“Banks and investors must examine the full range of environmental, social, reputational, legal and market risks prevalent in the palm oil sector”, warns a new alert from the Banktrack Network.

They should also “ensure that they undertake enhanced, robust due diligence procedures to identify, understand and screen these risks prior to any financing”, the group insists.

The warning was issued as a syndicate of three global financial institutions – Credit Suisse, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities – prepare to issue $400 million in bonds for palm oil expansion.

The syndicate is acting for Singapore-registered Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) – one of the world’s largest palm oil companies and a part of the Sinar Mas Group – according to a Debtwire report last week. And it’s beginning meetings this week with credit investors this week in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Banktrack Network, which camapigns on the operations and investments of private sector banks and their effect on people and the planet, sent a global alert to the three banks on the risks of such investments to alert potential financiers to the “extreme and outstanding social conflicts in the palm oil agribusiness sector.”

Great promises, atrocious performance

GAR has been among the early adopters in a wave of company policies that pledge to protect forests, peatlands, and human rights, indicating the company’s commitment to become a more responsible business.

However, detailed field studies of GAR operations in Indonesia show numerous legal violations. Specifically, GAR failed to obtain the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities, failed to undertake proper assessments of High Conservation Value areas (HCV), and was in breach of Indonesian laws on plantation permits. 

A complaint made to the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was upheld this month, finding GAR to be in violation of its certification standards and procedures.

Another recent study into GAR’s palm oil operations with its Liberian subsidiary Golden Veroleum Liberia Inc. shows that the company’s social engagement is seriously flawed in both policy and practice, leading to vague, inadequate and potentially unenforceable promises of development benefits, while risking the permanent loss of, and damage to, community lands, natural resources, livelihoods and cultures.

GAR’s parent company, the Sinar Mas Group, has come under scrutiny following the brutal murder of Indra Pelani – an Indonesian farmer and land rights activist killed by security guards contracted by another Sinar Mas company, Asia Pulp and Paper.

The company has condemned the killing but the incident points to the severity of risk associated with long-term conflict between Indonesia’s plantation sector and local communities.

An investment in forest destruction

“At this moment, an investment in Golden Agri-Resources is an investment in forest destruction and human rights violations”, said Jeff Conant, international forests campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

“Like other companies in the palm oil sector, GAR is talking a good game on paper, but all evidence shows that their destructive practices continue. Any bank that involves itself with GAR should be prepared for managing a high-risk client under the scrutiny of civil society watchdogs.”

Investigations by Rainforest Action Network have shown that GAR “has not yet fully implemented its sustainability policies in order to exclude supplies of conflict palm oil from its supply chain.”

As such it may be sourcing from growers that have destroyed valuable forests and peatlands in the Leuser Ecosystem, a global hotspot for biodiversity on the island of Sumatra, where critically endangered Sumatran orangutans, elephants, tigers, and rhinos are found together in the wild.

Must do better!

Banks and investors must ensure that GAR actively addresses these problems prior to providing financial services or investment, the groups say – and while promises of good intentions are welcome, they must be matched by performance:

“A strong palm oil commitment is an important first step towards being a responsible company, but banks and investors should not assume that companies with strong palm oil commitments in place are free of environmental, social, reputational, legal and market risks.”

According to a statement by GAR, “we remain committed to complying with the RSPO Principles and Criteria and with the national laws and regulations. Sustainability has always been an integral part of our business and is supported by our management and Board.

“We launched our pioneering Forest Conservation Policy (FCP) in 2011 and subsequently our Social and Community Engagement Policy (SCEP) which commits to improving the lives of the communities we impact.

“As we progress on our sustainability journey, we acknowledge the need to constantly innovate our operational procedures to ensure effective implementation of our policies.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

“Banks and investors must examine the full range of environmental, social, reputational, legal and market risks prevalent in the palm oil sector”, warns a new alert from the Banktrack Network.

They should also “ensure that they undertake enhanced, robust due diligence procedures to identify, understand and screen these risks prior to any financing”, the group insists.

The warning was issued as a syndicate of three global financial institutions – Credit Suisse, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities – prepare to issue $400 million in bonds for palm oil expansion.

The syndicate is acting for Singapore-registered Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) – one of the world’s largest palm oil companies and a part of the Sinar Mas Group – according to a Debtwire report last week. And it’s beginning meetings this week with credit investors this week in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Banktrack Network, which camapigns on the operations and investments of private sector banks and their effect on people and the planet, sent a global alert to the three banks on the risks of such investments to alert potential financiers to the “extreme and outstanding social conflicts in the palm oil agribusiness sector.”

Great promises, atrocious performance

GAR has been among the early adopters in a wave of company policies that pledge to protect forests, peatlands, and human rights, indicating the company’s commitment to become a more responsible business.

However, detailed field studies of GAR operations in Indonesia show numerous legal violations. Specifically, GAR failed to obtain the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities, failed to undertake proper assessments of High Conservation Value areas (HCV), and was in breach of Indonesian laws on plantation permits. 

A complaint made to the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was upheld this month, finding GAR to be in violation of its certification standards and procedures.

Another recent study into GAR’s palm oil operations with its Liberian subsidiary Golden Veroleum Liberia Inc. shows that the company’s social engagement is seriously flawed in both policy and practice, leading to vague, inadequate and potentially unenforceable promises of development benefits, while risking the permanent loss of, and damage to, community lands, natural resources, livelihoods and cultures.

GAR’s parent company, the Sinar Mas Group, has come under scrutiny following the brutal murder of Indra Pelani – an Indonesian farmer and land rights activist killed by security guards contracted by another Sinar Mas company, Asia Pulp and Paper.

The company has condemned the killing but the incident points to the severity of risk associated with long-term conflict between Indonesia’s plantation sector and local communities.

An investment in forest destruction

“At this moment, an investment in Golden Agri-Resources is an investment in forest destruction and human rights violations”, said Jeff Conant, international forests campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

“Like other companies in the palm oil sector, GAR is talking a good game on paper, but all evidence shows that their destructive practices continue. Any bank that involves itself with GAR should be prepared for managing a high-risk client under the scrutiny of civil society watchdogs.”

Investigations by Rainforest Action Network have shown that GAR “has not yet fully implemented its sustainability policies in order to exclude supplies of conflict palm oil from its supply chain.”

As such it may be sourcing from growers that have destroyed valuable forests and peatlands in the Leuser Ecosystem, a global hotspot for biodiversity on the island of Sumatra, where critically endangered Sumatran orangutans, elephants, tigers, and rhinos are found together in the wild.

Must do better!

Banks and investors must ensure that GAR actively addresses these problems prior to providing financial services or investment, the groups say – and while promises of good intentions are welcome, they must be matched by performance:

“A strong palm oil commitment is an important first step towards being a responsible company, but banks and investors should not assume that companies with strong palm oil commitments in place are free of environmental, social, reputational, legal and market risks.”

According to a statement by GAR, “we remain committed to complying with the RSPO Principles and Criteria and with the national laws and regulations. Sustainability has always been an integral part of our business and is supported by our management and Board.

“We launched our pioneering Forest Conservation Policy (FCP) in 2011 and subsequently our Social and Community Engagement Policy (SCEP) which commits to improving the lives of the communities we impact.

“As we progress on our sustainability journey, we acknowledge the need to constantly innovate our operational procedures to ensure effective implementation of our policies.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Last summer, on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland, we watched an excited young lad walking down to the water’s edge, fishing rod in hand. Sadly, his chances of catching anything were slim to remote.

Once plentiful stocks of cod, haddock and plaice have almost completely collapsed in the Firth of Clyde, the area of sea in which Arran sits, following a century of poor fisheries management.

Nowadays more than 99% of the commercial fisheries landings there are not for fish, but for shellfish such as prawns and scallops, which don’t take a bait.

Motivated by this dramatic change in their local marine environment, two Arran residents, Howard Wood and Don McNeish, formed the Community of Arran Seabed Trust back in 1995.

They quickly seized on the idea of using marine reserves – areas of sea where fishing and other extractive uses are restricted – as a way to bring back the marine life they had previously enjoyed as scuba divers.

And such is their success that they have today been honoured with a Goldman Environment Prize.

Life is returning to Lamlash Bay

Reserves had been used to great success in New Zealand and the Philippines, where the benefits appeared to have spilled over to the areas open to fishing. However marine reserves were non-existent in the UK at the time.

Finally, after over a decade of campaigning and building community and scientific support they got their reserve in Lamlash Bay in October 2008. It was small (only 2.67 sq.km in area) but significant, being the first and still the only fully protected marine reserve in Scotland.

We’ve looked at the Arran reserve in our research. Our findings, published this year in the journals Marine Biology and Marine Environmental Research indicate marine life is starting to flourish once again.

Complex seabed habitats formed by seaweeds and other plant-like creatures are recovering. These in turn act as a magnet for juvenile scallops, cod and other tasty species.

Adult scallops are benefiting too, growing in size and reproductive capacity. High levels of breeding within the reserve are likely to be seeding surrounding fishing grounds.

Marine protection is growing

Marine reserves, such as that on Arran, are the most protected form of Marine Protected Area (MPA). Due to their perceived benefits for both conservation and fisheries, the use of MPAs has grown spectacularly over the past two decades.

They now cover 2.8% of the world’s oceans, and the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity set an ambitious target for this to grow to at least 10% by 2020. Both the UK and Scottish governments are rolling out further MPAs.

There are strong arguments for the conservation value of MPAs. Clearly, if you protect ecosystems from activities which damage them, you expect benefits. Indeed, global analyses consistently find greater biodiversity and species size and abundance inside MPAs.

Certain habitats such as coral reefs and seagrass are highly sensitive to any kind of human disturbance, and protecting these areas should be a no-brainer given their ecological importance. Atlantic cod, for instance, rely on seagrass for shelter while they’re still growing.

However, the added restrictions these MPAs might put on fisheries has been met with strong resistance. In response to this lobbying pressure, it appears likely that UK governments will allow fishing to continue in the majority of the MPAs.

While low impact fisheries such as creeling and line fishing may be compatible with the conservation features in some MPAs, in many cases the most damaging types of fishing such as scallop dredging will be allowed to continue.

No plans to repeat the success of Lamlash Bay

There are also no plans for any further highly protected MPAs, such as the one at Arran, to be established. Surely this is a wasted opportunity. Perhaps if the fishing industry could be convinced such MPAs would actually benefit fisheries, they would be met with less resistance.

Proving that highly protected MPAs benefit fisheries is difficult, but recent advances in genetics have conclusively demonstrated that disproportionately high amounts of young fish can be exported from marine reserves to neighbouring fishing grounds on tropical coral reefs.

Some scientists claim there is little evidence for them working in the cool temperate seas around the UK. But the Arran marine reserve story adds to the benefits that MPAs have provided to scallops around the Isle of Man and in Lyme Bay, and to lobsters around Lundy Island.

Furthermore, recent modelling of the English Channel marine ecosystem concluded that highly protected MPAs were the best bet for both fisheries and conservation.

Crucially, the key to the success of the few MPAs in the UK to date has not just been getting the science right, but involving and getting support from the local community and fishing industries. Zoning arrangements divvying up the Clyde between fishermen and fish replenishment areas have just been proposed.

This surely has to be the way forward.

Bryce Stewart is Lecturer in Marine Ecosystem Management at the University of York.

Leigh Howarth is Postdoctoral Research Officer at Bangor University.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Saving Lamlash Bay – and over-exploited seas everywhere‘ by Howard Wood.

Petition: ‘Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Scottish Government : Stop dredging and bottom trawling in Scotland!‘ (hosted by Avaaz).

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

There is a battle raging over the future of farming on this planet, and the front line, this week, is in Washington DC, at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank.

There are two visions. They are often portrayed as being about differences in technical approaches but are, in truth, far more fundamental.

This is a battle over nothing less than the structure of global power and the sustainability of life on this planet.

In one corner are the World Bank and its financial backers, primarily rich country governments, multinational agriculture corporations and large private foundations. Their vision is one in which farming is seen, first and foremost, as a mega-industry, primarily concerned with efficiency, output and profitability.

The way they go about this is to promote ‘business friendly’ policy environments and aggressive structural reform programs focused on liberalizing economies to make them more amenable to large multinational businesses and foreign investment.

Their case rests on the claim that the only way to feed a growing world population is to focus on increasing overall food production through more widespread use of genetically modified seeds and the synthetic fertilizer and pesticides that they need, economies-of-scale, and vast, centrally planned industrial farming operations.

Land to the tiller, power to the farmer

In the other corner are a group of 260 NGOs, think tanks, smallholder farmer’s groups, environmental organizations and trade unions. As members of this coalition, The Rules and the Oakland Institute hold a vision in which power is not centralized in corporate boardrooms and the offices of global institutions but held by farmers themselves.

The real problem isn’t that we are, or will be, short of food in any aggregate sense, but that it is poorly distributed because of deep imbalances of power.

Throwing vast amounts of money at large corporate models, and telling governments to put in place rules that focus solely on bolstering the ability of large institutions to grab huge tracts of land for industrial, often mono-culture farms, only deepens those power imbalances.

It also does incredible harm to the health of the soil and the wider environment. Far better to invest that money in smallholder farmers, agro-ecological and regenerative farming methods that are perfectly capable of feeding a growing population; can do so in ways that can help reverse the pattern of pollution by the agricultural industry (the world’s largest single source of greenhouse gasses); and help foster a more equitable distribution of power in an increasingly unequal world.

To help make our case, the Our Land Our Business campaign has publically posed three questions to the Bank at their Spring Meetings.

Why have you not spoken to farmers before promoting massive agriculture-reform programs?

Your flagship agricultural reform initiative – ‘Enabling the Business of Agriculture‘ (EBA), formerly known as “Benchmarking the Business of Agriculture” (BBA) – is due to be rolled out across 40 countries this year.

At no point in your decision to create the EBA have you consulted farmers or farmer groups. Your consultation has been limited to rich governments and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who fund you.

The only open consultation that could have given affected communities an opportunity to be heard was at a meeting that you staged in London in November 2014, to which you gave seven days notice for attendance.

This sort of sham-consultation would seem to be in direct opposition to your own stated goals to consult affected communities, and makes a mockery of President Kim’s recent mea culpa on how the Bank has failed to take into account communities’ needs in the past.

Why are you rewarding countries that cede their power and wealth to foreign corporations, while punishing those who spend on the health and wellbeing of their populations?

The EBA is a sister-initiative to the Doing Business Rankings. These rankings, judged annually by technocrats in Washington DC, influence massive amounts of revenue, from the Bank itself, donor governments and corporations. Over the past seven years, in response to the Doing Business ranking, 21 Sub Saharan African countries decreased corporate income tax rates at least once. In some countries, they have been reduced as many as three times.

At the same time, you rewarded countries like Chad, DRC, and Mali with higher rankings for reducing property transfer taxes and regulations on land acquisition, and downgraded eleven African countries for establishing or increasing social contribution taxes that can be used to improve social services.

Why are you prioritizing farming models that destroy the environment and impoverish people, over those that work in harmony with the environment and are already feeding the world?

Using the discredited claim that only by using commercial, patented seeds and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can we hope to feed the world in the future, you have centralized the role of large multi-national corporations and their financial backers (e.g. the Gates Foundation, which holds $23 million shares in Monsanto, and $1.4 billion of shares in fossil fuel companies) in your model for global agriculture.

Rather than speak to and support the family farmers who are already producing 70% of the world’s food, or look to the library of evidence that shows the benefits and potential of regenerative farming methods, you seem to be taking direction from the mega-rich and corporate monopolies.

Agroecology not only increases crop yield over time, it does so in ways that sustain the health of the soil and sequester large amounts of carbon. Synthetic methods, on the other hand, plateau and then decrease yield, actively degrade soil and produce greenhouse gasses in enormous quantities.

The World Bank has a lamentable record when it comes to caring for the people affected by their large-scale interventions. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Huffington Post released the results of the joint investigation into this record just yesterday.

The evidence, they concluded, showed how “The World Bank broke its promise to protect the world’s poor“, by providing the financing for projects that have physically or economically displaced around 3.4 million people since 2004.

It should be acknowledged that World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, in his opening remarks to the Spring Meetings, promised to do better in future. But it is hard to put much faith in his words, for two reasons.

Promises, promises

Firstly, practically every World Bank President has promised the same and yet the problems continue or worsen year on year.

Secondly, and more importantly, the World Bank’s entire development model puts so much power into the hands of people whose primary purpose is to increase private profit that it is naïve, at best, to expect that altruistic appeals to ‘do better’ can counteract the structural incentives to maximize profit above all else.

At worst, it is merely cynical propaganda to hide an agenda designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Only a wholesale commitment to reverse the further corporatization of global agriculture, by doing away with the Doing Business Rankings and Enabling the Business of Agriculture project, and instead orienting the Bank’s strategy to supporting smallholder farmers and regenerative farming methods is likely to have any meaningful impact.

Sustainable living, or at least partially sustainable living, is fast becoming popular in the western world.

In developed nations, being more sustainable, for example by growing some of our own food, is a choice.

We can choose to ‘green’ our lifestyle – but if it doesn’t work out, then we have the means to live without it.

But this is not the case for the poorest nations on Earth. Malawi, one the smallest African nations, is ranked as the 8th poorest country on the planet. And for the ordinary people of Malawi, sustainability is  a matter of life and death.

Millions of people in Malawi face a food shortage and potential starvation each year, and the only way to survive is by growing their own crops to provide both their main source of food, but often their only source of income.

Self-sustainability through agriculture is absolutely vital. If the crops fail, the situation becomes extremely dire. With little to no money to buy food, families rely on handouts from charitable organisation or their communities.

And if that’s not forthcoming, they face starvation – a prospect made all the more likely by the worsening condition of farming in Malawi.

Unreliable rains, poor soils

Malawi’s small farmers face a host of challenges. The biggest reason behind crop failure is the dry conditions and low nutrient soil.

The country’s main crop is maize, a nutrient-demanding plant that needs plenty of rain to establish and thrive. A bad rainy season causes a poor yield. Irrigation can be used to water crops at other times of year, but it’s an expense that few Malawians can afford.

At the end of the harvest Malawi’s farmers typically burn their fields to make way for the next crop. But this also damages fragile soils, and deprives them of the organic matter they need to retain water and nutrients. Burning fields to prepare them for planting was harmless enough years ago when there was far more land to go round, but it is no longer viable.

When the country’s population was smaller, land was farmed under the ‘swidden’ system: vegetation was cut and burned, cultivated for a few years, then left fallow for a few years allowing soils to recover under a blanket of wild growth.

However a lack of land in recent times has left areas that would have once been given time to recover in constant use. As a result, the strain on the land never stops.

Naturally, ‘over farming’ is now rife, made worse thanks to poor yields. The soil becomes bare and very low in nutrients, unable to support healthy plants: a vicious cycle slowly destroying the land’s ability to grow crops.

It may appear that the Malawian people are simply not helping themselves by doing this, but in a country where needs are acute, food is scarce and education is scarcer, they are simply a desperate people with no knowledge of how to farm without damaging soils and ecosystems.

A hard slog under the blistering heat

If all these odds stacking against the people of Malawi wasn’t enough, simply caring for the crops themselves is a challenge many struggle with. Plots are split up into family owned sections, often a great distance from their homes, miles outside their villages thanks to growing population size and lack of viable farming areas.

Increasing population has caused communities to expand homes onto the little farmland they have, so new farmland has to be created elsewhere, often in wild areas far away from the villages where farmers live.

This results in a loss of trees and plant life, and of habitat for wild animals, notably birds and primates. Also affected are bees and other pollinators the farmers themselves need for their crops. So destruction of the natural grasslands and trees in favour of farmland also reduces crops yields.

However, this creates another problem. In a country ravaged by HIV and AIDs, many are simply not healthy enough to make the journey, let alone tend to the crops in blistering heat. So close to the equator, the temperature in Malawi is always high.

When crops fail, families are often forced to desperate measures. As most families own no livestock, any and all wild animals, including those as small as mice, are hunted for their meat and pelts. The same goes for fish – rivers are often so badly overfished that they can no longer provide meaningful nourishment.

People’s need to survive is causing major problems, as the people of Malawi simply do not know how to live and farm in a way that sustains the environment they are using. If nothing is done, the land will dry up, the waters will be empty and the animal populations will become all but extinct.

And then, floods

No more is the fragility of Malawian agricultural highlighted than in the recent floods. Huge swathes of the country were inundated in early January due to deadly downpours over the country’s southern regions, estimated by the Department of Surveys of Malawi to have submerged 63,531 hectares of land.

These devastating floods caused fatalities and hundreds of thousands of people to loose their homes – their simple mud structures were no match for the might of the heavy rains.

But they also had a disastrous affect on the farmlands of Malawi. Rain strong enough to wash away houses also destroyed crops in moments – and at a point when agricultural growth was near its peak, with harvesting coming in April.

The result of these floods was destruction of much of the agriculture in southern Malawi, which in turn led to problems for people ocross the country. The immediate issue was, and remains, lack of food.

In a country with so little to waste, the failing of crops is a serious issue. Without the much needed food supplies the people of southern Malawi, many of whom are already malnourished, struggle to maintain a diet required to survive.

The loss of crops also means loss of income. With education scarce and job opportunity scarcer, agriculture is often the only means for ordinary people in Malawi to make a living. Without crops to sell, let alone eat, many Malawians will struggle financially in the coming year.

And with the dry season on the way, regrowth of plants cannot start until the rains return in November. The floods have caused a chain of a events that will inevitably lead more problems, including fatalities from starvation. The true death toll of these events is simply not yet realised.

The solution

Looking to the future, the government of Malawi, combined with local and international charities, are fighting back – but it is very much an uphill battle. Unsustainable agricultural practices in Malawi are severely entrenched in all communities, big and small, so combating the issues will take a long time.

Education is key to saving the country’s ability to sustain itself. Teaching communities about crop rotation and good farming practices, such as the use of manure and composts to maintain healthy soils is the primary focus of the initiative.

If the soil remains full of organic matter and nutrients, crops are more resilient against adverse conditions and a lot less likely to fail. Crop rotations means crops can be grown at different times of the year.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day. Although land recovery is also important in the farming process, it is not a practice that many of the local farmers are aware of, and a lack of government resources simply doesn’t allow for a solution just yet.

In the future, composting will likely be used rather than simply burning the crops, but although progress towards this future is being made, it is slow. The same goes for supporting conservation.

Eventually plans will be made to educate communities on protecting the ecosystems around them, but when there are other, more immediate problems to solve, it unfortunately has to take a back seat.

Sweet potato – an agro-ecological life saver

While the government’s attempts to combat the problem of food shortages could see some effect, the biggest aid to sustainability comes from charities working closely with individual communities. These close knit groups offer hands on education and assistance in producing good crop rotations.

Sweet potato is the most common focus, as it can be grown at different times of the year to maize because it is less dependant on wet weather. It is also being introduced to create a polyculture system, the process of growing multiple plants on the same lot. This is because sweet potato improves maize yields, thanks to its nitrogen rich makeup which boosts soil nutrients.

However, while this is of great help to some communities, with so many requiring help, there are simply not enough charitable groups working out there to solve the problem. The hope is that as some communities learn the practices, others will follow suit and learn from their neighbours.

Is this wishful thinking? Perhaps, but the better awareness we have of this problem, they more people we can rally to the cause and help stop the millions that face the agony of starvation. But time is very much of the essence.

With the population expanding exponentially, good practice must be learned before it is too late. Can it be done? For the sake the Malawian people, we should certainly hope so.

Marc Crouch is founder and coordinator for Naturally Africa Volunteering, has spent a lot of time in Malawi helping communities struggling with food shortages. He and his team of volunteers are at the front line of the fight against the Malawi’s food crisis, but they can’t do it alone.

Get involved and help the people of Malawi – visit Naturally Africa’s website.

This week around 30,000 people are gathered on Daegu, South Korea to attend the 7th 2015 World Water Forum.

Often portrayed as a policy-making forum committed to the goal of water for all, the gathering of the international water community is really more of a trade show, dominated by private water companies who promote private-sector solutions to the global crisis.

Their solution was happily imbibed by most of its delegates and proclaimed in many of World Water Forum’s previous declarations.

Unfortunately on the ground, the promise of private water services has all too often turned into a mirage. Starting in 2000, increasing numbers of cities (from Atlanta to Accra, Berlin to Buenos Aires) have demanded a return to public water services as prices rose and services declined.

An accelerating trend

A book ‘Our public water future: The global experience with remunicipalisation‘, published by Transnational Institute and other organisations this month reveals that over the last 15 years, 235 cases of water remunicipalisation have been recorded in 37 countries, impacting on more than 100 million people.

Moreover the pace of re-municipalisation is accelerating dramatically, doubling in the 2010-2015 period compared with 2000-2010. Most notably, even Paris has re-municipalised, even though it is home to two of the largest water multinationals in the world, Veolia and Suez.

If even their home-town was turning them down, what did that say about these companies potential to deliver in places where the need for investments in infrastructure was much higher?

The most recent city to decide to re-municipalise is Jakarta, whose court in March annulled privatised water contracts for failing to protect residents’ human right to water.

This court decision came after years of public anger at private operators Palyja (Suez is a major shareholder ) and Aetra’s record profit rates and dismal service record:  their coverage never extended beyond 59% of the population, their leakage levels were an astounding 44%, and their rates increased almost fourfold.

Corporate profit, public cost

In the face of growing criticism, the World Water Forum has toned down its talk of privatisation – this year the language is all about “innovative investment”, promoted most typically through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

But on closer examination, this is another mirage. PPPs are not an “innovative” financing mechanism but a cherry-picking exercise: one that allows water multinationals the most attractive contracts (and all profits), while governments assume the risks.

In the case of Bandung in Indonesia, for example, the PPP guaranteed a private company a 20% profit rate in exchange for an investment of $500 million in water infrastructure, that could only be paid back because of the presence of profitable local industries.

But this cherry-picking means that the public sector is left operating only in regions where cost recovery is not possible – and it prevents the public sector – that can borrow at cheaper rates and is not required to pay back shareholders – to use earnings from more profitable districts to support extending service in less well-serviced low income areas.

Research by Public Services International Research Unit shows that despite the big expansion of PPPs in recent years, financing for all infrastructure across the world still predominantly comes from public sources, as high as 90%.

Run in the public interest – and cheaper too!

Investment in the public sector can deliver far better results than public-private partnerships. ‘Our Public Water future‘ shows that the 235 cities (that have remunicipalised) provide better services – not only because they can reinvest all profits into infrastructure, but also because they are better placed to consider other issues such as labour rights, environmental conservation and democratic accountability.

Undistracted from competing for markets, public water operators are also linking up through Public Public Partnerships to share learning and best practice, and build capacity of less well-resourced utilities.

In the flagship re-municipalisation of water in Paris, for example, in the first year of operations the new municipal operator Eau de Paris was able to realise efficiency savings of €35 million. What is more, they are prioritising environmental conservation measures and have set up a unique body in which the public can have a say in how the company is run.

Not surprisingly, rather than embrace this progress, private water operators are doing their best to undermine it. As they try to seduce cities into signing PPPs, they may project images of everlasting supportive partnerships, but if a city decides to part ways, their behaviour is more like an angry jilted lover.

In just the last week, Suez has said it will appeal and fight the Jakarta decision. At the same time, as reported today on The Ecologist, they also won an award for $405 million from Argentina after it cancelled its contract during the country’s economic crisis.

Corporate sabotage by legal action

Rejected by ever more citizens for profiteering from water, private water companies are now seeking to sabotage public water companies through legal costs and legal actions.

Their actions show the mirage behind the term public-private partnership. The reality is the partnership of a city and a company in delivering the right to water always holds the tension of conflict because the mission of a government and company are completely different.

If the World Water Forum is serious about its goal to implement solutions to the global water crisis, it should realise that the promise of private investment in water services was always a mirage.

The private sector does not have the interest to invest in public infrastructure at the level needed, and has frequently turned out to be more expensive and less effective than the public sector in delivery.

It is time for the World Water Forum to look at how it can boost investment in real public solutions that can deliver the human right to water for all.

Satoko Kishimoto is coordinator of the Reclaiming Public Water Network and the Water Justice Project at the Transnational Institute (TNI). 

The book: ‘Our public water future: The global experience with remunicipalisation‘ is published this month by Transnational Institute and other organisations.

This article was originally published by openDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 licence.

Another week, another victory for big business over a government in a secret pseudo-court.

This time it’s the turn of private water giant Suez, who successfully sued Argentina for reversing the privatisation of Buenos Aires’s water supply.

No matter that the country was in a state of economic crisis when the nationalisation took place, and the government didn’t want water prices to rise by 60%.

No matter that the company time and again failed to meet its performance targets. In the world of corporate courts, nothing matters except an investor’s ‘right’ to profit.

Yet it is exactly this system of so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that we will be signing up to if the US-EU trade deal known as TTIP goes ahead.

Last time I wrote about this it was Canada in the firing line – successfully sued for turning down a large quarry which would have caused severe environmental damage in Nova Scotia, threatening a whale haven with dynamite blasts and heavy shipping. Taxpayers may have to pay as much as $300 million in compensation.

The ‘free trade emperors’ have no clothes

Yet again and again government ministers tell us there’s nothing to fear. Nothing in TTIP will prevent us running public services in the way we choose, they insist, or from regulating business in the public interest.

Try telling that to Argentina, which now ‘owes’ $405 million, according to one such corporate court, this one based in the World Bank – which just happened to also be a shareholder in the Suez-run private water scheme.

The story began when a free market government in Argentina privatised Buenos Aires’s water supply back in 1993,egged on by the World Bank. A 30-year concession was given to a group headed by Suez, which promised to make water access universal and improve the water quality to meet international standards, all while maintaining reasonable tariffs.

From the start, targets were repeatedly not met, while tariffs increased, and the performance indicators were renegotiated. By 2002, average residential tariffs had increased by 88%, while inflation had only increased by 7%. Investment was below what had been promised, debt ballooned, but the profits kept rolling in.

In 2001-2, Argentina went through a dramatic crisis, exacerbated by international lenders like the International Monetary Fund, which caused mass impoverishment. As the country was rebuilt, emergency laws were passed to save Argentina’s people from further deprivation.

With the private water company threatening another massive price rise, the government of Nestor Kirchner passed an emergency law to bring the company into public ownership.

When putting human rights before profit is a ‘trade crime’

Argentina has been hounded by cases like this ever since its economic crisis. That’s because the Argentinian government at the time took serious action to place human rights before corporate interests, telling big business they couldn’t profit from misery.

Some of these cases have seen Argentina paying out, others have been resisted, turning into odious debts which hedge funds (known as vultures) use to threaten the country to this day.

This particular case has been brought under a bilateral trade agreement between Argentina and France. But the central mechanism is the same as that which is being proposed under TTIP and a separate treaty which the EU is about to ratify with Canada (known as CETA).

These agreements will allow tens of thousands of corporations access to these secret pseudo-courts to take exactly this type of action against European governments.

Argentina has at least 20 more cases like this pending, arising mostly from the government trying to regulate energy and water prices, which is exactly what the Labour Party is promising to do in the upcoming general election.

Chilling democracy

What’s more, the threat of these corporate courts is having a much wider impact on governments’ willingness to even try to represent their people. As senior barrister Toby Landau says:

“No state wants to be brought under a treaty to an international process. It has an impact upon diplomatic relations, it may have an impact upon a state’s credit standing …

“As a practitioner I can tell you that there are states who are now seeking advice from counsel in advance of promulgating particular policies in order to know whether or not there is a risk of an investor-state claim.”

The European Parliament has a vote on TTIP in June. This case should make absolutely clear to MEPs that the ISDS system must be a red line not to be crossed by any political party that cares about democracy.

Action: Tomorrow, Saturday 18th April, is TTIP Action Day! People across the world will be taking part in more than 550 actions to protest TTIP and other dangerous trade deals. You can find your local action here.

Sign an EU-wide petition against TTIP – it already has almost 1.7 million signatures and has a target of 2 million by October 2015.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Our public water future – closing out the corporate profiteers ‘.

Nick Dearden is director of the Global Justice Now (formerly World Development Movement), and former director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

This article is an updated version of one first published by Global Justice Now.

Carbon dioxide levels might be soaring, and governments might be slow to reduce fossil fuel emissions and contain climate change.

But there is a silver lining to these fossil-fuelled clouds – smart money is piling into renewable sources such as wind and solar power.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says green energy investments rose by 17% in 2014 to reach a total of $270bn – the first annual increase in three years, and just 3% behind the all-time record set in 2011 of $279bn.

In 2014, renewable energies added 103 GW (gigawatts) to global capacity. This is roughly equal to the output of all 158 nuclear power reactors in the US.

Wind, solar, biomass, waste-to-power, geothermal, small hydro and marine power contributed an estimated 9.1% of world electricity generation in 2014. This also represents a notional saving in carbon dioxide emissions of 1.3 Gt (gigatonnes), which is about twice what pours from the exhausts of the world airlines.

Renewables’ importance ‘will only increase as markets mature’

“Once again in 2014, renewable made up nearly half the power capacity added worldwide“, said Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP.

“These climate-friendly energy technologies are now an indispensable component of the global energy mix and their importance will only increase as markets mature, technology prices continue to fall and the need to rein in carbon emissions becomes ever more urgent.”

But, according to scientists backed by the Carnegie Institution, there is much more that could be done. A team led by Earth system scientists Rebecca Hernandez, now of the University of California Berkeley, reported in Nature Climate Change that solar energy alone could meet the demands of the state of California in the US up to five times over.

Solar power systems based on photovoltaics could generate up to 15,000 terawatts of energy a year. And mirror-driven concentrating systems could add another 6,000 terawatt hours.

California – now in the grip of a calamitous drought that has been tentatively linked to climate change triggered by human investment in fossil fuels – is the most populous state in the US.

The researchers calculated that more than 27,000 square kilometres of land would be fit for photovoltaic solar construction, and more than 6,000 square kilometres for concentrating solar power.

So if California’s water-guzzling farms are no longer viable in future due to water shortages, at least there’s another way for their owners to earn a living.

‘Beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels

The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined, according to an analysis presented at this week’s Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) annual summit in New York.

Delegates heard that the shift occurred in 2013, when the world added 143GW of renewable electricity capacity, compared with 141GW in new fossil-fuelled plants- and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable capacity will be added.

“The electricity system is shifting to clean”, Michael Liebreich, founder of BNEF, said in his keynote address. “Despite the change in oil and gas prices there is going to be a substantial buildout of renewable energy that is likely to be an order of magnitude larger than the buildout of coal and gas.”

The price of wind and solar power continues to plummet, and is now on par or cheaper than grid electricity in many areas of the world, he continued, cuting the International Energy Agency’s finding that while solar generates less than 1% of the world’s electricity today, it could be the world’s biggest single source by 2050.

Are biofuels ‘renewable’?

But there is a darker side to the story of renewable energy. On the other side of the Rocky Mountains, scientists have been working on the much more complex carbon budget of biofuels, which deliver supposedly ‘green energy’ like automotive fuels brewed from corn, and electricity fired by wood chips.

They count as renewable energy because, although they emit carbon dioxide when burned, they do not, overall, in principle, add to the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That’s because biofuel crops take carbon dioxide from the air to grow their tissues for conversion to fuel, and return the gas through engine exhausts.

But the approach remains carbon neutral only as long as farmers exploit existing cropland. And in reality, farmers around the world are razing existing forests and ploughing up grasslands, in the process adding to global warming by releasing carbon stored in soils and living biomass to the atmosphere.

And even if biofuel farmers don’t do that themselves, farmers elsewhere certainly will in order to maintain food supplies to an increasingly hungry world.

In the US alone, 7 million acres bloughed up for biofuels

Environmental scientist Tyler Lark and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report in Environmental Research Letters that, between 2008 and 2012, US farmers ploughed seven million acres of new land for corn and soy for conversion to biofuels intended as renewable energy for motor transport.

In the course of doing so, they could have emitted as much carbon to the atmosphere as 34 coal-burning power stations in one year – or 28 million new cars on the road.

Nearly a quarter of the land converted came from long-standing prairies and ranges, much of it within the Central Plains, from North Dakota to Texas. And much of this was planted with corn intended for conversion to biofuels.

“It mimics the extreme land-use change that led to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s”, Lark says. “We could be, in a sense, ploughing up prairies with each mile we drive.”

Tim Radford writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

This year has been anything but tranquil in paradise. In March, after a prolonged period of tension in the Maldives – the Indian Ocean island nation better known as a honeymoon paradise – a panel of judges found the former president, Mohamed Nasheed, guilty of terrorism and sentenced him to 13 years imprisonment.

The international community has condemned Nasheed’s trial as a farce. The charges against him were highly dubious, he was denied the right to legal counsel, given just a few days to prepare his defence – and two of the presiding judges even testified on behalf of the prosecution. Amnesty International labelled the trial as “a travesty of justice“.

As numerous UN reports have shown, the Maldivian judiciary is highly corrupt. It is a judiciary that is loyal not to the rule of law, but to the regime that has been in charge since a coup d’état in 2012.

Nasheed is now back in the same jail where he spent years as a prisoner of conscience during the former Maldives dictatorship.

Shattered dreams

At the end of 2008, when democracy swept aside 30 years of dictatorship, it all looked so promising. The Maldivian people chose Nasheed as president in their first democratic elections and, for a brief moment, freedom blossomed.

During Nasheed’s presidency, Maldivians could speak freely for the first time, enjoy new found political freedoms, and express themselves through art and culture.

Internationally, the charismatic new leader gained fame for his remarkable efforts to persuade the world to combat climate change, which threatens low-lying Maldives. Nasheed toured the world as a political rock-star, receiving accolades from the White House to Windsor Castle.

But it did not take long for the old regime to move against the young democratic government. On February 7 2012, Nasheed was forced to resign and the presidency was handed to Mohamed Waheed, a puppet of the former regime.

The Maldives soon reverted to type: journalists were targeted, protesters beaten up, and opposition politicians threatened and murdered.

The subsequent presidential elections 2013 were marred by widespread allegations of vote-rigging. The former dictator’s half brother, Abdulla Yameen, won – despite an overwhelming expectation that Nasheed would be returned.

Democracy trampled

Nasheed’s incarceration should be cause for concern to anyone who cares about democracy, liberty or the rights of women. In the Maldives, the moderate, freedom-oriented version of Islam that Nasheed espoused is under threat from a regime that colludes with Islamic extremists.

Unless the current trajectory is turned, the liberal forces in the countries will lose the on-going battle with fundamentalist Islam.

In the last year alone, Islamic State supporters have rallied in the streets of Male, the Maldivian capital, and a growing number of Maldivians – some with experience of terrorist training camps in Pakistan – have gone to Syria to fight for Islamic State.

Only Nasheed and his Maldivian Democratic Party have been willing to tackle the growing problems of Islamic radicalism.

There are few statesmen of Nasheed’s stature. Many foreign journalists, with good reason, refer to him as the ‘Mandela of the Maldives’. In the interests of democracy and stability, the international community must take a clear stand.

Targetted sanctions on Maldives’ rulers

Unless Nasheed is swiftly released from prison, the European Union and other nations should impose targeted sanctions against those in power.

These sanctions should include travel bans and foreign asset freezes. The sanctions should target President Yameen, his cabinet ministers, including the minister of tourism, and the corrupt judges who imprisoned Nasheed, and members of the security forces responsible for attacks on peaceful protesters.

Furthermore, since the survival of the regime depends on the annual arrival of the more than a million foreign tourists, individual countries should also supplement sanctions with a tourism boycott. Just like potential tourists should think twice before spending their money on the atolls.

Yameen’s regime is baring its teeth. It is time for the international community to respond in kind.

Anders Henriksen is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the University of Copenhagen.

Lykke Friis is Prorector for Education at the University of Copenhagen.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

This year has been anything but tranquil in paradise. In March, after a prolonged period of tension in the Maldives – the Indian Ocean island nation better known as a honeymoon paradise – a panel of judges found the former president, Mohamed Nasheed, guilty of terrorism and sentenced him to 13 years imprisonment.

The international community has condemned Nasheed’s trial as a farce. The charges against him were highly dubious, he was denied the right to legal counsel, given just a few days to prepare his defence – and two of the presiding judges even testified on behalf of the prosecution. Amnesty International labelled the trial as “a travesty of justice“.

As numerous UN reports have shown, the Maldivian judiciary is highly corrupt. It is a judiciary that is loyal not to the rule of law, but to the regime that has been in charge since a coup d’état in 2012.

Nasheed is now back in the same jail where he spent years as a prisoner of conscience during the former Maldives dictatorship.

Shattered dreams

At the end of 2008, when democracy swept aside 30 years of dictatorship, it all looked so promising. The Maldivian people chose Nasheed as president in their first democratic elections and, for a brief moment, freedom blossomed.

During Nasheed’s presidency, Maldivians could speak freely for the first time, enjoy new found political freedoms, and express themselves through art and culture.

Internationally, the charismatic new leader gained fame for his remarkable efforts to persuade the world to combat climate change, which threatens low-lying Maldives. Nasheed toured the world as a political rock-star, receiving accolades from the White House to Windsor Castle.

But it did not take long for the old regime to move against the young democratic government. On February 7 2012, Nasheed was forced to resign and the presidency was handed to Mohamed Waheed, a puppet of the former regime.

The Maldives soon reverted to type: journalists were targeted, protesters beaten up, and opposition politicians threatened and murdered.

The subsequent presidential elections 2013 were marred by widespread allegations of vote-rigging. The former dictator’s half brother, Abdulla Yameen, won – despite an overwhelming expectation that Nasheed would be returned.

Democracy trampled

Nasheed’s incarceration should be cause for concern to anyone who cares about democracy, liberty or the rights of women. In the Maldives, the moderate, freedom-oriented version of Islam that Nasheed espoused is under threat from a regime that colludes with Islamic extremists.

Unless the current trajectory is turned, the liberal forces in the countries will lose the on-going battle with fundamentalist Islam.

In the last year alone, Islamic State supporters have rallied in the streets of Male, the Maldivian capital, and a growing number of Maldivians – some with experience of terrorist training camps in Pakistan – have gone to Syria to fight for Islamic State.

Only Nasheed and his Maldivian Democratic Party have been willing to tackle the growing problems of Islamic radicalism.

There are few statesmen of Nasheed’s stature. Many foreign journalists, with good reason, refer to him as the ‘Mandela of the Maldives’. In the interests of democracy and stability, the international community must take a clear stand.

Targetted sanctions on Maldives’ rulers

Unless Nasheed is swiftly released from prison, the European Union and other nations should impose targeted sanctions against those in power.

These sanctions should include travel bans and foreign asset freezes. The sanctions should target President Yameen, his cabinet ministers, including the minister of tourism, and the corrupt judges who imprisoned Nasheed, and members of the security forces responsible for attacks on peaceful protesters.

Furthermore, since the survival of the regime depends on the annual arrival of the more than a million foreign tourists, individual countries should also supplement sanctions with a tourism boycott. Just like potential tourists should think twice before spending their money on the atolls.

Yameen’s regime is baring its teeth. It is time for the international community to respond in kind.

Anders Henriksen is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the University of Copenhagen.

Lykke Friis is Prorector for Education at the University of Copenhagen.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.