As a young golden eagle hops between woodlands in the Pentland Hills in Scotland, a team watches on, delighted that he has finally left his parents’ home. This is Fred, and through the satellite tag attached to him, the team will soon learn more about the movements and behaviours of golden eagles. Or so they hope.

On 20th January 2018, Fred roosts overnight close to a grouse moor near Balerno. The next day, the GPS signal from his tag stops. Fred is missing. It is three-and-a-half days before the tag  – which normally transmits at frequent intervals throughout the day and night – sends a new location, which only serves to deepen the mystery of his disappearance even further.

When a new location alert finally comes through to conservationist Dr Ruth Tingay’s email, she breathes a sigh of relief. But when she opens the email, she sees that Fred – or at least his tag – is in the North Sea, 10 miles from the coast of Scotland.

Signal went dead

She calls Ian Thompson, the head of investigations at RSPB Scotland. “We have a big problem here. Something very odd has happened to this bird,” he says, looking at the pattern of signals The signal keeps moving further out to sea, until the final reading points to a spot 15 miles from the coast.

Fred, Ian explains, would not have made this trip of his own accord: “A golden eagle is not going to fly out there. Why would it? Eagles do not like flying over big expanses of open water, especially ones where the bird can’t see the other side.”

Ruth says that while it is possible that Fred made this trip by himself, it is extremely unlikely. Even if the young bird had flown 15km out to sea, the satellite tag would have shown the GPS data, and given a detailed route. The fact that the GPS signal disappeared makes Fred’s disappearance even more suspicious. Ruth is now certain that this young golden eagle is dead.

Broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham is also part of the satellite-tagging team. In a film about Fred’s disappearance, he says: “I think it’s fair to say that this poor eagle has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The tags we’re using these days are ever more sophisticated and they’re not prone to failure – in fact they’re incredibly reliable.”

Ruth does not know for certain what happened to Fred, but she has a theory based on others’ experience from similar situations. She thinks it likely that Fred was killed soon after 10am on 21st January, when his signal went dead.

Raven’s nest

“I think it’s possible that the tag attached to Fred was hidden, and quite possibly, the dead bird and tag were taken in a boat and dumped out to sea. That’s the most plausible explanation to me,” she says.

Sadly, this is not an isolated story. Ruth explains that researchers have seen a regular pattern; when satellite tags stop transmitting, the tag is nowhere to be found, and neither is the body. Fred, she says, is just another name on a long list of tagged eagles which have disappeared in suspicious circumstances.

“The majority of raptor persecution cases are taking place on land that is managed for game shooting, or near to it, because these eagles are seen as a threat to game birds, and to the gamekeepers’ livelihoods. The more birds the landowners have available to shoot, the more money they can get from paying guests,” Ruth explains.

According to Chris Packham’s film, there is a history of wildlife crime in the very area where Fred was roosting before he disappeared.

Close by, a merlin’s nest was shot out in 2017. The police are certain of this, because when the top of the tree was x-rayed, it was riddled with lead shot. A raven’s nest was similarly destroyed in 2016, and in 2017 another raven’s nest failed when the young starved to death, because the adults never returned. “There’s no doubt at all that there is persecution taking place in this area,” Chris says.

Wildlife crime

In a Scottish Government-commissioned report last year, Scottish Natural Heritage found that of 131 young eagles tracked, as many as 41 (31 percent) have disappeared under suspicious circumstances. The report says: “Some, but not all, areas managed as grouse moors were strongly associated with the disappearance of many of the tagged eagles.”

Chris Packham says that the current laws do not protect eagles, and too many birds like Fred are dying or disappearing close to driven grouse moors.

Following the Scottish Natural Heritage report, environment cabinet secretary Roseanna Cunningham ordered a review of grouse moor management practices, with a view to introducing a licensing scheme for game-shooting estates.

Roseanna has seen the results of illegal persecution before, and seen the bodies of birds which have been targeted. “I don’t want to have to be in a position of looking at more of them. I don’t want to have to be in a position of making excuses for people who, frankly, are criminals, because they are acting outside the law,” she says.

She says the Scottish Government is going to increase sentences for wildlife crime. Currently, anyone found guilty of an offence in Scotland could pay a fine of up to £5,000, or face prison for up to six months, or both.

Ruth Tingay wants to see a total ban on driven grouse moor shooting, but she also wants to be realistic. She says: “The bottom line is that we want to see some kind of regulation. Because at the moment they’re just getting away with incredibly damaging practices, and have been for some time.”

When it comes to driven grouse moors, Ruth is playing the long game. For the eagles under threat of persecution, licensing could offer a glimmer of hope. Alternatively, if licensing fails to protect raptors from persecution, it could pave the way towards a strong argument for banning the practice.

This Author

Katie Dancey-Downs is a senior reporter for the Lush Times. 

Watch Chris Packham’s film, The Story of Fred, on the Lush Player, and look out soon for Ruth Tingay’s Lush Summit talk. You can also hear Ruth Tingay talk to Charlie Moores about raptor persecution. 

This article is part of a new content-sharing arrangement with the environmental and social justice news website The Lush Times.

The BBC is one of the most influential international news networks in existence. In 2015, it employed almost 19,000 people – and those numbers were expected to rise in the following years. The BBC is known for accuracy and unbiased reporting from all around the globe, catching some of the hottest stories in the world.

Recently, it announced a plan to eliminate all single-use plastics within the company. Since it employs so many people in such diverse areas, this is a big goal. It’s end date is 2020, at which point it wants its whole company to be free of single-use plastics.

‘Auntie’ will have two years to implement their three-step plan, which means phasing out plastic cups and cutlery by the end of 2018, eliminating plastic containers at its canteens by 2019 and eliminating all disposable plastics by 2020.

Inspiration

It’s an ambitious goal. The BBC was inspired to make the move when filming Blue Planet II, which first aired in October 2017. The original series, The Blue Planet, aired in 2001 and was a precursor to their groundbreaking environmental documentaries, including Planet Earth, Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II.

This most recent documentary helped people working on the film to fully grasp how severe a problem plastic pollution in the oceans is. The sheer volume of tossed plastic was “shocking” even after working on a similar project less than 20 years ago. It has announced this shortly after the Queen announced her intention of reducing the use of disposable plastics on royal estates. 

The voice of all of these documentaries, David Attenborough, is now thought to be closer to the Queen. His collaboration with her on a conservation project may have sparked her interest in the topic.

On the royal estates, the staff areas will no longer be permitted to use any single-use plastic items, and they will be gradually phased out in public dining areas. Whether these are the initial steps to a complete ban is unknown, but it’s clear that the impact of plastic has inspired some of the most influential people in the world.  

There’s a saying that leaders lead and bosses boss, meaning that leaders get others to do the work by following their example, and bosses just tell other what to do. The BBC and the Queen have both taken it upon themselves to act like leaders, not bosses, and start by changing themselves with the hope that others will follow suit. 

Speaks volumes

The BBC had already started to reduce their plastic use when they made their announcement. The immediacy of its actions is a direct result of the plastic waste in the environment. It was shocking enough to encourage the company to take immediate action. 

Every year, we throw away almost 400 tons of plastic, and a massive amount of that is from single-use items. These are, perhaps, the most frequently used “useless” items our society possesses.

They’re plastic straws, plastic cutlery, plates, cups and anything sold as a single-serving. Some of the more popular things are the single-serving sauce packets sold at fast-food restaurants. They’re convenient, and while we only use them for a few minutes, their impact lasts for half a millennia. 

Other items need to be disposable. Hypodermic needles, for example, should never be used more than once for safety reasons. But most of the plastic we use doesn’t need to be single-use. The main reason we use them in the first place is just that they’re available and we’re used to it. 

Seeing this kind of move from some of the most well-known people and companies in the world speaks volumes. People leading by example is something we sorely lack, especially when it comes to the topic of conservation.

Public announcements

Companies, including massive global ones like WalMart and Apple, have made serious strides towards sustainability as well. But there’s something different from seeing consumer companies making the change to boost sales, and the BBC doing so because they felt the need for it.

It speaks, even more, to see the most privileged family in the world making these kinds of changes. The Queen is not one to follow trends, and the BBC isn’t trying to boost sales by “going green.” These moves feel more genuine, and therefore help us to understand how imperative it is that we follow their lead. 

That’s not to say that consumer companies haven’t made any moves. In fact, a string of businesses from all around the UK has pledged to start eliminating single-use plastics.

McDonald’s plans to begin reducing their plastic use all over the world, although they do not currently intend to stop using it entirely.  Some states in the USA have decided to ban the thin, flimsy, single-use plastic grocery bags that are so common in American stores.

A big part of the reason that these public announcements are so important is that it keeps the issue in people’s minds and keeps the pressure on companies to reduce their plastic use. 

Dwarfs the goal

Along those same lines, the BBC’s documentaries, like Blue Planet II, clearly demonstrate the severity of plastic pollution. This can touch people all over the world in a way that most companies would never have the ability to achieve.

It’s one of the unique things about the BBC. They don’t only do news, so this isn’t just a news station that’s making changes. It’s a documentary powerhouse, and that gives it a reach that other companies just can’t match.

By following through with changes to their own company as a result of their documentary, the BBC can help drive home the visceral reaction many people had to seeing such an increase in plastic pollution.

They haven’t just taken steps though, they’ve also set an aggressive timeline for themselves and a huge goal, and then they started on it immediately. 

The BBC’s plan to stop using single-use plastics dwarfs the goal set by the prime minister, Theresa May, to cut all avoidable plastic use from the country in 25 years.

Granted, Britain is much larger than the BBC, but by going first, they will hopefully help iron out some of the issues the country may face. If this is something they can accomplish, they can become even more of a leader in global conservation.

This Author

Emily Folk is a conservation and sustainability writer.

A few thousand rubber ducks, a group of experienced wildlife spotters and a drone have proven the usefulness and accuracy of technology  for wildlife monitoring.

A University of Adelaide study showed that monitoring wildlife using drones is more accurate than traditional counting approaches. 

Jarrod Hodgson, from the university’s Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences and the study’s lead author, said: “For a few years now, drones have been used to monitor different animals that can be seen from above, including elephants, seals and nesting birds.

Fake birds

“But, until now, the accuracy of using drones to count wildlife was unclear. We needed to test the technology where we knew the correct answer. We couldn’t use wild animals because we could never be sure of the real number of individuals present.”

The answer was a few thousand rubber ducks and the #EpicDuckChallenge.The researchers made fake bird colonies out of the decoy ducks on a beach in Adelaide.  

Experienced wildlife spotters challenged those who counted birds from drone imagery to see which group could get closest to the actual number of fake birds.

Conditions on the day were ideal. The ground spotters counted the fake birds using binoculars or telescopes.

Meanwhile, a drone was flown over the beach, taking pictures of the birds from the sky at different heights. Citizen scientists then tallied the number of birds they could see in the photos. The drone approach won.

Manage wildlife

Mr. Hodgson said: “We found it is more accurate and more precise to have people count birds from the drone imagery than to do it on location.”

But the scientists weren’t finished there. Counting birds in photos takes a long time – and citizen scientists can get tired. So the researchers made a computer algorithm to count the ducks automatically, which yielded results just as good as humans reviewing the imagery.

Mr. Hodgson added: “With so many animals across the world facing extinction, our need for accurate wildlife data has never been greater.

“Accurate monitoring can detect small changes in animal numbers. This is important because if we had to wait for a big shift in those numbers to notice the decline, it might be too late to conserve a threatened species.

“Our results show that monitoring animals with drones produces better data that we can use to proactively manage wildlife.”

The research paper was co-authored by scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, the University of Tasmania and Monash University and was published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution

This Author

Crispin Savage works at the University of Adelaide. 

The world is awash with enormous, difficult, complex problems. To name just a few: climate change, a terrifying rate of biodiversity loss, and nuclear weapons capable of terminating human existence. And now we have new one to face up to: the global scourge of marine plastic pollution.

But don’t let despair get the better of you. There is good news. It took decades to negotiate the Climate Change Convention, its Kyoto Protocol and now the Paris Agreement, the Biodiversity Convention and the various nuclear arms limitation and test ban treaties, and for them to be ratified and enter into force.

But we already have all the conventions, treaties, declarations and agreements we need to take on ocean plastics. The litle known fact of the matter is, a plethora of international laws already make it illegal for states to allow their plastic waste to pollute our seas and oceans.

No policeman

So while we have been slow to appreciate the enormity and gravity of the ocean plastic problem humanity has created, we enjoy a head start of ten to twenty years, compared to where we might expect to be. There’s no need to spend decades negotiating and ratifying conventions. It has already happened. Instead we must get the laws we already have respected and upheld.

These laws include the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which came into force in 1994 and requires states to “prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from any source”, “to minimize to the fullest possible extent … the release of toxic, harmful or noxious substances, especially those which are persistent, from land-based sources” and to “protect and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems as well as the habitat of depleted, threatened or endangered species and other forms of marine life.”

And as a large and ever growing body of scientific evidence makes clear, that wording demands drastic reductions in the volumes of waste plastic generated by almost every one of the 167 signatory states.

There are also dozens of regional marine treaties, such as the OSPAR Convention, which applies to the North-East Atlantic. OSPAR requires its parties (including the UK) to “take all possible steps to prevent and eliminate pollution and shall take the necessary measures to protect the maritime area against the adverse effects of human activities so as to safeguard human health and to conserve marine ecosystems and, when practicable, restore marine areas which have been adversely affected.”

These two are examples ‘hard law’, legally binding on all states that are members of the treaty. Sadly that does not mean they are easy to enforce. There is no policeman for international treaties, nor is there a prosecutor.

Legal obligations

There are courts, including the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas. But only states that are parties to a treaty can bring cases to those courts. So that excludes you, me and environmental campaign groups.

Still, that does not put an end to the matter. It’s entirely conceivable that a country whose environment, tourism and economy are being damaged by marine plastic pollution could seek redress in the courts.

It’s unlikely to happen right away, but a small island state, acting as part of a wider coalition – the Association of Small Island States, until now mainly concerned with climate change, comes to mind – backed by NGOs – perhaps ClientEarth, Greenpeace, Birdlife International, WWF – might consider taking this this step.

More immediately, international law carries great moral force, and that is something campaigners can use to good effect. Citizens in almost every country on earth can remind their governments and politicians that they have signed up to legally binding treaties, and that to be in flagrant breach of the obligations so incurred is to bring national shame and dishonour.

We can ask ministers to explain how they plan to enter into compliance with their commitments. We can also demand that corporations set out their plans to support governments in the countries where they operate to fulfill their legal obligations.

Marine pollution

More generally, the existence of so much international law transforms our position from that of supplicants begging governments to do the right thing, to that of empowered citizens demanding that governments and other entities comply with their legal obligations.

And as far as moral force is concerned, a host of solemn agreements and declarations negotiated at UN conferences and other authoritative fora do not fall far behind hard law – even if they are not legally binding.

These include the 1995 Washington Declaration on Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities, in which signatories state as their common goal the “sustained and effective action to deal with all land-based impacts upon the marine environment”, including those resulting from litter.

It also contains very useful language calling on donors to support poorer countries in their efforts (Articles 9-12), for example by “encouraging and/or making available external financing, given that funding from domestic sources and mechanisms for the implementation of the Global Programme of Action by countries in need of assistance may be insufficient”.

Millennnium Development Goal 14 even sets a date for significant improvements to be made, with states promising they will, “[b]y 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution”. That makes the UK government’s 2042 target for the elimination of ‘avoidable’ plastic waste look tardy and complacent.

In short, the great body of international law applicable to marine plastic pollution, both hard and soft, is something that can be used very effectively by citizens, campaigners and environmentally concerned nations – or ideally all three acting together – to demand rapid and effective action by governments, development banks, United Nations agencies and corporations to keep our oceans alive, healthy and free from the plastic menace.

Now let’s make it happen.

This Author

Oliver Tickell is a contributing editor at The Ecologist, and a former editor. He is the author of the report International Law and Marine Plastic Pollution: Holding Offenders Accountable which is published by Artists Project Earth (APE) under its Ocean Plastic Legal Initiative (OPLI). The report and additional information are available on the APE website.

Brexit is going to influence many aspects of life in the UK, few more so than farming and the environment. Michael Gove, the secretary of state for the environment, has surprised and delighted conservationists by supporting many of their cherished aspirations. His speech in July 2017 was even described as “brilliant, quite brilliant” by a hardened ornithological blogger.

Defra followed up in January 2018 with publication of their long-awaited 25 year plan for the environment. This confirms Defra’s high environmental aspirations although, as the British Ecological Society points out in their summary of the 25 year plan, it lacks legislative clout.

Meanwhile farmers and environmentalists are eagerly awaiting Defra’s next publication, due this spring – the command paper on agriculture which will presage a new Agriculture Bill.

Brexit opportunity 

This will be needed to replace the EU Common Agricultural Policy which successive UK governments have criticised for expensively supporting inefficient farmers – primarily elsewhere in Europe – and doing too little to encourage better environmental practice.

Brexit does indeed offer a huge opportunity to reset policy and practice. Anticipating these developments, the BES Agricultural Ecology Group convened a workshop in December 2017, drawing together ecologists and agriculturalists, to find out how much agreement there is on the way ahead.

The answer was – a lot. And from that meeting we have produced a workshop report: Finding the Common Ground.

The headline goal, agreed by all, is that there should be an agro-ecological approach to food production including biodiversity conservation. This should maintain land that is productive, rich in wildlife, culturally rich and accessible for the enjoyment of wider society without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Public engagement

To reach this goal there was agreement that a focus on the condition of our soil will be vital and impacts on air and water must continue to be reduced.

But implicit in an agro-ecological approach is also a recognition that biodiversity, including within the soil, is an integral component of sustainable food production, not a bolt-on.

We agreed on many of the levers that need to be used and a common theme of many of them was engagement – of the public with the origin of the food they eat and the environment that supports it, of farmers with that public, and of delivery bodies acting for government with both farmers and the public.

There was also a consensus that there needs to be a stronger focus on learning quickly from experience – monitoring of delivery and outcomes with results transparently available, research to test novel ideas and solve problems, and support for farmer learning and co-operation.

Next steps

We think these proposals are pushing at a door which is already ajar – many farmers are already managing nutrients and pesticides more carefully, paying more attention to soil structure, making better use of manures, beginning to question and change intensive continuous-cropping systems and possibly reintroducing grazing livestock.

And we hope that our suggestions may help in formulating a policy which encourages more land managers in this direction and adds some clout to the environmental vision.

The BES Brexit Policy Working Group is concentrating on producing a Sustainable Land Management briefing and our Finding the Common Ground report is a key piece of work feeding into the delivery of this work.

This Author

Steve Peel is an independent eco-agronomist. 

The state of California in the United States last year suffered the most destructive and expensive year of firefighting in its history. One obvious solution would seem to be vegetation removal – clearing the land of anything that may burn. 

But scientists from the University of Arizona and the University of California, Berkeley, are showing that in California’s iconic shrubland ecosystem – chaparral – any such management can in fact devastate wild bird populations, while any benefit from fire-risk reduction is only temporary.

Erica Newman, lead author of the study and scientist at the University of Arizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment, said: “We studied bird populations following two types of vegetation removal – prescribed fire and mastication (the mechanical crushing of vegetation – because both management methods have been used to try to reduce wildfire risk in California chaparral.

Look and listen

“We know from multiple studies that any management eventually increases fire risk as invasive grasses move in,” says Newman. “But to add to this, we now know that mastication in particular is extremely harmful to bird populations.”

Chaparral is a fire-prone ecosystem in North America that is widespread throughout California. Although it makes up only six percent of California by area, it contains one-quarter of the species found in the California Floristic Province, a global biodiversity hotspot. To date, no other studies have compared the effects of different fire management types on California chaparral wildlife.

Using 24 five-acre plots in northern California, researchers reduced vegetation by 95 percent with either prescribed fire or mastication in three different seasons (winter, autumn and spring).

They then tracked bird populations in each experimental and control plot using point-count surveys, in which researchers look and listen for birds for a set amount of time. Jen Potts and Charles Vaughn, the co-authors, visited the plots hundreds of times over the course of five years. They counted 49 species and roughly 2,500 birds.

Although bird species diversity and abundances rebounded after one-time use of prescribed fires, most birds never returned to masticated sites. Mastication reduced the number of bird species by about 50 percent and reduced total numbers of birds by about 60 percent.

Under pressure

Michael L. Mann, assistant professor of geography at George Washington University, who was not part of this study, said: “The pressures on this ecosystem’s biodiversity are intense. There are over five million housing units in this ecosystem that need some form of fire protection, and wildfire risk and housing demand are only expected to increase in the next 50 years.”

Much of California’s chaparral is burning too frequently to replace itself because of human-caused ignitions and longer wildfire seasons due to climate change.

According to Scott Stephens, the principal investigator of the experiment at UC Berkeley, too-frequent fire can cause chaparral to be replaced by invasive grasses, which can increase fire risk.

This also leads to other problems. Grasses don’t hold soils in place, so deadly mudslides may follow wildfires, like those in Santa Barbara, California.

“A fire policy that would make more sense is to do a better job of land management planning and try to avoid the hazardous areas for building,” says Stephens.

Must do better

Erica Newman also stressed that previous fire policy hasn’t worked to protect people or wildlife. “The best available science tells us that managing chaparral imperils wildlife and increases fire risk. Our study continues to build the case that we should live densely and away from chaparral.”

She says that agencies like California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CALFIRE) should abandon their practice of clearing chaparral in remote areas. “Some management practices are not informed by science. We can do better.”

This Author

Catherine Harte is contributing editor of The Ecologist. This story is based on a news release from The University of Arizona. This study appears in the February issue of Journal of Applied Ecology.

Climate change is not ranked among the five top causes of conflict in Nigeria – namely: tribalism, resource control, religion, land and trade.  But that reality has been altered. 

The past thirty-six months have been fiercely violent for several Nigerian states, which have experienced rampaging Fulani herdsmen killing many subsistent farmers whilst trying to protect  their land from grazing herds. A number of reasons have been given for the violence, but no connection has yet been made between the herdsmen migrating south and the effects of climate change. 

Herdsmen – for whom cattle is a source of livelihood and wealth – have killed approximately 1,000 Nigerians. Myetti Allah – the umbrella body of the herdsmen – justify the killings in the name of self-defense.

Under attack

Having lived in southeastern Nigeria for the past two decades, I have never witnessed a more turbulent time than the past three years. This is not to suggest that life has always been smooth, but we have hitherto enjoyed relative peace. Now, our farms are under attack and our children and women are left vulnerable to the violence of the Fulani herdsmen, who would rather kill humans than risk losing their cattle to hunger.

The Fulani herdsmen are nomadic and habitually migratory. They annually move from north to south with their cattle in search of grazing fields. The movement is seasonal. Now with climate change, the movement pattern has been markedly altered.

Due to expansive desertification, drought and unchecked deforestation in northern Nigeria, the herdsmen naturally seek greener pasture further south. As the resultant migration has intensified, so too has violent clashes over grazing lands between local farmers and pastoral herdsmen, whom the former accuse of wanton destruction of  their crops and forceful appropriation of their lands. 

The emerging conflict is further compounded by the shrinking of Lake Chad from 45,000km2 to 3000km2 in less than three decades. The consequence according to the United Nations, is the displacement of about 10.5 million people. It’s a combination of these factors that has pushed herders from north-eastern Nigeria, the region closest to Lake Chad, to the southern parts of the country.

The spiralling rise in killings by the Fulani herdsmen coincides with the assumption of office by President Muhammadu Buhari- also a Fulani- who may be standing for reelection in 2019.  In the two and a half years that the Buhari administration has been in power, over 50 percent of the casualties recorded have been in the south-east and north-central geographical regions.  Farming communities in Benue, Kogi, Taraba and Nassarawa in the north and Enugu, Abia and Anambra in the south-east have incurred the highest casualties.

Climate change

The government’s response has ignored climate change as the source of conflict exacerbating the herdsmen’s grazing crisis.  Historically, since the existence of Nigeria, the Fulani herdsmen have grazed their herds in the north and intermittently in other areas. But incremental drought with resultant desert encroachment forced them to regularly look southwards for greener grazing areas. 

As Mary Ikande observed in an article published on naij.com: “With regard to precipitation at the coastline, the eastern part records 430cm, the western region records 180cm, the centre of Nigeria records 130cm, the upper north is the driest zone and records only about 50cm”. 

These statistics, which merely confirm pre-existing academic research on rainfall patterns in Nigeria, point to the underlying problem.

According to an International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) publication released in November 2017, “over 80 percent of Nigeria’s population depends on rain-fed agriculture leading to a high risk of food production system being adversely affected by the variability in timing and amount of rainfall.”

With the rising attacks, some Nigerian states have enacted anti-grazing laws that make grazing in open fields or farms a punishable offence. Whereas such measures have reduced the tension in some affected states, in places like Benue state, it has failed. 

Green vegetation

The 2018 New Year day herdsmen attack resulted in the gruesome murder of 73 people in rural Benue communities. The attacks occurred despite the  anti-grazing law the Benue state government had enacted which prohibited indiscriminate and open field grazing.  The herdsmen had vowed not to obey the law.

The Federal Government’s response has been lethargic and its reaction, if any, has always been the deployment of security operatives to affected areas. 

In developed and some developing countries, cattle herds are ranched with provisions made for growing their choice species of grasses. Nigeria must do the same. Ranching has been widely recognised as a solution, but entrepreneurs are reluctant to take advantage.

The onus is on the government to take the first step and introduce policies that will make ranching attractive such as an effective ban on open grazing, easy access to land, improved species of grasses and compulsory inter-state transportation of cows by trucks.  This will also create thousands of green jobs for unemployed youths.

Intensifying the pace of the Great Green Wall project (a reforestation plan for sub-saharan Africa to  combat desertification) in the 11 northern pilot states where it is meant to take place is now imperative. Implementation of that project will help return green vegetation to the north.

Political lethargy

Nigeria also needs to change its policy on climate change from a vision into action. It is distressing that Nigeria is not yet a member of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) – a 43-nation group of most vulnerable countries that negotiate as a bloc at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

It speaks to the lethargy that characterises such issues of great importance. Joining the CVF will give Nigeria the opportunity for knowledge-sharing with countries facing similar challenges. 

Nigeria can’t escape or ignore the impact of climate change on the herdsmen crisis. 

The best way to tackle it is to approach the herdsmen and explore the opportunities they present to empower people. In a country with terrifying unemployment, this moment should be seized to stop a naturally-induced crisis from becoming politically explosive.

This Author

Chiagozie Udeh is the winner of the Cambridge Climate Lecture Series (CCLS) article competition 2018 and is a climate change policy research associate at Selonnes Consult Ltd. 

International trade deals, discussed and negotiated behind closed doors, manage to shape the policy space available for governments to further public interest. For this reason, the TTIP and CETA trade negations commandeered a mass trans-national response.

However the EU-Indonesia trade agreement – otherwise known as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) – which began its fourth round of negotiations this week, seems to be have gone largely unnoticed by mainstream media. This is concerning, since a recent report concluded that this deal may have negative impacts on democracy, consumer rights and environmental protection.

So what’s wrong with CEPA?

1. Democracy

Trade deals like CEPA are made behind closed doors, denying transparency, public scrutiny or parliamentary debate. Corporate lobbyists often have preferred access, meaning large transnational corporations largely drive the negotiations. This gives them disproportionate influence in shaping the trade agenda, resulting in trade deals that favour corporate rather than public interest.

These deals use trade as an instrument for business growth, rather than to ensure equitable and sustainable development between and within nations. Unlimited market access between parties and protection for foreign investment deepens wealth inequalities and concentrations of markets and capital. In short, the cost of boosting trade is often paid in public welfare.

2. Palm Oil

One of the biggest contentions of the CEPA negotiations surrounds palm oil. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil, followed by Malaysia, with these two countries covering nearly 90 percent of global production.

This huge supply is matched to a huge demand, with palm oil monopolizing ingredient lists in cosmetics, biofuels and processed foods. It is found it over half of consumer goods, from lipstick to ice-cream to pizza dough to soaps.

And to what impact? Rainforests are disappearing at the rate of 169 trees every second, which can be attributed predominantly to palm oil plantations. This deforestation is endangering the existence of several species such as Orangutans, and causing the evacuation of indigenous communities from their native land.

It is also increasing greenhouse gas emissions due to a reduction in trees and slash-and-burn clearing techniques, making Indonesia the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. 

Furthermore, the palm oil industry is linked to land-grabbing, human-rights abuses, and degradation of habitats.  Regardless, negotiations continue in the hope to expand this $44billion market under the flawed economic logic that ‘if there’s money to be made, there will be trade’.

Certification systems for ‘sustainable’ palm oil are weak, and standards are getting weaker in an attempt to increase the numbers of certified sustainable producers and make palm oil more political palatable.

3. Bad Law

Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) has been a serious issue in trade deals, and CEPA is no exception. Trade agreements provide one-sided protection for multinational corporations and foreign investors. This includes international arbitration tribunals (ISDS) that circumvent the national legal system to allow foreign investors to claim against governments.

For example, the Newmont Mining Corporation, which began mining in Indonesia as part as a bilateral investment treaty (BIT), historically argued that the Indonesian government’s plans to implement a ban on unprocessed mineral exports would impinge on the company’s profits and hence violate the investment agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands. On this basis, they were able to present a claim against the Indonesian government.

Indonesia has had many difficulties in having claims filed against them for pursuing public policy. Because of this, Indonesia announced in 2015 that it would allow all 67 of its BITs to expire.

However, the CEPA deal would re-introduce an investor-state dispute mechanism via the ‘multilateral investment court’. This would lock Indonesia into a system of corporate rights and foreign investor claims, again dissuading the government from tabling new bills/developing new standards in the public interest.

4 Brexit

The CEPA deal is symbolic, as it signals a gateway for exporting this type of trade deal to other countries. Whilst other similar trade deals have historically been hampered, the adoption of CEPA could inspire the revival of other ‘profit over people’ deals such as the TTIP, which is currently dormant.

The fact that CEPA has been resurrected from the ashes of TTIP demonstrates the might and seeming immortality of corporate power. So instead of business as usual, it’s time to rethink the nature of our current trade agreements.

Brexit will demand the renegotiation of many trade deals once the UK leaves the single market. Therefore CEPA deserves extreme scrutiny if it is to be a model future deals are based upon.

It is a possibility that UK trade agreements may forego policies that protect people and planet, to ensure a ‘strong and stable’ economy for a post-Brexit Britain.

It is a possibility that climate and sustainability initiatives will be side-lined to boost trade and economic growth through polluting fossil fuels. Hence, moving forward into a space of democracy, equity and justice demands more scrutiny and criticism of these back-door negotiation spaces.

This Author

Katie Hodgetts works for Friends of the Earth Europe, which is campaigning against the CETA deal and are envisioning an alternative trade vision.

The UK’s main climate science denier thinktank has seen its income from membership fees double over the last year, its latest accounts show.

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has consistently argued against the climate science consensus and was set-up by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson to combat what it describes as “extremely damaging and harmful policies”  designed to mitigate climate change.

GWPF’s latest accounts published on Companies House last week show a rise in the income generated from membership fees from £5,479 in 2016 to £11,937 in 2017.

Donations increase

Donations were also reported to have increased from £257,044 in 2016 to £284,141 last year — raising the foundation’s total funds to £743,959.

GWPF also paid a fundraising consultancy fee worth £4,380, which appeared for the first time in the 2017 accounts.

GWPF’s latest accounts show a reverse of a previous trend that saw the foundation’s membership income slump by more than 60 per cent between 2011 and 2016.

Writing in The Independent, Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said the 2016 membership fee income was “the lowest annual total in the foundation’s seven-year history”.

On its website, GWPF asks its members to give “at least £100 per year” to fund its activities.

New appointment

GWPF did not respond to DeSmog UK’s request to clarify if membership had increased or if members had made larger donations this year.

But in a previous statement to The Independent, GWPF said membership had stagnated between 200 and 300 members over the last few years and that not all members paid the full £100 suggested fee.

The accounts also show that wages and salaries have increased by more than £30,000 reaching £119,824 in 2017 despite the number of employees —  four —  staying the same over the last couple of years. Trustees at the foundation, including Lawson, are not remunerated.

The accounts also make public the appointment of Sir Nicholas Bonsor as an honorary director of development.

Bonsor’s new role within GWPF has not been detailed in the foundation’s accounts. DeSmog UK asked GWPF whether the new fundraising consultancy fee meant Bonsor was in charge of fundraising, but did not receive a reply.

Nicholas Bonsor

A practising barrister, Bonsor was a Tory MP for Nantwich and Upminster between 1979 and 1997 and served as a minister of state for foreign affairs between 1995 and 1997.

In 2010, he supported Nigel Farage in his unsuccessful campaign to unseat Commons Speaker John Bercow from his Buckingham constituency.

Educated at Eton and Oxford, Bonsor inherited the title of baronet and is a vice president of the Standing Council of the Baronetage,  a social network which provides advice to those wishing to prove their succession to a baronetage.

Bonsor has also held a number of directorships on the boards of mining companies.

He served as a non-executive director of London Mining, a London-based company which developed iron ore mines for the steel industry, and was appointed deputy chairman in 2010.

London Mining

The company was involved in a major controversy in Greenland where voters feared ministers were surrendering their country’s interest to multinational mining companies.

London Mining was at the centre of the controversy in 2013 over its £1.5bn plan to build one of the world’s biggest iron ore mines to serve the steel industry in Beijing, as well as a pipeline and a deep sea port.

The project sparked concerns from environmentalists who feared the project would have significant social impacts and could damage Greenland’s natural areas.

London Mining went into administration in 2014 after going bankrupt.

Bonsor also served on the boards of other extractive companies including Blue Note Mining, Forest Gate Energy, Cassidy Gold, Metallon Gold and Tomco Energy.

Trump effect

GWPF’s director, Benny Peiser made reference to Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuels energy policy in the director’s report section of the accounts.

Peiser mentioned President Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement and praised his support for “cheap and secure energy as the engine to drive US economic revival”.

He wrote: “The election of Donald Trump as US president in November 2016 up-ended many of the assumptions on which much of Britain’s and the EU’s climate policies are based.

“He [Trump] has supercharged the transition to shale gas that has already transformed the US energy market, giving US manufacturers a massive boost over their European competition.”

Peiser also wrote that prime minister Theresa May’s poor result in last year’s general election had seen a “weakened government” focusing only on the Brexit negotiations, with “little time or appetite for energy policy reforms”.

This Author

Chloe Farad is a journalist and contributor to DeSmog UK.

‘Growth for the sake of growth’ remains the credo of all governments and international institutions, including the European Commission.

Economic growth is presented as the panacea that can solve any of the world’s problems: poverty, inequality, sustainability, you name it. Left-wing and right-wing policies only differ on how to achieve it.

However, there is an uncomfortable scientific truth that has to be faced: economic growth is environmentally unsustainable. Moreover, beyond a certain threshold already surpassed by EU countries, socially it isn’t necessary. The central question then becomes: how can we manage an economy without growth? 

Enough is enough

Kenneth Boulding, the economist,  famously said that: “Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”.  

Ecological economists argue that the economy is physical, while mainstream economists seem to believe it is metaphysical.

Social metabolism is the study of material and energy flows within the economy. On the input side of the economy, key material resources are limited, and many are peaking including oil and phosphorus. On the output side, humanity is trespassing planetary boundaries.

Climate change is the evidence of the limited assimilative capacity of ecosystems. It is the planet saying: ‘Enough is enough!’. 

Mainstream economists – finally convinced by the existence of biophysical limits – have started to argue that economic growth can be decoupled from the consumption of energy and materials.

Trade off

Historical data series demonstrates that this – up to now – has not happened. At most, there is relative decoupling – a decrease in resource use per unit of GDP. But, there is no absolute decoupling which is what matters for sustainability: an absolute decrease of environmental resources consumption.

The only periods of absolute dematerialisation coincide with economic recession. Trade should also be taken into account, to avoid externalisation of pollution intensive activities outside the EU. 

The current economy cannot be circular. The main reason being that energy cannot be recycled, and materials only up to a point. The global economy recycles less than 10 percent of materials; about 50 percent of processed materials are used to provide energy and are thus not available for recycling. It is simple: economic growth is not compatible with environmental sustainability.

The list of nice oxymorons is long – from sustainable development to its reincarnations like green economy or green growth – but wishful thinking does not solve real problems. Increase in GDP leads to increase in material and energy use, and therefore to environmental unsustainability. 

No magic bullet

Technology and market based solutions are not magic bullets. Faith in technology has become religious: scientific evidence shows that, based on past trends in technological improvement, these are coming way too slowly to avoid irreversible climate change.

For instance, efficiency improvements lead to rebound effects, in the context of economic growth (the more efficient you are, the more you consume; e.g. cars and consumption of gasoline). Renewable energy produces less net energy, because it has a lower EROI (Energy Return on Investement) than fossil fuels. For this, and other reasons, it cannot satisfy current levels of energy consumption, which therefore needs to be reduced.

Most of the world’s fossil fuel reserves must be left in the ground, unburned, to keep a global temperature rise to no more than 2°C. In fact, fossil fuels should be called unburnable fuels. 

Science sometimes brings bad news. An article recently published in Nature Sustainability argues that: “No country in the world meets the basic needs of its citizens at a globally sustainable level of resource use.” The question then is: How can the conditions for a good life for all within planetary boundaries be generated?

The uncomfortable truth to be faced by policy makers is the following:  Economic growth is ecologically unsustainable. The total consumption of materials and energy needs to be reduced, starting with developed countries. 

De-growth strategy

Economic growth might also not be socially desirable. Inequalities are on the rise, poverty has not been eliminated and life satisfaction is stagnant.

Economic growth is fueled by debt, which corresponds to a colonization of the future. This debt cannot be paid, and the financial system is prone to instability. 

For instance, scientifically it is not clear how the European Union will achieve a low-carbon economy in the context of economic growth, since it implies a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

In fact, climatologists Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows have argued convincingly that: “[F]or a reasonable probability of avoiding the 2°C characterization of dangerous climate change, the wealthier nations need, temporarily, to adopt a de-growth strategy.”

Obviously, a transition from a growth society to a degrowth  one poses several challenges. However, the emerging field of ecological macroeconomics is starting to address them convincingly.

Happiness factor

Happiness and economics literature shows that GDP growth is not needed for well-being, because there are other important determinants.  High life expectancy is compatible with low carbon emissions, but high incomes are not. Moreover, lack of growth may increase inequalities unless there is redistribution. 

In any case, the issue is not whether we shall abandon economic growth. The question is how. Scientific debates around it are on the rise, but I am afraid policy making is behind.

There are good signs: critiques of GDP as an indicator of well-being are common, there are policy proposals and degrowth is entering into the parliaments. This is not new. For example, in 1972 Sicco Mansholt, a Dutch social-democrat who was then EU Commissioner for agriculture, wrote a letter to the President of the EU Commission Franco Maria Malfatti, urging him to seriously take into account limits to growth in EU economic policy.

Mansholt himself became President of the European Commission after only two months, but for too short a term to push a zero growth agenda.

The time is ripe not only for a scientific degrowth research agenda, but also for a political one. As ecological economists Tim Jackson and Peter Victor argued in The New York Times: “Imagining a world without growth is among the most vital and urgent tasks for society to engage in.”

This Author

Federico Demaria is an ecological economist at Environmental Science and Technology Institute, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is the co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, and of the forthcoming Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary.