Tag Archives: Environment

By: Lykke E. Andersen*

To celebrate Earth Day 2017, which is tomorrow, I would like to highlight the important findings of a paper by Campbell et al. published earlier this month in Nature (1). The paper documents, through the analysis of air trapped in ice from Antarctica, that the growth of global terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) –the amount of carbon dioxide that is ‘fixed’ into organic material through photosynthesis– is larger now than it has been at any time during the last 54,000 years. This basically means that the planet is greener and nature is thriving more now than at any time during human history, despite all the havoc we humans are wreaking everywhere.

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By Susana del Granado *

“The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.”

Pope Francis, 2015

“I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home” is one of the beginning lines of the Pope’s encyclical, released by the Vatican yesterday at noon. Traditionally the encyclical is a letter from the Pope to the Bishops about Catholicism, but it has evolved into an open letter to society discussing the Pope’s insights and concerns on a particular matter. Pope John XXII (1963) was the first, to my knowledge, to address society in general in his efforts to reform the Catholic Church.

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Bamboo is a type of grass with over 1,000 species that vary enormously in their size and preferred growing conditions. Thus, bamboo is found in several diverse locations around the world: native species exist in countries in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia. In many of these places, using bamboo for a wide variety of purposes is part of the culture. For example, in China, large bamboo stems are used as scaffolding, bamboo shoots are preserved or cooked in various ways and then eaten, and small stems are used to make flute-like musical instruments. And bamboo has many more fascinating uses besides these: Read More »

As part of continuous growth, INESAD and Development Roast are bringing on board a host of new interns. Join us in welcoming our newest addition Surabhi Karambelkar:

Surabhi is a currently pursuing a Master’s in Environment and Sustainable Development at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU) at the University College London (UCL). She started her work in the environmental sector by focussing on wildlife conservation where she worked as a freelance volunteer and wildlife expert with the local organizations National Education Foundation and Naturewalk. Through engaging with forest communities on wildlife conservation projects she realized that they were increasingly dependent on the forest to meet their needs. This indicated that social development and environmental issues are intrinsically linked and convinced to her broaden her focus to encompass the two areas.

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By Valerie Giesen

Private sector investment in infrastructure and extractive projects such as mining are often perceived as opportunities by national governments. For instance, African governments have welcomed the large-scale involvement of Chinese and Indian firms in infrastructure and mining projects as an economic advantage, which allows governments to improve their competitiveness abroad and increase employment at home. However, these projects tend to affect local populations unevenly, confronting governments with the dilemma of weighing the benefits and disadvantages of economic development in emotionally charged environments. Just last week Ricardo Morel Berendson wrote about the difficulties of building an inclusive mining model in Peru.

An example of the tensions between development goals, which made it into the international headlines in 2011, was the Bolivian government’s plan to build a 182-mile highway, parts of which were to cut through a national park in the Bolivian part of the Amazon basin. Up to this point, the government under Evo Morales had presented itself as a radical defender of indigenous ecological rights on the global stage and had gone beyond external demands on developing countries to preserve their natural environment as a safeguard against climate change. For instance, in 2010, Bolivia was the only country to refuse the outcome of the United Nations (UN) climate summit in Cancún; Its ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solon, argued that the voluntary agreements proposed at Cancún would not be sufficient to bring global warming under control, accusing the international community of acting irresponsibly.

In July 2011, the government’s ‘green’ discourse was undercut by its desire to improve domestic economic growth, when Bolivia’s participation in a continent-wide Brazil-led infrastructure plan was announced. Read More »

The Earth’s climate is changing and the vast majority of the scientific community as well as the public is now convinced that human activity is contributing significantly to this phenomenon. The underlying cause is an increase in the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ in the Earth’s atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, which is released when fossil fuels are burnt; nitrous oxide from chemical fertilizers; and methane which is produced from activities like rice farming and livestock production. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to the ‘greenhouse effect’ – a rise in the average global temperature which leads to melting ice-caps and therefore rising sea-levels. Additionally, the change in the atmosphere makes the climate more unpredictable, increasing the incidence of ‘freak’ weather events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts (‘global weirding’). Regardless of what is causing the climate to change, preparations need to be made to cope with the consequences as they will impact on many aspects of life. One of these will be the world’s food supplies and food prices, since agricultural growing conditions will change in certain places, affecting the type and quantity of crops that can be grown. This in turn will affect people’s ability to buy and otherwise access food.

However, right now, the biggest impact of climate change on food supplies and food access does not come directly from the changes in climate. Instead, it comes from one of the ways in which we are trying to stop climate change: biofuels. ‘Undercovering Undernutrition Part II‘ showed that the growing demand for biofuels (mainly from western countries) means that in some areas biofuel crops are being grown preferentially over food crops due to their profitability. A 2010 report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) reported that European countries have chosen to meet the European Union (EU) legal requirement of including 10 percent of renewable energy in all transport fuels by 2020 by importing biofuels from places such as Indonesia, Brazil, and some African countries. One of the results, reported by The Guardian newspaper, is that the land acquired over the past decade for growing biofuel crops could have produced food for a billion people. This has led to increased food prices, leading to more people being unable to afford food and therefore going hungry. Read More »

Fifty five years ago, archaeologist, engineer and geologist Kenneth Lee discovered the ruins of an ancient civilization in the region of El Beni, in the northeast of Bolivia. The sophisticated technologies that were revealed by the excavated remains fascinated the academic community. One man in particular has spent the past several years developing an ancient agricultural system of camellones, used by this civilization, for modern use. This is a system that uses elevated fields, channels of water and aquaponics (cultivating plants and fish in the same water source) to protect crops from flooding, whilst fertilizing these in a natural way and increasing productivity compared to traditional industrial farming methods. The model has proved so successful in El Beni that the non-governmental organization (NGO) Oxfam has applied it in many African countries.

Today, to kick off Development Roast’s brand new ‘Bolivia’s Best’ interview series, we meet Oscar Saavedra, a Bolivian agroecologist and one of the founders of the Kenneth Lee Foundation who directs the camellones initiative under his own NGO, Amazonia Sostenible (Sustainable Amazonia) as well as his own business, Amazonia Services. Read More »

A few weeks ago I was asked a seemingly simple question in a survey: “Do you think that knowledge can currently be seen as a commodity?” After a couple of seconds’ thought, I started writing my answer. Several minutes later, I still hadn’t finished and decided at that point that I should probably stop in order to prevent myself from overwhelming the person in charge of collating the answers with an unnecessary essay.

I used to work in theoretical particle physics, which is a field where knowledge is very highly valued. After all, the raison d’être of myself and my colleagues was to acquire knowledge about the fundamental laws of nature, and then to disseminate it via peer-reviewed papers, thus making it available to everyone. Equally important was that, whilst writing any paper, we carefully cited previous related works, therefore acknowledging the importance of the knowledge acquired by others. I use the word ‘knowledge’ in this sense to mean concepts, methods, techniques, and observations. If the world of science did not work this way, then everyone would be on their own and we would literally be trying to reinvent the wheel every single day. Read More »

Last July billionaire Bill Gates was criticized for donating around US$10 million to the John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom to fund their research which helps the developing world. Why? Because they work on developing genetically-modified (GM) crops. GM crops receive a lot of publicity. They are cast positively as a potential savior of famine-struck countries, with the potential to be more nutritious, higher-yielding, and resistant to pests and extreme weather conditions. Were this true, then surely there would be very little opposition. So why is there so much controversy? Well, because it has become apparent that achieving these goals comes with a lot of difficulty, and because of the threat of potentially disastrous side-effects. Read More »

By Carolynn Look and Garance Marcotte

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” -Chinese Proverb

Some of the greatest ancient civilizations used to roam the lands that are now India, China, and Thailand. They were known for practices that showed a deep-rooted respect for the world around them, both in their daily lives and in their spirituality. Still today, the harmony between man and nature is seen in many parts of Asia, from Mongolian nomads living in yurts, to Tibetan monks leading minimalistic lives and seeking spiritual balance with everything around them. However, in many other places, this relationship has changed. Rapid urbanization is changing the continent’s landscape as rural-urban income disparities increase, water bodies are becoming severely damaged and pollution is at some of the world’s worst levels. Read More »