Raul Grijalva Should Be the Next Secretary of the Interior

The outgoing Interior Secretary has been a nightmare. Raul Grijalva can turn things around


Spacious skies? Check. Amber waves of grain? Check. Purple mountain majesties? Check. Fruited plain? Check. Yes, America is well known for its beautiful landscape. And since 1849, the person in charge of managing all of this poetic scenery is the Secretary of the Interior.

Naturally, it's a big job. As the head of the Department of the Interior, this person oversees such agencies as the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Geological Survey and the National Park Service.

The outgoing Secretary, Dick Kempthorne, has been a disaster. He has consistently supported curbing protections provided by such crucial laws as the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act in order to favor commercial interests.

Since his confirmation in May of 2006, Mr Kempthorne has not placed a single plant or animal on the federal endangered species list. He recently eliminated the requirement for scientific review of federal projects that may harm endangered species.

One of the top contenders to replace Mr Kempthorne is Raul Grijalva, a Democratic Representative from Arizona. This son of a migrant worker from Mexico and current Chair of the House Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands would be an excellent pick for President-elect Barack Obama.

Boasting a 95% lifetime score by the League of Conservation Voters, Mr Grijalva has introduced several bills in Congress to restore and protect federal lands, and supports a permanent ban against drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

A strong animal advocate, he has spoken on behalf of wild horses on public land, supporting the expansion of the Heber wild horse territory in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. He also supports the strengthening of laws against horse slaughter, puppy mills and animal fighting.

The Bush administration has run roughshod on the rights and protections afforded to the nation's wildlife, landscape and domesticated animals. Repairing the damage and toughening up weak laws is a daunting task. Mr Grijavla is right person for the job.

Michael Pollan Should Be the Next Secretary of Agriculture

America's food system is broken. This champion of sustainable agriculture has the best ideas for fixing it

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) deals with a lot more than just safely growing plants and raising animals for food. It rules over the Forest Service (which manages almost 300,000 square miles of national land), the Food Stamp Program (which provides food for low-income citizens) and the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (which gives advice to farmers).

The USDA is run by the United States Secretary of Agriculture -- currently Ed Schafer, who assumed office in January, just days before a scandal broke following an investigation by the Humane Society into downed cows from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company entering the food supply.

And now, President-elect Obama has a powerful decision in his hands: Who should be the new agriculture secretary?

It's a very big job. In addition to establishing farm policies, enforcing agriculture laws and ensuring a safe food supply, this person is responsible for national nutrition standards, food in school lunchrooms, crop subsidies, organic labeling, disaster relief food distribution, cropland conservation and fighting hunger.

The Democratic governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack, is on Obama's short list. But he supports ethanol subsidies. As the Economist notes, "America's use of corn to make ethanol biofuel, which can then be blended with petrol to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil, has already driven up the price of corn. As more land is used to grow corn rather than other food crops, such as soy, their prices also rise. And since corn is used as animal feed, the price of meat goes up, too. The food supply, in other words, is being diverted to feed America's hungry cars."

The use of corn-based ethanol pleases the oil companies, as it's an additive to gasoline. Ultimately, corn-based ethanol does not help America get off its oil addiction. And it's not actually a green technology: Producing it consumes as much energy as it emits when burned.

Tom Buis, the president of the National Farms Union, is another top contender. But his focus on family farming (he said that Obama has "a rural vision"), while quite admirable, does not translate easily into desperately needed regulations on big agribusiness -- where the majority of country's current food problems lie.

Also being considered is Charles Stenholm, a 13-term House Democrat from Texas, who helped usher in the damaging Farm Bill, which gave huge subsidies to the nation's wealthiest factory farmers, awarding a whopping $2.8 million which helped corn farmers fuel American obesity through the production of corn syrup.

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a Democratic South Dakota congresswoman, is also in the running. But she's an agribusiness insider who, as a member of the House Agriculture Committee, has sent fat federal checks back to her home state and will likely be extremely cautious before championing serious farm policy reform.

Mr Obama should look outside of the political sphere for this critical position and give serious consideration to sustainable-food advocate Michael Pollan, the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," a book that traces the journey of four separate meals -- each produced through a different food-production system -- from their origins to the dinner table. A central text of the "locavore" movement, it was named by the New York Times as one of the best non-fiction books of 2006.

Mr Pollan has the correct view of America's food system: Too dependent on the burning of fossil fuels, it can't last much longer the way it is.

More importantly, Mr Pollan, who is also the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, is aware that food exists at the nexus of three of the nation's most important issues: health care, energy independence and climate change.

In fact, Mr Pollan was approached by an Obama staffer about his insightful open letter to the President-elect about food policy, "Farmer in Chief," published last month in the New York Times.

In the letter, Mr Pollan cites that four of the top ten killers in America are caused by diseases linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. He also reminds us that "every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact." The production and distribution of food does not necessarily have to spew millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And our food doesn't have to make us fat.

Considering President-elect Obama's mandate of change, Michael Pollan is the right choice for the next United States Secretary of Agriculture.

Warning that "the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close," Mr Pollan advocates a "sun-food agenda" that involves an entire overhaul of the food system and the development of local-based food production.

Now that's change we can believe in.

photo of Michael Pollan by Ragesoss

The Final Frontier According to Ptolemy, Kennedy, Hubble and Obama

Barack Obama has threatened NASA funding cuts. He should see this picture taken by the Hubble first

Of the dozens of constellations recorded by the ancient Roman astrologer Ptolemy, there is one shaped like a fish, tucked away deep in the Southern sky. He called it Piscis Austrinus, and the star that represents this fish's mouth is also the fish's brightest light. In fact, it's one of the brightest stars in the sky.

Its name is Fomalhaut (in Arabic, Fom al-haut means "mouth of the southern whale"), a young star just 200 million years old, 25 light years away (a distance about six billion times the circumference of the Earth).

In the autumn sky, it's the only first-magnitude star seen from the mid-northern latitudes -- in cities like Shanghai, Baghdad and Casablanca. It's no wonder that Fomalhaut, appropriately known as "The Lonely Star of Autumn," has made its way into Chinese, Persian and Arabic culture.

Its mystical quality has also made its way into Western culture. One of Fomalhaut's many literary references is in "Radio Free Albemuth," a novel by American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, where it is the origin of an alien satellite.

But now, it's something entirely alien to Fomalhaut that is looking into its region of the universe -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Orbiting 360 miles above the Earth's surface, it's the first and only space telescope to view the universe using primarily visible light.

The Hubble has taken a snapshot of one of the Lonely Star's planets: Fomalhaut b, a planet three times the mass of Jupiter. The image is the first one taken of a planet circling another star other than our own, using only visible light. It is the result of eight years of NASA's research.

Speaking about America's space program in an interview with Cleveland's WKYC-TV in February, President-elect Barack Obama said, "I want to do a thorough review because some of these programs may not be moving in the right direction and I want to make sure that NASA spending is a little more coherent than it has been over the last several years."

He has said that he will fund his education plan in part by reducing NASA's budget. This seems counterintuitive.

As Mr Obama reviews NASA, he should consider Hubble's picture of Fomalhaut b and its other major -- and no doubt inspirational -- accomplishments, such as giving us the most precise age of the universe (13.73 billion years). He should give the government's full support to NASA's continued success with this extraordinary piece of modern technology.

With his famous 1961 "Race to the Moon" speech, President Kennedy inspired a generation to study science, saying, "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will more impressive to mankind or more important for the long range exploration of space."

In his WKYC interview, Mr Obama mentioned that he grew up with "Star Trek," saying he believes in "the final frontier." He should recall Mr Kennedy's inspirational words -- and perhaps expand his knowledge of astronomy beyond sci-fi television -- before he makes a decision that could draw the frontier's border at Fomalhaut b.

Of that, Ptolemy would surely approve.

The above image, taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the newly discovered planet, Fomalhaut b, orbiting its parent star, Fomalhaut. (Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory))

Red States, Blue States, Green States

Obama's "New Energy for America"

As a senator, President-elect Barack Obama had a better-than-average voting record regarding the environment. But is his past record a good indicator of future performance as the Commander-in-chief?

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV), which rates Congress members' environmental records, gave Obama a score of 67% last year -- fourteen points above the average. His senatorial lifetime score was 86%. No wonder so many conservationists and environmentalists rallied behind his presidential campaign.

Mr Obama has a strong understanding of the environmental mess we're in. He co-sponsored the Senate's most forceful climate bill -- the Boxer-Sanders Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. Its aim is to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050.

He also realizes that America's dependence on Middle East oil and the country's national security are intertwined. In an interview last year with Grist.org, he said, "our dependence on fossil fuels from the Middle East is distorting our foreign policies."

His "New Energy for America" plan is bold. It calls for, among other things, a $150 billion private-sector investment to create five million green jobs, saving more oil than is currently imported from Venezuela and the Middle East within ten years and the implementation of a cap-and-trade program to achieve the Boxer-Sanders goals.

Mr Obama's promise to require oil companies to use their windfall profits to give $500 back in immediate relief to individuals -- while an effective vote-enticer -- does not move the energy ball downfield towards independence. But his desire to create a "Green Jobs Corp" -- an organization that will give disadvantaged youths an opportunity to learn new work skills while helping their communities increase their energy efficiency -- is an inspired concept.

And he has found a good partner in Senator and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who said at his debate with Governor Sarah Palin, "There are real changes going on in our climate...the cause is man-made...that's why the polar icecap is melting." He co-sponsored a bill to end the illegal trade in whale meat and another one to strengthen prohibitions on animal fighting. The LCV gave the senator a score of 95%.

The stage seems to be set for change, especially considering the Democratic majority in Congress. And no matter what Mr Obama accomplishes on the environmental front, he will most surely do better than America's outgoing chief. When President Bush makes his Oval Office exit in January, he will not only go down as the most unpopular American president in modern times, but also as the one with the worst environmental record in our lifetime. Change, indeed.

photo: Justin Sloan

It's (Not Just) the Economy, Stupid

Temps, They Are a-Changin'

The world is getting very hot. Polar ice is melting. Surface water is drying up. Deserts are expanding. Species are going extinct. The environment is in tatters. Since the middle of the last century, mankind's behavior has affected the planet deeply and quickly.

To make matters worse, things continue to look bleak for the world's biggest economy. Last month, a major US manufacturing index fell to its lowest level in 26 years, while General Motors -- which was the world's largest automaker from 1930 to 2007 (after which it was surpassed by Toyota) -- is down 47% in October, the lowest level seen since World War II.

As Bob Dylan sang in 1964, "Times, they are a-changin'." Almost half-a-century later, his words ring truer than ever.

As Americans head to the polls today, the world looks on with an intensity that hasn't been seen in recent history. And if the possibility of a black man becoming the leader of the free world isn't enough to create an international media bottleneck, the future of the global economy largely rests on what happens in America during the next four years.

Because if there's one thing that Wall Street's meltdown proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's that everything and everyone in this world is connected...somehow.

Crises in Context

Our coffee comes from Brazil. Our computer memory chips are made in South Korea. Our retirement funds are invested in Canadian natural gas development. And the global trade in oil is done in US dollars.

Whatever happens in America -- whether it be a credit crunch, a mortgage crisis or a slump in consumer confidence -- definitely does not stay in America.

There is no shortage of crises. But there is one crisis that we probably can't just "ride out" like a bad storm: our contribution to the decline of our known environment.

In what has been called the "Sixth Extinction," a fourth of all mammals are dying out -- a rate of extinction not seen since the time of the dinosaurs.

One-third of the 6,000 species of frogs face extinction. So too, one-third of the planet's coral reefs. Almost 50 percent of forests and temperate grasslands are gone. Fisheries around the globe are on the edge of collapse.

The planet will survive these changes, which are relatively small compared to the changes that it has undergone during its 4.5-billion-year history. But these staggering numbers should still help keep other numbers like the Dow Jones, the jobless rate and the Consumer Confidence Index in perspective.

Our place on Earth is less secure than it was in the past. Our decisions have, taken as a whole, negatively affected the state of life on the planet.

The Other Meltdown

The next American president faces huge challenges on multiple fronts. Voters in this historic election would do well to cast their ballot for the man who they believe will not only provide a steady hand in guiding the nation through the financial crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a broken health care system, but who will also consider the environment -- and specifically, global warming -- a top priority.

Voters have been pummeled with numbers and percentages for two years of presidential campaigning. And in the numbers game, there are two that matter a great deal when it comes to deciding on a candidate based on their environmental record.

The League of Conservation Voters, a group that monitors the environmental records of the members of Congress, gave Senator McCain a score of zero percent last year. Senator Obama scored a 67%. And the average score was 53%. For voters who consider the environment to be the big issue, this election is about doing the math.

The economy is experiencing a meltdown. But the economy won't really matter too much if the environment melts down too.


photo: Image shows the instrumental record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. Data set TaveGL2v was used. The most recent documentation for this data set is Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A. (2003) "Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001". Journal of Climate, 16, 206-223. This figure was originally prepared by Robert A. Rohde from publicly available data and is incoporated into the Global Warming Art project.

Dying at Walden Pond

Climate change is causing a species die-off at a historic site for American transcendentalism

Walden Pond, a 61-acre pond located in Concord, Massachusetts, was made famous by "Walden; or, Life in the Woods," a transcendentalist tome by Henry David Thoreau.

Written in 1854 when the philosopher lived by the pond on land owned by the founder of transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Walden" contains a critique of modern consumerism, calling for a deeper connection between man and nature.

Though the book has long been part of the canon of American literature, it would seem that society hasn't quite heeded its call.

Many of Walden Pond's plant species -- including buttercups, dogwoods, lilies, orchids, roses and violets -- are dying out due to climate change.

A new study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that 25 percent (120 of the 473 species that were documented by Thoreau) have vanished. Thirty-four percent -- 156 species -- are quickly approaching extinction.

On the other side of the country, spanning the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, another iconic American location -- Yellowstone National Park -- reveals an even grimmer situation.

A different study in the same journal has found that in the last 16 years, the number of permanently dry ponds in the park have quadrupled.

As a result of the water loss, half of the area's amphibian species have died out, including the boreal chorus frog (pictured) and the Columbia spotted frog.

Conservationists such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International (CI) are trying to stem the tide of extinction, but they are fighting against global warming's seemingly unstoppable death march.

Perhaps they should look to Thoreau's classic for inspiration: "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

image: Royal Olive

Save Kolahoi, Save Kashmir

A crucial glacier in Kashmir is rapidly disappearing -- time for the violence to stop and create the "Kolahoi Accord"






"Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
Heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream
My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high and true, when movin' through Kashmir."

- Robert Plant, "Kashmir," 1975

Though its lyrics were inspired by a 1973 drive through the Sahara Desert in Morocco, Led Zeppelin's famous song is named after a majestic and fertile valley nestled between the Great and Middle Himalayas. Unsurprisingly, Kashmir has always been a mystical place, and not just to the people of Central Asia.

In the early first millennium, it was a hotbed of Hinduism and later, Buddhism. Since the middle of the 14th century, Kashmir has been variously ruled by the Muslims, the Mughal Empire, the Afghan Durranis, the Sikhs, the Dogras and the British Empire. Today, India, Pakistan and China all lay claim to this beautiful region surrounded by deep gorges carved by the Indus River.

The clashes of recent months between Indian troops and Muslim militants have resulted in over 40 deaths and have led to India's tightening military grip. There are now around 600,000 Indian troops deployed there.

On Monday, separatists called a general strike to mark the anniversary of the day when the Indian army took control in 1947. Businesses, schools, banks and government offices were closed in an attempt to stop a plan to create a human chain as part of a peaceful protest to Indian occupation.

Though this day has been marked by the separatists since the militant uprisings began in 1988, this is the first year that Indian officials took such harsh counterinsurgency measures. Their troops have killed five militants during a gun battle in the forests of Kishtiwar. Seventeen others were reported injured.

But violence is just the tip of Kashmir's iceberg, so to speak. Kolahoi, a twin-peaked glacier rising almost 18,000 feet (5,500m) into the sky, is rapidly melting due to global warming. The glacier's importance cannot be overestimated: Kolahoi is the region's only source of year-round fresh water, and is the origin of the valley's teeming apple orchards and rich fields of wheat, corn, rice and saffron.

Given the violence, Kolahoi has not been the most accessible place for scientists to visit. But local reports suggest that it has retreated up to half a mile (800 meters) since the mid-1980s. Geologists estimate that, at the current melt rate, the glacier will be totally gone in ten years.

In August, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India agreed to reopen trade in Kashmir in a commendable rapprochement that will hopefully bear fruit as more and more Kashmiris interact with some level of normalcy and get past 60 years of infighting. Last month was Ramadan, and Kashmir was relatively quiet as Muslims spent the holiest month of the Islamic calendar in prayer, reflection and fasting.

The latest skirmishes show that it will take more than political handshaking and spiritual contemplation to tamp down on the aggression. Perhaps the slow death of Kashmir's lush valley will finally give its various inhabitants a reason to put down their arms and find a common cause.

President Zardari and Prime Minister Singh should take this opportunity to form a "Kolahoi Accord" that creates a bilateral research and development committee with members from local governments, green businesses, trade unions and environmental organizations such as The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Delhi and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Pakistan to come up with a sustainable solution to save Kolahoi.

Parts of the plan could include trade incentives on goods that depend on a healthy glacier, the development of ecotourism and other market-driven initiatives to improve the livelihood of millions of Kashmiris.

And the Kashmiri youth are already one step ahead of the violence that has riddled Kashmir's past. Instead of guns, they carry cameras to record instances of abuse, which are then posted on the internet. Perhaps if India allows peaceful protest and reduces the military tension a bit, the young photographers could be enlisted to train their lenses on recording the effects of the receding glacier instead of on public beatings by the police.

Whatever a Kolahoi Accord may or may not accomplish, if it means giving the violence a temporary rest to ponder the future of a glacier that everybody needs, it's certainly worth the effort.

While devising a plan for Kolahoi, Messrs. Zardari and Singh would do well to listen to some other lyrics from "Kashmir" as a message of warning:

"All I see turns to brown, as the sun burns the ground
And my eyes fill with sand, as I scan this wasted land
Trying to find, trying to find where I've been."

GET INVOLVED

• Sign a petition urging UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Zardari and Prime Minister Singh to create and sign a Kolahoi Accord by 2011

Photo of Kolahoi glacier courtesy of Motographer. Map courtesy of Planemad.

The Shrimp Effect: Does Eating Shrimp in Canada Kill People in Myanmar?

It’s time to reassess the Burmese export industry, which is destroying a natural defense against killer waves

After the dead are finally counted in Myanmar, the cyclone that hit on May 2nd will go down as one of the deadliest cyclones of all time. Currently seventh on that list is the 1991 cyclone that killed 138,866 people in Bangladesh. Some estimate the Burmese death toll will be around 100,000. The reports are streaming in about how many dead, how many injured, how many missing, how many homeless and, worryingly, the relief organizations’ frustration at the sluggish acceptance of foreign aid by the country’s authoritarian military leaders. But one report is not making the current top headlines and may not merit mainstream news coverage even after the dust in Myanmar has settled. And that’s the fact that if the country’s mangrove forests hadn’t been cleared over the years, many people would have survived this disaster.

Mangrove forests -- which grow along shorelines and up to a few miles inland -- provide a natural barrier against giant waves. After the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, it was found that mangrove forests protected coastal communities in several countries in the region. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) looked at the death tolls in two Sri Lankan villages that were hit by the tsunami. They found that only two people died in the village that was protected by dense mangroves, while the other village, with no similar vegetation, lost 6,000.

A few days after the current tragedy, Surin Pitsuwan, the secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said that “encroachment into mangrove forests, which used to serve as a buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and residential areas; all those lands have been destroyed...human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces.” Mr. Pitsuwan’s focus on this causative element of the disaster is to be applauded. But regrettably, it’s old news.

In a paper published by the journal Environmental Conservation in 2002, the renowned marine biologist Daniel Alongi, from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, wrote that one-third of the world’s mangrove forests had been lost in the last fifty years, suggesting that “the greatest hope for [the mangroves’] future is for a reduction in human population growth.” A year later in the same journal, environmental scientist Bradley Walters, from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, reported that in the Philippines, “cutting to make space for fish ponds and residential settlement has dramatically reduced the distribution of mangroves.”

A recent study done by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that 3.6 million hectares of mangrove forests -- which occur all over the world -- have disappeared since 1980. This loss has been attributed to various effects of human development upon the natural landscape: tourism, population growth, commercial agriculture, fish farming and logging. Based on satellite images, scientists believe that, between 1975 and 2005, Burma experienced the highest rate of mangrove deforestation among all the countries in tsunami-prone Southeast Asia, followed by Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

In 2002, the World Rainforest Movement, an international non-governmental organization advocating the preservation of the Earth’s tropical rainforests, published an article about the loss of Burma’s mangroves. They found that deforestation caused by two of the country’s export industries -- prawns and teak wood -- were “serious impacts on the environment and on the livelihoods of local people.” Frozen prawns and shrimp are Canada’s number one import from Myanmar.

Several countries have established trade embargos against Myanmar. In 2003, the United States put into law the Burma Freedom and Democracy Act, which bans all Burmese imports. European Union sanctions include restrictions on the import of Burmese timber, metals and gemstones and the prohibition of EU investment in Burmese mining and logging industries. But the success of sanctions from the West is questionable, especially when the Burmese dictators enjoy an unfettered trade with their neighbors that helped the nation to a 2.9 percent growth rate last year. Thailand gobbles up almost 50 percent of Myanmar’s exports, with most of the rest taken by India, China and Japan.

The sanctions from the West must be reconsidered. Eco-minded companies from the Americas and Europe have a much better chance in the immediate future of striking the balance between industry and conservation than their current counterparts in Asia. And while China -- which provides over a third of Myanmar’s imports -- would scoff at the idea of ending bilateral trade, world leaders should press President Hu Jintao to add conservationist provisions to their agreement. Considering the international scrutiny of China’s depressing environmental record during the current Olympic year, this would be a logical, image-burnishing move.

It is likely sobering to many to realize that so many of the deaths from the current disaster could have been prevented by keeping the mangroves alive. But without a regional or even global response, unsustainable industries will remain drivers down a dangerous path. People can neither influence cyclones, nor, in most cases, military juntas. But free people around the world can tell their elected officials to increase pressure on countries like Myanmar to preserve live-saving mangrove forests from deforestation. And people who live in places that do not have import sanctions in place against Myanmar can think twice about eating Burmese shrimp and buying Burmese teak. These may seem like small gestures, but in these increasingly interconnected times, we would do well to ponder again the famous question asked by meteorologist Philip Merilees in 1972: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?

photo: maya the bee

Happy Markets, Happy Forests

Political leaders have come around to saving the rainforests, now let business leaders figure out how

At a recent conference in Manaus, Brazil, several indigenous Latin American groups gathered in support of a new carbon-trading plan meant to preserve tropical rainforests in the international fight against climate change. The plan, which the United Nations has dubbed “Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation” (REDD), was a main topic at December's climate change talks in Bali, Indonesia, and has resulted in the creation of the International Alliance of Forest Peoples. And it marks a significant gathering of steam for market-driven concepts aimed at connecting the dots between business, conservation and the forest-dependent native people living amidst the biodiverse land crucial to the planet’s environmental health.

Scientists widely agree that tropical deforestation from logging, agriculture and development accounts for about a fifth of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. REDD combats this deforestation by making wealthy countries pay the native people of developing countries for every hectare (about 2.5 acres) of forest that are not cut down. Brazil is seen by many environmentalists as the ideal proving ground for such a concept, as native groups there have permanent rights to 21 percent of the Amazon, in contrast to other rainforest lands around the globe, which are mainly government-controlled.

While it’s difficult to determine the amount of carbon saved, the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts estimated that the amount should be ten dollars per square kilometer. They calculate that the conservation of the Amazon rainforest in this "perimeter defense" plan would amount over $530 million annually by the program's tenth year. Research has shown that reducing Amazon deforestation by just ten percent could yield up to $13.5 billion in the international carbon emission trading market.

What makes REDD so striking is its multi-pronged attack. Not only will it combat global warming by saving the immense stores of carbon in the forests, but it will also help to maintain and improve native people’s traditional way of life. (In the Amazon, for example, the clearing of forests for logging, cattle farming or agriculture negatively impacts the lives of the indigenous rubber tappers and nut gatherers.) Additionally, the maintenance of tropical rainforests will help to ensure the survival of remarkable biodiversity: The habitats of many animals and useful, indigenous plants are destroyed by deforestation.

REDD is a good plan. Surprisingly, neither the Kyoto Protocol nor the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) contain provisions for the limiting of tropical deforestation. In this case, REDD is a first. Naturally, the UN is taking a lead in this effort. But for all the good things that the UN is, it’s nothing if not a slow-moving, bureaucratic behemoth. Case in point: The UN’s Kyoto successor -- which is to include REDD provisions -- will not come into effect until 2012.

What can step in to fill the void left by the UN’s sluggish response? Well, for one thing, the market. While the UN has to travel through the maze of NGO’s, federal and local governments to enact policy at the street level, small- to mid-sized businesses are nimble enough to quickly move cash and make things happen on the ground. A “perimeter defense” plan that involves domestic and foreign investment capital in the long-term financial and structural gain of local businesses and residents would be much stronger, more efficient, and ultimately, more effective than having that $10 per hectare trickle down through a federal government’s treasury.

And companies should focus their efforts on Brazil, which contains one-third of the world’s rainforest land. President Luiz Inácio da Silva’s increasing willingness to defend his country’s vital biodiversity and carbon stores has been most notably demonstrated in Operation Arc of Fire, a well-funded campaign to stop illegal rainforest destruction. Since the project began in February, authorities have issued almost $26 million in fines. But the carrot must be used with the stick: Economic incentives should exist alongside financial penalties.

Companies that invest in products that don’t harm the forest -- like rubber, palm fruits, nuts and medicinal plants -- should be able to bring these products to market easily, unfettered by tariffs. The rubber extracted from the Amazon comprises a mere 1.4 percent of the country’s entire rubber market. Also, Brazil’s exports to the United States represent only about 2.5 percent of its GDP. These kinds of imbalances must be addressed. (Hopefully, US President George Bush’s year-old effort to promote two-way trade with Brazil will soon bear fruit.)

Last year, American environmental economist Matthew Kahn conducted a survey of 141 nations in an effort to find the most eco-friendly ones. Using figures from the United Nations’ 2006 Human Development Index and the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index, he found that Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Austria were the top five. While these European nations’ geographies differ vastly from Brazil’s, Mr. da Silva would do well to provide incentives to eco-savvy companies from these countries to come to the Amazon in an effort to make conservation a profitable enterprise.

More importantly, Brazil must tap the insight of its neighbors, who have more similar physical and cultural landscapes -- and who have been successful in the maintenance of virgin lands. Costa Rica, for example, is ranked fifth in the world on Yale University’s 2008 Environmental Performance Index. Almost a quarter of the country is made up of protected reserves. And its government has made the commendable declaration to make it the first carbon-neutral nation by 2021. Peru is another neighbor with some pretty good ideas. With over 70 “eco-lodges” now in the Madre de Dios region, the country is enjoying an eco-tourism boom that actually helps to maintain the Amazon. In 1996, the region’s largest tourism operator, Rainforest Expeditions, began a 20-year joint venture with the area’s indigenous people, who receive 60 percent of the company’s profits and share in the company’s decision-making. Literacy rates and healthcare have greatly improved through this scheme, and the locals help to maintain the well-being of the forest to help keep eco-tourism alive.

Ultimately, ten dollars is a meager amount to protect an entire square kilometer. In order to maximize the monies from this compensation, it must be treated as an investment, not a payment. The investments should fuel the growth of local, sustainable businesses and also provide education to the “guardian residents” of the forest. Kahn’s study found that an “engaged, educated public” was a strong tool to combat the destruction of natural environments. But in Brazil, this must be complemented with a way for the lucrative -- and highly destructive -- cattle industry to survive. Currently, cattle farming accounts for 60 percent of the Amazon’s deforestation, the recent growth of which was spurred by a devaluation of the dollar-pegged real, which effectively doubled the price of beef in reals, gave farmers a strong incentive to clear forest for cattle-grazing. A revaluation of the currency may help maintain cattle farmer’s profit margin with fewer cows. Additionally, cattle farmers -- as well as the small-scale agricultural farmers who account for 30 percent of the deforestation -- should also be included in REDD’s carbon-trading scheme. Profit from selling credits to polluters around the world would help make up for lost cattle revenue.

Conservation must be approached as a profit-generating venture. But the United Nations is not the best leader for the implementation of such big ideas (a sentiment sadly proven by the oil-for-food scandal). But it can and should provide an international framework and some local oversight. And national governments must provide incentives for foreign investment and ease trade barriers on eco-friendly products. But ultimately, it’s the market forces that can successfully foster economies that benefit from healthy rainforests. And that would be healthy for all of us.

photo: Guarani indians Karai Decupé Miri and Pará Miri, courtesy carf

Mining for Answers in the Philippines

The Philippine mining industry is running rough-shod on indigenous people and the environment. For President Macapagal-Arroyo, it presents a great opportunity

Last month, the municipal government of Nueva Valencia in the Philippine island province of Guimaras passed a resolution opposing the proposed mining exploration by the Fil-Asian Strategic Resources and Properties Corporation. Environmental groups and Guimaras residents fear that the project will threaten the natural resources of the island, which is still recovering from a massive oil spill in 2006. Also recently, Bishop Ramon Villena, the chair of the Regional Development Council for Cagayan Valley, asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to suspend the operations of the OceanaGold mining project, following the company's alleged violations of human rights in the region.

There are many well-known negative effects of the mining industry, which uses a tenth of the world's annual energy supply and accounts for the second-largest source of greenhouse emissions. Farmland, plants, animals and humans all suffer from mining, which pollutes the groundwater, rivers and irrigation lines, leaving open sores of unusable land in its wake. The Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corporation, located in Mankayan, Benguet, dumps its mine tailings into the Abra River. The Manila Times has reported that pollution from the Lepanto operation has caused a 30% reduction in rice production in the Cervantes and Quirino areas, communities which rely on rice planting. Additionally, mining pollutants kill the marine life which many coastal residents depend on for their daily survival.

Open pit mining -- the standard method for extracting ore such as gold and copper -- also impacts the environment in a unique way: By destroying natural habitats, this mining removes a link in the ecosystem chain, adversely affecting the biodiversity of an entire region. BHP Billiton, one of the world's largest mining firms, recently secured a Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the exploration of nickel deposits in Barangay Macambol. This area is located between the Pujada Bay Protected Seascape and Landscape and Mt. Hamiguitan Range, a newly-established wildlife sanctuary that is home to the endangered Philippine Eagle. Last month, protesters picketed in front of the firm's office in Mati.

But environmental damage, human rights violations and loss of food security are not the only mining industry factors affecting the country. The way in which the industry is currently operating may actually be unconstitutional. On March 3, several house representatives filed petitions before the Philippine Supreme Court seeking to scrap the Mining Act of 1995, a product of the World Bank's call to liberalize the world's mining industries. They argue that the act violates an article in the constitution which allows the state to exploit the country's natural resources in concert with corporations, provided that Philippine citizens own at least 60% of those interests. However, the Mining Act permits mining firms to be 100% foreign-owned and, most surprisingly, allows the repatriation of all profits. The only money to be made by the Philippines, according to the act, comes in the form of an excise tax. But this is a pittance. The 2005 excise tax collection of the Lafayette Mining subsidiary Rapu-Rapu Mining amounted to only 1.5% of the company's total revenue. Obviously, this is not a fair deal for the Filipino people.

As the petitions slowly make their way through Supreme Court bureaucracy, Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo seems to be in a political bind. As a senator, she was the principal author of the Mining Act under the Ramos administration. Her administration currently has over twenty priority mining projects. And, though legislation has been filed to repeal the act -- such as House Bill No. 1793, authored by Bayan Muna Representative Teodoro Casiño -- it is languishing in Congress and its Committee on Natural Resources, which is chaired by Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo's brother-in-law, Representative Iggy Arroyo.

Repealing the act in Congress is a far better solution than having the Supreme Court rule it unconstitutional. A protracted battle between the legislative and judicial branches of the government would not be good for the country. Moreover, solving the issue within the House of Representatives would give Filipinos a much needed measure of confidence in their elected officials. And this tack affords a big opportunity for Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo to pull herself out of her historical attachment to the law and the current bind she is in: She can be the one to make the call for change. As President, she can urge Congress (and specifically her brother-in-law) to seriously address Mr. Casiño's bill. Acknowledging that a law she authored is no longer effective would not only be a positive step in moving her country forward, but would help resuscitate her sagging image. Falling on the right side of the current mining issue will show that she is willing to adapt to changing times, and more importantly, willing to be wrong about a past position. Voters would more easily forgive Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo for writing a bad law over a decade ago as a senator than for holding onto it now as president.

In addition to calling upon Congress to address the problems of the current act, Ms. Macapagal-Arroyo should make sure that the DENR includes the voices of domestic mining interests, non-governmental environmental groups and the local communities directly affected by mining in a fresh, progressive and transparent discussion that crafts a sustainable future for the country's vast, untapped mineral wealth. The local communities that bear the brunt of the harmful environmental impact of mining should also be compensated more than the measly local business tax and other small fees they currently receive from mining companies. A portion of the larger piece of the tax pie, such as shares of remittances from capitals gains and dividend taxes -- all of which now go to the national government under the Mining Act -- should be reinvested in those communities.

Since 2004, $1 billion has come from overseas into the Philippine mining industry. Considering the country's proximity to resource-hungry China, the government hopes to increase that figure to $10 billion over the next three years. But if the Mining Act is repealed or ruled unconstitutional, lawmakers must find ways to keep current foreign investors from leaving in the face of major profit margin reductions, and also attract future foreign investment. Improved tax incentives, for example, could be granted when firms upgrade to more environmentally-friendly mining methods or purchase supplies from local businesses. Longer tax holidays can also sweeten investment incentives. Additionally, Congress should demand that the DENR uphold its mandate to "conserve specific terrestrial and marine areas representative of the Philippine natural and cultural heritage for present and future generations."

The Philippines may hold one of the largest caches of gold and copper in Southeast Asia. These resources should be exploited. Repealing -- or at the very least, rewriting -- the Mining Act would be a good first step in insuring that the national patrimony of the Philippines is not unfairly exploited by foreign interests. The mineral riches of the Philippines can certainly help its citizens by creating jobs and boosting the economy, but mining the land must be done in a sustainable way that limits the damage to the environment, maintains an interest in foreign investment and keeps a fair share of the profits in the hands of the Filipino people.

photo: Storm Crypt