PARIS, Jun 23 (IPS) – As the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact unfolds in Paris on 22-23 June, Forus, a global network representing over 22,000 civil society organisations across Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Pacific, calls for the respect of human rights and for meaningful inclusion of civil society in shaping financial systems and structures.
The summit, co-hosted by India, could help find common ground on finance that drives progress at key events later in 2023 and in 2024 – the G20 summit in New Delhi, the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, and the Finance in Common summit with public development banks in Cartagena.
As part of the summit, Sarah Strack, Forus Director, is amplifying civil society’s voices at the high-level Finance in Common event in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders, to discuss and leverage the role of Public Development Banks in financing the SDGs, scaling up sustainable finance, and supporting inclusion. Forus has been engaging in the Finance in Common initiative since its inception in 2020 with the aim to ensure that a people-based approach to development is pursued.
“If we want to have a chance to tackle the most pressing challenges and the multiple crises of our time in a way that really puts first the interests and needs of people, then a shift of mindset and a new financial framework are absolutely necessary. It is essential that civil society plays a central role in shaping this new paradigm at every stage. Let us not forget the wealth of knowledge and leadership present at the local level. By actively engaging and collaborating with communities, we can genuinely measure our progress and honor the commitments we have made to those most in need,” says Sarah Strack.
Harsh Jaitli, CEO of the Voluntary Action Network India (VANI), is representing Forus as an official respondent in the Summit Roundtable “Power Our Planet: Act today. Save tomorrow”, co-hosted by Global Citizen and CISCO. The event seeks to rally for immediate action on economic, social, and climate justice, engaging both public and private sectors to catalyze renewable energy investment in climate-vulnerable countries to reduce energy poverty and accelerate the low-carbon transition.
Harsh Jaitli of VANI states that the New Global Financial Pact will require improved partnerships and the building of trust.
“Double standards have negatively impacted our collective capacity to deliver on effective development and climate related programmes. In some countries, multinational corporations respect human rights, fiscal and climate regulations, but in other countries decisions are made to violate them. Not only does this send the wrong message that some countries and populations are more important than others, but also jeopardizes our collective efforts to affect change. Multinational corporations should commit to respecting human rights, fiscal and climate regulations in all countries and in a consistent manner. When no strong regulations exist, this is the opportunity for multinationals to be proactive and to apply strong rules, which are coherent with their policies,”says Harsh Jaitli.
Julien Comlan Agbessi, Coordinator of the Regional Coalition of West Africa (REPAOC) emphasizes the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation. Agbessi explains that cooperation between the private sector and the civil society organisations is possible, since the private sector could leverage hugely on the experience and outreach of civil society. “Many poverty alleviation programs and projects with significant funding implemented over the past decades have failed to deliver for communities. Transformative investments in low-income countries and climate impacted countries require putting the needs of people first,” says Julien Comlan Agbessi.
Lina Paola Lara Negrette, Coordinator of the Confederación Colombiana de ONG (Ccong), states that the New Global Financial Pact must incorporate stronger and more meaningful engagement with civil society.
“Civil society has an important role to play in ensuring the accountability and transparency of both government and private sector actors. Civil society can work closely with governments and the private sector to ensure the delivery of social and environmental needs in all investments, which includes respect of human rights”.
Olivier Bruyeron, President of the French platform of CSOs Coordination SUD, equally emphasizes the importance of partnerships with the public and private sector, “CSOs hold valuable knowledge and expertise on international solidarity needed to construct sustainable global solutions and to link them with local development” adds Olivier Bruyeron.
Marianne Buenaventura is project coordinator at Forus.
LONDON, Jun 23 (IPS) – Long before Hollywood highlighted the dangers of commercial fishing in The Perfect Storm, Deadliest Catch and other programming, governments around the world knew that this was one of the most hazardous jobs, killing thousands of fishers every year.
Until last fall, how many people perish while working in the seafood industry has never been clear. But now, through research commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted by the FISH Safety Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New Zealand dedicated to improving safety at sea, we know the truth: Worldwide, fishing is responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people every year, along with a staggering number of life-altering injuries.
And although there is a way to limit some of these risks, namely through the ratification of an international treaty known as the Cape Town Agreement (CTA), there has been little movement to date protecting fishers. But with the CTA, which is the only global agreement specifically designed to tackle the safety of the environment fishers work in, this could change.
This agreement focuses on safety standards for industrial-size fishing vessels and would grant fishers the same structural integrity, safety precautions, and training that have been in place for other seafarers for decades.
More than 3 billion people rely on seafood for a significant source of protein, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expects that demand to grow.
But although many of us are familiar with the thrill of the chase depicted in media—big fish, bigger boats and even bigger waves—we’re unfamiliar with who is most at risk on the water. The answer is vulnerable and lowest-income people.
People, often the most marginalized, are frequently coerced and even forced to work on unsafe vessels and in conditions that in many cases meet the definition of slavery—long workdays, crowded and filthy sleeping quarters, violent and abusive superiors, insufficient nutrition, little or no safety equipment or medical care, and no chance of escape.
These conditions have been documented throughout the world’s ocean, in both national and international waters, from the largest industrial ships to small subsistence rafts and canoes.
Three intergovernmental bodies share responsibility for fishing, fishers and safety: the FAO, along with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). But none have full decision-making authority—and all lack the data to expose the dangerous realities of commercial fishing. To make matters worse, coordinated action across these organizations has been missing.
But today, there’s no longer any excuse for ignoring the high death rates at sea. The Cape Town Agreement—coupled with two other treaties—give authorities the leverage they need to protect fishers on large-scale industrial vessels that traverse international waters.
Fisher safety provides a powerful incentive for full ratification of the CTA. And the agreement should not be difficult to implement; many developed nations have already adopted its recommended guidelines for their fleets.
Unfortunately, this fact is being used as an argument against the treaty. Specifically, that because some large fleets already adhere to the guidelines, ratification is unnecessary and will not improve safety for fishers.
But this misses an important point. Ratification will help show leadership and encourage other countries to improve safety standards, which could help the most endangered workers.
The agreement needs 22 countries with a combined 3,600 vessels to go into force. Ratification by three more countries, with a combined 1,500 eligible vessels, will meet that goal.
However, it should have been met already. In 2019, 51 countries committed to ratify the agreement by October 2022, but most haven’t followed through, despite the number of fatalities each year.
Those avoidable deaths should move these countries to act—now. The other two treaties in force are the FAO Port State Measures Agreement, which works to prevent illegally caught fish from entering the seafood supply chain, and the 2007 ILO Work in Fishing Convention C188, which sets standards for working conditions onboard vessels. However, to better protect fishers, more countries are needed to join all three treaties and implement them.
It is time for countries to acknowledge that fisher fatalities are a serious problem, many fishing-related deaths are preventable, and despite the complexity, they want to find effective solutions.
We know for certain that fishers who work each day to bring their catch to tables or the marketplaces around the world put their lives in danger. As people demand more and more fish, we can’t—and shouldn’t—go another year without stronger safety rules for fishing, starting with ratification of the Cape Town Agreement.
Peter Horn, who directs efforts to end illegal fishing as part of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries program, has spent more than 30 years in the British Royal Navy, where he reached the rank of commander, and served in the Fishery Protection Squadron.
The expansion towards the mountains of the coastal city of Ensenada, in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California, stresses the water supply, which is scarce in this peninsular region due to its arid nature and deficiencies in water management. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
by Emilio Godoy (ensenada, mexico)
Inter Press Service
ENSENADA, Mexico, Jun 21 (IPS) – At the entrance to the coastal city of Ensenada in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California a sign reads: “Every drop matters to us. Take care of the water.”
The message is important, as the city faces shortages due to hoarding by agricultural producers and builders, as well as the drought that has become more severe because of the effects of the climate emergency.
But cities such as Ensenada, which has a population of 443,000 and is located 2,883 kilometers from Mexico City, do not take sufficient advantage of the reuse of water, a technique that along with other measures can contribute to the fight against the water shortage at a time when Mexico is suffering from intense drought and an unusual heat wave.
Independent expert Adrián González said a conventional focus on obtaining water that ignores improvements in its use continues to prevail.
“There is enough water, but there is hoarding. We consume a lot. It is a question of management. Consumption can be moderated, there are experiences around the world in this regard,” he told IPS.
Demand exceeds supply, and supply cuts and overexploited sources dry up the water supply. The delivery and sale of water in “pipas” or tanker trucks is a common sight in Ensenada, located in an arid region between the Pacific Ocean and the mountains.
Due to the overexploitation of the aquifers and the growing demand, Ensenada is suffering from a deficit, so long-term solutions are urgently needed.
Consumption stands at about 1,000 liters per second (l/s), which should increase to about 1,260 in 2030, while supply totals about 800 l/s, according to the State Water Commission, the government agency responsible for water resource management in Baja California, on the peninsula of the same name, bordering the United States.
While installed capacity and treatment are on the rise, a widespread problem lies in the historical lack of efficiency and maintenance of facilities, which limits the scope of the available technologies.
In 2021, coverage reached 67.5 percent of the wastewater generated and collected in the municipal sewage systems of this Latin American country, just a few tenths more than the previous year, according to data from the National Water Commission (Conagua).
Treated water can be used for agricultural irrigation, gardening, domestic and industrial uses, and can help recharge aquifers.
Local water agencies can undertake aquifer recharge projects, but incentives for doing so are needed. In fact, the legal framework does not stipulate recovery rights for reused water, which falls under the general jurisdiction of Conagua.
The El Naranjo municipal treatment plant in the city of Ensenada, in the northwestern peninsular state of Baja California, is operating below its installed capacity, which is further affecting the distribution of scarce water in the city. CREDIT: Conagua
Mexico, with a population of 128 million inhabitants spread over an area of 1.96 million square kilometers, is facing increasing water stress, ranking 24th among the countries in the world with this phenomenon, caused by overexploitation, pollution, scarcity and inequity in access to water.
In 2021, 2,872 water reuse plants were operating in Mexico – three percent more than the previous year-, with an installed capacity of 198,603 l/s and a treated flow of 145,341 l/s, just 0.5 percent above the 2020 level.
The northern state of Sinaloa has the largest number of plants (311), followed by Durango also in the north (241) and neighboring Chihuahua (195). Despite their water needs, those with the smallest number of plants are the southeastern state of Campeche and the northern state of Coahuila (27 each), which furthermore operate below capacity.
There are 44 plants operating in Baja California, with an installed capacity of 7692 l/s and a performance of 6222. At the same time, 14 of the 48 groundwater reservoirs in the state, including the Ensenada reservoir, suffer shortages because annual extraction exceeds renewal.
Regional and federal authorities have resorted to seawater desalination in the state, but it only refines about 130 l/s, out of a capacity of 250.
Martín Zepeda, founder of the non-governmental Citizens’ Water Commission, criticized the measures applied so far in the reuse of water.
“We have only achieved palliative measures. We have been suffering from the same problems for 30 years,” he stressed.
The coastal city of Ensenada in the northwestern Mexican state of Baja California depends on aquifer extraction, seawater desalination and the transfer of water from the state of Tijuana, also on the U.S. border, as not enough water is reused. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
Baby steps
In another northern state, in the east, Nuevo León, reuse is showing signs of success, but more progress is needed.
Antonio Hernández, a researcher with the non-governmental organization Pronatura Noreste, stressed to IPS the need for treated water infrastructure.
“We don’t have a sufficient network to distribute the treated water available. In 2022, when the water shortage crisis began, the agency responsible instructed the municipalities to buy treated water and thus take pressure off the groundwater,” he told IPS from Monterrey, Nuevo León’s capital.
“The transfer was to be by truck. But it did not happen, because the municipalities did not buy the water nor did the government build the distribution network. Availability does not mean accessibility,” he said.
In 2022, Nuevo León, especially greater Monterrey with a population of more than five million people, faced a severe water crisis.
As a result, the authorities resorted to supply cuts, rate hikes, anti-waste fines and awareness campaigns on water usage.
In that state, 13 of the 24 aquifers are overexploited, including the one outside of Monterrey proper.
The population of Monterrey drinks about 16,000 l/s, which results in a deficit of about 3,000 l/s. That means the 56 treatment plants are insufficient, managing 12,387 l/s, compared to an installed capacity of 16,162 l/s.
Mexico does not take sufficient advantage of wastewater reuse, which can be used to recharge aquifers, for consumption in industrial facilities, for agricultural irrigation or for urban use. Pictured is a fountain in a park in a neighborhood in south-central Mexico City. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS
Half-hearted measures
Despite the problems faced by the plants, the Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa) only inspected four municipal facilities, most of them private, in 2016 in Baja California, where it found “minor irregularities” and charged fines in three, according to a public information request filed by IPS.
In Mexico City, only two were inspected – in 2018 and in 2022 – and minor irregularities were found in one private municipal plant, although it was not fined. In 2018, Profepa visited four plants in Nuevo León in which it found minor irregularities.
In total, Profepa inspected a total of 330 plants, including 50 in the western state of Jalisco and 33 in the northern state of Chihuahua. Of that total, it found minor irregularities in 234, and none in 69.
Focus on pipes and little else
The generalized view is the conventional one of promoting the construction of infrastructure to face the crisis, without addressing the scarcity of water resources.
The current Mexican government boasts that it is promoting 15 water projects, such as the construction of dams, aqueducts and treatment plants, mainly in the north of the country to combat the crisis.
In places like Ensenada, the outlook is no different.
Over the next few years, the State Water Commission foresees the expansion of the desalination plant, the modernization of an aqueduct, the rehabilitation of five treatment plants, the delivery of treated water to the agricultural zone, and the rehabilitation of pumping plants and wells.
Despite the situation, the Baja California state government is just now drafting its water plan for the 2022-2027 period.
In Nuevo León, authorities announced the digging of more wells, the construction of the Libertad dam, the El Cuchillo II Aqueduct and four treatment plants, as well as the modulation of pressure to reduce waste.
The Libertad dam will have a capacity of 1,500 l/s, at a cost of some 350 million dollars. Meanwhile, the aqueduct will transport 5,000 l/s, thanks to an investment of some 495 million dollars.
Mexico has also benefited from international financing for water projects. Since 1997, the North American Development Bank has financed 27 water and sanitation projects in Baja
The Norte treatment plant in the Mexican state of Nuevo León seeks to promote water reuse for automobile assembly, urban and agricultural activities in an area that experienced a severe water crisis in 2022. CREDIT: Conagua
, in addition to three in Nuevo León since 2001.
Its financing of a 6.8 million dollar wastewater management initiative in the city of Mexicali is currently under public consultation.
The experts consulted proposed several measures, such as awareness campaigns, water reuse, and leak repair.
González, the independent expert, said the combination of reuse and efficiency offers very low costs and promising results.
“There is not going to be just one single solution. Fate is going to catch up with us. We can’t continue following strategies that have never worked and that have been exhausted,” he argued.
Zepeda, the water activist, also suggested the creation of a citizen water commission to audit the operation of the system.
“The situation is not going to improve until availability and uses are corrected. It is a combination of water sources and activities. We need long-term solutions,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hernández the researcher proposed a revision of zoning and land use plans to address the construction of neighborhoods, golf courses and vehicle assembly plants, to promote the efficient use of water.
With one-fifth of farming households dependent on palm oil production, policy considerations that look after the environment, lives, and livelihoods were essential.
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Jun 20 (IPS) – Oil palm has brought significant benefits and prosperity to Liberia. The export of crude palm oil is a major source of foreign exchange earnings for the government. The palm oil crop covers more than 1 million hectares, hundreds of thousands are employed in the palm oil sector, and at least 21 percent of the farming households produce palm oil.
Opportunities for the country’s palm oil and other palm products in the international markets are considerable—creating a temptation to prioritize development over environmental concerns.
In 2020, policymakers in the Inter-Ministerial Commission on Palm Oil Concessions in Liberia faced a significant challenge: developing a policy path that pursued quick short-term profits and faced long-term negative consequences to the environment, lives, and livelihoods—or a beneficial approach for people and planet.
Forests Belong to Humanity
“When decisions are too short-term, narrow, and short-sighted, we do not take into account the long-term impact of our action. We need to recognize that some goods are common goods or public goods, such as forests. They do not belong to one person or one company; they belong to humanity as a whole,” says Francisco Alpizar, Wageningen University and Research.
This was the case for Liberia’s palm oil sector, whose key stakeholders include government, the private sector, NGOs, business associations, smallholder associations, and households that directly or indirectly rely on it as their lifeline.
“From an economic perspective, the prices of goods and commodities should reflect the true cost to societies, not just the immediate cost of producing them but also the environmental impact the production of those goods and services carries for societies,” Alpizar says.
The Liberian National Oil Palm Strategy and Action Plan (NOPSAP) was facilitated by the Global Environment Facility-funded Good Growth Partnership. Here policymakers in Liberia decided to use the Targeted Analysis Scenario (TSA) to design a mutually beneficial policy path for communities, sectoral government agencies, and palm oil concessionaires.
Targeted Analysis Scenario Benefits All
As they developed the National Oil Palm Strategy and Action Plan (NOPSAP) facilitated by the Global Environment Facility-funded Good Growth Partnership, policymakers in Liberia decided to use the Targeted Analysis Scenario (TSA) to design a mutually beneficial policy path for communities, sectoral government agencies, and palm oil concessionaires.
UNDP developed the TSA to respond to the growing demand from decision-makers and stakeholders for more policy-relevant sustainable development analysis to support national SDG implementation facing diverse policy, management, and investment choices.
As an innovative analytical approach, the TSA captures and presents the value of ecosystem services within decision-making to help make the business case for sustainable policy and investment choices. By doing so, the TSA allows policymakers to calculate these costs and make decisions that harmonize with the environment.
In Liberia, policymakers needed economic data that compared the outcomes of continuing with conventional palm production with the results of taking a different route to make sound, informed decisions leading to sustainable palm concessions.
At the time, the situation in the West African country was characterized by contradictory forest management and concessions policies. The Commission had to balance the eagerness of communities and smallholder producers to engage in palm oil concessions because they brought employment and socioeconomic benefits and concerns in the global market about the environmental risks of palm oil production.
UNDP’s TSA provided an answer, enabling the Commission in Liberia to include all the relevant social, environmental, and economic impacts. TSA offered a systematic approach covering all aspects of the sector.
The TSA improves the decision-making process by capturing and presenting the value of ecosystem services and sectoral production to make policy decision-making more holistic. The tool applies to any sector, scenario, context, or country.
“TSA can, for instance, be applied for decision-making at the national level, when taking a national perspective, regional, company or even household level. For each and every one of those decisions, we need a careful analysis of what the current situation looks like and how it will look in the future and, what would be the alternative situation,” Alpizar explains.
Business-as-Usual Versus Sustainable Ecosystem Management
One is considered a business-as-usual scenario, and the other a sustainable ecosystem management scenario.
“When you compare one against the other, with a long-term perspective and focusing on the relevant indicators for the decision makers or the things that the decision maker cares for, then you can provide a better picture of the decision that is in front of us, and that is what targeted scenario analysis is.”
He says targeted scenario construction of business-as-usual versus sustainable ecosystem management outcomes is presented to the decision maker. When this is done, in principle, the decision maker will have a powerful decision-making tool to make informed decisions based on evidence.
“If we put ourselves in the feet of a decision maker, that is, for example, deciding whether to implement a series of policies to make the agricultural sector more sustainable, the business-as-usual scenario means you continue with the current practices. A sustainable ecosystem management scenario would be one in which you change a series of practices or actions, and with that, in principle, you achieve a different outcome,” Alpizar explains.
He gives an example of producing pineapples under a business-as-usual scenario with an impact on surrounding lands, agrochemicals, deforestation, land use change, competing diseases, or diseases that spread to the surrounding area, which might be viable but over a short period of time. The alternative scenario is to create and implement a more long-term, sustainable approach.
“Through UNDP’s application of TSA methodology, you can carefully construct the two scenarios by first asking this question: As the decision maker, what do you really care about? Is it employment, taxes, production, or reducing social unrest? Based on the answer, the analyst can construct a targeted scenario,” Alpizar says.
Returning to Liberia, the TSA was able to show that Smallholder Production (SPO) scenario and environmental sustainability were in the best interests of the concessionaire and the Liberian economy – with substantially greater benefits compared with the business-as-usual scenario (USD 333 million versus USD 188 million over 20 years).
When these results were discussed with the multistakeholder National Oil Palm Platform of Liberia, it was accepted and paved the way toward sustainable palm oil development in Liberia.
Across the world, TSAs have been conducted to assess the economic value of ecosystem services for various strategic economic sectors such as hydropower, agriculture, and tourism under the business-as-usual and sustainable ecosystem management scenarios to create a sustainable development path where humanity is in harmony with the environment.
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jun 09 (IPS) – The second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-2), held in Paris, France, from May 29 to June 02, 2023, concluded with optimism and the prospect of ending plastics pollution. Over 700 delegates from 169 Member States agreed to prepare a zero draft of agreement ahead of the third session in November this year.
Among the more important and interesting debates, health advocates attending the negotiations reported that it was essential to discuss “how to categorize the thousands of types of plastics, chemical precursors and products in a way that allows for a coherent approach to ending plastic pollution.
Some favoured focusing on the chemical precursors, eliminating the most toxic and polluting ones,” while others acknowledged that not every type of plastic could be recycled or reinvented, and certain plastics like cigarette filters need to disappear for good.
Leonce Sessou, speaking on behalf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Corporate Accountability (CA), African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), and other members of the Stop Tobacco Pollution Alliance (STPA), urged Member States to align the future legally binding instrument on plastics with the public health objective of ending the tobacco epidemic, to which most have already committed via the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Tobacco control groups, for example, called for the elimination of cigarette filters. They drew attention to the fact that cigarette butts are some of the most prevalent forms of plastic pollution on the planet and harm land and marine ecosystems.
They reminded delegates to align with human rights and health treaties, particularly the WHO FCTC, and make the tobacco industry pay for its pollution and legacy waste. The WHO FCTC health treaty seeks to reduce the supply and demand for tobacco and protect health policies by keeping the tobacco industry out of policy meetings.
According to a WHO report which called for a ban on cigarette filters, about 4.5 trillion discarded filters (butts) from the almost six trillion cigarettes consumed globally find their way into the environment annually.
They are the top waste item collected from coastlines and urban settings. Cigarette filters are small enough to be ingested by marine animals, and when these plastic filters break down, they release thousands of microplastic particles.
Microplastics have been detected in commercial seafood, other food items, drinking water, and human tissue; this contamination is a threat to food safety and security.
Research shows cigarette butts are a source of microplastic contamination that creates chemical pollution (due to the toxic chemicals found in tobacco products) that leach into the environment. Cigarette butt leachates are found to harm various forms of aquatic organisms, including key food sources for fish and shellfish.
Experts agree that banning cigarette filters is the best solution to this plastic and toxic waste problem. Clean-ups, anti-littering legislation, and redesigning filters for recyclability or biodegradability have not worked and are not viable solutions.
Government committees from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark have recently called for a ban on filters and recommended the same for the rest of the European Union Member States.
For at least five decades, the tobacco industry has known that cigarette filters provide no health benefits; instead, they make cigarettes burn hotter, deliver more nicotine, and increase addiction.
Yet they have misled smokers into thinking filters make cigarettes “safer.” As awareness around smoking increased, the tobacco industry made advertisements for filtered cigarettes more appealing to pacify smokers’ concerns.
Advocates participating in the INC-2 reported a lot of misunderstandings related to cigarette filters that are yet to be addressed. In its blog on day 5 of the negotiations, ASH stated, “Many people, not just people who smoke, assume filters make cigarettes safer rather than more dangerous.”
Numerous countries already have a national policy banning single-use plastics such as plastic bags, straws, and cotton buds but have inadvertently not included cigarette filters. However, advocates speaking to government delegates found widespread support for a ban on cigarette filters.
As the possibility of a cigarette filter ban gathers momentum, the tobacco industry’s public relations (PR) machinery is already in motion implementing beach cleans-ups and cigarette butt collection activities through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs across the globe.
Before the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (INC-3) resumes in Nairobi in November, governments must remember that the tobacco industry is not a stakeholder but a polluter that must be held liable for the myriad harms it has caused as well as continues to cause to human health and the environment.
Over 100 non-governmental health organizations of the STPA, along with other environmental groups such as Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, Ecowaste Coalition, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), Ban Toxics (Philippines), Our Sea of East Asia Network (OSEAN), Development Indian Ocean Network, Earthday.org (Earth Day Network), Green Africa Youth Organization, Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance, and Boomerang Alliance have called for the elimination of cigarette filters.
Mary Assunta is Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 01 (IPS) – The US has some of the strictest laws against smoking in public, including a 1997 executive order which bans smoking in all government federal buildings.
But still, the tobacco industry and its allies do not rest, says Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, Director of the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Currently, they “spread a lot of misleading information that promotes, especially among young people, the use of e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products”, he said, on the eve of World No Tobacco Day May 31.
According to PAHO, while the percentage of the population using tobacco in the Americas declined from 28% to 16.3% between 2000 and 2020, novel products and misleading information from the tobacco industry, especially targeting young people, threaten to undo those gains.
“Although eight countries in the region have banned the marketing of e-cigarettes and four of heated tobacco products, we are concerned that 14 countries have not yet taken any regulatory action in this regard,” he pointed out.
According to the latest statistics from PAHO, tobacco-use kills one million people per year in the Americas, one every 34 seconds.
In addition, 15% of cardiovascular disease deaths, 24% deaths from cancer and 45% of deaths from chronic respiratory diseases are attributable to tobacco use. In the region, 11% of young people use tobacco.
E-cigarettes are the most common form of electronic nicotine delivery. Their emissions contain nicotine and other toxic substances that are harmful to both users and those exposed to them.
To address the growing health threat posed by these products, the PAHO Director has called on countries to implement policies to prevent their use, especially among young people, as they can become the gateway to regular tobacco consumption.
Mary Assunta, Senior Policy Advisor, Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance, told IPS about 40 countries in the world have banned e-cigarettes while 70 countries which allow them have instituted restrictions on sales. For example, 36 countries regulate the amount (concentration/volume) of nicotine in e-liquids.
She said New Zealand, the Philippines and England, where e-cigarettes are sold more as recreational products, are facing a big problem with teenage vapers.
The Australian government has just announced a slew of strong measures to strictly regulate e-cigarettes after misinformation on the health effects of vaping helped hook children and young people.
E-cigarettes are meant to be sold by prescription only in Australia, said Assunta.
Yolonda Richardson, Executive Vice President of the Washington-based, Global Programs of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said this World No Tobacco Day, the WHO is calling for action against the tobacco industry’s human and environmental toll.
“Harming human and environmental health is pivotal to the business model of multinational tobacco companies like Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco. Millions of people die every year due to Big Tobacco’s profit-over-people model”.
She said low- and middle-income countries increasingly feel this burden, with 80 percent of tobacco-related deaths from diseases such as cancer, lung disease and heart disease projected to be in such countries by 2030. And the tobacco industry traps farmers with unsustainable crops and appropriates arable land to grow tobacco used for deadly products.
On this year’s World No Tobacco Day, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids joins the WHO in calling on governments to stand up to the tobacco industry’s exploitative practices and the devastating impacts of its deadly products.
One in 10 adult deaths around the globe are due to tobacco use. By holding the industry accountable and through the implementation of proven tobacco control measures, we have the power to protect future generations from tobacco-related death and disease, she noted.
“It is critical that governments act with urgency to address tobacco’s burden by passing the proven tobacco control interventions contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control,” said Richardson.
Without urgent action, tobacco use will kill one billion people this century, lock tobacco farmers into a lifetime of poverty, and cause continued harm to the environment, she declared.
The United Nations which banned smoking in its 38-storyed Secretariat building in New York, back in 2016, says smoking is one of the biggest public health threats in the world today, killing millions of people from lung cancer, heart disease and other diseases.
All delegates, staffers and visitors to UN Headquarters are reminded of the strict no smoking policy mandated by the General Assembly in its resolution A/RES/63/8and stipulated inST/SGB/2003/9.?
A designated exterior smoking area is available in the South Garden and signs showing the shortest route from the Secretariat lobby and the General Assembly and Conference Building main areas have been posted.?
Since the entry into force of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2005, says PAHO, the region has made great strides in tobacco prevention and control. Currently, 96% of the population in 35 countries in the region is protected by at least one of the six recommended tobacco control measures.
In 2020, South America became the first 100% smoke-free sub-region – where there is a total ban on smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces, and on public transport.
Mexico also adopted the 100% smoke-free environment policy by the end of 2021 and banned all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. As a result, 63% of the population of the Americas – or more than 600 million people – are now protected from exposure to tobacco smoke.
In addition, in 2022, Paraguay ratified the Protocol to Eliminate the Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which will boost regional efforts in this area.
“These achievements allow us to be confident that the region of the Americas will reach the target of a 30% reduction in the prevalence of tobacco use in those over 15 years of age by 2025, established in the WHO’s Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases,” Dr. Barbosa said.
But to expedite progress, the PAHO Director considered it “urgent to accelerate efforts to implement key measures that have fallen behind, including tax increases, a total ban on the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco-products, and the adoption of mechanisms to manage conflicts of interest.”
Her hands loaded with crates, Susan Quintanilla, a union leader of agro-export workers in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, gets ready to collect different vegetables and fruits for foreign markets. She has witnessed many injustices, saying the companies “made you feel like they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down.” CREDIT: Courtesy of Susan Quintanilla
by Mariela Jara (lima)
Inter Press Service
LIMA, May 31 (IPS) – Peru’s agro-export industry is growing steadily and reached record levels in 2022. But this has not had a favorable impact on human development in this South American country, where high levels of inequality, poverty, childhood anemia and malnutrition persist, as well as complaints about the poor quality of employment in the sector.
Exports of agricultural products such as blueberries, grapes, tangerines, artichokes and asparagus generated 9.8 billion dollars in revenue in 2022 – 12 percent higher than the 2021 total, as reported in February by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism.
Agricultural exports represent four percent of GDP in this Andean nation, where mining and fishing are the main economic activities.
“The increase in revenue from agricultural exports has not brought human development: anemia and tuberculosis are at worrying levels and now dengue fever is skyrocketing,” Rosario Huallanca, a representative of the non-governmental Ica Human Rights Commission (Codeh Ica), which has worked for 41 years in that department of southwestern Peru, told IPS.
Ica and two other departments along the country’s Pacific coast, La Libertad and Piura, are leaders in the sector, accounting for nearly 50 percent of agricultural exports in this country of 33 million people, which despite this boom remains plagued by inequality, reflected by high levels of poverty and informality and precariousness in employment.
Monetary poverty affected 27.5 percent of the country’s 33 million inhabitants in 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics. This is a seven percentage point increase over the pre-pandemic period. The number of poor people was estimated at 9,184,000 last year, 600,000 more than in 2021.
Ica, which has a total of 850,765 inhabitants, is one of the departments with the lowest monetary poverty rates, five percent, because it has full employment, largely due to the agro-export boom of the last two decades.
Huallanca said the number of agro-export companies is estimated at 320, with a total of 120,000 employees, who come from different parts of the country.
What stands out, she said, is that 70 percent of the total number of workers in the sector are women, who are valued for their fine motor skills in handling fruits and vegetables.
Although a portion of the workers of some companies are in the informal sector, there are no clear numbers, the expert pointed out.
But there are alarming figures available: more than six percent of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, and anemia affects 33 percent of children between six and 35 months of age.
“With the type of job we have, we cannot take our children to their growth checkups, we can’t miss work because they don’t pay you if you don’t show up, we cry in silence because of our anxiety,” 42-year-old Yanina Huamán, who has worked in the agro-export sector for 20 years to support her three children, told IPS.
The two oldest are in middle and higher education and her youngest is still in primary school. “I am both mother and father to my children. With my work I am giving them an education and I have manged to secure a home of my own, but it’s precarious, the bedrooms don’t have roofs yet, for example,” she said.
Huamán is secretary for women’s affairs in the union of the company where she works, a position she was appointed to in November 2022. From that post, she hopes to help bring about improvements in access to healthcare for female workers, who either postpone going to the doctor when they need to, or receive poor medical attention in the social security health system “where they only give us pills.”
Ica currently has the highest number of deaths from dengue fever, a viral disease that led the government of Dina Boluarte to declare a 90-day health emergency in 13 of the country’s 24 departments a couple of weeks ago.
Not only that, it has the history of being the department with the highest level of deaths from Covid-19: 901 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, exceeding the national average of 630 per 100,000. “The health system here does not work,” trade unionist Huamán said bluntly.
Yanina Huamán, a worker in the agro-export sector in the department of Ica in southwestern Peru, explains at a meeting in Lima the problems that affect labor rights in the sector, particularly for women who make up 70 percent of the workers. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
Working conditions more difficult for women
The lack of quality employment and the deficient recognition of labor rights, exacerbated by the pandemic, prompted a strike in November 2020 that began in Ica and spread to the northern coastal area of ??La Libertad and Piura.
Their demands included a minimum living wage of 70 soles (19 dollars) a day, social benefits such as compensation and raises for length of service, and recognition of the right to form unions.
Grouped together in the recently created Ica Workers’ Union Agro-exports Struggle Committee, which represents casual and seasonal workers, they went to Congress in Lima to demand changes in the current legislation.
Susan Quintanilla, 39, originally from the central Andean department of Ayacucho, is the general secretary of the union. She arrived in Ica in 2014 after separating from her husband. She came with her two children, a girl and a boy, for whom she hoped for a future with better opportunities.
After working as a harvester in the fields, and cleaning and packing fruit at the plant, she decided to work on a piecework basis, because that way she could earn more and save up for times when the companies needed less labor.
“It was incredibly hard,” she told IPS. “I would leave home at 10 in the morning and leave work at three or four in the wee hours of the next morning to be there to get my kids ready for school. I was 29 or 30 years old, I was young, but I saw older women with pain in their bodies, their arms and their feet due to the postures we had at work, but they continued because they had no other option.
“I saw many injustices in the agro-export companies,” she added. “They made you feel that they were doing you a favor by giving you work, they wanted you to keep your head down, they shouted at and humiliated people, they made them feel miserable. I protested, raised my voice, and they didn’t fire me because I was a high performance worker and they needed me. The situation has changed a little because of our struggles, but it hasn’t come for free.”
The late 2020 protests led to the approval on Dec. 31 of that year of Law No. 31110 on agricultural labor and incentives for the agricultural and irrigation sector, aimed at guaranteeing the rights of workers in the agro-export and agroindustrial sectors.
But in Quintanilla’s view, the law discriminates against non-permanent workers who make up the largest part of the workforce in the sector, since the preferential right to hiring established in the fourth article of the law is not respected.
“Nor have they recognized the differentiated payment of our social benefits and they include them in the daily wage that is calculated at 54 soles (a little more than 14 dollars): it’s not fair,” she complained.
At the same time, she stressed that the agro-export work is harder on women because they are the ones responsible for raising their children. “We live in a sexist society that burdens us with all of the care work,” Quintanilla said.
She also explained that because several of the companies are so far away, it takes workers longer to get to work, which means they are away from home for up to twelve hours a day. “We go to work with the anxiety that we are leaving our children at risk of the dangers of life, we cannot be with them as we would like, which damages us emotionally.”
Added to this, she said, are the terrible working conditions, such as the fact that the toilets are far from the areas where they work, as much as three blocks away, or in unsanitary conditions, which leads women to avoid using them, to the detriment of their health.
Workers sort avocados for export in Peru. Agro-exports account for four percent of the country’s GDP, but the prosperity of the sector has not translated into better human development for its workers, and diseases such as anemia and tuberculosis are alarmingly prevalent in agroindustrial areas. CREDIT: Comexperu
Agro-export companies and human rights
Huallanca said that Codeh Ica was promoting the creation of a space of diverse stakeholders so that the National Business and Human Rights Plan, a public policy aimed at ensuring that economic activities improve people’s quality of life, is fulfilled in the department. Five unions from Ica and the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Tourism participate in this initiative.
“We have made an enormous effort and we hope that on Jun. 16 it will be formally created by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the governing body for this policy,” she said.
In the meantime, she added, “we have helped bring together women involved in the agro-export sector, who have developed a rights agenda that has been given shape in this multi-stakeholder space and we hope it will be taken into account.”
A picture of photovoltaic panels in the solar park in the small town of Armstrong, in the Pampa region, the heart of Argentina’s agricultural production. The park belongs to an electric cooperative, which until 2017 only bought energy to distribute, but now generates electricity as well. CREDIT: FARN
by Daniel Gutman (buenos aires)
Inter Press Service
BUENOS AIRES, May 26 (IPS) – When the residents of Armstrong, a town of 15,000 in western Argentina, began to meet to discuss a renewable energy project, they agreed that there could be many positive effects and that it was not just a question of doing their bit in the global effort to mitigate climate change.
“The proposal was to use the rooftops and yards of our houses to install solar panels. And I accepted the idea basically because I was excited by the prospect that one day we would become independent in generating our own electricity,” Adrián Marozzi, who today has six solar panels in the back of the house where he lives in Armstrong with his wife and two children, told IPS.
His home is one of about 50 in Armstrong with solar panels generating power for the community, added to the 880-panel solar farm installed in the town’s industrial park. Together they have contributed part of the electricity consumed by the inhabitants of this town in the western province of Santa Fe since 2017.
This is a pioneering project in Argentina, built with public technical organizations and community participation through a cooperative where decisions are made democratically, which has since been replicated in various parts of the country.
With an extensive area of ??almost 2.8 million square kilometers, Argentina is a country where most of the electricity generation has been concentrated geographically, which raises the need for large power transmission infrastructure and poses a hurdle for the development of the system.
In this context, and despite the financing obstacles in a country with a severe long-lasting economic crisis, renewable energies are increasingly seen as an alternative for clean electricity generation in power-consuming areas.
Marozzi is a biologist by profession, but is dedicated to agricultural production in Armstrong, almost 400 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires. The town is located in the pampas grasslands in the productive heart of Argentina, and is surrounded by fields of soybeans, corn and cattle.
How to bring electric power to widely scattered rural residents was the great challenge that the Armstrong Public Works and Services Provision Cooperative, made up of 5,000 members representing the town’s 5,000 households, grappled with for years.
The institution was born in 1958 and in 1966 it marked a milestone, when it created the first rural electrification system in this South American country, with a 70-kilometer medium voltage line that brought the service to numerous farms.
Once again, in 2016, the Armstrong cooperative pointed the way, when it began to discuss in assemblies with community participation the advantages and disadvantages of venturing into renewable energy production by means of solar energy panels.
“Those of us who accepted the installation of panels in our homes today receive no direct benefit, but we are betting on a future in which we can generate all of the electricity we consume. In addition, of course, we care about environmental issues,” Marozzi said in a conversation from his town.
The 880-panel solar park with 200 kW of installed power is currently being expanded to 275 kW thanks to the money that Armstrong saved from energy that was not purchased in recent years from the national grid. The local residents who make up the cooperative decided that the savings from what was generated with solar energy should be invested in the park.
Two workers carry out maintenance tasks at the solar park in Monte Caseros, a town in the Argentine province of Corrientes, in the northeast of the country. The park was inaugurated in 2021 by the local cooperative, which provides electricity to the residents and is also involved in agricultural activity. CREDIT: Monte Caseros Agricultural and Electricity Cooperative
A replicated model
In Argentina there are about 600 electrical cooperatives in small cities and towns in the interior of the country, which were born in the mid-20th century, when the national grid was still quite limited and access to electric power was a problem.
These cooperatives usually buy and distribute energy in towns. But the members of dozens of them realized that they too could generate clean electricity, after visiting Armstrong’s project, and launched their own renewable energy initiatives.
“The cooperative was born in 1977 out of the need to bring energy to rural residents,” engineer Germán Judiche, the association’s technical manager, told IPS. “Today we have a honey packaging plant and a cluster of silos for rice, the main crop in the area. Since 2018 we have also distributed internet service and in 2020 we partnered with the province’s public electricity company to venture into renewable energy.”
The Monte Caseros solar park has 400 kW of installed capacity thanks to 936 solar panels. It was inaugurated in September 2021 and has provided such good results that a second park, with similar characteristics, is about to begin to be built by the 650-member cooperative, because it supplies only rural residents of the municipality.
“We have done everything with the cooperative’s own labor and the design by engineers from the National University of the Northeast (UNNE), from our province,” said Judiche. “It is definitely a model that can be replicated. Renewable energy is our future,” he added from his town, some 700 kilometers north of Buenos Aires.
Solar panels can be seen in the backyard of Adrián Marozzi, a resident of the town of Armstrong. Neither he nor the other residents who agreed to give up part of their yards or rooftops receive direct advantages, since the energy savings are capitalized by the cooperative, which thus has to buy less electricity from the national grid. CREDIT: FARN
A slow and bumpy road
According to official figures, the distributed or decentralized generation of renewable energy for self-consumption, which allows the surplus to be injected into the grid, has 1,167 generators registered in 13 of Argentina’s 23 provinces, with more than 20 megawatts of installed power.
Electricity cooperatives that have their own renewable energy generation projects operate under this system.
In total, in this country of 44 million people, renewable energies covered almost 14 percent of the demand for electricity in 2022 and have more than 5,000 MW of installed capacity, although there are practically no major new projects to expand their proportion of the energy mix.
Most of the electricity demand is covered by thermal generation, which contributes more than 25,000 MW, mainly from oil but also from natural gas. Hydropower is the next largest source, with more than 10,000 MW from large dams greater than 50 MW, which are not considered renewable.
Pablo Bertinat, director of the Energy and Sustainability Observatory of the National Technological University (UTN) based in the city of Rosario, also in Santa Fe, explained that in a country like Argentina it is impossible to follow a model like Germany’s widespread residential generation of renewable energy, because it requires investments that are not viable.
“Community-based projects, which are feasible, have several advantages: they improve local autonomy in the generation of electricity, they allow money to be saved from the energy that is not purchased, which can be reinvested in the city, and they promote the decentralization of decision-making in the energy system,” added Bertinat, speaking from Rosario.
The expert said that the cooperatives’ renewable energy projects are advancing slowly in Argentina, despite the fact that there is no credit nor favorable policies – an indication that they could have a very strong impact on the entire electrical system and even on the generation of employment, if there were tools to promote renewables.
“Our aim is to demonstrate that not only large companies can advance the agenda of promoting renewable energy and the replacement of fossil fuels. In Argentina, cooperatives are also an important actor on this path,” Bertinat said.
The case of Armstrong also sparked interest from the environmental movement, which is helping to drive the growth of renewable energy in the country.
Jazmín Rocco Predassi, head of Climate Policy at the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), told IPS that this is “an illustration that the energy transition does not always come from top-down initiatives, but that communities can organize themselves, together with cooperatives, municipal governments or science and technology institutes, to generate the transformations that the energy system needs.”
Long wait at the border between Sudan and Egypt. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS
by Hisham Allam (cairo)
Inter Press Service
CAIRO, May 25 (IPS) – The conflict in Sudan is impacting the economy in Egypt, and those who make their living moving goods across the borders have spent weeks hoping the situation will normalize.
Muhammad Saqr, a truck driver, left Cairo with a load of thinners on April 13, heading to Khartoum. By the time he had arrived at the border, the battle had flared up. Saqr remained, like dozens of trucks, waiting for the borders to be reopened.
On April 15, 2023, clashes erupted in Sudan between the army led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hamidti.” According to the UN, the clashes have resulted in hundreds of deaths and displaced more than a million people, with 840,000 internally displaced while another 250,000 have crossed the borders.
Saqr was stuck at the border for 28 days.
“We began to run out of supplies, and we reassured ourselves that the situation would improve tomorrow. Twenty-eight days passed while we slept in the open. The information we received from the bus drivers transporting the displaced from Sudan to Egypt convinced us that there would be no immediate relief. We knew that if we entered Khartoum alive, we would leave in shrouds,” Saqr told IPS.
“The merchant to whom we were transferring the goods asked us to wait and not return (home), particularly because he could not pay the customs duties due to the banks’ closure.”
Muhammad Saqr at the border of Sudan and Egypt.
Eventually, they returned with the goods to Cairo, Saqr said.
Mahmoud Asaad, a driver, was stuck on the Sudanese side of the border. Due to customs papers and permits, the livestock he was transporting had already been stuck in the customs barn in Wadi Halfa, Sudan, for thirty days. Then when the conflict broke out, the cows were trapped for another thirty days.
“We used to transport shipments of animals from Sudan to Egypt regularly,” Asaad explains. The average daily transport of animals to Egypt was roughly 60 trucks laden with cows and camels. This trade has stopped, and many Sudanese importers have fled to Egypt while waiting for the conflict to end.
“Sudan is regarded as a gateway for Egyptian exports to enter the markets of the Nile Basin countries and East Africa, and the continuation of war and insecurity will reduce the volume of trade exchange between the two countries, negatively impacting the Egyptian economy, which is currently experiencing some crises,” Matta Bishai, head of the Internal Trade and Supply Committee of the Importer’s Division of the General Federation of Chambers of Commerce, told IPS.
According to Bishai, commodity prices have risen significantly in recent months as the Egyptian pound has fallen against the US dollar. He also stated that the current situation in Sudan would result in additional price increases in the coming months, particularly for commodities imported from Sudan, such as meat.
Bishai explained that while Egypt had an ample domestic meat supply, it was nevertheless reliant on imports. Importing it from other countries such as Colombia, Brazil, and Chad would take longer and be more expensive than importing it from Sudan, as land transport is more convenient and cheaper than transporting the goods by sea.
According to Bishai, Sudan is a major supplier of livestock and live meat to Egypt, supplying about 10 percent of Egypt’s requirements. Higher meat prices will put additional pressure on Egypt’s inflation rates.
“Rising commodity prices, combined with the current situation in Sudan, are expected to result in higher inflation rates in Egypt in the coming months,” said Bishai.
According to data from the General Authority for Export and Import Control on trade exchange between Egypt and the African continent during the first quarter of this year, Sudan ranked second among the top five markets receiving Egyptian exports, valued at USD 226 million.
According to Ahmed Samir, the Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry, the volume of trade exchange between Egypt and African markets amounted to about USD 2,12 billion in the first quarter of this year, with the value of Egyptian commodity exports to the continent totaling USD 1,61 billion and Egyptian imports from the continent totaling UD 506 million.
Mohamed Al-Kilani, an economics professor and member of the Egyptian Society of Political Economy, said: “The negative consequences will be felt in the trade exchange, which has recently increased and reached USD2 billion. Egypt has attempted to expedite the import process from Sudan by expanding the road network and building a railway.”
Credit rating agency Moody’s warned that should the conflict in Sudan continue for an extended period, it would have an adverse credit impact on neighboring countries and impact multilateral development banks. Moody’s added that if the clashes in Sudan turn into a long civil war, destroying infrastructure and worsening social conditions, there will be long-term economic consequences and a decline in the quality of Sudan’s multilateral banks’ assets, as well as an increase in non-performing loans and liquidity.
As the conflict entered its sixth week, attempts at a ceasefire have failed – with both sides accusing each other of violating agreements.
WASHINGTON DC, May 23 (IPS) – Global fisheries are worth more than US$140 billion each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. But this hefty sum does not capture the true value of fish to ocean health, and to the food security and cultures of communities around the world.
Unfortunately, many important populations were allowed to be overfished for decades by the same regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) charged with their conservation and sustainable use, and in some regions, this continues.
At the same time, the demand for fish continues to grow— from consumers of high-end bluefin tuna sushi to coastal communities who depend on seafood as their primary source of protein. So, RFMOs and governments must do more to ensure sustainable fishing and long-term ocean health.
More than 20 years ago, the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA) entered into force as the only global, binding instrument holding governments accountable for managing the shared fish stocks of the high seas.
Under the agreement, fish should be managed sustainably and consistent with the best available science. Governments that are party to this treaty—and to RFMOs—are supposed to follow its management obligations, and work towards greater sustainability of the transboundary species, including tunas and sharks, vital to the ocean and economies.
Five of those RFMOs focus specifically on tuna management, one each in the Atlantic, eastern Pacific, western and central Pacific, Indian, and Southern oceans. They operate autonomously and, although there is some overlap among their constituent members, each sets its own rules for tuna fishing in its waters.
This makes UNFSA critical to successful management of tuna fisheries. And because the tuna RFMOs manage some of the world’s most iconic species, they often set the tone for how other similar bodies operate.
All of this is pertinent now because UNFSA member governments are meeting in New York May 22-26 to evaluate whether RFMOs are performing consistent with their commitments. A similar review was conducted in 2016, and although management has improved over time, some areas require more work, especially when it comes to ending overfishing and considering the health and biodiversity of the entire ecosystem.
Since 2016, the share of highly migratory stocks that are overfished increased from 36% to 40%, making it all the more urgent for governments to act quickly.
UNFSA calls on RFMOs to be precautionary in how they regulate fishing, although that guidance is not always followed. There are several examples of extensive overfishing of target species, such as bluefin tuna in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans; yellowfin tuna in the Indian Ocean; and mako, oceanic whitetip sharks and other species that are caught unintentionally.
Although the RFMOs that manage these fisheries have stopped the overfishing in some cases, in others they have not. But there are signs of progress. Over the past decade, a new precautionary management approach known as harvest strategies has gained traction among RFMOs.
These strategies (or management procedures) are science-based rules that automatically adjust catch limits based on several factors, such as population status. If widely implemented, they should end overfishing and prevent it from threatening these populations again.
Harvest strategies have already been successful, particularly in the Southern and Atlantic oceans, where they’ve been adopted for several species, including bluefin tuna and cod, fish stocks for which precautionary management has historically been difficult, or even controversial.
While this progress is important, UNFSA members are still falling short in an area they have agreed is critically important: taking an ecosystem approach to management. For generations, fisheries managers focused on individual fish stocks—adopting catch limits and other measures with little thought to the broader ecosystem.
Science shows that maintaining ecosystem health is critical to sustainable fishing. Yet, to date, RFMOs largely have not consistently assessed or addressed the wider impacts of fishing on ecosystems, including predator-prey relationships, habitat for target and non-target species, and other factors.
Instead, most action has been limited to reducing the impact of bycatch on individual shark species. Better data collection and sharing, and more monitoring of fishing activities, could help integrate stronger ecosystem considerations into management. The more RFMOs can build the whole ecosystem into their decisions, the better it will be for their fisheries.
For example, in the western and central Pacific, the $10 billion skipjack tuna fishery is an enormous economic driver for island nations that are threatened by climate change. But the harvest strategy in place there is nonbinding and unimplemented.
For a fishery facing changes in stock distribution due to warming waters, as well as increased market pressures, delayed action on implementation—and a lack of an ecosystem approach—may make matters worse.
At this week’s UNFSA meeting, RFMOs should be commended for the work they have done in the seven years since the last review. Good progress has been made, including improvements to compliance efforts, and monitoring and enforcement to fight illegal fishing.
But many of the legal obligations of the treaty remain unfulfilled. As such, sustainability is still out of reach for some critically important stocks, and almost no ecosystem-based protections are in place.
As governments convene this week, they should look to the lessons of the past—when poor decision-making threatened the future of some fisheries—and seize the opportunity to modernize management and adhere to the promises they have made on conservation. The biodiversity in the world’s ocean shouldn’t have to wait another seven years for action.
Grantly Galland leads policy work related to regional fisheries management organizations for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ international fisheries project.
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