To provide job opportunities for its teeming youth as well as increase its revenue base, the Ogun State Government has concluded plans to resuscitate the moribund Gateway Timber Industry Limited (GATIL) in the coming year.
Commissioner for Forestry, Chief Kolawole Lawal
Commissioner for Forestry, Chief Kolawole Lawal, made this known recently while defending the 2017 budget of the Ministry at the House of Assembly at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, the state capital.
Chief Lawal said GATIL, a state-owned sawmilling establishment, was in the past known for processing timber into different specifications of finished products that were marketed across the Southwest geo-political zone.
Speaking on what would be required to revamp the ailing industry, the commissioner said: “The sum of N50 million would be used to repair the CD6 machine, Edger Machine, Circular Sawing Machine and also carry out other necessary maintenance work.”
Lawal also disclosed that the sum of N278 million had been budgeted for tree planting in 2017 while N10 million and N62.5 million had been earmarked for forest conservation and production of farm seedlings respectively.
Construction of a N250 million organic fertiliser plant that will produce 15,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser annually as well as provide over 20,000 jobs has begun in Sokoto State.
Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State. He has inspected the progress of work done so far at the site of the fertiliser plant
Inspecting the progress of work done so far at the site, Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal said 100 percent of the raw materials to be used in the production of the fertiliser will be sourced locally in the state.
He said: “Apart from opportunity for wealth creation, this factory serves as part of our wider vision to partner with willing investors at home and abroad to explore abundant natural resources for the development of our people.
“The most important natural material required in the production of fertiliser is phosphate, and I am glad to say that we have it in abundance in at least 17 of the 23 LGAs of Sokoto State.
“Importantly, there’s a huge market for the product in Sokoto and surrounding areas including Niger Repubic. This administration will provide the needed incentives, and necessary legal framework for the successful take off of this new plant.”
The Governor said the state government would be the number one buyer of all the fertiliser to be produced by the plant, and will hold an equity share of 40% in trust for the people of Sokoto.
Proprietor of IML Ltd, the company constructing the plant, Alhaji Bilya Sanda, commended the state government for its keen interest in the project, and assured that majority of the staff of the new company would be sourced from the host state.
Monday, 12 December is Universal Health Coverage Day and, to mark the day, WaterAid has released a new photo series revealing the silent emergency of erratic or non-existent water supply, broken toilets and poor hygiene, which puts the health of patients, staff and surrounding communities at risk.
According to WaterAid, even though Nigeria boasts the fastest-growing economy on the African continent, one-third of its population do not have access to clean water, two-thirds do not have access to basic, private toilets, and one in three healthcare facilities in Nigeria do not have access to water.
The international organisation insists that, within the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) committing to ensuring everyone has access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030, healthcare facilities should be prioritised, such that no new hospitals or clinics should be built without water and sanitation.
Gloria Samuel, 37, a cleaner at Bwari town Primary Health Centre, showing the rain water collected that is used to clean the toilets because there is no water supply to the centre. They also buy clean water to use for cleaning more sensitive sanitation and for patients who need clean water to wash. Upkuduru ward Bwari LGA, Abuja, NigeriaGallons of water lined up for sale in the Garki Village Primary Health Centre which is required because of lack of clean water supply to the centre. Abuja, NigeriaThe bad state of one of the toilets used by patients at Gwagwalada township clinic, Abuja, Nigeria.Martina Ohaegbulem, 56, the deputy nurse in charge/midwife showing the state of the toilets at the clinic. Zuba Primary Health Centre, Gwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria.Nkiruka Okafor, 40, a volunteer nurse washing her hands thoroughly with water bought and stored, before attending to patients. Zuma Primary Health Centre, Abuja, Nigeria.Rukayyat Yahaya, 34, a lab technician at the Garki Village Primary Health Centre, Abuja, NigeriaAisha Bello, 24, and her new born baby Sa’adat (3 months old) came for post natal check up and routine immunisation at the Family Clinic Area 2 Primary Health Centre, Abuja, Nigeria
As part of activities to mark the 2016 Universal Health Coverage Day that is observed on Monday, 12 December, WaterAid is calling on healthcare professionals to join its global petition to ask national governments to accelerate their plans for safe, reliable access to water, sanitation and hygiene in all health facilities.
Zuba Primary Health Centre in Abuja, Nigeria where there is no water supply and so staff have to buy water for sanitation and hospital use. The 2016 Universal Health Coverage Day is observed on Monday, 12 December
The Universal Health Coverage Day is intended to highlight the need for all to achieve good health and access to quality healthcare without incurring financial hardship. An essential element to good health and effective healthcare is access to clean, safe water to drink, a decent private toilet and the ability to practice good hygiene, including handwashing with soap.
According to WaterAid, Nigeria boasts the fastest-growing economy on the African continent. Yet, one-third of its population do not have access to clean water, two-thirds do not have access to basic, private toilets, and one in three healthcare facilities in Nigeria do not have access to water.
At the Zuba Primary Health Centre in Abuja for instance, healthcare staff report that there is no water supply; even the water they buy each day is not safe to drink.
Martina Ohaegbulem, 56, the deputy nurse in charge of the Zuba Primary Health Centre, said: “We need a borehole, or a well if one can be dug in the compound. We need more toilets for both the staff and patients. We need running taps and other things, too. We need improvement in handling those things – handwashing basins and similar things. We buy the soap we use from the little money we are paid for deliveries (of babies). It’s the money for deliveries we use in paying some of our workers, the volunteers, but we also buy the soap from that same money.
“We need improvement as we are not functioning efficiently. But we are trying our best with what we have.”
WaterAid Nigeria Country Director, Dr Michael Ojo, said: “All too often, healthcare conditions in many low- and middle-income countries are characterised by unreliable or non-existent water supplies, inadequate sanitation, and unsafe medical waste disposal. This situation leaves healthcare professionals unable to properly care for patients, and leaves doctors, midwives, nurses, cleaners and patients alike at serious risk of infection and illness.
“Good health, dignified and clean healthcare, and effectively combatting the rise of antimicrobial resistance requires clean water, good sanitation and good hygiene practice in homes, in schools and in hospitals and health centres, all around the world.”
The staff and patients in Zuba Primary Health Centre in Abuja appear not to be alone, as a World Health Organisation (WHO) report reveals that 42% of healthcare facilities in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to water and that, in Nigeria, almost a third (29%) of hospitals and clinics do not have access to clean water and the same percentage do not have safe toilets, while one in six (16%) do not have anywhere to wash hands with soap.
According to WaterAid Nigeria’s own recent assessment of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) conducted in our six focal states – Bauchi, Benue, Enugu, Ekiti, Jigawa and Plateau – 21.1% of the facilities assessed did not have at least one toilet facility and none met the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) minimum standard of separate toilet facilities for males and females, as well as separate toilet facilities for staff and patients.
Only 27.6% of the 242 PHCs assessed met NPHCDA minimum standard of access to a motorised borehole. Across the six states, only 49 (20.2%) of the PHCs had handwashing facilities in toilet facilities. Handwashing facilities were observed in delivery rooms in only 133 (54.9%) of the facilities assessed. The ward and consulting rooms had handwashing facilities in 64 (26.4%) and 74 (30.5%) of the facilities respectively, suggesting poor hygiene practices in the health centres.
The cassava peel has been identified as the best, cheapest and most nutritious option in processing animal feeds.
Participants at the Meeting
Making this known on Friday, 9th December, 2016 at the 4th Agricultural Vision Group (AVG) and Agricultural Innovative Group (AIG) Meeting that held in Makurdi, Benue State, the Benue State Team Lead, Synergos, Mr Michael Agon, said it serves as a good component for feeds, especially for ruminants because of its fibre content.
According to him, they discovered that the cassava peel which were usually considered waste and dumped; thereby becoming environmental waste had more fibre than the cassava itself.
Agon, who maintained that the current administration in the country has exposed the country to many opportunities by encouraging homegrown products and processing, charged Nigerians to key into the opportunities and help stop importation of agricultural produce, especially those from cassava and rice.
According to him, these opportunities, when properly tapped, will empower Nigerians, especially processors more and create wealth from waste as it is done in the case of processing cassava peel into cassava cake and subsequently, animal feeds.
The Permanent Secretary, Benue State Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Clement Tondo, who was represented by Director of Agriculture Services in the Ministry, Mr Thomas Unongo, stated that the state is ready to partner with Synergos in all her activities in empowering the citizens.
He said Benue is proud of Synergos for taking agriculture to higher heights in the state in the past two years.
In his presentation titled “The Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES): Benefits to Farmers,” GES Desk Officer, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Felix Ali, stated that their concern is in transforming agriculture in the country.
Ali, who noted that the government wants to help people create wealth from waste, frowned at the spate at which so much has been spent in importing food into the country, whereas the country is blessed with many agricultural opportunities waiting to be tapped.
In another presentation by Coordinator ILEAD Benue State, Mr George Songu, titled “Building a Strong Global Brand in a Global Village,” he outlined that branding is vital in the promotion of products and services.
He said it is worth making everything one does, though local, to have a global appeal, adding that brand sells a product and services greatly so there is need to build a very strong distinct brand.
Stressing further, Songu noted that the social media aids in projecting products and services as it provides a platform to sell brands with only a click.
“It costs more using traditional media than the social media,” he added.
Also commenting during the course of the meeting, General Managing Director ,Oracle Business Limited, Mr Chris Omiyi, stressed that the company has already keyed into cassava farming and the by products produced from it.
He charged others to key into it, noting that cassava peel feeds administered to their cattle on ranches has shown more prospects by being cheap and more nutritious than open grazing which will ultimately bring to the fore the need to stop open grazing of cattle.
Synergos, which organised the event, is a driver of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded State Partnership for Agriculture (SPA) project which has intervention in Benue, Kaduna and Kogi states in the area of cassava and rice production in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
They have been using systems-change approach to re-orient and strengthen key state actors involved in the transformation of the agricultural system. As Nigerian states are the vehicle in agriculture, their alignment with the policy framework and resources of the Federal Government is critical to shift from subsistence and survival farming to the business of agriculture.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, December 8, 2016 nominated Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of the oil and gas-intensive state of Oklahoma, to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a move signaling an assault on President Obama’s climate change and environmental legacy.
Scott Pruitt
Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead.
He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. Ben Carson, named to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has expressed a deep aversion to the social safety net programmes and fair housing initiatives that have been central to that agency’s activities. Betsy DeVos, named education secretary, has a passion for private school vouchers that critics say undercut the public school systems at the core of the government’s mission.
Trump’s transition team announced the nomination in a news release on Thursday, calling Pruitt “an expert in Constitutional law” and saying he “brings a deep understanding of the impact of regulations on both the environment and the economy.”
“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” the release quoted Trump as saying. He said Pruitt “will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.” Trump added, “My administration “strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity.”
Pruitt was quoted as saying: “The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”
Pruitt, who has written that the debate on climate change is “far from settled,” joined a coalition of state attorneys general in suing over the agency’s Clean Power Plan, the principal Obama-era policy aimed at reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector. He has also sued, with fellow state attorneys general, over the EPA’s recently announced regulations seeking to curtail the emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from the oil and gas sector.
On his Linked In page, Pruitt boasts of being “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”
After he was elected attorney general in 2010, Pruitt established a “Federalism Unit” to “more effectively combat unwarranted regulation and systematic overreach by federal agencies, boards and offices,” according to his online biography.
And he has gone on to challenge the administration not just over the environment but over a host of other areas. He joined other Republican attorneys general in a lawsuit over Obama’s immigration policies. He has also sued the administration over the Affordable Care Act, saying the health-care mandate on religious employers to provide coverage including contraception was unconstitutional. He has sued over the Dodd-Frank financial reform.
An ally of the energy industry, Pruitt, along with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, came to the defense of ExxonMobil when it fell under investigation by attorneys general from more liberal states seeking information about whether the oil giant failed to disclose material information about climate change.
“We do not doubt the sincerity of the beliefs of our fellow attorneys general about climate change and the role human activity plays in it,” they wrote at the conservative publication National Review. “But we call upon them to press those beliefs through debate, not through governmental intimidation of those who disagree with them.”
In an interview with The Post in September, as a D.C. federal appeals court was preparing to hear arguments over the Clean Power Plan, Pruitt detailed why he has remained a leading opponent of the EPA’s efforts to curb carbon emissions by regulating power plants.
“What concerns the states is the process, the procedures, the authority that the EPA is exerting that we think is entirely inconsistent with its constitutional and statutory authority,” he said at the time.
Agencies such as the EPA, he said, should not be trying to “pinch hit” for Congress.
“This is a unique approach by EPA, whether they want to acknowledge it or not,” he said of the provisions of the Clean Air Act that the agency had relied upon to write new regulations. “The overreach is the statutes do not permit (EPA officials) to act in the way they are. They tend to have this approach that the end justifies the means… They tend to justify it by saying this big issue, this is an important issue.”
But he added that’s where Congress should have authority, not EPA. “This is something from a constitutional and statutory perspective that causes great concern.”
Environmental groups reacted with alarm Wednesday at the nomination. And New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman vowed to “use the full power” of his office to wage a legal battle to “compel” enforcement of environmental laws under Trump.
“Scott Pruitt has a record of attacking the environmental protections that EPA is charged with enforcing. He has built his political career by trying to undermine EPA’s mission of environmental protection,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “Our country needs – and deserves – an EPA administrator who is guided by science, who respects America’s environmental laws, and who values protecting the health and safety of all Americans ahead of the lobbying agenda of special interests.”
Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that “over the past five years, Pruitt has used his position as Oklahoma’s top prosecutor to sue the EPA in a series of attempts to deny Americans the benefits of reducing mercury, arsenic, and other toxins from the air we breathe; cutting smog that can cause asthma attacks; and protecting our wetlands and streams.”
Pruitt has also fought to limit the scope of the federal government in regulating pollution of rivers under the Waters of the United States rule.
Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has been active on environmental issues, said, “Scott Pruitt would have EPA stand for Every Polluter’s Ally.”
In 2014, the New York Times reported that a letter ostensibly written by Pruitt alleging that the agency overestimated air pollution from natural gas drilling was actually written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of the state’s largest oil and gas companies.
Industry representatives expressed satisfaction with the choice on Wednesday. “The office he headed was present and accounted for in the battle to keep EPA faithful to its statutory authority and respectful of the role of the states in our system of cooperative federalism,” said Scott Segal, head of the policy group at the lobbying and legal firm Bracewell. “Given that we are almost two decades overdue for an overhaul of the Clean Air Act, there is interest on both sides of the aisle to look at that statute.”
David Rivkin, a constitutional litigator who represented Pruitt and Oklahoma in challenging the Clean Power Plan, said he believed Pruitt would be able to make sure the EPA lives up to its mission of protecting air and water while avoiding federal overreach.
“General Pruitt has been the leader among the AGs in defending federalism, the key feature of our constitutional architecture,” said Rivkin, a partner at Baker Hostetler, adding that he believed Pruitt would “ensure both environmental protection and constitutional fidelity.”
Pruitt’s outlook reflects his home state: Oklahoma ranked fifth in the nation in onshore crude oil output in 2014, has five oil refineries, and is home to the giant Cushing oil storage and trading hub, where the price for the benchmark West Texas Intermediate grade is set every day. Although oil and natural gas production sagged in the 1990s and early 2000s, the surge in horizontal fracturing, or fracking, has boosted output.
The state’s natural gas output accounts for 10 percent of the nation’s overall total. For the week ended Oct. 28, there were 73 drilling rigs in operation in Oklahoma.
Pruitt has served as head of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a group that has relied heavily on funds from ultraconservative groups and the oil industry. The biggest contributors this year included the Judicial Crisis Network, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute of Legal Reform, Sheldon Adelson, oil conglomerate Koch Industries and Murray Energy, a leading coal mining company.
Pruitt, a Kentucky native who moved to Oklahoma to attend the University of Tulsa law school, has also been active in religious groups. He serves as deacon of the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow. In 2012, Pruitt was named a trustee of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Before serving as attorney general, he was a member of the state legislature.
Dallas investor Doug Deason, a friend of Pruitt, said he expects the Oklahoma attorney general to immediately get to work rolling back the EPA’s “silly overreach” and to let states handle environmental oversight.
“Just like most Republican attorney generals, especially in energy-producing states, he has been really frustrated with the government and the EPA’s overreach into everything,” Deason said.
But Deason said liberals will be happily surprised by Pruitt’s “open-minded” attitude, adding that he is “willing to look at things.”
“He will bring a more balanced, logical look” at environmental regulation,” he said.
Pruitt’s selection was strongly supported by Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm.
The nomination suggests an extraordinarily tough road ahead for the Clean Power Plan, president Obama’s signature climate policy. However, the precise fate of the regulation most immediately turns on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has not yet ruled in the lawsuit brought by Pruitt and his fellow attorneys general against the agency Pruitt is now named to lead.
“Some have suggested that Pruitt’s hands might be tied because he participated in litigation against the agency,” Segal said in an email. “This is a silly position. There is no conflict in representing your state on litigation dealing with rules of general applicability and then serving your nation as a federal official.”
Dismantling the regulation if it survives the courts would not be simple, because the agency has already finalised it – meaning that to undo and replace it would require a public notice and comment process. Environmental groups would likely sue the agency over such a move.
However, some of the Clean Power Plan’s objectives appear to have been already realized long before it came into effect. The United States is already burning less coal and more natural gas, meaning fewer carbon dioxide emissions.
In 2030, the EPA projected in its final Clean Power Plan rule, coal would be reduced to providing 27 percent of U.S. electricity, with natural gas at 33 percent. Yet this very year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas will provide 34 percent of U.S. electricity, and coal 30 percent.
The government of Mexico on Monday, December 5, 2016 established the largest biological reserve in the country’s history, further driving a global trend of setting aside large swaths of land and ocean for conservation.
A girl urges a baby turtle towards the ocean at the El Morro Ayuta beach in San Pedro Huamelula, Mexico
In a signed decree, President Enrique Peña Nieto set aside 160 million acres of conservation area. The Mexican federal government will safeguard four new reserves and five protected areas, from Pacific Island waters to the Mountains of Tamaulipas, to retain biodiversity in those regions.
By designating 23 percent of its sea surfaces as protected, Mexico has surpassed United Nations’ “10 percent target” three years ahead of schedule. In doing so, the country joins a growing list of nations to commit vast marine resources to conservation.
Large marine protected areas (MPAs) are a relatively new trend in global environmentalism. When the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity met in 2010, just one percent of the world’s oceans were federally protected. That year, 196 countries signed off on a deal to designate 10 percent by 2020.
Today, the island country of Palau protects some 80 percent of its marine waters, drastically overshooting the UN target. And in August, President Obama expanded the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to 582,578 square miles, nearly quadrupling its original size.
“It’s internationally agreed that this is a justifiable or even achievable goal,” Randall Kosaki, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) deputy superintendent of Papahānaumokuākea, tells the Monitor in a phone interview. “If you plot out that trajectory over time, it won’t be met until 2060. But with the inclusion of these so-called jumbo MPAs, we may hit the goal as early as 2025.”
The Papahānaumokuākea reserve, located in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, was the largest ecological sanctuary on the planet – that is, until a multinational council designated Antarctica’s Ross Sea as a protected area in October.
By David Iaconangelo (The Christian Science Monitor)
Google, a trendsetter in the field of corporate purchases of wind and solar energy, made a striking proclamation Tuesday, December 6, 2016 – it forecasts that, by next year, it’ll be purchasing as much renewable electricity as it uses across its vast operations.
Gary Demasi, Google’s head of global infrastructure and energy
Overall, the company now has, under contract, 2.6 gigawatts (or billion watts) of renewable energy generating capacity, predominantly wind energy but with a growing concentration of solar, around the world. That includes contracts to buy wind energy produced in Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas; additional international wind buys in the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden; solar purchases in North Carolina and Chile; and more. It started making these arrangements in 2010 and has been rolling out more ever since.
“Essentially what it means is that we will be buying as many renewable energy megawatt hours as we’ll be consuming at our facilities,” said Gary Demasi, Google’s head of global infrastructure and energy. “Add them up at the end of the year, and they will match.”
Google tends to buy renewable electricity in the form of long-term, fixed-priced contracts called power purchase agreements. Because the way the grid works (at least in the United States), this does not mean that the actual electrons generated at these facilities specifically go to Google’s facilities, such as its 13 energy-intensive data centres. That isn’t always possible. Instead, Google says it seeks to purchase clean energy on the same grid as its data centres and facilities in the United States.
Then, Google buys actual power from a utility, and sells its green power back to the grid, “applying” the resulting “renewable energy credits” from its generation to its facilities. The net result of the arrangement is not merely that on a grid where electrons cannot truly be traced, Google can claim greenness. Demasi says the company can also sometimes “hedge” against rising prices for electricity on the grid if it has a fixed, locked-in agreement to buy clean energy over the long term at a relatively low price, and then can sell it back, potentially at a higher one.
“We’ve seen the price of wind come down by more than 60 percent and the price of solar come down by more than 80 percent,” Demasi said. “That reduction in price has been one impetus for us being able to scale this approach globally.”
The arrangement may sound complex, but Google has argued in a detailed white paper that from the perspective of the energy system as a whole, “there is no appreciable difference between putting a wind farm or solar facility behind our meter or on the grid. At best the difference is one of appearance (Google would “look greener”) and at worst it reduces the impact of our investment because a project built in a less favorable location would generate less energy over its life.”
In the same paper, Google notes that what it strives for above all is “additionality,” meaning that its actions cause there to be more wind or solar energy in the world than there would be otherwise.
Google is not the only tech company, or the only major company for that matter, that has made renewable energy purchases a key part of what it does. Apple, for instance, has also announced major clean energy buys in the United States and China. Other major buyers include Microsoft and Facebook.
“You’re seeing a number of companies in tech, a number of countries outside of tech, who are all following this path,” Demasi said. “Developers will tell you that a very large proportion of their new projects are coming from corporate.”
A report released recently by the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) shows a tactic tobacco companies in Africa use in addicting kids. The report investigates developments in Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Uganda
A boy smoking. Photo credit: World Health Organisation (WHO)
An Africa regional survey conducted by the African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) reveals that multinational tobacco manufacturing companies are systematically targeting children as young as six years old to pick up the habit of smoking cigarettes.
The survey exposes the aggressive marketing tactics of tobacco companies, such as British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International (PMI), who display cigarettes next to sweets and snack at kiosks directly outside the gates of primary and secondary schools.
At the launch of the survey findings at a press conference in Johannesburg on Wednesday December 7, 2016 Mr. Deowan Mohee, the ATCA Executive Secretary, exposed the tobacco companies’ tactics by providing evidence based on research and monitoring in five countries in Africa.
“The evidence is clear. British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International, and other tobacco companies deliberately and systematically target African children near their schools in order to encourage cigarette smoking among them,” he said.
The survey was conducted in 2016 in a radius of 100 meters around 79 schools in five African countries.
“The survey findings lay bare the egregious tactics used by tobacco companies to market their deadly products to young school children, making them accessible and affordable,” Mr. Leonce Sessou, ATCA Communications Manager, added.
The survey indicates that the tobacco industry makes extensive use of advertising and promotion to encourage school children to experiment with tobacco, increase consumption and normalise the habit. In Burkina Faso, 100% of the schools surveyed are surrounded by stores that advertise cigarettes openly.
Apart from advertisements, tobacco companies also promote the sale of single sticks and child-friendly flavoured cigarettes to lure the children to the cheap and sweet-tasting products. According to the ATCA survey, these marketing activities of the tobacco companies are being carried out in violation of existing national laws in countries like Nigeria and Uganda. In both countries, despite the prohibition on tobacco advertising and promotion, BAT continues with the practice around schools.
“Tobacco Use in Africa: Tobacco Control through Prevention”, a 2013 report from the American Cancer Society, indicates that African children smoke at comparable levels, and sometimes even higher than other developing regions of the world. While not clear, this can be attributed to the aggressive marketing tactics from the tobacco companies.
“If unchecked, the aggressive marketing strategy of tobacco companies towards children will contribute to a major epidemic of tobacco use in Africa, causing unprecedented health, economic, social and environmental consequences,” Mr. Mohee stresses.
Speaking on the report, Deputy Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “The ATCA report has again exposed the length the tobacco companies will go to addict our kids. Governments across Africa must put in place and implement effective measures to stop this unwholesome practice which is targeted at the lungs of our kids.”
Oluwafemi added that recommendations in the ATCA report, particularly the ban on single sticks and small packs sale, and total prohibition of tobacco advertising promotion and sponsorship (TAPS) near schools, should be taken with more seriousness and enforced by African governments.
Over 700 newly recognised bird species have been assessed for the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and 11% of them are threatened with extinction. The update also reveals a devastating decline for the giraffe, driven by habitat loss, civil unrest and illegal hunting. The global giraffe population has plummeted by up to 40% over the last 30 years, and the species has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
Driven by habitat loss, civil unrest and illegal hunting, the global giraffe population has plummeted by up to 40% over the last 30 years, and the species has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List
The latest IUCN Red List update also includes the first assessments of wild oats, barley, mango and other crop wild relative plants. These species are increasingly critical to food security, as their genetic diversity can help improve crop resistance to disease, drought and salinity.
The update was released on Thursday, December 8, 2016 at the ongoing 13th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP13) in Cancun, Mexico. The IUCN Red List now includes 85,604 species of which 24,307 are threatened with extinction.
“Many species are slipping away before we can even describe them,” says IUCN Director General, Inger Andersen. “This IUCN Red List update shows that the scale of the global extinction crisis may be even greater than we thought. Governments gathered at the UN biodiversity summit in Cancun have the immense responsibility to step up their efforts to protect our planet’s biodiversity – not just for its own sake but for human imperatives such as food security and sustainable development.”
Birds: Newly recognised, already threatened
This IUCN Red List update includes the reassessment of all bird species. Thanks to a comprehensive taxonomic review compiled by BirdLife International, working in collaboration with the Handbook of the Birds of the World, the overall number of bird species assessed has reached 11,121.
A total of 742 newly recognised bird species have been assessed, 11% of which are threatened. For example, the recently described Antioquia wren (Thryophilus sernai) has been listed as Endangered as more than half of its habitat could be wiped out by a single planned dam construction. Habitat loss to agriculture and degradation by invasive plants have also pushed the striking Comoro blue vanga (Cyanolanius comorensis) into the Endangered category.
Thirteen of the newly recognised bird species enter the IUCN Red List as Extinct. Several of these have been lost within the past 50 years – such as the Pagan reed-warbler (Acrocephalus yamashinae), O’ahu akepa (Loxops wolstenholmei) and Laysan honeycreeper (Himatione fraithii). All of these species were endemic to islands, and were most likely wiped out by invasive species.
“Unfortunately, recognising more than 700 ‘new’ species does not mean that the world’s birds are faring better,” says Dr Ian Burfield, BirdLife’s Global Science Coordinator. “As our knowledge deepens, so our concerns are confirmed: unsustainable agriculture, logging, invasive species and other threats – such as the illegal trade highlighted here – are still driving many species towards extinction.”
IUCN Red List assessments also reveal that some of the world’s most popular birds may soon disappear in the wild if appropriate action isn’t taken. Iconic species, such as the African grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) – a prized pet with the ability to mimic human speech – are facing extinction in the wild due to unsustainable trapping and habitat loss. Native to central Africa, the grey parrot has seen its conservation status deteriorate from Vulnerable to Endangered. A study led by BirdLife International discovered that in some parts of the continent numbers of grey parrots have declined by as much as 99%.
The situation is most pressing in Asia, with the rufous-fronted laughingthrush (Garrulax rufifrons), scarlet-breasted lorikeet (Trichoglossus forsteni) and Straw-headed bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus) among a suite of species being uplisted to higher threat categories as a result of the impacts of illegal wildlife trade. There is now evidence that unsustainable levels of capture for the cagebird trade, largely centred on Java, are driving the deteriorating status of many species.
However, there is good news for some of the rarest and most vulnerable birds on our planet – those that exist only on small, isolated islands. The Azores bullfinch (Pyrrhula murina), St Helena plover (Charadrius sanctaehelenae) and Seychelles white-eye (Zosterops modestus) are among the island endemic species to move to lower categories in this IUCN Red List update, as their populations recover from the brink of extinction thanks to tireless conservation efforts.
Giraffe
The iconic giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), one of the world’s most recognisable animals and the tallest land mammal, is now threatened with extinction. The species, which is widespread across southern and eastern Africa, with smaller isolated subpopulations in west and central Africa, has moved from Least Concern to Vulnerable due to a dramatic 36-40% decline from approximately 151,702-163,452 individuals in 1985 to 97,562 in 2015.
The growing human population is having a negative impact on many giraffe subpopulations. Illegal hunting, habitat loss and changes through expanding agriculture and mining, increasing human-wildlife conflict, and civil unrest are all pushing the species towards extinction. Of the nine subspecies of giraffe, three have increasing populations, whilst five have decreasing populations and one is stable.
A resolution adopted at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in September this year called for action to reverse the decline of the giraffe.
Crop wild relatives
With this update, the first assessments of 233 wild relatives of crop plants such as barley, oats and sunflowershave been added to the IUCN Red List. Habitat loss, primarily due to agricultural expansion, is the major threat to many of these species. The assessments were completed as part of a partnership between Toyota Motor Corporation and IUCN, whose aim is to broaden the IUCN Red List to include the extinction risk of many species that are key food sources for a significant portion of the global population.
Crop wild relatives are a source of genetic material for new and existing crop species, allowing for increased disease and drought resistance, fertility, nutritional value and other desirable traits. Almost every species of plant that humans have domesticated and now cultivate has one or more crop wild relatives. However, these species have received little systematic conservation attention until now.
Four mango species have been listed as Endangered, and the Kalimantan mango (Mangifera casturi) has been listed as Extinct in the Wild. These species are relatives of the common mango (Mangifera indica) and are threatened by habitat loss. Native to South Asia, mangoes are now cultivated in many tropical and sub-tropical countries and they are one of the most commercially important fruits in these regions.
A relative of cultivated asparagus, hamatamabouki (Asparagus kiusianus), which is native to Japan, has been listed as Endangered due to habitat loss caused by urban expansion and agriculture. Loss of habitat is also the main threat to the Anomalus sunflower (Helianthus anomalus) which has been listed as Vulnerable and is a relative of the sunflower (H. annuus). Cicer bijugum, native to Iran and Turkey, is a wild relative of the chickpea (C. arietinum); it has been listed as Endangered due to habitat conversion to agriculture.
“Crop wild relative species are under increasing threat from urbanisation, habitat fragmentation and intensive farming, and probably climate change,” says Mr. Kevin Butt, General Manager, Regional Environmental Sustainability Director, Toyota Motor North America. “To conserve this vital gene pool for crop improvement we need to urgently improve our knowledge about these species. Toyota is pleased to provide support for the assessment of these and other species on The IUCN Red List.”
Freshwater species – Lake Victoria
All freshwater molluscs, crabs, dragonflies and freshwater fishes native to Lake Victoria in central Africa are included in this update. Key threats to Lake Victoria – known as Darwin’s dream pond due to its high biodiversity – include invasive species such as the Nile perch (Lates niloticus), overharvesting, sedimentation due to logging and agriculture, as well as water pollution from pesticides and herbicides.
