Sweetpotato crossing block, Uganda. Reuben Ssali, a plant breeder Associate with the International Potato Center. Credit: CGIAR
NAIROBI, Apr 7 2025 (IPS) – CGIAR and the Kenyan Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) are bringing together the world’s leading scientists and decision-makers in agriculture, climate, and health for the first CGIAR Science Week. This gathering will be a key moment to advance research and innovation, inspire action, and establish critical partnerships that can secure investment in sustainable food systems for people and the planet.
IPS’ team of journalists, Busani Bafana, Joyce Chimbi, and Naureen Hossain, will bring you news and interviews throughout the week as the conference unfolds. This will include the launch of the CGIAR Research Portfolio 2025-2030 today (April 7, 2025).
Members of the Greater Kaziranga Land and Human
Rights protection committee. Credit: Pranab Doyle
NEW DELHI, Mar 21 2025 (IPS) – While a local community prides itself on caring for a sensitive biodiverse region, and despite centuries-long stewardship of the Kaziranga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the authorities rebuff—sometimes aggressively—their attempts to remain involved.
Now the broader community, living close to tiger conservancies, has the threat of a wholesale eviction to contend with too.
“We take pride in the fact that the communities around Kaziranga have sacrificed so much to preserve this special biodiverse region. It is one of the areas where communities have sacrificed to protect one-horned rhinoceroses, tigers, and elephants and share a symbiotic relationship with them,” Pranab Doyle, convenor of Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Committee and founder of All Kaziranga Affected Communities’ Rights Committee, says.
“But the forest department or the modern conservation industry is very antithetical to the way communities look at shared spaces.”
Kaziranga, a national park and a tiger project in Assam, India, is famous for the conservation of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros.
According to an article published in 2019, 102 one-horned rhinoceroses were killed in various parks in India between 2008 and 2018. There are also statistics for the number of poachers killed (40) and arrested (194). A more recent article says that in 2022 no rhinos were killed in the park. Rhinos in Asia and Africa are often poached for their horns, which are used in traditional medicine in some Asian countries.
Despite the success in combating poaching, the community faces conflict due to the wildlife authorities’ strong-arm tactics.
The community says there was a time when wildlife sanctuaries were used for grazing animals, as playgrounds, and for food baskets, and the community shared their crops with the animals living there.
However, because of the power vested in the forestry department, only wildlife or the department’s agenda is given consideration, the community says.
“This has led to a very militarized process in Kaziranga where multiple lines of military establishments are set in the name of protecting wildlife. There are special task forces, forest battalions, commando task forces, and the use of modern techniques of vigilance and armory in the name of poaching,” Doyle says.
Consequently, authorities often resort to victimizing people.
In 2010, a special power was given to the Indian Forest Service, where they were given immunity from prosecution when confronting poachers.
“In the year 2010, the Government conferred the power to use arms by forest officials and immunity to forest staff in the use of firearms under Section 197 (2) of the CrPC, 1973,” according to a press statement released in 2017.
Doyle disputes the official statistics and claims that since 2010, more than 100 people have died because of this law. He says that although there should be executive magistrate inquiries into it legally, there have been none.
According to the Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism website, investigations have included probes into poaching syndicates.
The strong-arm tactics used by the authorities result in a tense relationship.
“We have been constantly fighting against it, and as a result, the forest department treats us as their enemies. Instead of looking at us as people whose rights have been violated and giving us the opportunity to dialogue, they are treating us as criminals and have put multiple cases on us,” Doyle says. “We cannot go fishing in our own lakes, cultivate our own lands, and collect some basic minor forest products, which are traditionally a part of our culture, thereby annihilating everything that is our identity.”
According to the community, the authorities often cancel public meetings despite prior commitments and retaliate with legal action when pressured through mass agitation.
What is more concerning is the eviction of indigenous communities from around tiger protection reserves by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
Doyle claims that they want to evict 64,000 families from 54 tiger reserves in the country. Since 1972, the Indian government has evicted 56,247 families from 751 villages across 50 tiger reserves, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) data from 2019. The move has led to petitions and protests.
He says the law doesn’t give them the authority to pass an order of this magnitude.
“We as communities who live with tigers, elephants, and rhinos and have been living there for generations, strongly demand this order be revoked. It should be immediately taken into cognizance by all the bodies that claim to protect Indigenous rights and make the forest department accountable for it.”
Dr. Ashok Dhawale, President, of the All India Kisan Sabha and Polit Bureau Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), says the exclusionary forest conservation measures that began during British colonization continued after independence.
“The (colonialist) government took control of the forests, seizing them from our tribal people. Although the forests had always belonged to the tribes, who protected them for generations, independence brought little change.
People expected that the forest lands would be returned to the tribal communities, but what was enacted was the Forest Conservation Act of 1980.
This law focused on conserving forests, not on protecting the rights of the people who had safeguarded them for centuries.
“To address this historical injustice—explicitly acknowledged in the act’s preamble—the Forest Rights Act was passed by Parliament in 2006 after immense struggles across the country. This landmark legislation sought to ensure that Adivasis (tribals) were granted ownership of the lands they have tilled and nurtured for generations.”
But since then, India has introduced laws and amendments that undermine the rights of tribal and forest communities. The Jan Vishwas—People’s Promise, (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, aims to decriminalize and rationalize offenses to promote trust-based governance and facilitate ease of living and doing business. However, it also significantly enhances the powers of forest officers, raising concerns about its impact on the rights and livelihoods of these vulnerable communities.
Another major amendment, the Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980, now known as Van Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan Adhiniyam, enforced from December 1, 2023, has emphasized national security in the guise of implementing projects of national importance leading to heavy militarization in the respective areas, Dhawale says.
Madhuri Krishnaswami from Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Awakened Tribal Dalit Community), Madhya Pradesh, says that all these legislative changes are designed to undermine the Forest Rights Act 2006.
Krishnaswami says that capital-driven business expansion harms the climate, yet ecologically sensitive communities are unfairly burdened with the blame.
Doyle adds that the relationship of indigenous communities with the land is deeply rooted.
“The survival and health of the land and environment depend on people acting as stewards to care for them—a fact proven throughout history. Instead of empowering communities to preserve and improve their environment, the state is evicting them under the pretext of climate degradation. This approach must be entirely rethought and redesigned to prioritize and support the very people who hold the solutions to combating climate change.”
Announcement of Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Drought Resilience Partnership Initiative. Credit: Anastasia Rodopoulou/IISD/ENB|
RIYADH & HYDERABAD, Dec 6 2024 (IPS) – While many delegates at the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP16) hope that this could be the convention’s own Paris moment—referring to the historic Paris agreement inked by UNFCCC signatories—however, this hedges heavily on the UN parties’ seriousness to combat drought, desertification and land degradation.
One of the biggest expectations from the conference is a landmark decision on achieving a complete halt to land degradation by 2030. The other expectations are mobilizing enough resources to restore all degraded land and achieve total resilience against droughts.
Global Land Degradation at COP
Degradation affects 2 billion hectares of land globally. This is more than the total land area of Russia, the largest country on earth. This affects 3.2 billion people—twice the population of entire Africa. The degraded land area is also continuously expanding as each year an additional 100 million ha get degraded—mostly due to the impacts of climate change such as a drought and desertification. With a business-as-usual approach, by 2050, 6 billion ha will be degraded, warns UNCCD, which is urging the parties of the ongoing COP to take urgent action to halt this.
“Every second, somewhere in the world, we lose an equivalent of four football fields to land degradation. We must act now to restore our lands. They are the foundation of everything. For the first time, through our UNCCD reporting, we have evidence-based estimates of the alarming state of land degradation. COP16 is about our reliance on lands, but also our resilience,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, the Executive Secretary of UNCCD, at the opening ceremony of the COP.
“The scientific evidence is unambiguous: the way we manage our land today will directly determine our future on earth. Land restoration is the first and foremost foundation of our economy, security and humanity. We must restore our land now,” Thiaw said to an audience of party delegates, civil society groups, women’s rights organizations, business and finance experts, members of other UN agencies and youths.
Responding to the UN call, Saudi Arabia, the COP16 host, has promised to deliver strong action.
On Wednesday, December 4, the COP observed “Land Day.” Speaking at the event, Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen AlFadley, UNCCD COP16 President and Saudi Arabia Minister of Environment, Water, and Agriculture, said, “Through our Presidency of COP16, we will work to make this COP a launchpad to strengthen public and private partnerships and create a roadmap to rehabilitate 1.5 billion hectares of land by 2030.”
Finance Gap: Common Challenges of all UN COPs
On Dec 3, the second day of COP, the UNCCD released its financial needs assessment report, detailing the latest funding requirements to address land degradation, drought and desertification. The findings revealed a sizeable funding gap for international land restoration efforts. Based on UNCCD targets, the required annual investments for 2025–2030 are estimated at USD 355 billion. However, the projected investments for the same period amount to only USD 77 billion per year, leaving USD 278 billion that requires mobilization to meet the UNCCD objectives.
In the past, UNCCD’s finance mobilization efforts included the creation of a Land Degradation Neutrality Fund (LDN Fund), a financial mechanism to support the achievement of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)—a target under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 15.3). But, similar to the climate change COPs and the biodiversity COPs, UNCCD’s LDN fund is underfunded and has only received USD 208 million.
However, on the second day of COP16, the Arab Coordination Group pledged USD 10 billion to combat land degradation, desertification and drought. The donation would go to the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership, an initiative launched by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has also already announced a donation of USD 150 million to operationalize the initiative. The additional backing took place during the Ministerial Dialogue on Finance, part of the high-level segment at COP16 in Riyadh, aimed at unlocking international funding from the private and public sectors.
The Missing Private Sector Investment
The Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership will also focus on unlocking new financial mechanisms, such as credit, equity financing, insurance products, and grants, to enhance drought resilience.
With over USD 12 billion pledged for major land restoration and drought resilience initiatives in just the first two days, COP16 in Riyadh is already bringing more hopes than the biodiversity (UNCBD) and climate change (UNFCCC) COPs.
Dr. Osama Faqeeha, Deputy Minister for Environment, Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, and Advisor to the UNCCD COP16 Presidency, said: “I hope this is just the beginning, and over the coming days and weeks, we see further contributions from international private and public sector partners that further amplify the impact of vital drought resilience and land restoration initiatives.”
However, the convention has still not been able to unlock any significant private funding, which has been identified by many as a huge challenge in the path of achieving total land restoration. According to the COP Presidency, only 6 percent of the private investors and businesses have invested in land-related initiatives and the funding gap in the UNCCD is a ‘worrying blackhole.”
“If the international community is to deliver land restoration at the scale required, then the private sector simply must ramp up investment. As the latest UNCCD findings show, there remains a worrying blackhole in the funds needed to combat land degradation, desertification and drought,” said Faqeeha.
A Gender-Just Financing Solution: Can COP16 Deliver?
Following a series of events this year at the UN General Assembly, the CBD COP16 in Cali, Colombia and COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the ‘Rio Convention Synergies’ dialogue also took place on Land Day, highlighting developments made during the 2024 Rio Trio events. The event discussed the interconnected issues driving land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change and how to find common solutions.
Most participants highlighted the disproportionate impact of drought and land degradation on women and their urgent requirement for access to finance.
Women’s Leadership for Sustainable Land Management, Tarja Halonen, UNCCD Land Ambassador and Co-Chair of the UNCCD Gender Caucus, said, “Women and girls in rural communities bear the greatest burden of desertification, land degradation, and drought (DLDD), and their empowerment is crucial for addressing urgent land challenges.”
AlFadley noted that women’s empowerment enhances sustainable land management (SLM) and the preservation of ecosystems, as well as long-term resilience against DLDD.
Recognizing the challenges women face to mobilize resources for their own land restoration initiatives often due to lack of capacity and connections, Neema Lugangira, Member of Parliament, Tanzania, advised the COP16 Gender Caucus to connect with parliamentarians in the global climate finance chapter of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s parliamentary network.
“It will be good if the UNCCD can have a land restoration parliamentary group,” she said.
Speaking at a high-level interactive dialogue, Odontuya Saldan, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Mongolia, which will host COP17 in 2026, proposed establishing a global coalition of future rangelands and pastoralism solutions focused on gender equality and the role of youth, children, and women. She said Mongolia would make gender a priority at COP17, where the key theme will be rangelands and pastoralism.
What decisions COP16 makes to provide women land restorers and drought warriors with greater access to land finance is still up in the air.
Female workers sort out plastic bottles for recycling in a factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Abir Abdullah/Climate Visuals Countdown
DHAKA, Nov 27 2024 (IPS) – After Bangladesh’s interim government banned polyethene bags, a new sense of hope has emerged for the Sonali bag—a jute-based, eco-friendly alternative developed in 2017 by Bangladeshi scientist Dr. Mubarak Ahmed Khan. Sonali bag, or the golden bag, is named after the golden fiber of jute from which it is made.
Despite its promises, the project has struggled to make significant progress due to a lack of funding. However, following the announcement of the polythene bag ban, Mubarak is now facing pressure to supply his Sonali bag to a market eager for sustainable alternatives.
“Since the government banned polythene bags, we have faced immense pressure of orders that we cannot meet—people are coming in with requests at an overwhelming rate,” Mubarak Ahmed Khan told the IPS.
The latest ban, which came into effect on October 1 for superstores and traditional markets on November 1, isn’t the first time Bangladesh has imposed a ban on polythene bags.
In 2002, the country became the first in the world to outlaw them, as plastic waste was severely clogging city drainage systems and exacerbating its waterlogging crisis, with Dhaka alone consuming an estimated 410 million polybags each month. But the ban gradually lost effectiveness over the years, largely due to a lack of affordable and practical alternatives and inadequate enforcement from regulatory authorities.
Dr. Mubarak Ahmed Khan in his office holding a Sonali Bag. Credit: Masum Billah/IPS
Polyethene bags, although cheaper, are harmful to the environment as they are non-biodegradable and their decomposition takes at least 400 years. Sonali Bag as an alternative, on the other hand, is regarded as a game-changer because it is biodegradable, capable of decomposing in three months.
The ban comes as the UN Plastics Treaty Negotiations are underway in Busan, South Korea. The UN Environment Programme estimates that around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute.
“In total, half of all plastic produced is designed for single-use purposes—used just once and then thrown away.”
Without an agreement, the OECD estimates that annual plastic production, use, and waste are predicted to increase by 70 percent in 2040 compared to 2020. This on a planet already choking on plastic waste.
The talks have in the past stalled over a disagreement over how to manage waste, with some countries favouring introducing a cap on plastic production and others supporting circularity with use, reuse, and recycling as the main objectives.
The plastics treaty talks will run from 25 November 2024 to 1 December 2024.
However, despite its environmental benefits and higher demands, in Bangladesh the Sonali Bag project still remains within the pilot phase.
A late start for funding crisis
After Mubarak’s invention made headlines, the country’s state-owned Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation launched a pilot project, setting up a jute-polymer unit at the Latif Bawani Jute Mill to produce Sonali Bag.
Mubarak said they have been asking for government funds, as the project has been operating under the Ministry of Textiles and Jute. However, the basic funding that kept the pilot project running expired last December, and the previous government—which was toppled in August in a mass uprising—had discontinued the project.
“There had been assurances that we might receive Tk100 crore (about USD 8 million) in funding from the government by July. But then came political unrest and a change in government,” Mubarak said.
After the new government took charge, they renewed the pledges to fund the Sonali Bag project.
“The interim government told us that we will get the money in January. If that happens, we will be able to produce five tons of bags per day,” Mubarak said. “Five tons may not be a lot, but it will give us the chance to demonstrate our work to private investors, boosting their confidence to engage with us.”
According to Mubarak, one kilogram of Sonali bags amounts to around 100 pieces of small bags. Based on this estimate, five tons could produce around 15 million bags per month.
Bangladesh’s current adviser to the Ministry of Textiles and Jute, Md. Sakhawat Hossain, told IPS that they are seriously considering funding the Sonali Bag project this January, although he acknowledged that his ministry is currently facing a funding crisis.
“The work will begin in full scale after the fund is provided,” Sakhawat Hossain said. When asked if Mubarak would receive the funds by January, he replied, “We hope so.”
A ban without adequate alternatives at hand
Mubarak Ahmed Khan regards the government’s decision to ban polythene bags as a “praiseworthy” initiative. However, he emphasized that sustainable and affordable alternatives to the polythene bags should come soon.
Mubarak is not alone in his concerns. Sharif Jamil, founder of Waterkeepers Bangladesh, an organization dedicated to protecting water bodies, shares skepticism about the effectiveness of the ban this time, citing the lack of sustainable alternatives in the market.
“The announcement of this ban is an important and timely step. However, it must also be noted that our previous ban was not enforced. Without addressing the underlying issues that led to nonenforcement of the previous ban, the new polythene ban will not resolve the existing problems. It is crucial to tackle the challenges that allowed polythene to remain in the market,” Sharif Jamil told IPS.
“If you don’t provide people with an alternative and simply remove polythene from the markets, the ban won’t be effective,” he added.
Sharif noted that the existing alternatives in the market are not affordable, with some selling alternative jute bags at Tk25 in supermarkets, while polythene bags are often offered at a price that is essentially free.
“Alternatives need to be more affordable and accessible to the public,” he said.
Mubarak stated that his Sonali bag currently costs Tk10 per piece, but he anticipates lowering the price with increased production and demand.
The pursuit of competition in sustainable alternatives
Sharif Jamil, however, wants competition in the sustainable alternatives market.
“It is not only about incentivizing Dr. Mubarak’s project,” Sharif said.
This technology has to be incentivized and recognized, but the government also has to ensure two other things, he said.
“If the government can make it accessible to people at a lower price, it will reach them. Secondly, if the alternative remains solely with Mubarak, it will create a monopoly again,” he said.
It must undergo competition, he recommended. Bangladesh has a competition commission to ensure that other existing sustainable green solutions on the market are also incentivized and recognized.
“Besides facilitating and upgrading Mubarak’s project, the government should ensure fair competition so that people can access it at a lower price,” he added.
For the sake of environment
Adviser Shakhawat Hossain said that they are optimistic about the success of Sonali Bag.
“Already the ambassadors of various countries are meeting me about this. Some buying houses too have been created for this. It seems it will be a sustainable development,” he said.
Mubarak said that if they get the funding soon, Sonali Bag will have a market not only in Bangladesh but all over the world.
He said the private investors should come forward not just because the government has banned polythene bags, but out of a moral obligation to address the negative impact these bags have on the environment.
“With this, I believe we can create a polythene-free environment,” Mubarak said, acknowledging, “It is not easy to introduce this to the market solely because it is a new product. We are up against an USD 3.5 trillion single-use plastic market.”
Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development met in Bahrain to to address water scarcity. Credit: APDA
MANAMA & NAIROBI, Nov 7 2024 (IPS) – The Arab region is among the most water-scarce areas globally, as nearly 392 million people live in countries facing water scarcity or absolute water scarcity. So dire is the situation that, of the 22 Arab countries, 19 fall below the annual threshold for water scarcity in renewable resources, defined as 1,000 cubic meters per person.
Worst still, 13 countries fall below the absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters per person per year. Water scarcity in the Arab region poses a serious challenge, threatening the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals and the realization of the fundamental human right to access water and sanitation.
It is within this context that the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development, in collaboration with the Asian Population and Development Association in Japan and with support from the United Nations Population Fund, held a meeting on October 26, 2024, in the Kingdom of Bahrain to address water scarcity as a development concern and promote coordinated action across different sectors.
Dr. Mohamed Al-Samadi, Secretary-General of the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development, stressed the need for coordinated governance and measures to close the gap between water security and the Sustainable Development Goals. The gathering that included Bahraini parliamentarians from committees focused on population and development, along with representatives from civil society organizations, experts, academics, and government officials.
The gathering reiterated that “researchers in the field of water science have set the water poverty line at 500 cubic meters per person annually, while 1,000 cubic meters of freshwater per person is considered the threshold for achieving water security. Reports also link this to food security, showing that producing an individual’s annual food supply requires over 2,000 cubic meters of water.
Lawmakers and experts stressed the need for coordinated governance and measures to close the gap between water security and the Sustainable Development Goals. Credit: APDA
Stressing that the “water security in the Arab world is now critically at stake as annual usable water resources fall below 40 billion cubic meters. A large portion of these resources is lost to evaporation and infiltration into the soil, and additional amounts are necessary to sustain river flows to their endpoints. Any country that uses 40 percent or more of its total annual water resources is considered to be facing severe water scarcity according to the Water Scarcity Index, also known as the Water Sustainability Index.”
Dr. Muneer Ibrahim, a Member of Parliament and member of the Committee on Water, Environment, and Public Utilities, spoke about water security and the SDGs, emphasizing that water is the fundamental pillar for achieving these global goals across their economic, social, and environmental dimensions, as water security is an essential requirement for their realization.
Further stressing that the relationship between water and sustainable development is reciprocal, and this interconnectedness poses significant challenges in the Arab region, especially given the current water situation. Necessitating the development and implementation of effective policies and solutions to ensure sustainable water resources for various uses.
Hassan Ibrahim, a Member of Parliament and the rapporteur for the Water Committee, spoke about innovation for sustainable water management, highlighting that resolving the water crisis is essential for a livable future on our planet. Noting that whether water is overly abundant, severely scarce, or highly polluted, it presents a triple threat exacerbated by climate change, depriving billions of people of access to clean, safe water and sanitation services.
He said that this then “threatens economies, encourages migration, and may fuel conflict. We need global action to establish water security to enable inclusive and resilient green growth while addressing the interconnected relationship between water, climate, and conflict. Despite the progress made, we are falling behind in achieving the SDGs related to water, which directly affect inclusive development.”
Current trends indicate that by 2030, 1.6 billion people will lack access to safe drinking water, 2.8 billion will be deprived of safe sanitation services, and 1.9 billion will be without basic hygiene facilities. Globally, the investment needs for the water sector exceed USD 1.37 trillion and must increase sixfold from current levels to meet the sixth SDG on ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030.
“Water accounts for less than 2 percent of public spending, and private investment levels in this sector are also low in low- and middle-income countries. Bahrain has adopted strategies and initiatives to improve the management of water resources, support the strategic water stock, and increase the area and sustainability of rainwater harvesting efficiency to enhance natural groundwater resources,” Ibrahim said.
Bahrain is implementing advanced technical solutions to utilize treated wastewater for irrigation needs, which also helps reduce environmental pollution, address the impacts of climate change, and minimize the depletion of natural water resources. Bahrain, through the Water Security Strategy 2030 launched by the Ministry of Energy and Environment, aims to ensure the sustainability and continuity of access to water under both normal conditions and extreme emergencies.
The key targets of the strategy include reducing total water resource demand by 21 percent, increasing the water productivity index to USD 110 per cubic meter, lowering the water scarcity index by three degrees, and raising the percentage of treated water reuse to 95 percent. Dr. Walid Zubari, a water resources expert and president of the Arab Water Association, presented on the vital role of civil society institutions in raising water awareness to achieve water sustainability and address the challenges facing the water sector in Bahrain.
Regarding civil society institutions, Dr. Zubari said, “It is important for them to play a role in water awareness. Once community members understand the implications of their behavior in dealing with water and there is a religious and moral incentive, it is likely that they will voluntarily rationalize their water usage. If this happens, the community and the executors will be in the same boat, enabling them to achieve water sustainability.”
Dr. Karim Rashid, Member of Parliament, delivered a comprehensive presentation on the importance of water and its essential role in supporting sustainable development, as water impacts all aspects of development and is closely linked to nearly every SDG, driving economic growth, supporting healthy ecosystems, and being essential for life itself.
Still, nearly two billion people worldwide lack access to safely managed drinking water services, while around 3.6 billion suffer from inadequate sanitation services. To enable effective climate change adaptation, he said activities should reflect the importance of water management in reducing vulnerability to risks and building resilience against climate change.
Further emphasizing the necessity of political commitment and leadership, technological innovations, and the advancement of service delivery models and financing to support governments in fulfilling their commitment to achieve Target 6.2 of the SDGs—”to ensure access for all to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene services by 2030.”
The expert and water sector advisor at the Ministry of Water in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Eng. Mohammed Sawar, called for adopting a model transformation in the management of water resources in the GCC countries, shifting from the current focus on “supply sustainability” to “consumption sustainability.” Emphasizing economic efficiency in water usage and financial sustainability of water services.
Note: This meeting was supported by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Japan Trust Fund (JTF).
SYDNEY, Oct 14 2024 (IPS) – The Pacific Islands region is both the frontline of the wrath that climate change is lashing on the environment and human life and the drive for innovation and solutions to stem the destruction and strengthen island environments for the future. The survival of life, even nations, in the Pacific depends on it.
“The world has much to learn from you… Plastic pollution is choking sea life. Greenhouse gases are causing ocean heating, acidification and rising seas. But Pacific Islands are showing the way to protect our climate, our planet and our ocean,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, said during his visit to Tonga in August.
And the Pacific Community’sPROTÉGÉ Project (the name means ‘protect’ in French) is doing just that. Launched six years ago with funding by the European Development Fund (EDF), it is striving to advance climate resilient development through protecting and better managing biodiversity and natural renewable resources, such as freshwater, in the three French overseas territories of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna, as well as the British overseas territory of Pitcairn, in the Pacific. To achieve this, it has brought together provincial and local-level governments, consulting firms, non-government organizations, and local communities and is led and coordinated by science and development experts from the regional development organization, Pacific Community (SPC), that works for 22 Pacific island governments and territories.
It honors the interconnected nature of island ecosystems through the four focus areas of the project: agriculture and forestry, coastal fisheries and aquaculture, invasive species and water. For instance, “in an integrated watershed management approach, what happens in the mountains ends up in the rivers and eventually in the sea,” Peggy Roudaut, SPC’s PROTÉGÉ Project Manager in Noumea, New Caledonia, told IPS.
A community worker replants and maintains the forest. Reforestation develops long-term climate-resilient environments. Credit: SPC
Healthy forests are the lungs of flourishing natural ecosystems and biodiversity, with forest maintenance at the heart of the PROTÉGÉ Project. Credit: SPC
“The water theme is central,” she continued. “By working on the sustainability of water resources and supporting the water policies of the territories, while also promoting actions to make aquaculture and agriculture more sustainable, we contribute to making the overseas countries and territories more resilient to the effects of climate change.”
While the Pacific Islands are surrounded by a vast 161.76 million square kilometers of ocean, their sources of freshwater are fragile. Most islanders who live in rural areas have to choose from limited groundwater lenses, streams or rainwater harvesting. Ninety-two percent of Pacific islanders living in urban centers have access to clean drinking water, declining to 44 percent in rural communities, reports the Pacific Community (SPC).
Improving water security is a priority in the national development goals of Pacific Island countries, but real progress is being undermined by population growth, which is rapidly increasing demand, and the worsening impacts of climate change. Rising air and sea temperatures, more heatwaves and unreliable rainfall with rising sea levels that are driving coastal erosion are all taking their toll on the region, reports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
In the western Pacific, temperatures are predicted to increase by 2-4.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, while most Pacific Island states will witness a sea level rise 10-30 percent higher than the global mean, which is projected to be 38 centimeters by the end of the century, according to the United Nations.
And then there’s pollution. “For many rural and remote and even urban communities, water sources that were once safe to drink or use for farming have become unsafe due to pollutants, including improper waste disposal and agricultural runoff,” Professor Dan Orcherton, Professor in Sciences at the University of Fiji, told IPS, emphasizing “that freshwater security in the Pacific Islands is quite precarious, reflecting a complex interplay of natural and human induced factors.”
The Pacific Community (SPC) is working to protect, manage and support countries to monitor freshwater reserves across the entire Pacific region. PROTÉGÉ, specifically focused on Pacific territories, has been supporting this work by regenerating forests and vegetation in their vicinity and developing long-term climate-resilient management plans.
The quality of drinking water is also being improved through closely studying detrimental factors, such as construction and development, and decontaminating rivers and wells that are polluted by waste and landfills.
Healthy forests are the lungs of flourishing natural ecosystems and biodiversity that, in turn, regulate the local climate, protect natural watersheds and prevent soil erosion. Forests cover 43.7 percent of the five archipelagos in French Polynesia, which is regularly battered by cyclones, droughts and sea level rise. Meanwhile, in Wallis and Futuna, a small group of volcanic islands in the central Pacific with scarce freshwater, deforestation due to forest clearing, and soil erosion are serious problems.
Closer to the east coast of Australia, forest covers 45.9 percent of the islands of New Caledonia. Here, water resources are being affected by nickel mining, forest fires and soil erosion. Scientists forecast that, against predicted climate change impacts, 87-96 percent of native tree species in New Caledonia could decline by 2070.
The broader community, including children, are also involved in the reforestation projects. Credit: SPC
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is a partner in a project being rolled out in the district of Dumbea, north of the capital, Noumea. Credit: SPC
Roudaut spoke of three projects in New Caledonia that, together, boosted the reforestation of 27 hectares, the replanting of vegetation around drinking water supply catchments and put in place 3,460 meters of fencing around water sources that will prevent damage, whether by fires or wildlife, such as deer and wild boars. Local communities were vital to their success, with 190 islanders, many of whom were women and youths, involved in making the projects a reality on the ground.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is a partner in one being rolled out in the district of Dumbea, north of the capital, Noumea. The project focuses on the Montagne des Sources upstream of the Dumbea dam, which provides water to 110,000 people, or 40 percent of New Caledonia’s population.
Solène Verda, Head of WWF’s Forestry Program in the territory, told IPS that the incidence of forest fires, as well as floods and droughts, which also affect water security, will only intensify with climate change. “Every year in New Caledonia, fires destroy around 20,000 hectares of vegetation, which is a disaster regarding the islands’ surface; in ten years, 10 percent of the main island has already burned,” she said. “The predictions are not cheery for New Caledonian forests and, thus, the freshwater resources.”
Improving water security is a priority in the national development goals of Pacific Island countries. Credit: SPC
The PROTÉGÉ initiative is tackling one of the greatest inhibitors to combating climate damage, which is limited technical and management capacity. Due to “the remoteness of these islands and small populations… combined with the emigration of skilled professionals out of the region, there is minimal capacity within regional countries to respond to the day-to-day vulnerability threats, let alone the frequent natural disasters experienced,” reports the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
“Thanks to SPC’s PROTÉGÉ, we had the opportunity to test different forest restoration techniques on our degraded watersheds… and it has given us a clearer idea of the methods best suited to our context,” Verda said.
It is a key issue understood by the EU, which has supported the initiative with 36 million euros, in addition to 128,000 euros contributed by the three French territories.
PROTÉGÉ is part of our “commitment to environmental sustainability, climate resilience and sustainable economic autonomy for these small, often vulnerable island territories in line with the Green Deal,” Georges Dehoux, Deputy Head of the Office of the European Union (EU) in the Pacific in Noumea, told IPS. The Green Deal is the EU’s ambition to achieve net zero emissions and non-resource equitable economic growth to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
All Pacific Island countries and territories “are facing the same environmental and economic challenges, and a combined and coordinated response at the regional level will ensure better resilience to these challenges,” Dehoux added.
Those working with the project have a sense of urgency about what they are aiming to achieve. For, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) advises, “We can still reverse some of the damage we have inflicted on our precious planet. But time is running out. If we don’t take decisive action in the next 10-20 years, the damage will have passed irreversible tipping points.”
