Rumble in the jungle

Could Peru’s uncontacted Amazonian tribes be wiped out by oil giants? Not if they don’t exist … Rory Carroll investigates 

• Rory Carroll


• The Guardian, Saturday 4 July 2009




• Article historyStand on the muddy riverbank at Copal Urco just before dawn and it is easy to see why the Amazon breeds legends. The vast river swishes past, almost invisible in the gloom. Insect and animal noises seep from the dense blackness of the forest. The day barely begun and already humid. As the sun rises the blackness recedes, revealing massive, tightly packed trees. Even when the light hardens it fails to penetrate far inside the jungle. The foliage is too thick, a wall sealing off an impenetrable realm.

Hunger may become the defining human tragedy of the century as the climate changes and hundreds of millions of farmers already struggling to grow enough food are forced to adapt to drought and different rainfall patterns, a report warns.

Oxfam International, in a comprehensive look at the expected effects on people of climate change, says some of the world’s staple crops will be hit and the implications for millions could be disastrous .

“Climate change’s most savage impact on humanity in the near future is likely to be in the increase in hunger … the countries with existing problems in feeding their people are those most at risk from climate change,” the report warns.

“Millions of farmers will have to give up traditional crops as they experience changes in the seasons that they and their ancestors have depended on. Climate-related hunger [may become] the defining human tragedy of this century.”

The report, published as world leaders prepare to meet for the G8 summit in Italy, says that farmers around the world are already seeing changes in weather patterns which are leading to increased ill-health, hunger and poverty. Oxfam staff in 15 countries collected records from communities and observed that:

• Seasons appear to have shrunk in number and variety.

• Rainfall is more unpredictable, tending to be shorter in duration.

• Winds and storms are felt to have increased in strength.

• Unseasonal events such as storms, dense fogs and heavier rains are more common.

“Once-distinct seasons are shifting and the rains are disappearing. Poor farmers from Bangladesh to Uganda and Nicaragua, no longer able to rely on centuries of farming experience, are facing failed harvest after failed harvest,” it says.

The evidence of changing weather patterns is anecdotal but the results are striking because of the extraordinary consistency they show across the world, said Oxfam programme researcher John Magrath.

“Farmers are all saying very similar things: the seasons are changing. Moderate, temperate seasons are shrinking and vanishing. Seasons are becoming hotter and drier, rainy seasons shorter and more violent,” said Magrath.

The report, released before the G8 meeting in Italy this week, where Barack Obama will chair a session on climate change, warns that without immediate action on climate all the development gains made in 50 years are under threat.

Rice and maize, two of the world’s most important crops, on which hundreds of millions of people depend, face significant drops in yields. Maize yields are forecast to drop by 15% or more by 2020 in much of sub-Saharan Africa and in most of India.

The report also documents how rising temperatures are affecting productivity in factories, with manual workers needing longer siesta times and outdoor workers experiencing dehydration. Cities in the tropics are becoming some of the most dangerous places in the world as heat stress increases, it says.

The “heat island effect”, where heat retention in concrete and air conditioning combines to raise night temperatures in tropical cities by as much as 10C, can devastate vulnerable populations.

“Projections suggest a sixfold increase in heat-related deaths in Lisbon by 2050, and a fivefold increase in Greater London, two to seven times more deaths in California and a 75% increase in deaths among old people in Australian cities.”

In Delhi, mortality rates rise by up to 4% with every 1C of temperature rise. The figure is 6% in Bangkok.

It also says many diseases are already migrating as temperatures rise. Malaria, dengue fever, river blindness and yellow fever are all considered highly likely to increase their distribution, it says.

A rainbow over San Jose in Costa Rica. Photograph: Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters

Costa Rica is the greenest and happiest country in the world, according to a new list that ranks nations by combining measures of their ecological footprint with the happiness of their citizens.

Britain is only halfway up the Happy Planet Index (HPI), calculated by the New Economics Foundation (NEF), in 74th place of 143 nations surveyed. The United States features in the 114th slot in the table. The top 10 is dominated by countries from Latin America, while African countries bulk out the bottom of the table.

The HPI measures how much of the Earth’s resources nations use and how long and happy a life their citizens enjoy as a result. First calculated in 2006, the second edition adds data on almost all the world’s countries and now covers 99% of the world’s population.

NEF says the HPI is a much better way of looking the success of countries than through standard measures of economic growth. The HPI shows, for example, that fast-growing economies such as the US, China and India were all greener and happier 20 years ago than they are today.

“The HPI suggests that the path we have been following is, without exception, unable to deliver all three goals: high life satisfaction, high life expectancy and ‘one-planet living’,” says Saamah Abdallah, NEF researcher and the report’s lead author. “Instead we need a new development model that delivers good lives that don’t cost the Earth for all.”

Costa Ricans top the list because they report the highest life satisfaction in the world, they live slightly longer than Americans, yet have an ecological footprint that is less than a quarter the size. The country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of what NEF calls “one-planet living”: consuming its fair share of the Earth’s natural resources.

The report says the differences between nations show that it is possible to live long, happy lives with much smaller ecological footprints than the highest-consuming nations.

The new HPI also provides the first ever analysis of trends over time for what are supposedly the world’s most developed nations, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

OECD nations’ HPI scores plummeted between 1960 and the late 1970s. Although there have been some gains since then, HPI scores were still higher in 1961 than in 2005.

Life satisfaction and life expectancy combined have increased 15% over the 45-year period for those living in the rich nations, but it has come at the cost of a 72% rise in their ecological footprint. And the three largest countries in the world – China, India and the US, which are aggressively pursuing growth-based development models – have all seen their HPI scores drop in that time.

The highest placed western nation is the Netherlands. People there live on average over a year longer than people in the US, and have similar levels of life satisfaction – yet their per capita ecological footprint is less than half the size. The Netherlands is therefore over twice as environmentally efficient at achieving good lives as the US, Nef says.

The report sets out a “Happy Planet Charter” calling for an unprecedented collective global effort to develop a “new narrative” of human progress, encourage good lives that don’t cost the earth, and to reduce consumption in the highest-consuming nations – which it says is the biggest barrier to sustainable wellbeing.

I’ve asked this question before, but the mystery seems only to thicken: how in God’s name does the government intend to meet its obligations under the Climate Change Act?

Its programme for cutting carbon through renewable energy is way behind schedule. It is expanding airports and motorways, while bailing out the car industry, ensuring that motor emissions stay high. The EU emissions trading scheme hardly touches the industries it is meant to regulate. Full carbon capture and storage will come too late to stop new coal-burning power stations from adding greatly to the problem.

I cannot understand how these policies can be reconciled with a legally binding 80% cut by 2050, let alone a 34% cut by 2020. When compared to real policies, the cuts predicted by its Committee on Climate Change look like pure wishful thinking.

But at least the government seemed to be getting something right. It was making what looked like bold moves to improve our housing stock, insisting that all new homes be zero carbon by 2016 and launching a scheme to improve the energy efficiency of existing stock. Even if nothing else was working, one sector would be making carbon cuts commensurate with the government’s legal obligations. Or so we thought.

Much of the improvement in existing housing stock was meant to have been delivered through tightening the building regulations. From next year, the government had promised us, the energy efficiency of existing homes would have to be improved whenever they were substantially refurbished or extended or their lofts were converted. This was the most important of the government’s energy efficiency reforms, which was meant to have delivered the biggest carbon saving. It also had the potential to employ a carbon army of insulators and draft stoppers: tens of thousands of people who could be taken from the dole queue and quickly trained.

But a fortnight ago, the government suddenly dumped this plan, when it published its new consultation document on Part L of the building regs. It’s the second time this has happened: the government broke the same promise in 2006. Bang goes its promise of efficient homes; bang goes the green new deal. Why?

The only explanation I can think of is that it fears a populist backlash. It’s not hard to imagine the tabloid fulminations about snooping inspectors invading the sanctity of our homes, the big brother state telling us how to live. But the stupid thing is that building inspectors are meant to sign off all substantial works anyway: to implement the energy regulations they would only have had to add one or two more lines to their check list. Like the other building regs – which protect us from fire, collapse, electrocution, explosions and the rest – the proposed new intrusion would have done us a favour, ensuring that we don’t spend hundreds of pounds a year heating the air outside our homes, rather than the air inside. It would have helped to protect homeowners from cowboy builders. But the government is so paralysed by the fear of middle class reaction that it won’t implement even the simplest measures to help us improve our own lives.

So where will its carbon cuts come from? I was mystified before; now I am utterly baffled. Can anyone help me out?

monbiot.com

The acquisition of farmland from the world’s poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe’s farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say.

New reports from the UN and analysts in India, Washington and London estimate that at least 30m hectares is being acquired to grow food for countries such as China and the Gulf states who cannot produce enough for their populations. According to the UN, the trend is accelerating and could severely impair the ability of poor countries to feed themselves.

Today it emerged that world leaders are to discuss what is being described as “land grabbing” or “neo-colonialism” at the G8 meeting next week. A spokesman for Japan’s ministry of foreign affairs confirmed that it would raise the issue: “We feel there should be a code of conduct for investment in farmland that will be a win-win situation for both producing and consuming countries,” he said.

Olivier De Schutter, special envoy for food at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said: “[The trend] is accelerating quickly. All countries observe each other and when one sees others buying land it does the same.”

The UN’s food and agricultural organisation and other analysts estimate that nearly 20m hectares (50m acres) of farmland – an area roughly half the size of all arable land in Europe – has been sold or has been negotiated for sale or lease in the last six months. Around 10m hectares was bought last year. The land grab is being blamed on wealthy countries with concerns about food security.

Some of the largest deals include South Korea’s acquisition of 700,000ha in Sudan, and Saudi Arabia’s purchase of 500,000ha in Tanzania. The Democratic Republic of the Congo expects to shortly conclude an 8m-hectare deal with a group of South African businesses to grow maize and soya beans as well as poultry and dairy farming.

India has lent money to 80 companies to buy 350,000ha in Africa. At least six countries are known to have bought large landholdings in Sudan, one of the least food-secure countries in the world.

Other countries that have acquired land in the last year include the Gulf states, Sweden, China and Libya. Those targeted include not only fertile countries such as Brazil, Russia and Ukraine, but also poor countries like Cameroon, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Zambia.

De Schutter said that after the food crisis of 2008, many countries found food imports hit their balance of payments, “so now they want to insure themselves”.

“This is speculation, betting on future prices. What we see now is that countries have lost trust in the international market. We know volatility will increase in the next few years. Land prices will continue to rise. Many deals are even now being negotiated. Not all are complete yet.”

He said that about one-fifth of the land deals were expected to grow biofuel crops. “But it is impossible to know with certainty because declarations are not made as to what crops will be grown,” he said.

Some of the world’s largest food, financial and car companies have invested in land.

Alpcot Agro of Sweden bought 120,000ha in Russia, South Korea’s Hyundai has paid $6.5m (£4m) for a majority stake in Khorol Zerno, which owns 10,000ha in Eastern Siberia, while Morgan Stanley has bought 40,000ha in Ukraine. Last year South Korea’s Daewoo signed a 99-year lease for 1.3m hectares of agricultural land in Madagascar.

Devinder Sharma, analyst with the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in India, predicted civil unrest.

“Outsourcing food production will ensure food security for investing countries but would leave behind a trail of hunger, starvation and food scarcities for local populations,” he said. “The environmental tab of highly intensive farming – devastated soils, dry aquifer, and ruined ecology from chemical infestation – will be left for the host country to pick up.”

In Madagascar, the Daewoo agreement was seen as a factor in the subsequent uprising that led to the ousting of the president, Marc Ravalomanana. His replacement, Andry Rajoelina, immediately moved to repeal the deal.

Concern is mounting because much of the land has been targeted for its good water supplies and proximity to ports. According to a report last month by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, the land deals “create risks and opportunities”.

“Increased investment may bring benefits such as GDP growth and improved government revenues, and may create opportunities for economic development and livelihood improvement. But they may result in local people losing access to the resources on which they depend for their food security – particularly as some key recipient countries are themselves faced with food security challenges”, said the authors.

According to a US-based thinktank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, nearly $20bn to $30bn a year is being spent by rich countries on land in developing countries.