International Institute for Environment and Development - Biodiversity

Botswana: Biodiversity and dragons come together

dilys.roe@iied.org (Dilys Roe) — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:12:50 +0100

With International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May, a new biodiversity project highlights the importance of diversity and draws out tensions that arise when trying to put biodiversity at the centre of development policies.

“Are you asking me to be a charitable organisation, or are you asking me to invest?” asked James, a workshop participant and ‘dragon’ responding to a high-pressure pitch for investment, in the style of the well-known TV programme Dragons’ Den’.

Dineo Gaborekwe, from the Botswana Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, was asking five ‘dragons’ or potential investors to financially support community projects to develop natural pharmaceutical and beauty products – already a proven success in Botswana.

The Dragons Den was part of a workshop recently held in Botswana bringing together representatives from different African countries to share ideas on how to integrate biodiversity into development policies.

The dragons’ expressions were tough and unforgiving; they gave nothing away, but then at the end, the questions started coming. “How much money do you want and what’s the return on investment?” from Jonathan. “I’m the minister of agriculture, why should I want more elephants when I’m dealing with the damage they cause?” asked Brian. And so it went on.

Never assume that putting biodiversity at the centre of development is going to be easy.

Making the business case for biodiversity

The business pitch had stressed the short and long-term benefits of ‘mainstreaming’ biodiversity including:

new jobs
stronger, more sustainable livelihoods
more diverse products and
potential advantages for the tourism industry.

The underlying message of the Botswana business pitch was simple: local people – whole countries in fact – can’t afford to let their biodiversity be lost. Livelihoods depend on it and ways must be found to incorporate conservation of biodiversity into policies across government – from agriculture, tourism and mining policies, financial strategies and budgeting.

Policy tensions

While this approach makes total sense, inevitably it gives rise to tensions. We heard earlier at the workshop that Uganda has discovered oil and gas in one of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots. What does a government do?

The Ugandan finance ministry quite rightly sees a chance for the economy to grow – but balancing short and long-term strategies is a major challenge. Seven and half million people still live in poverty and rely on the biodiverse richness of the country’s environment for their livelihoods. Extracting gas and oil means new roads, refineries, lorries and exclusion from this land.

It’s a real challenge, but we were told by a Ugandan project participant that economists, finance officials, conservationists and local communities are all talking together to find a resolution.

National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans

The four countries represented at the workshop – Uganda, Botswana, Namibia and the Seychelles – are the focus countries for a three–year project: NBSAPs 2.0 Mainstreaming Biodiversity and Development, which IIED is implementing with the United Nations Environment Programme – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).

These four countries, and 189 others, are party to the Convention on Biological Diversity and are in the throes of revising their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (hence the name of the project, NBSAPs 2.0). Done well, these will integrate poverty and environment policies, plans and investment, and support both development and biodiversity objectives.

The project aims to highlight the experiences of these four countries, encourage leadership in bringing biodiversity into all levels of government planning and influence a new generation of biodiversity plans.

It’s funded by the UK Darwin Initiative and UKAid and works in partnership with key international agencies, including the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Environment Programme, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UNEP-UNDP Poverty–Environment Initiative.

Learning lessons

There were several lessons from the Dragons’ Den exercise:

know your investors and who they network with
killer facts and examples are essential
be specific, with the figures at your fingertips; and
be comfortable talking about returns on investment, budgets and other business topics, even if you’re actually a biodiversity expert.

All four project countries were preparing to make the business case for biodiversity, with different challenges in each country. Understanding the pressures your government colleagues are under and nuancing your case accordingly, was perhaps the key lesson to come out of the Dragons’ Den exercise.

This is one of many biodiversity projects that IIED is involved in. The majority of our work in this area focuses on the linkages between biodiversity and development or biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation. We are mapping the evidence base on biodiversity-poverty links to understand better which particular components or attributes of biodiversity contribute to which dimensions of poverty – and through what kinds of mechanisms, with support from UKAid and the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme.

We’re working with great ape conservation organisations to enhance their contribution to poverty alleviation at the local level with the Arcus Foundation. And we’re exploring the effectiveness of so-called “alternative livelihoods” projects with the Centre for International Forestry Research and the Zoological Society of London.

Above all IIED actively collects, synthesises and disseminates information on the links that exist between maintaining biodiversity and eliminating poverty.

Watch the Dragon’s Den exercise.

Explore the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group website.

Conference to reveal links between conservation and land grabs

mike.shanahan@iied.org (Mike Shanahan) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:55:12 +0000

Researchers will meet at London Zoo on 26-27 March to join the dots between large land deals, conservation, land rights and efforts to tackle poverty in poor communities worldwide.

Speakers will present research on both impacts of land grabs on conservation and its reverse – the role of conservation as a driver of land grabs. They will also share studies that show how stronger land rights can improve conservation outcomes.

The issues are burning because worldwide large land deals are on the increase, and they often take place in areas that are home to both large numbers of poor people and important biodiversity. People and wildlife can lose out when investors acquire land for large scale agriculture.

At the same time, there are growing threats from ‘green grabs’ that displace communities in order to conserve wildlife or gain value from eco-tourism, biofuels or the carbon that forests store in their wood.

The meeting in London — organised by the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, the Zoological Society of London and Maliasili Initiatives — is the international symposium of the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group.

Speakers will present case studies from Cameroon, Uganda, Chile, Kenya, Mongolia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Liberia and Cambodia.

"The global rush for land threatens to squeeze out both poor communities with weak land rights, and wild species and habitats that we should be conserving," says Dilys Roe, a senior researcher at IIED, which convenes the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group. "It is in the interests of both the conservation and land rights communities to tackle the land rush. One solution is for them to work more strategically together to secure or strengthen local land rights in ways that bring both conservation and development benefits."

"Secure land tenure is a foundation of community-driven conservation efforts around the world," says Fred Nelson, Executive Director of Maliasili Initiatives, which supports sustainable natural resource management efforts in Africa. "The current land crisis provides an opportunity for conservation, development, and human rights groups to work together to address historically-rooted weaknesses in the recognition of local communities’ land rights, and to enable communities to better secure their territories and the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend."

Download the conference agenda.

MP Richard Benyon on COP11 to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity

znnng1@virginmedia.com (David Sankar) — Wed, 7 Nov 2012 12:02:40 +0000

When a big UN conference ends, the real work is only just beginning. Last month representatives of nearly 200 nations met in Hyderabad, India, for the 11th Conference of Parties (COP11) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Now they are back at home working to implement the decisions they reached. In this Q & A Richard Benyon MP, the Parliamentary under-Secretary for Natural Environment, Water and Rural Affairs, highlights some key outcomes and explains when the government plans to ratify the Nagoya Protocol.

Q: Is there policy coherence between the Department for International Development’s (DFID) push for development and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) push for biodiversity? How is the government integrating biodiversity into DFID’s development planning?

A: Absolutely there’s coherence. People in developing countries are heavily dependent on biodiversity because so many, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable, rely directly on agriculture, forests and fisheries for their livelihoods. Biodiversity matters for long-term development and is an important consideration in UK aid. Defra and DFID worked hard in Hyderabad not only on resources (the world agreed to double the total, from both public and private sources, of biodiversity-related international resource flows to developing countries by 2015), but also to ensure that all countries committed to prioritising biodiversity in their national development plans and programmes.

Q: The IIED is working with the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre on a Darwin Initiative funded project to support African countries to address poverty issues as part of the process of revising their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. How can DEFRA help us promote uptake of this work amongst their environment ministry counterparts in developing countries?

A: National Plans are critical as they set out the framework for what individual countries need to do to meet their biodiversity targets. Defra will be closely monitoring the outcomes from the IIED/UN project in Africa. We are keen to ensure best practice is shared internationally. The UK openly shares our own experience in developing a National Plan, and we will help to ensure that the IIED’s African project outcomes can be widely disseminated.

Q: The Darwin Initiative is supporting an IIED project in Uganda to improve the effectiveness of integrated conservation and development interventions. One of the objectives of the project is to use research findings to influence government policy on such interventions. As a minister what advice can you give on how to influence policy? What kind of information and in what format would you be looking for if you were the Minister of Environment in Uganda, rather than the UK?

A: All Governments face the challenge of integrating the historically separate management of conservation and development policies. As a Minister I always want to see clear evidence which demonstrates the benefits of a change in direction of any policy. I also want to know about others’ experience. That’s why the work Defra does, supporting through Darwin Initiative projects like the IIED in Uganda, which provides hard data, while also openly sharing our experience is so important. I wouldn’t presume to advise another Government how to achieve integration, but we do try to help provide them with the information they need to make their own decisions in the context and needs of their own country. I met the Ugandan minister in Hyderabad and was impressed with his approach.

Q: DEFRA has just provided some support for an IIED publication to assist implementation of the Nagoya Protocol. 50 countries of the 193 Parties to the CBD need to ratify the Nagoya Protocol in order for it to acquire legal status. Although 92 countries have signed it, only six countries have completed all formalities required to ratify the protocol. When will the UK complete these formalities? Will the UK introduce legally binding measures to ensure compliance with domestic legislation on genetic resources and traditional knowledge in provider countries?

A: The UK is committed to the Nagoya Protocol’s implementation and ratification as soon as possible, and before the next Convention meeting (COP12). The European Commission recently published a draft proposal for an EU regulation which aims to allow EU member states to fully implement the Nagoya Protocol, including relevant elements to ensure compliance with domestic legislation. The UK can only ratify the Protocol once the necessary measures are in place, so that both providers and users of genetic resources have the legal certainty they require.

Uganda project to strengthen policies that link poverty and conservation

mike.shanahan@iied.org (Mike Shanahan) — Tue, 9 Oct 2012 10:30:31 +0100

A new three-year project in Uganda will help the recently formed Uganda Poverty and Conservation Learning Group promote evidence-based policies that both reduce poverty and conserve wildlife.

The project is innovative as it intends to promote greater understanding of how community conservation efforts can improve people’s lives, and also aims to build the capacity of Ugandan organisations to use this information to inform policy makers and influence conservation policy. The project is being implemented by the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC), Jane Goodall Institute Uganda (JGI) and Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE), and is coordinated by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

The project will use Bwindi Impenetrable National Park as a case study to collect evidence that can support current and future policymaking in the country. It is envisaged that major national policy processes such as the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and of Bwindi’s own Management Plan will benefit from the evidence produced from the research.

"Bwindi has a long history of various 'integrated conservation and development' approaches. These people-oriented activities seek to improve conservation outcomes by linking the needs of local communities and wildlife. But recent research has shown that the approach has had mixed success," says Douglas Sheil of the Institute for Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC), which will lead the project's research component.

"We want to look at Bwindi again to get a better understanding of the links between poverty and conservation," says Panta Kasoma of Jane Goodall Institute Uganda, which coordinates the Uganda Poverty and Conservation Learning Group. "This way we can make more informed recommendations about challenges such as crop raiding by wild animals, illegal resource use and equitable benefit sharing in local communities."

ACODE, one of Uganda's leading policy think tanks will conduct training in advocacy and outreach for members of the Ugandan Poverty and Conservation Learning Group, who include representatives of government departments, civil society organisations, research institutions and the private sector.

According to ACODE's Executive Director Godber Tumushabe: "Informed and effective advocacy can serve as a bridge that connects research and policymaking. It can promote change that is based on evidence of what really works. Doing research is only part of the process. We need also to communicate research findings to the right people in the right ways to encourage changes that support social and environmental goals."

The new report is the result of a planning meeting held in July, when stakeholders gathered to provide input into the project plans.

"Poverty and Conservation Learning Group is an international network that aims to promote dialogue and foster learning on the links between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction," says Andrew Gordon-Maclean of IIED. "Uganda is one of only two countries to have a national level PCLG and its members will play an important role in influencing conservation policy to pay greater attention to issues of poverty and social justice."

The project is funded by the UK government’s Darwin Initiative and by UK aid from the UK Department for International Development. However the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the UK Government.

Download the report

New tool to help join-up policies to cut poverty and conserve biodiversity

mike.shanahan@iied.org (Mike Shanahan) — Fri, 5 Oct 2012 11:43:27 +0100

As thousands of delegates gather in India for the 11th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) next week, a new initiative will be unveiled to help countries meet some of their obligations under the legally-binding treaty whilst also reducing poverty.

It will show how the two seemingly disparate worlds of poverty eradication and biodiversity conservation are linked, and its launch comes ahead of the UN’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October

This three-year project – led by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) – is intended to ensure that policies to conserve nature and reduce poverty work in harmony.

It will help nations identify opportunities to build a business case for biodiversity as a key development asset through, for instance, trade in biodiversity-based products and services, improved genetic diversity for agriculture, and green jobs in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, and ecotourism.

"Biodiversity and poverty are tightly linked, but policies for each rarely are," says Dilys Roe of IIED. "The two sides of policymaking need to be brought together so that natural resources can contribute to development and poverty reduction strategies in a sustainable way."

In 2010, when they last met, all 193 parties to the CBD adopted a new 10-year strategy to achieve the aims of the convention, which are to conserve biodiversity, to ensure that it is used sustainably and to ensure that the benefits from its use are shared fairly and equitably.

As part of the new strategy, countries agreed to "address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society".

They also set a target that: "By 2020, at the latest, biodiversity values have been integrated into national and local development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes and are being incorporated into national accounting, as appropriate, and reporting systems."

To help achieve this, on 9 October at the CBD conference, the project team will launch a diagnostic tool that enables policymakers to assess how far their countries have integrated biodiversity and development, and identify impacts, knowledge gaps and barriers to progress.

The Biodiversity Mainstreaming Diagnostic Tool will help countries to revise their National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) -- something all parties to the CBD have agreed to do by 2014. As part of the project, four African countries -- Botswana, Namibia, Seychelles and Uganda -- are already using the tool to update and strengthen their NBSAPs.

"Leadership, good information and political acumen will be essential if countries are to integrate policies for biodiversity and development," says Jessica Smith of UNEP-WCMC. "We expect the experiences of these four leading countries in Africa to inspire and influence a whole new generation of NBSAPs in other parties to the CBD around the world."

Meanwhile the international project leaders will continue to develop support systems that are relevant to all countries. This will include producing a report on the state of knowledge on efforts to include biodiversity in other areas of policymaking. At the CBD conference in India, the team will seek feedback on a proposed outline for this review, to ensure it meets the needs of users.

Over the next year IIED and UNEP-WCMC will also work together to document the evidence base on biodiversity–poverty linkages, with funding from the UK Department for International Development and the Ecosystems Services for Poverty Alleviation initiative.

Download the publications

NBSAP 2.0 Biodiversity Mainstreaming Project Summary
Biodiversity Mainstreaming DiagnosticsTool
Biodiversity Mainstreaming State of Knowledge Review Outline

Details of 9 October side event at Conference of Parties to the CBD

Mainstreaming biodiversity into poverty eradication and development 13:15 - 14:45 in Room 1.03/1.04

Download COP11 side event Provisional Agenda

Participatory Learning and Action

nicole.kenton@iied.org (Nicole Kenton) — Wed, 3 Oct 2012 02:39:27 +0100

Keep up to date with the latest participation news from Participatory Learning and Action – a leading informal journal on participatory methods and approaches that strengthen rights, voice and governance and promote social justice. The series is published in English, with some issues translated into other languages, and some issues available in multimedia formats.

Announcement on the future of the PLA series

The Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) series is 25 years old this year. At this important milestone, IIED is taking stock of PLA to look at its legacy and its future direction. The series will be put on hold after the next issue, no. 66 (due in Spring 2013), pending this review. For more information read the future of the series.

Latest issue

After the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad, India, IIED Senior Researcher, Krystyna Swiderska, explores how communities can get a share of the benefits from biodiversity and traditional knowledge they preserve.

See also her blog which looks at some of the difficulties facing people who live in biodiversity-rich areas, reflecting on why two different communities have developed community protocols. For more information please also visit our biocultural heritage website.

Read other IIED blogs and articles focusing on participatory approaches.

Read the latest issue: PLA 65: Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent Guest edited by Krystyna Swiderska with Angela Milligan, Kanchi Kohli, Harry Jonas, Holly Shrumm, Wim Hiemstra, Maria Julia Oliva

Also available in Spanish: Biodiversidad y cultura: exploración de protocolos comunitarios, derechos y consentimiento

Many rural communities – including some 370 million indigenous peoples – are directly dependent on biodiversity and related traditional knowledge for their livelihoods, food security, healthcare and well-being. But with the loss of biodiversity, valuable resources such as climate-resilient crops, medicinal plants and wild foods are being lost. Cultural diversity is being eroded at an unprecedented rate and with it, ancestral knowledge of how to use and conserve biodiversity.

This special issue of Participatory Learning and Action explores two important participatory tools that indigenous peoples and local communities can use to help defend their customary rights to biocultural heritage: i) Community protocols – or charters of rules and responsibilities – in which communities set out their customary rights to natural resources and land, as recognised in customary, national and international laws; and ii) Free, prior informed consent (FPIC) processes, in which communities decide whether or not to allow projects affecting their land or resources to go ahead, and on what terms.

Experiences of communities in Asia, Latin America and Africa in developing and using these tools in a range of contexts are reviewed, including: developing mechanisms for access and benefit-sharing (ABS) for genetic resources and traditional knowledge; confronting threats from mining and protected areas; and improving forestry partnerships.

Government experiences of establishing institutional processes for FPIC and benefit-sharing are also included. The issue identifies practical lessons and guidance based on these experiences and aims to strengthen the capacity of a range of actors to support these rights-based tools effectively in practice.

This special issue of PLA provides guidance for those implementing the Nagoya Protocol in particular, as well as for other natural resource and development practitioners, raising awareness of the importance of community designed and controlled participatory processes.

Our next issue, PLA 66, will be a general issue, with a focus on the use of participatory tools and processes in natural resource management for sustainable development. This will be published in Spring 2013.

Recent issues:

PLA 64: Young citizens: youth and participatory governance in Africa

All over the world we are seeing exciting experiments in participatory governance. But are they working for the young? What spaces are most promising for the participation of children and young people in governance? Across Africa youth (particularly boys and young men) are often seen as a ‘lost generation’: frustrated, excluded and marginalised from decision-making processes. But contributors to this special issue demonstrate how this is changing.

This issue of PLA highlights how young Africans are driving change in creative and unexpected ways, challenging the norms and structures that exclude them by engaging with the state and demanding accountability. This issue will enable other participatory practitioners – young and old – to learn from their experiences.

Also available in French: Jeunes citoyens : les jeunes et la gouvernance participative en Afrique

Forthcoming January 2013: A multimedia DVD Rom of PLA 64 in English and French. Please email pla.notes@iied.org for more details.

How communities are protecting their biocultural resources with community protocols

krystyna.swiderska@iied.org (Krystyna Swiderska) — Tue, 2 Oct 2012 11:24:58 +0100

As delegates gather for the 11^th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Hyderabad India (8-19 October), this photostory remembers some of the difficulties facing people who live in biodiversity-rich areas and looks at why two different communities have developed community protocols.

Although they have conserved important biodiversity of the regions where they have lived for generations, many communities are struggling to safeguard their biodiverse resources in the face of development threats from, for example, mining, logging and dam projects. Ironically, conservation efforts can also threaten livelihoods by creating strictly protected areas that force groups out of areas that they might have once sustainably managed or used to sustain biodiversity (such as hardy livestock breeds). Whether they are pastoralists in South Asia, or forest-dwellers in Borneo, these threats can seriously threaten the way of life and livelihoods of people who are already poor and vulnerable.

In response, some communities have developed Community Protocols to assert their rights and negotiate with others. Governments are required by the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to support indigenous and local communities in developing these community protocols to ensure that external actors respect community rules for access to their traditional knowledge and genetic resources and for sharing the benefits that result from that access.

A recent review carried out by IIED and partners has shown that community protocols are not just about indigenous rights: they can also strengthen biodiversity conservation efforts by communities, support climate change adaptation, and help to establish long-term partnerships between communities and others. But experience has shown that to get these benefits, the community must lead the process of developing the protocol.

This photostory looks at why groups living in two different areas of the world – India and Malaysia – have developed these protocols.

The Raika are the largest pastoral community of western Rajasthan in north-west India. They have developed many unique and hardy livestock breeds adapted to their dry environment, including camels, Nari cattle, Botic sheep and Sirohi and Marwari goats. But over the last 60 years, the Raika have suffered as land they previously used to graze their livestock has diminished and been restricted by various developments. Most recently the establishment of a new wildlife sanctuary on land which they have grazed their livestock on for generations, has made access to important grazing land illegal. If the Raika now use the land they risk getting fined or arrested.

In 2009, the Raika developed a Biocultural Community Protocol, to document their:

role in conserving animal genetic diversity and forest and rangeland ecosystems and
rights under national and international laws and policies.

The Raika have used this document when interacting with government officials, especially the Forest Department. It has put them ‘on the map’ and become a source of information for young people about their traditional values. However, in the current struggle for grazing rights, it has become evident that internationally binding agreements like the CBD severely lack local awareness and implementation, even though India is a signatory to the convention. Overall, the BCP is just one of many tools in the arsenal required by the Raika to claim their rights under the Indian Forest Rights Act.

In Ulu Papar, a remote area of Sabah on the island of Borneo, Malaysia, about 1000 indigenous Dusun people depend on the forest, which they have managed communally for generations.

A large portion of Ulu Papar’s customary lands were incorporated into the Crocker Range Park in 1984, making many livelihood activities such as shifting cultivation , hunting, fishing and gathering products from the forest unlawful. More recently, a proposed UNESCO Biosphere Reserve threatens to engulf the entire Crocker Park for strict conservation; while a proposed dam, which threatens to submerge 4 of the 9 villages, is vehemently opposed by the community. In response, the communities initiated a participatory research process which yielded a significant amount of data on how they use their resources, and how they have shaped and used the landscape (referred to as cultural landscapes) . They used this as the basis for developing a Biocultural Community Protocol in 2010 [PDF], to address their lack of tenure security, and to try to find solutions to conflicts between them and the state-driven conservation and development initiatives.

The participatory resource mapping process enriched the community’s capacity to engage in conservation dialogue and action, and to take the lead in developing the Community Protocol, which was facilitated by researchers from the community.

The process to develop the community protocol involved several community workshops and discussions, and travelling road shows to visit each of the Dusun people’s dispersed settlements and engage them in the process. The participatory process helped the community articulate a common vision for their wellbeing and fostered a sense of solidarity amongst the community, giving them hope for the future.

The protocol forms part of the backbone of the Ulu Papar Community and Conservation Campaign launched in 2011 to disseminate information about the importance of Ulu Papar as a biocultural heritage site. This campaign has involved dialogues with the government to raise awareness about the heritage value of Ulu Papar, the role of the community in conserving this heritage, and about the desire and commitment of the Ulu Papar community to work together in preserving Sabah’s biocultural heritage. How state actors will respond remains to be seen.

The Raika and Ulu Papar cases are just two of the fourteen community protocol and free prior informed consent processes reviewed in IIED’s latest edition of Participatory Learning and Action (also available in Spanish).

In some cases, community protocols have resulted in some concrete gains, such as the postponement of mining in a community in Northern Ghana. In other cases, the development of community protocols has led to strong partnerships between communities and others, whether companies or NGOs.They have also improved the conservation of biodiversity by communities, such as potato crop diversity in the Andes, medicinal plants in South Africa and traditional crops in Ghana, by strengthening cultural values and traditional practices, particularly where communities have taken the lead in designing and facilitating the process. Conversely, where processes of prior informed consent and benefit-sharing have been designed by governments, this has undermined traditional institutions. This suggests that top-down or pre-defined processes should be avoided.

Find out more

Consent and conservation: getting the most from community protocols

Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent (PLA 65)

IIED's biocultural heritage website

Natural Justice's community protocols website

World Conservation Congress: key themes and a new leader to watch

camilla.toulmin@iied.org (Camilla Toulmin) — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:42:09 +0100

The World Conservation Congress always provides an arena for the arguments and tensions that lie at the heart of us making progress to build a fairer, more sustainable planet. The role of markets and the green economy and the risks of monetising nature were two key themes that emerged.

Markets can’t meet everyone’s needs

In the World Leaders’ Dialogue on Nature+Food, I spoke of the need to understand the global food system as it actually is, rather than how we might wish it to be. It’s an unplanned patchwork with billions of actors, small and large, stitched together in many and various ways, with huge asymmetries of power and money between them. It’s not surprising it doesn’t work very well since markets, on their own, can’t hope to meet everyone’s needs, especially those of poor groups. With a billion undernourished and a billion overfed, we are putting terrible strains on both the natural and human fabric of our earth. These strains are only likely to increase with many of the most vulnerable regions worst hit by climate change. Yet, careful investment in water and soils would reap dividends for local people, and for the environment on which their prosperity depends, especially in many parts of Africa.

Green economy and growth

It was heartening to hear Peter Bakker, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development make a strong commitment to putting natural and social capital into the accounting rules for business at the World Leaders’ Dialogue on green economy “Green Growth: Myth or Reality?”. If he could swing big business behind this line, that would make a big difference. But it’s hard to know whether WBCSD, a CEO-led organization which aims to create a more “sustainable future for business, society and the environment” just speaks to the converted.

Finland’s Minister for International Development, Heidi Hautala, said her top priority would be to tax global financial transactions, investing the revenues into more sustainable and equitable patterns of development. And Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Director General, argued that investment in access to sustainable energy for all would catalyse green growth in many parts of the world neglected to date.

But it’s not all about the bottom line. At the same session, Dr. Kinzang Dorji, Former Prime Minister of Bhutan spoke of his experience of developing alternatives to Gross Domestic Product, focusing on happiness, wellbeing and spiritual development, rather than just material well-being and economic growth.

Priceless or Worthless?

IIED believes that payments for environmental services can play a role in protecting nature, so long as governments guide, govern and regulate such markets. You can read this blog or this publication for more on our thinking.

A new report by the Zoological Society of London and IUCN launched at the conference warns that monetising nature, and not valuing it for itself, can hold risks for many endangered species.

More than 8,000 scientists from the IUCN Species Survival Commission (IUCN SSC) identified 100 of the most threatened animals, plants and fungi on the planet. The report warns that they could die out because they’re not of obvious immediate benefit to humans.

"The donor community and conservation movement are leaning increasingly towards a ‘what can nature do for us’ approach, where species and wild habitats are valued and prioritised according to the services they provide for people,” Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s Director of Conservation said. “This has made it increasingly difficult for conservationists to protect the most threatened species on the planet. While the utilitarian value of nature is important, conservation goes beyond this. Do these species have a right to survive or do we have a right to drive them to extinction?”

One approach doesn’t obviate the other – but it is an important reminder to us that all species have a value in nature, even if not to us.

China’s leadership of the IUCN: One to watch

The new Chair of IUCN is to be Zhang Xinsheng, a politician from China, who recognises the hugely important and noble mandate held by the IUCN. He promises greater visibility for IUCN and its agenda in the years ahead, effective delivery of the agreed programme and mobilisation of resources to make it happen. China’s leadership of this agenda will be particularly interesting to watch over the next few years, with rising tensions in the region over the South China Sea and a growing realisation within the Chinese leadership that planetary boundaries mean that future prosperity for China’s people cannot be built on western patterns of consumption.

IUCN World Conservation Congress begins

camilla.toulmin@iied.org (Camilla Toulmin) — Thu, 6 Sep 2012 09:15:43 +0100

At the start of the World Conservation Congress in Jeju, South Korea, IIED’s Director Camilla Toulmin, reflects on the controversies and challenges that it faces.

This week I’ve been walking in the high Pyrenees. It’s a good reminder of nature's beauty, and occasional harsh dangers. A few large flocks of sheep still dot the upland pastures, getting the best of the last summer grazing before being driven down to the valley by cold winds and sleet. The rapid shrinking of the nearby Aneto glacier shows no part of the planet can hide from global warming.

Today I will be attending the IUCN World Conservation congress, referred to as "the world’s largest and most important conservation event." The doyenne of conservation organisations, it brings together people from across the globe with an interest in ecology, biodiversity and how we can all live within nature's limits. There'll be people from member governments and businesses, social movements, scientists and indigenous peoples. It makes for a lively, argumentative event.

But we’re not there just to argue and debate – we need concrete outcomes. After the disappointments of the Rio summit in June, when governments backed off making any meaningful commitments to make our economic system more compatible with planetary boundaries, we'll hope that this more focused arena will concentrate minds on what must be done.

We need to remember why we’re there. The natural world and the species we share it with face threats whose scale can only spell trouble on humanity’s own horizon. Our own wellbeing hinges on that of the planet’s – and so do our economies.

That’s why we should all be concerned by a recent report by the Zoological Society of London, in conjunction with IUCN and Wildscreen, which showed that one fifth of the world’s invertebrates could be at risk of extinction. Despite their lesser visibility and charisma in comparison with many mammals, the report highlights the huge economic importance of these creatures. Scientists reviewing the 12,000 invertebrates from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species found freshwater species – covering everything from crayfish and molluscs to insects – to be at highest risk of extinction. For example, if the current trend in coral reef degradation continues it predicts losses of $100 million to fisheries by 2015.

Food prices on the rise

This is just one of many pressing issues facing our planet. Current food prices are shooting skywards again. Due largely to a combination of drought conditions in the US and strong demand for maize to be made into biofuels, the FAO Food price index says the price of maize, or corn, rose by almost 23% in July. At the conference I will be on the panel at the World Leader's Dialogue talking about how we build a fairer, more sustainable food system that works with the grain of natural systems and assures access for all.

IIED researchers are also taking part in two other workshops at the conference – one on the links between conservation, poverty and livelihoods, and another on using traditional knowledge to help people adapt to climate change.

Controversial location

The Congress is being held on the island of Jeju, South Korea. The IUCN has come under criticism from activists because of the Korean government's programme to build a large naval base on Jeju, displacing local villagers and fisherfolk. The IUCN says in this statement that it “trusts the Korean government has complied with all relevant domestic laws in planning and developing this port”.

Is it best to boycott an event because of such controversy? There are no easy answers, but I hope that the potential outcomes from going to such a meeting, and of making the dispute visible to observers from around the world, makes it a better option than staying away.

Find out more about the workshops that we will be running at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

IUCN World Conservation Congress

suzanne.fisher@iied.org (Suzanne Fisher) — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:55:36 +0100

IIED’s Director will be participating in the World Leader’s Dialogue, and IIED researchers will be running or participating in workshops at IUCN’s conference in Jeju, Korea 6 – 15 September 2012.

The IUCN World Conservation Congress is a large, conservation event held every four years. Bringing together government leaders, the public sector, non-governmental organizations, business, UN agencies and social organisations, the conference aims to improve how our natural environment is managed for human, social and economic development.

IUCN members and partners will meet to discuss and share ideas and practise at ‘The Forum’, held from 7 to 11 September and open to the public. Decisions on the programme and policies of IUCN and the election of its governing body will take place during a members Assembly, which is not open to the public.

Watch these videos to find out more about the conference’s key themes.

World Leader’s Dialogue

IIED’s Director, Camilla Toulmin, will be participating in the World Leader's Dialogue on Nature + food security: Can we feed the world sustainably?

Date: 8 September
Time: 17:00 -18.30 pm
Location: Tamna Hall

The entire day will be dedicated to the theme “valuing and conserving nature” and the Forum will feature practical workshops on biodiversity.

Session moderator:

Ms. Solange MÁRQUEZ ESPINOZA Journalist & Political Analyst

Session panellists:

H.E. Mr. Tae Pyong JANG Former Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries of Republic, Korea

Mr. Michael MACK CEO, Syngenta

Pr. Dr. M.S. SWAMINATHAN Member of Parliament Rajya Sabha, India

Ms. Camilla TOULMIN Director, International Institute for Environment and Development

Find out how you can influence the debate by sending your questions to the conference organisers about the themes before 31 August 2012.

Staff from IIED are involved in running a number of workshops at the World Conservation Congress.

Using Ecosystems and Traditional Knowledge to Help People Adapt to Climate Change: Building the Evidence Base

This workshop will evaluate the evidence base and examine the emerging role of ecosystem-based adaptation, agrobiodiversity and traditional knowledge. Krystyna Swiderska and Dilys Roe, both Senior Researcher with IIED’s Natural Resources Group are taking part in the workshop organised by Conservation International with IIED, UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, The World Bank, BirdLife International as partners.

Date: 10 September
Time: 11 – 13:00
Location: Room Halla B
Follow the discussion on twitter: #Forum0776

Find out more about the issues covered in this session:

Adapting agriculture with traditional knowledge

Community Biocultural Protocols: Building Mechanisms for Access and Benefit Sharing Among the Communities of the Potato Park Based on Quechua Customary Norms (Summary Report)

Use it or Lose it: Protecting the Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources and Customary Laws of Marginal Farmers in Southwest China

Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent (PLA 65)

Conservation and Poverty, Landscapes and Livelihoods - What have we learnt about the links?

This session will share lessons learned on the linkages between biodiversity conservation, livelihoods and poverty alleviation, and the various factors (such as markets and governance, rights and tenure, and policies) that impact those linkages. During the second half of the session representatives from local organisations will share and describe their work on conservation and development, and members of the audience can choose which experiences they want to learn more about during ‘speed dating’ and final question and answer sessions. Dilys Roe, an IIED Senior Researcher in the Natural Resources Group and leader of the Biodiversity team is running the workshop in collaboration with the IUCN Forest Conservation Programme and the African Wildlife Foundation.

Date: 10 September
Time: 14:30 - 16:30
Location: Room 104
Follow the discussion on twitter: #Forum0756

IIED is the conference organiser with partners IUCN Forest Conservation Programme (FCP), UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) and the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF).

Find out more about the issues covered in this session:

Biodiversity and Poverty: Ten Frequently Asked Questions – Ten Policy Implications

Look both ways: mainstreaming biodiversity and poverty reduction

Social assessment of conservation initiatives: A review of rapid methodologies

Making the Nagoya Protocol work at the community level

krystyna.swiderska@iied.org (Krystyna Swiderska) — Wed, 4 Jul 2012 16:24:29 +0100

Two safeguards for communities' rights to resources can help implement the Nagoya Protocol.

As the recent UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) showed, intergovernmental negotiations on the environment and development can be slow processes that lack ambition. But that is nothing new.

One of the outcomes of the original Rio Earth Summit in 1992 was the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. It was hailed at the time as a major step in promoting the conservation and wise use of the Earth's living resources.

But it has taken 18 years for governments to establish a system for achieving one of its three goals: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits that arise from genetic resources, such as when companies develop commercial medicines from plants or other life-forms.

The result, agreed in Japan in 2010, was the legally-binding Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing. The hope is that when it enters into force in a year or so, it will create new incentives for countries to protect their natural capital while enabling businesses to develop useful new products from biological resources in a sustainable way.

Implementing this agreement will be the next challenge. Community protocols and free, prior informed consent can be powerful tools for putting the Nagoya Protocol into practice — linking economic, social and ecological objectives, while supporting marginalised communities as they defend their rights to land and resources.

Benefits for communities

The Nagoya Protocol is mainly concerned with benefit-sharing between states. But it includes two potential safeguards for protecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. They are often the best custodians of nature in rural areas, and their traditional knowledge can be important in identifying new products.

First, it requires countries to support the development of community protocols. These are charters of rules and responsibilities in which communities can set out their procedures for access and benefit-sharing, and their legally-recognised and customary rights to natural resources and land.

Second, it requires countries to take measures to ensure that communities can control access to their traditional knowledge by giving their free, prior informed consent. This means that communities decide whether to permit use of their knowledge or genetic resources, and on what terms.

The Inter-governmental Committee of the Nagoya Protocol is meeting this week (2–6 July, 2012) in New Delhi, India, to discuss guidance for implementing the protocol. Fourteen case studies published ahead of this meeting show how these tools have been developed and used in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and provide guidance on how policymakers, donors and nongovernmental organisations can support them in practice. [1]

For example, biocultural community protocols developed by farmers in Peru's Potato Park have helped to conserve traditional crops and share the benefits from their use equitably among six communities. Healers in Bushbuckbridge, South Africa, have done the same to conserve medicinal plants, gain access to plants in a protected area, and negotiate more effectively with a cosmetics company.

In northern Ghana, a community protocol resulted in mining being postponed to protect religiously significant areas of forest and streams, known as sacred groves. And in India, Kenya and Pakistan, pastoralists are using protocols to help secure their assets and get more recognition for their role in biodiversity conservation.

Community protocols recognised

A dialogue between the Convention on Biological Diversity secretariat and stakeholders, held in Montpellier, France on 24 May 2012, concluded that community protocols have an important role to play in implementing the Nagoya Protocol.

They can protect communities from exploitation, channel benefits to the local level to incentivise conservation, and enhance legal certainty and clarity for both users and providers of genetic resources. But they can also help create equitable partnerships between communities and other groups, such as scientific organisations or companies that seek to develop new products based on natural resources.

The case studies show that community protocols must start from the bottom-up, secure wide participation, and receive flexible support to maximise their potential to defend rights, conserve biodiversity and reduce poverty.

According to a report summarising the workshop, when emphasis is placed on the process of developing community protocols — rather than just the product — these protocols are more likely to strengthen community values and institutions that conserve biodiversity and traditional knowledge. [2]

It also points out that countries and donors must ensure communities receive the support they need to develop their protocols.

Simple, national changes

At this week's meeting of the Inter-governmental Committee of the Nagoya Protocol, negotiators should urge governments to recognise the critical role that community protocols can play at a local level.

This would mean including, in national legislation, provisions to recognise the rights of communities, and provisions for government support so communities can develop the necessary protocols. Governments should also ensure that laws requiring prior informed consent for the use of traditional knowledge and biodiversity are in place, and implemented in practice.

Rio+20 was a reminder that while politicians falter, the real action and leadership comes at a local level. To make a major outcome of the original Earth Summit work in practice, governments need to make these simple changes to allow communities to support and benefit from the conservation objectives their states committed to 20 years ago.

This was first published on SciDev.Net.

References

[1] International Institute for Environment and Development. Biodiversity and culture: exploring community protocols, rights and consent (June 2012)

[2] International Institute for Environment and Development. Using Biocultural Community Protocols to Implement MEAs and UNDRIP at the Local Level for Sustainable Development (May 2012)

Fair ideas - Agricultural biodiversity acknowledged

webmaster@iied.org (drupmaster) — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:27:40 +0100

16th June. Room: Rio Datacentro, 18:00 - 19:30 Language: English

Led by: Hivos and Oxfam Novib, the Netherlands

From the genes of plants and animals to the biosphere; all is biodiversity. We know biodiversity is important for the resilience of our planet and for the survival of us as human beings. Yet, transforming sectors to take biodiversity seriously is slow. Take, for example, the agricultural sector. Agriculture is one of the greatest destroyers of biodiversity and at the same time farmers are seen as the guardians of agricultural biodiversity whose livelihood directly depends on biodiversity. The sector is under serious pressure to deliver more food, feed and fuel. How can we move discussions away from productivity towards development of more resilient farming systems? This session brings together different stakeholders to reveal the key factors in accelerating transformations to resilience.

Speakers

Edith van Walsum (chair), Director, ILEIA — Centre for learning on sustainable agriculture, the Netherlands

Andrew Mushita, Director, Community Technology Development Trust , Zimbabwe

Sue Edwards, Director, Institute for Sustainable Development, Ethiopia

Tenaw Hailu, Director, Sustainable Land Use Forum, Ethiopia

Paulo Petersen, Executive Director, Agricultura Familiar e Agroecologia (ASPTA), Brazil

A world in which everybody can build an independent livelihood, that is the ideal of Oxfam Novib. And that is why support people in developing countries working on their own future. A matter of justice.

A fair, free and sustainable world: that is what Hivos, the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation, wants to contribute to. Together with local organisations in developing countries, Hivos strives for a world in which all citizens — both men and women — have equal access to resources and opportunities for development.

Return to Fair ideas programme >

Community protocols can bring real benefits to communities and combat biodiversity loss

krystyna.swiderska@iied.org (Krystyna Swiderska) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:39:06 +0000

Community Protocols are a vital way forward for negotiating agreements that are equitable, and conserve their local biodiversity and traditional knowledge.

Indigenous people and local communities have received few benefits from the commercial use of the wealth of traditional crops and medicinal knowledge they have developed. Where agreements have been established, the benefits are insignificant compared to the huge profits derived by companies. At the same time, biodiversity and traditional knowledge are being lost at an unprecedented rate.

Community Protocols provide communities with a vital way forward for negotiating agreements that are equitable, and for conserving their local biodiversity and traditional knowledge.

They set out a community’s rights and responsibilities relating to natural resources, to help communities defend these rights and negotiate with others on an equal footing. They can also establish internal community rules for the equitable sharing of benefits and for sustainable management of natural resources.

High up in the Peruvian Andes, such an agreement to equitably share benefits and conserve the Potato Park’s unique bio-cultural system has been developed (Read the summary and detailed case study).

Quechua communities are communally farming hundreds of potato varieties in the Park, which are vital for their food security and resilience to climate change. Having signed an agreement with a gene bank (the International Potato Centre) for the repatriation of lost potato varieties, the six communities needed to establish internal rules for the fair sharing of potatoes and financial benefits amongst them.

Community agreement helps conserve potato diversity and reduce potential conflict

The 6 communities carried out an in-depth participatory process over 2 to 3 years to develop an inter-community agreement. This agreement established new inter-community governance structures and a framework for equitably sharing the benefits from a number of economic collectives in the park, including collectives benefiting from gastronomy and ecotourism initiatives, and the production and selling of medicinal plants, potatoes and crafts. The agreement is rooted in conservation and equity values enshrined in customary laws, which now shape all the activities of the park, and is regulated by the community and inter-community authorities.

The agreement minimises the risk of conflicts over resources and of elites unfairly benefiting from revenues as the park’s revenues increase. A percentage of the revenues is reinvested into a communal fund which is used to sustain and manage the park’s agro-ecosystem where the potatoes are grown. It also provides a safety net for the poorest people in the park communities, such as widows and orphans.

At the same time, the agreement acts as a Community Protocol for Access to genetic resources and Benefit-Sharing (ABS), which countries are required to support under the Nagoya Protocol. It sets out the rules for access to the Park’s genetic resources and traditional knowledge and for equitable benefit-sharing by outsiders. The resulting protocol, and the process to develop it, has strengthened the capacity of the communities to negotiate equitable ABS agreements with more powerful external actors, helping to level the playing field.

As one of the few examples of a working ABS model that stems directly from customary laws and norms, this Protocol may serve as a best practice example for implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access to genetic resources and Benefit-Sharing. Existing ABS models treat traditional knowledge as separate from the biodiversity resources, land and culture which sustain it (referred to as bio-cultural systems), and as a commodity which can be sold off. Rooting community protocols in customary laws is vital so that alternative ABS models can be developed which strengthen the linkages between the biodiversity and cultural systems. This is essential for strengthening community livelihoods and resilience.

Community Protocols have also been used to address external threats to land and resource rights and enable communities to negotiate more effectively in a variety of contexts, such as with mining or forestry companies. They typically set out:

the communities’ cultural values, customary rights and responsibilities for resource management;
the provisions in national and international law that recognise their rights and responsibilities to those resources

Maximising the impact of community protocols

In some cases, Protocols have been successful in securing community resource rights. For example, the Bushbuckbridge healers are a group of 80 healers in South Africa who developed a protocol which resulted in them being granted access to a UNESCO biosphere reserve [PDF], in order to secure their access to medicinal plants. The Tanchara community protocol in northern Ghana has helped to postpone a mining operation, which threatened the community’s sacred sites and drinking water, until 2013.

Although the support of a local organisation is important, the impact of protocols has been greatest where the process to develop them has been driven and led by communities themselves, rather than external organisations. (PLA 65: Biodiversity and Culture: Exploring community protocols, rights and consent. IIED. Forthcoming June 2012).

Where in-depth participatory processes are followed to develop them, protocols can bring communities together and strengthen collective identity, goals and organisational capacity and develop a strong sense of self-empowerment.

As the Potato Park case shows, Community Protocols can also serve as instruments by which responsibilities for implementing global environmental agreements can be formally adopted by communities. This makes them a vital way forward for conserving biodiversity and bio-cultural systems.

Find out more

Building Mechanisms for Access and Benefit Sharing among the Communities of the Potato Park based on Quechua Customary Norms

Browse our website on biocultural heritage

5-step guide to help farmers evaluate agriculture’s hidden heroes

webmaster@iied.org (drupmaster) — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 09:25:38 +0000

Smallholder farmers will soon be better able to weigh up the cost and benefits of adopting new practices that support some of the most overlooked contributors to global food security — the insects and other animals that pollinate their crops and boost yields.

“Three quarters of all food crops need insect pollinators such as bees to get good yields, and 35% of all food production globally comes from crops dependent on pollinators — but there are worrying reports of declines in pollinators from several regions of the world,” says Barbara Gemmill-Herren of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Now, Maryanne Grieg-Gran of the International Institute for Environment and Development and Gemmill-Herren have co-authored a handbook that smallholder farmers and organizations that work with them can use to identify such pollinator-friendly practices and evaluate their impacts on livelihoods, incomes and health.

“Sharing information with farmers about pollinator-friendly practices is a good first step,” says Grieg-Gran. “But farmers will adopt pollinator-friendly practices only if they can see that these practices will bring benefits to them – and while cash always helps, other less tangible benefits may also be important.”

There are striking examples of farmers managing for pollination services - in Ghana, a mango farmer realized some of the common weeds growing under his trees attracted pollinators into the orchard. To conserve those pollinator species, the farmer chose to hand-weed rather than use herbicide even though weeding was four times more expensive. In Southern India, farmers who grow coffee and cardamom have chosen to plant selections of shade trees that flower at different times from the crops to ensure continuous forage for the pollinators. But farmers are often not aware of how best to manage their farms to make the most of this natural service.

The handbook, which will be published on 8 March by FAO, draws on work with farmers in Ghana, India, Kenya and Nepal.

To improve pollination of their horticulture crops, farmers in the Mankessim area of Ghana chose to try out reducing pesticide use, protect riverside vegetation and sacred groves that provide habitat for pollinators and allow flowering plants to grow along field borders.

In Uttarakhand State, in India, farmers who plant grasses to prevent soil erosion at the edges of their fields could instead use plants that also attract pollinators.

The handbook provides a five-step approach, centred in the farmer field school tradition, for smallholders to assess current production systems, identifying and testing new practices, and evaluating their impacts. It will enable farmers to weigh up the costs and benefits of adopting different approaches to farming.

“Wild pollinators are some of the most important contributors to global food security, but farmers often overlook them,” says Maryanne Grieg-Gran of IIED. “Farmers need to be directly involved in testing practices that encourage pollinators to visit their crops so that they can assess the benefits and costs for themselves.”

Barbara Gemmill-Herren of FAO adds: “As agriculture intensifies with large-scale monocultures and greater use of agricultural chemicals, pollinators are increasingly threatened. There is a critical need to develop agricultural practices that sustain and increase yields, based on the ecosystem services such as pollination provided by wild species.”

The publication has been produced under the Global Pollination Project, a Global Environment Facility-supported project, implemented by United Nations Environment Programme and executed by the Food and Agriculture Organization, with seven national partners. The production of the handbook was facilitated by funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

To download the book as a PDF (from 8 March) visit

Rafts of rubber and a hotel for birds with spit that sells

mike.shanahan@iied.org (Mike Shanahan) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:09:04 +0000

There’s plenty of room at the Hotel Sri Tahjung. Any time of year… you can find it here. But if you want to stay, you’ll need a pair of wings and plenty

The hotel is in Kereng Bangkerai, a village in Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo, where I happened to be in January 2012. It’s a part of the world where people and nature have long danced to the same rhythms, but have begun to tread on each other’s toes in recent years.

While some people are finding new ways to make withdrawals from nature’s bank, for others conservation has come along and created credit limits to long-held livelihoods. It’s a tough job to balance these two faces of a coin that no-one is quite sure how to count.

The hotel’s owner has sealed the building so it can serve as a nursery for the creatures that make one of the most expensive things people eat. They are little birds called swiftlets and they use their cement-like saliva to build nests that stick to the walls of caves. That’s the basis of bird’s nest soup, a Chinese delicacy and status symbol with reputed medicinal qualities.

One kilogram of these nests can sell for between US$2,000 and US$10,000, depending on the variety. Little wonder that, for generations, collectors have risked their lives to harvest them. In 1998, when I saw men climb up bamboo poles in the dark wet caves of Niah National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia to do this, I wondered how many fell and never returned home.

People who are desperate or just drunk on desire will do crazy things but in recent years someone worked out a simpler, safer way to tap into the lucrative trade. Now across Asia people build the birds concrete nesting towers or add them to existing buildings, like the Sri Tahjung hotel. And so, the people of Kereng Bangkerai turn the spit of swiflets into cash. It is avian alchemy.

I saw the swift towers when I passed through Kereng Bangkerai on my way to Sebangau National Park to learn if the park offered hope to Borneo’s beleaguered orangutans. The next day a boat carried me around Kaja Island on the Rungan River on a quest. My eyes scanned the green forest in search of a flash of the rusty red fur of one of the dozens of orangutans there that await a move to a forest they can call home. I was not disappointed.

At the end of the journey, near a village called Sei Gohong, I saw what looked like strange fields afloat on the river.

The plants were just accidental outgrowths of unfussy seeds. It was the mats that they grew on that mattered: hundreds of hunks of rubber with a peculiar acrid aroma. To make them the villagers tap trees for latex in the dry season, then pour the latex in moulds to set. In the wet season they float the pillow sized pieces of rubber downriver where buyers and processers await.

The places I had seen in just two days exemplified the way people and nature can collide or coexist. In February 2012, the Center for International Forestry Research published a study that shows how traditional livelihoods in Indonesian Borneo are in decline because so much of its forests are now reserved for logging or mining. But forest conservation also imposes limits on livelihoods for people with few safety nets.

Villagers from Sei Gohong used to harvest natural resources from Kaja and other islands where today human visitors are banned so the rare orangutans can roam unmolested. People from Kereng Bangkerai used to visit the nearby forest to hunt, chop trees and gather wild fruits and other good things. Some had jobs in the timber sector but the logging concessions have been closed to create the park and the forest is now off-limits.

Selling nests and tapping rubber are among the many profitable offspring of marriages between human ingenuity and nature’s capacity to give. But even as that capacity declines, there are still bigger prizes to seize and both communities could soon gain in other ways.

In Sebangau National Park, I planted a tree in an area that stands to attract large sums of finance through an international scheme that will allow people, companies and countries to offset their carbon emissions by paying to plant trees and protect forests. And the orangutans on the river islands could soon attract a steady flow of international tourists with money to spend in the local economy.

What happens next will decide whether efforts to conserve the forest and the apes can really work, and benefits to local communities will be critical. But as Adianto P. Simamora, a journalist friend from Indonesia, reported in the Jakarta Post in May 2011, the locals don’t know much about the coming cash for carbon and how to get a fair share of it.

And while tourists in Africa will pay US$500 to US$750 a day to see gorillas, in Sei Gohong, visitors will be charged just US$22 to see orangutans. Yet a quick search of the Internet shows that companies are already offering tourists the chance to visit the apes of Kaja Island in tour packages that cost US$1000 or more.

If the local people don’t get a decent share of the dollars that are set to flow, I suspect some will resort to what they have done for generations, even if that means breaking rules that have been imposed (see the story of Lambir Hills National Park on the other side of Borneo).

It is one thing to monetize nature — whether from birds nests or rubber or carbon-capturing trees and the orangutans that climb them. It is something else to spread the benefits of biodiversity in a way that keeps them safe. How such prizes are shared could decide whether economies can really be green and if nature’s treasures will continue to gleam.

This blog was first published here on Under the Banyan.