Our Planet: GLOBAL COMMONS The planet we share

8/4/2019 Our Planet: GLOBAL COMMONS The planet we share

1/36OUR PLANET THE PLANET WE SHARE 1

The magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme September 2011

GLOBAL COMMONSThe planet we share

AbdelAziz boutelikAuniversAl struggle

zhou shengxiAshieldingecologicAl security

AngelA cropperseize the MoMent

Jerey sAchsin the ront line

JohAnn rockstrMcoMMon boundAries


2/36OUR PLANET THE PLANET WE SHARE2

UNEP promotes

environmentally sound practices

globally and in its own activities.

This magazine is printed on 100% recycled

paper, using vegetable-based inks and other

eco-friendly practices. Our distribution policy

aims to reduce UNEPs carbon footprint.

Our Planet, the magazine of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya

Tel: (254 20) 762 1234

Fax: (254 20) 762 3927

e-mail: [email protected]

To view current and past issues of this publication online, please visit

www.unep.org/ourplanet

ISSN 1013 - 7394

Director of Publication :Nick Nuttall

Editor : Geoffrey Lean

Coordinator :Mia Turner

Distribution Manager : Mohamed Atani

Design : Amina Darani

Produced by : UNEP Division of Communications and Public Information

Printed by : Gutenberg Press Limited

Distributed by : SMI Books

The contents of this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of UNEPor the editors, nor are they an official record. The designations employed and the

presentation do not imply the expressions of any opinion whatsoever on the part of

UNEP concerning the legal status of any country, territory or city or its authority or

concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

* All dollar ($) amounts refer to US dollars.

Cover and Back Photo: iStockphoto



ABDELAZIZ BOUTEFLIKA : Univesal StuggleA a aa a ma a,

a aa a .

ZHOU SHENGXIA : Shielding Ecological Secuity

A mmm a a ea a a am w.

ANGELA CrOppEr : Seize the momentt r+20 c a am ma .

JEFFrEY SACHS : In the Font Linet a a aa a ma a w , a, a a .

JOHANN rOCKSTrM : Common Boundaiesga a cmm a ma a a wa a a a.

CHrIS rEIJ : re-geening the Sahelsm a maa aa a a a a f.

STEpHEN J HALL : Fishing fo solutionshw w aa a ?

MANFrED rEINKE : pole positionhw aa mm a Aaa.

KELLY LEVIN and MANISH BApNA : Adating the Commons

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Adapting or a Green Economy:

Companies, Communities and Climate Change

Samantha Putt del Pino, Eliot Metzger, Sally Prowitt, United Nations Global Compact, UnitedNations Environment Programme (UNEP), and Oxam

This report is a resource or companies with a national, regional or global reach that areinterested in increasing their strategic ocus on adaptation in developing countries wherethey have operations, supply chains, employees and current or potential customers.

This report is also aimed at national and international policymakers involved in climatechange and sustainable development dialogues and decision-making, including those who willparticipate in the United Nations Conerence on Sustainable Development in 2012 (Rio+20).It is hoped that the reports ndings will be useul or a much wider range o actors as well,including small, local businesses in developing countries that are on the ront line o climateimpacts; civil society organizations seeking to strengthen their work around climate changeand sustainable development; and sub-national policymakers, who are in a key position to

shape a productive interace among government, communities and businesses.

www.unep.rg/pubicatinss

Taking Steps toward Marine and Coastal Ecosystem-

Based Management An Introductory Guide

Tundi Agardy, John Davis, Kristin Sherwood, Ole Vestergaard

The Guide outlines operational considerations in an accessiblelanguage, drawing upon practical experiences and lessons acrossthe globe - rom tropical coastlines to temperate estuaries andpolar ocean ecosystems. An important message is that this isan incremental process and there are dierent paths towardEcosystem-Based Management. Cross boundary considerations and

working with neighbours and even countries ar away will be anessential component.

The Atlas o Coasts and Oceans

Mapping Ecosystems, Threatened Resources and Marine Conservation

Don Hinrichsen.The Atlas o Coasts and Oceans is a comprehensive assessment o the challenges aced in thegovernance o the blue planet; a global common resource. It details the ecological, environmentaland economic importance o each o the worlds coasts and oceans. The impact o climate change,industrial growth, tourism, pollution and over-shing as well as the steps being taken towardsconservation are well illustrated with global and regional maps, rom the Arabian Gul to the GreatBarrier Ree and including the Baltic, the Black Sea, the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Red

Sea and Gul o Aden, the South Pacic and all the other major global waterways. It is a timelycontribution to the understanding o marine science.

World Resources Report 2011:

Decision Making in a Changing Climate

World Resources Institute, United Nations Environment Programme,United Nations Development Programme, World Bank

This exercise by WRI, UNEP, UNDP and the World Bank providespolicymakers around the world - government, civil society, andbusiness - with analysis and insight about major environmentaland development issues. Already, the world is experiencing thedestructive eects o rising global temperatures, altered rainallpatterns and extreme weather. Short term, such impacts createpressing needs or disaster relie, such as ollowed the recentunprecedented foods in Pakistan and heatwave in Russia. Longerterm eects will continue or decades, with intensiying and wide-ranging impacts on agriculture, water supplies and other ecosystems,and human habitation. To build climate resilience, developing countrynational decision makers urgently need to integrate climate change

risks into planning and policies across sectors such as agriculture,electricity production and orestry and water management.

OUR PLANET THE PLANET WE SHARE4

Arica Water Atlas

Division o Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA/UNEP)

This Atlas is a visual account o Aricas endowment and use o water resources, revealedthrough 224 maps and 104 satellite images as well as some 500 graphics and hundreds ocompelling photos. However, the Atlas is more than a collection o static maps and imagesaccompanied by inormative acts and gures: its visual elements vividly illustrate a succinctnarrative describing and analyzing Aricas water issues and exempliying them through the

judicious use o case studies. It gathers inormation about water in Arica and its role inthe economy and development, health, ood security, transboundary cooperation, capacitybuilding and environmental change into one comprehensive and accessible volume.

UNEP undertook the production o this Atlas at the request o the Arican Ministers Councilon Water (AMCOW) and in cooperation with the Arican Union, European Union, United StatesState Department, United States Geological Survey and other collaborators.



With less than nine months to go before the Rio+20 confer-ence, international momentum is building as a result ofgrowing understanding of the need to re-think economiesand reform an international system of governance that isfalling short of what is required. On issues ranging fromdesertication to biodiversity loss, current responses andthe institutions established to facilitate them are strugglingto keep up with the magnitude and velocity of environ-

mental, social and economic change.

Governments, civil society and business are meeting underan agreed timetable to follow a road map to sharpen andshape their positions on Rio+20s twin themes the GreenEconomy in the context of sustainable development andpoverty eradication and an institutional framework forsustainable development. Octobers meeting of the deser-tication convention, for example, will include a focus onlivelihoods in drylands and sustainable agriculture.

Soil, featured prominently in this issue of Our Planet, isa critical part of the global commons. Productive land ispivotal in the survival of life on Earth, yet 12 mi llion hectaresof it is lost every year due to desertication and drought.Over the next 25 years, such losses may reduce global foodproduction by up to 12 per cent, increasing world prices byas much as 30 per cent. If we are serious about moving toa Green Economy, in which agriculture and food security

are embedded in sustainable development, we must switchto sustainable land-use practices. To do so, the globaldimension of desertication and land degradation must be

Ac Senerre

flections

UN Under-Secrear-General andEecue Drecr, UNEP

Luc GnacadjaEecue Secrear e Uned Nans Cnenn

Ca Deserfcan (UNCCD)

Across all the issues nothing is clear cut: But there is some coalescing ofpossible transformative, cooperative proposals from scaling up cleanenergies to new ways of managing the oceans, freshwater, food security,and disaster preparedness.

To date the main focus has been on the Green Economy. One key issueis tackling fossil fuel subsidies: by some estimates, these range from$400-$600 billion a year or four times what it would cost to bring

Ocial Development Assistance up to the 0.7 per cent target. Another isgreen procurement: on average public purchasing accounts for 23 per centof GDP worldwide, enough it is thought to tip entire markets ontoa more sustainable track. Other such areas under consideration rangefrom reforming bilateral investment agreements that hinder the adop-tion of clean energy to developing a smarter indicator of wealth that goesbeyond GDP.

Meanwhile governments from Kenya and Germany to Malaysia andFrance are signaling support for strengthening or upgrading UNEP toboost the environmental pillar of sustainable development. Other govern-ance proposals include transforming the Commission on Sustainable

Development into a Council or merging its functions in a strengthenedUN Economic and Social Council.

The missing overall link so far is broad political support. Brazil, however,is signal ing its determination to provide leadership as are several African,

Asian and European heads of state. If more like-minded leaders including from civil society demonstrate their backing, there is everychance that the promise of Rio 1992 can be nally transformed intoprofound outcomes, reecting a fresh sense of purpose unfolding amongnations to put sustainability both front and centre stage.

recognized at all levels. Without healthy soils, we will lose other globalcommons like water and biodiversity.

Soils importance as a global common has yet to be anchored in the mindsof decision makers. But there are signs of change. On 20 September, worldleaders will gather at the United Nations General Assembly in New Yorkfor a high level-meeting on addressing desertication, land degradationand drought in the context of sustainable development and poverty erad-ication. The time is ripe for a paradigm shift that takes land and soil asnite resources. The current famine and drought in the Horn of Africa

reminds us that building the resilience of the drylands communities andpursuing sustainable land management globally are critical to the future

well-being of a civilized international society in the 21st century. Thecost of action today is far less than the future costs from inaction.

In practical terms, this means pursuing a target that makes history ofthe loss of land such as for example, zero net land degradation aspart of the global sustainable development target. The long-term sustain-ability of productive land is under threat, but together, we can reverse thetrend if we act swiftly. Now, more than ever, the international commu-nity must intensify its eorts to forge a global partnership to reverse and

prevent desertication and land degradation, and to mitigate the eectsof drought. Poverty reduction and environmental sustainability will beamong the quick and lasting returns on our investment.

OUR PLANET THE PLANET WE SHARE 5



of the land that nourishes them, thuscreating additional sources of tension andexacerbating migrations. International res-ponsibility is undoubtedly engaged in theght against desertication, drought andland degradation. In fact, the universalstruggle against them is an urgent burden

on us all, since they lead to forced migra-tions and challenge social stability, moving

us further away from the objectives ofsustainable development.

Desertication and land degradation arelike climate change and biological diversity,major challenges for the 21st century. Indeed,they are even more complex because theyare multidimensional phenomena under-lain by diverse factors, especially climatic

variations and human activities.

These phenomena have irreversible

economic and social consequences. Theydeprive hundreds of millions of people

AbDELAziz boUtELikAp,

r Aa

Universal

struggle

RichardBaker/Corbis



and consolidate the United NationsConvention to Combat Desertica-tion. She has brought in importantmeasures aimed at ghting the eectsof desertication and drought inarid and semi-arid areas within herown territory.

Major programmes, based on anappropriate institutional frameworkand covering 20 million hectares, havebeen put in place to combat deser-tication and land degradation, byusing reforestation, rationalising useof grazing areas, raising awarenessand mobilizing local authorities andcitizens. The green wall, alreadycovering an area of 300,000 hectares,

will be expanded by 100,000 hectaresby 2015.

And a new national map, based onremote sensing and creating awarenesson desertication, has been developedto strengthen these eorts.

Moreover, the ght against deserti-cation should also be combined withimproved understanding of deserts,

both as complete ecosystems and asspecic sites for sustainable devel-opment, due to the natural resourcesand unique biodiversity they contain.

Their value for human settlementsand their invaluable cultural richnessalso demand such recognition.

Southern Algeria is home to two huge

national parks in the midst of theSahara at the Ahaggar and the Tassili.

These open-air museums, part of world

heritage, cover a total area of 452,000square kilometers. An importantproject for preserving the biodiversityand cultural heritage is under way withthe assistance of the United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP).

It is increasingly essential to developan integrated international strategy forthe protection of our planet. In thisprecise case, the commitment of the

international community should be upto the challenges that we are facing.

The success of this struggle requiresthe implementation of the threeconventions (on climate change, bio-diversity and desertication) agreedat the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. This

will also depend on the funding and green technologies that wealthycountries agree to make available tothe least fortunate countries.

Africa is the hardest hit region.Numerous studies show that ourcontinent will lose two-thirdsof its arable land by 2025, in theabsence of urgent and eectivemeasures therefore destroying itseorts for both development and

environmental protection.

The Millennium Declaration (2000),the Millennium Development Goalsand the New Partnership for

Africas Development (NEPAD)oer us opportunities for eec-tive management of the problemsrelated to desertication and landdegradation.

Very early, Algeria associated itselfwith multilateral eorts to negotiate

Te success o this struggle

requires

the implementation o

the three conventions

(on climate change,

biodiersity anddesertication)

agreed at the

1992 Rio Earth Summit.


8/36

The eco-system consisting of air, oc-ean, lakes, land, grassland and forestnourishes the Earth our warmand beautiful home and providessuch services as climate regulation,

water conservation, sources of foodand medicine and natural landscapes.

It is an irreplaceable and signicantbasis for the subsistence and multi-plication of mankind.

Rapid social and economic devel-opment, especially since the 20thcentury, has made the impact of thehuman activities on the eco-systemmore damaging than ever. Its func-tions have been rapidly degradingand the conict between man

and nature has been increasinglysharpened. People worldwide were

awakened to this by the rst UnitedNations Conference on the HumanEnvironment in 1972. Then the 1992United Nations Conference on Envi-ronment and Development, held inRio de Janeiro, reached extensiveconsensus on sustainable develop-ment. Now the concept of balanceddevelopment among economy,society and environment hassunk deep into our hearts and has

become a development strategy ofmany countries.

The Chinese government developedten measures for environment anddevelopment two months after the1992 UN Conference on Environ-ment and Development. In this newcentury, it put forward a scienticoutlook on development character-

ized as people-oriented, coordinatedand sustainable. It makes great eortsto promote ecological civilization,strives to build a resource-ecientand environmentally-friendly society,and pursues a rened developmentroad that leads to economic growth,prosperous life and good eco-systems.

Remarkable progress has been made. The government has promulgated

more than 20 laws and regulations toprotect the environment and natural

zhoU ShENGxiA

M,M ema p,

p r ca

Shieldingecological security



9/36

resources, such as the EnvironmentalProtection Law, the Forest Law, theGrassland Law, and the Law on MarineEnvironmental Protection. Chinahas also set mandatory targets forcutting emissions of the main pollu-tants in its national plan for economicand social development. Pollutionprevention and control programsin key river basins and regions have

been continued and a number ofother schemes, such as projects for

conserving natural forests andprogrammes for returning farm landto nature (forest/grassland/wetland/lake), have also been implemented.China has ratied such internationalconventions, as the Convention onBiological Diversity, the RamsarConvention on Wetlands and theUnited Nations Convention toCombat Desertication and has

carried out extensive bilateral andmultilateral cooperation.

As one of the worlds richest coun-tries for biodiversity, China boastsa variety of terrestrial and marineeco-systems and hosts the biggesttotal number of species in thenorthern hemisphere. By the end of2010, it had 2,588 protected areas,accounting for 14.9 per cent ofits land territory: these safeguard85 per cent of terrestrial eco-systems,40 per cent of natural wetlands,85 per cent of wild fauna and oraand 65 per cent of wild ora habitats.However, Chinas ecology remainsfragile. 90 per cent of its 393 millionhectares of grasslands are degradedto some degree, while 27.5 per cent

of its land territories are subjectto desertication. The countrystill faces daunting challenges inprotecting its natural environment.

Looking ahead, the Chinese govern-ment will implement the scienticoutlook on development, accel-erate the transformation of themodes of economic development,uplift the level of ecological civi-

lization, and explore a new pathfor environmental protection thatfeatures low cost, good returns, lowemissions and sustainability. The

government will make every eortto strike a balance between envi-ronmental protection and economicdevelopment resolving the prom-inent environmental problemshampering balanced developmentand damaging public health andto do a good job in cutting pollu-

tion. It will implement the NationalBiodiversity Strategy and ActionPlan (2011-2030), the Regional Planon Ecological Construction andEnvironmental Protection on theQinghai-Tibet Plateau and otherecological conservation plans forspecic key regions. The key eco-system of rivers and lakes will alsobe rehabilitated. All these actions

aim to build a shield for ecological

security, to help protect the earth,and to build a harmonious world.


FrankLukasseck/Corbis

By the end o 2010, China had

2,588 protected areas,

accounting or 14.9 per cent o its

land territory: these saeguard85 per cent o terrestrial eco-systems,

40 per cent o natural wetlands,

85 per cent o wild auna

and ora and 65 per cent

o wild ora habitats



Seizethe Moment

ANGELA CRoPPER

m d e d,w sa A

e d, unep

Next years Rio+20 Conference is a golden

opportunity for political leadership, giventhe dire, urgent and complex economic,social and environmental issues thatconfront the world. The requirement forsuch leadership and commitment on macrosustainable development issues is morepressing than the need for long lists ofsectoral to dos, which mostly already existon paper as outcomes of global summitsand sectoral processes.

We know what needs to be done. We need,however, to examine why implementationlags so far behind such resolutions of mindand what would enable this Conference toelevate its ambition and make good use ofthe opportunity before it. How might itremove some of the impediments to sustain-able development? What kind of outcomes

would position the world to deal withsome of the urgent, if complex, problemsit faces?



National

as opposed to

government

ownership

o the approaches

and measures

to be taken needs to be

cultiated and secured.

1.Shape the approach to economic growthto serve social objectives and recognizeenvironmental limits and imperatives.

The Conference will meet at a propitiousmoment, as the world now much betterunderstands the issues of sustainable

development and how the economy, theenvironment and human well-being areinter-related and mutually supportive.But this understanding is not put into

practice: environmental imperatives andhuman well-being objectives are invari-ably traded o as optional and secondaryto economic growth. This impedessustainable development which unieseconomic, social and environmentalobjectives as opposed to adding onenvironmental and social considerations

only where the economic bottom lineremains unaected.

The Conference could set this rela-

tionship properly on its feet, puttingeconomic growth at the service of thesocial objectives which governments

have long enunciated over time andrecognising and respecting resource andenvironmental constraints. This willrequire qualitatively dierent attentionto decisions about policy, investment,and other development interventions,so that environmental and human well-being outcomes are not sacriced in

the preoccupation with, and pursuit of,economic growth.

2.Make a commitment to reduceinequity, domestically and globally.

The Conference could draw attentionto how the present economic approach

generates persistent poverty andincreasing inequity, recognizing that theperipheral means by which the world triesto alleviate them do not allow it to catchup. It could commit itself to reducingthat equity gap consciously and urgently

both within and among countries, andput in place arrangements to keep theprocess under global and national scru-tiny. Without achieving this for thepresent generation we can hardly expectto meet the concern for equity between

generations.

3.Require more appropriatemeasures of development to be formu-lated and applied

It is well established that relying onGross Domestic Product as the measureof development is misleading, especially

given the goal of sustainable devel-opment, yet we persist in its use. TheConference could call for urgent andaccelerated work, in a specied timeframe, towards a new set of measure-ments and indicators that reect thethree dimensions of sustainable devel-opment as equally important. National

Income Accounting Systems will alsoneed to reect the same characteristics.

Here are ten ideas for ambitious approaches which need political direction and subse-quent commitment:



4.Require corporate reporting on integratedsustainability parameters.It is important to understand how economic

activities aect national economic, environ-mental and social dimensions of sustainabledevelopment. Much available technical

guidance is available on how such sustain-ability reporting can be done, and somecountries have already moved to requirethis important measure of accountabilityby law. The Conference could conclude thatsuch national reporting should be mademandatory, to permit oversight of corpo-rate practice and to guide enabling policies

and institutional arrangements. This wouldcontribute to measuring national progressand, if universally applied, would notaect competitiveness.

5.Commit to enhanced investment andarrangements for public involvement.Moving towards sustainable develop-ment cannot be done by governments

alone: they must guide and enable soci-eties along that pathway. Societies must

understand the nature of the changesrequired and be prepared to support them.National as opposed to government

ownership of the approaches and meas-ures to be taken needs to be cultivatedand secured. This requires educationalprogrammes that build understanding andcould lead to changes in values and beha-

viour; access to information that enablesand empowers citizens to make choicesand inputs; and mechanisms for public

involvement and consultation that are partof national governance arrangements.

6.Make an armative interventionon the economic interests of youth.Youth unemployment and the tensions

to which it leads is a global pheno-menon. The Conference could decide toestablish a global programme for trainingand employing young people to equip them

with the skills and opportunities to sharemore equitably in the development process.

This could be especially useful if linked tothe nature and range of skills required togreen economies.

7.

Agree to take action to restorethe worlds marine commons. The science on the degradation of themarine commons is unambiguous; the

policy actions required are clear; but poli-tical decision-making lags behind. Eectiveaction is invariably sacriced to nationalinterests and practices while, globally,there is a laissez-faire approach, eventhough the issue is vital to global environ-mental sustainability and many livelihoods.With present practice and approaches,

the assets of the marine commons willcontinue to degrade, perhaps irretrievably,in spite of the many polices, programmesand instruments in place from national to

global levels. These urgently need to beunied and gaps lled, including by payingattention to ocean areas not covered

by present governance arrangements.The Conference could declare its commit-ment to the systemic action requiredto address this need and require that

it be served through all the relatedglobal processes.



Commit

to transorming

land management

and ood production

and consumption

systems to ensure

national and

global ood security.

8.Commit to transforming land manage-ment and food productionand consumption systems to ensurenational and global food security.

This is essential for many reasons:avoiding a new wave of converting forestsand wetlands in response to the pressuresfor world food security; ensuring that

existing agricultural land is used sustain-ably; addressing the multiple pressuresthat lead to processes of land degrada-tion and desertication; and addressingthe needs of the estimated two billionpeople who subsist in threatened ecolo-

gical systems and are at the bottomof the human well-being ladder. The

Conference could commit to increasedinvestment in alleviating such pro-cesses and to the national policies andactions required.

9.Help Least Developed Countriesonto a fast runway forSustainable Development.

The Conference could take global lead-ership on behalf of the worlds 48 most

disadvantaged countries, and set thestage for a transformative moment in the

Global Partnership for Development.It could decide on global armativeaction to help them overcome impedi-ments over domestic investible resources,

access to modern technologies on aord-able terms, and technical capacity fordesigning accelerated economic transfor-mation and the institutional frameworkof policies, legislation, regulation, scalmeasures that will be required. This

would also include establishing andharmonizing a public/private investmentand nancing platform.

10.Commit to an energy compact

to expand access, eciency, andinvestment in renewables.

The Conference could catalyze a new global energy mix by relating energydemand (access, saving and eciency)and supply (including incentive policies,subsidies, investments and the deploy-ment of renewable energy sources). Thiscould be an important lever for simul-taneously addressing economic, socialand environmental aspirations in the

context of climate change targets andsustainable development.



The drylands are on the front line of climatechange, and they include the worlds poorestand most vulnerable people. We are alreadyseeing in them the harrowing eects of

climate change on poverty, survival, health,hunger, human well-being and onpeace itself, because the heavily impacteddrylands are among the most unstable partsof the world. The stretch from Senegalthrough to Afghanistan is a region of great

vulnerability, poverty, and deprivation ofbasic needs whether food and nutrition,access to health and veterinary care, safetyfor crops and livestock, or, of course, water.Instability is rising throughout this region:

conicts that are branded under the politicalheadline of extremism, or political conict,often have at their roots the challenges ofdesertication, increasing droughts, moreunstable rainfall, many more failed harveststhan in the past, and in some regions

an inability to grow crops reliably anylonger. The current famine in the Horn of

Africa, which has left more than ten millionpeople ghting for survival, is a vivid andharrowing demonstration of the perils ofdesertication and drylands instability.

In the front line

PRo. JEREy SAChS

d, ea i,cma u

We need seeral diferent

kinds o responses.

Te rst is scientic.

Secondly,

there are huge gaps in

our knowledge o the

adaptation or ailure to

adapt o human systems.

Te third element is,

o course, the interention

measures that are

desperately needed

or adaptation to

climate change.



Population has also increasedfourfold or more in such regions

since the middle of the twentiethcentury. Climate change is hittingmassive demographic pressures headon an enormously threateningphenomenon. And yet these issues arenot getting the level of global policyattention and response required.Even our standard and securityapproaches do not understand thatunderlying the surface manifesta-tion of violence and conict lies amuch deeper and even more threat-ening danger of ecological riskfrom climate change, demographic

pressures, and many other pressures.Military engagement is not working,because such issues as hunger, live-stock survival, and increasing stressesbetween sedentary populations andnomadic or semi-nomadic livestockherders cannot be addressed by these

means. We have not seen a coherent,consistent, persistent, scaled, science-based approach to these challenges,because the resources and politicalattention have not been devotedto them.

We need several dierent kinds ofresponses. The rst is scientic. Wedo not have a truly thorough under-standing of how global and regionalchanges are really aecting theclimates of the Sahel, the Horn of

Africa, or West and Central Asia.One priority is a thorough, state-of-the-art, and detailed account of howthe dryland regions are feeling the

global climate signal. We need down -scaled models and better evidence

about what the large models aresaying about future threats for these

regions. And we need an authorita-tive collection of weather station

data to be made available to compilea detailed and thorough account of

climate over the last thirty years,to create not just a baseline for the

future, but a much richer base toenable us to attempt attribution ofobserved changes.

Secondly, there are huge gaps in ourknowledge of the adaptation orfailure to adapt of human systemsWhat has really happened in thepopulations in the Sahel since the

extreme drying in the 1970s? Therehas been some recovery; but howrobust is it? How are nomadic andsemi-nomadic communities doing?Can we get much more system-atic data? Of course the Secretariatof the UN Convention to CombatDesertication collects a lot of thisinformation and, crucially, helpsdisseminate it to the wider scienticand development community. Buttheres a lot more work to be done to

get on-site real-time verication ofthese changes; to use remote sensingmore systematically to measureuctuations in herders, livestock,

and assets, and to understand their vulnerabilities; and to see howdemographic pressures are aectingthese communities. Total fertilityrates remain at six, seven, or eightchildren per woman in many loca-tions. A demographic disaster seemsto be on the way as a result of a hugeoverload on an already strained andfragile ecosystem that is only going

to become more stressed in future.Widespread family planning andmodern contraceptive services need

UNPhoto/AlbertGonzalezFarran


16/36

to be put in place to mitigate thecrash between expanding popula-tions and the future climate.

The third element is, of course,the intervention measures that aredesperately needed for adaptationto climate change. These rangefrom preparedness for emergenciesto other kinds of risk mitigationstrategies, such as creating nancialinsurance, diversifying economic

activities, or establishing alterna-tives in landscape management and

water storage.

Impoverished communities facinga multiplicity of shocks and chal-lenges need a holistic approach.

The Millennium Villages Projecthas helped to pioneer such anapproach in the drylands, such asin Dertu, Kenya, near the Somalia

border. Its integrated strategyfocuses on ve key areas. The rstaspect is the whole complex of live-stock and crops. Second is thehealth system, which is aected bytremendous climate-related shocks,as well as by such huge challengesas epidemics of malaria, Rip ValleyFever, Rinderpest, or other endemicdiseases. The third is education:how can impoverished drylandcommunities ensure that the next

generation is raised with the skills

and knowledge to meet the growingchallenges facing them? The fourth,critically, is infrastructure, starting

with water encompassing irri- gation, storage, and water securityin the event of drought but alsoincluding transport, storage, theability to connect local communi-ties with regional and internationalmarkets, and telecommunications

and internet connectivity, whichcan be a very powerful tool forthese often very dispersed drylandpopulations. And the fth area isbusiness development, especiallyaround livestock and other areas

where increased value-added couldbring greatly improved well-beingto communities.

In 2008, the Swedish Govern-ments Committee of ClimateChange and Development put out

a report on climate change andthe drylands recommending howto build resilience, adaptability,emergency preparedness, and riskmitigation strategies. It proposedthat there should be scaled-up pilotsof community-based adaptationprojects with poor and vulnerablecommunities, in urban and ruralareas, in the drylands. Three yearson, projecting is starting to takehold, as Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya,

Uganda, Djibouti, and South Sudanhave joined together in a DrylandsInitiative. They will work to use bestpractices and cutting-edge technol-ogies to support their pastoralistcommunities eort to escapethe scourges of extreme povertyand famine, supported by part-ners including Ericsson, Airtel,Novartis, Sumitomo Chemical, andthe Islamic Development Bank.

There is a pressing need for hol-istic, community-based responses

which are scientically-groundedand address health and veterinaryneeds, water storage and other infra-structure, childrens education, theimprovement and survival of herds,and linkages to markets. This is ofparamount and growing importance,not only for these communities

well-being, but for resolving whatotherwise wil l be a growing epidemicof violent conict.


how can impoverished

dryland communitiesensure that

the next generation

is raised with the skills

and knowledge

to meet the growing

challenges acing them?

UNPhoto/TimMcKulka

UNPhoto/AlbertGonzalezFarran



2.2 miinSpecies dwelling in the ocean depths

UNEP-WCMC

500 miinPeople in developing countries who rely

on sheries and aquaculture or

livelihoods Acim Steiner

145Countries that share one or more

international river basins

UNEP

US$ 150 200 biinEstimated annual value o internationally

traded orest products UNEP Frest

and Green Ecnm Reprt

510 miinHectares o armland that are lost each year

to degradation

UNEP IWMI Ecsstems Apprac

t Water and Fd Securit

2.1 biinNumber o people living in the worlds

drylands Miennium

Ecsstem Assessment

50 biinMigratory birds that make phenomenal

annual journeys across borders and

regions o the world African-

Eurasian Waterbirds Agreement

12 miinPeople in the Horn o Arica who are

aected by drought Guardian

90%o Chinas 393 million hectares o grasslands

are degraded to some degree, while

27.5% o its land territories are subject

to desertication Zu Sengxian,Minister f Enirnment, Cina

era nuers

The world can no longer aord to delay restoring the health and

wealth o the oceans.

Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director

It is urgent to put a price on the services on ecosystems.

Andreas Carlgren, Swedish Minister or Environment

Awaiting our discovery are a hal million ungi and moulds whoserelatives gave humanity bread and cheese.

Jesse Ausubel, Vice-President o the Alred P. Sloan Foundation and co-ounder

o the Census o Marine Lie

Environmental protection is the way to development.

Zhou Shengxian, Minister o Environment, China

Luc Gnacadja, Executive Secretary o the United Nations Convention to CombatDesertifcation (UNCCD)

Droughts do not happen overnight. We stress the need oreective long term solutions to the root causes o

amine in drought prone regions.

Business can only thrive in stable and enabling environments

Georg Kell, Executive Director o the UN Global Compact

No nation will solve climate change alone. And no nation is alone in

eeling its impacts.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary o the UN Framework Convention on

Climate Change (UNFCCC)




UNEP undertakes a wide range o activities in promoting and acilitating the development and uptake o clean

technology. Here are a couple o recent examples. For urther examples o UNEPs climate change work visit:

www.unep.rg/unite/30Was

UNEP a wr

New C Ts fr Waterbird andWetand Cnseratin

An innovative tool or tracking the migratory patterns o waterbirds has won rst prize in an ESRI

International Conservation Mapping Competition. The Critical Site Network Tool (CSN Tool) andthe supporting Flyaway Training Kit (FTK) are some o the products o the Wings over Wetland

(WOW) project, the largest yway-scale waterbirds conservation initiative ever attempted, covering

the 118 countries included in the range o the Arican-Eurasian Waterbirds Agreement (AEWA).

The WOW project is unded by the GEF (Global Environment Facility), the German Government and

several other donors, and it is implemented by UNEP as a joint eort by leading global conserva-

tion organizations and partners such as Wetlands International, BirdLie International, the AEWA,

the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and UNEP-WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre)

and United Nations Ofce or Project Services (UNOPS).

An estimated 50 billion migratory birds make phenomenal annual journeys across borders andregions o the world, covering thousands o kilometers. For this reason, they are a link between

countries and ecosystems, making them one o the worlds great wonders. Because o their use o

several habitats as stopover sites during migration, the health o migratory birds is an important indi-

cator o the state o our environment.

The CSN Tool will be instrumental to improve our understanding o waterbirds migration, and it will

promote their conservation through better management and more inormed decision making at the

yways scale. This will also help combat the adverse eects o climate change by protecting the crit-

ical wetlands habitats used by water birds. These habitats are also important or the livelihoods o

millions o people in rural communities living around those wetlands.


MarieTysnes/iStockphoto



UNEP wins UN21 Awardfr Cimate Neutrait

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) won the

UN21 Award or Climate Neutrality. UNEP was the co-winnero the award along with the UN Department o Field Support

during a ceremony at the Dag Hammarskjld Library Audito-

rium at UN Headquarters in New York in August. Held every

year, the UN 21 Awards recognize outstanding initiatives by

United Nations sta members or teams to improve the delivery

o the Organizations programmes and promote its values. The

winners stories are intended to inspire other sta members to

ollow their example, replicate good practices and make strides

to improve the delivery o UN programmes and services.

UNEP, which has been climate neutral since 2008, is at theoreront o ongoing sustainability eorts within the United

Nations. Last year, it became the rst UN organization to publish

an Emission Reduction Strategy, including a target to reduce

emissions by three per cent per annum in 2010-12 (rom 2009

levels). Implementing the efciency measures could save UNEP

an estimated US$800,000 per year. The new ofce acility that

houses UNEP and UN-HABITAT headquarters in Nairobi also

set a new benchmark or sustainable buildings when it was

opened by UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon in March 2011.



20/36

Human pressure on the planet isreaching a saturation point which,if exceeded, may undermine social

and economic development. This isnew, as are its eects on our globalcommons the stratosphericozone layer, the climate system, thebiosphere, the hydrosphere, andthe cryosphere veried throughempirical observations over the past20 years or so. These manifesta-tions include, the rapid depletion ofthe ozone layer, a continued expo-nential rate of biodiversity loss,

degradation of air quality, land and

freshwater, aerosol loading andchemical pollution at regional scales,climate change, and unsustainableappropriation of such nite naturalresources as oil and phosphorus.

The impacts are starting to manifestthemselves in ways that aect eco-nomies around the world.

The scale of human inuence is solarge that we may have entered a

new geological epoch, the Anthro-pocene, where humanity constitutes

a geological planetary force. We maytherefore be pushing ourselves outof our current epoch, the Holocene,

the last 10,000 years of inter-glacial, which has provided extraordinarilystable environmental conditions,enabling world development as weknow it.

The driving forces behind this globalization of environmentalchallenges starts in the mid 1950s.Up until this point, the relativeimpact from humanity on the globalcommons was low the environ-

mental impacts from almost 200 years of industrialization remained,until then, largely limited to localand regional impacts on water, land,air. After mid-century the humanenterprise changes pace. The indus-trial metabolism goes to scale,and we start seeing an exponentialincrease in social wellbeing, GDP

growth, population numbers, healthimprovements and human impacts

on the environment. So, this is thepoint when global environmental

change manifests itself on essen-tially all parameters that matter forhuman wellbeing: from habitat loss

to climate change.

Three additional and interacting

factors accentuate the challenge. The rst is the growth of popula-tion and auence: we are largelycommitted to grow from the current7 billion to 9 billion people by 2050,in a world that is rapidly urban-izing and becoming more auent(the majority of the world popula-tion, which remains poor, has so farclaimed only a limited fraction ofthe global commons, while having a

right to a share of them). Secondly,science increasingly indicates therisk of abrupt and irreversiblechanges, when systems from localecosystems to the climate arepushed across tipping points. Thiscan lead to catastrophic shifts inconditions for nations and regions,potentially triggered by changes in

global commons, such as increasinggreenhouse gases in the atmosphere,triggering a destabilization of the

Greenland ice sheet. The third is the growing evidence of our social andeconomic dependence on ecosystemservices for human wellbeing, fromsuch local functions as fertile soils to

global ones like a stable Arctic.

We need to rethink human devel-opment in this new Anthropoceneepoch. We urgently need to bend thecurves of negative global environ-

mental change in order to navigatewithin a safe operating space in the

JohANN RoCkStRm

d,sm em i


CommonBoundaries


21/36

Earth system. Global commons mustbe governed as an integral part ofnational and regional development.

The concept of planetary boundariesprovides a framework in this context.It identies environmental proc-esses that determine the stability of

components of the Earth system and proposes sustainable boundaries

for the key variables that deter-mine change for each process, set inorder to try to avoid tipping pointsthat may cause abrupt and delete-

rious regional and global disruption.Nine such planetary boundary proc-esses have been proposed. Theseinclude the three global commons

where there is evidence of large scalethresholds climate change, deple-tion of the ozone layer, and oceanacidication and processes thatprovide regulatory functions thatdetermine the resilience of majorbiomes and ultimately the Earthsystem land use change, fresh-

water use, the rate of biodiversityloss, and human interference withthe global nitrogen and phosphoruscycles. The nal two are chemical

pollution and aerosol loading. Safeboundaries have been quantied forthe rst seven and were chosen atthe lower more risk averse endof the uncertainty range articulatedby science, as a way of applying aprecautionary principle: for climatechange, for example, it was placedat 350 ppm CO

2(parts per million),

when science indicates the risk ofcrossing tipping points in the range

of 350 550 ppm CO2.

Together these nine planetaryboundaries provide a safe operating

space for humanity. The rst analysisindicates that we have transgressed thesafe space for three of them climatechange, rate of biodiversity loss andextracting nitrogen from the atmos-phere. This places us in a slippery andrisky danger zone where we cannotexclude hitting tipping points: theaccelerated melting of ice in the Arctic

may be one early warning of such anon-linear dynamic.

Governance of the global commons is

required to achieve sustainable devel-opment and thus human wellbeing. Wecan no longer focus solely on national

priorities for economic developmentand environmental protection. Theinuence all nations have on the globalcommons at a point of growingenvironmental saturation generates

worldwide feedbacks that inuencelocal economies. Nor can we focuson climate change alone. We most

now simultaneously address sustain-ability at the planetary scale for allthe key environmental processes

linked to the stability of the Earthsbiophysical systems.

The planetary boundary concept maybe useful in supporting the govern-ance of our global commons. We need

to recognize the social implications ofliving within safe boundaries, and allthe boundaries have to add up, withinsafe levels, at the global scale. Thus nonation or region can appropriate a largershare of the global commons without

both transparently reporting this to allother nations, and agreeing on mecha-nisms to ensure that the aggregate useof planetary space remains within safeboundaries. Staying within the safeoperating space in the Anthropocene,in a world with growing populationsand auence, will require distributingthe planetary space among nations.

This is, to say the least, a challengingbut necessary task, which, when we

succeed, will benet humanity as awhole for generations.

Governance

o the global commons

is required to achiee

sustainable deelopment and

thus human wellbeing.

We can no longer

ocus solely on

national priorities or

economic deelopment and

environmental protection.



22/36

Something surprising has beenfound to be happening in the Sahel.

Recent studies on long-term trendsin agriculture and environment inNigers densely populated Maradiand Zinder Regions show thatlocal farmers have greened someve million hectares, simply byprotecting and managing the naturalregeneration of trees and bushes ontheir land producing the largestscale environmental transforma-tion in the Sahel, possibly in Africa.

This process began around 1985,

but although some researchershad noticed that farmers in some

villages had increased the number oftrees, no one had come to grips withthe scale of the re-greening until2006. Then the use of high resolu-tion satellite images, combined witheld visits, allowed researchers to

work out what was happening.

Over the last two decades, farmers

in Niger have grown 200 millionnew trees on their cultivated elds.

Where farmers had only 2 or 3trees per hectare 20 years ago, theynow have 40, 60 or even over 100.Remarkably, they did not plant them,but protected and managed treesand bushes which regenerated spon-taneously from underground root

systems or from seeds remainingin the topsoil. They thus achieved

almost 20 times more than all treeplanting projects in Niger over thesame period combined; thoughthese planted about 65 million trees,an average of only about 20 per centsurvived. The farmers, moreover,did this at a very low cost, since

protecting and managing naturalregeneration does not require estab-

Regreeningthe Sahel

ChRiS REiJ

aa,Aa r- ia,vj u, Amam



23/36

lishing tree nurseries or transportingseedlings to planting sites.

What triggered this re-greening?The Sahelian droughts and environ-mental crisis of the 1970s and 1980sput many farmers with their backs

against the wall. They had to ghtland degradation or migrate. A non-

governmental organisation catalysedthe process by oering farmersfood aid during two drought yearsin the mid-1980s in exchange forprotecting natural regeneration, andfarmers quickly realised the bene-ts of re-greening. A survey of about400 farmers showed that:

trees reduce wind speed, andthus young crops are no longerdestroyed by windblown sand;as a result, farmers now onlyneed to plant crops once, insteadof having to try three or four

times, as they did 20 years ago;

some tree species produce fodder,allowing farmers to increasethe number of their livestock;

instead of being burned asfuel, like 20 years ago, alldung is used on the cultivatedelds, helping to maintainand improve soil fertility;

farmers are aware that somespecies, notablyFaidherbia albida,improve soil fertility by xingnitrogen from the air (dependingon density and age, they can x 80to 90 kilogrammes per hectare);

women now only have to spend0.5 hours a day collectingrewood compared to 2.5hours 20 years ago;

trees contribute to food secu-rity even if crops fail, for theyproduce edible leaves and fruit;

during drought years, poorfarmers literally can surviveby pruning trees and sellingthe wood to buy food;

conicts between herders andfarmers have decreased by about80 per cent as the land has beenre-greened: since the resource piehas grown, there is more to share.

A report published by the Inter-national Food Policy ResearchInstitute estimates that new agrofo-

restry systems on the re-greened vemillion hectares produces an extra

500,000 tons of cereals a year, feedingan additional 2.5 million people. Thetrees, moreover, are capital assets,

which help increase aggregate agri-cultural production and thus helpreduce rural poverty. The annualproduction value of the new trees isat least around 200 million euros,

which all goes to the farmers, in theform of produce, if not cash.

This process of re-greening byfarmers is not conned to partsof Niger. Many new agroforestrysystems, big and small, can be foundin the Sahel. Farmers in MalisSeno Plains between the PlateauDogon and the Burkina Faso border

for example, have protected andmanaged trees on 450,000 hectares

of their land. About 90 per cent of thetrees are less than 20 years old. Simi-larly farmers in Senegals Karineregion, who visited the re-greening inNiger, began to protect and managenatural regeneration on their return.

Their re-greening covers about30,000 hectares and it is spreadinglike wildre.

The African Re-greening Initia-

tive (ARI) which aims to expandthe scale of such successes, currentlyoperates in Burkina Faso, Maliand Niger and is now planning toexpand to other African countries.Its strategy includes organizingfarmer-to-farmer study visits, devel-oping national policy dialoguesaround agricultural policies andforestry legislation, and mobilizingthe attention of national and interna-tional media to re-greening.

Developing agroforestry increasesaggregate production and createsmore drought-resilient farmingsystems. It is the only major low costoption for intensifying agricultureopen to small-scale farmers in Africa

with limited nancial and resourcecapital. Experience shows that they

will invest in trees on their land ifthey perceive that they own them.

For, as farmers in Tigray, Ethiopia,say: trees are our backbone.

Conicts

between herders

and armers

hae decreased by

about 80 per cent

as the land

has been re-greened

and since the resource pie

has grown, there is

more to share.


Johnn

yHaglund/GettyImages



MIChAEl SAM MUlI and RUTh ChERoNo SEGo

Michael Sam Muli, 18, Ruth Cherono Sego, 23, have been selected as Young Environmental Envoys or Kenya by the

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Bayer, a global innovator enterprise with core competenciesin the elds o health care, nutrition and high-tech materials.

Mr. Muli, a student in Environmental and Bio-systems Engineering at the University o Nairobi, put orwarda green energy project that aims to replace rewood and charcoal used as cooking uel in households withbriquettes made rom dried oliage and waste paper. The project seeks to reduce carbon emissions rom theburning o ossil uels and to create jobs and income or local residents through the production and sale o thecleaner uel briquettes.

Ms. Sego, an Environmental Health student at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, put orward a proposal ocusing onthe sustainable production o castor oil as a biouel. The project explored how the castor oil plant, which is

indigenous to East Arica, could be sustainably cultivated to help meet the uel needs o communities in Kenya,but in a way that did not adversely aect ood production.

peple

ChARlES and Sho SCoTT

Charles and Sho Scott are endurance sports enthusiastswho use their passion towards environmentalsustainability. In 2009, Mr. Scott and his 8-year old sonSho were named Climate Heroes by the United NationsEnvironment Programme. They rode connected bicyclesthe length o mainland Japan, covering 2,500 miles in67 days to raise money or UNEPs Billion Tree plantingcampaign.

Their more recent challenge was a 1,500-mile trek

through Iceland on connected bicycles with Shos 4-yearold sister joining them in a bike trailer. Mr. Scott iscurrently writing a book about the Japan ride calledRising Sons.



KWoN ByoNG hyoN

Ambassador Kwon Byong Hyon o the Republic oKorea is the rst Sustainable Land Management

(SLM) Champion or the Convention to CombatDesertication (UNCCD).

A lawyer by proession, with a distinguisheddiplomatic career, Ambassador Kwon set up theFuture Forest organization to raise awarenessabout desertication. In 2005, he begun a wallmade o natural orests to tame the yellow dragon,or deserts, known as the Korea-China FriendshipGreat Green Wall. His target planting one billiontrees in Chinas Kubuchi Desert demonstrates

that degraded land can be reclaimed, and toprovides a research site on reclaiming degradedland. The Great Green Wall already has a 70 percent success rate in tree planting.

SylvIA EARlE

The Global Commons has a strong advocatewith Sylvia Earle. As an oceanographer whosepassion or the environment has great depth,Sylvia Earle is also an explorer, lecturer andresearch scientist. She has led more than

60 expeditions and logged more than 6,000hours underwater, including leading the rstteam o women aquanauts. She has also seta record or solo diving to a depth o 1,000meters (3,300 eet).

She has worked hard to raise public awarenesso the damage being done to our aquasphereby pollution and environmental degradationand has received more than 100 national andinternational honors, including is the 2009

TED Prize or her proposal to establish a globalnetwork o marine protected areas. She callsthese marine preserves hope spots to saveand restore the blue heart o the planet.

ChRISToPhER SToNE

As the world gears up or the Rio+20 Conerence nextyear, Christopher Stone has plenty o experience to share,

having helped shape resolutions on International Law othe Environment or the Rio Earth Summit Conerence in1992. An authority and teacher o environmental andglobal issues, Proessor Stone has contributed to severalspheres including international environmental law,environmental ethics, and trade and the environment.

He has researched a variety o areas aectingsustainability, including alternate energy policy, climatechange, biodiversity, and ocean policy. He is also anadvisor to the Foundation or International Environmental

Law and Development in London, and the Center orInternational Environmental Law.

MARK DoDD

Mark Dodd is a UK lm director who has won the 2011 International Wildlie FilmFestival award as the best independent lm or his documentary The Man WhoStopped the Desert, a lm about Yacouba Sawadogo, a small-holder armer inBurkina Faso who revived a traditional agricultural technique to restore barren

land. The beautiully shot lm, showing that one mans conviction can benet manythousands living in the Sahel region o Arica, will leave you moved and inspired.



Fish has been the single most important source of the worlds animal protein for most of the pastthirty years. But though per capita consumption has almost doubled worldwide over that period,it has remained low in much of Africa and parts of Asia.

Paradoxically, however, the people of these regions where undernutrition is most prevalent depend more on sh as their major animal source food than those in Europe, Japan, Australiaand North America, even though they actually get less of it. Six sub-Saharan African countries,for example, rely on sh for more than half of their animal protein, but the region still suers the

worlds lowest per capita sh consumption.

The prevalence of sh in the diet of people with the lowest overall animal source food consump-tion and highest levels of undernutrition highlights the importance of sustaining and improvingaccess to it for the worlds poor. Helping more of them get more of this preferred, nutritious foodcould profoundly improve health and nutrition in the short to medium term.

StEPhEN J. hALL

d-ga,t W c

Fishingfor solutions



are genuine global commons: many

others share similar characteristics,but reside under national jurisdic-tion. Sadly although the vast bodyof literature that followed GarretHardings description of The

Tragedy of the Commons indicatesthat we understand the problem

we are still not very good at doing

anything about it.

So, given our failures to date,

what do we need to do nowand how should we do it?

Five priority objectives that applyboth on the high seas and in manysheries under national jurisdic-tion supply the aswer to the rstquestion.These are:

Recognising and addressing1.structural weaknesses inaccess regimes (i.e. thedesign of shing rights);

Minimising the rent drains2.resulting from fuel, and otherinappropriate, subsidies;

Minimising the prevalence3.of illegal and pirate shing;

Ensuring inclusion of4.marginalized and poorerpeople in global value chains;

Incorporating environmental5.externalities into thecost of sheries;

The much deeper question, of course,

is how to achieve these objectives.Here I oer no simple prescriptionsand think we should be sceptical ofthose that do. Instead, I believe weneed to think again about how bestto have the conversations among all

the relevant actors so as to arriveat durable, adaptable solutions for

global, regional and national sh-eries. And, given the general failure

of current institutions to resolve

these issues, we may need to thinkabout new ones that might help.

One option worth discussing, forexample, is establishing a Global

Action Network (GAN) a globalgovernance arrangement that focuseson a specic public good throughan inter-organizational network for sheries. Serving as impartialbridging agents among diverse organ-izations, and driving for systemicchange, GANS are increasingly seenas eective vehicles for addressing

gaps in global governance concerningethics, communication, and imple-mentation. Famil iar examples includethe Global Alliance for Vaccines andImmunization, The Global Alli-ance for Improved Nutrition and the

Global Water Partnership.

Given such apparent promise,should we not think about assem-bling an inclusive non-hierarchicalpeer network of institutions to helpaddress local to global sheries issues

and learn lessons in the process?Such an approach would not removethe need to strengthen and clarifyroles and performance expecta-

tions for such intergovernmentalinstitutions as the UN Agenciesand Regional Fish-eries Manage-ment Organisations: though needingreform, these have an importantand continuing role in establishingnormative standards. Nor should weforget the importance of strength-ening global market mechanismsthrough such institutions as theWorld Trade Organisation, whichappears to be making good progress

on sheries subsidies. But thoughour current institutions are neces-sary, they show no signs of beingsucient for the problems at hand.So despite the considerable chal-lenges to establishing an eectiveGlobal Action Network it issurely worth considering exploringthis option for helping meet thechallenge of sustaining the worldssheries so that they continue to

underpin supplies and help meet ourfood security needs.

Achieving this means sustaining the worlds wild capture sheries. Thisis because the countries that mostdepend on sh for food rely primarilyon catches from the wild: althoughaquaculture continues to grow,there is no immediate prospect thatit can replace these supplies. Andsince aquatic ecosystems are widely

distributed throughout remote ruralareas in many parts of the world, thesheries they support often serve

vital functions in supplying liveli-hoods and safety nets against faminethat governments have so far beenunable to provide. It is, of course,not enough for there to be sucient

food and services, they must also beavailable and accessible to the people

who need them: wild sheries oftenachieve this in developing countries

without any help from us.

Yet, despite the importance of sh-eries, we have, at best, had mixedsuccess in making the most of ourresources by managing them to ensurea sustained and, where possible,

enhanced supply. This is true for theinland sheries, marine ones undernational jurisdiction in ExclusiveEconomic Zones, on the high seasand for straddling migratory stocks.

A recent study co-authored by 21researchers and published in Sciencemagazine examined in detail ecosys-tems that accounted for a quarter of

world sheries area and catch andconcluded that while managementactions have achieved measurable

reductions in exploitation rates insome regions, a signicant fractionof stocks will remain collapsedunless there are further reductions.

The Food and Agriculture Organ-isation assessments concur withthis conclusion.

Much over-exploitation arises fromthe often free and open (or too cheapand insuciently well-regulated)

access to the resource. Some sh-eries, such as those in the high seas,



Changes occur faster in the polar regions than elsewhere, makingthem the most sensitive indicators of global change. They are alsothe last extended pristine areas on the planet with extremely sensi-tive and unique ecosystems. And they are the drivers of the global

climate; since climate systems are strongly coupled, changes inthese regions have a strong impact on living conditions worldwide.

Environmental protection has been on the agenda of the AntarcticTreaty Consultative Meeting since the early sixties soon afterthe birth of the treaty, one of the last centurys most successful

international instruments focused on peace and internationalcollaboration. Signed in Washington in December 1959 by thetwelve countries whose scientists had been active in and around

Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, ithas since been acceded to by 36 other nations.

Though it does not itself contain environmental elements, the rstconservation scheme applicable to Antarctica the Agreed Meas-ures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora wasadopted by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in 1964.

The Consultative Parties subsequently developed the Convention

for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS), which entered intoforce in 1978.

Pole

Position

mANRED REiNkE

e sa,Aa ta



Negotiations under the UN Conven-tion on the Law of the Sea raisedconcerns about the potential largescale exploitation of krill, whichcould have severe consequences forother Antarctic life which dependson it for food. The Conventionon the Conservation of AntarcticMarine Living Resources, whichentered into force in 1982, providesfor the conservation and rational useof krill, n sh and other marineresources. Unlike other regionalsheries management organizations,it is based on an ecosystem approachto conservation, and requires thateects on ecosystems be taken intoaccount in managing the harvesting

of marine resources.

In a similarly precautionaryapproach, the Consultative Partiesagreed to start negotiations on acomprehensive regime on mineralresources of Antarctica in 1981 tominimize the environmental andpolitical problems of unregulatedexploitation. The Convention onthe Regulation of Antarctic MineralResource Activities was concluded in

Wellington in 1988, but never wentinto force since France and Australiadeclared the following year that they

would not ratify the contract.

The world had changed, recalledMichel Rocard, the former PrimeMinister of France. Trends inecological policies have beenappearing everywhere, the require-ments have widened. Two PrimeMinisters, linked by friendship,

Robert Hawke of Australia andmyself, announce that they refuse tosend the Convention to their Parlia-ments for ratication and requestthe opening of much more ambi-tious negotiations. Italy and Belgiumfollowed immediately, Norwayslightly later.

This opened the door for negoti-ations on a Protocol on Environ-

mental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, which was signed only two

years later in Madrid in October,1991 and entered into force in1998. It states that ... the develop-ment of a comprehensive regime

for the protection of the Antarcticenvironment and dependent andassociated ecosystems is in theinterest of mankind as a whole. Itdesignates Antarctica as a naturalreserve, devoted to peace andscience, sets out basic principlesapplicable to human activities in

Antarctica, and prohibits all activi-ties relating to Antarctic mineralresources, except for scienticresearch. Up to 2048 it can only be

modied with the unanimous agree-ment of all Consultative Parties tothe Treaty, while the prohibition onmineral resource activities cannot

be removed unless a binding legalregime covering them is in force

The Protocol established theCommittee for EnvironmentalProtection as an expert advisorybody to provide up-to-date advice

and formulate recommendations onimplementing it and constitutes the

strategic guideline for future envi-ronmental policies in the Antarctic

Treaty Area.

In 2009 the Scientic Committeeon Antarctic Research publishedits comprehensive study Antarctic

Climate Change and the Environ-ment, a highly cross-disciplinaryeort, with the goal of reectingthe importance of the continent in

global issues, such as sea-level rise,the separation of natural climate

variability from anthropogenicinuences, food stocks, biodiversityand carbon uptake by the ocean.

This year the 50th Anniver-

sary of the Treatys entry into forceand the 20th of the signing of theProtocol on Environmental Protec-tion the Consultative Partiesrearmed their continued commit-ment to upholding it and theirintention to continue strong andeective cooperation by inter alia,continuing to identify and addressemerging environmental challengesand strengthening the protection ofthe Antarctic environment and its

dependent and associated ecosys-tems, particularly in relation to

global climate change and humanactivities in the region, including

tourism. They also appealed toStates that are party to the Treaty,but not yet to the Protocol, to ratifyit, thus rearming their will toprotect the Antarctic environment,in the interest of mankind as a wholeand to preserve the value of Antarc-

tica as an area for the conduct ofscientic research.

... the deelopment o a

comprehensie regime

or the protection

o the Antarctic environment

and dependent and

associated ecosystems is in the

interest o mankind as a whole.

http://www.grida.no/photolib/



Environmental concerns have only rela-tively recently concentrated on the

global commons, which are the sharedresources that no one owns but all liferelies upon. In the early days, the focus

was mostly on local impacts on tradi-tional pollutants such as acid rain andsewage, on garbage damming rivers,or on pesticides. These problems were

acute and tangible. Rivers caught reand smog was so thick that visibilityacross cities vanished. True, the prob-lems of the global commons wererising in this backdrop, but it was notuntil later in the 20th century that theenvironmental challenge spread plan-etwide, when governments woke upto the reality of a rapidly trans-formed world. In a few short decades,

global forces of consumption, produc-tion, and population have made a

profound, at times irreversible, markon the planets shared resources.

There is now no greater challenge tothe wellbeing of the global commonsthan human-induced climate change.Since the industrial era began to triggerlarge-scale releases of fossil fuels, globalaverage surface temperatures have risenby 0.8C, already resulting in signicantchanges in physical, hydrological and

ecological systems.

kELLy LEviN ra d,

W r r 2010-2011

mANiSh bAPNA im p,

W r i

Adapting

the Commons



These threats underscore an urgentneed for steep reductions in green-house gas emissions. They also

make adaptation an imperative, given the unavoidable impactsthat will result from the green-house gases already emitted andthe warming that will in futurefollow, thanks to the heat carryingcapacity of the worlds oceans.

Over the past two years the 2010-2011 World Resources Report,developed in partnership betweenUNDP, UNEP, the World Bankand the World Resources Institute,has engaged government leadersand practitioners in Africa, Asia andLatin America to learn from, andbuild on, existing adaptation eorts.It focuses on how national policymakers and planners can make betterdecisions in a changing climate anincreasing priority for preserving the

global commons, developing recom-mendations for public engagement,information collection and supply,institutional design, planning and

policymaking tools, and resources.It also reports promising examplesof how governments are integratingclimate change risks into their prac-tices, which could provide models forscaling up adaptation in the devel-oping world. These include:

Worse, global climate change isnot occurring in isolation, butis exacerbating other problemsof the global commons. As theIntergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange records climate-inducedreductions in krill, for example,lead to the depletion of many shspecies, undermining, in turn, thehealth of marine ecosystems, foodsupplies and livelihoods aroundthe world. The Antarctic Penin-sula has warmed substantially inrecent decades causing 87 per centof the edges of glaciers to retreat,

with grave implications for life onthe unique continent. Worldwide

warming of 2-3C above pre-indus-trial temperatures is very likelyto herald major changes in terres-trial and marine ecosystems andlikely to increase the risk ofextinction for 20-30 per centof species.

Worldwide warming

o 2-3C above

pre-industrial temperatures is

ery likely to herald

major changes in

terrestrial and marine ecosystems

and likely to increase

the risk o extinction or

20-30 per cent o species.



Farmers are engaged in a constant

struggle against the desert inNamibia: the driest regionsreceive on average only 20mmof rainfall a year. With climatechange likely to bring even shorterrainy seasons in future, Namibias

government has established local

Forums for Integrated ResourceManagement where farmersand extension service providersexchange information about howto help prevent land becominginfertile. Farmers monitor local

rainfall, the availability of fodderand the condition of livestock,

while ocials provide guidanceon sustainable farm managementand good animal health practices.Farming communities have

also established rotational grazingand rested grazing lands in dangerof degradation and if informeda dry period is coming sell live-stock, avoid over-grazing and bankthe income. Such two-wayinformation channels betweenpublic ocials and farmers helpenhance the ability of communities

to withstand droughts and landdegradation, and can be replicated

both within and beyond Namibia.

One of the worlds 17 mega-diverse countries, South Africais home to almost 10 per cent ofthe worlds total known bird, shand plant species and almost 15per cent of its coastal and marineones. Climate change threatens tocompound threats to biodiversityfrom urban and industrial growth,since there are likely to be moredroughts and oods, lower riverlevels and more frequent wildres.

So, South Africa is pursuing aninnovative strategy for maintaining

enough intact natural habitat toprotect threatened species andsecure wildlife corridors. It hasdeveloped biodiversity plans,mapping whole areas natural

features and species and useof land and resources. Climatechange design principles havebeen integrated into the plans,prioritizing connectivity andrefuge areas to enhance theresilience of species. Localauthorities use them in developingmunicipal plans, helping themto decide where conservationshould be prioritized and where

development can be promoted.

Being in the tropics, Vietnamis extremely vulnerable toimpacts from climate change,particularly sea level rise. So the

government has institutionalizedthe large-scale restoration ofmangroves with supportfrom donors including theWorld Bank and theRed Cross adding15,000 hectares of protectiveforest to the countryscoastline since 2001.

The results, however, have beenvery dierent in the north andsouth of the country. In the north,the plantations have beenocially protected, denyinglocals user rights, and

creating conict and resentment.In the south, the restorationhas been coupled with eortsto alleviate poverty anddiversify livelihoods thus

winning local communitiessupport. The experiencesuggests that incorporatingadaptation within acomprehensive developmentplanning process is more likely

to succeed in the long term.

NAMIBIA

SO

UTH

AFRICA

VIETNAM

These case studies and other research can be found in full at www.worldresourcesreport.org

TrinhLeNguyen/Shutterstock



www.unep.rg

www.gpa.unep.org/Global Programme o Action or the Protection o the Marine Environment rom Land-based Activities (GPA-Marine) was adopted by the international community in 1995and to prevent the degradation o the marine environment rom land-based activitiesby acilitating the realization o the duty o States to preserve and protect themarine environment. It is the only global initiative directly addressing the connec-tivity between terrestrial, reshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems.

www.unep.org/regionalseas/The Regional Seas Programme aims to address the accelerating degradation o theworlds oceans and coastal areas through the sustainable management and use o

the marine and coastal environment, by engaging neighbouring countries in compre-hensive and specic actions to protect their shared marine environment.

United Nations Convention to Combat Deserticationwww.unccd.intDesertication is a major economic, social and environmental problem o concern tomany countries in all regions o the world. The convention was ormed to solve theproblem o intensiying land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas.

www.unep.org/desertication/successstories/Although desertication still remains a major environmental problem, impedingdryland development, there are also many projects and community-based initiatives

which have successully addressed these problems.

Convention on Biological Diversitywww.cbd.int/The Convention on Biological Diversity was inspired by the world communitys growingcommitment to sustainable development. It represents a dramatic step orward inthe conservation o biological diversity, the sustainable use o its components, andthe air and equitable sharing o benets arising rom the use o genetic resources.

nternational Union or Conservation o Naturewww.iucn.orgConserving biodiversity is undamental to addressing some o the worlds greatest

challenges: tackling climate change, achieving sustainable energy, improving humanwell-being and building a green economy.

Forestswww.unep.org/orests/Forests cover one third o the earths land mass, perorming vital unctions aroundthe world. In act, 1.6 billion people depend on orests or their livelihoods. Theyplay a key role in our battle against climate change. Forests eed our rivers and aressential to supplying the water or nearly 50 per cent o our largest cities.

Forests Policy Briewww.unep.org/ecosystemmanagement/Portals/7/Documents/unep_policyseries/5thUNEPPolicySeries.pdForests have always been crucial to human lie and economies, and they wilbecome increasingly signicant as the global human population grows. The entirglobal population depends on orests or their carbon-sequestering services ancritical role in supporting the growth o a global green economy. This policy brieseeks to outline how orests can be a key part o a green economy that provideopportunities or innovative solutions to orest management.

Integrated Assessment o Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozonewww.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pd/BlackCarbon_SDM.pd

This assessment looks into all aspects o anthropogenic emissions o black carboand tropospheric ozone precursors, such as methane and analyses the trends iemissions o these substances and the drivers o these emissions.

Vienna Convention or the Protection o the Ozone Layerwww.ozone.unep.org/new_site/en/index.phpThe Vienna Convention or the Protection o the Ozone Layer and its Montreal Protocoon Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer are dedicated to the protection o thearths ozone layer. With 196 parties, they are the most widely ratied treaties in Uhistory, and have enabled reductions o over 97 per cent o all global consumptioo controlled ozone depleting substances.

www.unep.r/ozonaction/The UNEP OzonAction Branch assists developing countries and countries witeconomies in transition to enable them to achieve and sustain compliance with theMontreal Protocol.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changewww.unccc.intThe United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was ormedto consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatevetemperature increases are inevitable. The Kyoto Protocol is an additional measure tothe UNFCCC.

UNEP Year Book 2011: Emerging Issues in our Global Environmenthttp://www.unep.org/yearbook/2011/pds/UNEP_YEARBOOK_Fullreport.pdThe UNEP Year Book 2011, examines global emerging issues and provides thlatest environmental science. It also highlights major environmental events andevelopments over the past year, and presents the most recent data and indicatotrends. he UNEP Year Book 2011 is essential reading or anyone with a keen interesin the uture o our planet.

Eart Summits Ri+20www.worldsummit2002.org/index.htm

www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/

Gba cmmns:usefu inks

This page contains links to websites rom Governments, internationalorganizations, non-governmental organizations, businesses, media

and other groups rom around the world to help you research issuesrelated to global commons. We have compiled these links rom our ownreview o the vast amount o inormation available on the Internet to

help you to nd the most relevant sources or your research. Our Planetmagazine does not, however, endorse the viewpoints o any o the groups

to which we link, and we cannot guarantee the accuracy o the inormationposted on these sites. Rather, we hope to provide you with a broad range o

opinions and perspectives.

www



ROBERT

observersandchange-agents.

Wecaninduceandproduce

changeinthe

environment,positivelyornegatively.

Wemustunderstandthat,though

an

integralpartoftheenvironment,

weare


My quiet epiphany took place as

I oated in space ar removed

rom the sounds, smel

Our Planet: GLOBAL COMMONS The planet we share

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