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Watch: Gidon Bromberg Gives an Update on Jordan River Rehabilitation Efforts
›October 27, 2011 // By Kate DiamondGidon Bromberg, co-director of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), says in this short interview with ECSP that his outlook on rehabilitating the Jordan River has changed completely over the last five years. We had been “laughed at” for trying to restore the waterway, he said; now though, “we are very confident that the Jordan River south of the Galilee down to the Dead Sea will be rehabilitated.”
By building a cross-border peace park and encouraging collaboration between Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians on water scarcity and quality issues, FOEME aims to improve environmental and security problems that bind the three groups together.
The Jordan River has become so polluted that visitors, many of whom are devout Christians making a pilgrimage to one of the religion’s most sacred sites, have been barred from its waters due to health concerns. Furthermore, more than 98 percent of its fresh water is diverted for agricultural work, meaning that the pollutants that end up in the river are highly concentrated.
But today, Bromberg said, sewerage is being removed on both the Israeli and Jordanian sides and there is a commitment to do the same from the Palestinians. For the first time in 60 years, there are concrete plans to return fresh water to a river that is “so holy to half of humanity.”
Sources: The Age, Friends of the Earth Middle East, The Guardian, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency -
Robert Draper, National Geographic
People and Wildlife Compete in East Africa’s Albertine Rift
›The original version of this article, by Robert Draper, appeared on National Geographic.
The mwami remembers when he was a king of sorts. His judgment was sovereign, his power unassailable. Since 1954 he, like his father and grandfather before him, has been the head of the Bashali chiefdom in the Masisi District, an undulating pastoral region in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Though his name is Sylvestre Bashali Mokoto, the other chiefs address him as simply doyen – seniormost. For much of his adult life, the mwami received newcomers to his district. They brought him livestock or other gifts. He in turn parceled out land as he saw fit.
Today the chief sits on a dirty couch in a squalid hovel in Goma, a Congolese city several hours south of Masisi. His domain is now the epicenter of a humanitarian crisis that has lasted for more than a decade yet has largely eluded the world’s attention. Eastern Congo has been overtaken by thousands of Tutsi and Hutu and Hunde fighting over what they claim is their lawful property, by militias aiming to acquire land by force, by cattlemen searching for less cluttered pastures, by hordes of refugees from all over this fertile and dangerously overpopulated region of East Africa seeking somewhere, anywhere, to eke out a living. Some years ago a member of a rebel army seized the mwami’s 200-acre estate, forcing him, humiliated and fearing for his safety, to retreat to this shack in Goma.
The city is a hornet’s nest. As recently as two decades ago Goma’s population was perhaps 50,000. Now it is at least 20 times that number. Armed males in uniform stalk its raggedy, unlit streets with no one to answer to. Streaming out of the outlying forests and into the city market is a 24/7 procession of people ferrying immense sacks of charcoal on bicycles or wooden, scooter-like chukudus. North of the city limits seethes Nyiragongo volcano, which last erupted in 2002, when its lava roared through town and wiped out Goma’s commercial district. At the city’s southern edge lies the silver cauldron of Lake Kivu – so choked with carbon dioxide and methane that some scientists predict a gas eruption in the lake could one day kill everyone in and around Goma.
The mwami, like so many far less privileged people, has run out of options. His stare is one of regal aloofness. Yet despite his cuff links and trimmed gray beard, he is not a chief here in Goma. He is only Sylvestre Mokoto, a man swept into the hornet’s nest, with no land left for him to parcel out. As his guest, a journalist from the West, I have brought no gifts, only demeaning questions. “Yes, of course my power has been affected greatly,” the mwami snaps at me. “When others back up their claims with guns, there is nothing I can do.”
Continue reading on National Geographic.
Photo Credit: “Aerial View of Goma,” courtesy of UN Photo/Marie Frechon. -
Watch: Dennis Taenzler on Four Key Steps for REDD+ to Avoid Becoming a Source of Conflict
›The UN Program on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) provides financial incentives to developing countries to conserve their forests and invest in low-carbon pathways to sustainable development. However, it may also be a potential new source of conflict, says Dennis Taenzler, a senior project manager at adelphi in Berlin, who works on climate and energy policies as well as peace and conflict issues.
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El Niño, Conflict, and Environmental Determinism: Assessing Climate’s Links to Instability
›October 5, 2011 // By Schuyler NullA recent Nature article on climate’s impact on conflict has generated controversy in the environmental security community for its bold conclusions about links between the global El Niño/La Niña cycle and the probability of intrastate conflict.
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Remembrance: Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Linked Environment and Conflict
›September 26, 2011 // By Schuyler NullSad news today as Wangari Maathai, the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, has passed away in Nairobi. The Green Belt Movement, which Maathai founded in 1977, has planted over 30 million trees and advocates for what Maathai called the three essential components of a stable society: sustainable environmental management, democratic governance, and a culture of peace. [Video Below]
“Almost every conflict in Africa you can point at has something to do with competition over resources in an environment,” said Maathai during her visit to the Wilson Center in 2009:Unless you deal with the cause, you are wasting your time. You can use all the money you want for all the years you want; you will not solve the problem, because you are dealing with a symptom. So we need to go outside that box and deal with development in a holistic way.
Maathai’s message was molded from her experiences in Kenya and across sub-Saharan Africa in general. She was not shy about condemning African leaders and advocating for women in the political space. In ECSP Report 12, she wrote, “I come from a continent that has known many conflicts for a long time. Many of them are glaringly due to bad governance, unwillingness to share resources more equitably, selfishness, and a failure to promote cultures of peace.”
Importantly, though, Maathai advocated for addressing these issues in concert, not separately. She said at the Wilson Center:I can’t say, ‘Let us deal with governance this time, and don’t worry about the resources.’ Or, ‘Don’t worry about peace today, or conflicts that are going on; let us worry about management of resources.’ I saw that it was very, very important to use the tree-planting as an entry point.
A Message to the World
Some raised questions when Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 – the first awarded to someone from the environmental field – but the recognition was more than deserved, wrote Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) Director Geoff Dabelko on Grist:Maathai is on the front lines of the struggle over natural resources that fuels conflicts across the world. While there is no dramatic footage of tanks rumbling across borders or airplanes flying into buildings, the everyday fight for survival of those who depend directly on natural resources – forests, water, minerals – for their livelihoods is at the heart of the battle for peace and human security.
Maathai explained in Report 12 that she thought her winning of the prize was intended as a message to the world to “rethink peace and security.”
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Elevating such a strong Southern voice – and one whose elephant’s skin bears the scars of the fight for peace – is a noble choice.
The Nobel Committee “wanted to challenge the world to discover the close linkage between good governance, sustainable management of resources, and peace,” she wrote. “In managing our resources, we need to realize that they are limited and need to be managed more sustainably, responsibly, and accountably.”
Sources: Grist, The New York Times.
Photo Credit: David Hawxhurst/Wilson Center. -
Perfect Storm? Population Pressures, Natural Resource Constraints, and Climate Change in Bangladesh
›Few nations are more at risk from climate change’s destructive effects than Bangladesh, a low-lying, lower-riparian, populous, impoverished, and natural disaster-prone nation. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that by 2050, sea levels in Bangladesh will have risen by two to three feet, obliterating a fifth of the country’s landmass and displacing at least 20 million people. On September 19, the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, with assistance from ECSP and the Comparative Urban Studies Project, hosted a conference that examined Bangladesh’s imperiled environmental security.
Climate Change and Population
The first panel focused on manifestations, drivers, and risks. Ali Riaz addressed the threat of climate refugees. Environmental stress, he said, may produce two possible responses: fight (civil conflict or external aggression) or flight (migration). In Bangladesh, the latter is the more likely outcome. Coastal communities, overwhelmed by rising sea levels and flooding, could migrate to Bangladesh’s urban areas or into neighboring India. Both scenarios pose challenges for the state, which already struggles to provide services to its urban masses and has shaky relations with New Delhi.
Mohamed Khalequzzaman examined Bangladesh’s geological vulnerability in the context of climate change. In a deltaic nation like Bangladesh, he explained, sedimentation levels must keep up with rates of sea level rise to prevent the nation from drowning. However, sediment levels now fall below 5 millimeters (mm) per year – short of the 6.5 mm Khalequzzaman calculates are necessary to keep pace with projected sea level rises. He lamented the nation’s tendency to construct large dams and embankments in the Bengal Delta, which “isolate coastal ecosystems from natural sedimentation,” he said, and result in lower land elevations relative to rising sea levels.
Adnan Morshed declared that Bangladesh’s geographic center – not its southern, flood-prone coastal regions – constitutes the nation’s chief climate change threat. Here, Dhaka’s urbanization is “destroying” Bangladesh’s environment, he said. Impelled by immense population growth (2,200 people enter Dhaka each day) and the need for land, people are occupying “vital wetlands” and rivers on the city’s eastern and western peripheries. “Manhattan-style” urban grid patterns now dominate wetlands and several rivers have become converted into land. Exacerbating this urbanization-driven environmental stress are highly polluting wetlands-based brickfields (necessary to satisfy Dhaka’s construction needs) and city vehicular gas emissions.
Adaptation Responses
The second panel considered possible responses to Bangladesh’s environmental security challenges. Roger-Mark De Souza trumpeted the imperative of more gender-inclusive policies. Environmental insecurity affects women and girls disproportionately, he said. When Bangladesh is stricken by floods, females must work harder to secure drinking water and to tend to the ill; they must often take off from school; and they face a heightened risk of sexual exploitation – due, in great part, to the lack of separate facilities for women in cyclone shelters. He reported that such conditions have often led to early forced marriages after cyclones.
Shamarukh Mohiuddin discussed possible U.S. responses. On the whole, American funding for global climate change adaptation programs has lagged and initiatives that are funded often focus more on short-term mitigation (such as emissions reductions) rather than adaptation. She recommended that Washington’s Bangladesh-based adaptation efforts be better coordinated with those of other donors.
Mohiuddin also suggested that to convey a greater sense of urgency, Bangladesh’s climate change threats should be more explicitly linked to national security – and particularly to how America’s strategic ally, India, would be affected by climate refugees fleeing Bangladesh.Philip J. DeCosse highlighted Bangladeshi government success stories in the famed Sundarbans – one of the world’s largest mangrove forests. Officials have banned commercial harvesting in some areas of the forests and shut down a highly polluting paper mill. He also praised civil society and the media for bringing attention to the Sundarban’s environmental vulnerability. As a result of efforts such as these, the Sundarbans are “coming back,” he said, with mangrove species growing anew. Thanks to a range of actors – from the forestry department to civil society – these forests are also now being “governed more than managed,” said DeCosse.
The Sundarbans – click to view larger map.
DeCosse’s fellow panelists identified additional hopeful signs. Morshed shared a photograph of a green, pristine park in Dhaka. De Souza underscored how family planning programs have worked in Bangladesh in the past, with fertility rates declining considerably in recent years, and several speakers spotlighted efforts by civil society and the media to bring greater attention to Bangladesh’s environmental security imperatives.
Nonetheless, major challenges remain, and panelists offered a panoply of recommendations. Khalequzzaman called for a major geological study of soil loss and siltation. De Souza implored Bangladesh to ensure that women’s roles and family planning considerations are featured in climate change negotiations and adaptation policies. Morshed advocated for imposing urban growth boundaries and enhancing public transport in cities. And several speakers spoke of the need to pursue more effective natural-resource-sharing arrangements with India. Ultimately, in the words of De Souza, it may not be possible to eliminate Bangladesh’s “perfect storm” – but much can be done to calm it.
Event ResourcesMichael Kugelman is a program associate with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program.
Sources: UN.
Photo/Image Credit: “Precarious Living, Dhaka,” courtesy of flickr user Michael Foley Photography; “Impact of Sea Level Rise in Bangladesh,” courtesy of UNEP; and the Sundarbans courtesy of Google Maps. -
Water: Asia’s New Battleground
›“Asia faces a daunting water crisis,” warns Brahma Chellaney, professor at the Center for Policy Research (New Delhi) and author of the new book, Water: Asia’s New Battleground. It is a crisis that imperils the region’s economic and political rise, and that deepens environmental risk in a part of the world marked by melting glaciers and densely populated coastal areas.
In his book, Chellaney, regarded as one of India’s most distinguished strategists, surveys the water landscape across Asia; examines the security implications of water-based territorial disputes; and offers policy recommendations to help prevent water conflict. On September 12, Chellaney spoke about Water at a Wilson Center event organized by the Asia Program and co-sponsored by the China Environment Forum and Environmental Change and Security Program. Steven Solomon, a journalist and author who last year published Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, offered commentary.
According to Chellaney, Water “fills a void in the literature” by, for the first time, focusing on water issues across the entire continental region of Asia – an immense expanse that includes not only Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia, but also Central Asia and the Middle East. The book, he explained, defines Asia “as it looks on a map.”
The World’s Dam Center
What drives the water crisis in this vast region? One factor is population. Asia is the world’s largest and most populous continent but also the most water-deficient; its freshwater levels per capita are one-third those of Europe’s, and slightly less than Africa’s. Another is tied to economic development. Asia is the world’s fastest developing continent, yet its most rapidly developing nations, particularly India and China, are already afflicted by serious water challenges.
Rising income levels and attendant growth in consumption rates are additional drivers. Asians are consuming more resources, including meat, which requires prodigious amounts of water to produce. A fourth factor is intensive irrigation. Seventy percent of the world’s total irrigation originates in Asia, and 80 percent of the region’s “water withdrawals” are allocated to agriculture. (The latter figure is only 30 percent in Europe.) Such large-scale irrigation has enabled Asia to evolve from “a land of recurrent famine” to a major food exporter, yet it has also spawned ruinous agricultural conditions such as waterlogging and soil salinity.
Chellaney contended that Asia’s water ills can also be attributed to the “large-scale impoundment of water” by dams, barrages, and other storage-creating structures. Asia is the world’s “dam center,” he said, with China boasting half the world’s dams and now planning to construct “mega dams,” including one “higher than the Eiffel Tower.” Impounding water triggers riverwater depletion, which in turns promotes “the reckless use” of sub-surface groundwater resources, said Chellaney. With water tables plummeting, millions of groundwater pumps are depleting what used to be a pristine and plentiful resource.
“We Need Better Politics”
In a region rife with transboundary rivers yet devoid of mechanisms to promote transboundary water-sharing, Asia’s water troubles pose grave geopolitical risks.
According to Chellaney, “water wars” are already being waged across the region via non-military means, fostering mistrust and hampering efforts toward greater cooperation. He argued that in order to forestall water conflict, Asia must develop a set of norms on shared resources based on the 1997 UN Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses – the only available instrument for international water management. Chellaney also called for the creation of “inclusive water institutions,” that emphasize transparency and dispute settlements, and for the adoption of “holistic planning” on central and provincial governmental levels that aim for better water efficiency.
Playing devil’s advocate, Solomon faulted Chellaney for according insufficient attention to Asia’s crisis of energy – a resource that, he pointed out, is “extraordinarily water-intensive.” He also countered Chellaney’s criticism of dams by observing that Asia desperately needs storage – a deficiency that makes the region highly vulnerable to drought. And he questioned whether China’s dam-building activities on the Brahmaputra River truly imperil lower riparian India’s water security, noting that only 15 percent of the river’s flows entering India are impacted by Chinese dams.
Ultimately, Chellaney said, alleviating Asia’s water crisis will also require improving the region’s poor political environment. While Asian economies are coming together, its politics are more divided. Transboundary water cooperation – and any treaty meant to undergird it – cannot be expected to last if co-riparians do not get along. “We need better politics,” he concluded.
Event ResourcesMichael Kugelman is a program associate with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program.
Photo Credit: David Hawxhurst/Wilson Center. -
‘Dialogue’ TV: Revisiting Mr. Y and “A National Strategic Narrative”
›“We are, what I would call, very non-linear thinkers,” said U.S. Navy Captain Wayne Porter about the white paper he co-authored with U.S. Marine Colonel Mark Mykelby, “A National Security Narrative,” launched by Woodrow Wilson Center President Jane Harman at the Center in April. “We’re almost incapable of restricting ourselves to defense and security in isolation from a much larger perspective,” he told Dialogue TV.
“I think maybe that’s why Admiral Mullen has kept me around – I can offer a perspective that maybe he wouldn’t get from conventional strategists or from conventional planners,” said Porter, who served three out of four tours with the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a special assistant for strategy.
Dialogue host John Milewski sat down with Captain Porter and Robert Litwak, director of International Security Studies and vice president for programs at the Wilson Center, for a discussion about the white paper – published under the pseudonym “Mr. Y” (echoing George Kennan’s seminal “X” article) – and its contention that the United States should move away from an outmoded Cold War-era model of containment, deterrence, and control towards a “strategy of sustainability.”
The narrative has been well received, Porter said: “I think there is an appreciation that it’s a very complex strategic environment that we live in now and that maybe we need to re-look at all of the tools that we could use as a nation to pursue our enduring national interest.”
Inflection Points in History
“The timing of such conversations is cyclical,” said Litwak. “The original ‘X’ article emerged from the end of the Second World War and the advent of the Soviet threat, which required a new conception of international relations that Kennan articulated, as well as the National Security Act of 1947 to line up the U.S. government with this new environment.”
There have also been periods of concern about American decline. “I think what one sees in the current era are both of those trends coming together,” Litwak said:The system is changing – it’s a debatable proposition that the United States is in decline – but we see in the international system rising powers, notably China, as well as transnational trends that are beyond the sovereign control of any single state, which have called into question the nature of the international system…as well as a sense that…there’s something qualitatively different about this recession than the typical economic, cyclical recession and that has to do with the domestic sources of American strength.
These conditions, as well as the source of argument – coming from the military – combined to give particular resonance to the piece, Litwak said.
The Information/Globalization Age
“I think the thing that has changed materially to us is that the information age has brought about an awareness that our environment is completely interconnected,” Porter said. “There’s a complexity to this that can’t be analyzed linearly, that has to have new tools applied.”
“I’d honestly characterize it as significant as the Enlightenment in the 1600s,” he said.
“Certainly we’ve thought in silos and debates have been too often compartmentalized,” Litwak said. “One of the strengths of this piece is that it is truly synthetic – working across the continuum of instruments of power – and talks in a really powerful way about how hard power…has its place, but that the non-military dimensions of American power have been neglected.”
But, Porter said, it’s important to focus on being proactive, rather than reactive:The thing that bothered us most about the strategies that we see every day in our jobs on our side of the river and across the river is that they are almost universally based on anticipating and countering known risk and threat, and our sense is that we have entered an age in which we need to overcome that sense of fear and seize the opportunity to shape the environment of the future as opposed to simply being resilient to it.
As Litwak points out, Secretaries Gates (now former) and Clinton – in the form of the Quadrennial Defense Review, Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, and numerous speaking engagements – have both called for closer integration between State and Defense, more resources for non-military levers of power, and more holistic concepts of security. But unfortunately the greater integration called for in these documents remains unrealized.
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