Month: December 2019

MADRID, Dec 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Central American countries are teaming up to conserve the region’s five great forests as part of a regional climate action plan released at United Nations climate talks in Madrid this week, the alliance behind the effort said.

The coalition of governments, Indigenous people, green groups, and others announced a plan to protect 10 million hectares of forests and degraded land inside those forests — an area roughly the size of Guatemala — by 2030.

In the last 15 years, three of the forests have been reduced by almost one-quarter in size, with illegal cattle ranching responsible for more than 90% of recent deforestation, it said.

Measures planned to safeguard the forests include bolstering agencies that look after protected areas, tracing beef to verify it has been legally produced, cracking down on cross-border cattle trafficking, helping ranchers find other ways to earn a living, and reforesting land where trees have been cut down.

Jeremy Radachowsky, regional director for the Wildlife Conservation Society, a partner in the project, said financing would come from multiple sources, including Central American countries, donor governments, and a dedicated fund that will be created for Indigenous and community forests.

The five forests, spanning from Mexico to Colombia, are key to curbing climate change as they sequester carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels that would otherwise heat up the planet.

“Nearly 50% of the carbon in Mesoamerica is stored in the five great forests,” said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Costa Rica’s environment minister, adding he hoped they would not be fragmented by deforestation.

The forests also provide habitat for wildlife, such as the jaguar and scarlet macaw, the alliance said. The initiative aims to ensure no species go extinct.

The forests include the Maya Forest in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; the Moskitia in Nicaragua and Honduras; the Indio Maíz-Tortuguero in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; the Talamanca region in Costa Rica and Panama; and the Darien in Panama and Colombia.

They provide water, clean air, food security, and other natural resources to 5 million people, the alliance said, noting that Indigenous and local communities manage nearly half of the forest area.

Cándido Mezúa of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, said it was sad to see the forests of the Amazon burning — and the impact that was having on Indigenous people.

“In Mesoamerica, we have our five forests. They still exist. We can still protect them, and even expand them,” she said in a statement.

Amazon Summit

Amazon Indigenous leaders, meanwhile, said this week they would host a world summit in Ecuador next August aimed at protecting the Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems in “response to the environmental crisis in the basin and abroad.”

Leaders representing 20 Indigenous groups from Ecuador and Peru also called for global support to stop oil drilling and mining in the Amazon “Sacred Headwaters” region, an ecosystem rich in biodiversity that spans 30 million hectares in the two countries.

Deforestation in Brazil’s huge tract of Amazon rainforest rose to its highest level in over a decade this year, government data showed in November.

The data confirmed a sharp increase in deforestation under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, which is considering permitting commercial agriculture and mining on native reserves.

Risks to Brazil’s forests drew global concern in August when fires raged through the Amazon.

Scientists link the fires to deforestation, with people and companies cutting down the forest for timber and then setting fire to the remains to clear the land for ranching or farming.

Gregorio Mirabal, general coordinator of COICA, the biggest Indigenous federation in the Amazon, said new ways were needed of dealing with threats to the Amazon, including the “devastating effects” of climate change.

At the UN climate conference, states “are making decisions for companies and not for the people,” he said.

“The inability of our governments to solve this [climate] crisis is calling us to do this ourselves, hand in hand with the youth and any others in goodwill who want to join,” he added.

Many Indigenous groups are opposed to credits for forest protection being included in carbon trading markets, arguing it would damage their sacred lands and livelihoods, as governments haggle over new rules for those markets at the Madrid talks.

“We do not allow the commodification of nature or that it has a price. For us nature is of value as itself. It is our Mother Earth,” Mirabal said.

According to the Washington-based Rights and Resources Initiative, which works on forest issues, up to 65% of the world’s land is communally held by Indigenous peoples and local communities and contains 80% of the world’s biodiversity.

But only 10% of those groups’ land rights have been legally recognized, it said.

“The local cultures and indigenous peoples are the ones that have best preserved nature, and we do not believe that solutions can exist without us,” said Mirabal.

Indigenous groups — officially represented at the UN conference for the first time — have pushed for language on protecting their rights to be included in the text on carbon market rules that is under negotiation in Madrid.

But it is not in the latest draft as the talks near an end.

Indonesian Indigenous activist Ghazali Ohorella said the rules should ensure safeguards for forest people’s land and rights, as well as a complaints mechanism and opportunities for them to participate in decisions on carbon offsetting schemes.

“If not, it will create so much trouble further down the line,” he told journalists at the talks.

 

Original article by Megan Rowling – Source Global Citizen

Photo by Stiven Gaviria on Unsplash

To find out more about the Wildlife Conservation Society and ways to get involved, go to their website.

To find out more about COICA – Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica and ways to get involved, go to their website.

 

Jane Goodall is a legend in the science community thanks to decades of her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees. But in recent years, the famous primatologist has shifted her focus to environmental activism. And in her time advocating for the planet, she discovered a pretty powerful yet simple technique for reaching people’s hearts and making real progress.

“I’m traveling around the world now, no longer studying chimpanzees, and trying to tell people what’s happening in the world, the mess that we’ve made and the fact that unless we all get together to help the environment we all share, then it may be too late,” Goodall told author KK Ottesen in her new book Activist: Portraits of Courage, per an excerpt published by The Washington Post. “The window of time is closing. And it’s not enough just to wave placards and say, ‘Climate change!’ The point is to take actual action. To do your bit.”

She then shared an anecdote about a seven-year-old African boy she met when speaking at a school in Burundi. “He came up to me afterwards, and he said, ‘If I pick up a piece of litter every day, I’ll make a difference, won’t I?’ I said, ‘Yes. You’ll make a huge difference,'” she recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, suppose you persuade 10 of your friends to do the same?’ He said, ‘Wow. That would really make a difference.’ And I said, ‘Then each of your 10 friends could choose 10 friends.’ He said, ‘Hoo. We’d change everything.'”

Did that story tug at your heartstrings? It certainly tugged on mine — and that’s no accident. As Goodall let slip later in the interview, she has found that the trick to helping people understand that we can all make a difference is pretty simple: telling stories.

“Being angry and pointing fingers, you won’t get anywhere. You just have to reach people’s hearts. And the best way I know is to tell stories,” Goodall said. “My job now is to try and help people understand every one of us makes a difference. And cumulatively, wise choices in how we act each day can begin to change the world.”

Along with telling stories, Goodall has noticed that really listening to those who hold opposing opinions — and not just waiting for them to finish talking so you can make your point — is key to making progress.

“If you go out there being aggressive and pointing a finger, you don’t get anywhere. If you watch two people begin talking from opposing sides, and then one gets a little bit finger-pointy, you can then see the eyes of the other one turning in as he or she tries to refute what’s being said,” Goodall said. “And in the end, neither listens to the other. And they get more and more aggressive, and nothing’s accomplished at all. Except possibly to make it worse.”

Goodall then did what she does best: She told a short personal story to highlight that point. “I got lots of opposition from animal rights people for even talking to the people in the labs,” she said. “But if you don’t talk to people, how can you ever expect they’ll change?” A longtime opponent of experiments on animals, Goodall has become a leading activist in the anti-vivisection community.

There are certainly merits to challenging those with differing viewpoints — but for Jane Goodall, being patient, understanding, and attentive toward her opponents has brought her great success in making a difference in the world.

 

Original article by Sophie Hirsh – Source Green Matters

Photo by Rob Schreckhise on Unsplash

To find out more about Jane Goodall Institute and ways to get involved, go to their website.