The environment in the news

UN urges urgent action on oceans

The United Nations Environment Program blames overfishing, pollution, climate change and shipping.

Its report says populations of large fish have declined by as much as 90 per cent in the last century.

It says there are more than 46,000 pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean.

Program director Achim Steiner says the full scale of the problem may not yet be fully understood.

"We assume roughly that less than 10 per cent of the oceans have been explored so far and in fact, only one-millionth of the deep-sea floor has been subjected to biological investigations," he said.

"And yet we are, with our activities in the oceans, affecting a great deal of biodiversity that we may lose before we even got to know it.

"And in part, that is the intention of the world community we're trying to draw to with this report."

People's Daily Online, China - Jun 15, 2006 - Newly appointed head of the Nairobi- based United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) took up office on Thursday, calling on countries to put the environment at the heart of economic policies.

In a press release issued in Nairobi, Achim Steiner said markets need to work with Earth's life support systems to achieve development goals, saying it was time to make environment and economics team players.

"For too long economics and environment have seemed like players on rival teams. There have been a lot of nasty challenges and far too many own goals. We need to make these two sides of the development coin team players, players on the same side," the 45- year-old former director general of the World Conservation Union said.

Steiner said a whole stream of reports over the past year or so, including the UNEP supported Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, were underlining the "enormous wealth of nature's services."

"They also underline that far too many are becoming limited as a result of abuse, poor management and over-exploitation," he added.

Steiner said one of his main challenges over his coming first term as UNEP executive director was to end this "antagonism between economic and environmental policy."

He said he would be focusing on how markets and economic incentives and international treaties and agreements can be made to work in a way, which is "pro-environment, pro-poor and thus pro- sustainable development."

Steiner, the organization's fifth executive director since it was set up in the early 1970s, said there was every reason to be positive.

"A new mood that increasingly recognizes that, while money may make the world go round, what makes money go round is ultimately the trillions of dollars generated by the planet's goods and services from the air cleaning and climate-change countering processes of forests to the fisheries and the coast line protection power of coral reefs."

He said among his many targets, aimed at making UNEP even more relevant to the challenges of the 21st century, was that of achieving stronger and more streamlined ties with other UN organizations, civil society and the private sector.

"The challenges are so immense that, only by working together in mutual self interest, can we realize internationally agreed goals and deliver a stable, just and healthy planet for this and future generations," said Steiner, a Brazilian-born German national whose previous experience includes being secretary-general of the World Commission on Dams based at the time in South Africa.

He described the UN Secretary General's high-level panel on UN system-wide coherence in the areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and the Environment and the UN General Assembly's informal consultations on the institutional framework for the UN system's environmental activities -- chaired by ambassadors from Mexico and Switzerland -- as "real opportunities that we must all seize."

"For the first time in two decades environment and the institutional architecture are receiving the highest levels of attention. We have a golden chance to reform the institutions and structures that deliver global and regional environmental policy. It is a chance we must not let slip away," said Steiner.

He succeeds Klaus Toepfer of Germany who stepped down on March 31, 2006 after just over two terms and eight years as UNEP chief.

Source: Xinhua
http://english.people.com.cn/200606/16/eng20060616_274501.html

Prevent earth from becoming a desert
Green Thoughts Column June 7 2006

Celebrating world Environment Day

“Don’t Desert Drylands”.

How does desertification occur? Scientists have identified that the misuse of land and water in many parts of the world due to deforestation, agriculture, mining and urbanization create more desert lands.

This year’s slogan emphasizes the importance of protecting dry lands, which cover more than 40% of the planet’s surface. This ecosystem is home to one-third of the world people who are more vulnerable members of society.

The message is also important for countries currently experiencing serious droughts and/or desertification.

What needs to be understood is that though a local phenomenon, desertification as a whole affects the entire world. According to the UN, “The world's deserts are facing dramatic changes as a result of global climate change, high water demands, tourism and salt contamination of irrigated soils.”

And this means, desert margins and so called ˜sky islands”-mountain areas

within deserts which are fundamentally important are particularly under threat.

According to a UNEP report, global and regional instability, leading to more military training grounds, prisons and refugee stations could also alter the desert landscape. And increase deserts.

Some experts believe deserts could become the carbon-free powerhouses of the 21st century. They argue that an area such as the Sahara could capture enough solar energy to generate the entire world’s electricity needs and more.

Population growth and inefficient water use are, by 2050, set to move some countries with deserts beyond thresholds of water stress, or even worse, water scarcity. Examples include Chad, Iraq, Niger and Syria.

Renewable supplies of water which are fed to deserts by large rivers are also expected to be threatened, in some cases severely, by 2025.

It is believed that if the huge, solar-power potential of deserts can be economically harnessed the world could have a future free from fossil fuels. Also if tourism based around desert nature if sensitively managed, could provide new prospects.

And we are talking about slow emergencies. Those that alter the landscape over a period of time. This is also why the questions need to be addressed right now, before the Earth becomes inhabitable.

The desert cores remain pristine in many parts of the world, representing some of the planet’s last remaining areas of total wilderness.

The desert fringes in many places, however, suffer high pressures from human activities and include several threatened terrestrial eco-regions.

The overall temperature increase of between 0.5 and two degrees C over the period 1976-2000 is higher than the average global rise of 0.45 degrees C.

Profound changes with important implications for water supplies and people, and desert plants and animals, are likely in some regions unless greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced.

It is believed that temperatures in deserts could rise by an average of 5-7% degrees C by 2071 -2100, compared to the average in the period 1961-1990.

Many deserts will experience declined rainfall of between 5-10%.

Most of the recognized 12 desert regions would face a drier future with rainfall in some cases forecast to be between 10-20% lower. Only the Gobi desert in China is predicted to have a rainfall increase of between 10-15%.

The melting of glaciers will compound the problem. The glaciers in the mountains of High Asia may decline by between just over 40-80% by the end of the century, the report says.

The situation is being aggravated by overgrazing and the cutting of trees and other vegetation in these desert mountain realms reducing the capacity of these natural water towers.

Underground water supplies, some centered around oases and in the ˜Sky islands”™-formed over thousands and in some cases over a million years- are increasingly being drained of water for agriculture and settlements.

The biggest casualties may be cities in the deserts of southwestern Asia and in the southwest United States.

Other water supplies are under threat from salinization and pollution by pesticides and herbicides.

Rising water tables beneath irrigated soils has led and will probably lead to much more salinization of soils as is already occurring in western China, India, Pakistan, Iraq and Australia.

Urgent action is called for to protect wildlife in deserts with hunting among the biggest threats, according to the report.

Desert species on the brink of extinction or declining fast include various species of gazelle, oryx, addax, Arabian tahr and the Barbary sheep as well as one of the falconers favourite prey, the Houbara.

At greatest risk are the few patches of dry woodlands associated with desert mountain habitats which may decline by up to 3.5% per year.

Experts fear that these woodlands areas which made the great desert trades such as the Silk Road, the cross-Sahara trade and many others possible-- could be largely lost in less than 50 years unless urgent action is taken to protect and conserve them.

Desert wetlands, fed by the large rivers crossing deserts, are probably the most threatened ecosystem, as a result of their valuable water supplies being diverted to domestic or agricultural use.

The report estimates that desert wilderness-those areas where there are no nearby roads, will decline from just under 60% of the current total desert area to just over 30% by 2050.

Green Thoughts Column June 22 2006

Yet, phasing out, as Head, UNEP Ozone Action Branch, Rajendra Shende notes has its own set of problems. This is despite the enormous success enjoyed by the Montreal Protocol, which sought to deal with ODS thereby paving the way for ozone healing.

In the year 2000, the Montreal Protocol set a compliance period for the developing world or those recognized as Article Five countries so that the recovery of the ozone layer becomes a practical reality. It called for specific targets within time schedules. Accordingly, it was agreed that 85% of the Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) should be phased out by 2007 and 100% by 2010 in a bid to facilitate complete recovery of the ozone layer by the year 2050.

Achieving these targets also mean, according to Shende, having national policies that reflect the commitments of the Protocol and enforcement mechanisms. It also means, effectively combating the transboundary movement of ODS within the Asian region.

Illegal trade in CFC, despite the international treaty and locally imposed regulatory mechanisms continue to grow. What is more, industrialists could be using alternative chemicals, which are more harmful than the identified and banned chemicals. And more importantly, the smuggling in of products with ODS.