The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Madagascar fishermen protect mangroves to save jobs Posted: 11 Dec 2011 08:24 PM PST  A fisherman crosses the mangrove on his canoe on November 11, 2011 in Belo-sur-Mer, western Madagascar. ― AFP pic "The communities chose to close several sites for four months of the year, to allow the crabs and fish to reproduce," said Thomas of Blue Ventures, a British marine conservation group, who like other locals goes by just one name. Three sites totalling 200 hectares around the town of Belo-sur-mer were chosen to pilot the project in the coastal forests that cover 4,000sq. km of Madagascar. These thick mangrove swamps are home to mud crabs, known formally as Scylla serrata, whose catches are the economic mainstay of this region. Since 2004, community groups have closed more than 130 areas to fishing, but this is the first time they have blocked fishing in a mangrove. Antanimanimbo is a hamlet of a few wooden huts built on a finger of sand between the ocean and the mangrove. Its 100 residents live by the rhythm of the tides. "There used to be so many crabs in the mangrove. Now there's just a few. That makes me worry for future generations," said Jean-Francois, the 62-year-old vice president of the village's fishing association. The group decided to close an area of 120 hectares to allow the crabs to recover from years of overfishing, which had depleted the stocks. Special nets and the creation of reserves are solutions proposed by Blue Ventures and accepted by consensus among residents. "The entire village respects the ban because we organised meetings and discussions to think about protecting our fishing zone, and we decided to adopt this system," Jean-Francois said. To enforce the ban, the community enacted a "dina", a local law that every one agrees to abide by. Anyone who violates the ban can be fined by the community. "To introduce this system, Blue Ventures has a technique: exchanges among the villages. We bring fishermen to see villages where this has worked," said Thomas, who has worked on several similar projects. "Other fishermen from the north will also come here to see this site," he said. Blue Ventures' goal is to expand this model across Madagascar's southwest coast to help communities that are seeing their natural resources dwindle, whether it's crabs, fish, octopus or sea cucumbers, all types of sea life are affected. Overfishing is not caused only by local fishermen. Big fishing ships, sometimes without licences, drop their nets freely in Madagascar's waters. A study by Blue Ventures and the University of British Columbia in Canada found that nearly 4.7 million tonnes of fish have been caught since 1950, only about half of it known to authorities. Although local communities cannot do much to stop industrial fishing, they can protect coastal waters and create a place for themselves in the commercial market, Blue Ventures said. "If the fishermen adopt this system over the long term, they could negotiate better prices from buyers who will come when the reserve re-opens," Thomas said. ― AFP-Relaxnews Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| World still in arrears on climate change pledges Posted: 11 Dec 2011 07:25 PM PST  Christiana Figueres (centre), executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, speaks with Brazil's Minister of Environment Izabella Teixeira (left) and chief climate envoy Luiz Alberto Figueiredo during a plenary session. The conference went an extra day. — Reuters pic The tentative promise yesterday, thrashed out over days of talks, that all the big emitters will eventually join an international scheme of carbon reduction targets is the latest small instalment and allows UN law to retain some value in trying to stop the planet from overheating.
But persuading major emitters China and India, who were not part of the original Kyoto carbon cuts, and the United States, which signed but did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, to agree to any kind of a global, legal deal is still a small step previous climate summits failed to manage. "International targets do two things," said Michael Jacobs, visiting professor on climate change and the environment at the London School of Economics. "They motivate and reinforce national policy and they give confidence to countries and investors that policy will last. "In the end what drives emissions reduction is national policy, not international targets. Durban can only provide the basis for this." The European Union, which has enshrined Kyoto principles into its own law, led the charge for an agreement that would eventually produce a top-down deal with legal strength, rather than the bottom-up approach as favoured by the United States and others, involving only domestic legislation and voluntary pledges. "We think you need a multilateral system," said Environment Minister Marcin Korolec of Poland, current holder of the EU presidency. He went so far as to compare the success of yesterday's deal with climate talks in 1995, which led to the Kyoto Protocol two years later. EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has repeatedly said the EU's own experience proves top-down, binding targets are the way to guarantee action. In addition to its commitment under the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union has its own set of three 2020 green goals, two of which are binding and one of which is not binding. It is on track to meet the mandatory goals of a 20 per cent drop in emissions and a 20 per cent rise in renewable energy, but is only expected to half-meet a third, non-binding aim of a 20 per cent improvement in energy efficiency through measures such as insulation and better building design.  Greenpeace activists hold a mock party opposite the venue where the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) was being held. — Reuters pic Even the extremely lengthy debates, especially in Durban, where the conference broke records in terms of running over time, have intrinsic value. "Smaller countries have really been the conscience of the conference," said Jason Anderson, head of European climate and energy policy at WWF. He cited the impact of impassioned pleas from small island nations who fear they could sink under rising sea levels without a strong global pact. But he also said climate change talks were only one very complex forum for moving to a greener future. In parallel, a green technology race, driven by business momentum, has accelerated and the business community argues it is far more likely than UN talks to deliver on time. GREEN TECH RACE China and the United States, as well as being the two biggest carbon emitters, are at the helm of the contest to adopt greener energy sources. They had to be heavily persuaded to agree to any kind of wording in Durban that would imply legally binding carbon emissions cuts, but they have adopted green technology with enthusiasm. In 2010, China invested US$54 billion (RM170 billion) in low carbon energy technology, compared with US$34 billion for the United States, the US Pew Environment Group said. India, the world's third-biggest carbon emitter behind China and the United States, is also nervous that binding emissions targets might hobble its economic growth, but it too has also begun moving towards green development. It has to tackle issues, including the potentially huge capital investment costs of green energy, which are only cheaper in the long run. And it remains to be seen whether it can catch up with China and the United States. Equally, internationally binding agreements provide no guarantees of change. Canada, whose huge deposits of oil sands make it a financial challenge to reduce its carbon emissions growth, was theoretically bound by the first phase of Kyoto, but in practice had made clear it has no intention of meeting its targets. — Reuters Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
Environmentalists want much more.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Features To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan