[新聞] Connecting Countries that are Biodiv …

[NPLNT (Bruzi Geist)]

※ [本文轉錄自 IA 看板]

作者: NPLNT (Bruzi Geist) 看板: IA
標題: [新聞] Connecting Countries that are Biodiversity Rich with tho
時間: Sat May 24 15:48:07 2008


What Would It Cost to Save Nature?(Part 4)


標題:Connecting Countries that are Biodiversity Rich with those with Deep
     Pockets


新聞來源:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,554982-4,00.html
                                 (需有正確連結)

By Philip Bethge, Rafaela von Bredow and Christian Schwagerl

Part 4: Connecting Countries that are Biodiversity Rich with those with Deep
Pockets


But one of the most immediate goals should be to establish additional
reserves in the world's biodiversity hot spots. BMU conservation strategist
Flasbarth has high hopes for a German initiative called LifeWeb. The program
is designed to bring together countries with great biodiversity and those
with deep pockets.

"Every country can use the system to specify which areas it would protect,
and at what price. The hope is that interested parties will then bid for the
right to pay for conservation," says Flasbarth. The Democratic Republic of
Congo, for example, is traveling to the Bonn conference with an offer to
place 140,000 square kilometers (54,054 square miles) of rainforest under
protection. But will it be able to attract investors for the project?

The CBD member states plan to place 10 percent of all the earth's land-based
ecosystems under protection by 2010, as well as 10 percent of the ocean
surface by 2012. It is a bold plan. The goal could be reached on land, albeit
with great effort. But achieving such a goal in the oceans is pure illusion.
Strict protections have only been applied to less than 1 percent of the
world's oceans to date. Indeed, the oceans are where international
conservation and species protection efforts have failed most markedly.

Declining Fish Stocks 

Some experts estimate that if the current trend of overfishing continues,
commercial ocean fishing will have become all but impossible by 2050.
Meanwhile, the countries of the world pay more than €20 billion ($31
billion) a year to subsidize the fishing industry -- and in doing so they pay
for one in five fish caught in the world. Around the globe, there are about 4
million fishing boats routinely hunting down all manner of sea creatures.
Experts say that to prevent the destruction of current populations, the
global fishing fleet would have to be cut in half. 

Overfishing threatens to destroy entire ecosystems. According to the UN
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment study, 20 percent of the world's coral reefs
have already been destroyed, while another 20 percent are severely
compromised. The heavy equipment used by trawlers is destroying coral banks
in the northeast Atlantic. Deep-sea fishermen are steadily scraping away at
the unique natural wonders of underwater mountains.

"Imagine if hunters were to cut down entire forests to catch a few deer,"
says Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the IUCN's Global Marine Program, "people
would be outraged." But this is precisely the sort of devastation caused by
the use of trawl nets, Lundin explains. "Many people have no concept of the
destruction of the oceans."

Zoologists demand tighter controls on board trawlers to limit illegal
fishing. Most of all, they hope to see the establishment of zones where
fishing would be banned completely. The concept they envision would involve
zones of intensive fishing alternating with these protected regions, where
young fish could grow to maturity undisturbed and populations could recover.
The international community is still hesitant when it comes to establishing
marine reserves and few laws govern the high seas. But opinions are gradually
changing when it comes to the territorial waters of nations.

A Plan for the Caribbean

The goal of an initiative currently taking shape in the Caribbean, for
example, is to place 20 percent of all ecosystems in the Caribbean Sea under
protection by 2020. At issue are 5 million hectares (12.35 million acres) of
waters complete with shimmering coral reefs, dense mangrove forests and
so-called Blue Holes, often circular, underwater sinkholes inside atolls that
can be up to 200 meters (656 feet) deep. 

Details of the ambitious program, known as the Caribbean Challenge Marine
Initiative, will be presented in Bonn next week. The countries that have
signed on so far include the Bahamas, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, as
well as St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Conservation groups like the US-based
Nature Conservancy (TNC) are also involved. The effort centers around
conservation funds, the proceeds of which would pay for rangers, patrol
boats, research and environmental education.

"The funding must be secured for the long term, otherwise the entire idea
will fail after a few years for lack of funds," says Eleanor Phillips, the
director of TNC's Northern Caribbean program. She helps run the project from
her office in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. The city is on New
Providence, one of the islands in the Bahamas archipelago. The conservation
problems faced by groups like TNC are concentrated on a few square kilometers
in Nassau.

Tourists, especially from the United States, routinely overrun the city. They
live in concrete hotels or gated residential communities. Entire mangrove
forests, says Philips, are cleared to make room for the houses of the rich.
But the forests are breeding grounds for many Caribbean fish species. Every
day in Nassau harbor, fishing boats bring in tons of Nassau grouper and
Caribbean queen conch, which are then hawked as island specialties in every
snack bar.

The two species were once abundant. The tropical waters used to be filled
with enormous schools of Nassau grouper. Within hours, fishermen would bring
up hundreds of the large fish, which can weigh up to 25 kilos (55 lbs.). The
queen conch was so plentiful that islanders could gather an entire evening
meal by snorkeling in the azure-blue ocean for a few minutes. Now, fishermen
like Eudie Rolle, often to be found sitting on a quay in Nassau harbor behind
a table covered with the tasty sea snails, are left to complain about how
difficult the beautiful pink shells are to find. Rolle has been fishing for
57 years. "In the past," he says, "all we had to do was gather the conch in
waist-high water. But now my sons have to sail 150 miles out to find any."

"We are very concerned," says Michael Braynen of the island nation's
Department of Marine Resources. "In the long term, we need to reduce the
number of fishermen in the Bahamas. But then we have to offer them
alternatives."

Balancing Nature Protection with Livelihoods 

This is the underlying problem. Those who seek to effectively protect nature,
make ocean zones off-limits and allow forests to remain untouched must ensure
that the people who have depended on these facets of nature for their
livelihoods are given new opportunities. The solution in the Bahamas is
called ecotourism.

Andros is a short, 15-minute flight from Nassau. The island, roughly 170
kilometers (106 miles) long, is home to about 8,000 people and the world's
third-largest barrier reef lies off its eastern coast. Islanders like Peter
Douglas take the island's few tourists on tours of the colorful, luminescent
coral banks and undersea bluffs. Enterprising islanders have developed
eco-lodges in the bush behind the coast. Prescott Smith, for example, offers
fly-fishing vacations for wealthy business executives. For $1,600 (€1,030) a
day, his customers can learn to elegantly cast their flies in the island's
mangrove swamps for longfin bonefish or Atlantic tarpon. But instead of
keeping their catch, they adhere to a "catch and release" policy.

The islanders are defending their small paradise against investors in mass
tourism. They have found ways to profit from nature without destroying it.
"Scientists, governments and the big conservation groups are fighting the
locals," says Prescott Smith. "They come here and say: You're the problem."
But true conservation, according to Smith, must incorporate the local
population. "Only if the people here truly get the feeling that their own
interests are at stake will they protect the country."

Indeed, even as the world gathers to discuss the CBD, such small-scale,
bottom up projects may be the world's best hope. Such a grassroots approach
is especially valid in places where poverty is widespread. The poor have no
other choice but to live from the resources of nature and, if necessary, to
destroy them. This too is an issue that will be discussed at the Bonn
conference in the coming days.

Most of all, however, the CBD partners must attempt to establish a focus for
the next two years. The 10th Conference of the Parties of the CBD takes place
in 2010, presumably in Japan. By then, the group hopes to have implemented
many of its ambitious environmental goals.

"In Bonn, it is especially important that the parties do not block one
another on the major issues," says BMU conservation director Flasbarth. The
sticking points are predictable. When the CBD came into being, for example,
many of the parties wanted to see mechanisms established to ensure a fair
balancing of benefits among industrialized and developing nations. The idea
was that everyone ought to be able to benefit from the planet's genetic
treasures. At the same time, the parties argued, the populations of the
countries in which the profitable species originate should also share in the
profits.

But it has been 16 years since the Rio Earth Summit took place, and still,
rules to address this problem have yet to be established. The developing
countries are suspicious, because bio-pirates have already hijacked parts of
their biological treasures. In early May, for example, it was reported that
residents of the South African village of Alice are challenging two patents,
held by the German company Dr. Willmar Schwabe Arzneimittel, for the
production of the drug Umckaloabo. Umckaloabo is made from the roots of the
Capeland pelargonium. The locals claim that they have been preparing
tinctures from the plant for centuries and using them to treat colds.

They claim that ased on this knowledge, Spitzner, a subsidiary of Schwabe,
now produces Umckaloabo. "The patents are illegal and must be revoked," says
Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety. Besides, says Mayet, the
company owes the people of Alice a share of profits.

Another bone of contention is the biofuel boom. German Chancellor Merkel did
little to ease tensions when she recently signed an energy treaty with
Brazilian President Lula da Silva. The Brazilians see German concern for the
Amazon rainforest as an attempt to corner the biofuels market. To produce
bio-ethanol, they plan to have planted sugarcane in an area almost as large
as Great Britain by 2025. "If we tell the Brazilians that we're boycotting
this, the negotiations over rainforest protection will come to an abrupt
end," warns German Environment Minister Gabriel. Merely the attempt to place
the topic of bio-energy on the agenda at the Bonn conference was met with
indignation in Brasilia.





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