The New Nation - Internet Edition

There are one billion poor people in the world who are vulnerable to climate change, desertification, land degradation, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity and shortage of fossil fuels. India alone accounts for 25.93% of this population and China 16.66%. The remaining part of Asia and Pacific accounts for 18.30%. In short, Asia is a hub where the poor, undernourished and the vulnerable live. This is followed by sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 23.94% of the one billion.

The other parts of the world are not far behind, with Latin America and the Caribbean accounting for 6.22% and the North East and North Africa 4.57%. According to Dr William Dar, Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Chair of the Commitee for Science and Technology of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the poor can be made less vulnerable with greater science and knowledge-based interventions, and more importantly significant donor support from the developed and developing countries to support this research.

"Business as usual will not help us meet the Millennium Development Goals and much more the goal of reducing poverty by half by 2015," Dr Dar said. Many parts of the world are already showing signs of physical water scarcity - India, eastern Australia, Pakistan, China, Central Asia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Africa, parts of southern Africa, southern USA and northern Mexico. With greater demands from other sectors, the water availability for agriculture is geting limited.

"The nexus of climate change and desertification, combined with land degradation, biodiversity loss, water shortage and fossil fuel shortage, will make it even more riskier for the farmers to farm in the drylands of the world. They will find it more difficult to invest in farming, and there could be more diseases and death" said Dr Dar. ICRISAT believes that unless the livelihoods and resource base of such vulnerable rural communities can be made more resilient, coping with climate change and desertification may be next to impossible for poor dryland farming communities. Working over decades with poor farmers in the drylands of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, ICRISAT's research shows that a combined effort to deal with current climate uncertainty, land degradation and water scarcity is the only way by which the resilience of these communities can be brought about

ICRISAT's research is achieving this through improved climate variability analysis, projects to overcome land degradation and water scarcity, use of improved crop management options, improved crop breeding, and a pro-poor BioPower strategy. With improved tools becoming available in studying climate uncertainty, it has now become possible for decision-makers and investors to formulate a development agenda integrating short-, medium- and long-term timeframes. ICRISAT's integrated climate risk assessment and management framework enables investors (governments, donors, researchers or farmers) to understand beter the risks and opportunities and get greater returns from more diversified and targeted investments.

Land degradation, which is a persistent problem in the drylands of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, can be further worsened by climate change and desertification. ICRISAT has been working with partners for years on combating land degradation in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT has been working on programs such as the Desert Margins Program, fertilizer microdosing and Drylands Eco-Farm to help fight land degradation in the sub-Saharan Africa. These projects diversify the basket of crops and livestock systems, and provide appropriate dosage of fertilizers to crops, to strengthen the resilience of the agro-ecosystems. In Asia, ICRISAT's watershed development program overcomes both land degradation and water scarcity through judicious soil and management practices. This when supported by improved agronomic practices and integration with livestock systems, it enables the farmers to overcome the immediate problems of climate uncertainty and desertification. Based on our work in the drylands we have proved that farmers can increase their productivity four-fold and profits three-fold, using improved management options including use of water efficient crops. There is also high carbon sequestration as a result of improving dryland systems with technologies. All these activities are strengthened with ICRISAT's crop improvement research through which scientists continuously work to breed crop varieties and hybrids that are more drought, pest and disease tolerant

These new varieties strengthen the hands of farmers to deal with climate change and desertification. ICRISAT released the world's first pigeonpea hybrids based on the cytoplasmic male sterility system. The hybrids developed at ICRISAT have shown 30 to 150% yield advantage. The hybrids also produce 30-40% more root mass that makes them more drought resistant The adoption of hybrid technology has been rapid. The yield advantages of hybrids and the ease in their seed production have convinced the seed producers and at present 22 private and 3 public seed companies have adopted the technology. In 2007, a total of 250,000 kg of hybrid seed is being produced. This will bring about 50,000 ha land under hybrid cultivation. Using the molecular-marker assisted selection and breeding method ICRISAT developed the HHB 67-2 pearl millet hybrid, which can withstand downy mildew disease, which devastates pearl millet crops in the Northern Indian states of Haryana and Rajasthan. When there is no natural resistance in crops to pests or diseases, ICRISAT has been developing transgenic crops with genes for resistance from outside the crop's gene pool. Under contained field trials are ICRISAT-bred transgenic groundnut for resistance to the Indian Peanut Clump Virus, transgenic pigeonpea and transgenic chickpea with resistance to Helicoverpa armigera. With the skyrocketing of fossil fuel prices, ICRISAT has initiated a pro-poor BioPower strategy.

Through this BioPower strategy ICRISAT works on generating biodiesel from jatropha and pongamia in the wastelands of the villages. ICRISAT and GTZ have has also initiated a public-private partnership with Southern Online Biotech and farmers. ICRISAT scientists bred sweet sorghum varieties and hybrids that have higher sugar content in the juice in their stalks. Through the Agri-Business Incubator ICRISAT partnered with Rusni Distilleries who established a distillery to convert sweet sorghum juice to ethanol. In June 2007 the plant produced world's first ethanol from sweet sorghum. The beauty of ICRISAT-bred sweet sorghum is that while farmers get additional income from the juice in the stalk, they still continue to get the sorghum grains. ICRISAT's package empowers the farmers to meet the present day uncertainties, so that they can meet the future climate change and also reverse desertification as it happens.

(Source: ICRISAT)

Sonia Parra

The implementation of Colombia's General Forestry Law, enacted by the government in April, has reopened the debate on this legislation as a result of the appearance on a government Internet site of a regulation process drawn up by an international consultancy in the industry.

On the web site of the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development, a proposal appeared last month signed by the Programa Colombia Forestal (Colombia Forestry Programme), a cooperation initiative of the U.S. International Agency for Development (USAID) administered by Chemonics International, which had explicit participation in the drafting of the law.

In the wake of a flood of criticism, the text was removed from the site.

The ministry's director for ecosystems, Leonardo Muñoz Cardona, said in an interview that the initiative was not solicited by the ministry nor does it reflect its official position, despite being presented on the web site-but that its recommendations will be taken into account

The Ministry of Environment is preparing a package of regulatory decrees, to be presented in mid-October. At that point, it will set a three-month period for discussion and collect the opinions presented, and then submit the bill to President Alvaro Uribe to be signed into law.

The regulation suggested by the Programa Colombia Forestal has come under fire from environmentalists, minority groups and lawmakers, who had opposed the legislation pushed through by the government

The controversy now is focused on the basic aspects of the law: rights to land versus rights to forest cover, regulation of forest and jungle territories, administration of resources and transport of forest products.

One of the challenges to the proposal is the continuation of the concept of "vuelo forestal", or forest cover, borrowed from Bolivian legislation, which considers the forest itself-not the land-as a good that can serve as collateral in financial or credit operations.

During the debate on the law, the critics forced the government to exclude the application of this approach in land collectively owned by Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities. But the language reappeared in the draft law.

Muñoz Cardona assured that its application will refer only to forest plantations and that the ministry did not agree with the proposal presented by the Colombia Forestry Programme.

According to Colombia's 1991 constitution, collectively-owned territories are inalienable and free from embargo.

But if a clear ban is not defined, the necessities and, in some cases, the organisational weakness of the communities will lead to deals with individual lumber companies and exploitation of forests on an industrial scale, says activist Mariela Osorno, of Ecofondo, an umbrella organisation linking more than 100 environmental groups in Colombia.

Meanwhile, the business sectors that promoted the law are finalising initiatives, like production chains in the forestry sector, which imply an alliance with industries for the transformation, marketing and transport of goods.

Afro-Colombian communities in Tumaco, in the southwestern department (province) of Nariño, and in Bajo Atrato and Baudó, in the northwestern Chocó, say that private agents have proposed financing studies for forest exploitation, and that they themselves are working on obtaining permits in order to establish the commercial alliances set forth in the law, according to José Santos, of PCN, a network of Afro-Colombian organisations.

Another item to be dealt with is the new demarcation of forested areas.

An earlier law, passed in 1959, established seven national forestry reserves that include collectively held territories, from which 14 million hectares and 52 regional reserves of 500,000 hectares have been subtracted, according to official data. The ministry is in the process of defining and mapping the reserves, and will do so through the autonomous regional agencies' forest regulation plans, for which it still has two years, said Muñoz Cardona.

But the minority groups, mainly the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities of Chocó and the Amazon, see a threat in that section of the law, because it opens the possibility of limiting their territories and even of partial or total loss in those cases in which land titles are still pending and where communities are being forcibly displaced as they flee the country's 40-year civil war.

Furthermore, the proposal by the Colombia Forestry Programme for mobilisation of forest products will allow removal of all the lumber from the forest without an environmental permit, said Diego Cardona, spokesman for Censat Agua Viva, a member of the international Friends of the Earth network.

"The controls dictated by Law 99 of 1993 have been left invalid, and there will be no way to know if all the wood that is sold comes from forest plantations or from natural forests that are being exploited without regulation," he said.

But the ministry spokesman responded that all forest plantations are and will be clearly identified, so there will be no risk of natural forests being logged. Nevertheless, illegal logging is estimated on 100,000 hectares annually in this Andean and Amazonian country, whose biodiversity-rich forests cover 44 percent of the national territory of 1.1 million square kilometres.

The Colombian Atorney General and the Comptroller General of the Republic are closely following the implementation of the law, about which they have already formulated juridical observations.

"There exists a grave risk that the natural forests will have to adapt to the conditions of the market and logging, without prior existence of a regulation that guarantees their sustainability. The same thing occurred with the national nature parks, whose tourism services are being granted in concession, without basic management plans in place," Comptroller General Antonio Hernández said in a presentation before Congress during the legislative debate. While the details of implementation of the law are being worked out, a group of organisations and lawmakers are preparing to file a legal challenge with the Constitutional Court before the end of the year, arguing that the law is unconstitutional.

The litigants-including Ecofondo, Censat Agua Viva, Semillas, PCN and the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia-will denounce the violation of articles of the constitution and failure to comply with international conventions signed by the country related to biodiversity, climate change and wetlands, among others.

Meanwhile, Censat, Swissaid, Semillas and the Centre for Indigenous Cooperation are working with other groups on the Selva Viva (Living Forest) campaign, aimed at advising the affected communities so that they can take action in response to the law and reinforce a culture of forest conservation.

(This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS-Inter Press Service and IFEJ-International Federation of Environmental Journalists. Originally published Sep. 30 by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)

On 8 July, a meeting on water in New Delhi, organised by Shiraj Kesar disacussed the state of ailing and dead rivers.

Dr Vandana Shiva, Dr. B.L. Sharma, Ramesh Sharma, G.N. Kathpaliya, Shekh Hussain, Rajeev dhyani, Ratan Mudgal, Diwan Singh, Anand Misra, Sudha Mohan, Kumar Amitabh, Anita Sampath, Hariyom Tyagi, Dharmpal Tyagi, Shaoor A. khan, Sashi Kant Pandey, Suhas Borker and many activists struggling to save rivers joined the convention.

In her opening note Dr Vandana Shiva (Jal Swaraj) said: From sixties to nineties trend was for large dams but now large dams are having adverse impact Tehri dam has failed to meet its expected energy potential. According to World Bank we don't know how to manage water. The World Bank has recently initiated water sector reforms, aimed primarily at privatization of water resources and commercialization of water management River linking, a 200 billion dollar project has started with Ken-Betwa link. Argument for river linking was to take water from flooded area to drought prone area. But the main contention is to take water from rural area to urban area for industrialization. SEZ luxury of housing is also puting great stress on water resources. Chemical use in agriculture has also increased the usage of water. In Punjab farmers are growing vegetables for export which are water intensive puting more stress on our water resources. It is anticipated that after 20 to 30 yrs their will be no water in Ganga- Yamuna. We can only conserve Our river basins by mobilizing local Support We should also bring out an anthology Qn rivers region wise with status, campaigns, pictorial representation & pollution statistics.

River Varuna report by Vyomesh Chitravanash (Hamari Varuna Abhiyan): The twin rivers Varuna and Asi which give the city its name are polluted beyond compare. Almost 30 sewerage outlets let out its untreated waste into the river.". River Assi has disappeared totally

now it remains only in drain form. "Out of the 30 sewerage outlets in the city, only five electricity-run sewerage pumps were set up along the ghats to intercept and divert the sewerage water. Each pump has a bypass opening into the Ganga. When electricity fails, the bypass starts discharging water into the Ganga. Campaign is against encroachment on both sides of river. Upcoming five star hotels & DLF project is also coming on Varuna river. We are reviving Varuna, a diwali festival on river Varuna which is in records till 1907 to build momentum for cause of river Varuna.

Yamuna river report by Manoj Mishra (Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan): Yamuna has been the life-line of Delhi. Tragically, over the years this is exactly what has happened and now the state of affairs is such that it is perhaps the most polluted river and, according to experts, "the most threatened riverine system in the whole world". Unfortunately, currently there exists no legal protection available for our rivers as an ecosystem, which includes the river bed and the flood plain. As a result, our rivers have been taken for granted and their river beds and flood plains have been misused in the name of 'development' as if these are waste lands rather than precious parts of an ecosystem with vital and irreplaceable role for re-charge of ground water, floods moderation and as the habitats of varied forms of flora and fauna.

The river bed is known to be most prone to damage from an earthquake. The Commonwealth Games construction on its floodplains has only aggravated this situation to great extent

Ganga basin report by Sureswar Sinha (pani Morcha): Ganga basin is at the apex of tectonic or seismic zone. Delhi is part of that apex zone. We are likely to face a major flood combined with earthquake. There are many adverse impacts of dams. Our policy for fifty years has destroyed both Our rivers & ground water. Government has made a mess of water management, now its time people should take control of it SEZ should be only after Panchayat clearance. We have to fight for our water sovereignty.

Dravyavati river report by Upendra Shankar (Jaldhara Abhiyan, Jaipur): River is physically present but in Revenue records of government there is no mention of it It now remains as Manikshah nala. Till 1921, drinking water used to come from this river. The river flows through 32 villages. Main problems are colonies based on river bed & industries. By forestation on river bed we are trying to revive dying river.

Mithi river report by Shekh Husain (Sadbhavna Sangh, Mumbai): Mumbai's l3km long Mithi River is stuffed with effluents and garbage. No one has spared the Mithi river. Not the slums, the encroaching factories, the BMC and definitely not Mumbai's airport The slums that mushroomed up around the mouth of the river on the Mahim side didn't appear out of a magician's hat Someone allowed them to come up just a few years ago, like they did up the river, on both sides, as they still do across the rest of the city. Dlf's upcoming project will put further stress on already vulnerable mithi river.

Rajib Dhani: This is not only an environmental issue but a cultural issue too. No campaign in India can be successful until & unless it is emotionally atached. We should keep an emotional appeal in our campaign to atract people who don't follow us on technical issues.

Punjab report by Amar Singh Sidhu: In 1992 the area where there was 10 feet water of SatIuj river today has colonies on it Issue of climate change is going to affect us further.

Chambal river report by Siraj Qureshi: According to Mr Siraj problem of floods & dacoits in Chambal can be both controlled by bringing water from Tigra to Chambal, a run of 45 km. World Bank is runing a project to revive Swarn Rekha drain as it is full of pollution, roads & complex encroachments.

The convention underscored the need: (1) to bring out an anthology on rivers regionwise with status, campaigns, mapping, pictorial representation and pollution statistics and support the organisations working for the purpose;

(2) to institute commiteee - Nadi Rakskhan, Jal Raksjhan; and

(3) to so research on rivers and find out the rivers converted into drains and to make strategy to solve the problems of rivers.

(Source:water. community @gmail. com, kesaraba @gmail.com)