Michelle Desilets

Michelle Desilets is Founder and Executive Director of Orangutan Land Trust, a UK-based NGO which supports sustainable solutions for the long-term survival of the orangutan in the wild.  She is also Founder of Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK, and Member of the Board of Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany, which supports the largest primate rescue and protection project in the world.

She was in Singapore recently when she talked to us about the threats to orangutans, especially from the palm oil industry. Orangutan Land Trust is a key player in the campaign for sustainable palm oil, and Desilets shares some of the nuances in the debate about sustainable palm oil, the challenges in the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) process, and what would be more effective to save the rainforests – boycotting palm oil, or more direct action through petitions which influence industry and government behaviour.

Watch the interview with Michelle Desilets here:

Video link here

Desilets aim to secure at least 1 million hectares of rainforest for the continued and long term survival of the orangutan. Support Orangutan Land Trust’s efforts here

Please support the campaign to save Tripa Peat Swamps.

Join the Facebook page : Save the Tripa Peat Swamps, and sign petitions via Avaaz, Change.org or Care2

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com.  She is a sustainability speaker, trainer and writer can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: The fight for Borneo’s soul

EWTT: Nestle buckles to Greenpeace pressure on unsustainable palm oil

EWTT: How to find Hidden Palm Oil in Supermarkets

EWTT: Engaging local communities in S.E.Asian Peat Swamp Regeneratio

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With palm oil companies slashing vast swathes of forest, the Dayaks of West Kalimantan are desperately struggling to save their ancestral lands and way of life

Houses and Mountains. Photo courtesy: Ben Sutherland

On the porch of a wooden house deep in West Kalimantan, a shirtless man sits, staring out at endless rows of palm oil trees surrounding his home like a besieging army. Pak Kabul does not know his exact age, only that he was born in the 1950s. Neither does he know what the future holds – except that life took a turn for the worse when a palm oil company took over the bulk of land nearby. The company chased nearly everyone off their land; only he refused to budge, he said. These days, he and his wife, together with some chickens and pigs, live a lonely existence in the middle of a sprawling plantation about an hour by road from the nearest town, Sintang, 420 km west of Pontianak city.

They eke out a living tapping rubber, earning about 360,000 rupiah (S$51) each month. Their son teaches at a nearby village and visits sometimes. Javanese immigrants brought in to work on the plantation live nearby, but Pak Kabul does not interact with them.

Borneo rain forest. Photo courtesy: Ben Sutherland

He remembers better times when the land was still forested and the villagers could live off its bounty. “When we had the forest, nobody came to hurt us,” he said with quiet resignation. “I have no more hope; I can only hope my son will be good.” According to him, the only benefit reaped from the palm oil company is the road built through the estate.

It was this road on which we were travelling, en route to a village three hours from Sintang, that we spotted Pak Kabul and decided on impulse to stop and talk to him – and heard yet another account of the Dayak indigenous people’s struggle with palm oil companies.

Our group comprised more than 20 people from countries like Australia, the Netherlands, the United States and Indonesia. Led by Dutch-born Indonesian conservationist Willie Smits, 15 young people dubbed the EcoWarriors – of whom I was one – were in West Kalimantan for a project to combat deforestation and illegal wildlife trade in partnership with local communities. Our efforts are to be made into a documentary by Australian director Cathy Henkel.

We were in West Kalimantan for 20 days in September, the first leg of a 100-day project. Accompanied by some Dayaks who have banded together to raise awareness of unlawful land grabs, we visited remote villages in the Serawai and Ambalau – the only two of Sintang’s 14 sub-districts that have resisted the palm oil companies. 

But for how much longer? Already, the locals speak of their livelihoods and communities being threatened by the relentless expansion plans of these companies.

The Dayaks love a good celebration, and we were welcomed warmly with traditional dances, rituals and generous amounts of a rice wine called tuak. Behind the smiles, however, lay deep anxiety for their future. The issue is not simply about the local communities depending on ancestral lands and forests to live, but about deforestation and wildlife habitat destruction – a struggle for Borneo’s soul.

‘TO THE LAST DROP OF BLOOD’

The third-largest island in the world, made up of Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak states, Brunei and Indonesia’s Kalimantan region, Borneo is known for its lush rainforests and stunning biodiversity. But since the 1980s and 1990s, large tracts of forests have been cleared for pulp and timber.

Deforestation in Borneo Image Courtesy: Maps.grida.no

In the past 15 years or so, palm oil companies have moved in; according to a 2009 report commissioned by Amsterdam University’s law faculty, the plantations occupied 3.2 million hectares of land in 2006, with another 2.8 million hectares cleared.

A July report by independent monitors Forest Watch Indonesia estimated that between 2000 and 2009, 1.5 million hectares of forest – an area 21 times the size of Singapore – were destroyed each year, a third of it in Kalimantan.

The villages we visited faced the very real danger of losing land that has been passed down for generations. Nearly every adult villager had a tale to tell – of suspicious tactics by palm oil company staff to survey the land, the bribery of select villagers to create rifts within the community, or the abuse of villagers who vocally opposed the companies. In Duan village in Ambalau, a sacred burial ground is part of the land being eyed by a palm oil company. Duan practises shifting agriculture, moving to a different spot every eight years to allow land to lie fallow. This allows the companies a chance to pounce on seemingly unoccupied territory.

When we visited, the traditional village high priest opened the vault where the bones are kept for us – a rare privilege and sign of trust that our group will tell their story of struggle and desperation when we return to our home countries. He grew increasingly distressed as he told us of seven generations of high priests who have watched over the grounds.

Should the palm oil companies try to take the land, it would be a “fight to the last drop of blood”, he said.

The locals also told of a villager, Joseph Obeng, who was framed by the palm oil company into accepting timber, then reported to the police for unlawful possession of it and thrown into jail.

TAKING BACK THEIR LAND

Over 300km from Duan, the three villages of Lansat Baru, Lansat Lama and Belenyut Sibau have found 80 hectares of their land bulldozed by a palm oil company. The company had also planted saplings on the land and driven their truck in – all without having obtained the necessary permits or completing negotiations with the community, villagers claimed.

Enraged, they confiscated the keys of the truck in September. Hearing of the Eco Warriors’ presence in a longhouse three hours away, the villagers travelled the bumpy, muddy roads to tell us of their plight.

The next morning, some of us drove to the disputed site. We spoke to the village leaders, and watched as they performed a traditional Dayak ceremony to stake their claim on the land, and uprooted several saplings. “Nobody has agreed to this and the palm oil company just steals and rapes our land,” said a leader, Mr Yohanes Aliam.

The palm oil company retaliated – it made a police report and the following morning, another leader in the group, Mr Yunosno, was arrested and taken to the police station. Several of the Serawai-Ambalau action group bailed him out after nearly a day.

Mr Yunosno maintained that the villages had not been properly compensated for their land. But in a report by the news site Kalimantan-News.com, a company representative was quoted as saying the company had followed proper procedure.

THE WEIGHTED DICE

The villages’ struggle to hold on to their land comes about because of lax enforcement and corruption, and overlapping laws and claims for the land. Palm oil companies are supposed to go through a multi-step licensing process – securing location permits, plantation business permits, forest area release and, finally, business use permits – before clearing the land. 

But this is seldom the case, going by what we observed as well as findings of the Amsterdam University report.

According to the Dayaks and Dr Smits, even if the palm oil companies present required legal documents such as environmental impact assessments of the land (known as Amdal), or papers that show the majority of villagers are pro-palm oil, their authenticity could be questionable.

A 2009 investigative report done by several non-governmental organisations found that despite “constitutional and human rights provisions which recognise customary rights in land, most local communities and indigenous peoples in Indonesia lack secure land titles”. Community representatives surveyed in the report were also under the impression that they were temporarily relinquishing their land to the companies – suggesting “community leaders had not received adequate information about the law prior to entering negotiations”.

The report also said that locals who sign away their land do so in hopes of receiving jobs and income. But according to Dr Smits, this is not the case. The locals end up being deeply indebted to the palm oil companies. They are paid about 600,000 rupiah for one hectare of land, and have to borrow the equivalent of thousand of dollars to buy seedlings and fertilisers from the company.

As palm oil trees take seven years to mature, a downward spiral of debt results, eventually leading the locals to lose even the 20 per cent of land allocated to them in a typical agreement with palm oil companies.

GLIMMER OF HOPE?

Having heard so many accounts of injustice and desperation, we searched for a glimmer of hope during our 20 days in Borneo – and found one in the village of Tembak, just after our encounter with Pak Kabul.

The village faced off with a major timber company in 1996 and won; its reply to palm oil is also an emphatic “no”. As a result, roads to Tembak are undeveloped, almost impassable after heavy rains. But the 650 villagers remain united and fiercely protective of their forests, and have developed a system of turbines to generate electricity from a nearby river. They have offered us land for release of any orangutans we rescue and rehabilitate.

If other villages, through dogged struggle and maybe some help from the rest of the world, see an outcome similar to Tembak’s, the future of their children would look brighter. Such victories would also be salve for Borneo’s soul.

To find out more about the Eco Warriors’ project, visit their website here.

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Neo Chai Chin is a journalist with Today Online where this article appeared originally. It has been reproduced with permission. 

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DeforestACTION Live Event – March 28!

On March 28^th 2012, join Dr. Willie Smits for an exciting online collaborative learning event! Be prepared to be taken deep into the heart the Borneo jungle to connect with orang-utans. Hear from Dr. Willie Smits and the Eco Warriors about the work they are doing with the Masarang Foundation, and speak with other schools around the world taking action to stop deforestation. Register for the event here.

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2011 is the International Year of Forests, and I thought it fitting to conclude the year with a final piece on some of the environmental effects of deforestation and subsequent land use that I observed and learnt about during my field trip a few months ago, to the area of Janda Baik, a small village in the state of Pahang. Janda Baik nestles among pristine rainforest hills about 30km from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.  The visit was part of a workshop organised by Wild Asia.

The ethereal mist wafting over the vast, dense rainforest hills of Janda Baik, the smell of fresh drizzle and the silhouette of a lone bird flying against the cloud covered sun made me close my eyes and capture this frame in my mind’s camera.  A moment like this is the memory that one wants to etch forever from a trip to a land that is far removed from one’s own.

In all fairness, Janda Baik isn’t all that far from Singapore, though in the hustle and bustle of manicured city living, it is easy to forget that Kuala Lumpur (KL) is all but 5 bus-ride hours away from here.  Janda Baik is only another hour away from KL.  But as an idyllic village that is quite different from this city state – in landscape, in population mix, in politics and culture, in its pressing issues; it is easy to forget proximity, and that perhaps the demands of the country of my residence and those of a greedily growing world may have some part to play at least, in Janda Baik’s and Malaysia’s complex problems.

Illegal vs Organic Farming

Illegal farm on the slopes of Janda Baik

My reverie and savouring of the beautiful distant hills came to an abrupt end as our local guide Zaini pointed to our immediate left. A steep slope had been razed off completely to make way for what he pronounced as an illegal farm.  He directed our eyes to the hilltop where bamboo poles had been haphazardly erected. The bamboo came from the forest too, and was fast disappearing in Zaini’s estimates.  From the top to the bottom of the hill which disappeared into the valley, there were vegetables growing amidst various structures and poles to support straggling vines.

There are many such illegal farms in Janda Baik, according to Zaini, a fact I haven’t been able to verify yet with official statistics, but if what he says is true, the consequences could be quite alarming. For one, it is quite obvious even to a casual observer how exposed the hills become to landslides without the strong, supportive roots of the trees. There can be little control over the amount and quality of fertilisers and pesticides used on illegal farms. The runoffs from these could flow quite easily and without much interruption down the hills into the streams and rivers.

Zaini as our guide

Zaini said he once asked to buy veggies from an illegal farmer who replied, “Oh, These vegetables are not for ‘eating’, they are for ‘sale.’   This is the implied level of synthetic chemicals used in such farms.  It’s hard to tell whether veggies like these come into Singapore, which depends on external countries including Malaysia for 98% of its food imports.  One also needs to explore and understand what kind of pesticide residue checks the official food agency in Singapore, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) follows, how supplier screening is done, and whether this can at all be exhaustive.

According to the March 2006 report of International POPs Elimination Project :

“Even though Persistent Organic Pollutants POPs-listed organochlorine instecticides is prohibited, a number of studies on rivers and sediments throughtout Malaysia have demonstrated that most of these compounds are present in the aquatic environment (Lee et al 2003). In most of these studies, the sources of contamination were not known. In a separate study to study the source of contamination, it was found that agricultural areas such as paddy and vegetable cultivation are the main sources of environmental contamination by most organochlorine insecticides in Malaysia. “

If fertiliser and pesticide use in Malaysia is rampant, it could have a serious effect on topsoil and water in the short and long term, apart from effects on workers and consumers.

Yousof's organic farm

In contrast, it was encouraging to see an organic farm in Janda Baik run by the young, 25 year old Yahya Bin Yusof, as a means of sustaining the adjoining orphanage for which he shoulders responsibility.  He took us to a shed with various types of enzymes being brewed out of the waste in the farm, and behind it was another one for organic compost.  Goat manure was also used to enrich the soil.  I never cease to marvel at farmers like Yusof who use organic and ecologically friendly methods to work and condition rainforests soils – which are notoriously clayey and deceptively poor in nutrition. The lush greenery of a rainforest depends on the efficiency of various parts of the ecosystem to recycle the biomass containing nutrients, with very little coming from the soil itself.  This is an oft forgotten reason for the soils of conventional agriculture in rainforest areas requiring a heavy dosage of chemicals.

Yusof’s farm sells about 60kg of produce every week, many of whom are regular customers in KL who are willing to pay the higher 10RM (RM = Ringitt, the Malaysian currency) per kilo for his organic produce as opposed to RM4 for conventional ones.  He admits that viability of the farm would have been difficult without corporate sponsorship for capital costs. This has been handy for putting up the sheds that cover the vegetables from the intensive and ruthless tropical sun and rain.  Only 3 farms unfortunately, of the several hundred legal ones (and not counting the illegal ones), have been labelled as organic by the certifying state government body.

The vanishing hills

The previous day Zaini’s French wife, Fred had shared her observations on local environmental issues with us, a pot-pourri of journalists attending the Responsible Journalism Workshop. Organised by Wild Asia, a Malaysian NGO, the workshop had reporters from Malaysia’s national newspaper The Star, a regional one The Selangor Times, a specialist magazine the Malaysian Tatler, citizen journalists from the group “komunitikini”, other freelance writers and myself, the odd one out from Singapore as a citizen journalist.

Going around Janda Baik had been our field trip to make sense of what we observed, in the overall context of how we as journalists could extend the scope, regularity and depth of environmental reporting in the region, while maintaining high standards of professionalism.

Fred sharing her concerns

Fred, who with Zaini runs a lodge spoke with noticeable anguish as someone who has lived in and breathed the air of Janda Baik for the last 9 years – in particular about the vanishing trees.  “The hill behind my guest house used to be a jungle, but with burning bit by bit, in 4 years it’s all gone” she lamented. “The wild animals like pangolin, otter and slow loris are rarely seen. Instead there are monkeys and wild boars which usually live in the interiors and don’t come near humans. They are emerging because their habitat and food are gone.  So too have the morning cheeps of various species of birds who have disappeared over time. “

As we went around Janda Baik we saw how the river had gone down in depth, from what used to be knee high a few years ago as Fred had mentioned, to merely ankle deep in the last few years.

Deforestation in Malaysia

Malaysia faces massive pressures of deforestation, a heavy and often irreversible price to pay for development. The Huffington Post reported that Malaysian rates of deforestation is three times larger than Asia combined.  Mongabay adds, “Analysis of figures from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that Malaysia’s annual deforestation rate jumped almost 86 percent between the 1990-2000 period and 2000-2005.”

The foremost reason behind the massive rates of deforestation in Malaysia is due to palm oil plantation, visibly seen as one criss-crosses Malaysia by road, train or flight. It is estimated that 10% of goods in supermarkets all over the world have palm oil in some form or the other, with Indonesia and Malaysia being the biggest exporters of palm oil in the world.

A lesser reason, but significant nevertheless is the way rainforests like the one surrounding Janda Baik are being nibbled here and there, systematically due to encroachment, urban development and illegal agriculture.  There is a web of complexity underneath this, that one begins to get wind of when talking to people on the ground like Zaini and Fred – possible political influences, lack of governance, economic forces, unplanned development, apathy, lack of education and awareness.

Responsible Journalism

I look forward to learning from and sharing the works of my Malaysian journalist friends, who may be in a better position to unearth the statistics, and have the conversations needed with those in administration, industry and communities to press forth with many of the pointers from the trip that need to be investigated further.

Whether as professional or as citizen journalists, we all need to take to heart what Henry Anatole Grunwald, the late editor of TIME magazine once said, “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”

Jacqueline Ann Surin of The Nut Graph

Jacqueline Ann Surin, the experienced former editor with The Star and founder of a political website called The Nut Graph  guided us through much of the workshop. She passed around an inspiring book called Journalism.as.if.earth.mattered.” by Kunda Dixit.  It contained a beautiful poem by Joey Ayala, a Filipino ethnomusician and environmentalist who sings about the majestic and near extinct Philippine Eagle, which caught my attention.  I share it here as 2011, the International Year of Forests, draws to an end.

I wish to fly like the Eagle

And live in the heart of the forest.

But the trees are gone.

There is no place for a nest.

A nestless eagle has no reason to fly.

If you want to the see the Eagle,

Don’t look up at the sky.

He has shed his feathers and folded

Up his wing

Oh Eagle, my true King,

I wish to help you so thy Kingdom

May live again.

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About the Writer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk.  She writes and conducts talks and workshops on sustainability and can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Do follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

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This has been a week of climate pessimism.  First, The Guardian on Wednesday, 9 Nov 2011 quoted the International Energy Association (IEA)’s warning that the world is headed for irreversible climate change in only 5 years. The article says:

“If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world’s existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that “carbon budget”, according to the IEA’s analysis, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.

If current trends continue, and we go on building high-carbon energy generation, then by 2015 at least 90% of the available “carbon budget” will be swallowed up by our energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, there will be no room for manoeuvre at all – the whole of the carbon budget will be spoken for, according to the IEA’s calculations.”

Prof Surya Sethi at ISEAS

The lecture at the Institute of South East Asian Studies (ISEAS) yesterday by Professor Surya Sethi compounded the gloom.  Prof. Sethi served on the Indian Prime Minister’s Energy Coordination Committee and wrote the Integrated Policy of India (2006) and also assisted in the development of India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (2008). He is currently Visiting Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYPP).

Prof. Sethi said that developments after the 2010 COP 16 Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico do not give much hope that a comprehensive and binding agreement will be reached at COP17 in Durban, South Africa later this month.  He also pointed to several ‘inconvenient truths’.

Inconvenient Truth #1

Markets do not have the solution to climate change or to the mindless exploitation of the world’s finite capital of water, land, minerals, other resources, or to the global commons itself.  If all externalities are included, such as the environmental cost of rearing cattle, impact on water, carbon emissions associated with transportation, the cost of a hamburger, for example, would be between US$20 to US$25.   However, it is sold for only 99 cents in the US and for US$3 in the rest of the world. Markets are therefore grossly underpricing natural capital which inevitably leads to resource exploitation.

Yet paradoxically, we look to the same markets which failed to keep the books straight on asset backed securities and mortgages that led to the financial crises of 2008 and the European Debt crisis this year, to deliver solutions to climate change.

The world is facing potentially disruptive and irreversible climate change triggered through rising temperatures, and non-linear positive feedback. Markets driven by greed and mathematical judgement cannot solve these irreversible effects or substitute value based decisions, which are required for equitable solutions.

If one looks at energy intensity of OECD countries, it varies from country to country a factor of 2.3 times. Even though there are no market barriers, the market is not equalising energy intensity. The financial bailout shows that politics plays a key role in deciding where funds flow.

Markets may allocate scarce resources, but they are not distributors of equity and justice. If we want to limit how much natural capital is to be used, we need to make ethical choices, which requires strong value based leadership. This was emphasised time and again by Prof Sethi.

Inconvenient Truth #2

Global carbon emissions are not coming down, and continue to rise.

• Most global projections show fossil fuel consumption as growing till 2030. There was a slight dip in 2008 due to slower economic growth because of the financial crisis, but it has picked up again in 2010.  The total estimated  30.6 gigatonnes carbon (GtC) emitted in 2010 is estimated to grow to 54 to 58 GtC in the coming years. The 2 degree pathway requires a  reduction to 44 GtC per annum globally by 2020. There will be an overshoot of 10-14 GtC on an annual basis.
•  The absolute level of consumption of fossil fuels is still rising in developed world. If you exclude the 2008 blip, consumption of fossil fuels during the 8 years from 1999 to 2007 of OECD countries grew 2.6 times than the rate of fossil fuel consumption growth in India. The OCED has a population of 0.9 billion, only slightly less than that of India, and hence comparable in size. In China fossil fuel consumption during the 8 year period grew 7.1 times than that of India.

What this underscores, according to Prof Sethi, is that all the talk about lowering energy and emissions intensity, and delivering the next more efficient car or light bulb (which is definitely important) only means growing GDP by a larger amount with marginally less energy intensity. So even if the same barrel of oil goes longer and energy security is increased;  as long as we are consuming more fossil fuels in absolute terms, we are not addressing climate change.

•  If one examines the claim that Annexe 1 (developed) countries have reduced emissions from GDP over 1990 levels, this is largely because as economies in transition, they have outsourced some of their pollution overseas.If you look at emissions from consumption by Annexe 1 countries,  the figures are even worse. Take the 15 EU countries – on a consumption bass, emissions have gone up by 40% over 1990 with 33% of emissions coming from imports. Gross emissions of the EU 15 countries amount to 10-12 tons per capita in addition to 3 tons per capita from imported embedded emissions, which by itself is more than the total per capita emissions of India at 1.9 tons.  The 4 tons carbon emissions per capita embedded in US imports alone is more than 2 times of India total per capita emissions. China is often blamed for becoming the biggest polluter, yet 26% of all China’s emissions are in embedded emissions from exports.  Yet, nobody is addressing these unsustainable patterns of consumption.

•  Pledges made in Cancun by Annexe 1 countries are actually lower than pledges by non-Annexe 1 countries.  So far, all pledges of Annexe 1 countries add up to 5% to 17% below 1990 levels, which compares poorly to what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expects, i.e., at least between 25 to 40% emissions reductions below 1990 levels are required to keep within 2 degree C temperature rise.

The non-binding pledges in Cancun puts the world on an auto-pilot mode of 3.5 to 5 degree C temperature increase.

Inconvenient Truth #3

The lack of equity in talking about climate emissions reductions is the third issue.

• If the world has to remain bound to a 2 degree temperature rise, then going forward the Annexe 1 countries between 2010 to 2050 must have a negative carbon emissions of 1.5 GtC.  For the 350 GtC total carbon budget to be equitably distributed, richer nations have a climate debt owed to the developing world of  US$ 10 to 13 trillion, depending on the price of carbon.  The developed world does not accept historical responsibility of carbon emitted over the last century to fuel its economic growth. However the common and differentiated responsibility principle which underpins the UNFCCC negotiations is built upon the bedrock of historical responsibility.
• We live in a world with extreme inequality. The top 20% of the world, and some live in India and China too, are today responsible for 85% of private global consumption while the bottom 20% live on less than 1 dollar ppp(purchasing power parity) per day. 40% of the population is below the poverty line in India earning below the threshold of 70 nominal Singapore cents in cities and 55 Singapore cents in villages. This kind of inequality which will lead to greater instability in the world in terms of social and political unrest.

The huge transfer of international funds required to pay for climate debt is as much a question of equity for the bottom 20%.

Inconvenient Truth #4

The final inconvenient truth is that there is very little climate finance being made available to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation.

The scale of funding required is to the tune of more than a trillion dollars, but Cancun’s Green Climate Fund is only for $100 billion.*  The reality is that the developing world is spending a higher and higher portion of its GDP on adaptation and lowering energy intensity e.g., India is spending 2.3 to 2.4% of its GDP on adaptation, though it is doing it for gaining energy security than for climate change.

* At the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December 2009, the proposal was to mobilise US$10 billion per year between 2010 and 2012, and up to US$100 billion by 2020 annually – which represents only 0.8% to 8% of developed countries’ national defence budgets”

Climate finance requires massive resource transfers from the developed to the developing world. The existing multilateral agencies like the World Bank do not have the instruments or capacities for these. According to Prof. Sethi, the World Bank’s net disbursements between 2002 and 2008 were between minus 0.8 billion to minus 4.8 billion without IDA (International Development Association).  With IDA the disbursments were between to minus 2.9 bn to +5.4 bn US dollars. These agencies are at best equipped to do project lending, and not to deliver the scale of funds transfer required for climate finance.

According to Prof. Sethi, unless there is some disruptive technology in the coming decade, the climate change challenge cannot be tackled in time.

What will wake up the world to the climate reality? Prof Michael Quah, Deputy Director, Energy Office at the National University of Singapore who chaired the ISEAS event, quoted the former International Energy Agency director, Nobuo Tanaka who spoke in the CNBC energy opportunities brainstorming session held in Singapore recently. Tanaka had said, half jestingly, that perhaps we need another tsunami, another Katrina, and other similar disasters to rouse the world to action.  Stark as this may sound, it looks as if the world is headed that way, unless collection and drastic action is taken steered by strong global leadership.

The theoretical model and practical framework exists to create solutions with equity and justice, as Prof Sethi acknowledged after the event when I raised the Contraction & Convergence model  by the Global Commons Institute. It is a science based model to allocate emissions reductions to different countries, and also allow for compensation to nations which emit less than their allocations. As far back as 2003, Janos Pasztor (who is now with the Climate Change Task Force), had mentioned as a member of the UNFCCC Secretariat that “Stabilisation inevitably requires ‘Contraction and Convergence” .

The challenge as Prof Sethi pointed out is the lack of political will to agree to the scale of emissions reduction envisaged and large scale transfer of funds to the developing world to deal with mitigation and adaptation.

To conclude, a world that has US levels of consumption can only house 1.4 billion people and not 9 billion people as we are projecting by 2050. Prof Sethi came back to the profound wisdom of Gandhi for what we need for a truly sustainable world:

Gandhi's wisdom

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About the Writer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com. Despite the climate pessimism in this article, she believes individuals and communities can play an active role in changing behaviour, and also in influencing policy decisions as well as industry action required to tackle climate and biodiversity issues. She writes and conducts talks and workshops on sustainability and can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook,Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

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Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: Contraction & Convergence: An Urgent Global Imperative to tackle Climate Change

EWTT: Whither Go Climate Refugees?

EWTT:  Pen Hadow: Melting Arctic Sea Ice and How It Will Affect Asia

EWTT:  Wikileaks: Carving Up the Arctic Sea

EWTT:  Everything you need to know about Climate Change from a Top Hedge Fund Manager

EWTT:  Who cares If Bangalesh drowns?

EWTT:  Climate Challenge: The Voices from Pakistan

EWTT:  Global Corruption Report: Climate Change

EWTT:  Climate Change in Southeast Asia And Why We Can’t Afford Not to Act

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Bada Bagh Farm

The Farm

The lane to Bada Bagh is muddy, accosted by trees, shrubs and sugarcane. The last thing you would expect to find there is a farm. And yet as you walk ahead Bada Bagh startles you with its sudden presence.

Welcome to Bada Bagh. Famed all over Karnataka (a state in southern India) for its flavourful mangoes, the land on which the farm stands today was given to Syed Ghani Khan’s family by the legendary Tipu Sultan himself, who ruled parts of modern Karnataka in the 18^th century.

The farm is now managed by Ghani Khan, a fourth generation descendant. The mangoes come from trees that have a 250 year old history. But there is another reason why Bada Bagh is popular today, thanks to Ghani Khan’s introduction and cultivation of 146 traditional rice varieties including rice strains of different combinations.

Ghani Khan

Journey to Organic Farming and the Search for Traditional seeds :

Ghani, the eldest among the four sons says that it is the quest for alternative seeds and farming practices that brought the family together. The once separated brothers are back and they owe much to the traditional rice strains.

Ghani, like many young farmers initially operated the farm adopting modern agricultural practices with synthetic fertilisers and pesticides.  However, he witnessed rapid deterioration of his once fertile fields. A fellow farmer suggested alternative methods to rejuvenate the soil and with his help Ghani began experimenting with organic composts. The hybrid rice (the IR series) did not respond well to organic composts. This led him to search for a rice variety that would respond to his new cultivation methods.

This proved to be more difficult than he had imagined. Due to widespread hybrid cultivation the region had lost most of the traditional rice varieties. Traditional varieties of sturdy, drought resistant rice distinct to the region that he knew like Rajabhoga, Coimbatursanna, Kadibatha, Bangarusanna, Bangarukaddi and Doddibatha were now rarely being cultivated.

Ghani’s long search for traditional seeds finally bore fruit when he came across ‘Rathnachudi’- a fine variety of rice. He started experimenting with it with success. Motivated by this, he continued to cultivate the variety for about 6 years. Soon he decided to test other varieties of traditional seeds and his search yielded about six paddy varieties. All six varieties proved to be successful. The six became twenty six in the consecutive year and it more than doubled to seventy five in 2008. Today he has as many as 146 varieties.

Ghani says he owes a lot to Sahaja Samrudha (an organic farmers association) for their technical guidance and helping him with his efforts in collecting seeds from different regions. He now has a wide range of varieties from five different states of India. His diverse seed varieties include wetland, dryland, medicinal, aromatic, and irrigated rice.

His farm uses the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) method for irrigation. The SRI method saves a lot of water. The plot has been designed in a way that follows a combination a several principles, like alternate wetting and drying, increased spacing between plants, and transplanting the plants when they are young.

Paddy nearing Harvest

The Need To Preserve Traditional Rice varieties

The main drawback of hybrid seed varieties, says Ghani, is that they are sterile. The traditional seeds on the other hand have evolved over the years and have developed beneficial qualities like resistance to certain pests, and diseases. This makes them hardier and healthier than hybrids. Their  unique features are preserved and each rice variety has a distinct flavour, and come in many different colors, sizes, and shapes.

Ghani and other like minded farmers believe that because the traditional varieties have evolved through the combined process of natural selection and farmer selection, it is superior to hybrid varieties. Traditional crop varieties, from their experience, maintain biodiversity and perform better when exposed to erratic climate changes.  They cite the example that during floods and prolonged droughts the modern high yielding rice varieties and hybrids have shown drastically reduced performance. The farmer often suffers partial or total loss of crops.

Endorsing the farmers’ view Shanta Kumar, Coordinator of ‘Save our Rice’ campaign in Karnataka, says

“For thousands of years farmers have developed and nurtured crop genetic diversity. With their careful insight they select the plants and develop varieties with suitable traits and improve on the existing one. This system of selection and improving on the plant is what has led to an astounding diversity of landracres*, which still exists with some farmers. Though most of the rice diversity has been eroded, there are some farmers, who are working towards reviving and maintaining the rice diversity and Ghani is one among them”  

Prized collection of Paddy

Prized collections

Today Ghani maintains different paddy strains to keep alive the evolutionary processes and to ensure a continual supply of germplasm. He is skilled in the art of seed production and has over the years developed a fine ability to identify the best seeds. He has reserved a portion of his plot for maintaining a seed bank, to preserve them and prevent them from disappearing forever.

Mr. Krishna Prasad, of Sahaja Samrudha says “On-farm conservation of rice diversity is carried out only by farmers who are interested and willing to do so. It cannot be imposed on them. A farmer who conserves ‘inter’ and ‘intra’ species diversity needs to have an understanding as to how, what and why he does it. Organizations can only technically support and provide opportunities for the farmers in continuing their efforts at conserving crop diversity“. He further adds that on-farm conservation of crop diversity is important. This form of managing diversity of crops is easy to implement and links farmers’ economic concerns with conservation. Management for crop diversity can promote on-farm conservation of rice, and potentially other crops too, in a feasible and sustainable way.

Some of the traditional seed varieties in the Farm:

Rajabhog: A weed Suppresser.

Anandi: A high yielding variety.

Jeeriga samba: An aromatic, non lodging and good grain yielding variety.

Parimalasanna: A fine variety appropriate for making festoons.

Govindbhog: Considered to be sacred and used as an offering to God Krishna.  

Sagvad: Used for Poha (beaten rice).

 Maladi: A medicinal rice variety used in bone fracture treatment.

 Raj gudiyapa: A dry land medicinal rice variety used for weakness.

HMT: A farmer developed variety.

Kasubai: A scented variety.

 Other varieties include Chinnaponni, Kempudoddi, Halublu, Rajakayame, Rasakadam,Gamgadale, Burmablack, Kagisali, Ambimohar, Gamsale, Kottayane, Bilinellu, Gandhasale, NMS2, Rajmudi, Gowrisanna, Jeerigesanna, Bilidoddi, , Gambatha, Jeerigesale, Kalakali, Dharisal, Tulasiya, Sheerabathi, Thamadisala, Rathbath, Ratnachudi.”

Roping in other regional farmers 

Ghani’s concern for conservation of biodiversity has got many farmers interested in traditional varieties as a result of which his farm is drawing visitors from villages near and far. His experiment has enthralled scientists and officials, who have applauded his venture and there are talks of naming the farm as a Biodiversity Heritage Centre.

Recently Dr. Narayanagowda, Vice Chancellor, University of Agriculture Sciences, Bangalore visited his farm along with Rice Research station scientists. He praised Ghani for his endeavor and has undertaken the traditional varieties for a scientific characterisation.

India is presently facing a rice crisis due to erosion of its biodiversity and increase of monocropping in agriculture. Reliance on a narrow spectrum of cultivars grown in monoculture have increased pest problems and India being a mega diversity country has a plethora of traditional varieties which are nutritious and have been developed over centuries. The traditional strains are more resistant to drought and could be an answer to the climate change. So saving them is important lest we lose these forever.

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About the Guest Writer: 

Anitha Reddy is a freelance writer and has been documenting and publishing articles in the field of agriculture and biodiversity conservation for over a decade. She collaborated with NGOs and farmers to launch the  ’GM free Karnataka’ campaign to oppose the introduction of GM crops into the state.

She is at present working as a Communication Advisor for Sahaja Samrudha, Bangalore, an organic farmers association which has been carrying out research on the erosion of biodiversity.

She was given the ‘Asia Pacific Rice Journalist Award in 2009 by PAN AP and the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFED).

Photos by Mr. Krishna Prasad.

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* Landacres refers to the particular kinds of old seed strains and varieties that are farmer-selected in areas where local subsistence agriculture has long prevailed. Landraces are highly adapted to specific locales or groups. The term is usually applied to varieties of corn, squash, and beans that were domesticated by native farmers, and further modified by native and also immigrant farmers. Source: Dave’s Garden.com

Further links you may be interested in:

 EWTT: Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi: One Farmer’s Crusade to save Indigenous Seeds

EWTT: Can One Man and One Cow Save Our Planet: Seeding the Real Green Revolution

EWTT:  Organic Farming: Can It Feed the World?

EWTT: State of the World Report 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet

EWTT: Nero’s Guests and Farmer Suicides in India

EWTT: The Source Project

Youtube: System of Rice Intensification – Cambodia 

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“It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in.”

-Wangari Maathai (April 1 1940 – 25 September 2011)

It was with immense sadness that we heard of Wangari Maathai’s demise after a long battle with cancer.

She was a leading environmental activist and became renowned the world over as an advocate for tree planting and a champion for social justice and human rights. She became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.  As founder of the The Green Belt Movement in 1977 which focuses on environmental conservation and community development, she worked relentlessly for the upliftment of women by teaching them their deep relationship with the environment.

Wangari Muta Maathai was born on April 1, 1940 in the village of Ihithe in the Central Highlands of Kenya. She graduated in the University of Pittsburgh as a biologist and returned to Kenya to be the first woman in east and central Africa to get a Ph.D.

While working with African rural women in the 1970s, she learnt first hand about their deteriorating environmental and social conditions, especially their lack of firewood and clean drinking water.  She encouraged them to plant trees, an initiative that would at once solve multiple problems of managing watersheds, improving soil, providing access to firewood and fodder for livestock and making women self-sufficient.

Maathai soon realised that these environmental and social issues were entrenched in the larger political context of corruption and erosion of community values.  She and other pro-democracy advocates fought valiantly with the dictatorial regime of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, who repeatedly harassed her and got her jailed. In December 2002, she was elected Member of Parliament in the country’s first ever democratic elections and later become the Minister of Environment. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

Much has been written about her and the numerous awards and honours she has been bestowed with, including her various involvements such as the United Nations Environment Program’s The Billion Tree Campaign, the target for which is now 14 billion trees.

I’d like to mention one important campaign in 1989 by Wangari Maathai against the construction of a 60 story skyscraper in Uhuru (“Freedom”) Park situated in downtown Nairobi, which is referenced here in the beautiful poem below.  It has been written by a young East African poet, Lorot Salem, on the occasion of  International Women’s Day on 8th March 2011.

You need no introduction, Mama
As lawyers will say, ” We take judicial notice”
For you are not only a household-name in Kenya
But also as far as Tajikistan.

I was at Uhuru Park the other day
And as I lay on green grass and stared at the blue skies
A nudging thought ate my mind:
What if your hair hadn’t been pulled?
What if you hadn’t been whipped and tear-gassed?
What if you hadn’t put your life on the line?

Hongera Mama Wangari Maathai
Thank you for that heroic act.

Oft-times I see you on telly
That broad smile, that motherly head-gear
You talking about our trees, our rivers
And our grandchidren
In you, I don’t see a person
Instead I see a generation of children unborn
In you, I don’t see Kenya
Instead I see our world and its beauty

Sadly, too, Mama
Behind you on the telly I see a shadow
Of an axe felling a forest,  Highrise building on a wet area
Behind you I see a plume of Greenhouse Gases
Behind you I see an Enviro-assassin, most devious
Most vile

But again, Mama, hongera
For fighting for Uhuru Park:
For in that one single act
We escape the concrete jungle
And if Nature be for us, we are on the right path.

In deed, you need no introduction
As the Nairobi morning sun kisses Uhuru Park
As the birds chirp, tired souls sleep on grass
As children row their midget boats
As the tranquility tiptoes to numbed minds
Somehow, your name is immortalized
Hongera Mama Wangari Maathai.

Hongera– A Kiswahili word for thank you, congratulations.
Mama– A Kiswahili word for mum, it is a respected title for a mother.

by Lorot Salem, Echoes of the Hill

Hongera Mama, Wangari Maathai, you will be deeply missed.  We shall never forget your words,
“I will be a hummingbird. I will always do my best.”

Video link here

And we hope that your message and work will be carried on by a new generation of enviornmental champions.

Further links you may be interested in:

1. Trailer of Taking Root, A movie on the vision of Wangari Maathai

Video link here

2.  Planting Ideas Action Guide to spread the Green Belt Movement

3.  Books by Wangari Maathai:

a. The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (2003),

b.  Unbowed (2006),

c. The Challenge for Africa (2008),

d. Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World(2010).

4.  CNN Video: Wangari Maathai Revealed

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Prof. Philip H. Howard, Assistant Professor at Michigan State University has created an interesting infograph on the Structure of the Seed Industry from 1996 to 2008.  Not surprisingly, it shows an oligopolistic industry with a small number of large players such as Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Limagrain-Vilmorin, Land-O’Lakes, KWS and Bayer.

As an example, the top three seed firms control 85% of the transgenic corn patents, and 70% of the non-corn transgenic patents in the US.

See the enlarged version as a pdf here or here below on Zoom.it

In his research article titled, “Visualising Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry: 1996-2008  he outlines how the commercial seed industry has consolidated in the last four decades – from what used to be small, family owned firms to mega transnational chemical or pharmaceutical corporations following waves of mergers and acquistions.

Not only is the trend accelerating, the largest firms are also strengthening the network by cross-licensing transgenic seed traits through various agreements.

Prof.  Howard, who teaches at the University’s Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies, shares 3 broad perspectives that have emerged from this disturbing trend.

1. Removal of barriers to accumulation of capital

Agriculture was traditionally a risky place to seek massive profit because of requirements of land, natural cycles and forces. With the advent of large agribusinesses, money can easily be converted to commodities, just as in a factory (although most of the costs are borne by someone else – such as the environment or people who are exposed to chemicals).

Traditionally seeds have been the biggest barrier to this profit oriented model of capital accumulation, because farmers did not have to buy these inputs year after year.  With hybrid varieties, and now genetically modified ones, there is a strong dependence created on seed companies which at once profit from seeds, and continuing purchases of inputs such as pesticides and fertilisers, and equipment.

2. Agricultural Treadmills

The farmer is constantly running on a treadmill. With increasing costs of inputs, he tries to produce more and more to get the same level of income. But if all farmers produce more, prices come down, and the individual farmer is faced with declining revenues. Some quit the farming profession altogether, which is good for those who want to take over and consolidate smaller farms to bigger ones. Farmers also become heavily dependent on costly inputs rather than being self-sufficient through seed saving, and this is leading to a loss in valuable cultural knowledge.

Photo Courtesy: Prof Philip H. Howard

3. Consolidation of agriculture

The consolidation of firms from very many small family run ones to a few large transnational ones, has led to the concentration of profits in the hands of a few. Concentration of economic power translates to political power, as these seed companies are able to lobby for even greater privileges.

Consolidation is happening a) horizontally along the same stage of the food supply chain, b) vertically by owning both biotech research and develop companies, as well as the companies that deliver these technologies and c) globally across new international markets. International trade agreements have broken down national barriers to entry, and helping these companies make inroads in several developing countries like China, Brazil and India.

How does this affect sustainable agriculture?

This trend is worrying  renewable agriculture prospects because of a number of reasons.

Firstly, while historically farmers used to save and replant for seeds, they are doing so less and less, as they tend to source new seeds from seed companies.

Secondly, more research money is pouring into seeds that can be patented, rather than improving seed varieties for easy replanting that make farmers independent.

And thirdly, it is leading to less seed diversity, because seed companies are acquiring profitable subsidiaries and eliminating unprofitable lines of business.

Developing countries are places of immense agricultural biodiversity, with millions of poor farmers dependent on self-sufficient, low-input, small landholdings based renewable agriculture. A wave of domination by seed companies has to be resisted strongly to make sure that the poorer billion of the world is to be fed without coming into the clutches of large seed firms.

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Further links you may be interested in:

A talk by Vandana Shiva on Seeds:

Video link here
 

1. There are a lot of interesting details on the methodology used to construct the infograph and the research study itself as well as a look at the individual companies outlined earlier. Please read for further information, the document by Prof Howard here.

2. EWTT: Vandana Shiva: Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Living

3. EWTT: UN Report: Ecological Farming Can Feed The World

4. EWTT: Go GM Free in Australia

5. EWTT: Dr Mira Shiva: Health Effects of GM Food

6. EWTT: Lim Li Ching : GMO Free

7. EWTT: State of the World Report 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet

8. EWTT: Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi: One Farmer’s Crusade to save Indigenous Seeds

9. EWTT: Nero’s Guests and Farmer Suicides in India

10. EWTT: The Source Project

11. EWTT: India’s GM bill “Anti-People, Anti-Nature” 

12. EWTT: Better labelling of GM foods in Singapore essential

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Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups native to a land or region. Usually they have a close relation to the land and live in consonance with nature.

They believe that land and people are inseparable and interdependent. It is this aspect of their lifestyle-the intertwining of their lives with their natural surrounding that are a subject of fascination to modern man.  Today at a time when man is moving further away from direct contact with nature, a study of people with a different mindset is not only a subject of fascination but an important learning as well. And this is just what inspired S. Davidson Sargunam, an environmental educationist from India to study the ‘Kaani Tribe’.

In this article he shares with us the work he is doing with ‘Kaani’ tribe: what he is learning from them and about his rehabilitative work.

 Kaani Tribe : A study in environmental ethics

by S. Davidson Sargunam

Growing up in the lush estates of Kerala, South India, where my parents worked, I got an early and wide exposure to forest ecology. My parents taught me how to live safely amidst animals and reptiles in the dense forests. When I was growing up, trekking up the forests became a favourite activity of mine. I liked to explore everything about these forests: animals, birds, reptiles and forest vegetations. My guides during these treks used to be the tribal people living there. So from early on I developed an intimacy with them.

Thus it was only natural for me to take this profession. I had read about the concerns raised by sociologists and folklorists about the disappearance of traditional tribal cultures and the loss of indigenous knowledge and wisdom in several areas especially their strong environmental ethic.

What does ‘environmental ethics’ really mean? Ethics refers to a sense of fairness, of right and wrong, and encompasses virtues such as honesty, compassion and loyalty in a way that benefits society.  Environmental ethics then, relates to the harmony in the relationship between humans and the natural environment. The ethics of sustainability ensures that in a world where individuals have to compete for resources, human beings learn to cooperate with each other and the rest of nature for the mutual wellbeing of all.

Realizing how modernization is affecting the tribes and their lifestyles, I felt there was an urgent need to study and document various aspects of the tribal culture. With this in mind I decided to study the ‘Kaani’ tribe.

The  Kaani Tribe

The Kaani tribe lives in settlements in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in South India. (Kanyakumari and Thirunelveli districts of Tamil Nadu and Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala in the Western Ghats region). They live in areas which are rich repositories of biological diversity, classified as ‘Hot Spots’ which are in remote, inaccessible forests and hilly terrains. They maintain their culture in the deep forests with unique environmental ethics and intrinsic value systems, which are models for others.

Initially I went with forest officials who are known to the tribe. Even though the Kaani people are friendly, they have an unspoken secrecy or veil beyond which they do not let outsiders into their life. Thus while I have known them for over 20 years now, staying with them is still not permitted and also not feasible. So I learnt about them by camping nearby and visiting them during the day and today you can say I am very much one of them: as much as they can allow outsiders to be.

A Kaani Tribesman wearing a hat made from the leaves of areca nut

The first thing one notices about them is how they use the natural resources in forests with minimum destruction. They are nature worshippers and revere the forest and its animate and inanimate inhabitants. They secure their food, fodder, medicines, tools and all other requirements for their sustenance from the forests.

Because of their close relationship with the forests the ‘Kaani’ tribe possesses inherent knowledge about the animals. The Western Ghats is one of the major habitats of the Asian elephant and the forests near Kanyakumari are considered as an elephant corridor. Due to the illegal demand for ivory, elephants often become the victims of poachers.  The Indian government is initiating efforts to save the elephants. The Kaani tribes have an inherent intuition to track elephants. Because of this the Tamil Nadu Forest Department engages the Kaani tribe to track elephants, monitor their habitats, breeding patterns and vigilantly watch their movements.

Bamboo Hut

For their housing needs they make use of the bamboo growing in the forests. They reside in small bamboo huts, where the entire infrastructure is established by bamboo poles, processed bamboo walls with reed or grass roof tops. Of late, however, they have incorporated longer lasting roofing like asbestos sheets. As with most of us, the tribe too like to believe that longer lasting modern housing materials are superior to traditional ones. Yes, asbestos sheets last longer for about 3 or 4 years but are definitely not very healthy.

Sustenance:

They get their food by hunting, harvesting or collecting forest produce and sharing the food among the community. They collect fruits like jackfruit, mango, edible green leaves, mushrooms, tubers, and hunt honey. They cultivate coconut, areca nut, banana, pineapple, and vegetables, mainly tubers. Tapioca used to their staple food but now they finding it impossible to grow them because they are being raided by animals. Deforestation has resulted in less forest sharing space for the tribes and animals.

A bamboo pen for chicken to roost safely at night

The land is fertile, and the people don’t use any artificial fertilizers. They do not use any pest control. Because their gardens are a manageable in size, large scale attacks by pests-the kind that threaten conventional farms covering vast acres of land is rare. For common types of garden pests they use local folk remedies to keep them out. Their main threat comes from increasing attacks by wild animals like elephants, wild boars, porcupines, monkeys, bats, Malabar squirrels and sloth bears. They use preventive methods to keep them away.

The Kaani people cook using fire wood. Cooking is done during evening or night as that is the only free time. Their day starts with Kanji (porridge). They also carry this in a vessel to their work spot. At noon depending on what is available it could be Kanji again or cooked rice or cooked tapioca. The men used to take liquor in the evening- a practice which is coming down due to government efforts.

Main Dish:Tapioca, Side dish:coconut gratings with a wild chilli, and black tea.They use teak leaves instead of plates.

The Government also helps to supplement their food by giving 35kgs of rice per family per year. They eat freshly cooked rice in the evening and put away the remaining rice in cool water to eat as ‘kanji’ the next morning. This practice of soaking cooked rice in water overnight to be consumed the next morning is a common practice throughout Tamil Nadu and a very beneficial food. The water is to prevent decay and also facilitate fermentation. This Kanji is generally eaten on its own in the morning. During noon, lunch it is accompanied by ‘Thuvayal’- ground paste of coconut, salt and chilies. They do not consume milk as they hold the cow sacred and Cow worship is an important aspect of their beliefs. They consume black tea and other herbal concoctions.

Earlier the people had domestic chicken (country breeds), but now many are being hunted by wild cats during night, by mongoose, kites, falcons and snakes during day. So, many have stopped rearing them.

Knowledge of Plants:

Medicinal Plant - Rawulfia species.Used in treatment of hyper tension, in indigenous medicine (Sidha)

The Kaani tribe possess a rich knowledge of Ethnobotany. They treat their diseases by extracting green resources from the forests. Plants are used for food, medicine, divination, building, tools, clothing, and rituals and in social life. They do not share or reveal their inherited traditional knowledge of medicinal system to others, as they believe that by doing so the medicinal formula will lose its efficacy.

Music

Magico-religious healing is an inherent part of the Kaani tribe culture. The community has a form of chanting of songs to the accompaniment of a traditional musical equipment-the ‘kokkarae’. They believe that the chants chase away malevolent spirits responsible for physical illness and ailments. The musical chant is led by the clan physician and usually starts at dusk and ends by dawn. It is repeated by a selected group of tribesmen well-versed in the process of chanting.

Most indigenous groups the world over have their own systems of singing and chanting.

Political system

The tribe adopts an egalitarian value system. No one claims a superior status, nor does the community allot a superior position to any one based on social, economic,cultural and literary criteria.

The tribal community administration is governed by a triumvirate, having a headman named Mootukaani, a secretary called Vizhikaani and a physician named Pilathi. The triumvirate administers the community in decision-making, judgement, punishment, celebrations, rituals and maintains the integrity and cohesion of the community. They solve their own problems, issues and disputes. They do not allow outsiders to interfere in their problem solving nor do they seek their aid. Major decisions are made at the community level.

Conclusion

Harvesting wild mushrooms

I respect the culture of the ‘kaani’ tribe. But at the same time I can see how modernization is affecting them. It is becoming difficult for them to continue their old ways of living. At one time, they lived undisturbed in the forests and had access to the abundant forest resources for food and sustenance. But things are changing now. Due to the rapid decline of the forests and wildlife in the region, there are now strict forest laws in place. Forest laws strictly ban extraction of rare forest produce. The tribals follow the law sincerely. This means they can no longer continue their old ways of hunting down wild animals. So I encourage them to look for alternatives. I introduced mushroom cultivation. Initially they did not agree to grow them because they thought it’s difficult to culitivate mushroom. They believed that mushroom grows only if lightning flashes on full moon or new moon days. When I cultured it in front of them, they were motivated to do the same.

At the same time, I do not wish to glamorise their life. There are now schools nearby but so far they kept away from formal education. I am trying to help them by removing their concerns about ‘education’. Since it is something they have not been exposed to before many have apprehensions about school. Many girls after attaining puberty are made to marry. I am encouraging them to study and delay the marriageable age. Breaking a community tradition is not easy. But through constant efforts, counseling, exposing them to educational institutions in towns, I am motivating them to look for better means of sustenance and a better quality of life. We explain how child marriage affects the health of the girls as well as the babies born to them. The efforts are slowly bearing fruit. One  success story is a girl who pursuing a college degree in botany.

The Kaani tribe is inevitably facing transition, in all aspects of life. The forces of globalization, free trade and the communication revolution have made indelible impacts in their lives. The impact is felt more severely in the younger generation which is not interested in their culture. Consequently, erosion and dilution of traditional ethics and values espoused by their ancestors is observed, and this is why documentation is so important. On the other hand, some influences from the external world can be beneficial to them. When the forces of change are inevitable, they can become better equipped to respond to them.

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About the Author: 

S. Davidson, a student of English literature with a post graduate degree in Education is a man who wears many hats. He has a diploma in mass communication and now doing his MPhil in Folklore. Davidson is deeply passionate about the environment and environmental issues and is involved in a number of activities to create awareness among students, tribes, and the general public. For his work in the field of environment he was awarded the NCERT National Award, in 2000 for ‘Imparting Environmental Awareness by innovative teaching methods’.

He may be contacted at ssdavidson9[at]gmail.com or at 23 Cave Street, Nagercoil-629 001, Tamil Nadu, India

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Lim Li Ching

Lim Li Ching, who is co-author of the book “GMO Free” works with the biosafety and sustainable agriculture programs at Third World Network (TWN),  an international NGO based in Malaysia. TWN covers developmental issues, policy advocacy work, climate change, WTO, Biosafety issues, to advance social justice with a pro-poor agenda. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute .

The book “GMO Free”, a compilation of the studies by the Independent Science Panel comprising prominent scientists in the field, summarises a vast amount of literature and extensive scientific evidence. As the subtitle states, the book, “Exposes the Hazards of Biotechnology to Ensure the Integrity of Our Food Supply”.  Lim Li Ching spoke to us recently and shares her views on various aspects of the GM debate.

EWTT: How did you get interested in studying genetically modified foods and ecological agriculture?

LLC: While I was in school, I was inspired by a cousin who worked for Sahabat Alam Malaysia (Friends of the Earth Malaysia) and was always a ‘green’. I did my first degree in Ecology, then worked with WWF Malaysia on marine conservation issues for several years. My focus then shifted to development issues e.g., poverty alleviation. I then did my MPhil in Development Studies. After graduating I lived in the UK for several years, where I worked for both the Third World Network (TWN) with their biosafety/GM programme and the Institute of Science in Society, one of TWN’s partner organizations.

EWTT: Tell us about the Independent Science Panel whose summary of findings is in your book.

LLC: The Independent Science Panel (ISP) was set up about 8 years ago, at the height of the GM debate in the UK, and chaired by Dr Mae Wan Ho, Director of The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS). ISIS is an independent think tank with the aim of promoting science for public good, independent of commercial or other special interest.

The ISP brought together a team of scientists who had questions about GM safety, and they submitted dossiers and responses to regulators. Their study of existing literature and scientific evidence, basically confirmed concerns over the safety of GMOs, and also established the benefits of various forms of sustainable agriculture. They make a strong case for a worldwide ban on all environmental release of GM crops and to pave the way towards ecological farming methods.

EWTT: Can you elaborate on why the concept of ‘substantial equivalence’ followed by US regulatory authorities, and some other countries is flawed and not universally adopted?

LLC: The concept of susbstantial equivalence is a regulatory one, which claims that a novel food (for example, GM foods) should be considered the same as and as safe as a conventional food if it demonstrates the same characteristics and composition as the conventional food. However this concept has been heavily criticized as being unscientific and not well defined.

One key issue is that US is the leading producer and developer of GM crops. They use the concept to basically take away the need for regulation of GMOs by saying that as they are ‘substantially equivalent’ to their conventional counterparts, they don’t need to come under the regulatory process. The reality however is that apart from US and a few other GM producers, many other countries think that GMOs are different and that they do carry specific risks, and because they move around due to international trade, there has to be some sort of international regulation.

EWTT: What are the international regulations concerning GMOs?

LLC: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety which is under the Convention on Biological Diversity largely regulates the export and import of GMOs between countries, but it also sets the international minimum standards on biosafety, so many countries that are parties to the Protocol like Malaysia for example, have set up their own national laws on GMOs. The basis of laws related to the development, production and research of GMOs and the environmental release of GMOs is that ‘they are different from their conventional counterparts and carry potential risks’ and ‘you can’t just release these organisms into nature without any controls in place.’  They have to undergo an approvals process, for example, if a developer or producer of GMOs wants to export a GMO into a country, it would have to get the prior permission of the country concerned, which will do a risk assessment, and make a decision on whether to accept it or not.

The key here is that if you look at some of the international standards such as the Codex Alimentarius guidelines for food safety assessments for foods containing GMOs, they look at ‘substantial equivalence’ as a starting point. Many countries who have regulations on biosafety say well, substantial equivalence is a starting point, and a comparative way of looking at things, and as we have years and years of experience with conventional foods, so we can question, ‘are there any differences and any particular differences that should be followed up?”

So while there is still a big debate on the safety of GMOs, to me it is settled as we have an international treaty that deals with it which clearly says that GMOs are different, they carry specific risks, and there is a need for regulation.

EWTT: What is the state of biosafety regulation in Asia?

LLC: Worldwide, there are currently 161 parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which came into force in 2003. Singapore is not a party to the Protocol, although it does have some guidelines on the issue. Its attitude towards GMOs are more permissive as compared to other countries in the region.

Malaysia has ratified the Cartagena Protocol and a national law was passed in 2007 on biosafety. The crux, of course, lies in the implementation and enforcement of the law.

As a party to the Protocol, it sets up the process envisaged, so if for example, Monsanto wants to market its products, it has to go through an approvals process, and get the approval of the government. There is basically a risk assessment done through a committee which evaluates the dossiers. As an NGO, we used to sit on the GM advisory committee in Malaysia and we were able to access the technical dossiers and give our comments. The process could be improved and of course there are gaps, but in general at least we have a law that regulates GMOs.

Of course, we can always question whether this committee has the capacity, and have they given due consideration to other impartial opinions? But this is an issue that a lot of countries have had to grapple with, and it is not unique to Malaysia. The fact is that there is at least a law, and you can’t just send GM products to our country. There is some kind of regulatory process, and we have to assess them, and then take a decision of whether to import them.

Asia-Pacific countries which are a party to the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety

Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

NOT a Party: Singapore, Australia, US  (though Australia has mandatory labelling of GM food)

Full list of nations which are parties to the protocol can be found here

“India is a party to the Protocol and has its own laws governing GMOs. It went through this regulatory process where it put on hold the introduction of Bt Brinjal.  Philippines is another party to the Protocol, however it is one country that is actively planting GM crops despite various NGO objections.   In China, they actually have public funds allocated for biosafety research, which many countries don’t have. They have commercialised GM cotton and GM trees, but there is a big debate in China about GM rice. There is concern, and this has taken a lot of time to go through the system as it is a staple food crop and they don’t want to get it wrong. So China has a slightly different situation, as there is public research and not just industry research, so even there is a lot of biotechnology development, there is a bit of a countervailing force.”  (Lim Li Ching)

EWTT: What do the various studies on safety of GMOs for human consumption say?

LLC: When we look at the health studies on GMOs, the recent papers by Domingo and Bordonaba (2011), and Seralini et al. (2011) show that the database on which to make a judgement on safety has been very small. At the same time, there has been a big push for these products leaving us with a situation where regulation is trying to play ‘catch up’, because GMOs are already out there in the environment and food supply chain of many countries whereas the safeguards are not yet in place.

One of the biggest lessons we can learn is that the changes or effects of GMOs we are talking about are likely to take a long time before they manifest. There have been a few studies that point to what we can call ‘early warnings’, that provide some results that need to be looked at in more detail, but you can see the trend that in most studies funded by the GM industry, scientists say, ‘no problem.’ On the other hand, most studies done by truly independent groups are saying, ‘there’s something we need to look at here’.

The problem is that every time a study like this raising doubts on GMOs is published, there’s a lot of backlash, and vilification of the scientists. There’s a lot of criticism and unwillingness to have an honest engagement to really look at the issue and say, ‘this is a problem.’ As scientists, we need to do more research and try and answer these questions, to look at all the things that are being raised now.

This is one issue that very much characterises the GM debate. Though there is still a big scientific debate going on about the concerns regarding GMOs, there is a big push by the industry to release them into the environment.

A literature review on the safety assessment of genetically modified plants
Jose L. Domingo, Jordi Gine Bordonaba
Environment International 37 (2011) 734–742
http://bit.ly/ge44Uu

Abstract
In recent years, there has been a notable concern on the safety of genetically modified (GM) foods/plants, an important and complex area of research, which demands rigorous standards. Diverse groups including consumers and environmental Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) have suggested that all GM foods/plants should be subjected to long-term animal feeding studies before approval for human consumption. In 2000 and 2006, we reviewed the information published in international scientific journals, noting that the number of references concerning human and animal toxicological/health risks studies on GM foods/plants was very limited. The main goal of the present review was to assess the current state-of-the-art regarding the potential adverse effects/safety assessment of GM plants for human consumption.

The number of citations found in databases (PubMed and Scopus) has dramatically increased since 2006. However, new information on products such as potatoes, cucumber, peas or tomatoes, among others was not available. Corn/maize, rice, and soybeans were included in the present review. An equilibrium in the number research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was currently observed. Nevertheless, it should be noted that most of these studies have been conducted by biotechnology companies responsible of commercializing these GM plants. These findings suggest a notable advance in comparison with the lack of studies published in recent years in scientific journals by those companies. All this recent information is herein critically reviewed.

………
Final remarks

In the same line of our previous papers (Domingo, 2000, 2007; Domingo-Roig and Gómez-Arnáiz, 2000), the main purpose of this review-article was to critically revise the published scientific literature on potential toxic effects/health risks of GM plants. It was noticed that the total number of general references on GMOs in general, and GM foods/plants in particular, found in the databases PubMed and Scopus has considerably increased between our 2006 search (Domingo, 2007) and the current one. In spite of this, the number of studies specifically focused on safety assessment of GM plants is still limited. However, it is important to remark that for the first time, a certain equilibrium in the number of research groups suggesting, on the basis of their studies, that a number of varieties of GM products (mainly maize and soybeans) are as safe and nutritious as the respective conventional non-GM plant, and those raising still serious concerns, was observed.

Moreover, it is worth mentioning that most of the studies demonstrating that GM foods are as nutritional and safe as those obtained by conventional breeding, have been performed by biotechnology companies or associates, which are also responsible of commercializing these GM plants. Anyhow, this represents a notable advance in comparison with the lack of studies published in recent years in scientific journals by those companies (Domingo, 2007). The scientific community may finally be able to critically evaluate and discuss all that information, which was not possible until now. Scientists know quite well how different may be the information published in reputed international journals, which has been submitted to peer-review processes, from those general comments/reports not submitted to this selective procedure.

A relatively remarkable finding of the present review is that the published scientific literature between October 2006 (Domingo, 2007) and August 2010 (current review) on edible GM plants, concerns only to three products: corn/maize, soybeans, and rice, rice being comparatively the less abundant. We have not been able to find citations involving investigations on GM potatoes (except a review by Arvanitoyannis et al., 2008), peas, tomatoes, pepper, etc., after October 2006. A summary of experimental studies (October 2006–August 2010) concerning dietary administration of those products to various animal species is shown in Table 1. With respect to corn/maize, various studies have concluded that the transgenic varieties 1507 (MacKenzie et al., 2007), 59122 (Malley et al., 2007; Juberg et al., 2009; He et al., 2008),1507×59122 (Appenzeller et al., 2009a), 98140 (Appenzeller et al., 2009b; McNaughton et al., 2007), Y642 (He et al., 2009), and MON 88017 (Healy et al., 2008) were as safe as conventional quality protein maize. In contrast, Séralini’s group raised concern regarding some commercialized GM maize (NK 603, MON 810 and MON 863) (Séralini et al., 2007, 2009; de Vendômois et al., 2009).

Similarly, scientific controversy is also present in relation to the safety of GM soybeans. While it has been reported that 356043 (Sakamoto et al., 2007) and 305423 (Delaney et al., 2008) soybeans were as safe as conventional non-GM soybeans, some authors are still concerned by the safety of GM soybeans and recommend to investigate the long-term consequences of GM diets and the potential synergistic effects with other products and/or conditions (Malatesta et al., 2008a,b; Cisterna et al., 2008; Magaña-Gómez et al., 2008).

In the period here revised, October 2006–August 2010, a few reviews on health risks of GMfoods/plants have been also published (Dona and Arvanitoyannis, 2009; Magana-Gomez and de la Barca, 2009; Key et al., 2008). In general terms, all these authors agree in remarking that more scientific efforts are clearly necessary in order to build confidence in the evaluation and acceptance of GM foods/plant by both the scientific community and the general public. Especially critical is the recent review by Dona and Arvanitoyannis (2009), who remarked that results of most studies with GM foods would indicate that they may cause some common toxic effects such as hepatic, pancreatic, renal, or reproductive effects, and might alter the hematological, biochemical, and immunologic parameters. These authors also concluded that the use of recombinant GH or its expression in animals should be re-examined since it has been shown that it increases IGF-1 which, in turn, may promote cancer. A harsh response to that review was recently published in the same journal (Rickard, 2010). This is indeed only an example on the controversial debate on GMOs, which remains completely open at all levels.

Finally, we would like to indicate that the review on allergenicity of GM plants has not been included herein. European legislation stipulates that GMOs have to be monitored to identify potential adverse environmental effects (Reuter et al., 2010). The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has recently published a Scientific Opinion regarding assessment of allergenicity of GM plants and microorganisms and derived food and feed (EFSA, 2010). Detailed information on this important issue is available here.

EWTT: One of the studies that pointed to a fundamental flaw in the GM technology itself was Arpad Putzai’s study that raised a lot of debate in the UK in the late 1990s? Do you think the GM technology is based on a flawed theory?

LLC: Though I’m not a geneticist, I can refer you to the work of my co-author Dr Mae Wan Ho who is one. Her book, “Living with the Fluid Genome” really looks at this in detail, and what we are discovering about gene expression. You are correct in saying, that the foundations of genetic engineering is based on One Gene = One Protein = One Trait, a central dogma which has actually been shown not to be true, because we know that one gene can produce many different proteins and many different traits. When scientists sequenced the human genome, they expected to find a lot more genes than they did, and then they realised through processes like alternative gene splicing, that scientists are getting more and more information that shows that this kind of linear thinking doesn’t hold true anymore.

The human body has about 100,000 proteins. It was expected before that each protein would have a corresponding gene. However a report by the Human Genome Project
in 2000 only found about 30,000 genes in the human body – which is roughly the same as mice and not much more than a weed with 26,000 genes.

So when you have so many more proteins per gene, a gene can be found to express itself in many different ways, which is not a deterministic process as was once thought. Dr Mae Wan Ho also explains in her book how environmental factors affect gene expression, so when you slice a gene and insert it into another species, you cannot predetermine with full certainty how it is going to behave.”

EWTT: What are the concerns about horizontal and vertical gene transfer?

LLC: Horizontal gene transfer is gene trasfer between unrelated species and is more common among single-celled organisms such as bacteria. Unintended horizontal gene transfer of GM genes to bacteria is a potential biosafety concern. Some of these concerns are outlined in this publication, ‘Unintended Horizontal Transfer of Recombinant DNA’ by Kaare M. Nielsen and Daniele Daffonchio.

In addition, genetic engineering is forcing different species to share genes that they won’t normally share in nature, for example a moth gene in an apple or a fish gene in strawberries. As we have discussed before, there is no scientific consensus on the safety of such gene transfer, there is still a scientific debate going on, and there are papers which show there are concerns about the health impacts. The question is, whether regulation is sufficient, and that it actually calls for the application of the precautionary principle that we don’t release something into nature, unless we fully understand its implications.

Vertical gene transfer is gene transfer to progeny by sexual reproduction, e.g., pollen flow between the same or related plant species. In the case of GMOs, this could lead to ‘contamination’, whereby genes from GM crops are found in wild relatives, native species, or conventional crops. You may recall the story of Ignacio Capela, a scientist from the University of Berkley who came under very heavy attack by the biotech industry when he found that native species of corn in Mexico had got contaminated by GM corn.

Scientists are concerned about the impact on biodiversity. I can refer you to a paper entitled, ‘Vertical (Trans)gene Flow: Impliations for Crop Diversity and Wild Relatives’ by David Quist  which talks about vertical gene flow and why it’s an issue.

On the commercial side, there’s an issue because if GM genes contaminate non-GM crops, there will be a market rejection, particularly of organically grown crops, where organic standards exclude genetic engineering.

EWTT: How can the public engage in the GM debate?

LLC: Consumer awareness is very important for this whole issue. In Europe for example, the awareness about food safety is quite high – they’ve had the history of the BSE debate (mad cow disease).

Perhaps in Asia the awareness is not that high, though people are becoming increasingly conscious of where their food is coming from, and how it is produced. In the absence of GM labelling, buying organic with 3rd party certification which excludes GMOs, is one way of making the choice.

To learn more about organic labelling, look at the Certified Organic Labelling Guide by Organic.org, and GMO Free Guides that apply to certain countries.   Some of the countries with mandatory labelling of GMOs are EU, Australia, Japan and China. Voluntary labelling is followed by Canada and Hong Kong among others.

The public should be encouraged to find out more about the food they eat, because it affects us fundamentally, and the GM debate is situated within a bigger debate of how our food is produced globally, and how it impacts biodiversity and food security.

There’s a lot of attention these days on agriculture because of high food prices. People in international institutions and development circles are saying we need to invest in agriculture, given the history of not investing in agriculture, despite it being very important for developing countries where it affects a larger proportion of the population. The question is, can we change the way we produce food under the broad umbrella of industrial agriculture of which GM is a part? This has proven to be too resource and energy intensive in terms of chemicals and other inputs. There is also a concern about climate change because of the greenhouse gas emissions from industrial agriculture.

Yes we have produced enough food to feed the poor so far, and of course, people are still hungry which is largely a political, distribution issue. In terms of quantity of food there is enough, but then it has come at a huge cost to the environment and also at a cost to the farmers.

So when people start thinking about where our food comes from, they should not take it for granted, and query the type of production system the world has, and the ones that are dominant of which GM is a subset.

Raising awareness is definitely important, and people are getting to know there are a lot of issues intertwined with this, such as animal welfare, consuming less meat due to climate change and biodiversity and so on. When you look at developing countries where agriculture is so important, so many things come into play such as trade rules, subsidies for agriculture, Official Development Assistance – these are big issues, and integral issues.

So yes, public awareness is critical for the future of the planet.

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About the interviewer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk.com and an anti-GM advocate. She can be contacted at bhavani[at] ecowalkthetalk.com .  Join EWTT on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

**********************************************************************************************************

Further Links you may be interested in:

1. Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change through Ecological Agriculture by Lim Li Ching

2. Overhaul of Agricultural Systems Needed by Lim Li Ching

3. Co-Editor of Book “Biosafety First” Lim Li Ching

4. TWN’s Biosafety website

5. YouTube: Dr Mae Wan Ho video:Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 and Part 4

6. Video: the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety

7. EWTT: Dr Mira Shiva: Health Effects of GM Food

8. EWTT: Safe Food Guide: GMO Free Food

9. EWTT: Dr Vandana Shiva: Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development

10. EU and Institute for Health and Consumer Protection (Pg 6) : GM Policy Status in Selected Countries

11. Study showing “Association of financial or professional conflict of interest to research outcomes on health risks or nutritional assessment studies of genetically modified products”

Photo Courtesy: Corn – EJFoodBlogspot.com

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Until we have a law to prosecute those who destroy the planet, corporations will never be called to account for their crimes

by Polly Higgins

Sophie Scholl, a Munich University student, was executed for revealing the truth about the activities of the Nazi authorities; today 20 brave Ratcliffe whistleblowers have been sentenced at Nottingham crown court for plotting to draw attention to the truth of the activities of another German entity. This time, replace the tyranny of the Nazis with the tyranny of the energy giant E.ON.

Scholl and 20 others stood up and took direct non-violent action. Their crime was the dissemination of leaflets highlighting and decrying the tyranny of the Nazi dictatorship. It was a decision to undertake something unlawful – an act that they believed was a necessity – to halt a greater but unnamed crime, a crime that cost many lives. That crime did not, at the time, have a name. But it soon did: genocide.

The Ratcliffe 20 did the same in April 2009. They too were prepared to stand up and take action. Their crime was planning to shut down Ratcliffe-on-Soar, a coal-powered station that is one of Britain’s largest greenhouse gas emitters. The state was failing to prevent a greater injury from taking place; the loss of life. This time it is not only human life, but all life.

Like Scholl and her fellow activists, the Ratcliffe 20 were motivated to take non-violent direct action. They, along with 124 others, decided to undertake something unlawful: conspiring to close down the offending emitter. It was an act that they believed was a necessity; to halt a greater but unnamed crime, a crime that is already costing many lives.

Their defence was that they were acting to prevent a greater crime, of death and serious injury caused by climate change. We do not currently have a legal crime in place that fits this description but there is one fast looming on the horizon and that crime is ecocide.

Currently there is no law to prosecute those who are destroying the planet. Instead, climate campaigners do not have the support of the judiciary in preventing the corporate ecocide that is daily occurring under our very noses. Ecocide is permitted (as genocide was in Nazi Germany) by the government and, by dint of the global reach of modern-day transnational business, every government in the world. Corporate ecocide has now reached a point where we stand on the brink of collapse of our ecosystems, triggering the death of many millions in the face of human-aggravated cataclysmic tragedies.

Over the passage of time, tyranny revisits. Tyranny is the cruel, unacceptable, or arbitrary use of power that is oblivious to consequence. While the use of coal stations may not be deemed an intentional cruelty, it is certainly an unacceptable use of corporate power. Our governments collude by encouraging excess emissions, contrary to their UN commitment to stabilise “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

Sixty years ago the tyranny was Nazism. Today it is pursuit of profit without moral compass or responsibility. Despite the planned Ratcliffe protests, it is one that the majority of humanity accepts regardless of the known consequences. We look the other way from the daily reports of destruction of our world by those who are in a position of superior responsibility; the master controllers of our fates are those who determine how we live our lives. It is the heads of the top corporations who gamble with the fate of our planet; those who produce and supply our energy are the most culpable of all.

The failure rests with our governments who are unwilling to intervene to make the destruction of our world a crime. Our police are disempowered and our justice system is unable to protect our greater interests when faced with the superior silent right of corporations to cause injury to persons and planet. Those who stand up and speak out are thereby treated as criminals.

Prior to the Ratcliffe trial, the judge ruled: “the defendants must have the opportunity of putting that contention (that the emissions from the power station do pose an immediate threat) before the jury, no doubt backed by expert evidence.” Expert evidence was heard, from James Hansen, the former head of Nasa’s Goddard Institute, on the immediacy of the threat to life caused by escalation of emissions, to MPs who confirmed government inertia. All of which the jury failed to accept. What will it take for that dense sea fog to dissipate and for the truth to be revealed?

Unlike the Ratcliffe 20, Scholl and her co-conspirators were denied the right to defend themselves in their trial. They too were convicted for resorting to unlawful acts, which they believed to be necessary to expose the truth. At the very end of her trial, she spoke out. It is just matter of time, she said, before the true destroyers are put in the dock. The very same can be said today.

About the Writer

Polly Higgins is a barrister, author and international environmental lawyer advocating a different approach to preventing the destruction of our planet.  Instead of our laws protecting the property rights of the few, we can shift to laws that impose responsibilities, duties and obligations for the benefit of the many.

Voted by the Ecologist as one of the “Worlds Top 10 Visionary Thinkers” for her earlier work advancing the Universal Declaration of Planetary Rights, Polly has submitted a second proposal to the United Nations: the Crime of Ecocide.  Ecocide is a 5th Crime Against Peace, yet to be recognised alongside Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes and Crimes of Aggression. Polly was nominated “The Planet’s Lawyer” by the 2010 Performance Awards, has been named one of the top “unreasonable people” in the world by the cult US online magazine Planet Green for refusing to accept the norm and hailed by the Guardian as one of their Green Heroes working for the right kind of environmental change.

In April 2010 Polly submitted a legal proposal to the United Nations to create a 5th Crime Against Peace – that crime is the crime of Ecocide.

Polly Higgins’  websites are: ThisIsEcocide ,  TreesHaveRightsToo ,  WiseWomen and TheLazyEnvironmentalist . She can be followed on Facebook via EcocideIsACrime and on Twitter via @PollyHiggins and @ThisIsEcocide

This article was originally published in The Guardian on 5 January 2011 and has been reprinted with the permission of the writer.

Further links you may be interested in:

1. YouTube: What is Ecocide?

Video series by Polly Higgins outling a “Proposal to the United Nations to make Ecocide a crime, by Polly Higgins, barrister and international environmental lawyer: Ecocide is proposed as the 5th Crime Against Peace to stand alongside Genocide in the International Criminal Court. Ecocide is defined as the “damage, destruction to or loss of ecocsystems…”.

Part 1

Watch remaining parts: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6 (for the summary)

2.  Eradicating Ecocide: Laws and Governance to Prevent the Destruction of our Planet by Polly Higgins

“Eradicating Ecocide highlights the need for enforceable, legally binding mechanisms in national and international law to hold to account perpetrators of long term severe damage to the environment. At this critical juncture in history it is vital that we set global standards of accountability for corporations, in order to put an end to the culture of impunity and double standards that pervade the international legal system. Polly Higgins illustrates how this can be achieved in her invaluable new book.”

BIANCA JAGGER, Founder and Chair of Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, advocate for Crimes Against Present and Future Generations

Read a review of the book on TreeHugger ” The only way are going to truly stop ecocide is to make it a serious crime”

3. Other related links:

TreeHugger: India’s First Environmental Tribunal Opens: ‘Anyone and Everyone Can Bring Cases Before Court’

The Ecologist: COP16 Cancun – Colonialism by the Sea

EWTT: Bolivia Climate Change Conference and The Rights of Mother Earth

Movie : The Corporation and on YouTube

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