Africa`s continental civil society group, the Pan-African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), is rebranding. In its drive to expand its activities and scope of coverage, the civil society group has changed its name to Pan-African Climate and Environmental Justice Alliance (PACJA).
“Part of our mission is to participate not only in climate change action but engage in other environmental activities. We will now be fully active in sustainable development and issues related to land use, water, energy, environmental governance and all the other Rio Conventions. That is why we are changing the name especially to give more visibility to our activities,” said Augustine Njamnshi, PACJA Coordinator for Central Africa.
PACJA made the decision at an Ordinary General Assembly that took place March 3rd in Cairo, Egypt. The rebranding is expected to bring on-board new partners and give the group a clear sense of purpose easily understood by all, Augustine explained.
“PACJA is entering a new phase of growth next year, when we start implementing a new strategic plan 2016-2020; and, reflecting back, we need to ask ourselves whether we have met the milestones of the strategic plan 2011-2015, which comes to an end by the end of the year,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary-General.
In the new plan of action, Mithika said, PACJA would focus on pro-poor climate change response policies and strategies taken on board at National and Regional levels and enhance positive media coverage of Africa climate change issues.
“We also need to build trust among each other and always be guided by prized values of transparency and accountability, voluntarism and self-help, inclusiveness, fairness and justice, integrity, gender responsiveness, professionalism and participatory democracy,” Mithika said.
In a major push for committed leadership, the assembly elected regional coordinators with the following results:
West Africa: Rev. Tolbert Jallah – Liberia, Aishatou Diouf – Senegal, Alternate- Diallo Sekou – Mali
East Africa: John Bideri – Rwanda, Florence Kasule – Uganda,Alternate: Yonas Gebru –Ethiopia
The impacts of climate change are felt by communities around the world now, but many of the most severe impacts will be felt in the decades to come.
A flooded neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria
New research by the Future Climate for Africa (FCFA) programme reveals that African governments and businesses are putting their investments at risk from the long-term impacts of climate change because they are failing to take climate predictions into account.
Africa’s infrastructure investments and planning decisions are likely to be highly vulnerable to future climate change without concrete steps to change the way climate science is carried out, communicated and used in African decision-making.
A new microsite by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) for the FCFA programme presents case studies and analysis on how African decision-makers could make their investments ‘fitter’ for the future climate. The fascinating results hold many lessons for scientists and decision-makers in other parts of the world. Take a tour of the new microsite.
The FCFA is a five-year research programme funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The programme aims to foster better understanding of climate variability and change across sub-Saharan Africa, and promote the use of long-term climate information in decision-making.
CDKN is responsible for coordinating the FCFA scoping phase – an 18-month exercise using six case studies in sub-Saharan Africa to evaluate the needs of science users.
We have decided to devote this piece to climate change and development issues. COP 21 is not a talk shop. Rather, it is a serious gathering of world leaders, government officials, negotiators, civil society and professionals. It is an important UNFCCC meeting that will take a vital decision that will affect humanity and global development.
Prince Lekan Fadina
Climate Change until recently was viewed largely as an environmental concern of little relevance to development. I had an experience of this sometime ago when I had a meeting with a notable member of a high profile professional body. I tried to explain how climate change affects all facets of human life and the need to address it through bringing a number of people across several professional sectors together to see how we can position Nigeria to play a key role in Africa. I was told that climate change is an instrument that the civil society is using to be relevant. I made efforts to convince the person but to no avail. However, the house of a close relative was damaged as a result of the flood and properties worth millions of Naira were lost and when it was said that it was caused by changes in the weather pattern, it was then that interest in climate change started.
Development considerations were also given less attention than technological and natural science approaches focussing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Unsustainable development is the underlining cause of climate change. Development pathways will determine the degree to which social systems are vulnerable to climate change.
Climate change has direct impacts on development with regard to climate sensitive activities such as poverty and education.
Climate change also affects distribution of facilities and likely to exacerbate inequalities due to the uneven distribution of damage as most communities tend to live on marginal lands and in areas prone to extreme weather events.
Development policies and practices must address climate change issues There is need for us to start to focus the emerging issues on development and climate change. Our development planners must be trained and properly equipped with appropriate knowledge to acquire information, share it and incorporate the climate change issues into development plans. The communities must be engaged and their input reflected in the development agenda. For example, good adaptation presupposes development and we must ensure that climate change and development are linked through adaptation and mitigation.
In addressing climate change and the development, we must have a template to focus on land, agriculture, water, forests, justice, ethics, humanitarian issues, adaptation, planning, mitigation, finance and the private sector. These must be simple and easy to understand.
The road to COP 21 in Paris should assist us to let Nigerians understand the concept of low carbon resilient development, causes of climate change and impacts on the community. We must also ensure that we aim to generate a better understanding of the various linkages between development and climate change. In this regard, we need to look at issues beyond the negotiation tables that can serve as an opportunity to connect those working on these issues.
We also need to explore avenues for networking, business meetings and entrepreneurial development that can lead to job creation, employment generation and widen the knowledge base.
The vocabulary is changing in the development arena, we need to understand what the talk is about sustainable banking principles, solar water, solar houses, low carbon economy, biomass, fuel efficient stoves and others.
The challenge of COP 21 to us should include awareness raising, creation of resilient livelihoods, disaster risk impacts and measures to mitigate them.
We must integrate our communities, organise activities aimed to achieve multiple effects. It is suggested that we develop community ownership sense, sustain investment, create jobs, and create economic units capable to generate income. We need also to reach out to various organisations especially locally and globally who can assist us with finance, technology, training, and opportunity to share their experience on how we can address the challenges and tap into the opportunities arising from climate change.
We have a lot to do by working together as COP 21 like previous ones provide different platforms. Apart from the negotiation tables there are other areas that we can tap into including implementing the post COP 21 decisions. We must get the best for our country and as a nation we must start to put things in place to ensure active and effective participation in the processes.
We see the need to develop the capability of people who can be practitioners in the areas of environment, climate change and sustainable development. These practitioners can be useful in the integration of socio-economic measures that will create a better society.
By Prince Lekan Fadina (Executive Director, Centre for Investment, Sustainable Development, Management and Environment (CISME). (He is a member of the Nigeria Negotiation Team, Africa Group of Negotiators and member, AGN Finance Co-ordination Committee). Website: www.cismenigeria.com. Email: cismevision@gmail.com
The Collaborative Partnership on Sustainable Wildlife Management (CPW) on Tuesday, March 3, 2015 launched the Bushmeat Sourcebook, an online resource, on the occasion of the second World Wildlife Day.
Robert Nasi, Deputy Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research. Photo credit: www.worldagroforestrycentre.org
The term “bushmeat” used refers to non-domesticated meat from terrestrial wild mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians harvested for food or other purposes, including medicinal use, primarily in tropical and sub-tropical forests.
The sourcebook examines bushmeat’s vital contribution to food security, local livelihoods, and other aspects of human well-being in many parts of the world. It also shows, however, how unsustainable harvesting can affect the ecological stability of forest ecosystems, as well as human health.
Against this background, the sourcebook also looks at the options for management and regulation of bushmeat use at the community, national and international levels, including the recommendations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Liaison Group on Bushmeat.
“The sourcebook represents a valuable awareness-raising tool, which will help bring attention to key facts,” said Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, Chair of the CPW and Executive Secretary of the CBD. “It also shows us how indigenous peoples and local communities can play a positive role in helping to sustainably manage our valuable wildlife resources.
“The scale of the benefits that wildlife provides is a compelling reason for maintaining wildlife populations and habitats in a productive and healthy state, strengthening local capacities to use the resource sustainably and to mobilise international cooperation to help address specific needs,” Ferreira de Souza Dias added.
“During the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity, World Wildlife Day reminds us that it is important to do our utmost to preserve these key components of biodiversity.”
Robert Nasi, Deputy Director General of the Center for International Forestry Research, said: “If we do not address upfront the use of wildlife for food, here exemplified by the bushmeat issue, we are going to face hard times in many tropical countries.
“Wildlife populations will decrease while human populations will increase, creating an immense ‘protein gap’ that in the short term cannot be filled by domestic animals without huge environmental costs,” Nasi explained.
“It is therefore of the utmost importance to sustainably manage this often forgotten resource by conserving what needs to be conserved – large, slow-reproducing species – and sustainably use what can be used – fast-reproducing, resilient, smaller species. The sourcebook will be a reference for all those working on solving these wicked problems.”
CPW Vice-Chair Jan Heino from the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) said: “Sustainable use of species that are well-suited for bushmeat harvest needs to be moving from the grey ground of illegality to a permitted activity. Only then one is able to introduce conditions to the use of bushmeat, which ensure sustainability.”
The sourcebook was jointly prepared by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), with contributions from other CPW members.
As negotiations intensify for a universally accepted climate change agreement that is expected to be signed in French capital, Paris this year, the African Group of Negotiators has made it clear that it is not going in for any deal that does not favour the continent.
Delegates at the AMCEN in Cairo, Egypt
“Paris is similar to Copenhagen in terms of the expectations. This is the time that we close the ambition gap in terms of emission reduction and provision of means of limitation that supports the need of developing countries for adaptation. Unless we have sufficient support, means of implementation, Africa will face a lot of challenges in terms of its development because development is what makes the basis for the African group of Negotiators. That is why Africa will not sign any Paris agreement that will not include its demands,” said Nagmeldin Goutbi Elhassan, Chairman of the African Group of Negotiators under the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“The negotiations are still tough for Africa. Beyond the contribution in terms of financing, the most important thing that African countries are looking for is the level of commitment for emission reduction,” said Mounkaila Goumandakoye, UNEP Director and Regional Representative for Africa.
“If this level of commitment is not high enough, we are going, with regards to this continent in particular, beyond the two degrees target,” he added.
Both men spoke in Cairo, Egypt at the ongoing African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN). The conference is holding barely a month after the United Nations Geneva climate change conference designed a draft text that will guide negotiators to the Paris agreement.
“The text that we developed in February in Geneva includes all the submission by the African group. The text so far has the entire basis for us to negotiate an agreement,” said Nagmeldin.
With droughts, erratic rainfall and floods affecting millions across the continent, Africa sees itself as the most vulnerable to the adverse consequences of climate change and is pushing forward an agenda that will solve the problems. According to Nagmeldin, Africa wants a Paris climate agreement that will prioritise adaptation, that is, those activities that make people, ecosystems and infrastructure less susceptible to the impacts of climate change.
“Africa is highlighting the need for mitigation target and also multilateral legally-binding agreement that will ensure that the objective of the emission reduction will be achieved, finances secured, technology transferred and means of implementation. Africa also wants to ensure that adaptation is fully considered and given the same priority as mitigation because for us in Africa adaptation is the key priority in the 2015 agreement,” Nagmeldin said, adding that those responsible for emitting will have to bear the responsibility of leading the mitigation and adaptation efforts.
This position has also been adopted by the African Civil Society, but in sharp contrast to China and USA that are emphasising mitigation and a share of responsibility for all.
“Now certainly, the biggest emitters, including the United States – and I’m proud that President Obama has accepted that responsibility – have to contribute more to the solution. But, ultimately, every nation on Earth has to apply current science and make state-of-the-art energy choices if we’re going to have any hope of leaving our future to the next generation to the safe and healthy planet that they deserve. Now, I know this is difficult for developing nations. We understand that. But we have to remember that today more than half of global emissions – more than half – are coming from developing nations. So it is imperative that they act, too,” John Kerry, US Secretary of State, stated during UN Conference on climate in Peru in December last year.
African environment ministers attending AMCEN in Egypt are expected to review and adopt an African Union Climate Change Draft Strategy that will help negotiating in defending the continent.
In January 2015, over 300 people converged on Zaragoza, Spain to take part in the International Annual UN–Water Zaragoza Conference. The conference was used as an occasion to analyse water-related SDGs and the role of the different actors for their implementation. While addressing the participants, Leo Heller, UN Special Rapporteur for the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, called for deference and implementation of access to safe water and sanitation as a human right.
To find out what safe water and sanitation as a human right means to governments and people in developing countries, Fredrick Mugira interviewed Uganda’s minister for water and environment, Professor Ephraim Kamuntu. Prof. Kamuntu is a Ugandan economist and politician.
Uganda’s minister for water and environment, Professor Ephraim Kamuntu. Photo credit: redpepper.co.ug
Mugira: Why would you consider access to safe water and sanitation a human right?
Kamuntu: Without water which is the basic necessity for your life, you can’t survive. For all your joints and bones to turn, it is because they are lubricated with water and water takes oxygen to almost every cell in your body. As a result of the centrality of water in your life, anyone who denies you access to water denies you access to life. That is why it is taken as a human right and when you are treating accessibility to water, you treat it as if indeed to deny it you have violated the very existence of the human.
Mugira: What does the human right to water and sanitation mean to people in developing countries? Will this translate into increased demand for water and subsequent water access?
Kamuntu: Yes. You know why they don’t demand for it? It is because, in their head, water comes as rain and rain comes from heaven and it is God-given. So if it is God-given, whom are you going to ask? Maybe you pray to God for rain, but the time is going to come when local people shall demand for their right to water and sanitation.
Mugira: What should governments and people in developing countries do to realise the human rights to water and sanitation?
Kamuntu: Given the centrality of water and sanitation, the first priority of government in its budget should be defence and water. Defence because without peace everything else breaks down but with peace, your next priority should be water. Because first for your own human survive, secondly because of its centrality to the rest of the economy.
Using the example of Uganda, if you harvested surface water that runs during rainy season, if you harvested rain running off the roofs of these houses plus piped water plus shallow wells plus boreholes plus gravity water, you would get 100 percent water coverage in this country, I have no doubt in my mind. But the mind-set must be addressed that this can be done both at individual level, household as well as institutional level and government. Secondly as a result of this mind-set, there is low prioritisation of water when it comes to funding within even the machinery of government. Why? Because people take water for granted. They don’t put their money. As a ministry we have been getting three percent of the total budget over the years.
Mugira: Why is access to water so important in the growth of developing countries?
Kamuntu: Water is essential for your human survival as a human being but equally important water is at the centre of every development agenda across sectors. Agriculture which is the backbone of our economy, simply the production and productivity in agriculture is dependent on availability of water. Livestock, all these animals, anything animal can only survive if it has water and when it comes to industry, agro processing, I will tell you an example: to process one litre of milk in some dairy factories in Uganda, you need 40 litres of water indicating to you that industrialisation and agro processing of these countries critically depends on availability of water. Fishing, tourism, health, mention it, all need water. Then the other pillar which is environmental, the environment which is the linkage that links with the rest is dependent on the availability of water. Wetlands, shorelines, lakes that is nothing but water.
Mugira: How is lack of water access affecting productivity of third world countries?
Kamuntu:For instance in Uganda right now, we have two types of populations affected differently. We have the urban population. In urban population most people have access to water. In fact, we put the distance of accessing water in urban areas at 0.2 kilometres. Seventy-seven percent of Uganda’s urban population has water. When you go to rural areas and the statistics we use is one kilometre distance to water source. Here, 65 percent has access to water. Thirty-five percent will have to walk more than one kilometre to get to the source of water. It is not that they don’t have water but they will have to walk more distance to get it. The implication of that, 35 percent of 35 million Ugandans is almost 12 million. Your 12 million people have to trek more than one kilometre to get to the water source every day. Now if 35 percent of your population is simply spending nearly 80 percent of their time fetching water, when will you have any time to do productive work? This is partly why Uganda remains a Third World country because a lot of it population are still having no access to water.
TRAFFIC’s e-commerce monitoring reveals shifting illegal wildlife trade market in China
Yannick Kuehl, TRAFFIC’s Regional Director for East and South Asia. Photo credit: n.linkedin.com
Transactions for illegal wildlife products, particularly ivory, are shifting away from online retailers and onto social media platforms according to TRAFFIC’s research into the Chinese-language online retail community.
This is a key finding of a new report, Moving targets: Tracking online sales of illegal wildlife products in China, which discloses the results of routine market monitoring of China’s online retailers that began in 2006 and was released on Tuesday, the World Wildlife Day.
At its peak in March 2012, more than 4,000 new advertisements per month for illegal wildlife products were appearing online on Chinese language online retail websites, finds the new report. More than half of the illegal products offered comprised ivory items.
However, following advertisement removal and blocking of code words used to describe illegal products through regular exchange with e-commerce and enforcement agencies by TRAFFIC, this fell dramatically to around 1,500 from July 2012 and has remained around that level ever since.
“Major online retailers in China have been important allies in efforts to stamp out illegal wildlife trade, and their efforts have resulted in a sustained decrease in advertisements for such goods, yet the high number of such advertisements remains of concern and we are also seeing a shift in the way such transactions now take place,” said Zhou Fei, Head of TRAFFIC’s China Office.
One change has been an increase in the number of code words used by sellers to conceal the identity of their goods, from 15 code words used in 2012 to 64 identified and monitored by TRAFFIC today. At least 22 code words exist for ivory, including terms such as “African materials, yellow materials, white plastic, jelly”.
All 64 code words are searched each month by TRAFFIC on 25 e-commerce and antique selling websites for eight wildlife products — ivory, rhino horn, Tiger bone, hawksbill shells, pangolin scales, leopard bones, Saiga horn and Hornbill casques.
There has also been evidence of the move to social media, where dealers release photos and information about illegal wildlife products in order to attract and interact with potential customers. Some dealers also use “agents” to extend their audiences by re-posting the information about illegal wildlife products onto their own social media platform.
“The shift into the secretive world of social media marketing creates a whole new suite of challenges, with enforcement agencies constantly seeking to keep one step ahead of the traffickers,” said Yannick Kuehl, TRAFFIC’s Regional Director for East and South Asia.
“Monitoring and policing this underground marketplace must become a top enforcement priority—it appears criminals are using it to carry out their clandestine activities.”
China has the world’s biggest online community with an estimated $274.6 billion spent in online trade in 2014.
The number of new illegal wildlife products observed by TRAFFIC online fell dramatically, as did the total number of such advertisements: In January 2012, TRAFFIC discovered almost 30,000 advertisements for five illegal wildlife products on 15 websites then surveyed. This rose to more than 50,000 in the next two months but dropped again in April 2012 to around 30,000 after TRAFFIC contacted and shared the monitoring results with website managers, several of whom immediately deleted the identified advertisements.
Stakes are high for the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) that begins on Monday, March 2 in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo. AMCEN and African civil society groups expect that the conference will define a concrete blueprint that will guide the continent to discussions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be concluded in New York and Paris climate change conference that is likely to agree on a new climate change agreement, which will come into effect by 2020.
Participants at the pre-AMCEN staholders’ forum
“We want to crystalise a strong position when it comes to climate change and SDGs. We want to link environment with economy. We want to work on poverty eradication and job creation for our young population,” said Dr. Khaled Mohamed Fahmy Abdel Aal, Egyptian Minister of Environment. The minister spoke on Sunday March 1 at a pre-AMCEN major group and stakeholders’ forum.
Stakeholders expressed concerns that Africa was now more than ever before experiencing adverse consequences of climate change.
“Annual temperature is consistently increasing. We need to keep temperature lower than two degrees. For adaptation only we need between $7 to15 billion. If the trend continues by 2050, we will need $100 billion,” said Mounkaila Goumandakoye, Director and Regional Representative, UNEP-ROA.
At the forum, civil society stressed that it was crucial for AMCEN to develop a common assessment and analysis of international climate change dialogue processes, outcomes and consultations, to provide all-inclusive analysis of the latest Open Working Group on SDGs’ Environmental Sustainability Goal, and explore whether a stand-alone goal on climate change would be the best option for Africa in the ongoing debate on Post-2015 Development Agenda. The civil society also proposed that an assessment and analysis on Africa’s effort to address illegal wildlife and biodiversity trade as a way of natural resource conservation and management should be developed.
“The selection of the 15th AMCEN Session’s theme, ‘Managing Africa’s Natural Capital for Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication,’ resonates with this year’s spirit, where two most important global agreements which will determine the future resource governance, will be concluded. AMCEN has been a central player in these two processes, and as civil society, we will continue playing our role within the limits of the space we have been accorded,” said Mithika Mwenda of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).
Minister Khaled Mohamed, who will officially be assuming the presidency of AMCEN at the start of the conference, reiterated that a permanent partnership between the civil society and AMCEN was indispensable to achieve the demands of Africa in Paris and New York.
“We have challenges in Paris and New York. We will work very close with NGOs. I believe in the role of NGOs. We have to be strong and united. We all have to prepare and work on our plan together for Paris. Africa should stand together. We are rallying on the fastness of the NGOs,” the minister said.
The AMCEN is a permanent forum where African ministers of the environment discuss mainly matters of relevance to the environment of the continent. AMCEN was established in 1985 when African ministers met in Egypt and adopted the Cairo Programme for African Co-operation. The conference is convened every second year. The 15th session of AMCEN will run from the 2 to 6 March, 2015.
In Kyoto, Japan an international agreement (Protocol) was entered into by the delegates to the Third Session of the Conference of Parties under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December, 1997. This Agreement otherwise known as the Kyoto Protocol (KP) became operative on 25th February, 2005.
Prince Lekan Fadina
The KP set out a political blueprint for action to address the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid what was described as “dangerous anthropogenic interference with climate change”.
The Protocol committed industrialised countries and countries in transition to a market economy to achieve emission reduction target. These countries known as Annex l Parties under the UNFCCC agreed to reduce their overall emissions to six GHGs by an average of five percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012 (the first commitment period) with specific targets varying from country to country. Since then, there have been series of negotiations.
This piece is not to discuss extensively on the various negotiations tracks and or different challenges especially countries that have attempted to opt out of the agreement; rather, it is to help us have an understanding as to how we are witnessing transition from Kyoto Protocol to what may eventually lead to a more involving global Agreement.
It is pertinent to mention that, as we move towards COP 21 in Paris this year, the UN announced on 16th February, 2015 that “analysis shows that countries with targets under the Kyoto Protocol have collectively exceeded their original ambition.” The UNFCCC officials also said that “those countries who took on targets under the treaty have reduced their emissions by over 20 percent – well in excess of the 5 percent target they agreed to achieve.
“The significant point about the above is that international co-operative action can achieve a lot in the global effort to create a better world. The climate change agreement in Paris is expected to be “the next key chapter in humanity’s quest to chart a defining path to keep the world and its people under a 2 degree C temperature rise.”
The Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, in a statement said: “The Kyoto Protocol was a remarkable achievement in many ways. It not only underscored the scientific reality that greenhouse gas emissions need to fall but it also put in place pioneering concepts, flexible options, practical solutions and procedures for accountability that we often take for granted today”.
The Kyoto Protocol helps to spawn new and innovative initiative like supporting developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. It helps to provide a foundation and the lesson to all of us is that there is always a first step. Today, the world must take a further step and far reaching action towards a truly sustainable future for over nine billion people. We need to realise that, in spite of all efforts, greenhouse gases continue to rise, threatening sustainable development and if care is not taken it will put billions of people at risk over the next couple of years.
COP 21 will open a new chapter in the management of the global climatic issues. It is expected that it will lead to a paradigm shift that will reflect today’s reality as contained in the lPCC report focussing on the global gas emissions, decarbonisation of the global economy and achieving climate neutrality.
The challenge to us in developing countries and especially Nigeria is to work together – government, private sector, civil society and people to address the challenges and opportunities of this global phenomenon. The world is facing serious oil crisis and Nigeria is passing through a period where there is dwindling revenue from oil which is the mainstay of our economy and major revenue generator. There is the need for diversification and we must do something towards the road to a low carbon society and turning the challenges to opportunities. The world is moving and despite our challenges we must do something now as we need to retool our industrial machineries.
Paris is beckoning to us. It may not be the solution immediately to climate change but it is a strong pointer towards the world with less fossil fuel and restoring natural balance of emissions on planet earth. Climate change is with us, we are as vulnerable as most other countries. It impacts our goals, aspirations and sustainable livelihood.
COP 21 is important to humanity. We must key into the process and see how we can benefit from technology, finance, capacity building, green economy, green jobs, green banking and all the attendant issues in the negotiation tables.
We need to invest in knowledge, time, people and above all have an understanding of what goes on outside the main areas of negotiation – “in the corridors and beyond.”
I have been asked, Why is COP 21 in Paris so important? l have also taken time to consult widely on this and l can only summarise by saying that Paris is expected to secure a deal that will see all nations come forward with self-determined plans for emissions-cutting contributions and reiterate support for poor countries in addressing the challenges of climate change.
I believe that we need to engage our people at all levels, governments alone cannot do it but they need to create the enabling environment. We appeal to our private sector to buy into this process and commit part of their contributions on corporate social responsibilities to education, awareness creation and citizens’ engagement. There are huge potentials that we can get by moving along without getting blown off with the wind and a clearer understanding and involvement will go a long way in achieving positive results.
By Prince Lekan Fadina (Executive Director, Centre for Investment, Sustainable Development, Management and Environment (CISME). (He is a member of the Nigeria Negotiation Team, Africa Group of Negotiators and member, AGN Finance Co-ordination Committee). Website: www.cismenigeria.com. Email: cismevision@gmail.com
China now reports 1,864 wild pandas – a major rise in just a decade
Panda. Photo credit: brafton.com
It’s good news for panda, the furry black and white bear that has come to symbolise wildlife conservation. China announced the results of its Fourth National Giant Panda Survey, which WWF supported with financial and technical expertise.
The numbers: 1,864 estimated minimum population of wild pandas; 16.8% increase in wild panda numbers over the past decade; and, 11.8% increase of giant panda geographic range since 2003.
“The rise in the population of wild giant pandas is a victory for conservation and definitely one to celebrate,” said Ginette Hemley, Senior Vice President of Wildlife Conservation at WWF. “This is a testament to the commitment made by the Chinese government for the last 30-plus years to wild panda conservation. WWF is grateful to have had the opportunity to partner with the Chinese government to contribute to panda conservation efforts.”
Wild giant pandas, a global symbol of wildlife conservation, are found only in China’s Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. There are currently 67 panda nature reserves in China, an increase of 27 since the last survey. The survey found that 1,246 wild giant pandas live within nature reserves. The approximately 33.2% that live outside protected areas face higher risks to their survival as major infrastructure projects cause large-scale habitat loss.
Saving wild pandas
Giant panda conservation efforts benefit many other rare species of animals and plants in the southwest China biodiversity hotspot. The giant panda’s habitat is also home to species such as the takin, golden snub-nosed monkey, red panda and serow. Forests within the giant panda’s habitat feature major freshwater conservation areas that benefit millions of people.
WWF’s 2015-2025 giant panda conservation strategy sets the course for panda protection efforts over the next decade and will focus on improving panda habitat in a manner that balances conservation with local sustainable development.
According to the WWF, the panda logo is symbolic of its longstanding commitment to conserving pandas in the wild. “We have a 30-year history in China and a strong presence in critical giant panda areas,” disclosed the conservation group.
