The frog prince... from a croak to a chorus.

As a young Cambridge graduate, HRH the Prince of Wales was mocked for talking to plants. Well 'listen up' folks... now beleagured tropical forests are talking to him and they picked the right person. Not only does he know his stuff about organic agriculture, but he has shown real leadership in tackling the rapid deforestation of the planet.

Without political inference or interference, just using his power to convene within both private and public sectors, the prince has set in place a process that provides a viable way of slowing rainforest loss while the world struggles to establish multi-lateral mechanisms and markets for the longer-term. A gathering at St. James Palace today also showcased partnerships that are testing the mechanisms of direct payment for proven results (combined with building capability for "REDD"). Presidents of rainforest nations mingled with world bank boffins, captains of industry and NGOs both global and local, and our own Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change. Some of my takeaway points:

President Bongo of Gabon talked about the "common good" represented by remaining rainforests, but suggested that some of the wealth of developed countries could be similarly regarded as "common good" and used to help the developing countries protect forests. Fair point.

All we need to stem the tide of rainforest destruction is 18-25 billion Euro over 5 years, well deployed. Less than bonus pots available to some giants of the finance sector. This would prevent 7 gt of emissions and turn the global emmisions graph from its rising trajectory back towards less damaging levels.

The window to decide to act is becoming smaller and coming closer. Explorer Pen Halow described the scary results of the Catlin Arctic Survey announced last month. Its thinner than we think and the potential loss of the world's arctic airconditioning system throws into even sharper focus the need to protect our tropical band of climate moderating rainforest.

So how do we come up with these funds? Well, Norway is ahead of us there - already supporting the Amazon Fund and a deal with the Government of Guyana to help them become a low carbon economy. We might need a few more women involved (HRH's gathering had heads of state, chiefs representing indigenous peoples & a diversity of skills on offer but no women speakers and only a few flickers of colourful clothing amongst the black crow suits....!) We might need to highlight biodiversity ... which just seems to be an underlying assumption, following seemlessly from conserved forests, but this is not entirely the case.

Most especially, we need a real deal from the leaders gathering shortly in Copenhagen. We need agreement and action. Amidst all the hurdles of targets and timetables, it could just possibly be that this "interim financing instrument" starts to look enticing and tempting as an offering to rally around. The croaking frog has sounded the alarm and orchestrated a compelling chorus of voices to that end.

The deal with dogs

Emerging into the world this week, this hour-old beagle pup is destined to be a loved family pet. As such, she will be part of a mutually-beneficial relationship with her human family - reducing their stress levels and improving their health (see 'Dogs are good for you', elsewhere on this blog).

As she was born, an article in the New Scientist reported on calculations that average sized-dogs have a larger "footprint" on the earth's resources than most cars. While debatable, that would rather pose a dilemma for those of us enjoying the health benefits of canine companions, while also trying to be eco-friendly and care for the planet. Time to eat the dog then? Possibly so according to Robert and Brenda Vale who did the calculations, although they do include the question mark in the title of their Guide to Sustainable Living.

Eating dog meat is a tradition in several parts of the world, either for the various properties ascribed to it, or as an emergency food, as some polar explorers attest. Occasionally the dogs have their revenge, as eating the liver of sled dogs produces the condition Hypervitaminoisis and the explorer Mertz died from this in 1913. With such a widespread practice what, apart from avoiding the liver, is the problem?

Well, its just not part of the deal. The canine-human relationship has grown up around a variety of needs based on the dog's abilities to sniff out trouble or point out game. In much of the world there is now legislation prohibiting the eating of companion & working dogs, even in Korea and parts of China.

Too late for this one in Vietnam, however. And how long will our ethics within this trusting deal survive if things get really sticky?

(P.S. Predatory cats however are a whole 'nother issue, and I'll return to that when I've plucked up the courage)

Board(s should) walk

Why a photo of a snail on the edge of a precipice? It is a corporate snail, moving exceeding slow, looking out over the precipice and seeing nothing. It has just ventured out from a bed of lettuce and has no idea that life is not all about readily available greenery.

I spent Blog Action Day talking to a Corporate Board about biodiversity, the environment, climate change and why they are relevant to their business. The Group is a household name in the extractive sector. They have taken an interest in these critical issues, have a thoughtful Chief Executive, dynamic senior managers and some knowledgeable staff, so why my state of frustrated depression?

Seems to me that, given the speed of change on our planet, too many Board appointments are already behind the times, their experience increasingly irrelevant. Even if they do make attempts to diversify the skills available to them, new voices can falter amidst the pompous, patronising pontificating of increasingly antiquated corporate arrogance. Problem is that Boards nurture their own nests..... like the UN, they become less and less likely to rattle the branches that sustain them. They regenerate themselves, like with like. If they move out, it is onto another Board in the city.

Companies need to wake up to this if we are to tackle the ecological and economic challenges facing us now. If you are a shareholder, take a good look at the Board and ask questions. If you are a staff member consider what channels you have to propose new skills that Boards might not know they need. And if you are someone who might diversify a Board's perspective - make it known! Change the corporate climate and contribute to the challenge of climate change.

Entangled bank - wildflowers rule, UK.

An "entangled bank" in Kent stimulted Darwin's thoughts on survival of the fittest. This Sussex bank, snapped at Glyndebourne during the UK's 2 days of summer this year, has been set aside for wildflowers within a formal cultivated garden, and what a feast of diversity is there.

With the UK's 'set aside' programme biting the dust in 2007, and farmers no longer compensated for keeping land out of production, Defra has been consulting this year on how to retain the environmental benefits gained. They are favouring a voluntary rather than legislated approach through "A Campaign for the Farmed Environment’", encouraging the farming industry to promote environmental stewardship within its own parameters for good practice.

Good practice for wildflowers is not restricted to agricultual land, however. "Landlife" focuses on urban & urban fringe areas as well - providing seeds of hope perhaps for the cities of the future. Those cities will be exerting their own pressures on diminishing agricultural land though, and as the demand for global food security forces greater production pressures on our reserves of agricultural land, what will keep farmers on the side of biodiversity?

Global Allotments

Between the White Nile on the left of this image and the smaller Blue Nile on the right, irrigated agriculture spreads across the Sudanese Sahara.
Today it may be for cotton fibre, tomorrow it will likely be biofuels, the day after tomorrow it will be for food.

But not necessarily for Sudan, or even for Africa, despite the impoverishment of people and patchiness of food supply across the continent. Huge areas of agricultural land are being "secured" in advance for wealthier nations or those betting on future value as food insecurity starts to bite. Hard to swallow?

Various reports are documenting this land grab and the International Food Policy Research Institute estimates between US$20 billion and US$30 billion are being spent yearly by rich countries on agricultural land in developing countries. John Vidal in yesterday's Guardian quotes Devinder Sharma, analyst with the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in India, predicting civil unrest:

"Outsourcing food production will ensure food security for investing countries but would leave behind a trail of hunger, starvation and food scarcities for local populations," he said. "The environmental tab of highly intensive farming – devastated soils, dry aquifer, and ruined ecology from chemical infestation – will be left for the host country to pick up."

Carbon Cha-cha-cha?

The Cha-cha-chá and a host of sensuous latin fusion dances diffused out from Latin America and created an enthusiastic following around the world. Please, Latin America, consider carbon-carbon-carbon at the regional World Economic Forum in Rio de Janeiro next week (14-16 April) and set the rest of the World dancing to your tune. The summit will address "Implications of the Global Economic Crisis for Latin America" as well as "other serious challenges, such as climate change". In the region that hosts the Amazon, this add on for climate and carbon issues is nothing like enough and leadership is needed, from the World Forum, from Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who will open the meeting and from the other heads of state also part of the summit.

The forum has set up a climate task force, with business and "thought leaders". Worthwhile, but again, not enough, and possibly a distraction. It is focused on alternatives and adaptation - the 20%+ of the problem that could be solved by stopping deforestation and degradation is almost a throwaway line in the letter this group sent to the G20 leaders this week. Meanwhile, many of the companies listed are still looking to biofuels for renewable energy and ignoring the impacts on land use and natural habitats - thereby ignoring ecosystem services of water and biodiversity in addition to the carbon calculations.

Is "low carbon propserity" feasible? Certainly prosperity is a motivator, but so is survival and that has to take precedence. If the Amazon dies it is Giselle's "dance of death" that will be percolating out from the Americas to the rest of the world rather than the life-enhancing Cha-cha-chá.

Death by palm oil

Elephants from the "Conservation Response Units" are called upon by farmers in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, when their crops are being raided by wild elephants from nearby forest. The captive ones patrol the forest edge and warn the raiders away. Sounds apocryphal but I've seen it working - and the balance between conserved forests and local agriculture is maintained.

Enter the commercial oil palm companies - even one that should know better, a subsidiary of the UK-registered company Anglo Eastern Plantations that is a member of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. Not only is the company clearing protected lowland rainforest illegally in an area that has not been zoned for conversion to agriculture, but it has built a road through an elephant sanctuary. This opens up general access and last Tuesday two of the elephants were shot.

Something to ponder as you eat your ice-cream, spreads and other goodies loaded with palm oil - also recently shown to be suspect in terms of saturated fats. There are some sustainable plantations and some efforts by the food industry to comply. Good, balanced, recent info is supplied by Mongabay and the Rainforest Action Network. But basically the uncontrolled expansion of plantations across the globe is destroying biodiverse forests and peatlands, ecosystem services, orang utans, elephants and more. Leaves a rather bad taste in your mouth, don't you think?

Pines gain value on the climate exchange - a boost for boreal forest stocks!

Boreal Forests (nickname "The Taigas"?): 1. Tropical Forests: less than 1?

At last, the underdog Boreal Forests (http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/boreal.htm) are gaining ground against premiership leaders Tropical Forests in the race to save the planet. So much global publicity and funding is focused on the carbon, biodiversity and water management roles of tropical forests that the boreal forests rarely get a mention. But here's some good news for this important biome - European scientists looked at chemicals called terpenes that are released from boreal forests across northern regions such as Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. Terpenes give pine forests their distinctive smell, and the team found that they react in the air to form tiny aerosol particles that condensed water vapour and doubled the thickness of clouds above the forests, reflecting an extra 5% sunlight back into space. Over such a large area, and in such a finely balanced system, this could be an invaluable contribution.

Fortunately for tropical forests they can also do some of this - just not quite so well. O.K. pundits, off you go. I sense a vigorous debate on the way, as the Boreal Forests fight to claim their place in history. Or, rather, on Future Earth.

Living planet?

The latest Living Planet Report produced every couple of years by WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, measures the health of the planet's ecosystems and the extent of human demand on them.

In summary this 2008 "human demands on the world's natural capital measure nearly a third more than earth can sustain."

We have an increasingly start choice - do we just let competition sort it out (and would the "fittest" survive?) or do we collaborate to sort it out together, as we naked apes are supposed to be able to do? Whatever kind of society we want we don't have much time to ponder. Andy Dufrein's "get busy living or get busy dying" (Shawshank Redemption) has some resonance for humanity.

Waste not, want not

Alternative to charcoal helping protect gorilla habitat. Good to see this appropriate technology in use and all credit to the teams currently promoting it.

During a prolonged lull in the security mayhem of this central African hotspot a few years ago, the International Gorilla Conservation Programme and partners were presciently addressing this problem - setting up a buffer of trees around the Park and monitoring fuelwood use. (Building on the local networks of a health education charity, a "social marketing" campaign distributed both condoms and tree seedlings - and was irreverantly dubbed "pricks and sticks" by the team!) This living buffer of young trees was obliterated by waves of refugees and rising population levels, but perhaps reduced the severity of destruction and left some knowledge in its wake.

Are you feeling lucky?

"Are you feeling lucky?" Clint Eastwood's character asks in the film 'Dirty Harry'. Here on an increasingly dirty earth another IUCN world gathering is about to descend on Barcelona, and "Transition to Sustainability: towards a Humane and Diverse World" has been put together to this deadline.

It will need more than luck. Adams and Jeanreneaud argue that the two essentials (of a low carbon economy and a world that values nature) require a third companion to have any chance of planetary sustainability - social equity. What was that at the back? "Fat chance" did you say? Well think again... in this philosophical narrative of conservation we are reminded of the self-fulfilling politics of fear. "I had a nightmare..." might not have had quite the resonance, or stimulated quite the change, that Martin Luther King's dream managed to do. All very well and yes, we need inspiration as much as information - but both science and history indicate that we'll change the world only when the selfish genes kick in. Too late? Another soundbite pulled from the ether by these authors.. "there are no sewers on a spaceship".

If you are expending carbon to help save the world at the IUCN congress, you can offset intellecually by engaging in the "sustainability dialogues" around these issues.

And by the way is it, or is it not, the "World Conservation Union" - compare the mixed branding still on the IUCN website against comment on this post.

Going for Gold in Ghana?

Quietly, under the media shadows created by activities in Beijing and Georgia, a meeting of fundamental importance for the planet is taking place in Ghana. One of a series leading to "post Kyoto" agreements on Climate Change next year, it needs to go for Gold and not settle for just taking part - not something the UN has a great track record in. Blue sky thinking and innovative action rather than flying the flags of narrow national vested interests.

Personally, if we had to rely only on the U.N. in this arena, I'd give up now. Fortunately we have civil society knowledge and ingenuity as well as corporate economic drive to turn to as well. If they work together, rather than in opposition, they could provide some winning solutions.

Spectres at the GM feast.

Those blight-resistent potatoes growing quietly in an experimental agricultural plot outside Cambridge, those fields of golden corn fulfilling their genetically manipuated destiny of higher yield and disease resistance, those countries allowing policy change under the radar - you have been rumbled. HRH Prince Charles has thrown the spotlight back on Genetically Manipulated Food Crops with an impassioned, angry tirade of concern. But is he over-reacting?

On the plus side, food security is indeed the more important underlying factor, and there is little argument that creating an environment where small farmers can flourish around the world is crucial to global food security. On the other, in a land-constrained world, what is wrong with helping the evolutionary process along in food crops? According to many small and family farms, the problem lies not with the technology or its application, rather in the behaviour of the profit-driven large companies who insist that (going beyond return on investment) anyone seeking their GM seeds is required to use all their support services. Seeds cannot be saved either, so the customer is forced into repeat purchase.

Oh, I see. The real problem lies in the competetive behaviour that drives our global corporate economy. Well, as consumers we have shown that we can make Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility a competitive advantage for financial investors. So we can, if we combine efforts, insert the CESR gene into some of the biggest agri-tech brands and engineer a longer future for (our) life on earth.

Primates in peril

No laughing matter this, whatever the orang art featured here might indicate.

A report released today by the IUCN (World Conservation Union - howzat for a branding nightmare) revealed that 48% of the world's primates are in severe trouble. 303 of the 634 species are now listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered on the IUCN threat risk scale.

The report is being picked up by the media but will the news be taken seriously by the primate responsible, the human kind? There are heros and advocates battling against the odds, and there are some good news missives from the front line. The cost of saving an orang utan has been (simplistically but interestingly) calculated as £568.48 - a better investment in the future than a year's car tax or an airline flight one might, equally simplistically, assume.

Eye in the sky

O.K. - last one - and you can find the other 27 most beautiful abstract satellite images of earth here. What artistic brushstrokes will a changing climate and burgeoning human population sketch on our future earth?

Eye of the beholder (2)

Another one for you. Where is the beholding eye?

Fabulous fences

I've been watching this living fence for a year now, enjoying its responses to the changing seasons. It is layered Hawthorn, with a few Hawthorn trees left to grow on. Between the winter and summer pics above, a realisation that wooden fencing is increasingly in short supply globally has added a practical edge to my interest. Traditionally laid in winter, before the sap rises, the stems are severed with a billhook until they lean over on their own with just a small amount of tissue to keep the trees alive. Stumps and "pleachers" (the layered stems) send up new shoots which thicken and strengthen the hedge. Stakes at regular intervals and a woven layer of hazel sticks along the top ("heatherings") keep this living artwork in place - beautiful.

Perhaps not quite so obviously beautiful as living fences of rosa rugosa and some of the living fences in widespread use across central/southern America. The experience in Africa has been mixed (I have seen park managers spend years trying to reduce the invasive spread of "prickly pear" planted with all good fencing intention) but living fences are being reinvented in our carbon constrained world. There are downsides but generally living fences must be preferable to carbon-unfriendly metal & plastic n'est-ce-pas?

Back to watching the twigs grow....the screenplay for ."There will be Wood" is Future Earth's next offering to Daniel Day Lewis.

Rights and righteousness

Liberal hacks are having a field day over corporate investment in Zimbabwe and British politicians are rushing to divest themselves of any dubious shareholdings. Superficially the criticism has resonance with the righteous, as outside investment can prop up a regime such as that of newly non-elected President Mugabe.

What are the alternatives however? The corporations who are there already, particularly those mining giants who have worked hard on their corporate social responsibility record, argue that they have made a commitment to their workforce and that pulling the plug would hurt that workforce more than the Mugabe regime. So, arguably a sacrifice for local stakeholders exceeding that of global shareholders. Who makes this call - the people themselves, the regime or the opposition who should by rights be in power?

And what of new investment - is this clearer cut? Companies are all having to conform to new rules imposing a 51% requirement for indigenous share ownership and there is fear that the current regime will profit from the new investment that has caused a particular outcry against Anglo American. Of course it will. It holds the strings of power and can sell off resources to the highest bidder; it is not constrained by the transparency of democracy nor the brake imposed by a freely operating media. I feel real angst about this one... as I know all that but would still prefer to see those companies that pay more than lip service to CSR (in fact those for whom it is CESR or Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility) out-compete the insidious aquisition of Africa by Chinese companies unconstrained (as yet) by an electorally-derived social ethos or concern.

Dead or Alive

World Environment Day was not forgotten in Royal Circles either. Forests champion HRH Prince Charles launched a new web site for his Princes Rainforest Project. Saving trees one day, promoting cricket the next? These two interests converge nicely in the Australian Cricket Bat Willow Project.

By responsing to the increasing scarcity of Cricket Bat Willow - Salix alba var.caerulea - some canny Aussies set up one of those rare win-win-wins. A win for the environment (although I'm making a presumption on water); a win for business (with increasing global demand they must be literally quids in) and, sadly... (yet another) win for Australian cricket. And the Poms no longer have the opportunity of holding them to ransom by restricting supply. A level playing field indeed.

Atlas of Alarm

In the time of Idi Amin Dada, Ugandans suffering the impacts of national economic decay bravely started wearing T-shirts with the message "Pray for my Country". Today, if you have a God, start praying for the Continent.

Then please, please turn to influencing its leaders - from family heads to local government to Presidents and Prime Ministers. Direct them towards the stark warning in the pages of "Africa - Atlas of our changing environment" just launched at the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) by the United Nations Environment Programme. Satellite images three or four decades apart show the scale and impacts of environmental degradation, such as these declining water levels in Lake Chad. Persistent droughts and increased agricultural irrigation have reduced the Lake to one tenth of its extent 35 years ago.

Marion Cheatle, deputy director of Unep's early warning division, told the Ministers that the Atlas can show where and why action needs to be taken. Well, the (mostly) Gentlemen of AMCEN have been meeting every 2 years since 1985 and have various declarations and multilateral processes to show for it. Lots of policy, clearly not enough practice. But that's where you come in - bloggers all. Spread the word. Put pressure through the ballot box (or, where ballot boxes cannot speak for you, on those of your community who can). Take these issues from Environment Ministries to Finance Ministries. Take David Attenborough's advice and then elect more women.

And yes, pray for our Continent to the Gods of Climate Change, Population, Energy, Water, Biodiversity, Food Security and A.N.E. Other. There has to be just a glimmer of hope that the second edition of the Atlas in 2040 will show that we managed to reverse the decline?