a coal-fired plant in Ekumfi Aboano
Fossil fuel industry, on the other hand, specialises in the digging up of coal and oil deposits deep down the earth crust through developed refined methods. This activity is accountable for around 65 to 70 percent of present day global warming. The industry practitioners are thus major polluters.
Statistics has shown that climate change alone is responsible for the death of 300,000 people per year. Thus, it is now clear that the various impacts of climate change around the world ranging from sea level rise, flooding, drought, and desertification, amongst others, affirm that climate change is no longer a threat, but rather a reality.
Also, astounding billions of people will be kicked out of their homes if the world fails to agree on a global climate deal aimed at protecting the environment. Even if we find it difficult to kick fossil fuel industry out for the sake of the environment, we should consider doing so for the sake of the coming generations that will one day live to question our existence as to what we have done to them. There can’t be any better time the world bans fossil fuel industry from climate negotiations than now.
Countries of the world will be meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco between 7 and 18 of November, 2016, to deliberate on climate action, but our fear is that the negotiation should not be politicised like many others in the past. I continue to wonder why corporations like European Energy Giants Engie, Electricite de France (EDF), Shell and BNP Paribas that happens to be chief polluters will continue to sponsor climate talks.
Being the chief polluters, we should not expect them to agitate for a strong global climate deal, rather they would corner their ways to influence United Nations (UN) representatives and make them dance to their tune at a time we need to decide on the fate of humanity.
No wonder Hoda Baraka, Global Communications Manager for 350.org, stated, “The fossil fuel industry is actively lobbying climate action and standing in the way of progress. When you’re trying to burn the table down, you don’t deserve a seat at it. This process needs to hear the voices of the people not polluters”. It is crystal clear that if the fossil fuel industry continues to be part of climate talks, there will not be any significant change or progress in the outcomes of climate talks. For how long must we continue to make corporations set climate talks agenda and put profit making interests above humanity and planet earth?
We should not forget the fact that millions of people and countries will continue to suffer for the unrepentant act of these corporations. This is the time we need to be more active as world citizens to save the planet from collapsing. We must brace up to protect the environment, save the less privileged people from the vulnerabilities of climate change; safeguard animals from extinction, and lakes from drying up.
If we fail to meet the 1.5 0C global average temperatures, then some countries will be under water, more animals will be endangered and the unborn generations will live to curse us for not leaving a world worth living for them.
World leaders can only secure our future and protect the right of the least polluting countries and persons by banning the fossil fuel industry from caressing and cat walking the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) corridor. It is usually said that together we stand, divided we fall. Through our collective effort we can press the UNFCCC to kick fossil fuel industry out of climate negotiations.
We may think it will be hard to achieve, but it is possible through our collective will and determination. For a massive coalition of civil society groups from all works of life to come together and got the World Health Organisation (WHO) to kick the tobacco industry out of Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) because they know tobacco kills a million people yearly and the only way to make progress and preserve public health is by banning them, then we can also achieve it with the UN banning the fossil fuel industry from climate negotiations through one voice. Let’s stand to defend ourselves from the tyranny of big polluters. We should all be advocates of Climate Justice.
By Alabede Surajdeen (environmentalist and SDGs Advocate; alabedekayode@gmail.com, @BabsSuraj)
Prominent members of US national security community warn that higher temperatures and rising seas will inundate bases and fuel conflict
The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The Pentagon ordered its officials in January to start incorporating climate change into every major military consideration, from weapons testing to preparing troops for war. Photo credit: Charles Dharapak/AP
A coalition of 25 military and national security experts, including former advisers to Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, has warned that climate change poses a “significant risk to US national security and international security” that requires more attention from the US federal government.
The prominent members of the US national security community warned that warming temperatures and rising seas will increasingly inundate military bases and fuel international conflict and mass migration, leading to “significant and direct risks to US military readiness, operations and strategy”.
In a report outlining climate risks, the group states: “The military has long had a tradition of parsing threats through a ‘Survive to Operate’ lens, meaning we cannot assume the best case scenario, but must prepare to be able to effectively operate even under attack. Dealing with climate risks to operational effectiveness must therefore be a core priority.”
Organised by the non-partisan Centre for Climate and Security, the group includes Geoffrey Kemp, former national security adviser to Reagan; Dov Zakheim, former under secretary of defense under Bush; and retired general Gordon Sullivan, a former army chief of staff.
Recommendations to the federal government include the creation of a cabinet-level official dedicated to climate change and security issues and the prioritisation of climate change in intelligence assessments.
Last year, the Department of Defense called climate change a “threat multiplier” which could demand greater humanitarian or military intervention and lead to more severe storms that threaten cities and military bases and heightened sea levels that could imperil island and coastal infrastructure. In January, the Pentagon ordered its officials to start incorporating climate change into every major consideration, from weapons testing to preparing troops for war.
This new focus has not been warmly welcomed by Republicans, with Colorado congressman Ken Buck proposing an amendment that would bar the Pentagon from spending money on adapting to climate change.
“When we distract our military with a radical climate change agenda, we detract from their main purpose of defending America from enemies like Isis,” Buck said in July. Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has labeled climate change a “hoax”.
But military figures are increasingly expressing concern over potential disruption to the 1,774 coastal military installations the US operates at home and abroad. A mass of military infrastructure in Virginia is at particular risk of being soaked, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warning that, by 2050, a majority of US coastal areas are likely to be threatened by 30 or more days of flooding each year due to “dramatically accelerating impacts from sea level rise”.
“The conclusions are clear: climate risks are accelerating in their likelihood and severity,” said retired rear admiral David Titley of the US navy. “The next administration, whomever is elected, has the duty and obligation as commander-in-chief to manage this risk in a comprehensive manner.”
Ronald Keys, former commander of Air Combat Command, told The Guardian of London that he was initially skeptical about climate change but was then convinced by the impacts he saw first hand when returning to Langley air force base in Virginia after an uneventful spell there in the 1980s.
“I came in as commander in 2005 and there were north-easters that came through and brought three or four feet of water outside where I was living,” he said. “You see that change and think ‘a ha.’ Before, a minor storm was a nuisance, now it is a danger to some of our operations.”
Keys said he hoped in a non-presidential election year that “cooler heads may prevail” over the rhetoric used by Trump and others.
“It’s hard to energise people now, but it’s too late when the water is around your ankles,” he said, “People can say the temperature hasn’t followed the models but I can read a thermometer and a flood gauge. We need to do this threat analysis now.”
As the UN General Assembly prepares to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics has released a new data tool showing the leaders and emerging players in research and development (R&D).
Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, says it is essential to track R&D investment in the knowledge, technology and thinking that drives innovation in countries
“Innovation is key to achieving each of the Sustainable Development Goals. So it is essential to track R&D investment in the knowledge, technology and thinking that drives innovation in countries,” said Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
SDG 9 calls on governments to promote sustainable industrialisation and innovation by ramping up spending on R&D and increasing the number of researchers. Both indicators are featured in the new data tool entitled: “How much does your country invest in R&D?”
The top five R&D performers in absolute terms (R&D expenditure) are all large economies: United States followed by China, Japan, Germany and Republic of Korea. But the ranking changes dramatically according to the data that will be used to monitor SDG 9 (R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP): Republic of Korea is the world leader followed by Israel, Japan, Finland and Sweden.
Regions have been setting their own spending targets for some time: the best-known being the European Union (EU) target to raise overall R&D investment to 3% of GDP by 2020.
According to UIS data, only six countries worldwide have managed to surpass the 3% target, and three are smaller EU economies: Denmark, Finland and Sweden. These, in turn, lag behind Japan with 3.6% and Israel with an impressive 4.1%. And all of them trail behind South Korea – the world leader – with 4.3%. Austria, Germany and Switzerland hover around 3% as does the biggest spender of all: the United States.
Few countries in other regions compete with these proportions. In Central and Eastern Europe, Slovenia leads with 2.4% compared to the Russian Federation at 1.2%. In Central Asia, the figure hovers around 0.2%, as in the case for Kazakhstan. Morocco tops the league in the Arab States with just 0.7%. Brazil is the leader in Latin America, with 1.2%, while India leads in South and West Asia with 0.8%. In Africa, the African Union is aiming for 1%, but only Kenya, Mali and South Africa approach the target.
China is achieving an astonishing average annual growth rate of 18.3% in R&D spending, compared to just 1.4% across the rest of the world’s upper-middle-income countries, according to UIS data. China’s R&D spending only amounts to 2% of its GDP, but this means that the country is pouring about PPP$369 billion into this sector each year. As the share of global R&D expenditure by high-income countries fell from 88% in 1996 to 69.3% by 2013, China alone filled that gap, increasing its share from 2.5% to 19.6%. This means that China is increasingly approaching the United States, which accounts for almost 30% of global R&D expenditure.
Globally, there were almost 1,083 researchers for every one million people in 2013. However, the share of researchers in middle-income countries, excluding China, fell from 17% to 15% between 1996 and 2013– a worrying downward trend with global implications for sustainable development.
Acting auditor-general for the federation, Florence Anyanwu, has said that environmental audit of the River Niger will begin soon to prevent it from drying up like the Lake Chad.
The River Niger
She said this on Tuesday in Abuja during the 6th Annual Meeting of African Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions Working Group on Environmental Audit (AFROSAI WGEA). The theme of the meeting is “Working together for a healthy and sustainable environment in Africa.’’
Anyanwu said that the River Niger was drying up gradually on the Onitsha side and that it was also frying up some countries where it flowed from.
She said that Nigeria represented the largest coastal area of the river and that there were lots of economic activities that it represented.
Her words: “There is also a whole lot of prospective power and navigation activity, so it is very relevant and important even in terms of agriculture. We do not want to sit back and watch what happened to Lake Chad to happen to River Niger.
“So the earlier we can address it as Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), the earlier we can come up with recommendations to assist our member countries to be able to address them in policy formation and implementation.’’
Anyanwu said that, at the end of the meeting, the commencement of the auditing would begin, adding that “although the policy itself and the agreement to start that audit have already been adopted by the AFROSAI WGEA”.
She also said that Nigeria would particularly like to see that the Niger Basin Authority comprising Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’ Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger agree to commence the cooperative environmental audit project.
In her speech, Chairperson of AFROSAI WGEA, Mrs Mbah Fomundam, said that the meeting would address issues of wild legal poaching and illegal trade, bio-diversity and plastic pollution.
She said that for some years now environmental sustainability had become a global challenge that was synonymous to responsibility towards future generations.
“It therefore behoves on the SAIs to make sure that the governments are implementing the policies, because the environment is not only for us but for posterity, for the future, our children and our grandchildren.
“In this regard, good governance is important in ensuring that commitments taken in the area of environmental protection and sustainable development produce credible results,” she stated.
Fomundam said that the results of the audit of the Lake Chad had been submitted to the different governments, and that these governments would meet to know the next step to take.
“The audit report was to look at the laws of each country, the international laws adopted as far as the Lake Chad is concerned or the environment concerning water and forestry. “What laws have been adopted, what has the countries done to implement these laws, are they respecting these laws?’’
Declaring the meeting open, the Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, said that environmental auditing was an essential component of sustainable environmental management. Represented by the Director of Forestry, Philip Bankole, she said that such audit provided the mechanism to know what had gone wrong over time while highlighting the need for urgent policy action.
She, however, said that the protection of the environment was the responsibility of all and that government would continue to provide the enabling atmosphere for sustainable environmental management.
Tassilo Droste, Technical adviser to AFROSAI, in his remarks, said that the report on the drying-up of Lake Chad was so important and that it was time for the recommendations to be implemented.
According to him, Lake Chad has become smaller than it was 40 years ago and as a shallow lake without sufficient rain, if it does not replenish fully will not serve its purpose. “So the lake is smaller than it used to be and that happens in a context where there is more population; so you can imagine less water and increasing population at the same time.
“That means that there is more pressure on the environment, so more people have to share less water and that is obviously problematic.” Droste said that there was a multiplier effect to the drying of the river because people lived on fish and agriculture which needed water.
“If people do not have them, people would be forced to move into the big cities and there may be conflicts because of migration and so these are linked to how we manage the water in the Lake Chad area.’’
The meeting which began on Monday ends on Thursday.
German drugs and crop chemicals company Bayer has won over U.S. seeds firm Monsanto with an improved takeover offer of around $66 billion, ending months of wrangling after increasing its bid for a third time.
The logo of Bayer AG is pictured at the Bayer Healthcare subgroup production plant in Wuppertal. Photo credit: REUTERS/Ina Fassbender/File
The $128 a share deal, up from Bayer’s previous offer of $127.50 a share, is the biggest of the year so far and the largest cash bid on record.
The deal will create a company commanding more than a quarter of the combined world market for seeds and pesticides in the fast-consolidating farm supplies industry.
However, competition authorities are likely to scrutinise the tie-up closely, and some of Bayer’s own shareholders have been highly critical of a takeover plan which they say risks overpaying and neglecting the company’s pharmaceutical business.
The transaction includes a break-fee of $2 billion that Bayer will pay to Monsanto should it fail to get regulatory clearance. Bayer expects the deal to close by the end of 2017.
The details confirm what a source close to the matter told Reuters earlier.
Bernstein Research analysts said on Tuesday they saw only a 50 percent chance of the deal winning regulatory clearance, although they cited a survey among investors that put the likelihood at 70 percent on average
“We believe political pushback to this deal, ranging from farmer dissatisfaction with all their suppliers consolidating in the face of low farm net incomes to dissatisfaction with Monsanto leaving the United States, could provide significant delays and complications,” they wrote in a research note.
Bayer said it was offering a 44 percent premium to Monsanto’s share price on May 9, the day before it made its first written proposal.
It plans to raise $19 billion to help fund the deal by issuing convertible bonds and new shares to its existing shareholders, and said banks had also committed to providing $57 billion of bridge financing.
At 1140 GMT, Bayer shares were up 2.2 percent at 95.32 euros. Monsanto’s were up 0.2 percent at $106.3 in premarket trade.
Bayer’s move to combine its crop chemicals business, the world’s second largest after Syngenta AG, with Monsanto’s industry leading seeds business, is the latest in a series of major tie-ups in the agrochemicals sector.
The German company is aiming to create a one-stop shop for seeds, crop chemicals and computer-aided services to farmers.
That was also the idea behind Monsanto’s swoop on Syngenta last year, which the Swiss company fended off, only to agree later to a takeover by China’s state-owned ChemChina.
Elsewhere in the industry, U.S. chemicals giants Dow Chemical and DuPont plan to merge and later spin off their respective seeds and crop chemicals operations into a major agribusiness.
The Bayer-Monsanto deal will be the largest ever involving a German buyer, beating Daimler’s tie-up with Chrysler in 1998, which valued the U.S. carmaker at more than $40 billion. It will also be the largest all-cash transaction on record, ahead of brewer InBev’s $60.4 billion offer for Anheuser-Busch in 2008.
Bayer said it expected the deal to boost its core earnings per share in the first full year following completion, and by a double-digit percentage in the third year.
Bayer and Monsanto were in talks to sound out ways to combine their businesses as early as March, which culminated in Bayer coming out with an initial $122 per-share takeover proposal in May.
Antitrust experts have said regulators will likely demand the sale of some soybeans, cotton and canola seed assets as a condition for approving the deal.
Bayer said BofA Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and JP Morgan had committed to providing the bridge financing.
BofA Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse are acting as lead financial advisers to Bayer, with Rothschild as an additional adviser. Bayer’s legal advisers are Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Allen & Overy LLP.
Morgan Stanley and Ducera Partners are acting as financial advisers to Monsanto, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz its legal adviser.
Last week, the print and electronic media in Nigeria were awash again with a major propaganda news item on Genetically Modified Foods. This time, what looks like a false alarm was raised by unidentified sources that Dangote Plc and the Nigerian government have flooded Nigerian market with GMO rice. The news item was followed with a warning that “eating GMO rice is as bad as eating rice laced with rat poison popularly known as sniper in Nigeria”.
Golden rice and white rice
The news item was clearly the handiwork of uninformed groups and persons who have consistently been waging war against the policy of the Federal Government of Nigeria in joining many forward-looking countries of the world to fight poverty and hunger through modern Biotechnology. The propaganda is bound to fail because it is a product of falsehood and the National Biosafety Management Agency in Nigeria has reacted by unequivocally debunking the fake news.
This article is meant to lead readers to have a deeper insight on the issues at stake and the inherent falsehood in the raging propaganda. The controversial commodity is called Golden Rice (GR).
The idea behind Golden Rice is to improve the food that people have access to or can grow themselves. The intention of using rice as a vehicle to address micronutrient deficiencies dates at least to the early 1980s. The idea emerged within the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) system and led to the conventional breeding efforts to increase iron and zinc in rice in the 1990s.
In 1982, from David Dawe of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) case study, researchers in Indonesia found that child mortality is reduced by 30% by distributing vitamin A supplement in poor villages. With support from the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) in the 1990s, Professor Ingo Potrykus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Peter Beyer at the University of Freiburg, Germany collaborated to the creation of vitamin A fortified rice. In 2000, after years of research, these scientists successfully produced the first strain of golden rice, using daffodils genes and bacteria. This genetically modified rice that contains beta-carotene is widely referred to as Golden Rice (GR).
Subsequent research by Syngentia has utilised cereal genes rather than daffodil genes to generate much higher levels of beta-carotene in so-called GR2 Lines (Paine et al., 2005). In these lines, the enzymatic activities in the genes found within maize or rice is utilized to produce much higher levels of beta-carotene in the rice grain which are 20 times higher than the original line.
In September, 2004, the first GR field trial in the world was harvested in Crowley Louisiana, USA. It took several years before GR could be planted in an open field. This delay was because the target countries, with high rice consumption and high vitamin A deficit did not have biosafety regulations in place. This is a necessary condition attached to the agreement with GR licensees that no field releases may take place in the absence of a national regulatory framework.
As at 2013, Philippines has completed its multi-location field trials and is in the process of feed testing. The International Rice Research Institute and the Philippines Rice Research Institute are working to commercialise this GR this 2016.
Golden Rice is genetically modified to provide beta-carotene in the rice grain and it could potentially address widespread vitamin A deficiency in poor countries were rice is a staple. Very significantly, GR improves vitamin A status so that it could become a solution to address vitamin A supplementation, the promotion of breastfeeding, nutrition education, homestead food production and food fortification. In 2012, a study by Tang et al, found that 100-150g of cooked GR provides 60% of the Chinese recommended intake of vitamin A.
Creating rice with beta-carotene content was not possible until the advent of biotechnology. Much of the current funding for development comes from various foundations and institutions including United State Agency for International Development (USAID) and Monsanto.
The polished rice grain does not contain beta-carotene, a vitamin A precursor, which the body converts into vitamin A. In low-Income populations were rice is the primary staple, several micronutrient deficiencies are chronic problems including Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) which is often a problem where rice gruel is used as a weaning food. Such deficiencies are particularly pronounced in children who need greater nutrient density in food to meet their high nutrient needs. VAD is responsible for 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness and up to 2 million deaths each year and this was referred to as “Nutritional Holocaust”. Particularly susceptible are pregnant women and children. Across the globe, estimated 19 million pregnant women and 190 million children suffer from the condition. The good news however is that dietary supplementation of vitamin A can eliminate VAD.
While the link between VAD and blindness captures public attention, VAD is widely recognized as a globally significant problem. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (2004, p.4) estimates that “Vitamin A Deficiency is compromising the immune systems of approximately 40% of the developing world’s under-fives and leading to the deaths of an estimated one million young children each year”. This situation unfortunately has not changed over the past decades.
Although scientists, multi-nationals, seed companies and the CGIAR genuinely believed in the positive humanitarian potential of this technology, negative reactions to GR were immediate and in many cases quite emotional. All the opposing groups agree that VAD is an important problem but objected to GR either as an inappropriate or ineffective solution based essentially on the three points listed as follows:
i). That GM foods are inherently unsafe to human health and the environment. GR poses risks of these kinds and thus will not achieve its humanitarian goals.
ii). That rice is directly consumed by the poor, and thus the poor would be “guinea pigs” for any human health impacts. Either GR will not provide enough vitamin A to do any good or will provide too much, resulting in vitamin A toxicity.
iii). That GR is part of the continued use of “Green Revolution” technologies that are unsustainable and harmful to the poor.
In furtherance of their argument, they raised alarm in Nigeria last week through online sources. They posted thus: “Alarm… Dangote and Nigerian government have flooded Nigerian market with GMO rice, pls note: eating GMO rice is as bad as eating rice laced with rat poison popularly known as sniper in Nigeria, GMO products are banned all over Europe due to its deadly effects, pls share this info to create awareness and save lives… Sent as received. Thanks”
Those opposed to GM technology allegedly for ethical, environmental or health concerns seem to have felt that this represented a commercial conspiracy to win over the public. They wanted to debunk this technology because of perceived diversion of attention from potential negative impacts to positive impacts. It is unfortunate that this scientific breakthrough generated so much attention when it remained fairly far from implementation.
The suspicion often caused by the anti-globalisation activists against GMO crops (but not GMO processed foods like cheese and beer or medical applications like insulin and many new drugs) paradoxically reinforced an “environmentally justified” set of regulatory hurdles which only large companies can afford. As such, they end up shooting themselves at the foot while the farmers and consumers who would benefit from those crops are collateral victims as there seems to be no scientific justifications for these high regulatory costs.
In a press briefing on September 7, 2016, by Dr. Rufus Ebegba, Director General/CEO, National Biosafety Management Agency, unequivocally stated that there is no iota of truth in the issues raised in the alarm against alleged imported GM rice.
“As a Regulatory Body established by the government to regulate the activities of modern biotechnology and the release and use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the country to ensure safety to the environment and human health, the NBMA wishes to unequivocally state that, there is no iota of truth in the said post and reinstates that no GM Rice has either been imported or released officially into the country,” he stated.
He further stated that “It will suffice you to know that there is no GM rice that has been commercially released anywhere in the world. It should also be recalled that government has banned the importation of rice in Nigeria. This ban was widely publicised in the media and there are no indications that the ban has been lifted.”
The DG therefore enjoined Nigerians to disregard the post and join hands with the agency in its quest to ensure safety in the practice of modern biotechnology in Nigeria in line with global best practices.
Golden Rice has the potential to reach the important sub-populations that have not been targeted by current interventions in parts where rice is the predominant staple and weaning food. Several studies are currently trying to assess the potential benefit of GR using different economic methods and building their analysis on some strong assumptions about nutritional benefits. Because GR is still so far from actual production and consumption, little is known about bioavailability, losses in storage or cooking or many other factors that would influence the actual delivery of vitamin A. These studies are beginning and will help define the deployment options of the product.
It is instructive to note also that the pro GMO advocacy has been growing from strength to strength globally. This summer, 110 Nobel Laureates signed a letter urging Greenpeace to end its efforts to stop GR from coming into the market. Earlier, on November 7, 2013, Pope Francis also gave his personal blessing to GR.
By Edel-Quinn Agbaegbu (Executive Director of Every Woman Hope Centre (EWHC ), publishers of Lifecare magazine in Nigeria)
