<href=”https://newsecuritybeat-org.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2012/07/Kalema-Zikusoka1.png”>Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is founder and CEO of Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), an NGO that seeks to save the endangered mountain gorillas of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and improve the health and livelihoods of people living on the outskirts of Bwindi. Close proximity of humans and gorillas has resulted in the transfer of a number of diseases, including tuberculosis and scabies. In this podcast, Kalema-Zikusoka describes CTPH’s success providing integrated health services, educating people about family planning methods, reducing human–wildlife conflict, and improving local livelihoods. In “Sharing the Forest: Protecting Gorillas and Helping Families in Uganda,” the latest issue in ECSP’s Focus series, Kalema-Zikusoka and coauthor Lynne Gaffikan write that “members of these communities have the potential to serve as model stewards of the country’s natural resource wealth”–if their health needs are met and livelihoods improved. Kalema-Zikusoka recently spoke at the Wilson Center on human, animal, and ecosystem health and population-health-environment lessons from East Africa.

I’ve been busy the last several days attending the “Healthy Environments—Healthy People” stream of the World Conservation Congress. While there has been much talk about the connections between environmental services and people’s livelihoods and allusions to how this links with human health, I’ve been surprised by the scarcity of actual documented linkages between conservation strategies and human health.

This conundrum got me thinking about why there aren’t more people trying to actually evaluate impacts on human health. Do environmentalists simply lack the tools and expertise to evaluate human-health impacts? Are human-health benefits too hard to measure? Or does conservation not really have any human-health benefits? No, no, and no again are my answers to these questions.

I think the real problem is that “healthier people” is really just a good selling-point for conservation rather than a true objective of most conservation institutions. In other words, arguing that environmental health promotes human health is a good way for conservation organizations to expand their constituency.

Am I a jaded conference participant who has simply attended one too many sessions? I don’t think so, based on a meeting I attended last week of the EuroNGOs, a network of European organizations advocating for sexual and reproductive health. The topic of this year’s EuroNGOs meeting? The interface between population, environment, and poverty alleviation. Was this really a group of population and health organizations interested in adding an environmental dimension to their work or interested in the environmental benefits of their work? No—the real purpose was to increase funding for sexual and reproductive health by discussing the links and benefits related to environmental conservation and poverty alleviation. So these are different communities coming together for a common goal: to increase the funding for their particular missions.

Does this mean, however, that it is wrong to advocate for conservation interventions based on health benefits or wrong to advocate for health interventions based on environmental benefits? I don’t think so. I just think we need to do a better job of building bridges across communities. It would have been wonderful to have a few environmental organizations at the EuroNGOs meeting and a few more health organizations at the World Conservation Congress. Perhaps then we would do a better job evaluating the cross-sectoral benefits of our health and environment work.

Jason Bremner is program director for population, health, and environment at the Population Reference Bureau.

Photo courtesy of Geoff Dabelko.

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The lawyers are out at the World Conservation Congress Forum in Barcelona. Carl Bruch of the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, DC, was one of several speakers at “Armed Conflict and Environment: Protecting the Environment During War and Improving Post-Conflict Natural Resource Management.”

Bruch is leading a forward-leaning initiative entitled “Strengthening Post-Conflict Peacebuilding and Recovery Through Natural Resource Management” that is collaborating with Tokyo University and the UN Environment Programme’s Conflicts and Disasters Programme to analyze cases from around the world where the environment is key to causing, extending, ending, or recovering from conflict. Bruch and his team of authors are trying to glean lessons for peacebuilding by examining natural resource management in post-conflict societies. Bruch emphasized that the goal is to provide actors on the ground who are not environmental practitioners with the practical means to integrate natural resource management into their operations.

Michael Bothe, an expert on the environment and laws of war from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, suggested IUCN could play a positive role in using the parks-for-peace process to establish parks as demilitarized zones. He noted that peacetime treaties often remain in effect in times of conflict, but that obligations in international environmental treaties are promotional and therefore have limited impact during war. Bothe called for more work in three areas:

1. Passing laws that use parks-for-peace mechanisms to prevent valuable habitats from becoming military objectives;
   
2. Clarifying how the military doctrine of proportionality of response applies to environmental damage; and
   
3. Specifying the application of customary (i.e., traditional) law regarding environmental protection during armed conflict.

Illustrating the diversity of participants at the World Conservation Congress, questioners from Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Angola, Georgia, and Germany focused on environmental damage from conflicts in their regions.

“Frequently, we forget that environmental management is all about institutions and governance, and the decisions and trade-offs that we make,” said the University of Washington’s Patrick Christie at “Governance of Marine Ecosystem-Based Management: A Comparative Analysis,” a September 29, 2008, event sponsored by the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). “And of course they need to be informed by ecological principles as well. But when it comes down to it, you’re managing individuals, institutions, [and] budgets.” Christie believes that as more and more marine species move dangerously close to extinction—whether from overfishing, pollution, or habitat destruction—ecosystem-based management (EBM), which governs ecosystems according to ecological rather than political boundaries, offers the best approach to marine conservation. This meeting was the final event in ECSP’s “Fishing for a Secure Future” series.

Decentralizing EBM

For Alan White of The Nature Conservancy, the Coastal Resource Management Project (CRMP), initiated by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1996, exemplifies EBM’s success. Working in 111 coastal municipalities in the Philippines and covering approximately one-sixth of the country’s coastline, CRMP helped managers of municipal fisheries and marine protected areas (MPAs) collaborate with coastal law enforcement agencies to restore fish populations. EBM can be achieved, argued White, by allowing local municipalities to control simple regulatory schemes—so long as they are simultaneously sharing information with larger-scale networks. However, “the local governments have to be the ones to pay for this; they can’t be dependent on foreign donor projects or even large NGOs. It’s got to be sustained through the mechanism of governance and governments in those areas,” he said.

The Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) regional action plan, drafted by the CTI’s six members—Indonesia, East Timor, the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands—is designed to make ecosystem-based fisheries management “more mainstream in the region,” said White. Among the many factors decreasing fish populations in the region are illegal and commercial fishing, chemical poisoning, industrial pollution, coral bleaching, typhoons, and aquarium fishing, he noted, and to effectively address these problems, local municipalities and larger-scale actors must coordinate their strategies.

Curbing Illegal Fishing in the Philippines

Tetra Tech’s Nygiel Armada explained that the Fisheries Improved for Sustainable Harvests (FISH) Project in the Philippines’ Danajon Bank ecosystem demonstrates how improving control mechanisms can combat illegal and commercial fishers’ activities. The FISH Project focuses on improving control mechanisms, including the network of MPAs; species-specific management; gear restrictions; size limits on fish; registration and licensing; and zoning of fishing and water activities. Strengthening these mechanisms and combining them with cross-cutting initiatives such as information, education, and communication campaigns; better policies; and collaboration with law enforcement agencies led to more fish.

“Governance is only as strong as your weakest link,” emphasized Armada. The weakest municipalities—those that allowed illegal fishing practices to continue and failed to enforce control mechanisms—weakened overall gains. To sustain fish stocks and improve governance, all localities must work together to enforce control mechanisms.

Marine Governance, Large and Small

“As scale increases, and complexity increases, and control and potential for coordination become less feasible, there’s really [a] need to pay increasing attention to the context within which governance is taking place,” maintained Robin Mahon of the University of the West Indies, who studies the Caribbean large marine ecosystem. As Mahon argued, “policy cycles at all levels are important because different types of decisions take place at each level.”

Video of the event and PowerPoint presentations are posted on the Woodrow Wilson Center website.

Photo: Patrick Christie. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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“The input of the security sector is indispensable for finding the balance” between mitigation and adaptation efforts to combat climate change, said Wouter Veening, co-founder and chairman of the Institute for Environmental Security, based in The Hague, Netherlands. Veening was the first among many speakers in a linked set of panels entitled “Environment and Security Challenges for Change” here at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona.

This has been quite an interesting first day at the World Conservation Congress Forum in Barcelona. Since I’m not a conservation expert (I’m here to participate on a panel on population, health, and environment programs), I’m enjoying the opportunity to view the conference a bit like an anthropologist. Here are a few observations from Day One:

The conference has an interesting structure. In an effort to provide some organization for such a large conference (8,000 participants and 800 panels/events) there are three main “streams,” including “Healthy Environments, Healthy People”—the reason our panel was accepted—along with “A New Climate for Change” and “Safeguarding the Diversity of Life.” The participants are also encouraged to join one of 12 “journeys” (e.g., “Forests Journey,” “Species Journey”) to help bring them together for smaller meetings and social events. I found that I couldn’t get into the Forests Happy Hour this evening because I hadn’t signed up for the “Journey.” Some incentives do matter—if only I had known!

Despite the “healthy” headlines, very few panels discuss the relationships between human or animal health and the environment, and there are no health-related “journeys.” The one bright spot regarding interdisciplinary linkages thus far was an announcement by the Australian national parks director that he would host a major “Healthy Parks, Healthy People” meeting in 2010 where 50 percent of the attendees would be health professionals.

Some sessions are held in the Knowledge Café, a large room where folks join one of 12 round conversation tables based on special topics. The United Nations has funded a special program, called “Poble,” which has brought a significant number of indigenous people, in tribal headgear and colorful traditional dress, to the conference. The Poble meetings are in a large room with a low stage and no chairs; attendees sit or lie on the floor while listening to the presentations of their colleagues. The room has been full every time I have peered in.

Attendance seems to vary considerably among sessions. A Knowledge Café roundtable meeting on climate change attracted mid-career pros from the Global Environment Facility, the European Union, the United Nations, and scientific organizations, and the level of the unmoderated discussion was extremely high. Participants were well-informed about the issues facing the international community over the next few months, and were also familiar with the latest ideas regarding how to address climate change. On the other hand, a panel session on accountability in conservation programs and among environmental NGOs attracted only nine attendees who listened to four (good!) speakers. After tomorrow’s sessions, I’ll have an even better sense of which themes are attracting the attention of the conservation professionals here.

John Pielemeier is an international development consultant. During his 22-year career at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he served as USAID mission director in Brazil, USAID/Washington office director for South Asia, and as a special assistant in the office of the USAID administrator.

Photo courtesy of Heidi Fancher and the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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What does the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) have in common with Brazil’s Urucu natural gas fields? They both epitomize the struggle to balance energy independence and environmental conservation.

Located in the southern Amazon region and discovered in 1978, the Urucu fields are the largest onshore natural gas reserves in Brazil. Exploration began in 1988, but not without controversy. The Amazon rainforest, like ANWR, is a sensitive, biologically unique environment. Plans for exploration of the Urucu fields sparked heated debate over the extent of the environmental damage caused by such exploration—much like the current debate over oil drilling in ANWR.

Conservationists’ arguments revolved around two main issues: preservation of the environment and local communities’ livelihoods. The extraction complex will consist of three pipelines (map): Urucu-Coari (in existence); Urucu-Manaus; and Urucu-Porto Velho. The two new pipelines, which will total 621 miles of additional pipe, will also require the clearing of a 65-foot-wide strip along the entire pipeline. For the pipeline to reach Manaus, it needs to cross the six-mile wide Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon river. The project’s critics argue that even a small oil spill, especially in the stretches of the pipeline in the river, would harm the region’s biodiversity and the livelihoods of indigenous communities and others who depend on the river.

Petrobrás has sought to assuage activists’ concerns over the pipeline’s impact on local communities by assuring them that the Urucu gas fields will employ at least 3,800 local workers. In addition, Petrobrás is sponsoring community development projects to stimulate alternative economic activities.

Bolivia’s political crisis triggered Brazil’s decision to build the gas extraction pipelines, in spite of environmentalists’ misgivings. The December 2006 “nationalization” of natural gas in Bolivia, which provided Brazil with approximately half of its natural gas supply, made energy security and diversification of energy suppliers priorities for the government, and prompted Petrobrás to jumpstart a natural gas independence project in which Urucu features prominently.

While environmentalists may not have succeeded in stopping the development of the Urucu fields, their efforts have forced Petrobrás to significantly diminish the project’s environmental footprint. In conjuction with local universities and research centers, Petrobrás carried out an impact and risk analysis (Piatam) that led to the implementation of several environmental precautions. For example, the pipeline must be built eight feet under any river it crosses and permanently monitored by a cable embedded within the pipes. In addition, the extraction wells are very small, taking up very little forest area, and a remote control center that tracks any leaks in the pipeline is able to isolate and disable leaking pipes or valves, according to Jeff Hornbeck, an international trade and finance specialist at the Congressional Research Service (via email).

Moreover, all equipment is transported to the site by helicopters in order to avoid building roads, which frequently open up areas to logging and wider-scale development. Petrobrás also plans to use robots to monitor changes in environmental conditions, including the level of oil in the water; and to gather information to help prepare for emergency situations (e.g., flooding or other natural disasters) that threaten to damage the pipelines.

If Petrobrás executes the development of the Urucu fields successfully—with minimal negative consequences for communities and the Amazon—it could serve as an example for other energy projects in sensitive habitats. As growing energy needs increase demand for more exploration, environmentally conscious projects will become even more important.

By Brazil Institute Intern Ana Janaina Nelson.

Video: You can glimpse unspoiled forest outside the window of a plane landing at the Urucu fields, the product of Petrobrás’ efforts to minimize damage to the Amazon.

Last month, in an effort to prevent further deforestation of the Amazon, Brazil announced the creation of the Amazon Fund, which aims to make preserving the world’s largest tropical rain forest more lucrative than destroying it. Norway was the first country to contribute to the initiative, offering a pledge of $100 million. Officials project that the fund may receive up to $1 billion in its first year and may accrue as much as $21 billion by 2121.

By creating an endowment open to international investors, Brazil appears to have shed some of its usual suspicions of foreign encroachment on the Amazon and acknowledged that conservation efforts will only be sustainable with considerable outside support. Yet the funds will still be controlled by Brazil’s National Development Bank (BNDES)—which, according to BNDES environment director Eduardo de Mello, means “donors will have no say over the use of [the Amazon Fund’s] resources.” Within BNDES, a steering committee made up of federal and state officials will be in control of the funds. According to the proposal listed online by BNDES, the Amazon Fund will target the following areas: Brazilian sovereignty; infrastructure development; combating deforestation; indigenous rights; sustainable development; and government, business, and civil cooperation.

The Amazon Fund is guided by the Brazilian government’s Plano Amazônia Sustentável (PAS), or Sustainable Amazon Plan, which was issued in May 2008. Carlos Nobre, a senior climate scientist at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, was one of the principal architects of this plan, and presented it to an American audience at a January 16, 2008, conference at the Woodrow Wilson Center. PAS offers a holistic vision for protecting the Amazon that goes beyond conservation efforts, calling for the creation of a new economic paradigm centered on sustainably “globalizing the development capacity of the Amazon and producing value-added goods and services.” Nobre told Reuters that while the Amazon Fund is a positive initial step, it nevertheless “just postpones deforestation…the final fix is to create a new economy that can give jobs to several million people.” This “paradigm shift,” he explained, requires the entrepreneurial capacity to “translate biodiversity wealth into economic wealth.”

Response to the Amazon Fund has been generally positive, albeit guarded. According to Paulo Gustavo Prado, environmental policy director of Conservation International’s (CI) Brazil program, the Fund is a helpful move in the fight to combat deforestation in the Amazon, but is still a work “under construction” (e-mail exchange with Alan Wright). For instance, it is possible that the resources will be used to fill “gaps in governance”—in other words, to fund additional enforcement actions against illegal logging in the Amazon—and therefore have little direct impact on Amazonian society as whole. He observed that the prospect for private-sector involvement seems limited by the fact that funders will have no influence over the use of funds, so the initiative is unlikely to draw money for carbon-offset projects. Prado remarked that by reducing the cost of conservation-related activities, it appears that the Amazon Fund will encourage the work of organizations such as CI. He also stressed CI’s commitment to see that the Fund will be made available to researchers and scientists, and that indigenous and local communities and state and municipal governments will be involved in the decision-making process.

It remains to be seen how other issues—such as the ambitious Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA), lingering land rights issues, and Brazil’s commodity export boom—will affect the Amazon Fund’s overall efficacy.

By Brazil Institute Program Assistant Alan Wright and Brazil Institute Intern Matthew Layton.

Photo: Area deforested for agricultural use in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Courtesy of flickr user leoffreitas.

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