The Societe Conservation Forestiere (SCF) was set up in December 2022 and is co-owned by two adult children of the DRC’s defence minister Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was accused of war crimes and found guilty of bribing witnesses. This is according to previously unreported company documents seen by Climate Home.

The documents show its stated goal is to sell carbon credits and it has applied to the provincial government for a “forest conservation concession” in the DRC province of Sud-Ubangi but it has not made progress on the ground and little else is known about it.

Anti-corruption activists raised concerns that Bemba could use his political power over the environment minister Eve Bazaiba, as her party leader, to benefit the company. Human rights activists criticised the war crimes committed by Bemba’s forces across Central Africa.

“A la carte menu”: Saudi minister claims Cop28 fossil fuel agreement is only optional

Carbon Market Watch researcher Jonathan Crook said the revelations raised “red flags” over whether the company is free from conflicts of interest and has the experience to conduct forest conservation projects that get informed consent from local peoples.

He added: “It is very concerning to hear of potentially significant conflicts of interest and serious allegations of human and land right abuses reported about individuals linked to this company”.

Bemba was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity but, after a 10-year trial at the International Criminal Court, he was eventually acquitted on appeal. He was found guilty of bribing witnesses in the case.

Ban on business

The documents show SCF’s shares are owned equally by Bemba’s 30-year old son Jean-Emmanuel Teixera and 29-year old daughter Magalie Tema Teixera. They are listed under their mother’s last name and as Portugese citizens.

The SCF’s constiution

Article 97 of the DRC’s constitution bans government ministers from carrying out “any professional activity”.

Jimmy Kande is an anti-corruption activist from the DRC. He told Climate Home that the country’s politicians often put projects in the names of their children.

Kande told Climate Home that this company may find it easy to get the support of the environment minister because she “depends on Jean-Pierre Bemba”.

Neither child has any track record of forest conservation and both remain close to their father. Magalie goes by Magalie Bemba on social media and re-posts her father’s messages praising his militia turned political party – the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC).

Jean-Emmanuel’s recent wedding was attended by his father, the president of the DRC Felix Tshisekedi and Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of the Ivory Coast who Jean-Pierre Bemba met whilst they were both on trial for alleged war crimes in The Hague.

A power player

Jean-Pierre Bemba was born into extreme wealth and power. His father was a minister under the DRC’s long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

When the DRC descended into wars which would end Mobutu’s rule, Bemba set up the MLC as a rebel militia and took control of almost a third of the country.

South African ministry uses opaque modelling to argue for weakening climate ambition

Human rights groups have accused them of raping and massacring and indigenous pygmy people during these wars.

In 2003, the warring factions signed a peace agreement which made Bemba one of five vice-presidents in the transitional government.

Three years later, Bemba was the main challenger to Joseph Kabila in presidential elections. The electoral commission declared Kabila the winner.

War crimes

The next year, on a trip to Belgium, Bemba was arrested on the orders of the International Criminal Court.

Their arrest warrant says he was suspected of perpetrating crimes against humanity and war crimes, particularly allowing his MLC troops to rape, murder and pillage during a conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR). In 2002, MLC fighters interceded to suppress a coup attempt against CAR president Ange-Félix Patassé.

Witnesseses told the court that civilians were murdered when they tried to stop their property being stolen. The thefts were “not justified by military necessity”, the ICC ruled.

In 2016, three different ICC judges found Bemba guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, namely the murder, rape and pillage committed by MLC fighters.

The three judges which declared Bemba guilty in 2016 (Photos: International Criminal Court)

While human rights groups celebrated the decision, then-MLC legislator Bazaiba called it “selective justice”. Bemba immeditately appealed. Two years later, a panel of five brand new judges narrowly reversed the decision, arguing the previous judges failed to properly prove that Bemba had the power to stop the war crimes.

The ruling was enough to free Bemba from prison in time for him to return to the DRC and try to run for president in the 2018 elections.

But the electoral authorities banned him from running because, while the ICC failed to convict him for war crimes and crimes against humanity, it did find him guilty of bribing witnesses in the trial.

The elections were won by Felix Tshisekedi, who sought to bring rivals from the MLC into his coalition.

He appointed the MLC’s secretary general Eve Baziaba as environment minister in April 2021 and Bemba as defence minister in March 2023.

The MLC’s support helped Tshisekedi win a second term in office last month and he is likely to keep both Bemba and Bazaiba as ministers.

Carbon offsets supporter

Since her appointment as environment minister, Bazaiba has been a vocal supporter of carbon offsets at Cop climate talks.

At Cop28, UN records show she was accompanied by her own daughter Nono Manganza and by Jean-Pierre Bemba’s eldest daughter Cynthia Bemba-Gombo.

At the conference, she stood alongside indigenous people from around the world and argued: “The world asks us – Amazonia, Congo Basin, Mekong basin – to preserve our forests. But to do this means adaptation of our lives, our agriculture, of everything”.

“And this adaptation needs funds,” she added, “so, we say OK, and we entered the carbon markets.

But back home, Greenpeace Africa have accused her of encouraging land-grabbing after she signed a mission order telling a team to “arracher” (which translates as “wrest”) consent from local communities for a carbon offset programme.

At the time, Greenpeace campaigner Irene Wabiwa accused her of “demonstrat[ing] contempt for Congolese law, civil society and the rights of local communities”.

Human Rights Watch researcher Thomas Fessy said “it’s easy to suspect that Bemba’s family – particularly at a time when a close political ally is at the helm of the environment ministry – has seen a business opportunity in a field that relatively new to Congo”.

The DRC is home to a twentieth of the world’s forest and polluting companies are expected be buying $10-40 billion a year of carbon offsets by 2030.

Magalie Bemba, Eve Bazaiba and the government of the DRC did not respond to requests for comment.

The post Witness bribing minister’s family own Congolese carbon credit company appeared first on Climate Home News.

The plan, announced in late August by the country’s Minister of Transportation, Renan Filho, was met with suspicion by environmentalists who are familiar with the fund’s guidelines.

During a press conference announcing new infrastructure investments, Filho said he plans to pitch the fund’s governing board a project to pave BR319, a road that cuts through the Amazon forest and connects two major cities in the north of Brazil — Manaus and Porto Velho. 

But environmentalists argue that this is not the kind of project that the fund is supposed to support. 

“The Amazon Fund is meant to keep the forest standing, to maintain its biodiversity, and to fight climate change. I don’t see its resources being used for paving. It would be completely incompatible with its guidelines,” says Sila Mesquita, president of the NGO Amazon Working Group and current representative of civil organisations in the Amazon Fund committee. 

One of the fund’s creators, forest scientist Tasso Azevedo also disagrees with the Ministry of Transportation’s plan. 

“I don’t think it makes any sense. This project does not fit into any of the fund’s planned support lines,” says Azevedo, currently coordinator at MapBiomas, an initiative to monitor land use in Brazil developed by a network of universities, NGOs, and technology companies. 

Created in 2008, the Amazon Fund has over $1.2 billion available for projects that prevent, monitor and combat deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The fund gets its money mainly from its largest donors — Norway, Germany and state-owned oil company Petrobras.

Controversial comeback

In 2019, the Amazon Fund was virtually paralysed by former president Jair Bolsonaro, who dissolved the committee that sets guidelines on how the money should be spent. 

Because of this political move, the money was frozen for over three years, since new projects could not be analysed. Donor countries Norway and Germany also suspended new contributions during Bolsonaro’s term. 

Revived by president Lula on his first day in the office, new potential investors have lined up.

Last week, Denmark announced a donation of $22 million, joining the UK, USA, Switzerland, and the EU, all of which advertised new contributions since Lula reinstated the fund. 

The initiative had funded 102 projects amounting to over $360 million until it was paralysed by Bolsonaro. 

But none of the supported projects were related to road infrastructure, according to the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), which manages the fund. 

“So far, the BNDES has not received any requests for financing a road infrastructure project using resources from the Amazon Fund,” BNDES told Climate Home News.

New guidelines

The bank also highlighted that any requests are processed “in accordance with the strategic vision, guidelines and focuses” outlined in the 2023-25 ​​Biennium, a new set of guidelines created by the Amazon Fund’s Guiding Committee. 

The new rules for how the money should be spent in the next two years were set by a committee formed by representatives of NGOs, environmental agencies and governmental institutions such as Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Environment. 

One of the members of this committee, Sila Mesquita, believes that the guidelines do not align with the project presented by the Ministry of Transportation.

The ministry, however, argues that the paving of BR319 would turn the road into the world’s “most sustainable highway” and would allow easier access for police patrols to monitor and prevent deforestation. 

“Our commitment, in addition to guaranteeing economic and social development by granting citizens the right to come and go, is also to ensure that the BR319 is a model in terms of environmental conservation,” the Ministry of Transportation told Climate Home News. 

Road through the rainforest

The BR319 is a federal highway that serves as the only link between two large states in the North of Brazil: Amazonas and Rondônia. 

Built during the 1970s, the road was delivered completely paved, but was closed a decade later due to lack of maintenance. Since then, only branches of the highway are paved and allow for regular traffic.

According to BR-319 Observatory, a collective of organisations that operate in the highway’s area, re-paving the road without conservation measures and proper consultation to indigenous communities can be prejudicial to the Amazon and encourage deforestation. 

The BR319 cuts through several conservation areas, including indigenous territories. Its indirect impact spans an ever larger perimeter

Several studies show that proximity to transportation networks is a major proximate driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Recent research has pointed out that 95% of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon happens within 5.5 km of a legal or illegal road. Considering only the official road network, most of the deforestation happens within 50 km of the nearest road. 

The complete paving of BR319, planned by the current Ministry of Transportation, still depends on several approvals from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).

“For this road to be sustainable, like the government says, it needs to be beneficial for all those conservation parks and indigenous territories that it cuts through. We have to ask the people who live there what is sustainable for them. It’s not about being for or against the paving of a road: it’s about taking into consideration science, technology and the local communities as well,” says Sila Mesquita.

The post Brazilian government eyes money from Amazon Fund for controversial road appeared first on Climate Home News.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has staked his international reputation on improving Brazil’s environmental standing, had been pushing for the region to unite behind a common policy of ending deforestation by 2030 – one he has already adopted.

Instead, the joint declaration issued on Tuesday in the Brazilian city of Belem created an alliance for combating forest destruction, with countries left to pursue their own individual deforestation goals.

The document also leaves out any mentions to halting fossil fuel contracts in the Amazon rainforest, a proposal that was championed by the Colombian President Gustavo Petro but ultimately failed to make it into the final text.

The Brazilian coalition of climate NGOs, Climate Observatory, said the declaration fell short of expectations, adding the agreement “fails the rainforest and the planet”.

Pressure grows on governments and banks to stop supporting Amazon oil and gas

Slow action

The failure of the eight Amazon countries to agree on a pact to protect their own forests points to the larger, global difficulties at forging an agreement to combat climate change. Many scientists say policymakers are acting too slowly to head off catastrophic global warming.

Lula and other national leaders left Tuesday’s meeting without commenting on the declaration. Presidents from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru attended the summit, while Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela sent other top officials.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said in a press briefing that the issue of deforestation “in no way whatsoever will divide the region” and cited “an understanding about deforestation” in the declaration, without elaborating.

As Guyana shows, carbon offsets will not save the Amazon rainforest

This week’s summit brought together the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) for the first time in 14 years, with plans to reach a broad agreement on issues from fighting deforestation to financing sustainable development.

Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian NGO coalition Climate Observatory, said the summit’s declaration is a “first step” but added it still lacks “concrete responses to the situation we’re dealing with”.

“The planet is melting, we are breaking temperature records every day. It is not possible that, in a scenario like this, eight Amazonian countries cannot put in a statement, in bold letters, that deforestation needs to be zero and that exploring for oil in the middle of the forest is not a good idea,” said Astrini.

Oil in the Amazon?

Tensions emerged in the lead up to the summit around diverging positions on deforestation and oil development.

Fellow Amazon countries also rebuffed Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro’s ongoing campaign to end new oil development in the Amazon. In his speech on Tuesday, Petro likened the left’s desire to keep drilling for oil to the right-wing denial of climate science.

He said the idea of making a gradual “energy transition” away from fossil fuels was a way to delay the work needed to stop climate change.

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Civil society organisations accused the Brazilian government of opposing a mention to fossil fuels in the final text, adding the country wanted to “bury” any mentions of a fossil fuel phase out in the region.

Brazil is weighing whether to develop a potentially huge offshore oil find near the mouth of the Amazon River and the country’s northern coast, which is dominated by rainforest.

“What we are discussing in Brazil today is of an extensive and large area – in my vision perhaps the last frontier of oil and gas before … the energy transition,” Brazil’s Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira told reporters after Petro’s speech.

Silveira said they should conduct research into what oil is there in order to make a decision on the issue.

Illegal mining

Beyond deforestation, the summit also did not fix a deadline on ending illegal gold mining, although leaders agreed to cooperate on the issue and to better combat cross-border environmental crime.

The final joint statement, called the Belem Declaration, strongly asserted indigenous rights and protections, while also agreeing to cooperate on water management, health, common negotiating positions at climate summits, and sustainable development.

As Reuters previously reported, the declaration additionally established a science body to meet annually and produce authoritative reports on science related to the Amazon rainforest, akin to the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change.

The post Amazon nations fail to agree on deforestation goal at summit appeared first on Climate Home News.

An investigation by the fund’s independent complaint mechanism found a series of failures that could “cause or exacerbate” violent conflict between indigenous people and settlers.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) will not provide any money to the project managed by Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime until it fully complies with the fund’s rules, its board ruled at an annual meeting in July.

This marks the first time the GCF board puts on hold an approved project over human rights concerns. The decision comes at the end of a process that took more than two years since a coalition of local and international NGOs filed a complaint.

But the fund stopped short of entirely scrapping the project, as local activists requested. The Nicaraguan government now has the chance to make it compliant with the GCF rules.

A GCF spokesperson told Climate Home that the matter “has received, and continues to receive, its highest attention”. They added that the fund reserves the right to exercise its legal rights in case the issues are not addressed to its satisfaction.

Human rights abuses

The project, which was approved in 2020, aims to reduce deforestation in the Unesco-designated Bosawás and Rio San Juan biosphere reserves in the Caribbean Region of Nicaragua.

The region is gripped by an increasingly violent conflict between indigenous communities and settlers, who are grabbing land to exploit the forest’s resources and farm cattle.

Independent legal observers have documented repeated attacks against indigenous people in the area with dozens of people murdered, kidnapped or raped over the last few years.

A report by the internal redress body said the complainants’ concerns that the project may fuel further violence were justified.

It also found the project had been approved even though it did not comply with a series of GCF’s policies and procedures. Investigators highlighted the failure to carry out due diligence on conflict risks and human rights violations and to conduct free and informed consultations with indigenous communities before the project’s approval.

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These failures “may adversely impact the complainant(s) and other indigenous communities in the project areas”, the report said.

A GCF spokesperson said the fund was not aware that the development of the funding proposal was not in compliance with its policies at the time of the project’s approval. New evidence brought to light subsequently through the independent investigation showed that some of the information presented by the project proponent, as part of its due diligence, was not accurate or correct, the GCF added.

Bittersweet ruling

Nearly a year after the investigation was concluded, the board has now requested the GCF Secretariat, its administrative arm, to put the project on hold until it respects the fund’s policies and procedures.

The ruling’s summary does not specify if all of the issues raised through the complaint mechanism will need to be addressed.

Pressure grows on governments and banks to stop supporting Amazon oil and gas

The result is bittersweet for the groups behind the complaint.

Florencia Ortuzar, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), says that, even if the outcome may ultimately be positive, the decision gives no clarity as to what process the Secretariat will follow. “We do not know which specific issues of non-compliance will be looked into nor how they will aim to fix them”, she added.

Calls for cancellation

Amaru Ruiz, director of the Nicaraguan organisation Fundación del Río, says the ruling validates indigenous populations’ concerns, but he believes the programme should be axed rather than simply improved.

“A project that violates human rights, consultation processes and a series of procedures should be cancelled”, he told Climate Home News. “The problems are substantive, not just formalities”.

The GCF Secretariat will now need to work with the Nicaraguan state apparatus and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, its funding partner on the project, to resolve the issues.

The government of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has been accused of widespread human rights abuses. Photo: Presidencia El Salvador

The government led since 2007 by president Daniel Ortega has been responsible for “widespread and systematic human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity”, according to the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua.

Ruiz claims the Nicaraguan regime does not have the political goodwill to play within the rules. “It is only after the financial resources, so I believe it will try to show on paper that the project is now compliant even if that is not the case”, he added. “We will see if the Secretariat acknowledges its previous mistake and will make sure regulations are properly applied now”.

Lack of transparency

The complainants’ worries are compounded by what they described as a lack of transparency during the lengthy redress mechanism.

Investigators concluded the reviews in August 2022 but their findings have only been made public now following the completion of the complaint process. The GCF’s board members discussed the report during three separate meetings before making a final decision nearly two weeks ago.

The discussions happened behind closed doors and public updates on the case were limited. This prompted some complainants to criticise the process as “unfair, non-transparent and deficient”.

G20 divisions over key climate goals pile pressure on Cop28 hosts

Aida’s Ortuzar told Climate Home News “this is especially concerning as it is the first time a complaint reached the board and it sets a worrisome precedent”.

The report by the redress mechanism also raised concerns over the way the GCF relies heavily on information submitted by project proponents to make decisions on whether to fund them.

“This leaves the GCF extremely vulnerable to policy and safeguards non-compliance that can result in huge reputational risks to the fund”, the investigators wrote.

The article was updated on 27/07 to include comments from the Green Climate Fund received after publication

The post UN climate fund suspends project in Nicaragua over human rights concerns appeared first on Climate Home News.

The launch comes after countries failed to meet internationally agreed 2020 targets to prevent the destruction of plants and wildlife. 

The Legacy Landscapes Fund aims to mobilise enough funding from private and public donors to provide 15 years of financial support for 30 conservation areas. 

At a launch event on Wednesday, Germany’s finance minister Gerd Muller said the fund would “provide lasting, reliable core funding for at least 30 biodiversity hotspots in Africa, Asia and Latin America”. 

The German government and several private donors have invested the first $100 million in the fund which will be used for seven pilot projects in four African countries, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Bolivia. Funding will be used to pay park rangers, support local communities, fund surveillance and monitoring and maintain infrastructure. 

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US climate envoy John Kerry and UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa both spoke at the event. “Nature is our best line of defence against the climate crisis,” Kerry said, stressing its important role as a carbon sink. “When given the chance, nature often recovers.”

“Mother nature does not work in a silo,” said Espinosa, noting that the destruction of nature can lead to a deadly chain of events and have severe impacts on human health.

Other speakers emphasised the link between biodiversity loss and the spread of diseases such as coronavirus. 

Stefanie Lang, the fund’s director, said that French president Emmanuel Macron has expressed his support and aims to make a financial contribution by 2022. 

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“We hope to attract other governments to join the initiative. This needs to be a global movement,” she said. “By ensuring that the costs of nature protection are covered, the Legacy Landscapes Fund addresses a key threat for the survival of species and of humankind.” 

The fund was established ahead of a global biodiversity summit in Kunming, China in October where the UN will seek to secure an agreement on protecting 30% of the Earth’s land and water by 2030.

Over 50 countries, including the US, UK and France, have said they will support the plan. To date just 17% of land and 8% of oceans are protected. According to a new report published on Wednesday, the number of protected areas has increased by 42% since 2010. 

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The 17% land conservation target was just one part of Aichi target 11 – a 10-year conservation goal. Governments have not fully met any of 20 Aichi biodiversity targets set at a meeting in Japan in 2010. Funding shortfalls and harmful subsidies significantly hindered progress. 

The 30 by 30 plan has been criticised by campaigners who are concerned that it will result in indigenous communities losing their land and livelihoods. Survival International recently launched a campaign describing it as the “biggest land grab in history”

Lang said the fund would work closely with indigenous communities and support their legal rights. 

“In some cases, it is only because of indigenous people that we still have areas that are worth protecting,” she said.

The post Germany launches $1 billion biodiversity fund after world misses targets appeared first on Climate Home News.

The biodiversity hotspots (red) are located near the equator in the Americas, Africa, South East Asia and Carribean (Pic: PLOS)

By Ed King

Ten specific regions vital for food security and biodiversity should be targetted for climate adaptation funding, a new report recommends.

The authors say areas in Central America, the Caribbean, South East Asia and Madagascar should be the focus of donor efforts, because of their agricultural and ecological importance.

Given support for projects aimed at helping countries adapt to climate change is limited, they say funds should be directed towards areas where ‘multiple benefits’ can be secured.

“Our results show that food production and ecosystem integrity are jointly vulnerable in ten world regions,” the report, published in the PLOS ONE journal, says.

“Because global political progress on climate change mitigation is evolving slowly at present, it is probable that adaptation actions in these regions will be the only means of averting the kind of damage to human and natural systems that the world has committed to avoid in the climate convention.”

Developed countries delivered $30 billion of climate finance between 2010-2012, but despite a number of countries pledging more support, those flows have slowed. Adaptation accounted for around 12% of the total.

According to researchers, the ten areas [see map at top] “intersect” global biodiversity hotspots and make up 8.9 % of the world’s arable land, 9.3% of the world’s habitable lands and 10.6% of remaining natural habitats.

The regions are also home to nearly 70% of the world’s bird species, and are home to over 10% of the world population living in poverty.

Tough message

The study is likely to prove controversial with Pacific Island and Arctic communities, often described as being on the frontline of global warming.

They, along with low lying countries like Bangladesh, are already suffering from melting sea ice and rising sea levels, but are not designated as ‘priority areas’ in the report.

Lead author Lee Hannah told RTCC the study is not designed to draw support away from the Arctic or Pacific. Rather, he says its aim is to help policymakers identify where else they can invest.

“Across most of the rest of the world, everything that’s significantly above sea level, we didn’t have any way to distinguish whether there were places better for first investments or not,” he said.

“I see this as additionally rather than competing with something else.”

According to the FAO, some developing countries can expect a drop of 20-40% in agricultural productivity as a result of climate change.

The links between biodiversity and food security are becoming increasingly clear. For instance, coffee growers often cultivate forests to encourage native pollinators to operate.

“I think we have solid examples of the inter-linkages between the two,” Hannah said, adding: “We also know that shade coffee is good for biodiversity. If you have canopy trees that provide habitats for birds and wildlife, at the same time coffee might be grown.

“If we can figure it out in these areas where we know food security and biodiversity are changing together then that’s going to yield insights that can be applied all round the world, and will help us to feed the world’s poor and protect rare species.”

Ten regions to target:

Central America – Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua (Hotspots: Mesoamerica; Madrean pine-oak woodlands)
Caribbean – Jamaica, Haiti, Dominica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela (Hotspots: Caribbean Islands)
Andes (South America) –  Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru (Hotspots:  Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena / Tropical Andes)
Guiana Highlands – Venezuela (Hotspot: Tropical Andes)
Atlantic Coast of Brazil (South America) – Brazil (Hotspot: Atlantic Forest)
Albertine Rift – Zaire, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda (Hotspot: Eastern Afromontane)
Madagascar – Madagascar (Hotspot: Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands)
Ghats – India (Hotspots: Western Ghats, Sri Lanka)
Philippines – Philippines (Hotspot: Philippines)
Java – Indonesia (Hotspot: Wallacea)

The post Study identifies 10 regions to target climate adaptation funding appeared first on Climate Home News.

Pic: Flickr / Cesar Aponte

By Sophie Yeo

Peru’s cloud forests could face near extinction as their fragile ecology means they are ill equipped to deal with the changing climate.

The forests, home to a third of Peru’s mammal, bird and frog species, are highly sensitive to changes in the temperature.

Scientists say those species could lose between 53-96% of their populations.

This is the conclusion of a study by researchers at Wake Forest University, North Carolina, who published their findings this week in PLoS ONE.

The habitats of most of the plants in the Andes – and therefore of the animals that live off them – are determined largely by temperature.

But the steep terrain means that temperature can change rapidly on the mountains’ slopes, and therefore the majority of tree and plant varieties can only live in an area extending a few hundred metres.

“I could be standing among a group of one tree species and throw a rock completely across their ranges,” says David Lutz, the paper’s lead author.

Cloud forest seedlings have so far coped with the problem by sprouting at higher elevations. But the rapid levels of projected change over the course of the century means that the plants will have to migrate faster than ever before.

This means they need to be at around 3,000 feet by 2100 if they are to remain in equilibrium with the climate if it continues to warm at its current rate.

The problem is, the grasslands at the highest elevations on the mountains act as a barrier, preventing the trees from moving further upslope.

The transition between trees and grassland, called an ecotone, has so far been stationery over most of the landscape, even where temperature changes mean that it should have moved 200m higher.

“Previous work we’ve done shows that the trees in the forest are migrating upwards, but this work shows the ecotone isn’t,” says Miles Silman, professor of Biology at Wake Forest University. “The ecotone presents a wall to species migration.”

While conservationists conventionally stay away from an interventionist approach, a hands on approach may be required if the cloud forests are to remain into the next century, says Lutz.

“Intervention is a strategy conservationists seldom use in this ecosystem but it may be the only way to save it,” he says.

“Our next step is working with local, and international conservationists to come up a plan to help cloud forests keep moving upslope.”

The post Peru’s cloud forests could be wiped out by 2100 appeared first on Climate Home News.

– The day’s top climate change stories as chosen by RTCC
– Tweet @RTCCnewswire and use #RTCCLive hashtag
– Send your thoughts to jp@rtcc.org
– Updated from 0830-1700 BST (GMT+1)

Friday 14 December

Last updated: 1610

IPCC Response: The IPCC has issued a statement in response to the release of a draft of its next major report due to be released in September 2013. “These drafts were provided in confidence to reviewers and are not for distribution. It is regrettable that one out of many hundreds of reviewers broke the terms of the review and posted the drafts,” reads the release.

US Poll: A new survey by AP and market research firm GfK has found that 80% of Americans believe that climate change will be a serious problem for the US if nothing is done to tackle it. Only 45% believe that President Obama will be able to take steps to address global warming in his second term. (AP/GfK)

IPCC: A chapter of the next IPCC climate science assessment report has reportedly been leaked by a climate sceptic. Professor Steve Sherwood, lead author of the chapter that appears to have been published says that the conclusions drawn by the blogger responsible, that solar forcing is responsible for climate change.

“Oh that’s completely ridiculous,” Sherwood told ABC’s PM programme. “I’m sure you could go and read those paragraphs yourself and the summary of it and see that we conclude exactly the opposite, that this cosmic ray effect that the paragraph is discussing appears to be negligible.

“It’s not the first time it recognises it. What it shows is that we looked at this. We look at everything. The IPCC has a very comprehensive process where we try to look at all the influences on climate and so we looked at this one. And there have been a couple of papers suggesting that solar forcing affects climate through cosmic ray/cloud interactions, but most of the literature on this shows that that doesn’t actually work….[it] looks extremely unlikely.” (ABC)

Christiana Figueres: The UN climate change chief has called on leaders to abandon the “politics of blame” and seize the opportunity presented by the transition to a low carbon economy. Writing for RTCC, Figueres said the negotiations were “moving steadily in the right direction, but alarmingly slow”.

Conservation: Increased drought and cyclone risk will place extreme pressure on some species of mammals with primates at particularly high risk, according to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). “This is the first study of its kind to look at which species are at risk from extreme climatic events…It is essential we identify species at greatest risk so that we can better inform conservation management in the face of global environmental change,” said Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, research fellow, ZSL. (Newstrack India)

EU: European Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has praised the EU’s role in transforming the UN climate change talks. Writing for the Guardian, she details the list of accomplishments of the talks while acknowledging that progress remains “slow and frustrating”. (The Guardian)

The post Hedegaard: Progress in Doha “slow and frustrating” appeared first on Climate Home News.

If environmental and biodiversity conservation methods do not boost the livelihoods of the very poorest, a sustainable future will not be possible, according to Indian development charity the Naandi Foundation.

“Poverty and prosperity are the greatest polluters,” Manoj Kumar, CEO of the Naandi Foundation told RTCC. “We are talking about an average American citizen living today thinking there are four planets for him, and the average European citizen thinking there are two planets for him,” said Kumar referring to the number of Earth’s required to provide sufficient natural resources to sustain their way of life.

“Then there is someone in poverty who thinks there is only a quarter of a planet left and that too is owned by someone else and he can barely move around.”

He said the challenge of conservation, for countries such as India, was not a fight with those who realise that they are over using the planets resources but trying to negotiate this with the poor farmer who is using resources and degrading the environment in order to earn a living.

Kumar warned if you can not convince the poor farmer that conservation will help boost his livelihood then a sustainable solution would not be possible.

“The issue is not about luxury, it is not about the relative quality of life that the West can claim is important,” he said. “Here it is an issue of survival.

“We need to tell them, your livelihoods can be taken care of by being connected to the biodiversity and agroforestry needs of the larger Earth, and then we might have a win-win solution.”

But for Kumar, the biggest problem in India comes from the growing middle classes. He said few in this bracket really understand the importance of biodiversity.

By 2030, around 50% of the Indian population is expected to live in cities. As the urban areas of the country expand, the biodiversity is under increasing threat.

Kumar warned that little is being done to protect this threatened biodiversity in India. For example, he said while there is legislation in many cities for new apartment blocks to include rainwater harvesting, very few follow through with this requirement.

“I would say that the growing middle class to me is a larger concern than the poor,” he said. “The poor are very conscious, very strongly worried about conservation, and they are trying their best, but there is a need for more than awareness.

“I think there is a need for stronger enforcement when you violate the needs of conservation as you try and expand inner cities and try to go through a different sort of consumerist expansion. That is the missing point if you ask me.”

The post Poverty and prosperity are the two greatest polluters, says Indian NGO appeared first on Climate Home News.

Great apes offer a yardstick against which we can measure the destruction of the natural world, a leading ape conservationist has warned.

Douglas Cress from the Great Ape Survival Partnership at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) told RTCC that by taking apes away from their natural environment, we are causing those ecosystems to “implode”.

“It is clear that by saving the great apes, we are saving ourselves,” he said. “They are great indicators of the world we live in and the world that we are creating for ourselves.

“We have learnt over the years that if you take a large species, like a gorilla, or an elephant or a rhino out of a forest or out of an ecosystem, it all begins to crumble. You can’t take them out at the scale you are doing now without forests imploding on themselves.

“But when you put them back you find that forests actually recover quite quickly.”

There are four species of great ape around the world. Chimpanzees, gorillas, and bonobos which are found in equatorial Africa and orangutans found in South East Asia.

But human settlements, logging, mining, disease, deforestation and illegal trade are putting these species under threat.

Some reports predict certain species of ape could be extinct within a generation.

There are currently around 20,000 humans for every chimpanzee on the planet, and Cress warns that humans and apes are in direct competition.

“It turns out the great apes need exactly the same things as we do to survive; the same areas, the same habitats, the same temperatures, the same food,” he said. “We are in direct competition now with great apes. There is probably little doubt that we will win but we also have the grace and the intelligence not to push them off the planet, I think.”

Orangutans, for example, live on only two Indonesian islands – Sumatra and Borneo – and with the growing trend to convert forest into oil palm plantations, the number of these apes are down to just 55,000 in the wild.

In Africa, human encroachment, the extraction of timber and mining are putting other ape species under threat. In Nigeria, there are only 300 endangered Cross River gorillas living in the wild.

The illegal trade of apes is also a huge problem. Cress warns that hundreds of apes are being transported from Africa to Asia – mainly China and Vietnam – each year for pets.

Cress warned that we need to halt these destructive practices to ensure the survival of what he believes is such a vital creature.

“Humans do not have to continue the same destructive practices for centuries if it spells their doom – that is the definition of insanity, if you hope for a different result,” he said. “We can be smart enough to provide alternative livelihoods, sustainability models, provide different forms of nutrition. We can do a million things that aren’t as simple or as base as destroying habitats and killing great apes.”

The post UNEP: Great apes offer yardstick for environmental destruction appeared first on Climate Home News.

The value of biodiversity to the poor must be taken into account when measuring economic wealth, influential environmental economist Pavan Sukhdev has warned.

The economic value of ecosystem services – for example clean air, water, food and timber – has risen to prominence in recent years but the concept of natural capital should not just be for big corporations.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) programme, which Sukhdev leads, aims to build a compelling economic case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.

Sukhdev said the TEEB study underlines the importance of protecting biodiversity for the poorest communities around the world.

“If you lose nature it is the poor farmer whose fields suffer from a lack of nutrients and fresh water; it is the poor farmer’s wife who can not go and collect fuel wood from the forest and it is the farmer’s cattle and goats that can not go and feed on the leaf litter in the forest,” he said.

“When you start to account for the invisible and unaccountable services, which do not enter GDP, then you can understand the nature of the livelihoods of the poor.

“I think it underlines the underlying understanding we must have for biodiversity, which is that biodiversity is not merely a luxury for the rich, it is a necessity for the poor.”

The TEEB report highlights that for countries including India, Indonesia and Brazil poor, rural and forest communities all depend on biodiversity.

In India for example 350 million people live in households where 45% of the income was dependant on nature, while in Brazil 20 million people live with incomes 89% dependant on biodiversity.

He warned that a more inclusive way of measuring wealth must be found that takes into account natural, social and human wealth and acknowledges the role natural wealth has in driving development.

“You can not manage what you do not measure and unfortunately our accounts across all nations use a current system of national accounting that does not reflect the value of ecosystem services. It does not reflect the loss of this value, when we lose forests, when we lose wetlands and when we lose the quality of nature,” he said.

The post Pavan Sukhdev: Biodiversity not a luxury for the rich but a necessity for the poor appeared first on Climate Home News.

Madagascar’s palm trees are nearing extinction, according to the latest update of the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species. 

The island’s palms have huge economic and biological significance, and are used for food, house building, crafts and medicines. Most are found in no other part of the world.

Land clearances for agriculture, logging and seed collection mean 83% of the palms could be lost within the decade, threatening a huge carbon sink and affecting the country’s resilience to climate change.

“The fact is most of what is in Madagascar will be gone if we don’t act in the next five to ten years. We won’t have to worry about climate change because there will be nothing left,” said Russell Mittermeier, President of Conservation International. “Climate change could have impacts down the line but the game right now is making sure that we conserve every remaining patch of forest because every forest that remains is of global importance.

“I am not even thinking about climate change expect in terms of REDD+, that could be a very significant thing because every little bit of forest counts there, and it is one of the models we have for that sort of thing.”

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List is the world’s largest information source on the global conservation status of plant, animal and fungi species. It is based on the risk of extinction of a species should no conservation action be taken, and each species on the list is re-assessed on a decadal basis.

This update reveals 65,518 species are currently endangered, with 20,219 threatened with extinction. IUCN have called on delegates to the UN biodiversity talks to bear these figures in mind during talks over financing the Aichi Targets.

The 20 Targets aim to halves biodiversity loss by 2020 and increase nature conservation areas by 17% by 2020.

IUCN’s Global Director Jane Smart said this latest update demonstrated the need for national governments to enforce strict regulations on logging and mining.

“When we carry out conservation work on the ground, stop the logging, stop the mining, we can rescue species if they are not yet extinct,” she said. “This information that we are bringing to you is not good news but we also have enough information to know that when we do conservation work, it works.”

Aichi target 12 states that by 2020 the extinction of known threatened species should have been prevented and their conservation status improved. Conservation groups say this is pivotal to all other targets.

18 metres tall, the Tahina palm can be seen by Google Earth (Source: J Dransfield/IUCN)

“Target 11 and 12 for me are central to everything we are trying to achieve because you cant really do all of the other things unless you conserve the basic biodiversity resource base, which is dealt with in target 12, species,” said Mittermeier.

“And target 11, setting aside all of the areas you need, is not only important for biodiversity. These are the places what provide the vital ecosystem services.”

The IUCN estimate that the extinction rate is currently between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would be naturally.

The main drivers for this loss are habitat destruction, land conversion for agriculture and development, pollution and the spread of alien species.

Climate change is also contributing to the loss of species with many species that are not currently under threat being at risk of climate impacts.

25% of the world’s mammals, 13% of birds, 41% of amphibians and 33% of reef building corals are under already threat from extinction.

Less is known about plant species, says IUCN.

This latest update comes following an assessment carried out on all of the palm species in Madagascar, as part of a wider project to assess palms worldwide.

Madagascan Palms

192 palm species were assessed – all of which are unique to the island – and are vital to the livelihoods of those on the island.

Many populations of palm species are at risk as land is cleared for agriculture and logging.

Unsustainable seed collection  is also a threat. The Tahina palm, listed for the first time, has been assessed as critically endangered, with much of its habitat being converted for agriculture. Only 30 remain in the wild.

This palm is so high, at 18 metres, that it can be viewed on Google Earth. It’s also known as the suicide palm, as it has a habit of self destructing after flowering. “It is called the suicide palm but it is going to be a case of murder is we do not do anything about it,” said Smart.

COP11 VIDEO: Conservation International’s Russell Mittermeier outlines need to expand protected areas around world.

 More from COP11

Welcome to the UN’s secret climate adaptation summit

UK and Canada win ‘Dodo’ award for blocking biodiversity talks

Amnesty and Greenpeace call on India to stop coal violations

The post Madagascar close to losing 83% of palm trees in next decade – IUCN appeared first on Climate Home News.

– Live coverage from CBD COP11
– TV interviews from RTCC studio in Hyderabad
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– Email ts@rtcc.org or message @rtcc_tierney

Fog of COP: Heavy mists swirled around the conference centre last night (see below) as talks closed for the day, choking some participants. Locals told us mosquito repellant is released at night in vast quantities. There is no malaria in Hyderabad but mosquitoes are a huge problem due to the number of lakes. Fellow delegates suggested the mist was derived from DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), the insecticide that was first highlighted by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring. Surely not at a biodiversity conference?

The main entrance to the HICC was shrouded in a thick grey mist last night

Dying lake: Hyderabad is famous for its lakes – and two are making the headlines here. COP11 conference centre organisers have been accused of dying the lake green to mask its polluted state. This comes on the back of reports that a local power company cut down 40 healthy trees next to the centre.

Holy lake: The second patch of water in the news is the Hussain Sagar Lake in the centre of the town. It looks stunning but is now contaminated as a result of the recent Ganesha Festival. The end of this holy event sees worshippers line up to throw their statue of Ganesh into the lake. The unintended and devastating consequence is that thousands of plaster of paris (PoP) statues line the bottom of the lake, causing silting which eventually kills marine life. Toxic paints used to paint the statues pollute the water and cause allergies.

Inside the talks: Significant progress has been made during the first week of the COP11 summit in Hyderabad according to the The UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity. Working Groups have already been able to agree on four texts. These focus on on plant conservation, taxonomy, biofuels and incentives. In his morning briefing CBD Communications officer David Ainsworth also said talks have been “advancing efficiently” in other areas, such as oceans.

Funding: “Significant difference of opinion” still remains when it comes to finance, according to Ainsworth. A contact group comprising of interested parties has been convened to discuss this topic in more depth this morning. Negotiations will continue over the weekend.

Poverty: Parties are discussing whether they should endorse, make notes or simply recognise (all UN jargon) the links between poverty eradication and the environment – including the Rio+20 Summit outcomes and process of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Video of the day: Patricio Bernal, coordinator of the IUCN’s Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI) tells RTCC about a new “health assessment” for the world’s oceans due in 2013.

The post Hyderabad biodiversity talks: day 5 diary appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: IUCN Photo Library
Photographer: Joëlle Dufour

Rhinos are beginning to feel the effects of climate change and drought.

For the one-horned rhino, found on the floodplain grasslands in Assam and Nepal, disruption to the annual monsoon rain could leave it going hungry.

The Sumatran rhino is at risk of fire as dry seasons get longer and forests and peatland become tinder-like.

Alarm at the fate of some of the world’s largest rhino species, growing concern over increased illegal hunting and the demand for rhino horn led President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia to a label 2012 as the ‘Year of the Rhino’.

In the last decade two rhino species, the Western Black Rhino in Cameroon and the Indochinese Javan Rhino in Vietnam have become extinct.

Two more populations – the Northern White Rhino and the mainland population of the Sumatran Rhino are becoming close to extinction and are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.

he IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organisation aimed at finding solutions to the most pressing environment and development challenges.

The post Photo of the Week #33 – How climate change is affecting the mighty Rhino appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: IUCN Photo Library
Photographer: Joëlle Dufour

The Olive Ridley turtle is considered vulnerable on the IUCN Redlist and while it is one of the most abundant marine turtle populations, it’s numbers are dwindling.

Rough estimates put the worldwide population of nesting females at about 800,000 and still in decline. In the United States, the western Atlantic population of the species is described as endangered while other populations are classified threatened.

Many governments have protection in place for Olive Ridleys but problems persist including eggs being taken, nesting females being killed and turtles being caught up or drowned by fishing nets.

Olive Ridley turtles are named so because of the colouring of their shells, which start grey but become olive green. They are one of the smallest species of sea turtles – at 2 feet in shell length and weighing up to 100 pounds.

They are solitary species and prefer the open water. They come together as a group once a year when females return to the beaches where they were hatched to nest.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organisation aimed at finding solutions to the most pressing environment and development challenges.

The post Photo of the week #31 – Conservation threats for the world’s smallest sea turtle appeared first on Climate Home News.

– The day’s top climate change stories as chosen by RTCC
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– Updated from 0900-1700 BST (GMT+1)

Latest news – Tuesday 21 August 

1700: The EPA’s rule setting strict limits on sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions has been abandoned by the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit who sent the rule back to the agency for revision and told it to administer its existing Clean Air Interstate Rule in the interim.

The rule was designed to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 73% and nitrogen oxide by 54% at coal-fired power plants from 2005 levels.

1600: A group of researchers believe they have developed an eco-friendly way to clean up oil spills. This new method uses just a handful of ingredients, none of which are petroleum-based, and all of them commonly found in foods such as chocolate, ice cream and peanut butter.

1500: The Philippine President Benigno Aquino is said to have signed a law creating a one billion peso (around $24 million) survival fund to combat climate change and pay for adaptation projects in the country.

14oo: The World Meteorological Organisation has called on nations to urgently adopt drought-management policies as farmers from Africa to India struggle with a lack of rainfall and theUSexperiences its worst drought in decades.

1300: Could Australia be the first non-European industrialised country to sign up to an extension of the Kyoto Protocol? Hopes have been raised after the opposition coalition offered ‘in principle support’ to the idea.

1145: Australia’s Climate Commission – a group set up by the Federal Government to provide independent information on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and the carbon price – has released a new report tracking the international efforts to tackle climate change.

It found efforts are accelerating rapidly.

1030: The Carbon Brief takes a look at the debate surrounding claims the UK could have the ‘climate of Madeira’ by 2060.

BBC Radio 4’s Costing the Earth, which first argued the claims (that they say were based on findings from the Met Office’s UK Climate Projections) have come under fire from the Met Office Head of Climate Impacts Richard Betts, who says the premise of the programme was based on “inaccurate information.”

0930: UK fish consumption in 2012 has already matched what the seas can supply for a year – leaving the country reliant on imports. A report from the New Economics Foundation calculated that annual fish supplies from seas can only satisfy demand for 233 days.

0830: Arctic sea ice is expected to reach record lows next week – and then continue to melt – according to a scientist from the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Ecology drones, unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor wildlife are being used to track endangered species, spot poachers and chart forest loss.

Former US vice-president Al Gore has praised Australia’s climate change action saying the Gillard government’s carbon price has “inspired the world” to press ahead with measures to tackle climate change.

Oil company Shell are in talks with the US government in an attempt to speed up its planned summer drilling programme in the Arctic by starting work before final approvals have been secured. The company are running out of time to carry out their exploratory drilling before sea-ice begins to build up again.

Top Tweets

Legitimate public concerns over #fracking must be addressed, @iea Executive Director. bit.ly/Pyadi5 #gas #shale #oil #energy

— IEA (@IEA) August 21, 2012

 

50% of SA’s electricity can be generated from renewable energy by 2030 – increasing to 94% by 2050 greenpeace.org/africa/en/geti… via @greenpeaceafric — Franz Rentel (@franzren) August 21, 2012

Image of the day The Climate Commission in Australia tracks global action on climate change…

What is the rest of the world doing about climate change? Check out our global climate action map. twitter.com/ClimateComm/st… — Climate Commission (@ClimateComm) August 21, 2012

 Today’s video

One of the most bizarre publicity stunts to date? Here’s the video of weather forecaster Michael Fish – infamous for telling the British public not to worry in 1987 just hours before the worst storm since 1703 hit – apparently base jumping from a building to raise awareness of climate change…

A lot of hype has been surrounding the video – mainly over whether Fish did the jump himself or was aided by a stunt double…

OK Twitter, let’s clear this up. Did Michael Fish really jump? Brave, funny, well-meaning publicity stunt or bizarre fakery?

— James Murray (@James_BG) August 21, 2012

@james_bg Surely fake, by his reaction after, i sky dived a few years ago and was still shaking hours after #braveman

— Ed_InstaGen (@Ed_InstaGen) August 21, 2012

@james_bg On the video it looks as if the jump takes place at dusk (note the lights), and the landing at dawn. Longest base jump in history?

— James Kershaw (@JamesKershawE2B) August 21, 2012

@james_bg PR confirmed to me a few weeks ago on email that it’s not him

— Adam Vaughan (@adamvaughan_uk) August 21, 2012

The post Climate Live: Arctic sea ice hits record lows, ecology drone monitor conservation and Al Gore praises Australia’s climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: IUCN Photo Library
Photographer: B. Riche & G. Davila

The Blue-headed Parrot (or Pionus Menstruus) is found in abundance in the forests of Central and Southern America especially Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru.

While not thought to be vulnerable – listed as a ‘least concern’ on the IUCN Redlist – their numbers are thought to be in decline.

In areas of Eastern Brazil, deforestation and illegal trade are threatening the numbers of parrots.

Over the next 20 years the blue-headed Parrot is expected to lose 18 to 23% of its suitable habitat within the Amazon due to deforestation. Numbers of the bird are expected to decline 25% over the same period.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organisation aimed at finding solutions to the most pressing environment and development challenges.

The post Photo of the week #30 – Deforestation and the Amazon’s blue-headed Parrot appeared first on Climate Home News.

Source: IUCN Photo Library
Photographer: B. Riche & G. Davila

Jaguars are historically found as far north as the south-western United States and as far south as southern Argentina. It is the largest land carnivore in most of its range.

The jaguar faces many challenges, mainly the conversion of its habitat for human economic interests.

As the prey of the jaguar is very similar to the prey of humans – both preferring large mammals –there is often an element of competition between rural people and jaguars.

They risk being poisoned or shot by livestock owners and over hunting has helped to deplete the cat’s natural prey base.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve, spanning Guatemala, Belize and Mexico, is one of Latin America’s last remaining strongholds for the cat.

Forest fires are growing rampant, however, and climate change research predicts that the problem will grow worse, putting the Jaguar under increasing threat.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organisation aimed at finding solutions to the most pressing environment and development challenges.

The post Photo of the week #27: Jaguars under threat appeared first on Climate Home News.

The aim is to demonstrate how Sustainable Development is becoming a reality on every continent, country and city.

Here the Fundação Grupo Boticário explains how the Oasis Project in Brazil offer payment for property owners who conserve natural water springs for public consumption.

Projects involving payments for environmental services (PES) have spread all around the world and in Brazil over the last decade.

“The advantage of this economic instrument in relation to other nature conservation tools is that it allows putting providers of an environmental services – such as small farmers – ahead the conservation process,” says Malu Nunes, the executive director at the Fundação Grupo Boticário de Proteção à Natureza (Fundação Grupo Boticário for Nature Protection).

Protected spring in a property participating in the Oasis Project Apucarana. (© Prefeitura de Apucarana)

The Fundação Grupo Boticário has been working with PES since 2003 and has developed a mechanism called the Oasis Project, implemented in three municipalities in Brazil and soon to expand to other locations.

The Oasis Project grants financial awards to more than 220 small and medium-sized properties whose owners preserve their natural areas water springs for public consumption, contributing to the maintenance of both biodiversity and the quality of water.

One of the participants in the Oasis Project is 76-year-old Alberto Eduardo Cardoso de Mello, a retired chief of police.

He is dedicated to preserve an area of 272.3 hectares of Atlantic Forest within the São Paulo city limits, the largest metropolis in the country.

The area was inherited from his father, and is an ecological paradise which shelters 42 springs. But it was once close to disappearing.

Mr. Mello considered selling the Nossa Senhora da Piedade Ranch because he could not afford it, but it was saved when, in October 2008, he was granted financial awards through the Oasis Project, by the Fundação Grupo Boticário. “The support from the Oasis Project was the salvation of a dream,” he sums up.

Environmental services

Alberto Eduardo Cardoso de Mello, participant landowner at the Oasis Project in São Paulo. (© Acervo Fundação Grupo Boticário)

The protected springs in the properties of Mr. Mello and all the projects other participants, which guarantee pure water for human consumption, the organisms which transform organic matter into nutrients for farming, and the animals which produce hormones and venoms for the manufacturing of medicines.

All of the above are examples of environmental services provided by natural environments that are preserved for humankind.

“Environmental services are responsible for the necessary infrastructure for the establishment of human societies,” explains Ms. Nunes.

However, their supply in sufficient amounts and quality has been endangered by growing pressures on biodiversity and ecosystems, due to urban spread, to an unsustainable consumption pattern, to population growth, and to climate changes, among other factors.

The maintenance of a great share of environmental services depends on the conservation of tropical forest remnants and other native vegetation formations.

The increase in public protected areas is an essential strategy within this context, but it is not enough in itself. The ideal situation is that forested protected areas, for instance, are not disconnected amongst themselves, but rather other natural areas – including those located in private properties – act as links between them.

However, the question that is put forward is how to conserve natural areas in private rural areas and at the same time provide better living conditions for the populations? An alternative is by way of PES, which allows financial rewards for those who protect an environmental service.

New Brazilian PES model

Ms. Nunes believes that a PES project tends to be more effective in the long-term in that the participants are more conscious of the importance of the protection of the environmental service and contribute to the improvement of this service.

She comments that the Fundação Grupo Boticário has created a model of PES calculation within this line of work which has as a differential the possibility of being easily adaptable to the socioeconomic and environmental features of different locations in Brazil.

“The methodology will be available for free to institutions that wish to implement the Oasis Project in their states or municipalities and which sign an agreement with the Fundação Grupo Boticário,” says Ms. Nunes.

This article is part of a series commissioned by the Rio Conventions for their RioPlus Business project.

The post Rio+20 Business Focus: Preserving natural water springs with Brazil’s Oasis Project appeared first on Climate Home News.

Madagascar, one of the most biologically rich countries in the world and where the vast majority of native forests has been lost. (©Cristina Mittermeier/iLCP)

The cost of environmental conservation could double as a result of climate change, according to a trio of studies.

The work by Conservation International and the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) looked at California, South Africa and Madagascar. It found that preserving existing ecosystems such as forests, would be cheaper and more effective than attempting to replace those lost to climate change.

“This set of studies from around the world is a wake-up call,” said Rebecca Shaw, a climate scientist and associate vice president with the EDF.

“The truth is that we have been struggling to conserve the nature we depend on for clean air and clean water without climate change,” said Shaw who added that these costs are only likely to increase in the future.

“It is time to get much more creative about inspiring innovative and cost-effective private incentives for conservation to more efficiently sustain our planet’s life-support system for our benefit and the benefit of our children,” she said.

The research, published in Conservation Biology, is the first to assess the effect of climate change on the costs of conservation.

A study published in 2001 estimated that for global conservation spending to be effective, it would need to reach $25bn a year.

The post Climate change doubles the cost of conservation appeared first on Climate Home News.

To mark the Academy Awards on Sunday night, RTCC looks at some of the best environmental films on offer…and one not so good.

We’ll run through five excellent documentaries and one fictional guilty pleasure…

First up, If a tree falls: A story of the earth liberation front. Our first entry is nominated for Best Documentary at this year’s Aacdemy Awards and tells the story of one environmental groups shift from non-violence to a campaign of property destruction.

A previous environmental documentary to win the Oscar is up next. The Cove proved that the subject can do well with critics and audiences alike.

Tarmaggedon is especially timely given the level of debate over Canada’s tar sands oil…

In transition 2.0 is a look at the increasingly popular Transition movement from communities printing their own currencies to local energy projects, all triggered by what started as a social experiment.

Blue Gold offers a reminder that while there is so much focus on CO2 emissions and biodiverse forestry, our water resources are the subject of huge pressures at a time of increasing population.

And finally…a cinematic climate change guilty pleasure. It is big, but its not clever. Global warming gets the full Hollywood treatment…

The post Oscars weekend: Five green movies not to miss…and one you should appeared first on Climate Home News.

Tanner says Montana's hunters are more likely to notice subtle changes in the environment. (Source:Flickr/Gregw66)

A US conservationist has offered his pride and joy – a Berretta 12 gauge shotgun – as a prize to anyone that can persuade him that climate change is not real.

Todd Tanner, chairman of the Conservationist Hawks, a group of hunters and anglers that campaign on environmental issues will offer the gun to anyone that can provide him with a convincing argument that climate change is of no concern.

“If somebody can convince me that I don’t have to worry about climate change, I’ll give it [the gun] them. Or I’ll auction it off and donate the proceeds to the charity of their choice,” Tanner told Field and Stream’s Conservationist Blog.

“It will have to be a real argument, with real facts. I don’t think that argument exists, but I’m willing to be surprised.”

The Conservationist Hawks look to tackle environmental issues head on, something Tanner draws from his experience in the wilderness.

“Let’s say you are walking down a trail in the wilderness with your wife and kids, and you come upon a grizzly sow, standing on a carcass. She charges, flat out. You’re in front of your family. What do you do?” asks Tanner. “Just give up? Let her maul you and everything your care about? Of course you don’t. You take action. That is how I see climate change. It’s real, it’s threatening everything we love. Not taking action is not an option.”

Tanner and his organisation promote awareness of environmental issues, including climate change to other hunters, around half of which he says are concerned about these problems.

“The facts are out there, and we’ll present them as best we can. But I’m not asking anybody to take my word for anything. Just observe, and believe your own eyes and observations. You can’t fit a piece of paper between what I’ve seen in my life outdoors and what I know of the science of climate change. It’s not about politics, or who votes for who. It’s about what is real,” said Tanner.

Tanner is not the first to offer a prize linked to climate change. JunkScience.com’s Ultimate Global Warming Challenge offers $500,000 to the first person it judges to have proved the existence of man-made climate change.

The post Sceptics, prove climate change isn’t real and win a gun appeared first on Climate Home News.