Brighter Green

Working a Bit on Agriculture in Bonn

mia[at]brightergreen[dot]org (Mia MacDonald) — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:13:24 CDT

Bonn Conference

Should a "work program" on agriculture be launched by the scientific and technical body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)? Governments' perspectives on agriculture were shared vocally during a morning session at the UN climate change talks in Bonn today (longer texts were submitted earlier this year; civil society organizations also had a chance to weigh in in writing). As with many meetings at the climate talks, this one started late and ran long. And as with many meetings here, too, a distinct difference emerged in the positions of Annex I (read industrialized) and non-Annex I countries (all the others). In the main, the Annex I submissions focused on the potential for mitigation (i.e. reducing greenhouse emissions) in the agricultural sector; some also referenced the "synergies" between mitigation and adaptation (adjustments to the realities of climate change, including erratic rainfall, drought, and warmer temperatures); a few confirmed their concern for ensuring food security as a priority.

Developing countries, speaking in regional blocs and a few individually, stressed the urgent need for adaptation in their agricultural sectors—and financing, technical support, and technology transfer to make this possible. Most also rejected any notion of achieving reductions in their agricultural emissions given domestic food needs and global warming's negative impacts on agricultural productivity and reliability—already broadly evident. Interestingly, when the Annex countries speak of mitigation, their implicit (even if unstated) focus is developing countries. I didn't hear any industrialized country (and among those speaking were the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Japan) say or even allude to adopting a program to mitigate their own agricultural emissions, which, in most, are very large, including because they have large livestock populations and consistent, intensive production of meat, dairy products, and eggs.

Other NGOs here read between the lines: the Annex I countries want to "offset" their emissions (agricultural and non-) by supporting GHG mitigation through "carbon sequestration" in soils in the global South. Many Southern governments and NGOs are skeptical about who would benefit and who would pay . . . even more than they have for climate change already. The chairperson will reconvene the "contact group" (sorry, more UN-speak) on Friday morning. He'll summarize and then the statements will begin again. Adaptation? Mitigation? Synergies? Commitments? Action? Inaction? All are still on the table here in Bonn. More views on the potential "work program" on agriculture soon.

The Judges Have Chosen a Winner: Eat Ethically (If You Can.)

(Roz Palmer) — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:26:12 CDT

Livestock eaten around the world

The New York Times' ethicist, Ariel Kaminer, has announced the results of her Ethical Meat-Eating Contest. Turns out eating meat is ethical when it's ethical (More about the winner below). Fortunately, Ms. Kaminer addressed some of the criticism she got for the contest: "Some critics insisted that even contemplating a life without meat was an indulgent luxury, a silly game for a wealthy first-worlder. I found this puzzling — as if the poor feast nightly on roast suckling pig and only the 1 percent eat boiled tubers." True, the majority of the world's population is not eating roast suckling pig. What meat-eaters are eating is for the most part malnourished, mistreated, factory-farmed pork, beef, and chicken by the ton. And actually, I think it is true that the "1 percent" can probably freely decide to plant, harvest and boil their organic tubers with much greater ease than the "99 percent." Some folks, like the people who submitted to the ethicist's competition, can decide to eat a pig or to eat potatoes every day for the rest of their life, and others cannot.

The competition winner, for example, decides not to buy beef from an industrial farm, and also has the option of maintaining a small farm with legal rights in place to prevent land-usurpation from governments and corporations, pollution by nearby industry, and pressure from GMO seed companies like Monsanto. Some omnivores do not have that option, which means their choice to eat meat is not quite like the winner's. Many of the contests' submissions recognize the general problem with the way meat is produced. It is the production, not the ethics of meat, that requires mainstream attention and action.

And unfortunately, the ethicist bases some of her wrap-up on unhelpful generalizations about production and consumption: "over all, rich nations eat much more meat than poor ones, and raising animals for food takes more agricultural resources than raising crops. In any case, a vast number of the world’s ethical vegetarians live in India. Caviar is a luxury. Ethical discussion is not." Again, the global meat-eating discussion really isn't about caviar or a single suckling pig, and it's also not strictly correlated with rich vs. poor countries. The fact that raising animals requires many more resources than crops does not, in any reality, mean that only rich countries produce it.

The speedy overhaul in lifestyle in countries around the globe is what's more troubling. Meat consumption in India (that country that Ms. Kaminer referred to as a hot spot of ethical vegetarianism) has increased drastically in recent years, and "eating non-vegetarian food is no longer a luxury." What does it mean that a people's religiously-based ethics are quickly shifting in the face of increased availability of meat? Maybe they are mutually exclusive, but the correlation seems blaring. And if Ms. Kaminer's prize example of ethical vegetarianism is quickly decreasing in vegetarians, what does that mean for the less (or not at all) vegetarianism-inclined nations?

China's meat consumption has also shot up: in 1978 China ate 8 million tons (one third of the U.S.'s consumption), and now, as of April 24, eats 71 million tons of meat per year -- more than double that of the U.S. The sheer upward trends of these two countries' meat consumption, whether they are rich, poor, historically vegetarian or not are not wavering, because the conversation is now: 'how do we produce more, faster, and is our competition doing that better than us?' (China's solution is to "move from backyard farms to Western-style large, consolidated operations to keep up with demand"). The conversation that is driving meat-eating to an ever-increasing global record doesn't touch ethics, culture, or religion with a 40-foot pole.

The winning essay eloquently circumvents the industrial discussion by asserting personal choice: whatever you eat, eat what's grown ethically. The writer, Jay Bost, who is a self-described "farmworker, plant geek, agroecologist and foodie" outlines the three-steps of being an ethical omnivore: first, you accept the life/death cycle, "second, you...choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain and/or meat. And third, you give thanks." Well put, in my opinion, and granted that the contest was to make a strictly ethical argument. But where do the non-farmer/agroecologist/foodies get their meat? Where it's available, from wherever that is, regardless of the animals' welfare, for that tantalizingly low price (which is a false price, if you include subsidies and environmental degradation). And what are the ethical farmer/agroecologist/foodies supposed to do beyond their own ethical choices? We can't all hold ourselves responsible for other people's eating habits -- that is disrespectful and alienating in some cases. So where do all of our well-argued ethics get us?

I'm very grateful to Ariel Karimer and the New York Times for setting up this platform in the mainstream, and I agree with one of the judges, Andrew Light, that “if we can’t all at least agree that there is a moral issue at stake then there’s very little chance we’ll be able to discuss our differences on these issues." But the morality at stake can't be where we stop, or we will simply find new and better ways to defend our morals. Can we use this momentum of discussion to take our personal, ethical eating to a broader level, so that the practices that we readers find unethical can be finally abolished?

“Lurking beneath these submissions,” Jonathan Safran Foer (another judge) said, “is a shared dissatisfaction with our current system of meat production, a shared anger.” If none of us, not even voracious carnivores (including the lions, sharks and venus-flytraps that some of the contest's submissions mentioned), wants to eat factory-farmed meat, why is meat still being factory-farmed? It's clear that meat-consumption involves more than ethical debates; how will we address the government subsidies, corporate control, environmental degradation, and intensive water-demand of industrial farming? (All of these issues are detailed in Brighter Green's policy papers).

The ethicist summarized her favorite essay (which got no votes from the judges) as follows: "like it or not, when we render this planet uninhabitable, we’re going to have to move to another, and the only thing that’s going to make anyone let animals into the spaceship is the chance to eat them." When we move to a different planet? I'm sort of attached to this one -- it being a homey balance of gas, liquid and solid, perfect for human survival without our having to do anything at all, which is why it's kind of puzzling that we're swiftly and purposefully destroying it. As the title of the contest said, "Put Your Ethics Where Your Mouth Is," but this time around, can we stop chatting about why it's okay for a privileged few to eat lovingly raised meat when we have a global problem of industrial-scale food production at the table?

Image courtesy of Brighter Green

Ethical (Meat?) Eating

(Roz Palmer) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:21:29 CDT

Small-scale, conscientious farming

The New York Times launched a contest last month that asked its readers to ethically defend their meat-eating. Six finalists have been chosen by a panel of (all-star and, some have noted, all white male) judges, and the winner was chosen Wednesday. The contest is obviously an interesting challenge, since it is usually vegetarians and vegans who have to defend their eating habits, but as some of the readers of the initial article pointed out in their comments, the question of ethics in meat-eating is a "first-world problem." The ethics of meat-eating is only discussed in a very small circle, while nutrition, status, convenience and other less choice-driven factors are the more pervasive culprits of meat production on a massive scale.

All of the articles (except the two that don't technically defend eating meat as it is traditionally defined) make excellent arguments for the conscientious eating of meat -- and 'in moderation,' when not explicit, is implied. Most of them make arguments along the lines of: eating meat is natural, the cycle of life depends on animal farming, with thoughtfulness and moderation meat-eating is morally correct, etc. And of course, this all may be true, and the farmers, environmentalists, and conscientious humans who have written these winning essays clearly have given extra-ordinary amounts of thought to this question.

But as we can now see in the industry that has usurped ethical meat-eating in moderation, the global trend in meat consumption is a much broader problem involving the regular availability of meat in cultures that until recently enjoyed vegetable-heavy diets, and the convenience and low cost of meat in cultures that are dominated by fast-food advertising and eating-on-the-go. As the demand for meat increases, the implications of its consumption grow distant from the simplicity of the natural cycles that the winning essayists describe. This is not only true for meat, it is true for anything produced on a large-scale farm, including the soybeans that are fed (nearly 90 percent of the global harvest) to farmed animals (even as soy is a popular meat substitute. But we have to eat something)!

One essay in the contest makes the eloquent point that it is not the eating of meat or vegetables that need be defended, but the practice of conscientious and small-scale farming to produce our food. Almost all of the essayists demonstrate that a more holistic conversation would be a more fruitful one -- one that encompasses not only meat, but also our human footprint in general. The results of the voting are more telling about the discussion than anything else: if thousands of people are taking the time to vote on who makes the best argument for eating meat, could it mean that enough people are thinking about it to address the more pervasive drivers of intensive production? Unfortunately eating ethical meat does not mean that only ethical meat is produced world-wide; nor does not eating meat at all.

So what will it take to turn individual ethical concerns into a global challenge to industrial farming? How can this conversation deconstruct the wide-spread farming practices that we condemn but allow? The essayists concede the effects that meat production has beyond their stomachs and consciences. Most of them talk about small-scale farms or personal connection to the slaughtering of their food. NPR's The Salt also published an article yesterday about the intersection of farming, health, and ecosystems. Can the growing awareness of our food production's effects reach a large enough scale to produce real, holistic, and global results? The essayists were not just talking about eating meat, and hopefully soon that will be true on a wider scale.

Photo courtesy of Eric Constantineau

USAID Wants "More Beef" to Feed Growing Population

(Alli Tamboline) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:31:26 CDT

Free-range cattle grazing

An estimated 7 billion people are living on this planet, and that number is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. In any situation in which sharing is involved, issues of equity and distribution arise. USAID recently released an infographic related to population growth and the need to improve our agricultural practices in order to feed 9 billion mouths by 2050. It is evident that the only way to feed a growing population is to increase our food production, but at what cost?

The infographic makes an alarming assertion that “annual beef production must rise by over 100%” in order to feed our growing population. Brighter Green’s project on the harmful effects of the intensification of animal agriculture, Climate Change and the Globalization of Factory Farming, highlights the detrimental implications of adopting factory farming techniques throughout the world.

It is also common knowledge that a majority of grains we currently produce go to the animal agriculture sector to feed animals for slaughter. Wouldn’t our resources be better allocated if we increase our agricultural productivity to feed our growing population, rather than intensifying our meat production?

Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) has taken an interest in exploring the relationship between agriculture and the private and public sectors. A recent event for SAIS’s “Year of Agriculture" addressed the “cultural” war between conventional and organic farming. There are many issues associated with improving agricultural yields (including the use of genetically altered crops to increase production) so it will be interesting to see what kind of information can be derived from such debate. Ultimately, we need to feed our growing population by�increasing agricultural production in the most sustainable way.

Photo courtesy of Ed Yourdon

Jacaranda and Wings: Part 2

mia[at]brightergreen[dot]org (Mia MacDonald) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:19:40 CDT

Long lines at a KFC in Johannesburg

This blog was originally posted on Brighter Green partner A Well Fed World's blog on April 13, 2012. This is the second of two parts.

What made KFC’s entry into the Kenyan market possible was securing a reliable supply chain. That is, finding a producer of chicken that could ensure consistency to KFC’s specifications, meet demand, and provide refrigeration and traceability from “farm to fork” as Kenchic, the largest poultry integrator in east and central Africa defines it. Kenchic, which runs hatcheries, “farms,” slaughterhouses, and processing plants, as well as its own quick serve restaurant chain in Kenya, “Kenchic Inn,” fit the bill. The company’s tag line is “We are ‘kuku’ about chicken.” Kuku is Swahili for chicken; in English, the spoken word conveys an almost loopy enthusiasm.

As in other countries where U.S. fast food corporations are expanding rapidly—there are 3,000 KFCs and counting in China; 70 already in India—factory farm operations are central to the supply chain.

Kenchic’s chickens are kept in facilities akin to U.S.-style “broiler sheds:” a set of large buildings set back from a major road in Mlonlongo, near Nairobi’s international airport (a Kenchic Inn operates nearby), which I saw from a distance last year.

What makes KFC in Kenya so jarring? I’ve been visiting the country for years and while there’s not a dearth of “home-grown” informal eateries featuring Western-style burger and chicken meals, fast food culture is not widespread, and Nairobi—thankfully—doesn’t have the Western chains that often dominate cities in Asia and Latin America. But it does have a growing middle class for whom Western brands have a certain glamour—and those brands want to reach new markets.

In Nairobi, KFC is still a novelty. In South Africa, though, where it’s operated for forty years, it is, according to the KFC website, a national “institution.” �Five hundred KFCs populate southern Africa, a majority in South Africa, where I can attest that they are hard to avoid. I saw more KFCs than I see even in the U.S. when I attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 17th “conference of parties” (or COP 17) meeting in Durban late last year.

Colonel Sanders’ elderly white male visage as a backdrop of sorts for a climate change summit—in South Africa, no less—was surreal. So was watching some of my Kenyan colleagues also attending COP 17 (none of whom had eaten at Nairobi’s new KFCs), getting a late night meal at an obligingly open Durban McDonald’s, one of many. No McDonald’s yet operates in Nairobi, but that may change soon—a story, I think, for another day.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Attaway, Flickr

Jacaranda and Wings: Part 1

mia[at]brightergreen[dot]org (Mia MacDonald) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:17:13 CDT

Outside of East Africa's first KFC

This blog was originally posted on Brighter Green partner A Well Fed World's blog on Friday April 13, 2012. This is the first of two parts.

I read about it before I actually saw it: the first East African outpost of an American fast food chain, a KFC in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Media reports said that a throng of Kenyans had lined up to get in on opening day, filing past the yellow external facade and a huge plastic image of Colonel Sanders’ goateed face, red apron, and Southern U.S. string tie. Many had eaten at KFC or other U.S. fast food outlets while traveling or living outside Kenya, like one of KFC’s first customers in Nairobi, Zahir Lalji. “We’re really happy it’s here,” he told the Associated Press. “We’re hoping McDonald’s will come in too.”

Not everyone in Nairobi felt that way. This first KFC (there’s now another one) is located in a popular shopping center, Nakumatt Junction, along with a Nakumatt supermarket, clothing and electronics stores, a health food shop, and a branch of Java House, a Kenyan chain coffee bar and cafe that, somewhat improbably, always stocks soy milk.

“I was amazed one day as we were driving into Junction. On the outside was a big KFC sign with the bucket,” a colleague wrote when I asked her about the KFC. “It looked really misplaced. It was bad enough to have the South African fried chicken bunch [Nando’s] in Kenya, but now this�you can only project our quality of life index! Sedentary and KFC!” KFC in Kenya also has South African roots: it’s the brainchild of a South African entrepreneur, who bought the franchise license and trained many of the Nairobi KFC managers in South Africa.

A few months after the opening, I too, got to gawk at the jarring sight of Nairobi’s first KFC, or at least the exterior, since I was at Nakumatt Junction early in the day, before KFC had opened. The only activity I saw was a KFC employee wiping down the large, street-facing windows. The promotion staff must also be busy: this KFC has its own Facebook page, with over 2,500 “likes.”

“KFC?” Jau, a Nairobi taxi driver I know, parried when I asked him what he thought about the fast food chain’s being in Nairobi as we drove past the second KFC (at least two more are set to open this year), also in an upscale mall. “It’s expensive, you know,” he added. Did he want to go? “Not really,” he replied. “I can get a better-tasting chicken for less money elsewhere.” Another taxi driver, less prosperous than Jau, was more intrigued. “If I get the money�” he told me.

Photo courtesy of Mia MacDonald

Unspoken Cultural Costs to India’s First Mega-Dairy: Part II

(Jessika Ava) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:00:34 CDT

Dairy farmer pumps water for one of his cows in Jharkhand

This is the second of two blogs examining just a few of the unspoken cultural costs to India as a result of the transition from small-scale dairy operations to factory-style mega-dairies, like the recently opened Bhagylaxmi Dairy Farm.

For India, the killing of cows is a cultural taboo. Currently cow slaughter is illegal in all but two states, and is regularly met with much controversy. But all cows within industrialized farms will befall the same slaughterhouse fate, and subsequent to intensification of dairy will be a drastic rise in both abattoirs and slaughtered animals. How will traditional Indians react to this undermining of thousands of years of moral and cultural heritage?

The mega-dairy industry is a very profitable business, and India, with her projected growth in dairy demand, is an ideal candidate for international development. But with western countries only now beginning to come to terms with the negative outcomes of mega-dairies—from the inherent abusive animal husbandry practices, to the devastating environmental impacts—is this the path India truly desires to walk? Political and industry leaders should consider this issue critically, from both cost and benefit aspects. India is at a turning point, she easily has the opportunity to set a global precedence and choose the traditional mores of her people, the livelihoods of rural and women local farmers, and the well-being of her most sacred animal, over succumbing to the tempting high profits of the global dairy boom.

One of the often overlooked yet greatly significant cost to industrialization of dairy are the lives of the animals who are affected by factory farms. Although it is true that compared to traditional India dairy farms, animals within industrialized farms have access to healthier food, and regular veterinarian care, industrialized systems also breed a plethora of novel welfare concerns. These concerns are not limited to stress and fear of overcrowding, udder infection, debilitating hoof and leg injuries, metabolic disease, bodily mutations, continuous confinement, and the stress of repeated impregnation and immediate separation from calves. Will India, with a history based in the tradition of Ahimsa, consent to this type of treatment towards animals?

For more on issues of equity and animal welfare in India's dairy industry, see our policy paper, Veg or Non-Veg: India at the Crossroads and other related materials.

Photo courtesy of premasagar, Flickr

Unspoken Cultural Costs to India’s First Mega-Dairy: Part I

(Jessika Ava) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 11:13:02 CDT

Dairy cow from a small-scale farm in Jharkhand

Last year, Bhagylaxmi Dairy Farm in the city of Pune opened as India’s first industrialized mega-dairy with a total of 3000 Holstein-Friesian cows. Although India is currently the world’s top producer of cow’s milk, the burgeoning middle class is increasing demand for more westernized diets, including meat, eggs, and dairy. Subsequently, the industrialization of dairy is on the verge of taking over India’s current village coop model.

Bhagylaxmi Dairy promotes their farm as producing a more hygienic cow’s milk and presenting improved welfare conditions for the animals. However, as supporters speak greatly of the benefits, they fail to mention the costs of introducing intensive dairy farms to India, including costs imposed upon India’s cultural values. This is the first of two blogs examining just a few of these unspoken cultural costs.

Currently, the Indian government considers the dairy sector as a source of both rural empowerment and poverty elimination, and is comprised mostly of village cooperatives. Additionally, coops are comprised predominantly of women and offer an opportunity for women to independently hold a small business and contribute to her family’s income. However, if India makes the decision to continue the trend towards more industrialized dairy farming practices, how will this impact poor rural and women farmers?

Furthermore, the sanctity of indigenous cows is an identifying facet of India’s traditional Hindu culture. However, if India decides to make the agricultural shift from cooperative farming to factory farming, will the country’s perception of these animals begin to shift from reverence to complete utilitarian? And will the traditional clout of the sacred breed be able to outweigh industry’s attempts to “improve indigenous stock” by introducing high milk-yielding pedigree breeds to local farmers? Or is it conceivable that India’s holy animals are facing an emerging threat of their eventual eradication?

For more on issues of equity and animal welfare in India's dairy industry, see our policy paper, Veg or Non-Veg: India at the Crossroads and other related materials.

Photo courtesy of premasagar, Flickr

Growing the Movement for Nature's Rights

(Roz Palmer) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:31:37 CDT

Writing natural law

The Earth Island Journal recently published a resource-filled article on natural law, which is becoming an ever-hotter topic in the environmental advocacy realm. Covering the history and key players in the ongoing campaign for the rights of nature, author and editor of the Earth Island Journal, Jason Mark, begins the article with Tamaqua, Pennsylvania's unprecedented recognition of the rights of "natural communities to flourish." The councilwoman who enacted it, Cathy Miorelli, had no ecological agenda when she ran for city council, but she thought it was self evident that nature should have rights, and collaborators from The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) helped carry her thinking into law.

Several organizations like CELDF in the U.S. and abroad have been working on nature's rights campaigns for years, and the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature launched a petition they hope will be signed by one million people to declare the Universal Acceptance of the Rights of Nature at Earth Summit Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development being held in Rio de Janeiro this June. Of course, the biggest victory thus far for nature’s rights is Equador’s constitution, which since 2008 has included a chapter protecting nature’s inherent right to thrive. Thus far, only one case has been brought to court to protect a river from a road-widening operation. CELDF representatives say the outcome has been slightly disappointing, but the fact of it being brought to trial is important nonetheless. Bolivia’s parliament, too, has made strides for nature’s rights by passing the Law of the Mother Earth, but the ministry that is to enforce the law has not been established. The impacts of these laws have not yet proven their potential for positive change, but some activists say it's not the law that matters, but the shift in the human relationship to the earth.

The article elaborates on these cases and their potential impact on the environment, citing the influence of South African attorney Cormac Cullinan, who coined much of the language that defines the Rights of Nature, detailed in his book, Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice. But the author is careful to note that these calls for the rights of nature are not the first of their kind by any means. Mark reminds the reader that ancient Roman legislation and many present cultures and religions have consistently protected the rights of the natural world for its own sake. He argues that Western Enlightenment thinking initiated the anthropocentricism we practice in western law today: if it is not for a human cause, it does not have worth.

Corporations play a huge role in whether natural laws get passed, as their interests lie in profiting from resources that nature provides. Corporations’ rights, which in the U.S. include free speech and many other human rights, have overridden the rights of nature in certain cases, but it is hard to tell how all of this will play out until more cases are brought to court.

Michael Feinstein, the Green Party of California spokesperson and former Santa Monica Mayor, beautifully describes the inherent link between corporations’ and nature’s rights in his address to the Santa Monica city council. Nature’s rights are viewed as “illegal impediments” to the “free flow of capital,” and are therefore a threat to corporate ventures. CELDF also recently released two documents to address the wider scope that must be taken to conquer the corporate obstacle on several planes, the most important being communities’ ability to exercise democratic decision-making without interference from corporate agendas.

The idea of writing nature in to law (and writing corporate personhood out) is growing, and what was previously a surprising amendment to the justice system could become a highly-effective avenue to environmental sustainability. Jason Mark ends the piece with a quote from the influential article, “Should Trees Have Standing,” written by legal scholar Chris Stone: “Each time there is a movement to confer rights onto some new ‘entity,’ the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable.” It may sound silly now for a river or an animal to have the same rights that a human does, and many think it is not our place to authorize other species to do what should come naturally, but a complete change of consciousness is necessary.

If we cannot universally rearrange our anthropocentric view of the environment by our own free will (or despite corporate influence), maybe a law can impose the perspective we need, and allow a different paradigm to filter into mainstream consciousness that way. And maybe a few generations down the line it will be laughable that nature -- this beautiful, diverse, self-generating entity -- didn’t have a right to live, because what would our rights matter without it?

Photo courtesy of Earth Island Journal

Low Lying Islands On High Moral Ground

(Sangamithra Iyer) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:55:00 CDT

President Mohamed �Anni� Nasheed

Last week, I had a chance to see The Island President, a film by Jon Shenk about Mohammed Nasheed, the former President of the Maldives, and his fight for climate justice. Shenk followed Nasheed from his election in 2008, which overthrew 30 years of dictatorship under Maumoon Abdul Gayoon, through the COP15 climate change talks in Copenhagen in 2009. There, he was an impassioned advocate for the future of his country, a low-lying archipelago that is vulnerable to sea level rise.

“What is the point of having a democracy, if you don’t have a country,” Nasheed asked, launching his battle to instill the reality of climate change to his fellow heads of state. Nasheed reminds us that Male, the capital of the Maldives, is no higher than Manhattan. “What happens to the Maldives today is going to happen to everyone else tomorrow."

Nasheed is a compelling leader, knowing how to think like a scientist and like a minister. We witness the tension between him and the leaders of other developing countries like India and China, who are reluctant to curb their emissions feeling it would unfairly limit their growth. By contrast, Nasheed committs the Maldives to becoming carbon-neutral in 10 years. While this alone will not be enough to save them, he states, “At least we will die knowing we have done the right thing.” With rising sea levels, the only high ground to stand on is a moral one.

COP15 essentially preserved the negotiating process, but the agreement that came out of it wasn’t the fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty that was desired. COP16 in Cancun and COP17 in Durban did not pan out either. “By now you all must be pretty fed up with governments,” Nasheed said to the crowd in the theater in New York last week.

But Nasheed is an optimist. “We can lose many, many battles, but we cannot lose the war,” he said. In the film, we learn about Nasheed’s past as a former political prisoner, locked in a shack in solitary confinement for 18 months. There, he said, he took long walks in his mind, even though physical space was restricted. We learn he was first arrested in 1990 for establishing a political magazine called Sangu, which scrutinized the ruling dictatorship.

I was curious to learn more about this magazine Sangu, bearing my nickname. The Sunday Leader provided some context:

"The 'Sangu’ which meant Conchshell which in South Asia has been traditionally used as a trumpet to make announcements. The quality of Sangu was heart breaking. It was loose rough cyclostyled paper clipped together but conveying the voice of freedom from the archipelago."

Literary Animal: Reading India, Part V

(Sangamithra Iyer) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:29:28 CDT

In her book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo chronicles the lives of the squatters in a slum called Annawadi on the outskirts of Mumbai’s airport. Boo provides an intimate look at a changing India and the divide between the rich and poor. In this case, the divide is physical. Annawadi sits behind a concrete wall plastered with advertisements for a floor tile company with the slogan “Beautiful Forever.” This installment of the Literary Animal: Reading India blog series, will highlight some of Boo’s literary reportage.

Part V: Waste pickers, Women, and Horses

One of the main characters in this book is a young man named Abdul: “What he knew about, mainly was trash. For nearly all the waking hours of nearly all the years he could remember, he’d been buying and selling to recyclers the things that richer people threw away.” Annawadi, Boo writes, was “magnificently positioned for a trafficker in rich people’s garbage.”

Boo provides a picture of this new wealth and its excesses: “pink condominiums and glass office towers had shown up near the international airport. One corporate office was named, simply ‘More.’” Behind the Beautiful Forevers looks at the informal unorganized economy in this shadow city. Scavengers found growing opportunity in discards. But this way of life took its toll as waste pickers became vulnerable to danger and disease. Abdul could predict which one of the scavengers would be the next one to die.

Boo writes that “as India began to prosper, old ideas about accepting the life assigned by one’s caste or one’s divinities were yielding to a belief in earthly reinvention.” Behind the Beautiful Forevers is also a window into the newfound aspirations of its residents, particularly its women. We meet Asha, who dreams of being the political slum lord and her daughter, Manju, who is slated to be Annawadi’s first female college graduate. The women enjoy the small freedoms and opportunities that rural village life would deny them. Friendships formed across caste and religious divides. But slum life brought a different set of challenges. “Too many Annawadi females, wanted to die,” one young boy observes.

The book captures the many ways corruption infiltrates daily life:

“But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained.”

It is particularly disturbing to see how corruption permeates the justice system:

“Beatings, though outlawed in the human rights code, were practical, as they increased the price that detainees would pay for their release. The Indian criminal justice system was a market like garbage�Innocence and guilt could be bought and sold like a kilo of polyurethane bags.”

Abdul and his family are wrongly accused of the murder of their neighbor, a woman who set herself on fire. Boo documents the family through the whole legal process. There are other deaths in the slum, however, which don’t receive any police investigation or inquiry.

When the “forces of justice” do come to Annawadi, Boo observers, the beneficiaries turn out to be horses. Robert the Zebra Man, who paints stripes on his horses, ran an illegal racing operation, which one day resulted in two horses veering off course, plunging off a bridge to their deaths. A newspaper photographer was present to capture the landing, and the published photos began to stir public outrage.

“Activists from a group called the Plant & Animal Welfare Society, or PAWS, brought in the media and representatives of the city’s Animal Welfare League for a “raid” on Robert’s horse shed. Several horses were determined to be malnourished�The Animal Welfare League spirited the neediest of the beasts to a therapeutic horse farm”

Even though the police do not initially register any cruelty charges on Robert, the animal activists still pursue prosecution:

“So the animal-rights group took its photographic evidence to the commissioner of the Mumbai Police. Finally, Robert and his wife were charged under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act for failing to provide adequate food, water, and shelter to their four-legged charges.”

Boo observes that in Annawadi, “everyone had a wrong he wanted righted� but the slum dwellers rarely got mad together.” By contrast, “the activists had been few in number, but working together, they’d made their anger about the horses register.”

To read the other posts in this blog series, Literary Animal: Reading India, click here.

A New Health Care Approach: The Right to Healthy Food

(Roz Palmer) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:42:34 CDT

Farmer's market

Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council on March 6th calling for governments to promote individuals' right to a healthy diet. He argued that in all of its efforts to supply medical remedies to the malnourished (which, importantly, includes the 1.3 billion people who are overweight or obese), industrialized countries have done very little to, "tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its forms." The right to food, De Schutter says, must not only assert access to sufficient calorie intake, but more specifically to nutritious, inexpensive food.

To reorient the food system to reflect sustainability, health, and equity, De Schutter identified five actions governments can take, which include taxing, regulating, and cracking down on the advertisement of unhealthy products, re-evaluating agricultural subsidies (which make some ingredients cheaper than others), and supporting local food production to make fresh, nutritious foods readily available.

The report addresses health from its very roots—agriculture—and has a determinedly holistic view. In the full report, the special rapporteur lays the foundation for his argument with the definition of what experts agree is a sustainable diet. A food system must provide food with, "low environmental impacts, which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable; nutritionally adequate, safe and healthy; while optimizing natural and human resources."

In light of that comprehensive definition, the special rapporteur's description of current food systems as "dysfunctional" is unsurprising. As debates rage on in the U.S. about the band-aid of a health care system we currently have (or don't have), turning the conversation to the root causes of our poor health will probably prove difficult. But if energies were used to recreate the food system, globally, governments could simultaneously tackle several urgent, global issues of sustainable health not just for individuals, but for the environment, animals, and communities as well.

Photo courtesy of Robert S. Donovan

Millions of Hamburgers without Killing A Cow

(Roz Palmer) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:12:46 CDT

Can a Petri dish make this?

It's in the works at a lab at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands: meat made in a Petri dish. Mark Post is multiplying stem cells extracted from a single cow (still alive), until they make muscle cells, which are then juiced up by a separate growth process of fatty cells.

Dr. Post is hoping to satisfy the world's rapidly growing rate of meat consumption without all the animal slaughter. Though his project is expensive dollar-wise—the burger he plans to produce by October will cost about $300,000—Dr. Post's creation may help to alleviate the extreme costs to the environment and millions of animals slaughtered every year for human consumption (about 30% of the world's viable land is used for raising animals).

So if Dr. Post can make burgers in the confines of a tiny Petri dish without killing an animal, the question will be: will animal rights activists and vegetarians start biting down on a new kind of "meat"? And more importantly, will millions or billions of omnivores do so?

Photo courtesy of Ron Dollete

Literary Animal: Reading India, Part IV

(Sangamithra Iyer) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:30:14 CDT

This installment of the Literary Animal: Reading India blog series is set in Walavati, India in Maharastra State.

Part IV: On Bird Flu and Terror

Amitava Kumar's book, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of his Arms a Tiny Bomb, is about the global repercussions of the war on terror, not about bird flu, but the two subjects intersect briefly in the prologue.

Kumar interviewed the Haspatels, who had been wrongfully detained and subjected to torture. At their home in Walavati, he met Abul Jalal, a poultry farmer, who told him, "What the Americans were doing in Abu Ghraib, they learned from our policemen here." Kumar refers to Jalal as a “harmless fabricator of history,” realizing his fabrication:

“was only trying to link what had happened in Walavati to the wider world. Abu Ghraib was a name that people all over recognized. The torture practiced there had attracted universal condemnation. Could Walavati, too please get its fair share of outrage if not justice?"

Similarly, I’ve wondered if the environmental and social impacts of industrial animal agriculture are becoming more widely understood, if at some point will there be a sense of condemnation of these practices in places like India, where western methods of factory farming are on the rise.

Kumar begins his book by acknowledging the players in this story about the global war on terror: the “non-experts" ("their collective work is not a matter of expertise, but instead, an act of troubled witness"), the “losers” and "the small people." Kumar describes Jalal’s role in this narrative:

“Abul Jalal was undeniably a minor fabulist, spinning a striking tale that tied his village to a distant prison where a people, and arguably, a faith, were being treated as the enemy to be broken and humiliated. I think of him as a humble participant in the struggle over the meaning of September 11 and its global aftermath.”

The story of the ramifications of the globalization of industrialized animal agriculture perhaps also is comprised of non-experts, 'losers' and 'small people.' The spread of zoonotic diseases such as avian flu H5N1 and swine flu H1N1 is just one of the many unintended consequences Brighter Green’s case study notes:

“After H5N1 decimated chicken populations in Maharashtra state’s Nandurbar district in 2006, the government attempted to stop its spread by restricting imports of meat products, birds, and pigs from countries where H5N1 had been documented. However, additional cases occurred, and avian flu penetrated the poultry sector in West Bengal, Assam, and Sikkim in 2008 and 2009, with 11, 18, and 152 outbreaks respectively. These are extremely costly—not only in the loss of human and animal lives, but also to the agricultural economy, and particularly small producers. In West Bengal alone, nearly four million chickens were culled as a result of the flu, many from small, backyard operations.”

In the story of animal agriculture in India, perhaps Jalal plays multiple roles: a troubled witness, a humble participant, one who bears his share of losses:

"The arrival of avian flu earlier in the year had made it necessary for Jalal to kill all the chickens on his farm.”

I recently contacted Amitava Kumar to find out more about what happened to Jalal and his farm. He kindly offered some contacts in the region who may be able to put me in touch. For now, we leave Jalal here, where his role in one story ends and begins in another.

To read the other posts in this blog series, Literary Animal: Reading India, click here.

Ag-Gags: Where’s the Transparency?

(Jessika Ava) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:29:36 CST

Protesters demonstrating in front of the Iowa Capitol on March 1

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
-James Madison

As of March 2, the U.S.'s first ag-gag law passed in the state of Iowa. Iowa House File 589 is designed to protect industrial animal farms from, "animal facility interference" (i.e. any photo, audio, or video recording of an animal facility without the consent of the owner). To date, seven other states are considering similar legislation.

Factory farm undercover investigations have exposed to the American public the agricultural industry’s standard treatment towards farmed animals, and have repeatedly recorded accounts of what many consider to be animal abuse. Through bringing awareness of these practices, these expos�s have essentially empowered American citizens, enabling them to make decisions for themselves and for their families about what they deem is ethically correct.

Supporters of the bill state it is designed to protect food security and economic loss, and that the industry can continue to abide by means of self-regulation regarding animal abuse. However, if this self-regulation had been successful in the past, and if the industry had been using humane animal handling methods, undercover investigations would have discovered nothing. The industry claims that a public uneducated or inexperienced in animal agriculture cannot be expected to understand husbandry practices and are not qualified to make an opinion on their use. However, many would argue that it does not take experience and/or education in animal husbandry to look objectively at the way an animal is treated and decide for oneself if that practice is humane or inhumane. Indeed, the industry’s use of their political clout to keep American citizens unaware of the way these animals are treated may logically lead one to believe that the industry has something they would prefer to hide.

A recent public poll has shown that 71% of the public support the undercover investigations, and 79% of Iowans oppose HF 589. American citizens have spoken- and they’ve said they want to be aware of the way animals are treated behind the walls of factory farms, they want to be empowered to make ethically informed decisions about food choices for both themselves and their families. So if the agricultural industry has nothing to hide, why not comply with public majority and consumers’ right to information, and let us take a look?

(The coalition against ag-gags has attracted a wide variety of social justice groups from animal protection to district attorneys. The Animal Legal Defense Fund has just proposed a law to counter ag-gags. Visit Protect Your Food to learn more.)

To read a related blog post from last spring, when the legislation was introduced, click here.

Photo by Mercy for Animals

Dolphins are Persons Too

(Roz Palmer) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:27:26 CST

Protection for dolphins and other cetaceans may open the door for nature's rights

A new declaration of rights being put forward by ethicists and scientists asserts that dolphins and other cetaceans should be protected as “non-human persons.” The creators of the declaration are hoping to protect these creatures from poachers and captivity by passing a law that would make cetaceans’ right to life legally enforceable, as it is for humans.

The Guardian’s article on the declaration reports that dolphins, whales, and porpoises demonstrate levels of intelligence and self-awareness that scientists argue warrant a right to life similar to that of humans. The law must exist, in their eyes, because individual persons should be allowed a decent life -- even if they are not human. The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society hopes to take the declaration of cetaceans’ rights to the regional, national, and international levels.

A recent lawsuit filed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals against SeaWorld sought to protect orcas from slavery as it is described in the Constitution. The Judge dismissed the case on the grounds that, "the only reasonable interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment's plain language is that it applies to persons, and not to non-persons such as orcas." The dismissal demonstrates precisely what the Declaration of Rights would accomplish for cetaceans: by granting personhood to other intelligent species, cases like these would have unquestionable results, and eventually not be necessary at all. Important to consider is the fact that humans are animals, too, so what exactly makes humans more eligible of personhood than dolphins or orcas (or pigs, for that matter)? With the ever-mounting evidence we have of other species’ intelligence, the line we have drawn between persons and non-persons is becoming increasingly unethical and just plain dated.

It is, of course, more complicated than individual animals’ rights. Because it would also protect the marine animals’ communities and cultures, the proposed law would also affect many related marine businesses and industries. The director of the Center for Ethics and Business thinks that it will take more than ten years to successfully convert the declaration into enforceable law because of these complex relationships. But the proof of intelligence is there—in countless scientific experiments and observations—and it is clear that these animals are too conscious of their own lives and of each others’ to be captured and killed in good conscience. And if dolphins' right to life can become law, the concept of nature's rights in general has the potential to enter the language of sustainability and equity in coming years. Freedom for the SeaWorld celebrities will be just the beginning.

Photo courtesy of oldbilluk

East African Girls' Initiative December Workshop Report

(Caroline Wimberly) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:50:56 CST

The girls with one of the workshop leaders

The East African Girls' Leadership Initiative held a workshop for the participating Tanzanian girls on December 7, 2011 in Morogoro, Tanzania.� Four out of the five Tanzanian girls attended (Mary Saidi was ill).

The workshop began with a review of last year's workshop in Arusha.� Facilitators Daniel Salau, Rehema Mkalata, and Rebecca Mwarabu asked the girls what they remembered from last year, and how they have applied what they learned in their schools and communities.� Here are some samples of what the girls shared:

Rehema Emmanuel, who aspires to be a lawyer, said she was able to explain to her parents�how the Maasai have lost their land, and how they have scattered, and lost their economic power and political voice because they are always the minority wherever they are.

Sofia Somei, a doctor-to be, said she has talked to her peers about the negative effects of female genital mutilation (FGM) and advised them to resist any attempt to have them undergo this harmful practice.

After this initial discussion, the girls spoke about their successes and challenges during the last year.

Martha Lazaro felt that her English had greatly improved, but was not as successful as she would have liked in her courses because of having changed schools during the course of her program.

Peninah Yolam is encouraged by the support she has received from her family members and program officials, but has struggled with discrimination towards Maasai students at her school.

Inspired by the concurrent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 17), the facilitators took the girls through a session about climate change.� The girls discussed what they knew about climate change, how it related to human rights, and how it is especially devastating to indigenous populations, including the Maasai.� The facilitators encouraged the girls by tying these issues to the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The girls were also encouraged to discuss the ways that women and children were specifically affected:

Women have not been involved in decision making, both at the local level and the national level, because they are encouraged to take care of domestic issues.
Boys have more opportunities to attend school than girls, so they dominate the workforce.� Women therefore have less opportunities to earn income.
Maasai women and children are more affected by climate change than men because men move with their livestock during times of drought, often leaving women and children behind.

The workshop closed with the facilitators emphasizing that the girls hold a key role in shaping the future of both their community and the Indigenous People's Movement.� The girls were urged to seize their opportunity and make the best of it. �

They also gave the girls some relevant themes to think about and research for the next workshop (including a copy of Wangari Maathai's autobiography, Unbowed: A Memoir, a gift from Brighter Green Executive Director Mia MacDonald).

Photos courtesy of Daniel Salau

Biodiversity and Advocacy in Technicolor

(Roz Palmer) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:28:02 CST

Multi-colored Amazon tree diversity

A recent article in The Guardian described a new technology that is mapping the Amazon forest in an unprecedented way: in colorful 3D. The Carnegie Airborne Observatory consists of a small airplane, the tropical ecologist Greg Asner, his team, and two new machines. The Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging), which bounces laser beams off of the forest canopy from 5,000 meters above the ground, can map the forest three-dimensionally, lending intense detail to huge areas. What colors the map is a device called a spectrometre. It registers chemical and visual elements of the forest, which indicate biodiversity, and overlays this information in varying colors. And since the Amazon is the most biodiverse landscape in the world, the map is stunning.

Asner and his team are based out of the department of ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University in California. The team can survey 360 square kilometers of rainforest with incredible detail, which has not been possible until now and may prove vital to rainforest conservation efforts. The machines can clearly identify areas of deforestation and degradation, which are increasing at frightening rates due, in large part, to industrialized agriculture (as documented in Brighter Green's policy paper, Cattle, Soyanization, and Climate Change: Brazil's Agricultural Revolution.) Asner intends to collect the more comprehensive evidence needed to substantiate initiatives such as the United Nation's REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). The Carnegie Airborne Observatory has the potential to boost concerted efforts to advocate for and conserve this most vital ecosystem. Eventually, we hope to see Asner's maps become more vibrant in color and contour as the data aids in the reversal of rainforest deforestation.

Photo courtesy of Carnegie Airborne Observatory

Climate Change Adaptation Training in Micronesia: Part III

(Whitney Hoot) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:05:58 CST

Small groups presenting their climate change outreach and communication strategies

Former Brighter Green intern Whitney Hoot is chronicling her experiences as a supervisor in a climate change adaptation program in Pohnpei, Micronesia, a small island developing nation at risk from rising sea levels and other effects of global warming. This is the third blog in a three-blog series.

I attended my first climate change conference—the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia—when I was interning at Brighter Green during my senior year of college. Now, almost two years later, I’ve attended several more and they’ve all been educational and exciting – in addition to being completely exhausting!

I spent last week at the Climate Change Adaptation Outreach and Planning Training, a weeklong workshop held on the island of Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia, hosted by Micronesia Conservation Trust (MCT) and the Pacific Islands Marine Protected Areas Community (PIMPAC). I certainly learned a lot, but after five days at the workshop I am more than ready for some quiet reflection. I met some incredibly passionate people, spoke my mind on climate change in the Pacific region, and practiced my Pohnpeian (which is shaky, at best). After spending the first two days at the workshop honing our outreach and awareness-raising skills, the group switched focus to the climate adaptation community management planning process, using the Local Early Action Plan (LEAP) model.

Left: The chief of Depehk-Takiou explaining some Pohnpeian translations that were added to the flipchart pages. Right: Speakers using the "Adapting to a Changing Climate" Toolkit to show community outreach methods.

We divided into smaller groups of about 5-8 participants, each group representing a real community on Pohnpei. I was in the Depehk-Takiou group, a community located on a small island adjacent to the main island and connected by a man-made causeway. We were lucky to have one of the chiefs of the village in our group – he was instrumental to our planning process, as he has a great understanding of how this community functions and on which resources it depends. The LEAP planning process would normally take months of working closely with indigenous leaders and community members, but we rushed through it in three days, while attempting to make the simulated process as close to the actual as possible. The process involves six steps: first we get organized, then we raise community awareness, before assessing non-climate threats, followed by developing a local climate story and assessing vulnerability to climate change – lastly we finalize the LEAP. This is a resource management tool that takes climate change into account, on a local level – it is a qualitative vulnerability assessment based on descriptive information that is best used with small communities.

Before starting the planning process, LEAP planners gather local knowledge of the status (or rather, perceived status) of key social and natural resources, those that are deemed most vital to a community’s survival, and of the threats to these resources. In Depehk-Takiou, the surrounding coral reefs are a hugely important natural resource – they provide food for the people and habitats for fish and other marine life. While these reefs are technically ensconced within a Marine Protected Area (MPA), overfishing is a serious threat as there is a lack of enforcement and management. While going through the LEAP process, we learned that this deficiency is largely caused by a shortage of resources (Community Conservation Officers – who are charged with monitoring the MPA – do not get paid) and a lack of awareness of the importance of these resources. As a group, we created a huge flow chart that traced the path from the target resources to their threats, all the way back to the root causes of these threats (i.e. lack of resources). We then came up with actions that could be taken to mitigate these root causes, and hence the subsequent threats – what if we started providing stipends for the Community Conservation Officers, giving them at least enough to pay for their fuel? Or we might engage the community through outreach, teaching them about the great importance of the coral reefs.

In my opinion, the most important part of the LEAP – and certainly the most challenging part – is the A: the action. Acquiring knowledge and skills during a training is one thing, but translating those to action is the necessary next step. Although the training participants were happy to go home on Friday after a week of hard work, we are meeting next week to discuss how we will move forward – how we will make use of what we learned to better prepare the people of Pohnpei for the impacts of climate change.

Photo courtesy of Whitney Hoot

Climate Change Adaptation Training in Micronesia: Part II

(Whitney Hoot) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:01:56 CST

Low-lying coral islands�such as Ant Atoll, 10 miles from Pohnpei�are especially vulnerable to climate change

Left: Men installing MPA markers at Pakin Atoll, 30 miles from Pohnpei. Right: Intact natural resources, such as mangroves, protect Pohnpei from impacts of climate change, such as coastal erosion and saltwater inundation.

Photo courtesy of Whitney Hoot