After several years of scientific and public debates it is reported that China will not commercialise genetically modified (GM) staple food crops such as rice and wheat for the next 5 to 10 years. The widely read Economic Observer, a financial weekly publication, citing a source close to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) confirmed this move in its 23 September 2011 issue: see Item 1 below.

Photo Courtesy: Cifor.org

This seems to be in line with the increased caution over GM technology that has reached the highest level of the government. At the Fourth International Biosafety Workshop in Beijing in April 2011 co-organised by several Chinese scientific organisations, a senior official of the Ministry of Environment in his opening speech said that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has called for more caution on GMOs.

Uncertainty about the viability of the current GM technology is also raised as a key reason. The Economic Observer states that according to public reports, the GM rice Bt Shanyou 63 can increase yield by 8%. But the source person said that currently the GM seeds bred by domestic experts do not have “yield-increasing genes”. Because the GM crop is pest resistant, the “increased yieldt” is in fact the savings from pesticides cost counted as yield. It should be noted that Shanyou 63 was first developed in 1981 by a team of scientists at the Fujian Provincial Institute of Agricultural Science.

The policy decision not to commercialise GM rice will be reflected in the “Modern agricultural crop seed industry development Plan (2011-2020)” to be released this year. The plan is based on the 18 April report of the State Council (the Cabinet equivalent in China) titled “Views on accelerating the development of modern crop seed industry”. Interestingly, from the Economic Observer article it appears that GM is only briefly mentioned twice.

The exception that is under consideration for commercial planting is GM corn, and according to the Economic Observer article this is driven by the fact that corn imports are increasing rapidly and of the two varieties most widely grown, one variety developed domestically (not GM) may be facing new pests after several years of “peaking” in its production. GM corn and soya are currently imported for livestock feed and food processing but not approved for commercial cultivation.

When production safety certificates were given in November 2009 for two GM rice varieties and one GM corn variety it triggered heated discussion and debate within the scientific community and the public on the environmental and human safety of GM crops and products. The biosafety assessment itself had taken more than 5 years with rice being the most sensitive as it is the country’s main staple food.  Each safety production certification is usually geographically circumscribed (China has 28 provinces and autonomous regions, and 4 metropolitan areas as well as 2 Special Administrative Regions) and not for the entire country. So for example, the GM rice certificate was for one province only.

However such certification does not mean that commercial cultivation is allowed. This is reiterated in the Global Times article of 30 September below that stated, “A spokesperson with the MOA’s GM product safety department told the People’s Daily in 2010 that just because GM products have received a safety certificate does not mean they can be commercialized, and strict regional and production tests are obligatory before products reach the public.” (see Item 2 below and TWN Biosafety Info Service of 21 January 2010: GE rice in China: A step closer to commercialization?  )

Meanwhile, Chen Xiaohua, a deputy MOA minister in a Global Times report of 30 September pledged to ensure safety of GM crops amid scientists’ appeals for caution in commercializing such products (see Item 2 below).

The same report quoted Yuan Longping, a famous agricultural scientist in China known as the “father of hybrid rice,” who has repeatedly urged the government to proceed cautiously with any move to commercialize GM crops. “One of the major features of GM crops is their ability to resist insects, but even scientists do not know whether such an ability in these crops will have any effect on human beings,” Yuan told Nanfang Daily on 29 September.

Xue Dayuan of the Nanjing Research Institute of Environmental Sciences and chief biodiversity scientist of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, told the Global Times that authorities need to set up effective risk-evaluation and management mechanisms before commercializing GM products as some GM seeds are already circulating in the country, stressing that more more needs to be done in terms of supervision and management of GM technology.

The State Council’s April report cited in the Economic Observer article emphasizes the need to further standardize GM agricultural crop safety evaluation.

The government’s move to suspend commercialisation of major GM staple food crops has been reported widely and is welcomed by various groups in China. Greenpeace Food and Agriculture campaigner Pan Wenjing said that, “This step is a milestone in the process to end all GE (genetically engineered) rice commercialization in China” adding that genetically engineered crops’ long-term risks on human health and the environmental are still unknown. Pan said that it has also been found that many of the GE rice lines in China are embedded with non-Chinese patents, which poses a huge risk on China’s food security should they become commercialized.

In its press release on 25 September Greenpeace called on the government to re-assess its GE policy and its massive GE investments, and instead invest more resources into modern ecological agriculture and other effective technologies. The goal should be to speed up the transition of China’s agriculture to a sustainable, ecological model, for the sake of protecting the environment, ensuring food safety, and securing the economic livelihood of farmers.

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About the writer:

Chee Yoke Ling is a legal advisor to Third World Network, and coordinates the environmental programme of TWN. She received her LLB from the University of Malaya (Malaysia)and an LLM from Cambridge University (UK). After teaching public interest law courses at the University of Malaya, she went into full-time NGO work in 1989. She is actively involved in research and advocacy related to biotechnology and biosafety, intellectual property rights and community rights. She is also a consultant to the Malaysian Government on issues related to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.

This article appeared today in the Biosafety Information Service of Third World Network

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Item 1

The report below is a rough translation of the 23 September 2011 issue of the Economic Observer, a widely read financial weekly publication in China.

Commercialization of genetically modified staple food: not to proceed for 5 years except for corn

by Jiang Yunzhang

A source close to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), told the Economic Observer  that the government will not promote the commercialization of genetically modified rice and wheat for five to ten years.  A “Modern agricultural crop seed industry development plan (2011-2020)” to be released this year already reflects such a policy orientation.

The source said that there are two reasons for this delay in commercialization of genetically modified (GM) staple food crops: one is that there has been a lot of questioning about the safety of genetic modification from various sides; the other is based on the judgement that currently in China, GM staple food crop-related research, promotion, regulations, even later-stage business operation,etc. are not yet mature.

However, the same source also revealed that due to the drastic increase of demand for corn, putting pressure on national researves, corn breeding technology will be at a historical turning point. In the next 5-10 years, GM corn commercilization may be pushed forward when appropriate.

On 18 April the State Council released a report titled “Views on accelerating the development of modern crop seed industry”. In this report GM was mentioned only in two places in a brief manner: one is on the need to “push forward the implementation of the major project on cultivation of GM new varieties”; the other is to emphasize the need to further standardize “GM agricultural crop safety evaluation and cross-regional introduction of different varieties’ seeds.”

(Note: Approvals for planting under China’s regulatory framework are given for specific provinces and not nation-wide. See also the article below from Global Times: “Ministry seeks to ease GM food safety fears.)

Ma Shuping, deputy director of the MOA division on cultivation, publicly said that according to the requirements made by the State Council Report on the principles and orientation of the development of China’s seed industry, MOA will formulate and improve various policy documents related to future seed industry development, among which the most important one is to formulate a “modern agriculutral crop seed industry development plan (2011-2020)”. She furthered said that the Plan is the concretization and detailing of the State Council Report. In the plan, MOA will propose the main tasks and goals in the next 10 years of development of the the seed industry according to crop, variety, and region.

The Economic Observer learnt that since last year, MOA has been organizing experts to formulate the Plan. Now after many rounds of consultations and modifications, the Plan is basically finalized, and will be released within this year. The previously-mentioned source person close to the senior levels of MOA said to the Economic Observer, that the Plan proposes the main tasks and goals in the next 10 years’ development of the seed industry according to crop, variety, and region, but GM rice, wheat, corn, soybean,and other grain crops are NOT included.

This source person said domestically some experts have been involved in numerous controversies of the GM rice and corn varieties that received MOA biosafety certifcates in 2009. The focus of the controversy is that, many experts think these two GM rice and corn varieties have shortcomings with respect to breeding technology innovation based on which domestic companies will find great difficulty in coming up with commercially-viable GM rice and corn varieties within 5 years.

In the seminar on GM agricultural crops commercialization held by the State Council in May, breeding expert Tongpinya of the China Agricultural Science Insitute pointed out that Bt Shanyou 63, developed by Prof. Zhangqifa of  Huazhong Agricultural University is simply the “retired” variety (non-GM) Shanyou 63 injected with a pest resistant gene.

According to some sources, Shanyou 63 (a hybrid rice variety) was developed by the team led by breeding expert Xie HuaAn in Fujian Provincial Institute of Agricultual Science in 1981, and received national awards. A few years ago Shanyou 63 was entirely retired from the market.

According to public reports, Bt Shanyou 63 can increase yield by 8%. But this source person said that currently the GM seeds bred by domestic experts do not have “yield-increasing genes”. Because the GM crop is pest resistant, the “increased yield” is in fact the savings from pesticides cost counted as yield.

According to the predictions of agriculural departments, in the next 10 years and even longer, China’s rice, wheat and corn production will steadily increase. Demand for rice and wheat  is gradually decreasing but due to consumers’ demand for meat/egg/milk, demand for corn is getting higher. Officials in the field of agriculutral regulations have worries that in the future years Chinese corn will follow the example of soya bean.

(Note: The increase of soya bean imports is a matter of concern in the country.)?

~ According to statistics from the China Grain and Oil Information Centre, last year on soya bean, China’s reliance for imports was 78%. Also last year China became a net importer of corn, after years of being a net exporter. Since corn is a staple food in many countries, China’s imports have cause for alarm around the world.

~ According to the “National 12th five-year plan of the development of cultivation industry” that MOA released on 20 September, China must reach 100% self-sufficiency in rice, wheat and corn — the 3 main staple food crops. Most people working in the industry believe that the target is attainable for rice and wheat, but that self-sufficiency in corn will be very difficult to achieve.

Senior analyst JIaoshanwei from China Grain net (www.cngrain.com) said there are only two ways to acheive self-sufficiency of corn. One way is to greatly increase planted area, and secondly is to increase yield. The possibily of the first option basically can be ruled out judging from the realistic situation currently in the country. In the short term the possibility of breeding and promoting high-yield corn variety is also slim.

According to the Economic Observer’s investigation, currently the two corn varieties that are planted the most in the country are “Zhendan 958″ and “Xianyu 335″.  Zhendan 958 was developed by domestic experts in the 1990s. Xianyu 335 is the variety promoted in China by Dupont in 2004. Many breeding experts estimate that after many years of “peaking”, Zhendan 958 might very possibly suffer from new pests and thus be “retired” from the market rather early. By then domestic corn production can only rely on Xianyu 335. This lack of diversity for domestically-bred quality corn variety forms a significant threat to China’s future grain security.

~ The source person also said there is another realistic reason for GM corn commercialization to be possibly pushed foward rather fast as it is  different from rice and wheat, GM corn is mostly used as animal feed or primary material for food products, and very little is consumed directly by humans. Thus the government would face little obstruction when pushing the commercilization of GM corn.

~The source person also said that relevant parties will further strengthen research on GM corn technology, to come up with better GM corn varieties as soon as possible.

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Item 2

Ministry seeks to ease GM food safety fears

By Liu Linlin (Global Times, China)

30 September 2011

The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) on Thursday pledged to ensure safety of genetically modified (GM) crops amid scientists’ appeals for caution in commercializing such products.

“We will develop GM technologies in strict accordance with relevant regulations and ensure the safety of GM products,” Chen Xiaohua, a deputy MOA minister, told reporters on Thursday responding to questions on the import of GM corn from the US.

“China will continue its development of GM crops because this is an important strategic move for the whole nation,” Chen said, adding that the ministry is drawing up plans to expand corn production to meet increasing domestic demand.

According to caixin.cn, China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation imported 61,000 tons of GM corn in July 2010.

In November 2009, the MOA issued a production safety certificate to two varieties of GM rice and one of GM corn, the first such case in the country. The move sparked long-running debates about the safety of GM foods and their impact on the environment.

The three main issues surrounding GM foods according to the World Health Organization are their potential for provoking allergic reactions, transferring harmful genes to the human body and crossbreeding with other plants.

Yuan Longping, a famous agricultural scientist known as the “father of hybrid rice,” has repeatedly urged the government to proceed cautiously with any move to commercialize GM crops.

“One of the major features of GM crops is their ability to resist insects, but even scientists do not know whether such an ability in these crops will have any effect on human beings,” the Nanfang Daily quoted Yuan as saying on Thursday.

“So far scientists have only conducted tests on animals, which does not rule out risks for humans in the long term,” he said, adding that crops that have been genetically modified to increase production might be safe.

However, Gu Xiulin, a professor with Yunnan University of Finance and Economics who studies the impact of GM crops, noted that aside from health concerns GM foods may not even help increase production.

“Western studies found that in some cases, insects and weeds became resistant to GM crops’ ability to kill them, thus affecting production. There are also reports that GM foods could cause infertility in humans,” Gu said.

“More alarming is that some GM foods or other commodities made from GM products have already reached the domestic market. For example, about 20 percent of corn grown in China is genetically modified,” Gu said, adding that the government should adopt a more vigilant attitude toward the technology.

A spokesperson with the MOA’s GM product safety department told the People’s Daily in 2010 that just because GM products have received a safety certificate does not mean they can be commercialized, and strict regional and production tests are obligatory before products reach the public.

The GM organisms, also known as ‘transgenic’ organisms, were developed in the 1970s. At present, genetically modified crops are grown on 134 million hectares of land worldwide.

US farmers adopted genetically engineered crops widely since their commercial introduction in 1996, notwithstanding uncertainty about consumer acceptance and economic and environmental impacts, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement.

Currently, commercialized GM crops in the US include soy, cotton, canola, corn, Hawaiian papaya, zucchini and yellow squash, and sugar beets.

In Canada, four GM crops are under cultivation: corn, canola, soy and white sugar beet. The EU is much more cautious about the technology and has issued a series of bans on such products, the latest of which banned GM-tainted food from general sale earlier this month.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine reported in 2009 that several animal studies indicated serious health risks associated with GM foods, including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.

The academy asked physicians to advise patients to avoid GM foods.

Xue Dayuan, an expert on transgenosis at the Nanjing Research Institute of Environmental Sciences, told the Global Times that authorities need to set up effective risk-evaluation and management mechanisms before commercializing GM products as some GM seeds are already circulating in the country.

“It is true that the GM technology is crucial for China’s agricultural development, but compared with advances in the technology, more needs to be done in terms of supervision and management,” Xue said.

Citing an MOA insider, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported that authorities would slow down its GM crops development over the next decade, especially for GM rice, wheat and soybeans, but corn might be an exception.

(Zhu Shanshan contributed to this story.)

Further Links You May Be Interested In:

EWTT:  Lim Li Ching: GMO Free
EWTT:  India’s GM Bill: Anti-people, Anti-nature
EWTT: Go GM Free in Australia
EWTT:  Better labelling of GM Food in Singapore essential
EWTT: Dr Vandana Shiva: Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development
EWTT: Dr Mira Shiva: Health Effects of GM Food

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Members of an indigenous tribe in Borneo lost a case in Malaysia’s top court Thursday challenging the state’s seizure of land to build a massive dam.

The verdict capped a decade-long legal struggle by a group of villagers who claim authorities in Malaysia’s eastern Sarawak state unlawfully wrested away land occupied by their ancestors for generations.

Land rights are a key concern for Malaysia’s indigenous people, many of whom say they have been pushed from their homes with insufficient compensation by state governments to make way for development.

The Federal Court dismissed an appeal by tribal villagers who said the Sarawak administration violated their constitutional rights by taking over land in the late 1990s to construct the Bakun Dam, a 7 billion ringgit ($2.3 billion) hydroelectric project that created reservoir roughly the size of Singapore.

Read more here

“The Bakun Dam triggered wide criticism from the start from environmentalists because it displaced thousands of people and flooded an area of at least 260 square miles (680 square kilometers) ” according to Seattle Times.

Sarawak Report.org, a citizen onlooker group, concerned by the situation in East Malaysia had earlier reported on sloppy construction practices. 

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Ria Tan, who has been writing about marine biodiversity in Singapore for many years, shares her thoughts and  feelings here about this terrible oil spill reaching Chek Jawa, a marine reserve and wetland on the offshore Singapore island of Pulau Ubin.  The mudflats of Pulau Ubin have several different ecosystems, and plants and animal species that are no longer found in mainland Singapore. Despite this, Ria offers a message of hope, and that each one of us can help in some way.

Oil spill reaches Chek Jawa, Pulau Ubin, Singapore Photo: Hang Chong

A sense of deep helpless outrage is what I feel as the oil spill affects the marinelife on our shores. I just heard that the spill has hit Chek Jawa as well as Changi beach between Carpark 6 and Carpark 7.

It’s impossible to save all the creatures. What should a shore lover do about the situation?

It is wonderful to see large numbers of volunteers wanting to do something about the situation.

Hermit Crab mired in oil Photo: Ria Tan

But ‘cleaning’ sea creatures is almost impossible to do without stressing them. And once the oil clogs gills, the animals are probably doomed even if the oil is cleaned off externally. And if we want to ‘clean’ marine life, we need to use seawater. Freshwater kills marine life, in fact the mass deaths at Chek Jawa in 2007 was probably due to high freshwater input due to long and heavy rains in Johor.

The most beautiful and delicate of marine creatures are impossible to wash or relocate quickly: hard corals, sea anemones, sea fans. Some animals that don’t seem worthy of ‘saving’ such as worms, are actually among the important elements of the shore ecosystem, forming the base of the food chain. 

Peanut worms writhing or dead on the sand Photo: Ria Tan

So what is a shore lover to do?

In my opinion, we should document as much as we can. Focusing not just on the distress and death to marine life, but also the amazing diversity life on our shores (from worms to fishes, corals to seagrass) and how the spill is affecting them.

Share the photos and observations as widely as possible, and quickly.

In this way, perhaps more people will realise the following:

• That we do have wonderful marine life, even in unlikely places such as reclaimed shores and man-made seawalls.
• That these shores are precious and we should care for them.
• While we may be helpless in the face of the oil spill, there are MANY other threats to our shores that we CAN manage. We need to control such threats to make sure our shores are in the best of health, so that they can better survive incidents such as the oil spills.

• Existing threats include: litter than poison and kill our marine life. Abandoned driftnets and fish traps that perpetually kill until they are removed from the shore. Sedimentation that affects water quality and thus the health of our marine animals. Thoughtless construction and works on our shores. Uncontrolled collection of marine life on our shores. Careless recreational use of our shores. More about threats to our marine life.

Hopefully also, more people will realise:

• We need to protect more shores so that if some shores are hurt, other shores can act as a source of new animals which can settle on and eventually restore the damaged shores.
• We need to learn more about our shores. The more we know, the better we can care for them.

What other ways can we help?

National Parks Board staff and volunteers clean up Photo: Hang Chong

Besides documenting and sharing your photos and stories of the impact of the oil spill, I feel we can help by going down to sites that may be but are not yet affected. Keep an eye out for first signs of oil or distressed marine life. Alert the authorities if you do spot oil.

From NEA media release, 26 May, also on wildsingapore news:

Members of the public … can contact our 24-hour call centre at 1800-CALL NEA (2255632) , email: Contact_NEA@nea.gov.sg

I’m rather concussed from predawn low tide trips, so I’m not very eloquent in this post.

If you have other and better ideas about how we can make a long term difference for our shores and make the best of out this situation, please do leave a comment.

Thank you!

The Animals Concerns Research and Education Society(ACRES) is appealing for volunteers to help them.  Those interested can call the ACRES hotline at 9783-7782.  Volunteers are to bring containers to place the animals, trash bags and to wear boots.

Further links you may be interested in:

Latest information on the spill being posted on the Facebook Page : Singapore Changi East Oil Spill (25 May 2010)

Crude realities: Oil spill victims of Tanah Merah   Ria Tan shows photographs of the affected marine life at Tanah Merah, Changi.

Oil spill on Chek Jawa. What’s the impact?

While the scale of the pollution was ‘minor’, he (Prof. Ng, Director, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research) cautioned that any amount could upset the fragile ecosystem in Chek Jawa.

With most of the oil patches along the wetlands cleaned up yesterday evening, he said the next step will be to monitor the long- term effects of the pollution. As this is the first major pollution in the area, it is unclear how the ecosystem there will react.

What is being done about the oil spill: 29th May

At East Coast Park, the oil-slicked sand had been largely cleared from the 7.2km of shoreline covered earlier this week. The 19.6 tonnes of contaminated sand that was shovelled up was sent to the Semakau landfill site.
Beyond the conventional methods, MPA experimented with imbiber beads which are usually used by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) to clean up chemical spills on land. Imbiber beads are spherical plastic particles that absorb organic liquids. MPA said results have been encouraging and with support from SCDF, it is deploying more imbiber beads to supplement other efforts.

What is being done about the oil spill: 28th May

“The oil slick has hit Chek Jawa today at about 2pm, and Changi Beach between car parks 6 and 7. Some 700 metres are affected.

Oil has also hit Johor shores. A 1,600-metre long and 960-metre wide slick, was also 960 metres off Tanjung Ayam in Pengerang, Johor yesterday. By today, some of the oil that had turned into tar balls has also reached the shores of Tanjung Ayam and has spread further to Teluk Ramunia.”

What is being done about the oil spill: 27th May

“Out at sea, efforts were ramped up to clean up the initial 4 sq km area of oil slick from spreading inland. As part of the containment efforts, some 19 craft and 120 personnel used bio-degradable dispersants to break up the oil slick into smaller globules and some 3,300 metres of containment booms used to contain the spill.”

What is being done about the oil spill: 25th May

“The MT Bunga Kelana 3 spilled 2,500 metric tons of crude oil after a collision with the bulk carrier MV Waily at 6:03 a.m. today in the Singapore Strait, 13 kilometers southeast of Changi East, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement. That’s equivalent to three days of leakage from BP Plc’s damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico.”

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According to Greenpeace International’s Press release:

Pat Venditti, Greenpeace International Forest Campaign Head said “We are delighted that Nestlé plans to give orang-utans a break and we call on other international retailers, such as Carrefour and Wal-mart, to do the same. Since the beginning of our campaign, hundreds of thousands of people have contacted Nestlé  to say that they will not buy products linked to rainforest destruction.”

Under its new policy, Nestlé commits to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage ‘high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation’. This exclusion would apply to companies such as Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s most notorious palm oil and pulp and paper supplier,if it fails to meet the criteria set out in the policy. It also has implications for palm oil traders, such as Cargill, which continue to buy from Sinar Mas.

“Nestlé’s move sends a clear message to Sinar Mas and to the rest of the palm oil and paper industries that rainforest destruction is not acceptable in the global marketplace. They need to clean up their act and move to implement a moratorium on rainforest destruction and full peatland protection. Greenpeace will closely monitor and push for the rapid implementation of Nestlé’s plan,” said Venditti.

Global demand for both palm oil and paper is increasing, with the Sinar Mas corporation expanding into Indonesia’s forests and peatlands. As a result, the country has one of the fastest rates of forest destruction on the planet and is the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter, after China and the United States.  Palm oil is used in a huge range of products – from chocolate, toothpaste and cosmetics to so-called ‘climate friendly’ biofuels.

As the note also said, “Sinar Mas has a long history of breaking its environmental promises, both in the palm oil and the pulp and paper sectors. It currently has 406,000 hectares of oil palm plantations and plans to develop another 1.3 million hectares for plantations in Papua and Kalimantan.”

Rainforests are one of the most rapidly disappearing ecosystems in the world. South East Asian rainforests are home to many endangered species, such as the Sumatran rhinoceros and the orangutans which are found in pockets of Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia.

According to Mongabay, “ Indonesia is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world due largely to deforestation. Between 1990 and 2005, Indonesia lost more than 28 million hectares of forest, including 21.7 hectares of virgin forest. The country’s forest cover has declined from 82 percent in the 1960s to less than fifty percent today.”

Greenpeace’s campaign success shows what new media is capable of. It started off with this YouTube video showing Nestlé’s use of palm oil in its products and its contribution to rainforest deforestation. Nestlé removed this for copyright infringement for use of its logo, and that’s when it all boomeranged.

The campaign went viral on facebook and twitter, with Nestlé’s facebook page turning quite nasty due to an explosion of user comments. To make matters worse, Nestlé’s facebook administrators handled the situation quite tactlessly in their replies. It was a PR fiasco for Nestle.

All this goes to show that with social media tools and online campaigns, concerned consumers can indeed make a dent on even the biggest of multinationals to make them improve their environmental behaviour.

Photo courtesy: Orangutan : Marina & Enrique on Flickr

Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: How to find Hidden Palm Oil in Supermarkets

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

EWTT: Social Media and Climate Change Activism

Mongabay: A new world? Social media protest against Nestle may have long standing ramifications

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by Ria Tan

The report card on global biodiversity is out. And the results are not good. But there is still hope.

What is the Global Biodiversity Outlook?
It is a report based on scientific assessments, national reports submitted by governments and a study on future scenarios for biodiversity. It is produced by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and subject to an extensive independent scientific review process. The publication of this the third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) is one of the principal milestones of the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity.

What are some of the findings?
The report confirms that the world has failed to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. In particular, the report warns that losses may be irreversible if they reach “tipping points” such as:

• Dieback of large areas of the Amazon forest, due to climate change, deforestation and fires. Resulting in further global climate and regional rainfall changes and widespread species extinctions.
• Multiple collapses of coral reef ecosystems, due to a combination of ocean acidification, warmer water leading to bleaching, overfishing and nutrient pollution. Impacting hundreds of millions of species directly dependent on coral reefs.

How big is the problem?
Here’s some charts from the report to give a quick idea of the monumental size of the issues:

From Global Biodiversity Outlook 3: Executive summary (pdf)

Most indicators of the state of biodiversity show negative trends, with no significant reduction in the rate of decline.
There is no evidence of a slowing in the increase of pressures upon biodiversity, based on the trend shown by indicators of humanity’s ecological footprint, nitrogen deposition, alien species introductions, overexploited fish stocks and the impact of climate change on biodiversity.
The limited indicators of the benefits derived by humans from biodiversity also show negative trends.
In contrast, all indicators of the responses to address biodiversity loss are moving in a positive direction. More areas are being protected for biodiversity, more policies and laws are being introduced to avoid damage from invasive alien species, and more money is being spent in support of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its objectives.
The overall message from these indicators is that despite the many efforts taken around the world to conserve biodiversity and use it sustainably, responses so far have not been adequate to address the scale of biodiversity loss or reduce the pressures.

From “State of Biodiversity in Asia and the Pacific” (pdf)

Figure I. Threatened plant and animal species, Asia and the Pacific, 2008 (Statistics Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific)
Figure II. Ratio of protected terrestrial areas to surface area, 1990–2008 (Statistics Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific)
Figure III. Ratio of protected marine areas to territorial water, 1990–2008 (Statistics Division, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific)

Are there any solutions?
Among the key recommended approaches is for policymakers to give equal priority to biodiversity loss and climate change. The two challenges are linked and must be dealt with in close co-ordination, if the most severe impacts of each are to be avoided. Conserving biodiversity and ecosystems can help to store more carbon, reducing further build-up of greenhouse gases; and people will be better able to adapt to unavoidable climate change if ecosystems are more resilient.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme says:

“Many economies remain blind to the huge value of the diversity of animals, plants and other life-forms and their role in healthy and functioning ecosystems from forests and freshwaters to soils, oceans and even the atmosphere,”

“Many countries are beginning to factor natural capital into some areas of economic and social life with important returns, but this needs rapid and sustained scaling-up.”

“Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world: the truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050.”

In outlining a possible new strategy for reducing biodiversity loss, the report includes addressing patterns of consumption, the impacts of increased trade and demographic change. Ending harmful subsidies would also be an important step.

The report and a new Strategic Plan for the Convention on Biological Diversity will be dealt with at the 2010 Nagoya Biodiversity Summit to be held in October. One of the key elements of this strategy is:

Communication, education and awareness-raising to ensure that as far as possible, everyone understands the value of biodiversity and what steps they can take to protect it, including through changes in personal consumption and behavior.

This article is by our Guest Writer  Ria Tan. Ria is an accomplished Nature Guide in Singapore and has diligently documented the precious biodiversity in and around the Singapore Islands.  She is co-author of “Chek Jawa Guidebook” on the 400 or so marine species of Chek Jawa, Pulau Ubin, an offshore island of Singapore.  She maintains a prolific blog for environment news at WildSingapore .  More about Ria here.   Contact her at hello@wildsingapore.com

Further links you may be interested in:

You CAN make a difference for our biodiversity!
Here’s more on what one person can do.

• More media reports on the Global Biodiversity Outlook report on wildsingapore news.
• The Global Biodiversity Outlook can be downloaded from the UNEP site.
• Global Biodiversity Outlook and our shores on wild shores of singapore. 
• UNEP: New Database Brings Together Vital Data on Biodiversity to Climate Change Covering 70,000 Islands

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Published in the journal Science, the study confirms what conservationists have known for several years.

Researchers looked at 31 indicators of how species and ecosystems are changing. With global data covering the period 1970 to 2005. Covering plants and animals from land and sea.

Very few of the indicators gave any hint that biodiversity loss was decreasing at all.

Instead, the study found that “since 1970, we have reduced animal populations by 30%, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20% and the coverage of living corals by 40%”.

It also found that the risk of a species going extinct has accelerated, and pressures on biodiversity have increased over recent decades.

Pressures on biodiversity include human consumption; alien species invasions; over-fishing, and impacts from climate change.

Although nations have put in place some significant policies to slow biodiversity declines, these have been woefully inadequate, and the gap between the pressures on biodiversity and the responses is getting ever wider. While about 12% of land is now under some kind of protection, not all of it is effectively managed. Less than 1% of the world’s oceans is protected.

“These losses are clearly unsustainable, since biodiversity makes a key contribution to human well-being and sustainable development”.

“We can no longer use the excuse that we don’t know enough about the loss of diversity of life on our planet,” says the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“The role of governments is paramount; but the magnitude and rate of loss of biodiversity means that everyone, from individuals to businesses, must act now to save all life on Earth before we reach breaking point.”

Governments will review their failure to meet the 2010 target, and probably set new ones, at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) summit in Nagoya, Japan, in October.

New targets are likely to be directed at stemming the threats to biodiversity, such as unsustainable agriculture, pollution and the growing scale of cities and transport networks.

You CAN make a difference! Here’s how. (Celebrate Singapore’s Biodiversity link)

This article is written by Ria Tan from Wild Singapore and reproduced with permission. Click here for  Full media articles  from WildSingapore News.

Other links you may be interested in:

Guardian: UN Report warns of economic impact of Biodiversity loss

Mongabay: World Failing on Every Environmental Issue

EWTT:

Is Your Coffee Table worth it?
What Ancient Civilisations teach the Modern World about Sustainability?
Loss of Biodiversity: Why are we losing so many species?
Loss of Biodiversity: How can we help preserve biodiversity?

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Read the full Stanford University article here, which also quotes the National Research Council as reporting that:

the ocean’s chemistry is changing faster than it has in hundreds of thousands of years, because carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere and absorbed into the oceans, making them more acidic. Studies have shown increased ocean acidity decreases photosynthesis, nutrient absorption, growth and reproduction of marine organisms.

 
It’s also of increasing concern that due to the soaring acidity in oceans, they are no longer able to absorb human induced carbon emissions as fast as before, according to the report in Nature  in November 2009. The current rate of ocean acidification is up to 10 times faster than 55 million years ago  which was the last time the deep oceans became so acidic.

According to a Time magazine article:

A new study by the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey estimated that emissions have jumped 29% since 2000. The Nature study found that over the same period, the proportion of fossil-fuel emissions absorbed by the oceans has fallen by as much as 10%. Though it’s not clear why, the fact seems to be that the oceans’ absorption ability can’t keep up with the rate at which we’re burning fossil fuels. That’s troubling because even under the most optimistic projections, man-made carbon emissions aren’t likely to decline for years. “There’s a physical limit to how rapidly the oceans can absorb CO2,” says Khatiwala. “The ocean becomes a less efficient sink.”

Last year NRDC (National Resource Defence Council) released a video called Acid Test, narrated by Sigourney Weaver. It talks about the importance of our oceans and the consequences of increasing acidification of oceans.

This reduced ability of oceans to absorb CO2 emissions has an important bearing on the decisions of nations to reduce carbon emissions. The underlying assumption behind the IPCC studies, as well as the COP15 Climate Summit at Copenhagen in December 2009, was that oceans and forests, the natural sinks of the world have the ability to absorb about 50% of man-made carbon emissions.  As forests disappear and oceans become more acidic, they absorb less carbon, and increase the rate of global temperature rises.   Predictions about future temperature rises and related policy decisions have to factor in the reduced efficiency of oceans as carbon sinks.

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