‘World first CO2 neutral eggs’ are laid in Limburg

DutchNews, October 10, 2017

Photo: Kipster.com

A chicken farm in Castenray, in the province of Limburg, claims to have produced the first CO2 neutral egg, public broadcaster NOS reports. 

Kipster, which advertises itself as ‘the world’s most animal and environmentally friendly chicken farm’, says the CO2 neutral egg is a ‘world first’.

‘Our chickens are white. They weigh less than brown chickens and eat less. So we save on raw materials. They eat what are called ‘residual flows’ such as left over bread and agricultural by-products. We don’t feed them corn, for instance,’ chicken farmer Ruud Zanders told NOS. 

The farm has also been fitted with 1,100 solar panels to boost sustainable energy usage. ‘We use 40% of the energy we generate and sell the rest. This makes our farm, and the eggs, CO2 neutral,’ NOS quotes Zanders as saying. 

The chickens’ living quarters, which were designed with the input of the animal protection organisation Dierenbescherming, consists of a glass covered inside garden with trees and tree trunks for the birds, and two outside spaces. ‘Retired’ chickens, the Kipster website writes, ‘are not dumped in Africa to disrupt the market there but are processed here into high-quality products’.

The eggs will cost 23 to 24 cents apiece compared to 16 to 17 cents for a conventional free-range egg. The entire stock for the next five years has been sold to supermarket Lidl, where they will go on sale later this month, NOS said.

Cow manure power plan steams ahead

DutchNews, October 4, 2016

Grass: a new potential power source.

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Two hundred farmers will soon be generating electricity from cow manure and there are plans to recruit 1,000 in four years, reports NOS on Tuesday.

FrieslandCampina, the largest dairy collective in the Netherlands, set up a business in September called Jumpstart to channel subsidies to farmers who want to install mono-digesters that break down waste into biogas.

Henk Kamp, minister for economic affairs, has committed €150m to the project and turned on the first mono-digester in Friesland on Tuesday morning.

FrieslandCampina plans to pay farmers a surcharge of €10 per thousand litres of milk they sell if they buy a mono-digester, and currently works with 13,500 of the Netherland’s 17,000 farmers. The organisation has committed to carbon-neutral growth, and currently most of the 13% of carbon emissions from the agriculture sector come from methane released by cow manure. 

There has been some debate about whether it is sustainable to generate electricity from cow dung, since mono-digesters only become profitable for a farm of at least 150 cattle. 

On Monday, FrieslandCampina announced that it wants to change its profit-sharing scheme with members, abolishing a quantum allowance and effectively stopping seasonal payments to farmers. It intends to increase its premium for outdoor grazing to €1.50 per 100kg of milk (from €1), and final proposals will be agreed in December.

Related Articles:

Dutch food policy needs rethink on dairy and meat: WRR

Kryon Q&A

(39) Question: Dear Kryon: I've noticed how many children are developing severe allergies to foods (my daughter included). When I've researched this, it seems that most of the allergies are essentially to seeds, grains, legumes, eggs, and dairy. I've noticed that these foods all hold the potential for life, or in the case of dairy, are essentially used to sustain the first stages of life in an animal's baby. My feeling is that because we're not releasing the life force within these foods (that is, sprouting, etc.), they're becoming harmful to us. I would like your impressions of this.

Answer: For thousands of years, these foods have worked for humanity. In these cases you speak about, the main culprit continues to be the way in which these foods are collected and processed. You won't find these allergies in third-world countries, and you won't find them within the children who work on farms, where they eat the foods directly. There will eventually have to come a day when you relax some of your efficiency attributes and go back to the way food was meant to be collected and eaten. And yes... there are effects from how the dairy animals are treated, too. Going back to some basics will help, and so will eliminating some of the procedures that supposedly create a "safer food." These procedures have instead made them begin to look like foreign food to the Human body.

Conflict of interest claims over Malaysian timber imports

DutchNews.nl, July 15, 2015

Dutch government ministers have accused environmental groups Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund of having a conflict of interest in the approval of imports of Malaysian timber, Trouw reports. 

The government said earlier this week the Netherlands will support the import of Malaysian timber with an MTCS certificate rather than FCS certification, which is backed by the environmental groups. 

Junior environment minister Wilma Mansveld and junior economic affairs minister Sharon Dijksma say in a parliamentary briefing that ‘in concrete terms, several NGOs which were involved in founding the FSC certification system want to promote it’. 

This, the ministers imply, is why Greenpeace and the WWF do not support MTCS certification. 

However, WWF spokesman Jaap van der Waarde told Trouw the accusations of a conflict of interest are ‘incomprehensible’. 

‘The fact that my organisation forms part of the board of another certification system is irrelevant,’ he said. ‘The Malaysian certification system does not do the job.’ 

Economic interests

Malaysian forests are still being cut down and ‘it would appear that if the economic interests are big enough, certification systems do not need to meet Dutch sustainability targets,’ he told the paper. 

Successive Dutch governments have wrestled with the approval of Malaysian timber and both an independent commission and the Dutch courts have ruled there is no question of Malaysian timber being harvested sustainably, Trouw says. 

The ministers argue that the problems have now been solved and that a ‘final check’ will be made to ensure Malaysian timber imported into the Netherlands does come from sustainable sources.

Agricultural microbiology draws Chinese researchers to Argentina

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-05-02

An organic experimental farm using agricultural microbiological
technology in Beijing, Oct. 27, 2013. (File photo/CNS)

Microbiology applied to agricultural products is connecting China with Argentina, two emerging markets with complementary economies and strategic partners looking to increase bilateral exchanges.

Among the many links between Beijing and Buenos Aires, Argentine firm Rizobacter stands out. The company, which uses microbiology to boost soy output while cutting production costs, has been in business for 38 years and reports an annual turnover of US$100 million, 20% from exports.

In December, a delegation of the Academy of Sciences from China's Heilongjiang province visited the firm in Pergamino, a city located 180 km northeast of the capital Buenos Aires.

The delegation came to explore the possibility of signing an agreement for joint research and development of microbiological technologies, to improve Chinese soil and output.

"We are here to visit and get to know the Rizobacter plant," said Wang Gang, vice president of the academy.

"We are very interested in getting to know the technology being developed by this company and all of the efforts on the production of soybean, mainly related to soybeans and rhizobia," Wang added.

The Argentine company "sends products to countries like Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, the US, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and China, and has 400 employees. It is a very technological and professional company," Rizobacter CEO Ricardo Yapur said in an interview with Xinhua.

Rizobacter produces microbial, or soil, inoculants that are used to boost soybean production. The inoculants are applied to the seeds so when they germinate they can better absorb nitrogen in the air.

The method is not only highly sustainable, because unlike chemical fertilizers, it doesn't pollute the air, water or soil, and it's also cost effective, said Yapur.

The microbe costs between US$5 and US$10 per hectare, in contrast to urea fertilizer, which requires high pressure and temperatures to function, requiring burning petroleum, and costs US$150 dollars per hectare, said Yapur.

"This technology has been fully adopted in Argentina, where 90% of producers use inoculants, because the technology and the data shows it binds enough nitrogen to produce good results," he said, adding "it increases output by about 150 kg of soy."

At its plant, the company has the ability to carry out tests, quality control, and strain selection, and to experiment with different factors, such as temperature and light.

Related Article:

Dutch saltwater potatoes offer hope for world's hungry

In Mataram Declaration, Belated Recognition of Indigenous Rights

Jakarta Globe, Kennial Caroline Laia,  Apr 23, 2015

The government is finally getting serious about recognizing Indigenous
groups’ forest rights. (Antara Photo/Ahmad Subaidi)

Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara. Proponents of the rights of indigenous groups have hailed a pledge by the Indonesian government to do more to recognize their stewardship of forests, seen as crucial in efforts to stave off deforestation.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar made the so-called Mataram Declaration last weekend in a belated response to a May 2013 Constitutional Court ruling relinquishing the state’s default claims to forested areas settled and used by indigenous groups.

“Long before this, civil society organizations and local communities were struggling for the recognition and protection of customary land,” said Abetnego Tarigan, the executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi. “Now the government has shown good faith, and we really appreciate it.”

He said the central and local governments often violated indigenous people’s land rights because the latter lacked title deeds to their land. In many cases, he noted, the people were disenfranchised of their rights, and their land given over to logging, plantation or mining operators.

“There are a few policies that regulate the rights of local communities to the land, such as the 2012 law on customary forests, but they don’t cover the recognition of people’s customary territory, so we need another framework to guarantee it,” Abetnego said. “This declaration should really be a form of political will for all stakeholders to push the recognition and protection of customary forests managed by the people.”

Civic-centered development

At the signing of the declaration on Saturday in Mataram, in West Nusa Tenggara province, Siti said the government and other stakeholders were committed to expediting the process to craft policies that improved the welfare and protection of local communities and conserved the environment.

“These policies are really important,” she said. “President Joko Widodo’s government has indicated that the citizenship concept is a democratic one, in which we seek to bring welfare to the people.”

She said the government was making efforts to involve people, especially indigenous groups, in environmental protection.

“Here, our development must be civic-centered,” Siti said. “This issue has been echoed by the people and environmental organizations, and now the government is listening.”

Under Joko’s 2015-2019 National Mid-Term Development Plan, the administration plans to designate 12.5 million hectares of land for “social forestry,” in which indigenous groups and local communities will commit to sustainable forestry practices, and nine million hectares for agriculture.

“These [social] forests can be developed as community forests, village forests and customary forests,” Siti said, adding that the agricultural land, to be staked out from former logging concessions, would go primarily to subsistence farmers.

Collaborative effort

Siti said it was important for all stakeholders — the central government, regional administrations, civil society organizations and local communities — to work closely together.

“The policy is ready to go, but we can’t do it alone. We need help from other stakeholders to cooperate. For example, I hope the Home Affairs Ministry will help us identify indigenous communities and their problems to ensure that all land is distributed rightly and fairly,” she said.

“We also need civil society organizations to work with the people on mediation, community building and others. Access to welfare for all Indonesians is our responsibility.”

Zudan Arif Fakrulloh, an adviser to the Home Affairs Ministry, said the institution was open to cooperating with the other stakeholders.

“But the identification process isn’t easy. There are a few requirements to meet before we can definitively say that a given community is an indigenous one,” he said. “The process must be really selective. And this is the task of regional leaders.”

Zudan said that for a forest community to qualify, it would have to show some kind of environmentally sustainable practice in its interactions with the forest.

“Here we need experts and help from civil society organizations,” he said.

People first

Siti said the new policy, unlike previous ones, prioritized the role of people in economic development through the exploitation of forests and other natural resources.

“I believe the system will be no longer like the past, when government didn’t put the people at the front of its development plans. Now, we must use dialogue in our approach to developing the economy of this country,” Siti said.

West East Nusa’s Deputy Governor Muhammad Amin welcomed the declaration, but said further talks on the issue were still needed between the central government and regional administrations.

“We realize there hasn’t been a regional policy that recognizes the territorial rights of indigenous people. However, with this declaration, we hope that the people will receive greater consideration in the policy-making process,” he said. “Should the synergy run smoothly, we may be able to achieve an environment-oriented development framework.”

Yansen T.P., the head of Malinau district in North Kalimantan, who was among the more than 30 regional heads attending the Mataram Declaration, said an increasing number of regions across the country were beginning to prioritize land rights protections when crafting new policies.

“We’ve been done a lot for several years now to show our support for our environment,” he said. “We have vast areas of natural resources and considerable local wisdom. The forest we have is the forest we must hold on to. We understand that people depend on the forest and they will try to maintain it. But to do that, we in the regional government have to provide them with legal certainty.”

Yansen said he hoped that future investments would “take the side of the people.”

“We don’t need to exploit all of our natural resources right away. We have to think about our children, grandchildren and our future generations,” he said. “Hopefully the central government’s policy will accelerate the recognition of indigenous people’s right to the forest.”

Test cases

Adi Rozal, the head of Kerinci district in Sumatra’s Jambi province, said his administration had designated 12 swaths of forest as customary forests.

“Now we’re waiting for coordination from the central government to issue a policy that fully mandates the forests for use by the local community,” he said.

Mathius Awoitauw, the head of Jayapura district in Papua province, agreed that while the central government had a key role to play, it was local governments that would serve as the test cases for various frameworks on the issue.

“All we need to do to establish nationwide synergy is to hold regular dialogues to test how capable regional governments and people are in managing their forests. In addition, there should be a regulation that truly guarantees the rights of each region to map its own customary forests,” he said.

In prioritizing the rights of forest-dwelling communities, the government has switched from an earlier paradigm that served large corporations, said Chalil Muhammad, the chairman of the Association for Community and Ecology-Based Law Reform, or Perkumpulan HuMa.

“There’s a need to create a scheme to build rights coordination between the central government, regional governments and the people in an effort to prevent forests from rampant exploitation,” he said. “These stakeholders need to change their mind-set. We need to increase human resource capacity and fix existing forestry policies.”

Edited by Hayat Indriyatno

As Indonesia’s Forests Burned, No End in Sight to Infernos

Seventy percent of 1,908 companies under the Forest Ministry’s supervision are said to be committed to complying with state environmental standards

Jakarta Globe, Kennial Caroline Laia, Dec 30, 2014

Environmentalists have attributed most of the haze cases in Sumatra this year to
 the slash-and-burn clearing of peatlands to make way for plantations, especially for
 oil palms. President Joko Widodo has signaled a tougher stance against the practice.
(Antara Photo/Untung Setiawan)

Jakarta. Slash-and-burn clearing of forests to make way for plantations topped Indonesia’s list of environmental problems in 2014, with several major forest and land fires in Sumatra once again undermining the country’s fight against deforestation, while generating choking clouds of smoke that left local residents ill and prompt the ire of neighboring countries.

The Indonesian office of international environmental group Greenpeace says the number of fire incidents over the past few years have continued to increase in Riau, a Sumatran province at the center of major forest and land fire incidents in Indonesia in recent years.

Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Muhammad Teguh Surya says a total of 6,644 fire hot spots were detected across Riau in 2011, and this figure has continued to rise: 8,107 hot spots in 2012 and 15,112 hot spots in 2013.

“As of October this year, we recorded more than 21,000 fire hot spots,” Teguh told Indonesian news portal Tempo.co earlier this month.

The Riau administration declared a state of emergency in the province in late February after it failed to tackle fires and haze that spread to surrounding provinces, forcing airports to shut down and disrupting flights, as well as threatening the health of residents.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency, or BNPB, said during the emergency period that ran from Feb. 26 to April 4 that potential economic losses from the fires and haze were estimated at Rp 20 trillion ($1.61 billion). Nearly 22,000 hectares of land were torched, including 2,400 hectares located in biosphere reserves.

Nearly 6 million people were exposed to the haze, and 58,000 people suffered respiratory problems as a result.

Riau was forced to declare another state of emergency in July. Although local firefighters, with the help of the military and police, eventually managed to extinguish most of the fires, they kept coming back throughout the year.

BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho has highlighted the need for better law enforcement. In the wake of the peak of the fire and haze incidents in the first quarter of the year, police have arrested dozens of people for allegedly starting the blazes, but law enforcement in the sector has generally been considered toothless, with security officers criticized for only nabbing small-scale farmers and barely going after the large plantation companies in whose concessions many of the hot spots are located.

“The key is law enforcement. Peatlands burn easily, and once they burn, it’s difficult to extinguish the fire. Prevention is more effective than putting out the fires,” Sutopo said.

Environmentalists have attributed most of the haze cases to the clearing of peatlands to make way for plantations, especially for oil palms.

Local farmers and big plantation companies been blame each other for starting the fires, but President Joko Widodo, during a visit to Riau last month, won activists’ praises when he threw his weight behind the smallholders.

“The best thing to do is to give the land to people so they can use it to plant sago. What’s made by people is usually environmentally friendly. They won’t do any harm to nature,” he said. “However, if we give the land to corporations, they will only switch it to monoculture plantations.”

Joko’s predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, won plaudits from the international community for parading as an environmental champion — pledging Indonesia’s commitment to cutting its carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2020 using its own resources, and by 41 percent with international support. He enacted a moratorium on deforestation in 2011 to achieve those goals, and the ban will be in place until next year.

Yudhoyono’s administration, however, came under fire after Nature Climate Change journal published in June a report of a study that found Indonesia had overtaken Brazil as the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter by deforestation, despite the much-ballyhooed moratorium.

The report said Indonesia’s primary forest loss totaled more than six million hectares from 2000 to 2012, with an average increase of 47,600 hectares per year.

“By 2012, annual primary forest loss in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than in Brazil; 0.84 million hectares and 0.46 million hectares, respectively,” it added.

Zenzi Suhaidi, a campaigner manager with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi, criticized a presidential regulation on peatland protection issued by Yudhoyono earlier this year because it changed the status of Benoa Bay in the south of Bali from a conservation area into a so-called buffer zone.

The change in status allows a controversial commercial development project in the area to proceed, despite an outcry from local fishermen and environmental activists.

“In spite of its name, the regulation jeopardizes the sustainability of peatlands because it compromises certain stakeholders’ interests, and the regulation provides no deterrent effects,” Zenzi said.

He also pointed to a clause in the regulation that rules on environmental restoration requirements for forestry and mining firms, saying it offered a lot of room for backroom deals.

“That was a setback by Yudhoyono this year. The regulation ‘inadvertently’ provides room for gratuities,” Zenzi said.

“This year we’ve seen the effects of forest destruction, yet the previous administration still issued that regulation to exploit [forests].”

Zenzi, though, like other environmental activists, is encouraged by Joko’s take on green issues, following his visit to Sungai Tohor village in Riau’s Meranti Islands district in late November.

They believe the president’s siding with local farmers and his particular attention to the management of peatlands are positive signs of his commitment to the environment. Joko, during that visit, introduced a canal system to manage the water level in peatlands to make them more resistant to fires. He said he wanted the system to be part of the government’s permanent policies on Indonesia’s peatland management.

Joko also has ordered reviews of logging permits and concessions of plantation and mining firms, in an effort to crack down on slash-and-burn clearing of forests.

“Those commitments may be part of a concrete agenda that will have significant effects. And implementations of all of them must start in 2015,” Zenzi said.

He said the government must set up a body to ensure implementation of those commitments, suggesting a name like “the Anti-Forestry Mafia Committee,” or “the Agrarian Conflict Resolution Board.”

“Mechanisms [for resolutions] have to be built because the number of cases of [land] conflict and environmental degradation are very high already, and the incidents are widespread,” Zenzi said.

He added Joko’s administration also faced a challenge in the form of regulations issued during Yudhoyono’s term.

“Although Joko’s administration has signaled its good intentions to fix our country’s environmental problems, we cannot forget that there are many policies on the environment arbitrarily issued by the previous administration,” he said.

Rasio Ridho Sani, a deputy to the environment and forestry minister, however, argued that Indonesia had made significant improvements in the environmental sector, citing growing environmental awareness among logging, plantation and mining firms operating in forests.

He said 70 percent of the total 1,908 companies under the ministry’s supervision were committed to complying with the government’s environmental standards. The figure is an increase from 49 percent in 2004.

“Seventy percent of those corporations have refined their commitments to managing their activities and the effects toward the environment,” Rasio said.

“This means the environmental awareness of the business community has increased. And we hope that the number will stay that high and increase even further,” he said.

He added that the public’s awareness about environmental issues was also improving, citing how more people were starting to cycle to work and were committed to recycling their waste as part of a greener lifestyle.

“This is a very good sign for our nation,” Rasio said.

Sumba powers up with renewables

Indonesian island hopes to spark green power revolution.

The Star – AFP, Angela Dewan, May 26, 2014

Catch the wind: Villagers erect a windmill on a field of small wind turbines
in Kamanggih, Sumba island, East Nusa Tenggara. — AFP

AN Indonesian family of farmers eat cobs of corn outside their hut under the glow of a light bulb, as the women weave and young men play with mobile phones.

Until two years ago, most people in Kamanggih village on the island of Sumba had no power at all. Now 300 homes have access to 24-hour electricity produced by a small hydroelectric generator in the river nearby.

“We have been using the river for water our whole lives, but we never knew it could give us electricity,” Adriana Lawa Djati said, as 1980s American pop songs drifted from a cassette player inside.

While Indonesia struggles to fuel its fast-growing economy, Sumba is harnessing power from the sun, wind, rivers and even pig dung in a bid to go 100% renewable by 2025.

The ambitious project, called the “Iconic Island“, was started by Dutch development organisation Hivos and is now part of the national government’s strategy to almost double renewables in its energy mix over the next 10 years.

Sumba, in central Indonesia, is an impoverished island of mostly subsistence farmers and fishermen. Access to power has made a huge difference to people like Djati.

“Since we started using electricity, so much has changed. The kids can study at night, I can weave baskets and mats for longer, and sell more at the market” she said.

While only around 30% of Sumba’s 650,000 people have been hooked up to the power grid, more than 50% of electricity used now on the island comes from renewable sources, government data show.

Hivos field co-ordinator Adrianus Lagur hoped the project would be replicated by other islands in the same province of East Nusa Tenggara, one of the country’s poorest.

Indonesia is one of the region’s most poorly electrified nation, partly because it sprawls over 17,000 islands of which more than 6,000 are inhabited.

Despite enjoying economic growth of around 6% annually in recent years, Indonesia is so short of energy that it rolls out scheduled power cuts that cripple entire cities and sometimes parts of the capital.

To keep up with growth, Indonesia is planning to boost its electricity capacity by 60 gigawatts over a 10-year period to 2022. Twenty percent of that is to come from renewable sources.

“Indonesia has been a net importer of oil for years, and our oil reserves are limited, so renewables are an important part of our energy security,” said Mochamad Sofyan, renewable energy chief of state electricity company PLN.

Hefty electricity and fuel subsidies have been a serious burden on the state budget.

But small-scale infrastructure, like mini hydroelectric generators and small wind turbines that power Sumba are not enough to close the national energy gap, even if they were built on all Indonesia’s islands.

Massive hydropower and geothermal projects, which use renewable energy extracted from underground pockets of heat, are needed to really tackle the nationwide problem, said Sofyan.

Indonesia, one of the world’s most seismically active countries, also has the biggest reserves of geothermal, often near its many volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries. It is considered one of the cleanest forms of energy available.

But geothermal is largely untapped as legislation to open up exploration moves slowly and the industry is bound in red tape.

Sofyan said there is also concern that Sumba’s target to be powered 100% by renewable energy is unrealistic.

“In the long term, we see Sumba still relying somewhat on diesel generators. It will be powered predominantly by renewables, but I don’t think it will be able to switch off the grid,” Sofyan said.

Hivos admits its goal is ambitious, saying it is “inspirational and political” rather than technical but the NGO believes the target may be achievable even in the long term.

Nonetheless the Sumbanese are reaping the benefits of the green energy sources already available, which have lifted a considerable financial burden for many due to reduced costs for wood and oil.

Elisabeth Hadi Rendi, 60, in the town of Waingapu, has been farming pigs since 1975, but it was only two years ago when Hivos visited her home that she came to understand the power of porcine poo. Pigs are commonly kept in Sumba, a predominantly Christian island in Muslim-majority Indonesia.

Each day Rendi shovels dung from the pig pens and churns it in a well, after which it is funnelled to a tank and converted into methane gas. It has saved her household around six million rupiah (RM1,680) in two years, a significant sum for a typical Sumbanese family.

“We also make fertiliser from the waste to use in our garden, where we grow vegetables,” said Rendi. “We eat the vegetables and feed some to the pigs too, which will become biogas again, so the energy literally goes round and round.” — AFP

Earth lost 50% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF

Species across land, rivers and seas decimated as humans kill for food in unsustainable numbers and destroy habitats

See picture gallery of wild animals facing decline

The Guardian, Damian Carrington, Monday 29 September 2014

Rubbish dumped on the tundra outside llulissat in Greenland stand in stark contrast
 to icebergs behind from the Sermeq Kujullaq or llulissat Ice fjord – a Unesco world
heritage site. Photograph: Global Warming Images/WWF-Canon

The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to a new analysis. Creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats, the research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London found.

“If half the animals died in London zoo next week it would be front page news,” said Professor Ken Norris, ZSL’s director of science. “But that is happening in the great outdoors. This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live.” He said nature, which provides food and clean water and air, was essential for human wellbeing.

“We have lost one half of the animal population and knowing this is driven by human consumption, this is clearly a call to arms and we must act now,” said Mike Barratt, director of science and policy at WWF. He said more of the Earth must be protected from development and deforestation, while food and energy had to be produced sustainably.

The steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analysing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species in total. This data was then, for the first time, used to create a representative “Living Planet Index” (LPI), reflecting the state of all 45,000 known vertebrates.

“We have all heard of the FTSE 100 index, but we have missed the ultimate indicator, the falling trend of species and ecosystems in the world,” said Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s director of conservation. “If we get [our response] right, we will have a safe and sustainable way of life for the future,” he said.

If not, he added, the overuse of resources would ultimately lead to conflicts. He said the LPI was an extremely robust indicator and had been adopted by UN’s internationally-agreed Convention on Biological Diversity as key insight into biodiversity.

A second index in the new Living Planet report calculates humanity’s “ecological footprint”, ie the scale at which it is using up natural resources. Currently, the global population is cutting down trees faster than they regrow, catching fish faster than the oceans can restock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more climate-warming carbon dioxide than oceans and forests can absorb.

The report concludes that today’s average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. But four planets would be required to sustain US levels of consumption, or 2.5 Earths to match UK consumption levels.

The fastest decline among the animal populations were found in freshwater ecosystems, where numbers have plummeted by 75% since 1970. “Rivers are the bottom of the system,” said Dave Tickner, WWF’s chief freshwater adviser. “Whatever happens on the land, it all ends up in the rivers.” For example, he said, tens of billions of tonnes of effluent are dumped in the Ganges in India every year.

As well as pollution, dams and the increasing abstraction of water damage freshwater systems. There are more than 45,000 major dams – 15m or higher – around the world. “These slice rivers up into a thousand pieces,” Tickner said, preventing the healthy flow of water. While population has risen fourfold in the last century, water use has gone up sevenfold. “We are living thirstier and thirstier lives,” he said.

But while freshwater species such as the European eel and the hellbender salamander in the US have crashed, recoveries have also been seen. Otters were near extinct in England but thanks to conservation efforts now live in every county.

The number of animals living on the land has fallen by 40% since 1970. From forest elephants in central Africa, where poaching rates now exceed birth rates, to the Hoolock gibbon in Bangladesh and European snakes like the meadow and asp vipers, destruction of habitat has seen populations tumble. But again intensive conservation effort can turn declines around, as has happened with tigers in Nepal.

Marine animal populations have also fallen by 40% overall, with turtles suffering in particular. Hunting, the destruction of nesting grounds and getting drowned in fishing nets have seen turtle numbers fall by 80%. Some birds have been heavily affected too. The number of grey partridges in the UK sank by 50% since 1970 due to the intensification of farming, while curlew sandpipers in Australia lost 80% of their number in the 20 years to 2005.

The biggest declines in animal numbers have been seen in low-income, developing nations, while conservation efforts in rich nations have seen small improvements overall. But the big declines in wildlife in rich nations had already occurred long before the new report’s baseline year of 1970 – the last wolf in the UK was shot in 1680.

Also, by importing food and other goods produced via habitat destruction in developing nations, rich nations are “outsourcing” wildlife decline to those countries, said Norris. For example, a third of all the products of deforestation such as timber, beef and soya were exported to the EU between 1990 and 2008.

David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK said: “The scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should be a wake-up call for us all. But 2015 – when the countries of the world are due to come together to agree on a new global climate agreement, as well as a set of sustainable development goals – presents us with a unique opportunity to reverse the trends.

“We all – politicians, businesses and people – have an interest, and a responsibility, to act to ensure we protect what we all value: a healthy future for both people and nature.”

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Greenpeace Skeptical of Firm’s Deforestation Claim

Jakarta Globe, Sep 24, 2014

In this photograph taken on July 28, 2013, a worker load harvested palm oil fruits on
 a palm oil plantation in Blang Tualang village in Aceh province, Sumatra. (AFP Photo/
Sutanta Aditya)

Jakarta. Greenpeace Indonesia has welcomed an announcement by the Royal Golden Eagle Group’s oil palm plantation company Asian Agri and palm oil trading arm Apical that their new sustainability policies aim to tackle their impact on Indonesia’s forests, but the environmental group notes that other companies in the group are still destroying the country’s forests.

Monday’s announcement of new environmental commitments by Asian Agri and Apical, palm oil businesses owned by Sukanto Tanoto, come as his family’s pulp companies, APRIL and Toba Pulp Lestari, continue to destroy Indonesia’s rainforests, Greenpeace said in a press release on Tuesday.

On Padang Island in Sumatra, bulldozers are continuing to clear forests on deep peatland, it said.

Bustar Maitar, head of Greenpeace’s Indonesian forests campaign, said that while he welcomed the announcement, he saw it as a missed opportunity by the RGE Group to address its real impact on the rainforests of Indonesia.

“We note the announcement of new commitments by Asian Agri and Apical, but why are RGE’s pulp companies, including APRIL and Toba Pulp Lestari, allowed to continue with deforestation? Questions also remain about how these new palm oil policies will apply to minority shareholdings, third-party suppliers and new acquisitions,” Bustar said in Jakarta.

Greenpeace has called on RGE to immediately implement no-deforestation commitments that apply to all pulp and palm oil businesses that are owned or controlled by the Tanoto family.

Separately on Tuesday, Asia Pulp and Paper announced in a press release that it had signed the New York Declaration on Forests at the UN Climate Summit to help tackle climate change.

Teguh Ganda Wijaya, the APP chairman, joined a number of officials from other companies, governments and NGOs to sign the New York Declaration on Forests at an event at the UN Climate Summit 2014.

The declaration is an unprecedented international, multi-sector commitment to safeguard the world’s forests and to help tackle climate change, the group said.

The signatories said they had committed to a vision of slowing, halting, and reversing global forest loss while simultaneously contributing to economic growth, poverty alleviation, rule of law preservation, food security, climate resilience and biodiversity conservation.

Teguh said United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had done the planet and some of its most critical ecosystems a great service in convening the ground-breaking meeting of governments, global business leaders and NGOs.

“Business can take the lead in delivering these commitments, but we must work closely with all stakeholders, including governments and NGOs, to truly tackle deforestation and climate change. One of the most effective ways to do this is by conserving forests, planting trees,” he said.

The declaration highlights that reducing emissions from deforestation and increasing forest restoration are key to tackling climate change, the signatories said.

All participants must strive to at least halve the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 and end natural forest loss by 2030.

At the same time they plan to restore 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2020. They also aim to significantly increase the rate of global forest restoration thereafter, which would restore at least an additional 200 million hectares by 2030.

UN’s Ban Ki-Moon Meets Young Eco-Warriors at a Bali School

A green school makes the effort in nurturing its students' potential in becoming green leaders

Jakarta Globe, Nadia Bintoro, Sep 07, 2014

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon greets young students in Sibang Kaja,
Bali on Aug. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy of Green School Bali)

Putting theoretical discourse into real action, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Green School in Sibang Kaja, Bali, on Aug. 28, to learn about and witness firsthand sustainable education from a group of future leaders.

Accompanied by several significant figures in the political movement for climate change, including Norwegian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Morten Hoglund; Ambassador of Norway to Indonesia Stig Traavik; founder of the Green School Bali, John A. Hardy; and head of school John Stewart.

Ban and the delegation were warmly welcomed by 412 students of Green School, from pre-kindergarten to high-school level.

Equally excited to salute the secretary general on stage was Green School’s own deputy secretary general of the campus’ Model United Nations Club, Clover Horan.

The 10th grader leads the Green School’s own version of the UN, which aims to expand students’ knowledge on international issues and policy making.

Together with Ban, the delegation took the stage to give their remarks on the importance of young leaders to create a more sustainable future ahead.

In his opening speech, the UN secretary general shared his amazement over Green School’s commitment in molding the younger generation into future green leader of the world.

“This is the most unique and impressive school I have ever visited. Thank you very much for your strong commitment and vision to [making] this world green,” Ban said.

Recognizing the alarming threat climate change poses on the development and betterment of the world’s poorest communities, Ban noted that around today’s world leaders have had “though choices to make,” especially in the months leading up to the Sept. 1-4 Climate Summit and its post-2015 Development Agenda.

Onlookers as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the school
on Aug. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy of Nadia Bintoro)

He encouraged his young audience to take an active part in the world’s ongoing efforts to combat climate change by developing into global citizens.

“Tomorrow you are going to be [our] leaders. And today, we need to be together working very hard to make the world of tomorrow much better for all its people,” Ban appealed to the crowd of enthusiastic students.

He especially congratulated “Bye Bye Plastic Bag,” an initiative led by Green School students Isabel and Melati Wijsen, which aims to collect one million signatures to ban the use of plastic bags in Bali. Ban said he hopes children all over the world could have the drive and passion to start a similar campaign.

During his visit, the secretary general also witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Green School Bali, the National Redd+ Agency and the United Nations Office for Redd+ Coordination in Indonesia (UNorcid).

The joint endeavor, called “Green Schools for Sustainable Development,” details a collaborative framework between the three parties involved for the implementation of sustainable development in Indonesia’s schools and other educational institutions.

The MOU will serve as a guide for facilitation and development of green schools across Indonesia.

The three signatories are committed to recruiting one million Green Youth Ambassadors in schools across the archipelago by 2017.

“The Green School is an outstanding proof of concept. The next step is to achieve proof of scale. Supporting [the development] of green schools and strengthening environmentally sensitive educational curricula are two of the ten imperative actions of the National Redd+ Agency in 2014,” said Heru Prasetyo, head of the Indonesian National Redd+ Agency (BP Redd+).

The international delegation’s visit continued with a tour around Green School, showcasing several of the institution’s efforts to promote sustainable living and green education.

The event came to an end with the secretary general and his wife releasing two Bali starlings, which were bred by the Begawan Foundation — located within the school’s premises — to limit the risk of the species’s extinction.

As the magnificent white birds soared into the blue Bali sky, so did the hopes of those in attendance that day, for a greener and better future.

UN Secretary General Ban was in Bali on Aug. 28-29 for the Alliance of Civilizations’ Sixth Global Forum, which this year carried the theme of “Unity in Diversity: Celebrating Diversity for Common and Shared Values.”

Renowned conservationist Jane Goodall was the star of a recent conference
in Bali on sustainability. (Photo Courtesy of Green School)

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