Dr Tom Crompton

By Bhavani Prakash

Dr. Tom Crompton is a Change Strategist at World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK, and if you’re intrigued by his job description, suffice it to say he has been involved in some cutting-edge research on going to the heart of what should be the approach of communication campaigns – of environmental organisations and those of the non-profit sector in general.

Dr. Crompton stresses the importance of engaging people’s intrinsic or non-materialistic values, versus extrinsic or materialistic ones, to achieve lasting and positive behaviour change. He is one the people behind the project called Common Cause: The Case for Working with Cultural Values.  Much of his work can be found on the thought-provoking website called Values and Frames.org

EWTT: How did your interest in human psychology and environmentalism evolve?

Dr. Tom Crompton: I have worked at WWF-UK for ten years .The first five years, I worked on international trade and investment policy – for example, World Trade Organisation (WTO) law. I was convinced then and am still convinced now that the international trade regime is crucially important from the sustainability perspective to ensure that we are producing and trading in more sustainable products with lower carbon footprints. Several senior negotiators were themselves deeply convinced for the need for more fundamental change to the trade regime on a sustainability basis but they’d say, “look, our hands are tied, we don’t enjoy the political space, we don’t experience public political pressure for more proportional change” and as a result the change that we saw was small.

I think that forced us really to reflect on what is it that creates  political space and pressure for more proportional change, what is it that motivates people to engage with the political process, whether it is to lobby with members of parliament or to demonstrate on the streets or however else they may express their political frustration. Some social psychologists came back to us and said that one of the things they see as missing at the moment from environmental campaigning or indeed third sector campaigning generally, is an understanding of values and the importance of values in underpinning people’s commitment to engage in political process and to express concern about social and environmental issues.

EWTT: In this context can you introduce the work you do with the Common Cause Project? 

Dr. Tom Crompton: We’re working to open debate with a wide range of third sector organizations – not just environmental organizations but also development and disability organizations, children’s charities and animal welfare charities – about the cultural values that seem to consistently underpin expression of concern about a wide range of social and environmental issues.

One implication of this work is that we should be designing or shaping our campaigns and communications, and indeed our entire external engagement, in a way which helps to engage and strengthen those values. These are values which almost everybody seems to hold already. It’s a question of bringing them to the fore, because they underpin not just our concern about environmental issues,  but also the concern about a wide range of other social issues.

It seems that when we activate what psychologists call extrinsic values -which are concerns about things like wealth or social status or image, those values tend to suppress the importance that  people attach to intrinsic values, or values associated with social and environmental concerns.

So there is an antagonistic relationship between these two sets of values.  From that we suggest it is important that NGOs think carefully about the occasions in which they may be drawn to appeal to extrinsic values in the course of pursuing a particular campaign outcome. For example, drawing attention to the money that might be saved through increased energy conservation measures like turning down the central heating thermostat or drawing attention to the social image or status that might be achieved through buying a luxury hybrid car. These are messages that may be effective in encouraging uptake of that particular behavior but are likely to have collateral damages.

This work also points to the possibility of beginning to work across a wide range of NGOs in new coalitions, with groups which hitherto have not really collaborated. Many NGOs can find common cause to engage those more intrinsic values and begin to tackle and remove those things which tend to engage and strengthen extrinsic values.

For example, we might find common cause in tackling an influence which currently serves to strengthen unhelpful extrinsic values at a cultural level, namely, the impact of advertising. We have begun to build a coalition of NGOs working again on a very wide set of issues to ask what’s the role of advertising in potentially frustrating emergence of greater public engagements and more  stronger expressions of public concern on all of our issues. But we might also work to help strengthen intrinsic values – for example, working with those who set the standards for teacher-training to introduce work to help children reflect on the importance of kindness in their lives.

Image Courtesy: ValuesandFrames.org

EWTT: Our society has become so materialistic. Is there a danger that there may be no common ground if we don’t address the ‘what’s in it for me?’ Are people going to listen to messages for less materialistic values?

Dr. Tom Crompton: There are several dimensions to that question and it is a very critical question.  You wouldn’t embark on what we are suggesting unless you are convinced that the problems we confront are really quite immense and will require really fundamental changes in terms of the level of ambition we show to respond to those problems.

If you really believed that a few behavioural changes in the private sphere in terms of domestic energy efficiency savings or a bit of green consumption were going to be sufficient to tackle a problem like climate change, or if you believe that increasing people’s willingness to donate to development charities was really going to be sufficient to tackle the problem of global poverty, then you probably look at what we are proposing and suggest that it is too ambitious.

So the first thing to say is that the scale of challenge that we are confronting at the moment would require an ambitious response and at the moment we are not seeing that level of ambition.

The second thing to say is that whilst it’s true that on some indicators, it seems that some cultures are becoming more materialistic, and are holding those extrinsic values to be more important, in most nations, people still hold intrinsic values to be more important. In the UK, if you ask people what’s important to them they first and foremost mention those intrinsic values. They voice the importance of the connection to friends and family, they talk about self- direction, the importance of self -determination and creativity, they talk about sense of social justice and the sense of environmental concern. Extrinsic values such as wealth or power rate less importantly.  The evidence also seems very clear that these intrinsic values are there in everybody to be engaged.

We recently conducted a study with psychologists from University of Cardiff where we took 750 ordinary citizens from the Cardiff community, and asked them what values were important to them, we gave them a value survey and we picked the top 10% for whom the extrinsic or materialistic values were most important.

We then asked half of these people to reflect for a few minutes on the importance of affiliation to friends and family, the importance of  broad-mindedness. We made no mention of the environment. We asked the other half to reflect on the importance of wealth or popularity. Then we interviewed each participant about climate change, amongst other things.  We transcribed the interviews and sent them a linguist who analysed the interviews without knowing whether a participant had been asked to think about intrinsic or extrinsic values.

We found  that even though these people were by disposition more inclined towards extrinsic values, simply asking them to pause for a few minutes  to reflect on the importance of affiliation towards  friends and family or broadmindedness led to a statistically significant increase in the extent to which they saw climate change as being something that they felt they had some personal responsibility to address and something that they wanted to see addressed because of its importance for a wider society and not just for their own self- interest.

What we take from an experiment like that, and it corroborates several other lines of evidence, is that those intrinsic values matter for a lot for people and that it’s possible to engage them even in the short term. We are not necessarily talking here about changing in values. It’s more about thinking carefully about which values people already hold, which of these underpin a greater commitment to express social or environmental concern, and engaging with these in the course of our campaigns or communications.

EWTT:  Companies often say they are bound by short-term results, such as sales targets or increasing shareholder returns, which relate to the extrinsic values you talk about. They tend to initiate sustainability initiatives only if it makes financial sense. How do you convince them to undertake them because it’s the right thing to do?

Dr. Tom Crompton: It is a challenge certainly. What we are suggesting goes beyond the business case for sustainability. It goes beyond simply pointing to those things that it’s in a business’s short-term economic interests  to do, for example increasing energy efficiency or supply chain efficiency in a way which will simultaneously save money. We need to move to a situation where the responsibility that companies have to the societies in which they operate is seen to extend beyond simply making money.

Many companies are already demonstrating willingness to go beyond the business case for sustainable development and are taking unilateral action. It is of course easier for family owned companies or cooperatives to do that than it is for publicly owned companies, but even in the case of publically owned companies there are examples where at the very least they come together and demand a regulatory intervention or legislative intervention in order to shift the level of the playing field.  In the UK, The Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change calls of government to enact new and longer-term policies to tackle climate change. Members of this group recognise that some steps to tackle climate change incur economic costs. But if together they can change the level of the playing field then these competitive costs could be equally shared across the competitors.

The other thing is to widen our concept of what corporate social responsibility means, to recognize that companies have a responsibility not just with immediate material foot prints of their activities –  how much carbon do they produce, how much tropical rainforest is cut down in the course of them sourcing their raw materials – but also with what you might call mindprint. Mindprint includes impacts on cultural values, and that’s affected in a whole range of ways: the way in which a company advertises, the values that are activated in the course of using the products it manufactures, or how a company manages decision making processes. These include their HR practices and internally recognizing that many people work for business and that it is an important part of their lives. When you spend 40 hours a week in a business, the culture of that business is likely to impact your values as an individual. So there is a whole range of ways in which we are arguing businesses have a responsibility to look at not only their footprints but also their mindprint, which may be even greater than the impact that they have through their direct environment impacts – their footprint.

EWTT: Can businesses exploit intrinsic values in their advertising, and can this cause harm?

Dr. Tom Crompton: Many businesses are well aware of the importance of intrinsic values in building a loyal customer base and clearly those intrinsic values are the ones often reflected in terms of a company’s brand or its advertising. A lot of advertising appeals to intrinsic values in terms of strength of family relationships or connection to nature. The report we produced last year called ‘Think of Me as Evil’ was an attempt to open some of these ethical debates as they relate to advertising. Nobody knows for sure what the cultural or social impact of advertising that appeals to intrinsic values are, but some of the social psychologists we have worked with constructed quite persuasive arguments that actually such ads may be unhelpful. What these ads may actually serve to do is to increase people’s cynicism about intrinsic values or to create the impression that those values, when they come from elsewhere, are being deployed manipulatively in order to get them to do something; whether that’s to buy a product or to show some act of kindness.  So it seems that there are dangers in deploying intrinsic values in pursuit of commercial interest.

EWTT: What about the behaviour or governments? How do you convince governments to look for alternative indicators of growth outside of GDP or overcome their fear of losing competitive advantage?

Dr. Tom Crompton: I agree with you fully on this. Those were precisely the constraints we hear from senior policy makers or decision makers in the trade regime. We would be arguing that at least for us in the UK we should be taking a unilateral stand in multilateral negotiations in order to help change the regime. What we hear constantly is that, “Oh well, we don’t have the political capital”,  or “there would be competitiveness costs to the industry”: exactly the arguments which you have just been advancing. I suppose I just come back again to our starting point. One of our responses to that degree of political paralysis is that the change we need isn’t going to occur without far more vocal and powerful citizen engagement. It isn’t going to happen unless more people are writing to their MPs, or unless more people are out in the streets demonstrating; unless it is made clear to the political leaders that their own political future depends upon being more ambitious in responding to these things – even though there are economic costs. So our question at the outset was: What is it that underpins increased citizen engagement? What is it that underpins citizen concern? And this brings us back to values.  If a diversity of third sector organizations come together to ask how it is that our cultural values influence our collective responses to social and environmental problems, they could have a profound impact on public debate.

Policy makers don’t enjoy the political space and public pressure for more ambitious change. So this whole work from the outset has been premised on the grounds that we need to find ways to increase public engagement on these issues. I don’t think governments are ready to embrace the scale of response that is necessary to respond to the challenges. But that said, there are certainly opportunities for governments within this and we have been engaging several governments on precisely this agenda.

The Welsh government is, for example, currently asking what are the narratives they have set down nationally within Wales around sustainable development?  They have recognized that they have adopted a series of environmental policies in a piecemeal fashion, so we have a charge on plastic bags, for example, but they recognize as  well that there are some fundamental limitations to what you can achieve by picking individual actions which are often quite modest in terms of their environmental impacts. They see the need for some sort of national narrative around sustainable development. Should this be constructed around the economic opportunities early investment in green technologies such as wind provides, that might give a country a competitive edge? Or should it be built around a sense that Wales has something important to contribute to the world as a small country that is light on its feet and has a strong sense of community and social justice? Clearly, I would argue for the latter.

In the case of the UK government, we are hearing that they too are frustrated by the limitations of a piecemeal approach to reducing individual’s carbon footprint for example. So they are confronting the fact that whilst they may urge people to insulate their loft on the basis that they will save money, they are finding at the same time that if people are insulating their loft solely to save money, there is no particular reason why the money that they save shouldn’t be spent in turning the central heating thermostat up and enjoying a warmer house or flying off to enjoy a weekend break: all of which are more carbon intensive activities. We have to look carefully at the values we are appealing to in trying to change private-sphere behaviours.

EWTT: What do you have to say about the way one should engage on social media?

Dr. Tom Crompton:  Social media is only one way in which third sector organizations impact on cultural values, albeit an important one, and the most easily changed. I think that there are many others, including policies that they are campaigning for, the way in which they campaign, the way in which they organize their own organizations and their own internal policies.

Online groups might begin to look at the values that they appeal to in the course of constructing their online requests for people to sign petitions: what’s the impact of these values on the longevity of people’s engagement, and the success with which they encourage people to actually sign the petition?

My expectation would be that they would be likely to build a more loyal relationship with their supporters when that relationship is premised on connecting with people’s intrinsic rather than their extrinsic values. There may be instances where you can successfully encourage large numbers of people to sign a petition on the basis of their self- interest, but I would argue that those supporters are likely to express a less general, or less systemic concern about a wide range of social and environmental issues,  particularly where those depart from their immediate self- interest, and they are likely to make for less durable relationships. They are likely to be more fickle.

EWTT: How do you intend to take your studies forward? What’s the broader vision for the kind of work you do?

Dr. Tom Crompton:  Our aim is to engage in the first instance a wider swathe of NGOs in this debate. In the UK at least, there is a huge appetite for this at the moment. We have already run over 60 workshops for different NGOs in UK from a very wide range of different issue groups and interest groups. That work will continue in terms of engaging third sector organizations in this conversation. It’s increasingly becoming an international conversation. We recently ran a series of workshops in a number of Scandinavian countries as there is an appetite there to begin to put together hubs of NGOs who are working on these issues and building a conversation in those countries. We are going to be running workshops soon in Australia; we have got workshops in Brussels, possibly in Canada so there is an increasing international interest which we haven’t really gone out to court, this is interest which has come to us really.

Part of what we are doing is deepening our already extensive relationship with academics on the evidence. Hitherto that evidence base has been drawn largely from social psychology but we are aware that social psychology represents only one route into this discussion. So we want to increasingly work with people from other disciplines, political science, psychotherapy, anthropology, and neurosciences and we are beginning that process. We are doing more research ourselves in terms of taking real NGO communications and asking what the impacts of those are. For example, we have put together a consortium of all the main UK conservation groups and we will be working with a psychologist and a linguist to analyse our entire external communication over a 6 month period to ask “what are the values that we are activating at the moment in the course of those communications”.

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About the Interviewer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com.  She is a sustainability speaker, trainer and writer can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

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Further links you may be interested in:

WWF: Common Cause Report

Values and Frames.org 

Video link here

EWTT: Joe Brewer: An Interdisciplinary approach to understanding complex issues

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Michelle Desilets

Michelle Desilets is Founder and Executive Director of Orangutan Land Trust, a UK-based NGO which supports sustainable solutions for the long-term survival of the orangutan in the wild.  She is also Founder of Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK, and Member of the Board of Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany, which supports the largest primate rescue and protection project in the world.

She was in Singapore recently when she talked to us about the threats to orangutans, especially from the palm oil industry. Orangutan Land Trust is a key player in the campaign for sustainable palm oil, and Desilets shares some of the nuances in the debate about sustainable palm oil, the challenges in the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) process, and what would be more effective to save the rainforests – boycotting palm oil, or more direct action through petitions which influence industry and government behaviour.

Watch the interview with Michelle Desilets here:

Video link here

Desilets aim to secure at least 1 million hectares of rainforest for the continued and long term survival of the orangutan. Support Orangutan Land Trust’s efforts here

Please support the campaign to save Tripa Peat Swamps.

Join the Facebook page : Save the Tripa Peat Swamps, and sign petitions via Avaaz, Change.org or Care2

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com.  She is a sustainability speaker, trainer and writer can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

Further links you may be interested in:

EWTT: The fight for Borneo’s soul

EWTT: Nestle buckles to Greenpeace pressure on unsustainable palm oil

EWTT: How to find Hidden Palm Oil in Supermarkets

EWTT: Engaging local communities in S.E.Asian Peat Swamp Regeneratio

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Many plant species can lay claim to being a ‘single species supermarket’ where several if not all parts of the plant can be used productively for food, fibre and/or fuel. Three that I have grown up with in tropical Asia are the coconut palm, the moringa (drumstick tree), and banana plant which are understandably interwoven into our food culture and tradition.

Winged Bean

As an organic food gardener, it has been a pleasure to discover another ‘single species supermarket’ that delights with its generosity, and demands so little in terms of maintenance by fixing its nitrogen requirements from the atmosphere, and by surviving clayey soils and the alternating tropical heat and torrential downpours. The vegetable I’m referring to is the winged bean or Psophocarpus tetragonolobus.

Winged Bean growing on a fence

It’s amenable to growing in an apartment balcony, as long as there is a railing for support, and a deep and wide pot.  A planter or bed alongside a fence would be ideal. More widely used in Malay cuisine, you may occasionally stumble upon it in the wet markets of Singapore, and more rarely in air-conditioned supermarkets. This article hopefully makes a strong case for reviving this wonder veggie back into urban food gardens of tropical Asia.

A vintage article on the internet (considering the age of the internet, 1982 can be considered as such) by the New York Times claims, “Winged Bean hailed as a potent weapon against malnutrition”  It says:

Winged Bean root sold in Myanmar market Source: Wikipedia

Among those who study it, the winged bean is known as ”a supermarket on a stalk” because it combines the desirable characteristics of the green bean, garden pea, spinach, mushroom, soybean, bean sprout and potato. Save for the stalk, virtually the entire plant is fit for human consumption – from flowers and leaves to tuberous roots and seeds.

Theodore Hymowitz, an agronomist at the University of Illinois who is a member of the Academy’s panel on the winged bean, said, ”it’s like an ice cream cone – you eat the whole thing.”

Origins:

Wikipedia traces the origin of the winged bean. “Also known as the Goa bean and Asparagus pea, Four-angled bean and Winged pea, is a tropical legume plant native to New Guinea. It grows abundantly in hot, humid equatorial countries, from the Philippines and Indonesia to India,Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka.”

Nutritive value: 

According to Appropedia,

The leaves have a relatively low Iysine content but an uncommonly high content of tryptophan, a nutritionally essential amino acid. Even a small amount of winged bean leaves can thus greatly improve tryptophan-deficient diets- for example, those based on corn.

Winged Bean leaves

Adding cooked winged bean leaves to the diets of weaned infants and preschool children should be beneficial because of the favorable content of minerals, and especially of the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene. The amount of vitamin A equivalent in winged bean leaves (up to 20,000 international units per 100 g of edible portion) ranks among the highest ever recorded in green leaves of tropical plants.” This is important; in some developing nations many children go blind because of vitamin A deficiency.

Winged Bean Flower

A variety of greens including winged beans should provide malnourished children with Vitamin A, rather than exotic solutions such as the genetically modified Golden Rice which has Vitamin A injected into the DNA of the rice. As famed pro-organic farming activist Vandana Shiva points out, “Golden rice genetically engineered to increase Vitamin A produces 70 times less Vitamin A than available alternatives such as coriander leaves and curry leaves.”

Recipe Ideas:

Here are some dishes I’ve tried out with organically grown winged bean, straight out of my balcony garden. I cook out of intuition mostly, so would be hard-pressed to give exact proportions for the ingredients. Let the list give some cues at least as to what have been used.

1. Winged Bean Curry

Winged Bean Curry

Toss into cooking oil some sliced red chilli and garlic, and then once they are sauted, add chopped winged bean, some salt, and a dash of soy sauce. Stir fry very quickly. Optional: turmeric while frying and a touch of lime juice at the end.

2. Curry with tender Winged Bean leaves

Curry with tender leaves of Winged Bean

Steam tender winged bean leaves for a few minutes, then add sauted cumin seeds, onions, chopped ginger, garlic, green chillis, salt and pepper to taste. Use coconut shavings as dressing. Optional: turmeric on the greens to retain colour.

3. Salad with Winged Bean flower 

Salad with Winged Bean flower

You can use winged bean flower in any salad of your choice. Here I’ve used purple cabbage, cucumber, red peppers, cherry tomatoes and alfafa sprouts, with winged bean flower as a pretty contrast to the array of colours. The flower is gently sweet to taste. My favourite salad dressing: olive oil, salt, pepper, flax seed powder and nutritional yeast, with a capful of organic apple cider vinegar for the tanginess.

4. Paratha/flat bread with tender leaves

Winged Bean tender leaves in Paratha/Flat Bread

Make a dough for paratha/flat bread with a bit of sesame oil and water, and knead in chopped winged bean leaves, and any flavourings of your choice. I normally use cumin and coriander powder, chilli powder, turmeric, carrom seeds (Ajwain), and salt to taste. Then roll out the paratha or flat bread and cook on a pan over the fire with or without a little oil.

Do let us know if you have grown or cooked winged bean, and if there’s an insight or recipe that you can share with us. We’d love to hear from you!

ABOUT THE WRITER:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com.  She is a sustainability speaker, trainer and writer can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

Further links you may be interested in:

YouTube: Forgotten Foods: Cooking with Amaranth

EWTT: Reading Food Labels: Food Additives 

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Aedes aegypti

By Bhavani Prakash

In Dec 2010, 6000 genetically modified (GM) Aedes aegypti sterile male mosquitoes were released in the unhabited forests of Betong, Malaysia, according to the statement by the government run Institute of Medical Research (IMR).  

The GM mosquitoes were developed by the UK biotech company, Oxitec. The purported aim of the company is to work with governments around the world to combat dengue disease caused by the Aedes mosquito. It had already “released 3 million GM male mosquitoes as part of an open release field experiment in the Caymen Islands in 2010,” according to the press release by UK’s Gene Watch entitled, “Oxitec’s genetically-modified mosquitoes: in the public interest?”

The mosquitoes released in Malaysia were genetically engineered in such a way that when they mate with females in the wild, the resulting mosquito larvae die young (although this will only happen in the absence of the antibiotic tetracycline).  Oxitec claims that this will drastically reduce the population of disease causing mosquitoes. However not everybody is of the same view with many scientists arguing that this practice is fundamentally flawed.

Prior to the experiment, Malaysia’s Third World Network (TWN) had already raised concerns and submitted their objections about genetically modified or engineered (GE) mosquitoes. They sought answers to the following concerns:

 1) Could female mosquitoes be accidentally released?

TWN’s concern was about the possibility of an accidental release of female GE mosquitoes that could in turn raise further concerns, as females act as vectors for diseases such as dengue and chikungunya. Their argument was that the sex selection process prior to release may not be fully accurate or effective. They claimed that the available information does not indicate whether the reliability and efficiency of the sex selection process can be guaranteed.

 2) Could GE mosquitoes and GE larvae survive and persist in the environment?

Oxitec mentions that mosquito larvae that are produced after the GE males mate with females will only die if they do not encounter tetracycline in the environment. TWN’s concern is that since Tetracycline is a fairly common antibiotic used in animal husbandry, there is a possibility of the larvae surviving. TWN claims that the available information provided does not indicate whether the use, presence and persistence of tetracycline in the environment at the proposed release sites have been assessed.

In addition, TWN is also concerned that about the possibility that the conditional lethality trait may not be 100 percent effective, meaning some of the GE larvae produced will not die.

All this implies that it is reasonable to expect at least some GE mosquitoes to persist beyond the first generation in the environment. While the number may be small, a proportion of these would be female, and thus capable of transmitting disease. TWN is concerned that there is a risk of an increase in the disease burden of the communities at the inhabited release sites.

3) Could there be a surge of other disease-transmitting mosquito species if Aedes aegypti populations are suppressed?

Aedes aegypti is not native to Malaysia, but is an introduced, invasive species. Nonetheless, it has become part of Malaysia’s complex ecological ecosystem. It would be important to consider the implications on other species that interact with Aedes aegypti in the receiving environment.

Aedes albopictus is an indigenous species of mosquito to Malaysia, which also transmits dengue, as well as chikungunya. If the GE Aedes aegypti mosquitoes successfully achieve their aim of suppressing wild populations, there could be a surge in Aedes albopictus, with potential increase in incidences of chikungunya and possibly also dengue.

There may also be other ecological implications of long-term suppression of Aedes aegypti populations. This could include effects on food webs and ecological functioning or impacts on the abundance of other species that feed on mosquitoes. The available information provided does not indicate whether there are baseline ecological data on mosquito and other ecology in the proposed release sites that could inform the assessment.

 4) Could there be gene flow and effects on non-target organisms?

 While the available information suggests that gene flow through mating of closely related species (Aedes albopictus) will not produce fertile offspring, the possibility of gene flow between different Aedes aegypti populations and perhaps other mosquito species cannot be absolutely discounted.

This possibility may vary depending on the genetic elements used in the specific modification, which may to a greater or lesser extent be genetically unstable, especially under field conditions. If horizontal gene flow happens, non-target species may be adversely affected by sterility-inducing genetic elements, increasing the risk of ecological harm.

5) Are the monitoring and control measures proposed adequate?

While the applicant has proposed control measures to prevent the GE mosquitoes from persisting in the environment, the monitoring of these mosquitoes is dependent on the adequate functioning of the fluorescence marker gene. Because genetic expression can vary, the production of the fluorescent marker may be diminished and some GE mosquitoes may not be identifiable by fluorescence. If this happens, the GE mosquitoes may persist in the environment without our knowledge.

Furthermore, given the possibility that some GE mosquitoes could persist beyond the first generation in the environment (see point 2), the proposed period of one month for application of the control measures may not be long enough.

Therefore, an assessment must also be made as to whether the monitoring plan as proposed by the applicant is adequate and whether complete removal of GE mosquitoes and larvae from the field release sites is possible.

 6) Has the prior informed consent of local communities at the release sites been obtained?

As the experiments are also proposed for inhabited sites, local communities living in these areas have the right to be specifically informed, consulted and their consent obtained before any field release occurs. This is especially given the possibility of the risks as highlighted, particularly in relation to disease transmission.

 7) Is there sufficient risk assessment and regulatory experience?

The only reported environmental release of GE insects to date has been in the United States, of a transgenic pink bollworm, an agricultural pest that is not involved in intimate contact with humans or disease transmission as Aedes aegypti is. There may have already been field experiments with GE mosquitoes, but little information is available; however, this proposed release would be certainly be one of the first such releases in the world.

The experiment drew flak from several organizations in Malaysia. Following the news of the release of the GM mosquitoes in Malaysia in December 2010, a coalition comprising of 21 NGOs demanded that the government disclose full details of the trial release and its results and to identify the existence of any adverse effects. They also “criticized the government for “silently” conducting the experiment despite making a public announcement that the trial had been postponed pending public consultation.”

Following the experiment, the MP of Sungai Siput, Dr D Jeyakumar, who is also a respiratory physician called the using of laboratory mosquitoes to fight dengue “a catastrophic mistake” in this article by Free Malaysia Today.  Some of the points he raised were:

• the release of large numbers of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes into the environment could cause the transformation of the mosquitoes  or even some other insects in some unanticipated manner that might be difficult to control.
• the process of producing the male GM mosquitoes was not foolproof and that  3% to 4% of them would be female which could copy the role of the wild female Aedes to spread dengue. (This is also raised in Consumer Association of Penang’s Memorandum dated Dec 20, 2010 titled, ” Malaysia’s Planned Release of Aedes Mosquito: ethical, legal and human rights concern)
• the means of biological suppression cannot completely eliminate the species from the environment and the government would have to go on purchasing, releasing and killing the GM mosquitoes. “We would need billions of these transgenic mosquitoes for an average sized city. Wouldn’t it be more logical and productive if that same sum were spent in improving the drains and sewerage systems in our urban areas?”

On January 12 2012 , civil society groups  Friends of the Earth U.S., GeneWatch UK and Third World Network in a joint press release titled, “Genetically modified mosquitoes survival rate concealed,”  revealed a confidential internal document by Oxitec that showed that genetically modified mosquitoes described by the company “as “sterile” are in fact not sterile and their offspring have a 15 percent survival rate in the presence of the common antibiotic tetracycline.

The antibiotic tetracycline is widely used in agriculture and is present in sewage as well as in industrially farmed meat. Mosquitoes that carry dengue fever are known to breed in environments contaminated with sewage where they are likely to encounter widespread tetracycline contamination.

Even in the absence of tetracycline contamination, the GM mosquitoes are known to survive in the laboratory at rates of around 3 percent. In the field, this would translate into large numbers of survivors, given that continual releases of millions of GM mosquitoes would be needed to sustain the goals of population suppression.”

In January 2012, the US delayed the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes, according to FOE’s press release. Eric Hoffman, FOE’s biotechnology policy campaigner said:

“This delay is welcome and prudent given the risks that genetically engineered mosquitoes pose. Introducing genetically engineered mosquitoes into the environment could destabilize ecosystems, harm human health and scare away tourists, endangering the Florida Keys economy. These potential impacts must be evaluated through a serious and thorough environmental impacts review process. We are confident that any truly impartial, science-based review will lead to the cancellation of this risky experiment.”

It is to be expected that Oxitec will endeavour to rope in more nations into this experiment with GM mosquitoes. The issue is of particular concern to the public in neighbouring countries such as Singapore, and the rest of tropical Asia where there is a prevalence of dengue. Many questions are raised from the way the experiment was conducted in Malaysia and Cayman Islands. Has the public been involved and sufficiently consulted in the process? Aren’t there other non-invasive ways to attack the dengue issue, rather than doing an irreversible experiment with nature, especially when there are several unanswered concerns?

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About the Writer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com.  She is a sustainability speaker, trainer and writer can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

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Further links you may be interested in: 

Friends of the Earth U.S., GeneWatch UK and Third World Network’s Joint Press Release: “Genetically modified mosquitoes survival rate concealed,

Consumer Association of Penang’s Memorandum dated Dec 20, 2010 titled, “ Malaysia’s Planned Release of Aedes Mosquito: ethical, legal and human rights concern

UK’s Gene Watch :”Oxitec’s genetically-modified mosquitoes: in the public interest?”

Free Malaysia Today: GM mosquitoes Horror story in the making?

On GM Food: 

EWTT:  China suspends commercialisation of genetically engineered rice and wheat

EWTT:  Better labelling of GM Food in Singapore essential

EWTT: Lim Li Ching: GMO Free

EWTT:  India’s GM Bill: Anti-people, Anti-nature

EWTT: Go GM Free in Australia

EWTT: Dr Vandana Shiva: Traditional Knowledge, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development

EWTT: Dr Mira Shiva: Health Effects of GM Food

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One of the things that easily catches one’s attention during a train journey in India is the so-called ‘goods’ trains that ferry coal to and fro many parts of the nation. While railways have provided a vast network of sustainable transport options for millions of Indians every day, it is still predicated on the burning of a very dirty fossil fuel, namely coal.

It struck me when I read the free in-house magazine by Indian Railways in December 2012 during a journey, coal was highlighted quite significantly as a key national resource by both the Indian Minister of Coal and the Chairman of Coal India, (a state owned company which is also the world’s single largest coal producer in the world), whose interviews were published therein.

The desperation for economic growth, and the impatience with the environment ministry for not granting approvals fast enough for coal mining, was quite evident in the tone of these interviews.  It set me thinking then – there was not a single mention of climate change, nor any mention of the social, economic and environmental effects of coal mining. Nor were there any concerns expressed about sourcing coal from other countries such as Indonesia whose rainforests serve as lungs to the planet. Nor any indication as to whether socio-environmental factors had been taken into consideration when seeking overseas equity stakes in mining companies.

Jeremy Leggett also highlighted in the Guardian UK article, “Coal India IPO shows the mountain we have to climb”  his concerns about the public sector company’s IPO last year. Its 510 page prospectus did not make a single reference to climate change risks.

Against this context, here’s another perspective shared by Al Jazeera TV whose documentary, “India’s Coal Rush” by Orlando de Guzman highlights quite poignantly who gains and who loses in the mad coal rush in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India.

Video Link here

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About the Writer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk .com.  She is a sustainability speaker, trainer and writer can be contacted at bhavani[at]ecowalkthetalk.com. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

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Further links you may be interested in:

Green Collar Asia: Report: Unburnable Carbon: Are the world’s financial markets carrying a carbon bubble? 

EWTT: Climate Change Negotiations: Some inconvenient truths

EWTT: Pen Hadow: Melting Arctic Sea Ice and How it will affect Asia

EWTT: Contraction & Convergence: An Urgent Global Imperative to tackle climate change

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With palm oil companies slashing vast swathes of forest, the Dayaks of West Kalimantan are desperately struggling to save their ancestral lands and way of life

Houses and Mountains. Photo courtesy: Ben Sutherland

On the porch of a wooden house deep in West Kalimantan, a shirtless man sits, staring out at endless rows of palm oil trees surrounding his home like a besieging army. Pak Kabul does not know his exact age, only that he was born in the 1950s. Neither does he know what the future holds – except that life took a turn for the worse when a palm oil company took over the bulk of land nearby. The company chased nearly everyone off their land; only he refused to budge, he said. These days, he and his wife, together with some chickens and pigs, live a lonely existence in the middle of a sprawling plantation about an hour by road from the nearest town, Sintang, 420 km west of Pontianak city.

They eke out a living tapping rubber, earning about 360,000 rupiah (S$51) each month. Their son teaches at a nearby village and visits sometimes. Javanese immigrants brought in to work on the plantation live nearby, but Pak Kabul does not interact with them.

Borneo rain forest. Photo courtesy: Ben Sutherland

He remembers better times when the land was still forested and the villagers could live off its bounty. “When we had the forest, nobody came to hurt us,” he said with quiet resignation. “I have no more hope; I can only hope my son will be good.” According to him, the only benefit reaped from the palm oil company is the road built through the estate.

It was this road on which we were travelling, en route to a village three hours from Sintang, that we spotted Pak Kabul and decided on impulse to stop and talk to him – and heard yet another account of the Dayak indigenous people’s struggle with palm oil companies.

Our group comprised more than 20 people from countries like Australia, the Netherlands, the United States and Indonesia. Led by Dutch-born Indonesian conservationist Willie Smits, 15 young people dubbed the EcoWarriors – of whom I was one – were in West Kalimantan for a project to combat deforestation and illegal wildlife trade in partnership with local communities. Our efforts are to be made into a documentary by Australian director Cathy Henkel.

We were in West Kalimantan for 20 days in September, the first leg of a 100-day project. Accompanied by some Dayaks who have banded together to raise awareness of unlawful land grabs, we visited remote villages in the Serawai and Ambalau – the only two of Sintang’s 14 sub-districts that have resisted the palm oil companies. 

But for how much longer? Already, the locals speak of their livelihoods and communities being threatened by the relentless expansion plans of these companies.

The Dayaks love a good celebration, and we were welcomed warmly with traditional dances, rituals and generous amounts of a rice wine called tuak. Behind the smiles, however, lay deep anxiety for their future. The issue is not simply about the local communities depending on ancestral lands and forests to live, but about deforestation and wildlife habitat destruction – a struggle for Borneo’s soul.

‘TO THE LAST DROP OF BLOOD’

The third-largest island in the world, made up of Malaysia’s Sabah and Sarawak states, Brunei and Indonesia’s Kalimantan region, Borneo is known for its lush rainforests and stunning biodiversity. But since the 1980s and 1990s, large tracts of forests have been cleared for pulp and timber.

Deforestation in Borneo Image Courtesy: Maps.grida.no

In the past 15 years or so, palm oil companies have moved in; according to a 2009 report commissioned by Amsterdam University’s law faculty, the plantations occupied 3.2 million hectares of land in 2006, with another 2.8 million hectares cleared.

A July report by independent monitors Forest Watch Indonesia estimated that between 2000 and 2009, 1.5 million hectares of forest – an area 21 times the size of Singapore – were destroyed each year, a third of it in Kalimantan.

The villages we visited faced the very real danger of losing land that has been passed down for generations. Nearly every adult villager had a tale to tell – of suspicious tactics by palm oil company staff to survey the land, the bribery of select villagers to create rifts within the community, or the abuse of villagers who vocally opposed the companies. In Duan village in Ambalau, a sacred burial ground is part of the land being eyed by a palm oil company. Duan practises shifting agriculture, moving to a different spot every eight years to allow land to lie fallow. This allows the companies a chance to pounce on seemingly unoccupied territory.

When we visited, the traditional village high priest opened the vault where the bones are kept for us – a rare privilege and sign of trust that our group will tell their story of struggle and desperation when we return to our home countries. He grew increasingly distressed as he told us of seven generations of high priests who have watched over the grounds.

Should the palm oil companies try to take the land, it would be a “fight to the last drop of blood”, he said.

The locals also told of a villager, Joseph Obeng, who was framed by the palm oil company into accepting timber, then reported to the police for unlawful possession of it and thrown into jail.

TAKING BACK THEIR LAND

Over 300km from Duan, the three villages of Lansat Baru, Lansat Lama and Belenyut Sibau have found 80 hectares of their land bulldozed by a palm oil company. The company had also planted saplings on the land and driven their truck in – all without having obtained the necessary permits or completing negotiations with the community, villagers claimed.

Enraged, they confiscated the keys of the truck in September. Hearing of the Eco Warriors’ presence in a longhouse three hours away, the villagers travelled the bumpy, muddy roads to tell us of their plight.

The next morning, some of us drove to the disputed site. We spoke to the village leaders, and watched as they performed a traditional Dayak ceremony to stake their claim on the land, and uprooted several saplings. “Nobody has agreed to this and the palm oil company just steals and rapes our land,” said a leader, Mr Yohanes Aliam.

The palm oil company retaliated – it made a police report and the following morning, another leader in the group, Mr Yunosno, was arrested and taken to the police station. Several of the Serawai-Ambalau action group bailed him out after nearly a day.

Mr Yunosno maintained that the villages had not been properly compensated for their land. But in a report by the news site Kalimantan-News.com, a company representative was quoted as saying the company had followed proper procedure.

THE WEIGHTED DICE

The villages’ struggle to hold on to their land comes about because of lax enforcement and corruption, and overlapping laws and claims for the land. Palm oil companies are supposed to go through a multi-step licensing process – securing location permits, plantation business permits, forest area release and, finally, business use permits – before clearing the land. 

But this is seldom the case, going by what we observed as well as findings of the Amsterdam University report.

According to the Dayaks and Dr Smits, even if the palm oil companies present required legal documents such as environmental impact assessments of the land (known as Amdal), or papers that show the majority of villagers are pro-palm oil, their authenticity could be questionable.

A 2009 investigative report done by several non-governmental organisations found that despite “constitutional and human rights provisions which recognise customary rights in land, most local communities and indigenous peoples in Indonesia lack secure land titles”. Community representatives surveyed in the report were also under the impression that they were temporarily relinquishing their land to the companies – suggesting “community leaders had not received adequate information about the law prior to entering negotiations”.

The report also said that locals who sign away their land do so in hopes of receiving jobs and income. But according to Dr Smits, this is not the case. The locals end up being deeply indebted to the palm oil companies. They are paid about 600,000 rupiah for one hectare of land, and have to borrow the equivalent of thousand of dollars to buy seedlings and fertilisers from the company.

As palm oil trees take seven years to mature, a downward spiral of debt results, eventually leading the locals to lose even the 20 per cent of land allocated to them in a typical agreement with palm oil companies.

GLIMMER OF HOPE?

Having heard so many accounts of injustice and desperation, we searched for a glimmer of hope during our 20 days in Borneo – and found one in the village of Tembak, just after our encounter with Pak Kabul.

The village faced off with a major timber company in 1996 and won; its reply to palm oil is also an emphatic “no”. As a result, roads to Tembak are undeveloped, almost impassable after heavy rains. But the 650 villagers remain united and fiercely protective of their forests, and have developed a system of turbines to generate electricity from a nearby river. They have offered us land for release of any orangutans we rescue and rehabilitate.

If other villages, through dogged struggle and maybe some help from the rest of the world, see an outcome similar to Tembak’s, the future of their children would look brighter. Such victories would also be salve for Borneo’s soul.

To find out more about the Eco Warriors’ project, visit their website here.

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Neo Chai Chin is a journalist with Today Online where this article appeared originally. It has been reproduced with permission. 

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DeforestACTION Live Event – March 28!

On March 28^th 2012, join Dr. Willie Smits for an exciting online collaborative learning event! Be prepared to be taken deep into the heart the Borneo jungle to connect with orang-utans. Hear from Dr. Willie Smits and the Eco Warriors about the work they are doing with the Masarang Foundation, and speak with other schools around the world taking action to stop deforestation. Register for the event here.

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LOROT SALEM, a young Kenyan poet shares with us his deep agony and anguish through the following poem that he has written today on his website, Echoes of the Hills. You may recall his beautiful poem on Wangari Maathai that he graciously allowed us to publish in this space last year.

Let us join him in his prayers to Tororot (which means God in Pokot language) that the fires are quelled quickly. 

My Mt. Kenya is up in Flames Tororot

by Lorot Salem

My Mt. Kenya is up in flames,Tororot,
The forest is being consumed–
the loss in billions, the pain immediate

My Mt. Kenya is up in flames, Tororot,
All my indigenous trees, the species, the ecosystem
All of them reduced to ashes

My Mt. Kenya is up in flames, Tororot,
Courageous souls have stepped up
Yet, the leaping flames are vengeful

I am here, watching the news

Watching good souls putting out the fire with tree branches

But the flames are also burning up my heart

I don’t know what I would tell my children
Of how we lost Mt. Kenya
How will I say the fire consumed it for seven days?
I would look at space with pained expression
And say, “Son, Mt. Kenya burnt before me
That is how we lost her back in the year 2012″

Even before then, Tororot,
Just one wish: Please rain on Mt. Kenya
Please make life grow again
Even if some losses we might never regain.

 

Further links you may be interested in:

It is a sad happening. For more than seven days now, fire has been consuming Mt. Kenya destroying billions-worth of trees and life. This is a serious tragedy.

This is how the disaster has been reported.

Citizen News: Fire in Mt. Kenya

The Star Newspaper: Choppers join in Mt Kenya forest fire fight

The Standard Newspaper:Sh8 billion bamboo lost in Mt Kenya forest fire

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-  CHAH KAH TIM writing in Today Online

Exploring Bukit Brown

Bukit Brown is more than a cemetery. It is symbolic of so many things at so many levels. The fact that it is one of the last few remaining patches of wilderness in an island state of barely 710 sq km in area, should multiply its worth, especially with the documented biodiversity value, but economic decisions seem to override this, to make way for a 8-lane highway across it.  

To many, Bukit Brown is a memory of their ancestry – it lays to rest 100,000 forefathers, many of whom helped shaped the nation. For a young country like Singapore, visible reminders of history are critical for current and future generations to connect with their past, their culture and their collective memories. As James Burke said, ” If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you are.”

This article has two parts. An introduction is made by Cuifen, a Singaporean who shares her thoughts and feelings about Bukit Brown as her awareness of its beauty and importance grew since she first saw it.  The second part by Erika of SOS Bukit Brown gives an overview of the factual arguments in support of retaining Bukit Brown, and petitions that you can sign in its favour.

What Bukit Brown means to me

By Cuifen 

Nature at Bukit Brown

My first visit to Bukit Brown was in May of last year.  Bukit Brown is a cemetery, and it took me quite a long time to overcome my inertia to check out the place.  I finally did, though I didn’t know what to expect. I tagged  along  with Nature Society Singapore (NSS)  on one of their guided walks.  The place was totally abandoned.  Then it struck me how amidst the buried dead, life was  teeming. Majestic rain trees stretched out on all sides, filled with activity- ferns, orchids, climbers, insects, bats and birds. We were pleasantly surprised to see horses strolling by.  I remember thinking, “This place is so beautiful, and so close to MacRitchie reservoir. Yet MacRitchie is full of people, and Bukit Brown is so quiet. This feels like our little secret garden.”

Just as my curiosity was getting piqued, it started pouring. I couldn’t explore much more that day. I wanted to come back…

And return I did, not once, not twice, but at least 10 times – sometimes with a guided tour, sometimes with a few friends exploring the place on our own.

Through various walks, I learnt that this is home to many uncommon plants and birds. Some are forest species or species that are only found in maturing secondary forest areas, indicating some colonisation of species from the neighbouring MacRitchie forest. Dr Ho, a bird expert of NSS shared with us that Bukit Brown, being a large patch of greenery just next to MacRitchie was a likely stepping stone for forest birds to fly to other forested areas of Southern Singapore, including the Southern Ridges and Labrador Nature Reserve.

Enjoying Bukit Brown

Each time I went to Bukit Brown, I’d observe how other ordinary people were enjoying the space.  Some came to enjoy the scenery.  At some places the view is simply breathtaking, with valleys in the foreground and the tall forest trees of MacRitchie in the background. Some came to jog or cycle with their family and friends.  Yet others came to appreciate the area’s historical, cultural and spiritual aspects. And there are others still, like Raymond and Claire (of All things Bukit Brown blog)  who dedicate their free time to locating and cleaning graves of pioneers unrelated to them, simply because of their passion for heritage.

I remember my shock on reading the news that the government had plans to build an 8-lane highway right across Bukit Brown, to ease the congestion off Lornie Road. The government had, out of goodwill, funded a documentation project headed by the Singapore Heritage Society, for graves that would be directly impacted by the construction.

Questions were racing through my mind. How could the government do this? Have they consulted the public? Have they considered all the environmental and societal issues before making the decision? Do we even need an additional highway? Surely there are alternatives. Can we allow something to disappear forever, when we are only just beginning to discover its value?

A sense of urgency overcame me. I had to do more. Time is short. But what can I do as an individual?

In January 2012, Raymond and Claire had organised an informal training session for guides, focusing on the historical and cultural aspects of Bukit Brown. It was  the most valuable course I had ever taken. I had difficulty reading Chinese characters on the graves, but with Raymond’s patient assistance, I improved. For once, I understood that there’s a lot one can learn about a place’s history by reading the tombs, and connecting the dots together.  It allowed me to get a clearer grasp of Singapore’s history in its early days. It helped me connect with it in a much more profound way than through my textbooks when I was at school. For example, I learnt there was a municipality next to Bukit Brown in the late 1910s. The town was filled with people of all backgrounds, and the municipality commissioners decided to buy over the area from the Hokkien clan, to ensure sufficient burial grounds for ordinary people.

Heritage Guide Training

I found the courage to initiate walks. I invited various friends to Bukit Brown with me as their guide. It has been an amazing experience for me as most of my friends are unsure of what to expect, except what they see in my photos on facebook. They go away happy that they have seen another side of Singapore that is not on the tourist map.

I come back today feeling a sense of fulfilment after a morning of exploration at Bukit Brown. Armed with a GPS, I had assisted Von Bing, a plant expert with Nature Society Singapore (NSS) to mark the locations of interesting and rare plant species. Along the way, we occasionally ventured off the roads, to check out the tombs of prominent early pioneers, like Mr Cheang Hong Lim and Mr. Chew Boon Lay, after whom many public places are named in Singapore today.

As Jane Goodall once said, “Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.”

Can we save Bukit Brown? I think we can. I hope we can. But it means that we must all show we care for it enough. And to care, we must first understand what it means to all of us, inside our hearts.

Why Bukit Brown should be saved

By Erika of  SOS Bukit Brown

Located in the central part of Singapore off Lornie Road, Bukit Brown Cemetery is the largest Chinese cemetery outside of China. With a land area of 230 hectares, it is almost half the size of Sentosa Island (500 hectares).

Initially a burial ground for the Ong clan, the land was acquired by the government and officially opened in 1922 as a cemetery for the Chinese community. The oldest grave dates back to 1833 while the largest tomb covers an area equivalent to ten 3-bedroom Housing Development Board (HDB) flats.

Today, Bukit Brown has approximately 100,000 graves and is the last remaining cemetery of its kind in Singapore. Closed for burial since 1973, the area has become a verdant woodland much loved by hikers, runners, horse riders and bird watchers for its beauty and serenity.

Developments

In May 2011, the government announced that Bukit Brown would eventually make way for housing. In September 2011, they announced plans to build an 8-lane highway through the cemetery to alleviate the peak hour traffic congestion along nearby Lornie Road and the Pan Island Expressway (PIE). Meanwhile, anticipating future developments, a shell station for a future Bukit Brown train stop has been constructed at the edge of the cemetery.

Issues

Civil society groups that oppose the authorities’ plans stress that Bukit Brown’s destruction is unnecessary. They have raised several concerns, with the main ones as follows:

1. There are alternatives to easing the Lornie Road congestion without having to build a destructive new road. In its position paper on Bukit Brown, the Nature Society offers suggestions for dealing with the traffic problem, including the expansion of existing roads in the area. There are also concerns that the new road could inadvertently exacerbate traffic woes by creating additional bottlenecks along other sections of the PIE.
2. As part of its nation-building efforts, Singapore has to value and preserve important heritage sites, especially since many have already been lost. Bukit Brown, home to the remains of pioneer Singaporeans from all walks of life, can play a significant part in local efforts to evolve a unique Singapore Story.
3. In light of growing environmental awareness about climate change, Singapore should step up efforts to protect existing greenery. Singaporeans are already experiencing the effects of warmer temperatures and increased flooding, and the clearing of land in green areas like Bukit Brown could worsen these problems.

Conclusion

In addition to offering alternative solutions to the Lornie Road problem, civil society groups are recommending that Bukit Brown be gazetted as a heritage park for public enjoyment. And if Bukit Brown must be developed, then a comprehensive impact assessment ought to be conducted first. As the Nature Society puts it, “We should not be in a hurry to build the expressway – given that so much is at stake at Bukit Brown, which once destroyed cannot be resurrected.”

Action

To learn more about Bukit Brown Cemetery, visit Bukit Brown.com

Read the position papers of Nature Society and Singapore Heritage Society

Join Save Bukit Brown Cemetery – the roots of our nation on Facebook 

To download and sign a petition to save Bukit Brown, click here.

Pictures Courtesy: Cuifen 

Further links you may be interested in:

The Online Citizen:  Sorry to hear Tan Chuan Jin’s priorities

Wild Singapore: Hope springs eternal 

Today Online: Important not to trivialise Bukit Brown debate 

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Joshua Freedman is Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the US based non-profit organisation Six Seconds.   Set up in 1997 and now operating in 10 countries with practitioners in around 100 countries, Six Seconds has the mission to spread emotional intelligence far, wide and deep by supporting, “people to create positive change.”

Joshua Freedman

EQ( Emotional Quotient), a term used interchangeably here with Emotional Intelligence, refers to the ability to comprehend, navigate and use emotions to get the best possible results. Freedman spoke to Bhavani Prakash of Eco WALK the Talk recently during his trip to Singapore.  He strongly believes emotional intelligence is a valuable competence that can be learnt by all, and has important implications for eco-action.

This interview is special to us because it links something we passionately advocate, namely, behaviour change towards a more sustainable world – with emotional intelligence, an essential skill that is required to create a more empathetic society.

EWTT: How did you get involved with spreading EQ or Emotional Intelligence through Six Seconds?

Joshua Freedman: I was a teacher in a school just south of San Francisco that was dedicated to blending emotional and academic development. Daniel Goleman* visited the school in 1992 and he wrote about it as a model of how to teach emotional intelligence. When his book, Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Matter More Than IQ became an international bestseller, we received many enquiries saying, “OK, Emotional Intelligence is really important but how do we actually use this, how do we actually teach it, how do we apply it?”  To answer that question, in 1997, the founder and executive director of the school and I started Six Seconds together with another colleague, because we believe that actually learning to use these skills is life changing, and world changing.

*Daniel Goleman is the best selling author of the books such as Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1996), Social Intelligence: The New Science of Social Relationships (2006) and Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything (2009)

EWTT: What is the scope of Six Seconds?

Joshua Freedman: Six Seconds has offices in 11 countries. We have a network of certified practitioners in around 100 countries and we work in every sector. We have people who work in prisons, we have people who work in executive boards and government agencies, we have people who work in kindergartens and community organisations. All of these people work in different areas where humans are interacting and wanting to do a better job with that. They are starting to see that emotional intelligence is an invaluable toolset to become better with people.

We know that in all these places, just as in EWTT, people are looking to make change.  We can see it’s not just knowledge that’s missing, everyone now knows the 3Rs, everyone knows they can save electricity, everyone knows that the planet is in peril.  But that knowledge isn’t enough to create a shift – because humans are fundamentally motivated more by emotion than by reason.  So if we can be smarter with feelings then we can be better at change – and better at leading change.

EWTT: Why the name, “Six Seconds?”

Joshua Freedman: Emotions are chemicals, they are neurohormones. The molecules of emotion last in our bodies and in our brains last for around six seconds. So if we’re feeling something longer than for 6 seconds, at some level, we’re choosing to do that. If we believe, as I do, that emotions are valuable, there is this 6 seconds window of opportunity where the emotion is coming and signalling us something and we can pay attention to that. 

There are two sides to this.  First, imagine a situation that’s escalating – let’s take a couple fighting about the usual nothing (like how to load the dishwasher).  Partner A says something that really pushes B’s hot button.  B explodes, says something delibrately cruel, and storms off.  What a waste!  And maybe even a tragedy.  If, instead, they both knew about the Six Second Pause, they would feel the escalation and shift gears.  They’d ask an important question, or express a feeling in an authentic way, or connect with compassion… and the situation would end up in a positive (and maybe very fun) resolution.  Now take that same dynamic and imagine its in a boardroom making earth-spanning decisions, or in the streets of Palestine – we’ve got to create peace in ourselves to send peace into the world.

The other essential point about the six seconds:  If you believe, as I do, that there is real value in our emotions… that there is wisdom and energy that we need to harness… then you’ve got these little six second windows of opportunity to access that.  When we’re fighting ourselves and eachother, when we’re rushing to take another irrelevant step on the treadmill, we miss these gems.

EWTT: Can EQ be learnt?

Joshua Freedman: Yes, we have quite a bit of research showing that all the 8 competencies of the Six Seconds model can be learnt. In a relatively short amount of time, we can see a 10% to 20% increase in competence. We’ve done this with parents, with kids and all kinds of professionals in different sectors.  Most importantly, we’ve seen that after a little training, and a modest increase in the competencies, people experience dramatically different outcomes in their relationships.  Here in Singapore, one of my colleagues named Sue McNamara did a beautiful study on this:  When parents and teachers increase their EQ just a little, the children in their care behave in dramatically different, far more positive ways.

EWTT: How can individuals take the initiative to create change? It may seem to some like too big a task.

Joshua Freedman: As you said, something like reversing 100 years of global desctruction can seem totally overwhelming. Is that a rational analysis that’s telling us that, or is that an emotional reaction?  Is that a fear, or is that a sense of worry, of not being strong enough? If we could recognise the emotions that are keeping us from stepping forward and doing what we need to be doing, and we could also recognise the emotions that do propel us forward.  Then we could create more of the emotions that move us in the direction that we do want to go, individually, and for all of us collectively.

If I talk about change generally, e.g., if I want to improve my health, I know that eating a salad is healthier than French fries, but the French fries look awfully good at the next table, and I order them and eat them and enjoy them, and I feel guilty about that!  Why did I do that? It’s not that I don’t know. The knowledge is very clear, there’s something else that drives my behaviour. It turns out that it’s emotions that drives a large part of my behaviour. If I can create more mastery about emotions, that’s going to create an opportunity to create change. This is at an individual level. Then we can start thinking about it at a relational level – I’m talking to you and I understand that certain emotions are going to engage and enrol you about some idea that I have, then we can build momentum.  Next we can start thinking about it at a group level and at a societal level.  People want to belong and be part of something significant , they want to make a difference, and often what’s holding them back are these doubts and worries and fears, and we can help them learn how to deal with those obstacles so they can step forward to create positive change.

The critical link as we look at creating environmental sustainability is how we identify individual choices and how we engage and enrol others to make more sustainable decisions. People use phrases like ecological consciousness – those phrases scare me as something big and “weird.” What we’re talking about is a simple, practical thing: Let’s look ahead a little bit further at the impact of our choices – let’s be smarter about our actions.

First we each need to think about what we want, and then how can identify choices that will move us towards what we really want. In the Six Seconds model, we have a process framework that puts our emotional intelligence into action – to Know Yourself, Choose Yourself and Give Yourself – to being aware, to being intentional to being purposeful.

In the “Know Yourself” step, we’ve got to tune in and see what we’re feeling and doing.  We tune into the data of our own feelings and use that to pay attention. What happens to many of us is that we want X, but we make decisions that lead us to Y, and then we are disappointed. We can see that happening to the planet right now. There’s nobody who wants environmental degradation, nobody who wants to live in a barren wasteland, nobody who wants to leave these vast swathes of destruction to our children, and yet somehow we are not linking the choices that we make on a day to day basis and the result we really want.  But we have a choice!

In the “Choose Yourself” step, we can identify that our current decisions are not going someplace wonderful, and we can exercise our autonomy, we can say,“I’m not just an automatic operator where this stuff just happens. I am an agent in this world and I have efficacy, I’m doing something, I’m choosing something… and if I know myself better, I can pay attention to what’s driving me to choose what I choose.”   Of course it’s easy to say this, doing it is harder – but we can all learn the EQ skills that enable this process.

Then we go to third part, ‘Giving Myself’ and we connect with a larger vision.  In this step, I think about what I really want in this world and how I can contribute to that.  Then I can line these three parts up and make sure that what I’m doing and how I’m doing it and why I’m doing it, create these long term impacts that are more of what I want.

These are things we can start teaching at a very young age. My children were barely walking, when we started talking about the impact of our choices. Our refrain would be, “Are we adding meanness or kindness in the world?”

I remember when my son was really little, we started talking about, “In our family we take care of….” That was our mission statement that’s part of the “Give Yourself” bit of the Six Seconds model. I was able to say to him when he was pulling the plants off the sidewalk, “Max, are you taking care of..? “ That helped him think about the relationship he wants to have with the world, and how the choices he’s making right now is contributing to that. This is incredibly empowering. It’s a big responsibility and a big burden but it also recognises the power that we have.

I think if more and more and more people have that kind of conversations with themselves and with their kids, looking at what is it that we are contributing to the world and what is that we want to be contributing, what choices are we making so that we can make the world more the way we want it to be. This doesn’t necessarily mean becoming a champion of eco awareness like you at EWTT, though that’s possible too.  But for most of us, we can make this happen in a very simple and practical sense. “I’m in the grocery store, and have a million choices, what am I going to buy?”  We make choices all the time, if we could be a little more thoughtful.  I want every person to say, “I have a choice, and my choice matters.”  This will make a tremendous difference in our lives – and in the world.

The Six Seconds Model

In the Six Seconds Model, one talks about three macro areas:

Know Yourself : Self-awareness

Choose Yourself:  Self-management

Give Yourself:  Self-direction

6 Seconds Model ©2001 Six Seconds, Used By Permission

 

When we line up these three areas, we unlock an incredible capacity for leadership – starting with ourselves.

 

There are 8 specific, learnable, measurabl e competencies that enable that process.

You can read more about this on the 6 Seconds website. 

EWTT: What are your favourite reads?

Joshua Freedman:  One of the books that first inspired me into thinking about the planet was “Ecotopia” by Ernest (Chick) Callenbach. It’s an old book. I grew up in Berkeley, California in the 1970s. Chick Callenbach was a family friend and so I read it when I was young. It really provoked something in me into thinking, “Could we conceptualise the world differently in terms of our relationship with the planet?”

One of my absolutely favorite authors is  Ursula K Le Guin.  You could call her a science fiction writer, but that would be missing the point. A lot of her writing is in this realm of imagination and thinking about different ways that human beings could be in different worlds. She wrote a book called “Four Ways To Forgiveness”. It’s a beautiful story about a planet where the dictator/oppressors leave, and the people are left to find freedom or not.  The book asks one of the most important questions of our era: as we become more free, do people become oppressors themselves or do we create forgiveness, openness and opportunity?

EWTT: What is your vision for the world?

Joshua Freedman: My vision for my work is to see a network of change agents who have the wisdom and support and energy to keep fuelling positive change everywhere in society, all the time. And by everywhere all the time, I mean this is something we can do in our day-to-day life. In every interaction that we have – we can be more intentional, we can be more purposeful, we can be more compassionate, we can be more prosperous – this is not about wealth, but real prosperity.

My personal ‘noble goal’ is to inspire compassionate wisdom. This comes from the recognition that  that “I am having an impact on people” and it’s not enough to be ‘smart’ or ‘right’, which is what I grew up with. It’s more about, “How can I use my insight and my energy to create a space for people to grow and flourish themselves as opposed to being ‘right’ over them?”  I’m tremendously concerned about what’s happening in our planet. My way of working on that is perhaps indirect. It’s about equipping people with tools to make better, more sustainable and more compassionate choices for themselves and for others.

To learn more, follow The EQ Network on LinkedIN and Six Seconds on Facebook.   Joshua Freedman can be contacted via josh[at]6seconds.org, his speaking website JMFreedman.com,LinkedIn,  Twitter @eqjosh and on YouTube 

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About the Interviewer:

Bhavani Prakash is the Founder of Eco WALK the Talk.  She’s a certified coach with Six Seconds, the experience of which has enabled her to see more clearly the relationship between EQ, sustainability, empathy and behaviour change. Follow Eco WALK the Talk on Facebook, Twitter, Linked IN and YouTube

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Singapore has urban forests with trees that provide refreshing shade for its citizens. Beginning in the 1960s, the country’s modern founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, had the foresight to promote tree-planting as a means to transform Singapore into a tropical garden city-state.  Anyone who comes here today is impressed by the millions of mature trees and the large number of green spaces that make Singapore a very special place to live and work.

Examples of the honor given to its famous Tembusu tree on Singapore’s currency and postage

In this Eco Walk the Talk article, specifically, we wish to draw our readers’ attention to some key scientific aspects of tree shade that highlight its oft-overlooked importance to urban living. While the current state of this science is still limited and not yet definitive, we hope what we are able to present here will help you understand and appreciate the variety of benefits that city-dwellers receive from shade trees.

Environmentalist Jenny Indian observes that, “We seriously underestimate the impact of [tree] shade – it cools, calms and softens the light, makes hostile spaces useable, and allows us to embrace the outdoors.”  She suggests that we should “think about the absolute beauty of filtered light – light filtered through leaves or tracery is wonderful.  Areas of uniform lighting create dull, uninteresting spaces with direct light casting strong shadows, resulting in harsh images with strong contrasts.”

An under-appreciated human influence factor of shade trees is thе shadow pattern cast upon thе ground, sidewalks, οr thе walls οf уουr residence bу different tree foliage types.  We encourage уου to begin to consciously note these subtle, yet mood-altering differences between trees. The Rain Tree (Samanea saman) аnd the Senegal Mahogany (Khaya senegalensis)  tree аrе instructive examples οf common Singapore trees thаt cast іntеrеѕtіnɡ shadows. Aѕ уου grow in your awareness of the shade trees in your local environment, we think уου wіll discover thаt уου actually derive deep aesthetic satisfaction frοm seeing thеse patterns.

Leaf patterns cast on the walkway by sunlight

Some benefits of tree shade are less obvious than others. For example, you might be unaware that tree shade increases the life of tarmac road surfaces—which can get as hot as 130 degrees Fahrenheit in full sun. Research has shown that more tree shade means extended pavement life and lower road reconstruction costs. Just 20% tree shade falling upon on a tarmac road surface was shown to reduce pavement surface deterioration by 11%, which constituted a 30% resurfacing cost-savings over 30 years!

A mature tree can offer a canopy of 100,000 chlorophyll-laden leaves, each partially absorbing and filtering the light we experience beneath the tree when we occupy its shade.  Children often prefer to remain inside and inactive, rather than play outdoors when the mid-day sunlight is hot and glaring–making it uncomfortable for them to see things and raising their body temperature.  Researchers have found that tree-shaded environments increase the number of hours children typically spend playing outdoors, as well as the number of hours adults spend outdoors enjoying nature.

Sunlight is filtered by a shade tree leaf

Trees offer shade, shelter, habitat, beauty, and food–while requiring little more than sunlight, soil, water, and a place to grow. At present, 3.5 billion of the world’s people live in urban areas, and that number is growing rapidly. Cities with inadequate green spaces can seem to be overcrowded and oppressive places for humans to live.

Cities also form urban heat islands, while shade trees help to provide valuable indirect cooling that serves to partially mitigate these islands’ environmental impact. Unchecked, the heat island effect  can add up to 8% to a city’s energy consumption. It can also have a negative local effect upon a city’s weather.

Diagram of the urban high island concept

The kind of shade that trees provide differs from the shade of a human-made structure, such as a building. Not only do trees shield people and buildings against the intense direct rays of the sun, they also cool the surrounding air through the biological process of evapotranspiration. Both are important to people’s quality of life. About 45% of a tree’s shading effect comes from its trunk and branches that block solar radiation—the rest comes from its leaves.

Cooling derived from evapotranspiration can equal the cooling produced by a tree’s sun-blocking capacity. A mature tree with a 30-foot crown transpires approximately 40 gallons of water per day into the surrounding atmosphere. This leaf-based evapotranspiration is a heat-absorbing process which cools the surrounding air.

According to research from the US Department of Agriculture, “The net cooling effect of a young, healthy tree is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day” and “trees properly placed around buildings can reduce air conditioning needs by 30%.”

What kind of shade tree is planted, how far from a building it is planted, and the side of the building where it is planted all affect its cooling effect. Trees growing  on the west and east sides of a building, respectively, have been found to reduce the amount of electricity used for air conditioning the building the most.

Aerial photographic surveys of urban tree cover can be helpful in determining where the planting of trees can yield the greatest energy savings.  It is important that a tree canopy’s shadow intersect the targeted building’s surface—which illustrates how important the distance a tree is planted away from a building is to its cooling effects and the resultant energy savings.

From an energy conservation perspective, the ideal shade tree is said to be one that is 25- to 50-feet high, has comparatively dense foliage with a high canopy, and exhibits a spreading growth habit.

Cities are often notorious for their poor air quality. Shade trees can help to filter the air and mitigate smog. One research study showed that the air immediately under the canopy of a large urban shade tree was less polluted with noxious gases and particulates, and thus significantly more healthful than the air 100 feet away from the tree.

Trees have also been shown to be capable of stripping from 9%  to 13% of total suspended particulates from the air that passes over their boughs. Exhaust from internal combustion engines and smokestacks in big cities can be a major contributor to human allergies and respiratory illnesses. Particles of ash in the air along with the fumes from burning fuels can also cause serious harm to the human throat and lungs.  Thankfully, shade trees are natural air filters.

Way back in 1844, the New York City Board of Health recognized shade trees as “improvers of city air” and it highly recommended their planting.  Today’s research has shown that the trees are a city’s lungs metaphor is far more apt than simply figurative. One research study found that children who live on tree-lined trees suffer from asthma less often than children who live in treeless neighborhoods.

Trees are the lungs of the Earth

The year 2011 was declared the International Year of Forests by the United Nations. Today, the only forests that more than half of the world’s population experience are urban forests. The National University of Singapore has predicted that: “By 2050, Asia is likely to have over 60% of its population living in cities. Asia will also have the largest number of megacities (over 10 million people) this century. We contend that trees are the most important green infrastructure that a big city needs.”

Once shade trees are planted in a city, they need to be maintained and replaced over time. For example, the city of Paris, France, has ~95,000 street shade trees.  Each has one has an affixed radio frequency ID tag (RFID tag)  with Geographic Information System  (GIS) data so city foresters can keep track of each tree—as to its planting, watering, fertilizing, transplanting, pruning, phytosanitary condition, over-all health, felling management, stump and root removal, and replanting status.

RFID- tagged tree data collection

Shade trees are, indeed, a vital investment a city makes for its people and the quality of the environment in which they live. Singapore knows it is much wiser to be a little green dot than a little red dot!

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 About our Guest Writers:

DR. JAMES H. WANDERSEE — botanist, FLS, FAAAS–is the W.H. LeBlanc Alumni Association Professor of Biology Education in the College of Education at Louisiana State University and Chair of the Teaching Section of the Botanical Society of America. His website is EarthScholars.com

DR RENEE M. CLARY—geologist, FGS–is the Director of the Dunn-Seiler Geology Museum and Assistant Professor of Geoscience Education in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University. Her website is EarthScholars.com

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By the  authors James H. Wandersee & Renee M. Clary on EWTT:

1. How can I convince my friend to use the stairs?

2. Have You Thrown Something Away Today?

3. Plant Blindness: What research says

4. The Bridge Between Ecological Knowledge and Green Living

5. Teach Me About Soil

6. A Green Lesson from Mumbai about Food Packaging 

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