Home About Us Science Spiritual Wisdom Solutions Projects Contact Us Latest News courtesy Worldwatch Institute International Commission Calls for ‘Paradigm Shift’ in AgricultureA commission of international agriculture experts unveiled a series of reports on Wednesday calling for an end to "business-as-usual" farming practices to avoid widespread environmental degradation and increasing food scarcity.
The group of more than 400 experts, known as the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), concluded through its global and regional studies that governments and industries need to discontinue environmentally damaging farming methods. Farmers should have greater access to agricultural technology and science, especially in the developing world, to ensure productivity increases without further environmental degradation, the reports say.
The commission's conclusions come during one of the most severe food crises since the productivity boom of the Green Revolution. Rising prices for basic commodities such as rice, wheat, and corn have led to violent protests around the world, from Haiti to Egypt to the Philippines. Widespread environmental degradation and uneven distribution policies are contributing to shortages, especially in the developing world, the reports say.
The reports are the largest international collaboration to date to advocate more sustainable farming practices such as crop diversification, use of organic fertilizers, and the adoption of labeling and certification schemes. More controversially, the commission suggests policy options that include "ending subsidies that encourage unsustainable practices." The reports also stress the ineffectiveness of genetically modified crops in aiding food productivity in some developing regions.
Global society must undertake a "paradigm shift" in agriculture, the authors said at a press briefing. And without more sustainable practices, the problems will only worsen. "These are long-term trends that we really need to take into account," said Shelley Feldman, a Cornell University sociology professor and report co-author. "We're going to continue to work with less labor; less water; less arable land; increasing land policy conflicts; the loss of biodiversity, genetic species, and ecosystems; increasing levels of pollution; and as we all know, climate change."
Because many farmers lack knowledge about sustainable practices, governments should increase their financial support for research and programs that encourage less-damaging techniques, the reports say. In North America and Europe, large transnational corporations currently dominate the funding for agricultural R&D, considerably influencing research priorities, they note.
"We have to think more about linking researchers and stakeholders in new and innovative ways.... We have to make sure our agriculture production systems have ecological benefits," said Mary Hendrickson, director of University of Missouri's agriculture extension networking project and another co-author. "Even here where there are significant investments in science and technology...we need to redirect funding."
The studies' more controversial findings splintered the commission, which formed with original ambitions of a multilateral consensus on the need to increase food availability, especially for the poor. But the biotechnology industry, including representatives of Sygenta and Monsanto, pulled out in March, saying the study was biased against genetically modified crops. "Our input was not being taken appropriately. We were looking to see references to plant science technology and the potential role it can contribute," Denise Dewar, executive director of industry trade group CropLife International, told press at the time.
Biotechnology is described in the reports as offering tremendous possibility for improving productivity with products such as water-resistance crops. But concentrated ownership has restricted access to genetically modified crops in developing nations. Such concentration drives up costs, inhibits independent research, and undermines local farming practices, the reports say. "The products of bioengineering are not really useful for developing countries because [the crops] are not adapted varieties. They're not the crops people grow there," said Hans Harren, an IAASTD co-chair.
Harren said industry scientists failed to attend meetings on time and attempted to edit the reports at the last minute. Despite the industry's complaints, Harren said the reports received overwhelming support from the 64 governments who voted on the commission at a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, last week. At the meeting he told the attendees, "The real losers are the people who are not here right now."
The United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom had the strongest reservations about the commission's stance on agricultural subsidies and trade. The reports note that developing-country farm markets are often opened to international competition prematurely, which can depress developing agricultural industries and worsen poverty. Harren said the commission was originally instructed not to discuss trade due to political sensitivity, but he said the topic could not be avoided.
"We feel that trade liberalization, open markets, do have a lot of benefits, but only if the playing field is leveled out ahead of time," said Harren, who is president of the Millennium Institute in Arlington, Virginia. "We felt that this is something that's important to look at."
The reports are the result of a three-year, $12 million effort by the World Bank and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Launched in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, the IAASTD, led by former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chair Robert Watson, coordinated the more than 400 experts from the world's universities, think tanks, governments, and industries.
Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
Bush Sets Goal of Halting U.S. Emissions Growth by 2025
U.S. President George W. Bush outlined a slightly new approach to global climate change on Wednesday in preparation for a meeting of the world's eight largest industrialized nations (G-8) in Paris this weekend.
Bush stated a new national goal of halting U.S. growth in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. The announcement is the first pledge by the Bush administration to curb emissions by a specific year, although the timeline is more lenient than what most other industrialized nations have agreed upon.
In his speech, Bush supported incentives for "lower-emission technologies," such as nuclear power, carbon capture and sequestration, and renewable energy sources like solar or wind. "The incentives should be carbon-weighted to make lower-emission power sources less expensive relative to higher-emissions sources," he stated. "[T]hat will help lower costs and scale up availability."
The president said he opposes taxes, "duplicate mandates," and drastic emission cuts; therefore, he ruled out a national carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme. He also said the energy incentives "should be technology-neutral because the government should not be picking winners and losers." Before Bush's speech, Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the president would only speak in generalities because specifics "should be discussed in a rational approach with the electrical sector."
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation are expected to climb 1 percent each year between 2006 and 2030.
Meanwhile, the European Union has committed to cutting emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. And as part of the Kyoto Protocol, Russia, Japan, and Canada agreed to reduce their emissions at least 5 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
The stark contrast between the U.S. position and most of the industrialized world has stirred a bitter reaction from non-governmental groups and international leaders. In a prepared statement, South African environment minister Marthinus Van Schalkwyk said, "The current U.S. administration is isolated. It is them against the overwhelming majority of the world, developed and developing countries alike." Among the developing countries that have committed to significant greenhouse gas reductions is Costa Rica, which plans to become "carbon neutral."
Numerous organizations have called for an 80 percent reduction in global emissions (below 2000 levels) by 2050, including the Union of Concerned Scientists. The group's policy director, Alden Meyer, responded to the Bush speech by saying, "Instead of working with Congress and the international community, the president is trying to derail their efforts.... He should do us all a favor and step aside."
The president's announcement comes at a time when the U.S. Senate is debating climate legislation, which is expected to be voted on later this year. David Sandalow, a Brookings Institute senior fellow who directed U.S. climate negotiations under the Clinton Administration, also said the Bush proposal is aimed at derailing Congressional legislation.
The so-called "Major Economies Meeting" will be held this weekend in Paris to coordinate the upcoming G-8 Summit in July, which will feature a climate segment. Reid Detchon, executive director of energy and climate for the United Nations Foundation, predicts Bush will be disappointed at how the world leaders gathered at the event receive his proposals. "Theneed for action is much more urgent that what he described," Detchon said. "For the U.S. to say we're seeking a zero cut by 2025 is just not going to be satisfactory."
Many environmental groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund and Friends of the Earth, said they are basically ignoring Bush's comments and are instead focusing their efforts on what the next U.S. president must achieve by the Copenhagen meetings of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for November 2009.
Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have both adopted the Union of Concerned Scientists' plan for an 80 percent emissions reduction by 2050. Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, supports a 30 percent reduction from 2004 levels by that year. An advisor to Obama, Daniel Kammen, said that within the first 100 days of the next presidency, whoever is elected must restore the international credibility of the United States as a concerned player in the fight against climate change.
Kammen said that Bush, despite being criticized as a lame-duck president, should still take stronger action. "We need to make dramatic cuts by 2050.... What we need is a plan to get there, and not throw our hands up in the air," he noted. Kammen, who directs the University of California at Berkeley's Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, added that, "The president could play a bigger role than anyone on Earth, and yet he's chosen not to."
Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, agrees with Bush's view that emerging technologies are essential to solve climate change, but he believes the president's proposal will not go far enough to expand clean energy markets. "Industry will invest in renewable and efficiency technologies, but only if government provides the needed incentives," Flavin said. "Today, the European Union and China are doing a better job at this than the United States is."
Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
GOING, GOING, GONE? New Satellite Images Reveal a Shrinking Amazon Rainforest
Washington, D.C.- Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon may be on the rise, according to high-resolution images released by an agency of the Brazilian government. The images suggest an end to a widely hailed three-year decline in the rate of deforestation and have spurred a public controversy among high-level Brazilian officials, writes Tim Hirsch, author of "The Incredible Shrinking Amazon Rainforest" in the May/June 2008 issue of World Watch magazine.
Deforestation accounts for approximately one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for significant species loss worldwide. Recent anti-deforestation measures under the administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have led to a marked drop in the rate of forest loss over the past three years.
"What matters most to people is whether deforestation is coming under control, or whether this magnificent ecosystem is doomed to relentless decline, with all the implications for the millions of unique species it harbors, for the survival of precarious indigenous cultures, and for the global climate," writes Hirsch.
Using satellite imaging, the Brazilian National Space Research Agency (INPE) estimated a probable rainforest loss of 7,000 square kilometers between August and December 2007, a figure on track to surpass last year's total of 11,000 square kilometers.
The announcement by INPE garnered conflicting reactions from government officials. President Lula expressed doubts regarding the validity of the findings, while Governor Blairo Maggi of Mato Grosso, the state which accounted for more than half the deforestation registered by the images, accused the INPE of releasing false information.
Discussion of financial incentives to reward developing countries that protect their forests suggests that a downward trend in deforestation may one day prove profitable for Brazil. As an emerging economic force, and as a candidate for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, Brazil has much to lose if the rate of deforestation increases.
"It is too soon to judge whether the emergency action taken by the Lula government in the Amazon will be sufficient to do what it claims is possible: bear down strongly enough on deforestation to keep the annual rate below last year's figure," wrote Hirsh. "One thing is certain: this is a crucial turning point for the Amazon, and the outcome matters hugely to us all."
ALSO IN THE MAY/JUNE ISSUE:
SCAMming Environmental Policy, by William Freudenburg, Robert Gramling, and Debra Davidson Policymakers crave certainty, but almost all science operates in shades of gray. The results of this clash-Scientific Certainty Argumentation Methods, or SCAMs-can undermine the public interest.
Home-Grown Juice, by Craig Morris and Nathan Hopkins Why is the sunny, windy United States so far behind calm, cloudy Germany in renewable electricity generation?
Malaria, by Jeffrey Marlow New methods and new hope in battling an old scourge.
Vital Signs: Carbon Markets Gain Momentum, Despite Challenge, by Zoë Chafe
Vital Signs: Global Economic Growth Continues at Expense of Ecological System, by Erik Assadourian
Plus: From Readers, Eye on Earth, Talking Pictures, and Life-Cycle Studies: Candy Bars
MATTERS OF SCALE: We Are What We Read
Number of times "war" appeared in the title of a book on the Amazon website...........165,534
Number of times "peace" appears.......................................................................33,232
(for more Matters of Scale, see the May/June issue of World Watch.)
Pope Benedict: Laying the Groundwork for a Sustainable Civilization?
Rumor has it that Pope Benedict may address climate change during his visit to the United Nations this week. Whether he does or not, his young papacy can claim to be the "greenest" ever. Benedict has identified extensive common ground between sustainability concerns and a Catholic worldview - adding weight to the argument that the world's religions could be instrumental in nudging policymakers and the public to embrace sustainability. Now, the Pope has the opportunity to further develop the links between sustainability and religious values, markedly advancing thinking in both arenas.
Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, made important environmental statements during his long papacy, but Benedict is the first "green pope." Last year, the Vatican installed solar panels on its 10,000-seat main auditorium building, and it arranged to reforest land in Hungary to offset Vatican City's carbon emissions, making it the world's first carbon-neutral state. And Benedict has repeatedly urged protection of the environment and action against poverty in a number of major addresses. His next encyclical (major papal teaching), due out this summer, is expected to further wrestle with environmental, social, and other themes of interest to the sustainability community.
As he embraces these themes, Benedict and the larger Catholic community could play an especially valuable role in helping to address two major influences on the environment that get too little attention today: consumption and population. (A third, technology, already receives high levels of policy focus.)
The consumption question should be comfortable ground for a modern Catholic pope, given the longstanding social and spiritual critique of consumerism in Catholic thought. For example, Pope Paul VI, in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, linked heavy consumption to injustice, declaring that, "No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life.... The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich."
John Paul II added a spiritual dimension in Centesimus Annus in 1991, critiquing "a style of life which is presumed to be better when it is directed towards ‘having' rather than 'being,'" and urging people to "create life-styles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments." The Church's spiritual and social teachings are rich complements to modern environmental arguments against consumerism.
Benedict's challenge is to move longstanding Church teaching into concrete action. Despite the extensive archive of papal statements on the subject, there is no evidence that Catholics consume less or differently than anyone else. Yet given that 40 percent of the human family lives on less than $2 a day while the prosperous among us consume casually and wastefully, Catholic leadership in redefining "the good life" away from accumulation and toward greater human wellbeing and solidarity with the poor cannot come soon enough.
Benedict will need to be creative in persuading the comfortable in his Church to take consumption teachings seriously. The dramatic equivalent of solar panels on a Vatican rooftop may be needed to move prosperous Catholics to critically assess their own consumption-and to find joy in consuming less.
The other issue, population, is more difficult for a Catholic leader to tackle, especially one with Benedict's reputation for doctrinal strictness. For Benedict and most Catholics, human reproduction is a domain infused with questions of deep personal morality. But a pontiff who appreciates the epochal nature of the sustainability crisis must surely also recognize the moral challenges raised when human numbers grow exponentially in a finite world.
How much of modern hunger, disease, poverty, and environmental degradation can be blamed on population sizes that have exceeded the carrying capacity of local, regional, and global environments? The share is unknowable, but surely not small. The challenge for Benedict will be to apply his formidable intellect to harmonize the personal and social ethics of population issues.
Benedict's interest in sustainability issues comes not a moment too soon. The sustainability crisis is civilizational in scope and depth-and therefore a natural concern for a global institution like the Catholic Church. Should Benedict raise the twin issues of consumption and population to the level of theological and spiritual attention they deserve, he would not only advance thinking on religious ethics-but also on how to create just and environmentally sustainable societies.
Gary Gardner is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C. He is the author of the book Inspiring Progress: Religions' Contributions to Sustainable Development.
In Amazon, Money May Grow on Trees After All
The third article in a three-part series exploring the growing pressures facing the Amazon forest and its people. Read part two, "Can Amazonian Beef Be Sustainable?," and part one, "In Brazil, Violence Looms at the Forest Edge."
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon left a meeting last year in Brazil's capital, confident that he could rely on one of that nation's most valuable resources in the fight against climate change: tropical forests. "President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva assured me that the Amazon and its immense treasure chest of biodiversity was the common heritage of mankind and would be preserved," he told the press in November.
But although President Lula has continually supported anti-deforestation efforts during his term, Brazil has so far refused to agree to any binding international emissions limits - mostly because this might diminish Brazil's right to develop the forest-rich Amazon basin.
If Brazil accepts binding emission limits under a new U.N.-sponsored climate pact, the move not only may influence whether the world avoids catastrophic climate change, but also may be the solution to rampant illegal deforestation of the Amazon. As the world debates such an agreement, Brazil is treading carefully. No nation may have more to gain or more to lose.
A Forest Conservation Revival
One of the major outcomes from last December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, was a decision to include forest conservation as a tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. To address deforestation, which accounts for an estimated 20 percent of global emissions, forest-rich developing countries would sell credits to industrialized nations in exchange for preserving standing forests. The initiative, known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, essentially amounts to a new market that could provide tropical nations with billions of dollars for sustainable forest management.
In Brazil, conservation efforts such as dedicating more land to nature preserves and boosting the military's presence in illegally cleared areas have cut deforestation rates in half between 2004 and 2006. But in the last five months of 2007, as much as 4,345 square kilometers (2,700 square miles) of the massive Amazon forest disappeared, mostly due to expanding cattle ranches. If REDD becomes a reality, Brazil may be able to reduce two-thirds of its annual greenhouse gas emissions, while the Amazon's ranchers, farmers, and indigenous groups may receive the resources necessary to safeguard their forest resources.
Brazil's national leaders currently only accept voluntary conservation donations – for example, financial pledges by Marriott International or Norway – to offset the nation's carbon emissions. They oppose a system that would commit Brazil to having to preserve its forests, even if industrialized nations pay for the conservation. President Lula's government fears that a new forest carbon market would threaten Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon and its resources, including the right to mine beneath forest reserves, said Claudio Maretti, conservation director for WWF-Brazil.
"They're trying not to accept an international agreement that would be binding with land use definitions," Maretti said. "A stock market in Chicago, London, or wherever would be defining what is the land use in the Amazon, and Brazil would lose its flexibility."
But governors from the Amazon states of Mato Grosso and Amazonas are supporting REDD. In their view, relying on voluntary funding alone would not raise enough money for a shift to sustainable forestry. Based on estimates from the Woods Hole Research Center, REDD funding from private industries and industrialized nations could provide local governments, communities, and indigenous groups in the Amazon more than $531 million within the first 10 years of the program.
Forest Stewards Seek Benefits
In the event such resources become available, landowners have already begun organizing to access the forest conservation funding.
Hundreds of indigenous leaders from 11 Latin American nations came together earlier this month in Manaus, Brazil, to demand inclusion in the process. Indigenous groups in the Americas, and especially in the Amazon, typically have constitutional rights to their land, so they stand to gain much more from a climate agreement than their counterparts in regions such as Southeast Asia. But as stated in a United Nations report released this month, indigenous people have so far struggled to receive climate change-related funding.
"The indigenous people need to understand exactly what is happening to their forests," said Yolanda Hernández, the indigenous representative of Guatemala's Maya Kakchiquel community, in a statement. "They have always been forgotten when it is time for decision-making and time has come for them to be taken into account."
Many indigenous groups need outside support to defend their forests from illegal loggers. Landowners, meanwhile, often need clear incentives to follow the law. Brazilian law requires landowners to preserve 80 percent of the forests on their land. But as the world's appetite for beef surges, it is often more economical for cattle ranchers to ignore the law and move their herds deeper into the Amazon forest than to utilize smaller existing pastures. REDD would in theory pay these ranchers enough for them to practice more sustainable ranching on already forested land.
For such an agreement to be effective, however, Brazil would have to undergo national property rights reform. Current ambiguity over land ownership prevents accurate carbon credit accounting, says Christine Pendzich, deputy director of the forest program at the World Wildlife Fund. "They need to strengthen the agencies that can enforce against land grabbing and illegal deforestation and then clarify this land tenure issue," she said.
Brazil would also benefit from establishing a forestry credit market on the Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange that would compare to the European Climate Exchange, according to Benjamin Vitale, a Conservation International carbon market expert who advises Latin American nations on REDD. "That would get at the issue of sovereignty because the government would be in control of what [credits] they issue," Vitale said.
If Brazil, home to about 40 percent of the world's forests, reaches an agreement that places a value on protecting this captured carbon, it could provide the world's best scenario to preserve Amazonian biodiversity while also addressing global climate change. But with the scars from their colonial past still felt today, Brazilians will not easily relinquish control of their forested heartland.
"Nobody knows how this will work," says Werner Kornexl, a World Bank forestry specialist, but "the debate is very fierce and very critical for the Amazon."
Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye On Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
Can Amazonian Beef Be Sustainable?
The second article in a three-part series exploring the growing pressures facing the Amazon forest and its people. Read part one, "In Brazil, Violence Looms at the Forest Edge".
One of Brazil's largest beef-export companies is expanding its Amazon operations, thanks in part to funding from the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation. The IFC says its investment is part of an historic effort to make cattle ranching in the region more sustainable, but many environmentalists are skeptical.
The $90 million investment will help Bertin Ltda., Brazil's leading beef and hide processor, expand its slaughterhouse in the southern Amazonian state of Pará-an area marred by illegal deforestation and ranch expansions, some of which have turned violent in recent years. To ensure that the cattle are not raised on illegally acquired land and without harm to the forest, Bertin has agreed to demand environmental permits for each lot of livestock that enters the facility.
"This will result in more efficient use of pasture land, and ultimately raise suppliers' income and reduce pressure on critical forest resources," said Karina Manasseh, an IFC spokeswoman.
Environmentalists, however, have raised concerns that the project lacks transparency and that the investment will only worsen deforestation, exploitative labor, greenhouse gas emissions, and illegal land grabbing. The IFC has acknowledged that these issues are potentially problematic with Bertin's operations, but it says the new system will prohibit the processing of cattle purchased from ranches that do not follow the strict regulations.
The debate comes as Brazil's livestock industry is booming, especially in the Amazon. In 2003, Brazil became the world's largest exporter of beef, and second in overall beef production according to a report from Amigos da Terra, the Brazilian affiliate of Friends of the Earth. Ten million Amazonian cattle were slaughtered last year, 46 percent more than during 2004.
The growth in global demand for beef was the primary cause of a 60 percent increase in deforestation during the later months of 2007. And as the ranches have expanded over the past decade, forest clearings contributed between 9 and 12 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the Amigos da Terra report said.
Bertin's ability to monitor whether its suppliers comply with the IFC's environmental and labor criteria is dependent on an internal tracking system that the slaughterhouse will administer. A pilot project has begun that will include about 500 ranchers, but it is not yet clear how Bertin will ensure that each ranch is accurately disclosing the origins of its cattle, including how and where it was raised.
Critics of the IFC scheme say it will be near impossible to determine whether ranchers are selling cattle raised on sustainable pastures. "Bertin has many potential suppliers of beef; it's very difficult to keep track of all these small ranchers, even the big ones," said Robert Goodland, a former World Bank advisor and now a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. "And Bertin doesn't really want to check up too thoroughly, otherwise it wouldn't be able to get all the beef it needs. So there's no incentive to follow the law."
Amigos da Terra director Roberto Smeraldi also criticized the IFC investment, saying the sites chosen for the Bertin project's environmental assessment did not accurately reflect the potentially wide-sweeping damage to the region that the expanded operation could bring. "[The IFC] cannot just have this type of superficial approach to what's the end use of their money when...you have all sorts of issues of legality for the environment, labor rights, land tenure," Smeraldi said.
Daniel Nepstad, an ecologist with the U.S.-based Woods Hole Research Center, is organizing the sustainable purchasing operations for Bertin through the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research. He said the slaughterhouse could easily have found non-IFC funding. But Bertin opted to follow the IFC guidelines to better position itself as a responsible producer in a competitive global market, Nepstad said. "Capital for this company is insignificant."
Nepstad says the project will ultimately force ranchers who follow illegal practices to sell their cattle to slaughterhouses that are located farther away, and that often offer lower compensation, than Betin's operation. He says this will provide further incentives for ranchers to comply with the IFC's and other guidelines.
Yet in the Amazon, as elsewhere, it may still cost more to play by the rules. If ranchers want to convert already-cleared land into pasture, this requires the use of fertilizer and significant water resources, at a price tag four times higher than if they were to illegally clear new land. "It's cheaper to deforest new areas than to invest in recuperating," Smeraldi said.
Nepstad said proper incentives need to be made available to convince ranchers to stop deforestation, such as national or international conservation funds. "We need to make it viable for land owners to legalize their operations," he said.
Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
Wind Power Growth Blows Past Projections
Washington, D.C.-Global wind power capacity rose 27 percent in 2007 to more than 94,100 megawatts, led by capacity additions in the European Union, the United States, and China, according to the latest Vital Sign Update from the Worldwatch Institute.
New wind installations were second only to natural gas in the United States as an additional source of power capacity and were the leading source of new capacity in the EU. In China, the estimated 3,449 megawatts of wind turbines added last year propelled China past the government's ambitious wind power target for 2010.
The addition of a record-breaking 5,244 megawatts of wind capacity in the United States in 2007-enough to power 4.5 million U.S. homes-was driven by the federal production tax credit and by renewable energy mandates in 25 states and the District of Columbia. The nation's wind capacity now totals 16,818 megawatts, second only to Germany. The production tax credit is set to expire at the end of this year. "If Congress acts quickly to extend the tax credit, the U.S. will likely pass Germany to lead the world in wind power within the next two years," according to Janet Sawin, a Worldwatch senior researcher and the author of the update.
Germany remains the world leader in wind power capacity, with almost 24 percent of the global total (22,247 megawatts), but it experienced a lackluster year in 2007. Still, renewable energy resources now generate more than 14 percent of Germany's electricity needs, with about half of this coming from wind. Spain led Europe in new installations in 2007, now ranking third worldwide in total wind capacity (15,145 megawatts). France, Italy, Portugal, and the United Kingdom all experienced significant growth last year as well. In all, EU wind power capacity rose 18 percent in 2007, and the region is home to 60 percent of global installed capacity.
China was the biggest surprise in 2007. Barely in the wind business three years ago, China trailed only the United States and Spain in new wind installations in 2007, and ranked fifth in total installed capacity (6,050 megawatts). However, an estimated one-fourth of this capacity remains unconnected to the grid due to planning problems.
This explosive growth occurred amidst a backdrop of serious turbine shortages, a challenge that is expected to be ameliorated sometime in 2009. Despite higher costs due to turbine shortages, rising material costs, and increased manufacturing profitability, wind power remains competitive with new natural gas plants, and all conventional power plants have seen similar construction-cost increases. Wind power will become increasingly competitive with coal as more countries put a commodity price on carbon.
The global wind market was worth an estimated $36 billion in 2007, accounting for almost half of all investment in new renewable electric and heating capacity. As many as 200,000 people are now employed in the wind industry worldwide. These numbers will only rise in the coming years as the EU seeks to meet aggressive 2020 targets for renewables and as the United States, China, and other nations realize their enormous potential for wind power.
"The wind industry has consistently blown by past projections," says Sawin, "and it will likely continue to do so for years to come."
In Brazil, Violence Looms at the Forest Edge
This is the first feature in a three-part series on the growing pressures facing the Amazon rainforest and its people.
On Monday, Blairo Maggi was in need of some help. Known as the "Soybean King," Maggi is a former soy plantation owner and now governor of the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. He is considered one of Brazil's most powerful men, but with tensions rising in the region, he recently turned to Daniel Nepstad, an Amazon-based U.S. ecologist, for advice.
"He was saying he was about ready to throw in the towel, unless...there will be some effort to help him govern this vast forest reserve," said Nepstad, who works for the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and conducts research on one of Maggi's farms. "The fans of revolution are pushing embers up into the air."
In Mato Grosso, as in other parts of the Amazon, the rapid expansion of agriculture is triggering mounting tensions between locals and environmental authorities. Satellite imagery released in January showed that as much as 2,700 square miles (4,345 kilometers) of the massive Brazilian Amazon was cleared between August and December of 2007-about 60 percent more land than during the same five months in 2006. Experts attribute the rising deforestation to growth in global meat consumption, which is driving soybean and beef production, and to a lesser extent to the boom in biofuels, which is reportedly pushing cattle ranchers off conventional farmlands and deeper into the Amazon.
To counteract this trend, the Brazilian government decreed in December that any landowners found to be illegally felling trees would be fined and possibly embargoed, which would cut them off from domestic and international trading. And in February, the government ruled that as of July 1, 2008, both public and private banks would have to demand environmental permits from landowners before supplying any loans. Such enforcement is seen as necessary to stop deforestation, but it has resulted in sweeping civil unrest.
Earlier this year, thousands of residents filled the streets of frontier towns in the southern Amazonian state of Pará to protest a government crackdown on illegal logging. Brazil's elite National Security Force was required to contain the violence, and troops confiscated more than 500 truckloads of illegally cut hardwood after residents and loggers forced environmental officials to flee the area.
In Mato Grosso, tensions came to a head last week when Brazil's Ministry of the Environment announced that 1,200 properties faced embargoes for alleged deforestation without a permit - though, according to Nepstad, the number was quickly reduced to 400 due to widespread complaints. "This is really creating a very explosive situation here in Amazonia," he said. "Property owners have felt unjustly accused and all of a sudden cut off."
In addition to fears of violent protests, criminal land-grabbing is still a concern. Landowners who follow more sustainable environmental efforts are often threatened by ranchers who seek to expand their pastures. "When a rancher wants more land, anyone who stands in their way gets shot," said Robert Goodland, a senior fellow with the Washington, D.C.- based World Resources Institute. "There's all-out violence now. People are murdered there all the time."
Most notoriously, the American nun Dorothy Stang, an advocate of sustainable agriculture, was brutally shot in 2005. A rancher was found guilty last year for ordering the killing.
John Carter, an American-born cattle rancher in Mato Grosso who is featured in this week's Time magazine, has been receiving death threats, said Nepstad, who is a friend of Carter's. "He left me and others the phone number they should call to see if he's still alive because... he is very outspoken for good land stewardship," Nepstad said.
Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
More Companies Discontinuing Farm Animal Confinement
More companies around the world are adjusting their farm-animal confinement policies and requesting clarification of consumer labels to reflect these changes. The moves come largely in response to U.S. voter-led initiatives and the implementation of farm policy reforms in the European Union.
Animal confinement - forcing dense populations of chickens, pigs, or young cattle into cages, crates, or tight pens to more efficiently utilize farm space - is a common practice in the United States, Europe, and increasingly the developing world. Led by growth in China, Brazil, and India, industrial livestock production has grown at twice the rate of traditional forms of animal husbandry, according to a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report. The World Society for the Protection of Animals expects factory farming in those countries to "explode," placing billions more animals into confinement.
Growing public awareness of the environmental, public health, and animal welfare challenges associated with animal confinement has lead several major grocery stores, fast food chains, and meat producers to phase out some of these practices. U.S. companies that have responded to consumer concern in recent years include Safeway, North America's third largest grocery retailer; leading pork producer Smithfield Foods; and hamburger giant Burger King.
Mounting legislation is forcing companies to curtail confinement as well. The E.U. voted to ban veal cages, breeding pig crates, and windowless "battery cages" for hens, and the laws first went into effect last year. A campaign is now under way in the largest U.S. agricultural state, California, to hold an animal welfare referendum during the November election. A handful of other U.S. states have passed bans on veal and pregnant sow crates, but the California initiative would make it the first to outlaw all three confinement practices.
"There's a big ripple effect. These laws...send a signal to industry all across the country that accelerates progress nationwide," said Paul Shapiro, senior director of the factory farming campaign with the Humane Society of the United States. The Humane Society has been organizing several of the state ballot initiatives and pressuring companies to change their practices. "The problem isn't persuading Americans that crates are inhumane. The problem is getting bills through...agricultural committees that kill [the bills]."
At a time when 73 percent of emerging human diseases are derived from animals, placing farm animals in constant close contact has led to bacterial resistance and other health concerns. Concentrated animal waste can pollute waterways with high nitrogen and phosphorus loads, and both manure and livestock release methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. Close confinement can interfere with natural animal tendencies as well. "It's the lack of normal behavior in confinement that I find most disturbing: chickens pecking at each other, pigs gnawing on cages," said Alan Goldberg, a professor of toxicology at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Businesses that oppose animal confinement have requested that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) establish a "naturally raised" label for meat and other animal products, to differentiate from the current "natural" label, which they say is misleading. Chipotle Mexican Grill, the country's largest restaurant seller of naturally raised meat, is among businesses that note that while "natural" addresses how the meat is processed, it does not provide information on how the animals are raised, such as whether they are confined.
The "naturally raised" label that is currently being proposed, however, refers mainly to how an animal is fed or medicated, and would still allow farms to utilize conventional confinement operations. Thousands of organic food companies and consumer advocates have submitted complaints that the label would be deceptive, which the USDA is now reviewing. "Review of consumer research and comments indicate that the prohibited use of antibiotics, growth promotants, and animal by-products are the main factors consumers associate with meat and meat products from livestock they perceive as naturally raised," said Martin O'Connor, chief of the agency's standards, analysis, and technology branch in their marketing service's livestock program, in a presentation he delivered last year to the meat industry. O'Connor said the agency should announce a decision by August 1.
To address the many concerns associated with factory farming, including confinement, the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production will release suggested changes at the end of this month. Although the commission is focused on U.S. industries, as meat consumption increases internationally and as industrialized countries import more livestock from the developing world, the report could have implications for shaping sustainable animal welfare policies worldwide, said Emily McVey, the commission's science advisor.
"More of our food is coming from other parts of the globe: Asia and South America," said Michael Blackwell, a member of the commission and former U.S. chief veterinarian. "Better [U.S.] public policy is needed to improve other sources from around the world."
Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
World Bank President Proposes “New Deal” for Food Aid
World Bank President Robert Zoellick said he supports greater reliance on cash or vouchers instead of commodity aid as part of a "New Deal" for global food policy. He made the comments during a speech he delivered Wednesday at the Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C.
as she was a 
