Showing posts from category environmental health.
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Deirdre LaPin, Niger Delta Working Group
Next Step, Clean Up the Niger Delta: The UNEP Ogoni Environmental Report
›August 12, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Deirdre LaPin, appeared on the Niger Delta Working Group and AllAfrica.
The long-awaited report from the United National Environmental Program (UNEP) on oil damage in the Ogoni area was presented to President Goodluck Jonathan on August 4 in Abuja. This important study, the first of its kind in the Niger Delta, was conceived well before 2006 by the Federal Government as part of the Ogoni reconciliation and peace process led by Father Matthew Kukah (recently named Bishop of Sokoto). Intended as a major assessment of the impacts of oil production in the Ogoni region, UNEP in an early statement described the aim as to “clarify and de-mystify concerns expressed by local communities.” [Audio Below]
Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) suspended active production in Ogoniland in late 1993 as a response to growing resistance to industry presence led by the martyred freedom fighter and writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. However, the company remained responsible during its withdrawal for monitoring and maintaining its installations, and especially the critical Trans-Niger pipeline serving Bonny Terminal. It also left behind a number of spill sites.
Deirdre LaPin on the History of Inequality in the Niger Delta [Excerpted Version] by ECSP WWC
Over the years the company had mixed success in negotiating with local communities access to spills sites or achieving their complete remediation. The impoverished local population also pursued informal oil production that centered on bunkering (oil pipeline tapping) and bush refining – increasing opportunities for further spills and pollution. In keeping with the “polluter pays” principle, the operator SPDC joint venture funded the U.S. $9.5 million UNEP study.
Last week the press had a field day with the freshly unveiled report.
Journalists whisked together highlights and added spice from the region’s contested history. Some articles cooked in the press kitchen missed key ingredients or simply got them mixed up. The best among them focused on the findings from the study’s careful scientific analysis, which led UNEP to the conclusion that “pollution has perhaps gone further and penetrated deeper than many may have previously supposed.”
This forceful opinion stated in the foreword by UNEP’s executive director Achim Steiner represents a long step beyond the study’s original technical terms of reference or the limited policy aims supporting reconciliation and “de-mystification.”
Now in 2011, UNEP’s thoughtful recommendations, while not assigning blame, point clearly to the need for a genuine shift in the priorities and practices of the oil industry and governmental regulatory agencies operating throughout the Niger Delta. The muscular sub-text rippling throughout the report makes clear that nothing less than ending pollution and full remediation of Ogoniland (and indeed the whole Niger Delta region) should be accepted as an end point.
Continue reading on the Niger Delta Working Group.
For more on the Niger Delta, be sure to also read “Nigeria’s Future Clouded by Oil, Climate Change, and Scarcity,” which includes the full audio interview with Deidre LaPin (excerpted above) on the history of the Niger Delta.
Sources: UNEP.
Photo Credit: NASA Space Shuttle Overflight photo of the Niger Delta, courtesy of NASA. -
Benefits of Integrating Population, Health, and Environment
›“Mainstreaming Environment and Climate Change: Health,” a joint publication from the International Institute for Environment and Development and Irish Aid, is part of a series that aims to show the links between the environment, climate change, and key development sectors, while suggesting key solutions to move into national policies. This health-focused briefing asserts that “nearly one quarter of the global disease burden can be attributed to the environment.” While anyone is prone to the negative effects of climate change, the poor are especially vulnerable because they often live in some of the most precarious environmental conditions. Consequently, the briefing argues that “improving environmental health – raising its profile at national, state and local levels, and integrating environmental health issues into development plans and activities – is critical if we are to reduce poverty and meet the Millennium Development Goals.”In An Assessment of the Benefits of Integrating Family Planning and Environmental Management Activities in the Visayas Region of the Philippines, a study from the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center, authors Richard B. Pollnac and Kira Dacanay argue that benefits can be reaped from integrated population, health and environment (PHE) development, but only under certain conditions. Factors influencing the level of benefits include “levels of participation in integrated projects [both by individuals and communities], and how NGOs implement these projects.” Thus, it is important to “tailor strategies based on place-based context and personal characteristics of different participants,” write Pollnac and Dacanay. In the Philippines, the authors suggest that one of the actions future PHE initiatives should take is to “stimulate more project participation, with special efforts in larger, less dense communities and tailor strategies better to different targeted populations within the community.” -
Robert Engelman, Yale Environment 360
The World at 7 Billion: Can We Stop Growing Now?
›August 11, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Robert Engelman, appeared on Yale Environment 360.
Demographers aren’t known for their sense of humor, but the ones who work for the United Nations recently announced that the world’s human population will hit seven billion on Halloween this year. Since censuses and other surveys can scarcely justify such a precise calculation, it’s tempting to imagine that the UN Population Division, the data shop that pinpointed the Day of 7 Billion, is hinting that we should all be afraid, be very afraid.
We have reason to be. The 21st century is not yet a dozen years old, and there are already one billion more people than in October 1999 – with the outlook for future energy and food supplies looking bleaker than it has for decades. It took humanity until the early 19th century to gain its first billion people; then another 1.5 billion followed over the next century and a half. In just the last 60 years the world’s population has gained yet another 4.5 billion. Never before have so many animals of one species anything like our size inhabited the planet.
And this species interacts with its surroundings far more intensely than any other ever has. Planet Earth has become Planet Humanity, as we co-opt its carbon, water, and nitrogen cycles so completely that no other force can compare. For the first time in life’s 3-billion-plus-year history, one form of life – ours – condemns to extinction significant proportions of the plants and animals that are our only known companions in the universe.
Did someone just remark that these impacts don’t stem from our population, but from our consumption? Probably, as this assertion emerges often from journals, books, and the blogosphere. It’s as though a geometry text were to propound the axiom that it is not length that determines the area of a rectangle, but width. Would we worry about our individual consumption of energy and natural resources if humanity still had the stable population of roughly 300 million people – less than today’s U.S. number – that the species maintained throughout the first millennium of the current era?
Continue reading on Yale Environment 360.
Robert Engelman is executive director of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: “Daybreak,” courtesy of flickr user Undertow851. Dawn breaks over California in the United States April 17, 2011 in this photo by NASA astronaut Ron Garan from the International Space Station. The lights of Los Angeles appear in the foreground while San Francisco appears in the back near the horizon. -
Population, Health, and Environment Approaches in Tanzania
›“Quality of life, human health, food security, and biodiversity are all connected,” said Elin Torell, research associate for the BALANCED Project and the University of Rhode Island Coastal Resource Center. Torell was joined at the Wilson Center on July 19 by Patrick Kajubili from the Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership, and Alice Macharia, director of the East Africa Program at the Jane Goodall Institute to discuss the importance of integrated population, health, and environment (PHE) initiatives that work to simultaneously improve health and livelihoods, manage natural resources, and conserve ecosystems in Tanzania.
Building Resilient Coastal Communities
The Coastal Resources Center’s work in Tanzania’s Saadani National Park provides an example of an integrated PHE approach that sustains the flows of environmental goods and services, maintains biological diversity, and empowers and improves the wellbeing of local residents, said Torell. Since 1996, the CRC has focused on protecting sea turtles, promoting energy-saving stoves, and tracking elephants, while at the same time improving livelihoods through savings and credit associations, eco-tourism, and beekeeping.
“Adding family planning makes a whole lot of sense,” said Torell. There is a high unmet need for family planning in Tanzania and the population is growing rapidly with an average number of 5.6 children per woman. Family planning not only helps families limit and space births but indirectly works to improve food security and human health, reduce demand for scarce natural resources, and empower women, she said.
“Integration is key,” concluded Torell: A coordinated and synergistic approach that meets the varied needs of local communities will be more effective and sustainable than if interventions were delivered independently.
Effective Integration in the Field
“Conceptual linking is not enough,” said Kajubili. “Integration also needs to happen at the organizational and field levels.”
On the ground, the Tanzania Coastal Management Partnership integrates family planning education and services into conservation work, said Kajubili. Peer educators deliver information about family planning, health, and coastal resources management; and community-based distributors deliver family planning services and supplies.
“Now people easily access reproductive health services,” said Kajubili. To date, the program has increased referrals to health centers, promoted contraceptive use, and reduced the distance that women need to travel to receive family planning services.
“Integration makes sense and cents,” said Kajubili. By combining resources, health and natural resource management organizations can potentially reach a broader population while sharing costs.
But “reinforcing the linkages between PHE of course takes time and education,” said Kajubili, highlighting a major challenge to implementing integrated approaches. “Advocacy is needed to overcome cultural and institutional barriers.”
“What About Our Needs?”
“Socio-economic development; family planning and AIDS education; sustainable forestry and agriculture practices; and water and sanitation all underpin and support sustainable natural resource management,” said Macharia.
The Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education Project (TACARE) led by the Jane Goodall Institute was initiated in 1994 to arrest the rapid degradation of land through tree planting and forest degradation, said Macharia. “But at some point, the communities raised the question: What about our own needs?” she said.
Community members prioritized the need for health services, education, clean water, and financial capital. But environmental degradation was not seen as a major issue, suggesting a need for a more integrated approach to TACARE’s conservation efforts.
“Integrated programs including population, health, and environment activities are cost-efficient and add value to conservation goals,” said Macharia. By responding to the needs of the community, the integrated approach adopted by TACARE has gained more credibility among local people, while a strong focus on building local capacity has helped to ensure sustainability of the program.
While there are many challenges to implementing and maintaining integrated PHE programs, “partnerships at the local, district, and national level are key to making this a success,” concluded Macharia.
Sources: Population Reference Bureau.
Photo Credit: “Environment near Vumari Village,” courtesy of flickr user treesftf. -
Reducing Health Inequities to Better Weather Climate Change
›In an article appearing in the summer issue of Global Health, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), brings to light what she calls the starkest statistic in public health: the vast difference in the mortality rates between rich and poor countries. For example, the life expectancy of a girl is doubled if she is born in a developed country rather than in a developing country. Chan writes that efforts to improve health in developing countries now face an additional obstacle: “a climate that has begun to change.”
Climate change’s effect on health has increasingly moved into the spotlight over the past year: DARA’s Climate Vulnerability Monitor measures the toll that climate change took in 2010 on human health, estimating some 350,000 people died last year from diseases related to climate change. The majority of these deaths took place in sub-Saharan Africa, where weak health systems already struggle to deal with the disproportionate disease burden found in the region. The loss of “healthy life years” as a result of global environmental change is predicted to be 500 times greater in poor African populations than in European populations, according to The Lancet.
The majority of these deaths are due to climate change exacerbating already-prominent diseases and conditions, including malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition. Environmental changes affect disease patterns and people’s access to food, water, sanitation, and shelter. The DARA Climate Vulnerability Monitor predicts that these effects will cause the number of deaths related to climate change to rise to 840,000 per year by 2030.
But few of these will be in developed countries. With strong health systems in place, they are not likely to feel the toll of a changing environment on their health. Reducing these inequities can only be achieved by alleviating poverty, which increases the capacity of individuals, their countries, and entire regions to adapt to climate change. It would be in all of our interests to do just this, writes Chan: “A world that is greatly out of balance is neither stable nor secure.”
Sarah Lindsay is a program assistant at the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health and a Masters candidate at American University.
Sources: DARA, Global Health, The Lancet, World Health Organization.
Image Credit: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the World Health Organization. -
Vik Mohan, Rebecca Hill, and Alasdair Harris
In FOCUS: To Live With the Sea: Reproductive Health Care and Marine Conservation in Madagascar
›July 12, 2011 // By Wilson Center StaffDownload FOCUS Issue 23: “To Live With the Sea: Reproductive Health Care and Marine Conservation in Madagascar,” from the Wilson Center.
Christine does not know how old she is. She has 16 children and lives on a remote island off the southwestern coast of Madagascar. She and her children, like other members of the Vezo ethnic group, depend entirely on the ocean for their survival. Her husband, a fisherman, struggles to catch enough to feed his family.
In this isolated area, most girls have their first child before the age of 18, and families with 10 children or more are commonplace. But since the marine conservation NGO Blue Ventures launched a family planning program in 2007, couples and women like Christine are able to make their own reproductive health choices.
Blue Ventures’ Vik Mohan, Rebecca Hill, and Alasdair Harris argue that their integrated approach, which combines reproductive health care and education with conservation and alternative livelihoods, offers these communities – and the marine environment on which they depend – the best possible chances of survival. -
Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue
Double Choke Point: Demand for Energy Tests Water Supply and Economic Stability in China and the U.S.
›The original version of this article, by Keith Schneider, appeared on Circle of Blue.
The coal mines of Inner Mongolia, China, and the oil and gas fields of the northern Great Plains in the United States are separated by 11,200 kilometers (7,000 miles) of ocean and 5,600 kilometers (3,500 miles) of land.
But, in form and function, the two fossil fuel development zones – the newest and largest in both nations – are illustrations of the escalating clash between energy demand and freshwater supplies that confront the stability of the world’s two biggest economies. How each nation responds will profoundly influence energy prices, food production, and economic security not only in their domestic markets, but also across the globe.
Both energy zones require enormous quantities of water – to mine, process, and use coal; to drill, fracture, and release oil and natural gas from deep layers of shale. Both zones also occur in some of the driest regions in China and the United States. And both zones reflect national priorities on fossil fuel production that are causing prodigious damage to the environment and putting enormous upward pressure on energy prices and inflation in China and the United States, say economists and scholars.
“To what degree is China taking into account the rising cost of energy as a factor in rising overall prices in their economy?” David Fridley said in an interview with Circle of Blue. Fridley is a staff scientist in the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. “What level of aggregate energy cost increases can China sustain before they tip over?”
“That’s where China’s next decade is heading – accommodating rising energy costs,” he added. “We’re already there in the United States. In 13 months, we’ll be fully in recession in this country; 9 percent of our GDP is energy costs. That’s higher than it’s been. When energy costs reach eight to nine percent of GDP, as they have in 2011, the economy is pushed into recession within a year.”
Continue reading on Circle of Blue.
Photo Credit: Used with permission, courtesy of J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue. In Ningxia Province, one of China’s largest coal producers, supplies of water to farmers have been cut 30 percent since 2008. -
The Implications of Urbanization on Food Security and Child Mortality of the Urban Poor
›In the chapter, “Urban Agriculture and Climate Change Adaptation: Ensuring Food Security Through Adaptation,” of the edited volume, Resilient Cities: Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change – Proceedings of the Global Forum 2010, authors Marielle Debbeling and Henk de Zeeuw assess the viability of urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) as a method of climate change adaptation for the urban poor. Debbeling and de Zeeuw assert that UPA increases the resilience of cities by diversifying both food supply and income streams for the urban poor; decreasing the negative effects of “heat island effect,” air pollution, and urban flooding; conserving water and utilizing organic waste; and reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Given the scale and impact of modern urbanization, the authors write that “the integration of UPA into urban development and master plans, urban land use and zoning plans, as well as active maintenance of the protected agricultural zones…is crucial.”In “Urban Area Disadvantage and Under-5 Mortality in Nigeria: The Effect of Rapid Urbanization,” published by Environmental Health Perspectives, authors Diddy Antai and Tahereh Moradi found a significant link between the mortality rate of children under five years of age and a poor and disadvantaged urban environment; such an environment is characterized by poor sanitation, overcrowding, a lack of access to safe water, and high levels of disease-inducing air pollution and hazardous wastes. Although urban living may increase proximity to health care and other social amenities, low- and middle-income countries, such as Nigeria, have overstretched their adaptive capacities and the result is poor health indicators. Antai and Moradi predict that the rapid urbanization of Nigerian cities will bring increased infant mortality, unless individual- and community-based policy interventions are implemented to counter the adverse environmental conditions of deprived areas.
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