A new fund dedicated to researching alternatives to animal testing has been secured thanks to years of lobbying from the Irish Anti-Vivisection Society (IAVS) and is the final outcome of a meeting last year with between the Society and Science Foundation Ireland’s Director General Professor Mark Ferguson. The SFI has agreed that the funding will be spent specifically on researching replacement methods other than testing and painful experimentation on animals.

Up until now there has been no dedicated funding for this kind of research, despite Ireland being one of the heaviest experimenters on animals in Europe. Health Products Regulatory Authority findings showed that nearly quarter of a million animals were tested on in Ireland in 2015 alone.

Professor Mark Ferguson, Director General of Science Foundation Ireland and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, said: “Science Foundation Ireland supports excellent research with impact and is proud to catalyse best practice across our activities. 

“We have consulted with a number of organisations in order to develop this new measure towards more effective, efficient and humane research. This is the first time we have specifically called for research proposals to support the development and validation of new tests, models and approaches not involving the use of live animals and addressing the principles of the 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement)”.

It is not yet clear what the level of funding will be, as amounts depend on how many grant applications for such research are received, (and on their quality), through the SFI’s Investigators Programme 2016. The funding request amounts for individual four or five year awards may be from €400K up to €2million.  This funding typically supports a Principal Investigator to hire a number of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.

And although it’s impossible to quantify precisely how many animal tests will be prevented, hopes are that the funding will pave the way for alternative testing eliminating the need for animal testing in the longer-term.

All research funded by Science Foundation Ireland that involves the use of animals, requires the investigator and team members to comply with the requirements of the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) and EU legislation. To date, Science Foundation Ireland has stipulated that all necessary ethical and regulatory approvals are in place prior to research commencing.

Yvonne Smalley, the IAVS chairperson, said:  “We would like to warmly congratulate Science Foundation Ireland for this historic step forward for both animal protection and human health. We would also like to thank the Health Products Regulatory Authority for their input into this new funding scheme. 

“The Irish state’s traditional attitude towards animal welfare has been disinterest and complacency. But this is a hopeful sign that the protection of animals is starting to be taken seriously by the powers-that-be in both Government and scientific circles. We hope that progressive and pioneering researchers seize this chance to conduct ground-breaking research that will advance human health and safety, as well as protect animals.

“We call on the Government to build on this positive development by enshrining the protection of animal welfare as a key obligation of the state. In the field of animal experimentation, we would like to see some momentum created, leading to the establishment of a national research centre dedicated to replacing animal experiments and government targets to reduce the number of experiments and their severity.”

Replacing animal testing requires international agreement, so there is still a need for the SFI to coordinate with other countries and EU initiatives, but the move is a leap forward for Ireland’s contribution to an EU directive (Article 47 of Directive 2010/63/EU) which sets out the international obligation to replace animal testing with alternative methods.

Conservationist, wildlife presenter and animal rights campaigner Anneka Svenska welcomed the move from the SFI, and said: “This is a huge move forward in the world of animal testing, which I feel is currently outdated and primitive. Many animals are often used in useless and extremely painful procedures, causing many to die ‘in vain’. Thousands of animals are tortured and then thrown away in procedures which lead on to no real scientific achievement.

“It is great to see that Ireland is setting a precedent to other countries, considering its track record as being at the top when it comes to being one of the highest countries to experiment in such a large capacity with such painful procedures.

“Many experts feel that results currently obtained from animals are actually mostly useless, as animals are so very different physiologically to human beings, so it’s time we moved into the 21st century and used our technologies and scientific ‘brains’ to create an ethical and kind way of forwarding testing for the cosmetic and medical industries. It has be de-prioritised I feel in the wake of other developments, so this is excellent news.”

European medical research leaders have expressed that funding for the research into non-animal testing methods has the potential to spare thousands of animals from pain and distress, and potential means ‘more effective, faster, cheaper toxicological testing to better predict human risk and meet regulatory needs’.

The media are full of stories that EDF is about to announce a ‘final investment decision’ on Hinkley C nuclear power station.

However the logic of its own press statements suggest that the project is in fact in deep freeze.

Once again, EDF’s superb public relations is convincing people that its disastrous Hinkley C power plant project is moving ahead, whilst the reality is that it is announcing that the project will not be started until at least 2019.

And even this date seems to be associated with the commissioning of the terribly delayed sister project at Flamanville: if that’s later than promised (and it probably will be) or abandoned altogether (very far from impossible), then expect further delays at Hinkley C.

I have lost count of the number of times that EDF has sparked speculation that it is about to announce a final investment decision for the project. These ‘announcements’, given through press briefings about which EDF bristles with annoyance if people question their connection with reality, have occurred several times since 2012.

And yet EDF’s own press release in effect says the opposite of the ‘final investment decision’ press stories that EDF have inspired. The document, released by EDF yesterday (July 21st) actually says: “The first concrete of reactor 1 of HPC, scheduled for mid-2019, would coincide with perfect continuity with the start-up of the EPR at Flamanville, scheduled for the end of 2018.”

So, what is actually happening is that (as experts familiar with the saga know only too well), EDF is confirming that Hinkley’s construction could not possibly begin until the safety issues surrounding the reactor design have been cleared and the working of the Flamanville project has been demonstrated. This is not going to happen for a minimum of three years.

And even that would depend on a huge bailout by the French state

Of course even this possibility defies commercial logic given that the project would bankrupt EDF without massive subsidy from the French state.The UK has agreed in principle to pay EDF (in today’s money) around £100 per MWh for 35 years of operation for the project, but even this price would not go close to covering the risk that EDF would take with the project.

Hence the need for a massive handout from the French state to EDF, in the form of buying shares in the company and taking dividends as shares rather than cash – which may well prove to be illegal under EU competition law even after Brexit. The French unions and many financiers and managers inside and outside the company regard the whole thing as a politically motivated piece of industrial suicide.

Even the UK Treasury has long since sidled away from the project, effectively cancelling its offer for guaranteeing the bulk of the loans that EDF would hope to take out for the project – since under the conditions agreed by the EU, Flamanville would have to be up and running by the end of 2020 for the guarantees to take effect.

Indeed, contrary to what seems to be widely assumed, the UK Government has not even offered EDF a legally binding contract. It beggars belief how seriously one can take a project that has not even got an offer of a contract from the people who are supposed to be paying for it!

But then the project has long since departed from being based on any sense of commercial reality, and linkages with commercial reality have always been tenuous, as they will be with any nuclear power project that has to meet the sort of safety standards demanded in developed countries these days.

Whatever ‘decision’ will be reached at next week’s EDF Board meeting (almost certainly affirmative), it will, as EDF clearly state, not lead to the construction of the Hinkley project being started. But it will be just a continuation of the public relations pantomime that we have been witnessing for several years now.

Cut Hinkley C, urges National Audit Office chief

Meanwhile the Brexit vote is making the project much more unattractive than it already is. Sterling has fallen some 10% against the Euro following the referendum, reducing the value of the electricity sales from the power plant, while many of the costs remain level.

And today the comptroller and auditor general of the National Audit Office, Sir Amyas Morse, urged the government to treat leaving the EU as an “emergency” and that many large capital projects would need to be cancelled or delayed. Lined uip on the chopping block are Hinkley C, a third London runway, the HS2 rail project, the £7 billion refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster, Crossrail 2 and the ‘northern powerhouse’.

“We need to ask ourselves – can the public sector deliver Hinkley Point C, a third runway, HS2, a northern powerhouse, nuclear decommissioning, Trident renewal and restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster all at the same time?”, he told the Guardian.

“All these projects are drawing on the same pool of skills and many of these contain optimism bias that they will be able to meet their skill needs at an appropriate cost. You are going to have to rein in projects … and say, what is the benefit? How damaging is it not to have it for a period of time? Can we afford it?”

And EDF is now facing a big, unexpected headache of its own: yesterday morning investigators from France’s Financial Markets Authority (AMF) made a dawn swoop on EDF’s offices, demanding a meeting with EDF’s secretary general, Pierre Todorov, and the production of series of documents. A surprised witness told Le Monde that it was “a real search, even if it does not bear the name”.

The documents concerned EDF’s €55 billion ‘major overhaul’ of all its French nuclear power plants, and the €22 billion Hinkley C project: in both cases the key question being whether EDF wrongfully concealed information from shareholders who have lost 45% of their value in company in three years, while in late 2015 the company was excluded from the CAC 40 index flagship of the Paris Bourse.

Email your MP: ‘Stop Hinkley C nuclear plant‘ (Greenpeace UK).

David Toke is Reader in Energy Policy at the University of Aberdeen. He blogs at Dave Toke’s green energy blog where this article was originally published.

Additional reporting by The Ecologist.

Political developments in Britain appear more than a little confusing at the moment.

The parliamentary Labour party is in open revolt against a leader recently elected with the biggest mandate in the party’s history.

Most Labour MPs call Jeremy Corbyn ‘unelectable’, even though they have worked tirelessly to undermine him from the moment he became leader, never giving him a chance to prove whether he could win over the wider British public.

Now they are staging a leadership challenge and trying to rig the election by denying hundreds of thousands of Labour members who recently joined the party the chance to vote.

If the MPs fail in the coming election, as seems almost certain, indications are that they will continue their war of attrition against Corbyn, impervious to whether their actions destroy the party they claim to love.

Meanwhile, the Guardian, the house paper of the British left – long the preferred choice of teachers, social workers and Labour activists – has been savaging Corbyn too, all while it haemorrhages readers and sales revenue.

Online, the Guardian‘s reports and commentaries about the Labour leader – usually little more than character assassination or the reheating of gossip and innuendo – are ridiculed below the line by its own readers. And yet it ploughs on regardless.

The Labour party ignores its members’ views, just as the Guardian ignores its readers’ views. What is going on?

The Structure of Scientific (and other) Revolutions

Strangely, a way to understand these developments may have been provided by a scientific philosopher named Thomas Kuhn. Back in the 1960s he wrote an influential book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

His argument was that scientific thought did not evolve in a linear fashion, as scientific knowledge increased. Rather, modern human history had been marked by a series of forceful disruptions in scientific thought that he termed “paradigm shifts”. One minute a paradigm like Newtonian mechanics dominated, the next an entirely different model, like quantum mechanics, took its place – seemingly arriving as if out of nowhere.

Importantly, a shift, or revolution, was not related to the moment when the previous scientific theory was discredited by the mounting evidence against it. There was a lag, usually a long delay, between the evidence showing the new theory was a better “fit” and the old theory being discarded.

The reason, Kuhn concluded, was because of an emotional and intellectual inertia in the scientific community. Too many people – academics, research institutions, funding bodies, pundits – were invested in the established theory. As students, it was what they had grown up “knowing”.

Leading professors in the field had made their reputations advancing and “proving” the theory. Vast sums had been expended in trying to confirm the theory. University departments were set up on the basis that the theory was correct. Too many people had too much to lose to admit they were wrong.

A paradigm shift typically ocurred, Kuhn argued, when a new generation of scholars and researchers exposed to the rival theory felt sufficiently frustrated by this inertia and had reached sufficiently senior posts that they could launch an assault on the old theory.

At that point, the proponents of the traditional theory faced a crisis. The scientific establishment would resist, often aggressively, but at some point the fortifications protecting the old theory would crumble and collapse. Then suddenly almost everyone would switch to the new theory, treating the old theory as if it were some relic of the dark ages.

Come in now, neoliberalism, your time is up!

Science and politics are, of course, not precisely analagous. Nonetheless, I would suggest this is a useful way of understanding what we see happening to the British left at the moment. A younger generation no longer accepts the assumptions of neoliberalism that have guided and enriched an elite for nearly four decades.

Ideas of endless economic growth, inexhaustible oil, and an infinitely adaptable planet no longer make sense to a generation looking to its future rather than glorying in its past. They see an elite with two heads, creating an illusion of choice but enforcing strict conformity.

On the fundamentals of economic and foreign policy, the Red Tories are little different from the Blue Tories. Or at least that was the case until Corbyn came along.

Corbyn and his supporters threaten a paradigm shift. The old elites, whether in the parliamentary Labour party or the Guardian editorial offices, sense the danger, even if they lack the necessary awareness to appreciate Corbyn’s significance. They will fight tooth and nail to protect what they have. They will do so even if their efforts create so much anger and resentment they risk unleashing darker political forces.

Corbyn’s style of socialism draws on enduring traditions and values – of compassion, community and solidarity – that the young have never really known except in history books. Those values seem very appealing to a generation trapped in the dying days of a deeply atomised, materialist, hyper-competitive world. They want change and Corbyn offers them a path to it.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man

But whatever his critics claim, Corbyn isn’t just a relic of past politics. Despite his age, he is also a very modern figure. He exudes a Zen-like calm, a self-awareness and a self-effacement that inspires those who have been raised in a world of 24-hour narcissism.

In these increasingly desperate times, Cobyn’s message is reaching well beyond the young, of course. A paradigm shift doesn’t occur just because the young replace the old. It involves the old coming to accept – however reluctantly – that the young may have found an answer to a question they had forgotten needed answering.

Many in the older generation know about solidarity and community. They may have been dazzled by promises of an aspirational lifestyle and the baubles of rampant consumption, but it is slowly dawning on them too that this model has a rapidly approaching sell-by date.

Those most wedded to the neoliberal model – the political, economic and media elites – will be the last to be weaned off a system that has so richly rewarded them. They would rather bring the whole house crashing down than give Corbyn and his supporters the chance to repair it.

Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, since 2001. A former Guardian reporter, he now writes for Middle East Eye, CounterPunch and other media. In 2011 Jonathan was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

This article was originally published on Jonathan Cook’s website.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Jeremy Corbyn: the green Britain I want to build‘.

Towards the end of last year, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden made a little-noticed remark. He said that solar would become the “dominant backbone” of the world’s energy system.

He didn’t give a date for his prediction, or indeed define what ‘dominant’ means, but he accepted that the sun will eventually provide the cheapest energy source across almost all of the world.

This is what my new book, The Switch, is about. Just how long will it take to wean the world off fossil fuels using just the forces of the free market rather than quixotic governments? What technologies will we need to complement the intermittent power of the sun?

In some ways, van Beurden’s thought is an obvious one. The light and heat coming from the sun provides a continuous stream of about 90,000 terawatts of energy to the planet. (Don’t worry about the unit of measurement. The important thing is that this number is six thousand times the requirements of the entire world).

Energy needs will rise – probably doubling in the next 30 years – but even then we will only need to capture three hours’ worth of sunshine to provide everybody around the world with as much energy as they need every year.

For comparison, the power of the wind averages less than 1,000 terawatts, or two orders of magnitude less than solar energy. Wind is more difficult to collect and tends to blow far from centres of population. All other potential sources of renewable energy are smaller still, usually by factors of ten or one hundred.

Solar is already beating fossil fuels on price

Solar is also cheap, and getting cheaper every month. The price reduction has been steep and surprisingly consistent. Panels are being produced today for about one three hundredth – 0.3% – of the cost in the mid-1970s.

These cost reductions have been principally driven by the yearly increases in the volumes produced; since the commercialisation of photovoltaic panels began half a century ago the number of panels produced has grown by an average of about 40% a year. Solar installations continue to grow, now principally in China, India and other industrialising countries, and the volumes of panels installed continues to grow year after year, helping drive costs even lower.

In many parts of the world solar power is already the cheapest way of delivering electricity. In places as diverse as Chile, Abu Dhabi, parts of India or the islands of Hawai’i, recent auctions for new electricity generation capacity have demonstrated that photovoltaics can beat fossil fuels on price – no subsidy or special favours required.

As cost reductions continue, solar’s price advantage will spread almost everywhere around the globe. In remote mining settlements, villages in Kenya and rooftops in California PV is already being installed without a thought of alternatives. It is already, in van Beurden’s words, the backbone of energy supply in many locations.

Research scientists around the world are continuing to invent new ways of turning light into electricity using simpler and cheaper materials. In the book I talk to several technologists who are pioneering the next generation of solar panels. These will be incorporated in the glass of windows or hung on the outside of buildings.

Innovation in collecting energy from the sun at lower and lower cost has at least another half century of progress to come.

And this is only the beginning …

One of the things that most surprised me in the research for the book was how people in countries like Nigeria, where the electricity grid doesn’t come close to half the population, see solar photovoltaics as democratising and accessible.

The analogy in their minds is the arrival of the mobile phone. Fifteen years ago the fixed line phone network was struggling to expand and only reached a few percent of the people in Nigeria. Then the mobile arrived and now almost everybody has a phone, rich and poor.

Unsurprisingly, hopes are high in countries like this that photovoltaics will grow in a similarly explosive fashion, providing power to everybody, usually via small ‘microgrids’ rather than a hugely expensive national network.

For the nearly 50% of the world’s population living in the tropics, overnight needs for energy will be provided by large commercial batteries which have stored electricity from the day. Like photovoltaics, these batteries are also getting cheaper by the month. Over the last five years, prices have tumbled at least 75% and these reductions look set to continue into the indefinite future.

As with photovoltaic panels the growing volume of batteries being produced, increasingly for electric cars, is helping drive costs down to levels thought unachievable even a few years ago.

Alongside batteries, minute-by-minute variations in solar output can be managed by using appliances that can adjust their power requirements to match the availability of power. Almost every machine in the home, office and factory – including air conditioning systems, refrigerators, pumps and heaters – can be easily modified to vary its use of electricity on a signal from the energy supplier.

Other electricity generation technologies can complement solar at night. The sun’s daytime heat can be stored in molten salt and used to turn turbines when the sun is down. Cheaper and lighter wind turbines are becoming available. Anaerobic digestion of biomass is also seeing huge advances around the world and can be engineered to produce power only at night.

New solutions for high latitude countries – like the UK

Of course we in the UK know that solar is not enough, even with batteries, wind power and demand that responds to the scarcity of power. We northern Europeans are unrepresentative, of course, because less than 10% of the world’s population lives north of London. But the UK needs energy in winter when the sun doesn’t shine and the backup of wind power isn’t available.

The answer to our needs is to convert surplus power in the summer and during winter gales into easily storable liquid fuels and gases. These can then be burnt to make electricity on dark, still days.

Companies like Electrochaea in Germany are showing the way. Electrochaea makes hydrogen using simple electrolysis of water and then uses the hydrogen along with waste carbon dioxide from sewage farms. An ancient microbe ‘eats’ the two gases and exudes 100% methane, the main constituent of natural gas. This is a completely green fuel since its carbon atoms come from biological sources.

Other companies in the US and elsewhere are showing us how to take CO₂ and process it to make oils for transportation. These processes require large amounts of energy but as solar power becomes cheaper, this is increasingly less of an obstacle.

Bill Gates recently wrote that he is optimistic that the world will solve the energy problem soon. In The Switch I try to show that his optimism is more than justified. In fact, the outlines of the route to abandoning fossil fuel energy around the world are already here.

Low cost photovoltaics, electricity storage and technologies that turn surplus summer power into green gases and oils will give all 9 billion people on the planet a secure supply of energy faster than we thought possible.

The book: ‘The Switch‘ is written and researched by Chris Goodall and published by Profile Books.

Special offer for readers of The Ecologist: Enter the discount code SWITCHECO at the checkout on Profile Books’ web site to buy the book at £7.99 including postage and packing, a price lower than currently available at the main online booksellers.

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change, and a frequent contributor to The Ecologist. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

After Brexit, green organisations will inevitably do some soul searching. Most green groups backed the Remain campaign.

Most of the big green organisations pointed to everything the EU has done for the environment. Others pointed to joint European action on climate change. But clearly many people found green appeals about EU membership unmoving.

England and Wales voted conclusively for Brexit. Green groups will now be asking themselves why they were out of step with the wider public.

This is not an uncommon place for green and climate change organisations to be. Climate change is frequently an issue at the bottom of the public’s list of concerns. For the green movement to be asking questions about why it hasn’t galvanised public support is a regular event.

My fear is that in an attempt to appear more relevant, green organisations will go somewhere nasty on immigration. This is an appeal to green organisations to do the opposite.

Immigration: the defining issue of the Leave campaign

Immigration was the defining issue of the Brexit campaign. It was consistently the issue Leave voters said motivated them the most. It might seem odd to suggest that green organisations would reach for immigration as an issue at the moment. But I think this is a genuine risk.

Green organisations in the UK have struggled to engage people outside a narrow demographic. Green NGOs have been good at galvanising support among educated urban people and higher earners. They’ve often struggled to engage anyone else. Greens are often lumped into ‘the metropolitan elite’, accused of ignoring the concerns of the majority and promoting lofty and irrelevant ideals.

During the Port Talbot steel crisis, UKIP picked its villains carefully. The culprits – they argued – were climate change legislation and the EU. Both – they claimed – the domain of detached urban elites.

Any organisation that has found itself on the losing side will now be wondering what to do next. Green and climate organisations will be too. How can they shake off the reputation of being part of the dreaded ‘political class’? How can they prove their green agenda is in tune with the concerns of the majority?

Some will turn to immigration. Popularity – they hope – might lie in tapping escalating anti immigration feeling.

Green immigration arguments

Green groups will not need to invent new ‘environmental’ anti-migrant arguments. They have already been well rehearsed. Some green organisations have flirted with anti-immigration messaging over the years. The arguments are not new.

Green groups sometime claim immigration creates new pressure on the environment. More people means more houses, roads, infrastructure and energy. All this puts pressure on nature and landscapes. It also means people moving from low emitting poorer countries, and adopting high emitting lifestyles. Some green groups have argued that restricting immigration is good for the environment.

Another common argument is that climate change will create mass migration. Sea level rise, drought and famine will create new waves of migration. Millions of people will head for the UK. Some green groups hope to make a case for action on climate change, by stoking fear about immigration.

In an attempt to reach beyond their current audiences, some green organisations may deploy these arguments. They have in the past. My fear is that given the circumstances, they are now likely to do it again.

Flawed arguments

But the arguments are deeply flawed. No organisation can credibly make them. Migrants tend to have low carbon footprints. Low wages leave little room for the high spending lifestyles that produce high emissions. Climate change will re-shape patterns of migration. But it is likely to produce short distance internal migration. People are less likely to cross international borders.

The Brexit vote was fuelled by anti-migration feeling. But this fear was misplaced. Millions have legitimate grievances about unemployment, reduced health services and lack of housing. But these fears about jobs, health and housing were all – wrongly – laid at the door of immigration.

Green organisations have always had coherent proposals that address concerns about jobs, health and housing. It was green organisations that raised concerns about the link between the environment and public health. And climate organisations that proposed creating new, well paid work through renewable energy.

Climate change and green organisations must stick with these proposals. And must steer well clear of the flawed and unethical arguments about immigration.

Alex Randall is Programme Manager at the Climate and Migration Coalition, which originally published this article.

People power achieved a major breakthrough in December 2015. We got the governments of 195 countries to meet at COP21 and thrash out an agreement to make significant reductions in carbon emissions.

Now people power confronts a new challenge: persuading governments to implement the agreement they signed in Paris. This challenge is particularly tough in the UK and the USA.

I am currently on a rail journey across the USA visiting laboratories researching the artificial leaf. My principal aim is to develop a replacement for gasoline from atmospheric carbon dioxide and sunlight.

And hrere’s the good news: the ultimate in people power – the generation of solar fuel on domestic rooftops – appears to be closer than seemed possible in 2014 when I wrote The Burning Answer.

I am also visiting American environmental groups. They are disappointed that the grid-lock in Congress has led President Obama to pass responsibility for renewable expansion to state legislatures. But there is also much to be cheerful about – including the ingenuity and resourcefulness with which Americans are overcoming the political challenges they face in their quest to Get It From The Sun (GIFTS).

All renewable electricity supplies in the USA

Like the UK, PV installations in the USA have been expanding exponentially in recent years. As a result California achieved its 2017 target for rooftop solar installations a year early. Wind power is also doing well: data we published in Nature Materials show that the USA took over from Germany as world leader in onshore wind generation in 2008 only to be overtaken by China in 2010.

But offshore wind progress in the US is disappointing – in contrast to Europe, which may get 7% of its power from offshore wind by 2030. Unlike the UK, where offshore wind power has shown an impressive exponential increase over the past decade, the current American offshore wind contribution is so small we were unable to plot it on our Nature Materials graph.

Of the countries we studied, the USA has installed the most bio-electric power. However, the major American contribution is from biomass, which is unlikely to expand fast because it is in competition for land use with crops. The US is far behind Germany in exploiting the AD of farm and food waste.

This might reflect the influence of the fossil fuel industry. AD bio-methane is a lower carbon competitor to fracking, and threatens a big earner for the fossil fuel industry. The solid waste from AD contains the very nutrients that made the original plants grow. Hence recycling it provides a cheap fertilizer that could replace fossil-fuel based fertilisers.

GIFTS in Berkeley

I have asked the question about who already has an all renewable supply at talks in three American states. Only one or two people put up their hands. They turn out to have rooftop PV which generates as much electrical energy as they used in a year. In Berkeley, the city that led the 1960’s student revolution, no one put up their hand.

The problem is not one of renewable resources. The US national grid is divided into state and multi-state sub-grids. Studies by the Jacobson group at Stanford show that wind and PV can supply around 80% of the power on these sub-grids, consistent with the European results.

The major obstacle to the solar revolution in the US is that, unlike the UK, the distribution of electric power on the sub-grids is usually in the hands of one monopoly supplier in any given region. That company may well have links to the utilities that supply fossil or nuclear electricity. In the ‘land of the free’ electricity consumers are less free to choose a supplier than in the country of their old colonial masters.

In Northern California the monopoly company that distributes the electrical power and bills customers is Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E). Currently householders in Berkeley must accept the mix of electricity that PG&E choose for them.

This is set to change in the fall when Berkeley City Council will vote on whether to join the East Bay Community Energy Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). This is allowed under a fairly recent California state law. A CCA can sign contracts with wholesale suppliers of renewable electric power, though PG&E still distributes the power and bills the customers.

Clearly it is far more difficult to switch to all renewable electricity suppliers in California than in the UK. However, as one campaigner pointed out, if Berkeley signs up to this CCA, every electricity consumer in the city will be switching to renewable electricity unless they make the effort to opt out. When I return to Berkeley I am hoping that a much higher proportion of the audience will raise their hands than in the UK.

GIFTS in California and Maryland

The state of Maryland has a situation closer to that in the UK. The investor-owned utility PEPCO is required by state law to allow customers to purchase power from a range of suppliers. PEPCO remains responsible for the delivery of the power. However, renewable electricity is still supplied with a price mark-up. That is set to worsen. I understand that PEPCO has recently been taken over by a utility with large nuclear debts.

Here is another irony. Were electricity supply and distribution markets free in America, the citadel of capitalism, competition with renewable generators would reduce the price of electricity as is happening in the UK and Germany.

The city of Takoma Park in Maryland, where I am talking today, Thursday, is a fine example of a local authority that has taken advantage of the choice offered by state law to ‘Get It From The Sun’. They have a purchase agreement with a wind power company to provide all the electricity their municipally owned buildings require. Additionally, a public co-op for purchasing solar panels in 2015 increased the City’s installed residential roof-top PV power by 35% in just one year.

Local environmental action groups are also supporting GIFTS. The Groundswell community action group in Washington DC organises group switching at cheaper rates to renewable power suppliers, aiming, in particular, at lower income consumers.

Power to the people: free gasoline!

A highlight of my Odyssey was chatting with researchers in Berkeley about recent developments in use of nano-structured metal catalysts to speed up the conversion of water and carbon dioxide into energy-dense liquid fuels using solar electricity.

What I found particularly exciting was that a number of researchers are finding more ethyl than methyl alcohol in the wide range of reaction products that they currently generate. Appropriately, I first heard about this revolutionary breakthrough from two researchers at the only campus café then open, the one commemorating the 1964 Free Speech Movement.

Ethanol would be safer than methanol for production on domestic roof-tops, storing in the garage and powering a fuel cell in an electric car. It is also about one third more energy-dense by volume, extending the range of the cars it powers. (And if uncontaminated by methanol, it would also be ideal for spiking drinks.)

When I wrote The Burning Answer in 2013 the experts at Imperial explained to me why developing an artificial leaf that turns carbon dioxide into methanol was difficult and one that produced ethanol, the ideal solar fuel, even more problematic. Now there have been repeated experimental verifications that these new catalysts are enhancing the more difficult reaction product. So now the experts face the less daunting task of finding an artificial leaf that generates ethanol on its own.

This represents significant progress towards a dream that many must share, not just in the US but around the world – of being able to make the fuel you need to power your home and car, on your roof, out of nothing more than air, water and sunshine.

Pot luck

Readers of the The Burning Answer will be aware that scientific coincidences have played an important part in the chequered history of the solar revolution. The most notable is the coincidence that the equation E = mc², which is the basis of nuclear power and the atomic bomb and the equation E = hf, which is the basis of the solar cell, were discovered in the same year, 1905, by the same man, Albert Einstein.

A string of coincidences on my first stop on leaving Berkeley for the East Coast meant that I found myself in Boulder Colorado last Tuesday in a coffee bar chatting with a lawyer.

Boulder vies with Takoma Park for the distinction of being the second most radical city in the US. The lawyer told me about the battle the City of Boulder is having with its monopoly electricity supplier to allow residents to choose an all-renewable electricity supply. Colorado State Laws do not allow their local administrations freedoms granted by the states of California and Maryland.

For some light relief from this, the conversation turned to the new people-driven state law legalising recreational marijuana. Here was the perfect paradigm for GIFTS supporters. They are trying to introduce state legislation that allows residents the freedom to choose their electricity supplier. What better omen for the success of scientists searching for a catalyst that produces pure ethanol on our rooftops.

Some coincidence: it may eventually turn out to be necessary to amend state liquor laws to allow householders the right to generate their own recreational ethanol with an artificial version of the leaf that fuelled the generation whose slogan was ‘power to the people’.

Progress towards all-renewable electricity supplies in the UK

Back in the UK, the road to renewables has been far from smooth. Last year the newly elected Conservative government made draconian cuts in support for renewables, apparently hoping to halt the expansion of onshore wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power by 2020.

Meanwhile the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is committed to a  solar revolution. However his ability to oppose the government’s energy policies effectively and promote the cause of renewables energy has been hindered by infighting amongst Labour MPs.

In my article ‘Goodbye fossil fuels, goodbye nuclear‘ in The Ecologist last November, I set out how a GIFTS approach could keep the solar revolution expanding locally in the face of central government opposition. 

Around 80% of the electric power demand on the UK national grid can be supplied 24/7, all year, by a combination of wind and PV power. Only around (15-17)% of flexible bio-electric power and 5% storage power back-up are needed.

Before the recent subsidy cuts, the demand for PV, onshore and offshore wind power in the UK was expanding so fast that all three would have achieved their targets for an all-renewable electricity supply by 2022. Bio-electricity would have achieved its target by 2024.

The UK could have had an all-renewable electricity supply before 2025, the earliest date that Hinkley Point’s first nuclear reactor could operate. New nuclear would have been redundant before it started. The draconian cuts will postpone this date but it still is achievable before both the planned reactors achieve full power.

The UK electricity supply market is working well. The grid operator takes the cheapest power first. This is known as the ‘merit order effect‘. As the amount of fuel-free, renewable power has increased, the market cost of electricity has fallen significantly. Likewise (but more so) in Germany, which has nearly three times the renewable power of the UK, and wherethe wholesale price of its electricity is around 40% lower.

‘Get It From The Sun’ in UK communities

Before setting off for the US I also visited many local environmental groups in the UK. Their impressive achievements are continuing, despite subsidy cuts and government opposition. The GIFTS initiative has been taken up by the Nuclear Free Local Associations. The expansion of PV installations in schools before the subsidy cuts was impressive. Expansion is continuing, supported by the Solar Schools charity, which is funding new installations by crowd sourcing.

GIFTS aims to encourage the collection of bio-degradable waste for anaerobic digestion (AD) making bio-methane. AD will reduce local carbon emissions. Were the waste to be left to rot on fields or in landfill, it would eventually emit copious amounts of greenhouse gases. Electricity from bio-methane has a carbon footprint 40 times lower than from natural gas if produced by the AD of farm and food waste.

Collecting waste can also help local councils achieve a truly all-renewable electricity supply. If the bio-methane from the AD plant is fed into the gas grid then it can offset the 15% or so of gas-fuelled electricity a city needs to back-up its wind and PV power.

One of my favourite moments during public talks on the solar revolution is when I ask the audience to raise their hands if their electricity supply is from an all-renewable electricity company such as Ecotricity or Good Energy.

In the UK around 25% – 50% of a typical renewably aware audience raise their hands. There clearly is still potential to expand GIFTS support. I encourage the revolutionaries that have already switched to persuade friends, schools, workplaces and local authorities to join them. City councils should be encouraging residents and businesses to switch to help achieve their all-renewable electricity target more quickly.

Keith Barnham is Emeritus Professor and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Physics Department, Imperial College London. See his website at burninganswers.com.

Twitter: #GetItFromTheSun

Books:

• UK paperback: The Burning Answer: a User’s Guide to the Solar Revolution, Weidenfeld and Nicolson
• US edition: The Burning Answer: the Solar Revolution, a Quest for Sustainable Power, Pegasus Books, NY.

A seven year old tribal boy is reportedly in a critical condition after being shot by a park guard in a national park in northeast India, notorious for its brutal ‘shoot to kill’ policy towards suspected poachers.

The boy, named in reports as Akash Oram, is a member of the Oroan tribe who live around Kaziranga national park. He sustained serious injuries to his legs, and is being treated in hospital.

Two park guards have been suspended after the shooting, following an outcry from local tribal people. Akash’s village is facing eviction. Ther issue was recently highlighted in The Ecologist after Prince William and Kate visited the park earlier this year.

The incident raises serious concerns over the advisability of the ‘shoot to kill’ policy, which has seen at least 62 people killed in the park over a nine year period. This militarized approach to conservation has had serious consequences for local tribal people, who face arrest and beatings, torture and even death in the name of conservation.

Madegowda C, a tribal rights activist from the Soliga people in southern India, said: “The Kaziranga park director is violating the human rights and constitutional rights of the tribal people … Forest conservation is not possible without tribal and local communities. Most of the forest officials do not understand the relationship between the forest and tribal peoples – they need to understand tribal cultures and our lifestyles in the forest. Tribal peoples are the indigenous people of this country and they are human beings.”

The Hindustan Times has reported that other tribal people in the area have been shot as ‘poachers’ just for wandering over the park boundaries to retrieve cattle or collect firewood. A 2014 report by the park’s director revealed that Kaziranga park guards are encouraged to execute suspected ‘poachers’ on sight with slogans including “must obey or get killed” and “never allow any unauthorized entry (kill the unwanted).”

Locals near the park are reportedly paid to inform on suspected poachers. If someone is subsequently killed, the informant is given up to $1,000.

Government should tackle the real criminals!

Former Environment and Forests minister Prakash Javadeka from Narendra Modi’s BJP party, planned to implement the policy nationwide, despite human rights concerns and the acute risk of guards killing or wounding innocent people.

This is despite the fact that in BRT tiger reserve in southern India, where tribal peoples have won the right to stay on their ancestral land and militarized conservation tactics are not used, tiger numbers have increased at well above the Indian national average, demonstrating that militarization is not necessary for successful conservation.

Targeting tribal people diverts action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials. Earlier this year, four Kaziranga officials were arrested on suspicion of poaching and involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.

Militarized conservation tactics are not only used in India. In Cameroon for example, Baka ‘Pygmy’ people haverepeatedly testified to beatings and torture at the hands of eco-guards. Likewise in Botswana, Bushmen are criminalized when they hunt to feed their families, and face arrest and beatings.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “It’s time for a global outcry to stop innocent tribal people being shot and killed in the name of conservation. Why are the big conservation organizations complicit in these lethal policies which are useless at tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials? It’s no good pretending this is an isolated accident, it’s an integral part of the murderous regime running this tiger reserve.”

Draft Forest Policy foresees mass evictions of tribal communities

The shocking attack comes just a month after the Indian Government’s environment ministry published what it announced was the ‘draft national forest policy 2016‘, which made no mention of tribal peoples’ existing rights to live in their forests, and would have led to more tribes being evicted from their homes.

The draft policy proposed that: “Voluntary and attractive relocation packages of villages from within national parks, other wildlife rich areas and corridors should be developed.” The proposal to evict people from the vaguely described “other wildlife rich areas” and “corridors” as well as National Parks and Tiger Reserves would cover a huge area affecting millions of tribal people who have have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia.

However the ‘policy’ was removed a few days later after it caused an outcry from indigenous groups, and a statement was issued claiming that the document was merely a study by the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), which had been “inadvertently uploaded.” Indian news website Live Mint quoted an anonymous ministry official: “[The] U-turn came after intense criticism of the draft policy from civil society.”

Across India tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation. Most so-called ‘voluntary relocations’ are far from voluntary, with tribal people often given no choice – they face arrest and beatings, harassment, threats and trickery and feel forced to ‘agree’ to leave their forest homes.

The speedy withdrawal of this ‘draft policy’ has been welcomed, but huge concern remains at what lies ahead for the tens of millions of India’s tribal people who live in forests, and other forest dwellers – concerns that have only been fuelled by the shooting of an indigenous child at Kazaringa.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘India’s ‘shoot on sight’ conservation terrorises indigenous communities‘.

A seven year old tribal boy is reportedly in a critical condition after being shot by a park guard in a national park in northeast India, notorious for its brutal ‘shoot to kill’ policy towards suspected poachers.

The boy, named in reports as Akash Oram, is a member of the Oroan tribe who live around Kaziranga national park. He sustained serious injuries to his legs, and is being treated in hospital.

Two park guards have been suspended after the shooting, following an outcry from local tribal people. Akash’s village is facing eviction. Ther issue was recently highlighted in The Ecologist after Prince William and Kate visited the park earlier this year.

The incident raises serious concerns over the advisability of the ‘shoot to kill’ policy, which has seen at least 62 people killed in the park over a nine year period. This militarized approach to conservation has had serious consequences for local tribal people, who face arrest and beatings, torture and even death in the name of conservation.

Madegowda C, a tribal rights activist from the Soliga people in southern India, said: “The Kaziranga park director is violating the human rights and constitutional rights of the tribal people … Forest conservation is not possible without tribal and local communities. Most of the forest officials do not understand the relationship between the forest and tribal peoples – they need to understand tribal cultures and our lifestyles in the forest. Tribal peoples are the indigenous people of this country and they are human beings.”

The Hindustan Times has reported that other tribal people in the area have been shot as ‘poachers’ just for wandering over the park boundaries to retrieve cattle or collect firewood. A 2014 report by the park’s director revealed that Kaziranga park guards are encouraged to execute suspected ‘poachers’ on sight with slogans including “must obey or get killed” and “never allow any unauthorized entry (kill the unwanted).”

Locals near the park are reportedly paid to inform on suspected poachers. If someone is subsequently killed, the informant is given up to $1,000.

Government should tackle the real criminals!

Former Environment and Forests minister Prakash Javadeka from Narendra Modi’s BJP party, planned to implement the policy nationwide, despite human rights concerns and the acute risk of guards killing or wounding innocent people.

This is despite the fact that in BRT tiger reserve in southern India, where tribal peoples have won the right to stay on their ancestral land and militarized conservation tactics are not used, tiger numbers have increased at well above the Indian national average, demonstrating that militarization is not necessary for successful conservation.

Targeting tribal people diverts action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials. Earlier this year, four Kaziranga officials were arrested on suspicion of poaching and involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.

Militarized conservation tactics are not only used in India. In Cameroon for example, Baka ‘Pygmy’ people haverepeatedly testified to beatings and torture at the hands of eco-guards. Likewise in Botswana, Bushmen are criminalized when they hunt to feed their families, and face arrest and beatings.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “It’s time for a global outcry to stop innocent tribal people being shot and killed in the name of conservation. Why are the big conservation organizations complicit in these lethal policies which are useless at tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials? It’s no good pretending this is an isolated accident, it’s an integral part of the murderous regime running this tiger reserve.”

Draft Forest Policy foresees mass evictions of tribal communities

The shocking attack comes just a month after the Indian Government’s environment ministry published what it announced was the ‘draft national forest policy 2016‘, which made no mention of tribal peoples’ existing rights to live in their forests, and would have led to more tribes being evicted from their homes.

The draft policy proposed that: “Voluntary and attractive relocation packages of villages from within national parks, other wildlife rich areas and corridors should be developed.” The proposal to evict people from the vaguely described “other wildlife rich areas” and “corridors” as well as National Parks and Tiger Reserves would cover a huge area affecting millions of tribal people who have have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia.

However the ‘policy’ was removed a few days later after it caused an outcry from indigenous groups, and a statement was issued claiming that the document was merely a study by the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), which had been “inadvertently uploaded.” Indian news website Live Mint quoted an anonymous ministry official: “[The] U-turn came after intense criticism of the draft policy from civil society.”

Across India tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation. Most so-called ‘voluntary relocations’ are far from voluntary, with tribal people often given no choice – they face arrest and beatings, harassment, threats and trickery and feel forced to ‘agree’ to leave their forest homes.

The speedy withdrawal of this ‘draft policy’ has been welcomed, but huge concern remains at what lies ahead for the tens of millions of India’s tribal people who live in forests, and other forest dwellers – concerns that have only been fuelled by the shooting of an indigenous child at Kazaringa.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘India’s ‘shoot on sight’ conservation terrorises indigenous communities‘.

A seven year old tribal boy is reportedly in a critical condition after being shot by a park guard in a national park in northeast India, notorious for its brutal ‘shoot to kill’ policy towards suspected poachers.

The boy, named in reports as Akash Oram, is a member of the Oroan tribe who live around Kaziranga national park. He sustained serious injuries to his legs, and is being treated in hospital.

Two park guards have been suspended after the shooting, following an outcry from local tribal people. Akash’s village is facing eviction. Ther issue was recently highlighted in The Ecologist after Prince William and Kate visited the park earlier this year.

The incident raises serious concerns over the advisability of the ‘shoot to kill’ policy, which has seen at least 62 people killed in the park over a nine year period. This militarized approach to conservation has had serious consequences for local tribal people, who face arrest and beatings, torture and even death in the name of conservation.

Madegowda C, a tribal rights activist from the Soliga people in southern India, said: “The Kaziranga park director is violating the human rights and constitutional rights of the tribal people … Forest conservation is not possible without tribal and local communities. Most of the forest officials do not understand the relationship between the forest and tribal peoples – they need to understand tribal cultures and our lifestyles in the forest. Tribal peoples are the indigenous people of this country and they are human beings.”

The Hindustan Times has reported that other tribal people in the area have been shot as ‘poachers’ just for wandering over the park boundaries to retrieve cattle or collect firewood. A 2014 report by the park’s director revealed that Kaziranga park guards are encouraged to execute suspected ‘poachers’ on sight with slogans including “must obey or get killed” and “never allow any unauthorized entry (kill the unwanted).”

Locals near the park are reportedly paid to inform on suspected poachers. If someone is subsequently killed, the informant is given up to $1,000.

Government should tackle the real criminals!

Former Environment and Forests minister Prakash Javadeka from Narendra Modi’s BJP party, planned to implement the policy nationwide, despite human rights concerns and the acute risk of guards killing or wounding innocent people.

This is despite the fact that in BRT tiger reserve in southern India, where tribal peoples have won the right to stay on their ancestral land and militarized conservation tactics are not used, tiger numbers have increased at well above the Indian national average, demonstrating that militarization is not necessary for successful conservation.

Targeting tribal people diverts action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials. Earlier this year, four Kaziranga officials were arrested on suspicion of poaching and involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.

Militarized conservation tactics are not only used in India. In Cameroon for example, Baka ‘Pygmy’ people haverepeatedly testified to beatings and torture at the hands of eco-guards. Likewise in Botswana, Bushmen are criminalized when they hunt to feed their families, and face arrest and beatings.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “It’s time for a global outcry to stop innocent tribal people being shot and killed in the name of conservation. Why are the big conservation organizations complicit in these lethal policies which are useless at tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials? It’s no good pretending this is an isolated accident, it’s an integral part of the murderous regime running this tiger reserve.”

Draft Forest Policy foresees mass evictions of tribal communities

The shocking attack comes just a month after the Indian Government’s environment ministry published what it announced was the ‘draft national forest policy 2016‘, which made no mention of tribal peoples’ existing rights to live in their forests, and would have led to more tribes being evicted from their homes.

The draft policy proposed that: “Voluntary and attractive relocation packages of villages from within national parks, other wildlife rich areas and corridors should be developed.” The proposal to evict people from the vaguely described “other wildlife rich areas” and “corridors” as well as National Parks and Tiger Reserves would cover a huge area affecting millions of tribal people who have have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia.

However the ‘policy’ was removed a few days later after it caused an outcry from indigenous groups, and a statement was issued claiming that the document was merely a study by the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), which had been “inadvertently uploaded.” Indian news website Live Mint quoted an anonymous ministry official: “[The] U-turn came after intense criticism of the draft policy from civil society.”

Across India tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation. Most so-called ‘voluntary relocations’ are far from voluntary, with tribal people often given no choice – they face arrest and beatings, harassment, threats and trickery and feel forced to ‘agree’ to leave their forest homes.

The speedy withdrawal of this ‘draft policy’ has been welcomed, but huge concern remains at what lies ahead for the tens of millions of India’s tribal people who live in forests, and other forest dwellers – concerns that have only been fuelled by the shooting of an indigenous child at Kazaringa.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘India’s ‘shoot on sight’ conservation terrorises indigenous communities‘.

A seven year old tribal boy is reportedly in a critical condition after being shot by a park guard in a national park in northeast India, notorious for its brutal ‘shoot to kill’ policy towards suspected poachers.

The boy, named in reports as Akash Oram, is a member of the Oroan tribe who live around Kaziranga national park. He sustained serious injuries to his legs, and is being treated in hospital.

Two park guards have been suspended after the shooting, following an outcry from local tribal people. Akash’s village is facing eviction. Ther issue was recently highlighted in The Ecologist after Prince William and Kate visited the park earlier this year.

The incident raises serious concerns over the advisability of the ‘shoot to kill’ policy, which has seen at least 62 people killed in the park over a nine year period. This militarized approach to conservation has had serious consequences for local tribal people, who face arrest and beatings, torture and even death in the name of conservation.

Madegowda C, a tribal rights activist from the Soliga people in southern India, said: “The Kaziranga park director is violating the human rights and constitutional rights of the tribal people … Forest conservation is not possible without tribal and local communities. Most of the forest officials do not understand the relationship between the forest and tribal peoples – they need to understand tribal cultures and our lifestyles in the forest. Tribal peoples are the indigenous people of this country and they are human beings.”

The Hindustan Times has reported that other tribal people in the area have been shot as ‘poachers’ just for wandering over the park boundaries to retrieve cattle or collect firewood. A 2014 report by the park’s director revealed that Kaziranga park guards are encouraged to execute suspected ‘poachers’ on sight with slogans including “must obey or get killed” and “never allow any unauthorized entry (kill the unwanted).”

Locals near the park are reportedly paid to inform on suspected poachers. If someone is subsequently killed, the informant is given up to $1,000.

Government should tackle the real criminals!

Former Environment and Forests minister Prakash Javadeka from Narendra Modi’s BJP party, planned to implement the policy nationwide, despite human rights concerns and the acute risk of guards killing or wounding innocent people.

This is despite the fact that in BRT tiger reserve in southern India, where tribal peoples have won the right to stay on their ancestral land and militarized conservation tactics are not used, tiger numbers have increased at well above the Indian national average, demonstrating that militarization is not necessary for successful conservation.

Targeting tribal people diverts action away from tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials. Earlier this year, four Kaziranga officials were arrested on suspicion of poaching and involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.

Militarized conservation tactics are not only used in India. In Cameroon for example, Baka ‘Pygmy’ people haverepeatedly testified to beatings and torture at the hands of eco-guards. Likewise in Botswana, Bushmen are criminalized when they hunt to feed their families, and face arrest and beatings.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “It’s time for a global outcry to stop innocent tribal people being shot and killed in the name of conservation. Why are the big conservation organizations complicit in these lethal policies which are useless at tackling the true poachers – criminals conspiring with corrupt officials? It’s no good pretending this is an isolated accident, it’s an integral part of the murderous regime running this tiger reserve.”

Draft Forest Policy foresees mass evictions of tribal communities

The shocking attack comes just a month after the Indian Government’s environment ministry published what it announced was the ‘draft national forest policy 2016‘, which made no mention of tribal peoples’ existing rights to live in their forests, and would have led to more tribes being evicted from their homes.

The draft policy proposed that: “Voluntary and attractive relocation packages of villages from within national parks, other wildlife rich areas and corridors should be developed.” The proposal to evict people from the vaguely described “other wildlife rich areas” and “corridors” as well as National Parks and Tiger Reserves would cover a huge area affecting millions of tribal people who have have been dependent on and managed their environments for millennia.

However the ‘policy’ was removed a few days later after it caused an outcry from indigenous groups, and a statement was issued claiming that the document was merely a study by the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), which had been “inadvertently uploaded.” Indian news website Live Mint quoted an anonymous ministry official: “[The] U-turn came after intense criticism of the draft policy from civil society.”

Across India tribal peoples are being illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation. Most so-called ‘voluntary relocations’ are far from voluntary, with tribal people often given no choice – they face arrest and beatings, harassment, threats and trickery and feel forced to ‘agree’ to leave their forest homes.

The speedy withdrawal of this ‘draft policy’ has been welcomed, but huge concern remains at what lies ahead for the tens of millions of India’s tribal people who live in forests, and other forest dwellers – concerns that have only been fuelled by the shooting of an indigenous child at Kazaringa.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘India’s ‘shoot on sight’ conservation terrorises indigenous communities‘.