ASIA’S 2ND GREEN REVOLUTION, WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

ASIA’S 2^ND GREEN REVOLUTION, WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Crispin Maslog from the Philippines has been advocating for a 2^nd Green Revolution for Asia. I wonder what fellow development stakeholders think about this afterthought.

The Green Revolution was waged beginning in the 1960s, with no less than Philippine technocrats and industry players praising the UN-led initiative to high praises. The International Rice Research Institute was founded in Laguna, Philippines in 1964, and the rice science maturation is history.

Couples of decades later, could we ever say that the explosion in agricultural production which the term ‘green revolution’ ever redeem the shirtless folks from hunger? That wave of agricultural explosion immensely damaged the top soil of many developing countries, damage that is almost irreversible at this juncture. There was hardly any discernable association of the ‘green’ in that crop revolution to ecological balance that the term connotes today.

So what’s your take about this 2^nd Green Revolution for the world’s most populous continent?

[Philippines, 15 March 2012]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/opinions/asia-pacific-analysis-launching-a-second-green-revolution-1.html

Asia–Pacific Analysis: Launching a second Green Revolution

Crispin Maslog

23 February 2012

Feeding South-East Asia's rapidly growing population requires a second Green Revolution, says Crispin Maslog.

The Day of Seven Billion was proclaimed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on 31 October 2011 as a historic milestone — the day the world's population reached seven billion people. And the world is on a steep growth curve for the rest of this century.

More than half (3.8 billion) of the population are Asians. Although South-East Asia comprises only 0.6 billion, it is growing fast — by almost 200 per cent between 1950 and 2000 — and is set to grow by another 50 per cent by 2050. [1]

One of the most critical challenges facing a world with a population of seven billion is how to feed the roughly three billion people living below the poverty line in the slums of developing countries.

A 'perfect storm'

Scientists have warned that in the next 50 years, the world will consume twice as much food as it has since the beginning of agriculture 10,000 years ago. [2] This is a startling statistic.

But thinking beyond food security to other crises facing the planet, the prospects look even more daunting. Asian agricultural scientist William D. Dar, director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), spoke last month of a coming "perfect storm". [3]

This will be triggered by food shortages resulting from the population explosion, and aggravated by a combination of climate change (leading to warming temperatures and weather extremes including droughts and floods), land degradation, loss of biodiversity and increasing demand for energy.

To meet the challenge of feeding the half-billion or so poor people in South-East Asia and the Pacific, Dar and other agricultural scientists, including International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) director-general Robert Zeigler, have called for a second Green Revolution.

The first Green Revolution, led in Asia by IRRI in the 1960s and 1970s, prevented a predicted famine. Much of its success was due to the technological development of crops, such as semi-dwarf rice variety IR8, also known as the 'miracle rice' that produced 10 times the yield of traditional rice.

But despite its success, the Green Revolution had its share of critics. There were mistakes and side effects. Lessons must be learned if the countries of South-East Asia and the Pacific are to benefit from a second Green Revolution.

A greener revolution

The Green Revolution was criticised for focusing on a few high-yielding varieties that depend on irrigation, chemical fertilisers and pesticides. These practices harmed the environment and affected both agricultural and wild biodiversity.

It also meant that farmers began to rely on just a few crop species. In India, for example, there were about 30,000 rice varieties before the Green Revolution. Today there are around 10 — the most productive types.

Mono-cropping has left the three staple crops of the Green Revolution — rice, maize and wheat — vulnerable to plant diseases that cannot be controlled by agrochemicals. It also led to concerns about the permanent loss of valuable genetic traits bred into traditional varieties over thousands of years.

To avoid repeating these mistakes, a second Green Revolution should include more than the staple crops that fed the world from the 1950s to the 1980s, and embrace dryland farming to grow crops such as sorghum, cassava and beans.

And it should harness South-East Asia's vast upland, rain-fed agricultural areas, not just the irrigated lowlands at the centre of food production decades ago. About 70 per cent of the land area of South-East Asia is rain-fed, and most of its poor people live in these areas.

Harnessing science

Agricultural science and technologies developed over the decades can contribute to the success of a second Green Revolution. The challenge is to increase production using less water, nutrients and land, and with lower environmental impact.

But food security also requires crops that can withstand extreme weather. For example, IRRI has developed a rice variety that can survive two weeks of complete submergence in water, and recently released to farmers in Bangladesh two drought-tolerant rice varieties, BRRI dhan56 and BRRI dhan57. [4]

And ICRISAT has developed and tested innovations in crop, soil and water management that can help farmers better adapt to the impacts of climate change. For example, it has shown that adapting the germplasm of sorghum — the dietary staple of more than 500 million people in rain-fed areas — can help maintain crop yields in warmer temperatures.

Scientific innovations are here to be harnessed to head off the looming 'perfect storm'. What is needed is the political will — from governments, foundations and international agencies — to jump-start a second, greener Green Revolution in the uplands.

Crispin Maslog is a Manila-based consultant for the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication. A former journalist, professor and environmental activist, he worked for the Press Foundation of Asia and the International Rice Research Institute.

References

[1] Hayes, A. C. and Zhao, Z. Population prospects in East and Southeast Asia. (East Asia Forum, 2012)
[2] International Service for the Acquistion of Agri-Biotech Applications. Brief 43-2011: Executive Summary. Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011.
[3] Dar, W. D. Weathering the perfect storm. (Disaster Management Times, 2012).
[4] Dobermann, A. Blueprint for a greener revolution. Rice Today 10, 18–21 (2011)

MOROCCO JETTISONS CLEAN ENERGY, KUDOS!

MOROCCO JETTISONS CLEAN ENERGY, KUDOS!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The Middle East and North Africa or MENA has some good news going concerning clean energy. This surely freshens the region a bit that has been mired in bloody conflicts between the youth-driven anti-Old Order movements and the status quo of Stone Age prinzeps-military dictatorships-family oligarchies.

US $9 Billions was allocated recently by stakeholders in Morocco to leapfrog the renewable energy or RE sector there. The project is largely in the domain of solar panel power production, which I find truly appreciable. The project could spin off RE across the entire region, or at least North Africa, so let’s cross our fingers that a new light will spark off human development in the entire region.

Below is a report on the subject from the World Bank.

[Philippines, 28 December 2011]

Source: http://menablog.worldbank.org/morocco-lights-way-clean-energy-future

Morocco lights the way to a clean-energy future

Submitted by Inger Andersen on November 18, 2011

Some countries of the Middle East and North Africa region are once again lighting up a new path. Following the social revolutions which showed the world the effect of combining non-violent protest with new media technology, an energy revolution is now underway. It also utilizes cutting-edge technology with the potential to lead the world into a new energy era. Pointing beyond fossil fuels, this revolution aims to harness an older and more abundant resource: sunshine.

Morocco has launched a National Solar Plan that is as bold as it is ambitious. Using Concentrated Solar Power technology, this $9 billion project aims to build five commercial-scale solar plants, with a generating capacity of 2,000 megawatts, the equivalent of a large nuclear power plant. The first solar plant will be constructed on the Ouarzazate plateau, south of the Atlas mountains, and is expected to begin generating power by 2014, with the full project slated for completion in 2020.

Morocco might be classified as a developing nation, but it is making a huge investment in its future, and championing the challenges of climate summits in Copenhagen and Cancun to fundamentally change our energy consumption models to protect the environment. This is no small feat for a country almost wholly reliant on coal and oil. Ouarzazate represents the first step in a radical transformation that by 2030 aims to cut the country's consumption of oil by 40 percent. Morocco currently imports 97% of its primary fuels, and this move toward domestic production will both provide significant energy security and eventually convert it into an energy exporter.

Apart from the economic benefits gained from nurturing a new industry - with the new jobs and skills it will create - the investment will also be a boon to the environment. It is calculated that the first phase of the Ouarzazate project will spare the atmosphere the equivalent of 240,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, while the full solar project will reduce annual emissions by three million tons.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is on the sharp end of climate change. Significant action to mitigate its effects is a necessity, not a subject for debate. Of the 19 countries that experienced record temperatures in 2010, five were in MENA.

From a development standpoint, this sort of extreme weather can have disastrous social and economic consequences; reversing gains and driving people back into poverty. The effect of lower precipitation and droughts is one example and precious water resources will become increasingly scarcer forcing people to spend more time looking for it, potentially foregoing critical activities such as education. In Yemen, where the search for water is the culturally defined job of young women, water scarcity could have a multi-generational impact on gender parity.

Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and while MENA is already grappling with its very real consequences, Morocco is showing a way forward. It is moving beyond pronouncements and translating commitments into actions. It is taking advantage of its wide open spaces and abundant sunshine. Although the World Bank and the Clean Technology Fund are supporting the project with low-cost financing, the leadership is Morocco's own. It is the first to launch a project under the MENA Concentrated Solar Power Scale-Up Program, a landmark World Bank development initiative that is designed to fund eight other commercial-scale power plants in the region.

Concentrated Solar Power technology has proven dependable in generating consistent levels of electricity, and the Moroccan plan will prove its suitability to large-scale industrial application. It will also prove to all the participants of the COP 15 and 16 climate summits, that mitigating the effects of climate change through the gradual replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy is possible. It just means taking the summit pronouncements seriously, and turning them into bold actions.

There is no GDP test for innovation. It is not size that matters, but vision and commitment, and Morocco is displaying plenty of both. The progress of the National Solar Plan will be watched closely by its neighbors, eager to follow in its footsteps. Morocco could very well unleash a green energy revolution in the heart of the sunshine belt.

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HIMALAYAS’ GREEN TECH BOOMS, WHO OWNS IT?

HIMALAYAS’ GREEN TECH BOOMS, WHO OWNS IT?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

We have a gladdening news about the Himalayan region regarding the potentialities of renewable energy or RE as impetus for economic prosperity. Eight (8) countries in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region particularly manifest high potentials for RE-driven growth.

The question that is now rising from the emerging green tech boom there is: who owns the said RE boom altogether? Who is in control, who pays up the greatest for the boom, what yields will there be for the peoples of the 8-country region?

Without such a control over the boom’s compass and yields, there is always the danger of financial predators using the RE boom to extract the greatest profits out of their greedy pursuits, which will cancel out the people-prospering side of development.

Below is a report on the subject from the SciDev.net.

[Philippines, 27 December 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/himalayan-countries-urged-to-own-their-green-tech-boom.html

Himalayan countries urged to own their green tech boom

Smriti Mallapaty

21 November 2011

[KATHMANDU] Himalayan countries should support and invest in green technologies if such initiatives are to succeed and bring benefits to the economy in the long term, a meeting has heard.

Eight countries in the Hindu-Kush Himalayan region are making progress in development and uptake of renewable energy technologies, which can maintain sustainable economic growth for mountain communities, a workshop in Kathmandu heard earlier this month (2–4 November).

Further investments could provide environmental, social and economic benefits to mountain communities, experts told the meeting, which was organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

But it is uncertain whether poorer countries could sustain investment in green technology development without external support and this dependency on donor funding could hamper the progress made so far, experts warned.

Suresh Kumar Dhungel, senior scientist at Nepal National Academy of Science and Technology, told SciDev.Net: "The sad part is that Nepal's efforts are not solely ours, it is all guided by funds from international donor agencies. Policymakers need to realise the importance of a green society."

Golam Rasul, head of ICIMOD's economic analysis division said: "The initial cost of renewable energy is high compared with fossil fuel based energy. The technology we are using now is not very cost-effective. Technologically advanced countries should support research in this field."

Rasul said regional cooperation and transboundary energy trade could offer a way out.

"Bhutan and Nepal have huge hydropower potential but lack technical capacity and large markets, whereas India and Bangladesh are power hungry," Rasul said.

Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, deputy director-general of the National Environmental Protection Agency, of the Afghanistan, told SciDev.Net climatic environments may need different green technologies, appropriate for local circumstances.

Prem Pokhrel, climate and energy programme officer at the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre, Nepal, said that almost a million households in Nepal are benefiting from micro-hydro power plants, improved cooking stoves, domestic biogas plants, and solar home systems. This saves an estimated 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Pokhrel described an 'energy ladder' of rising income, where households transition from wood and animal-based fuels to electricity and other clean energy, as they get richer. This also translated into better health for women and children, said Pokhrel. He added that uptake of clean energy can also help generate better income.

ICIMOD organised a conference on Green Economy and Sustainable Mountain Development: Opportunities and Challenges in View of Rio+20 in September, which produced a concept paper 'Green Economy for Sustainable Mountain Development'.

One of the key recommendations to the national governments from the concept paper was to "adopt alternative forms of energy such as hydropower, wind power, biogas, and solar energy to reduce negative impacts from the use of fossil fuels and fuel wood".

Link to 'Green Economy for Sustainable Mountain Development: a concept paper for Rio+20 and beyond'

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COMMERCIALIZING BIODIVERSITY IN COLOMBIA

COMMERCIALIZING BIODIVERSITY IN COLOMBIA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Should biodiversity be commercialized? What are the stakes in commercialization? What are the costs, and who pay for them?

Colombia is home to 10% of the world’s biodiversity, a resource that its stakeholders wish to leverage in the market. Such an option comes at a time when biotechnology had grown to such a level that can aid biodiversity in sustaining itself.

Below is a summary report on the recent updates in Colombia’s biodiversity initiatives.

[Philippines, 16 July 2011]

Source: http://www.scidev.net/en/news/colombia-to-commercialise-its-biodiversity.html

Colombia to commercialise its biodiversity

Lisbeth Fog

6 July 2011

[BOGOTÁ] Colombia has approved a policy that will map out plans for sustainable commercial use of its rich biodiversity resources, mainly through the development of biotechnology research.

The policy, approved by the government last month (14 June), includes plans to set up a national company for bioprospecting to link up with the commercial sector. It will be backed with US$14 million in government funds over the next four years.

Colombia's goal is to enable the development of industries and products based on the sustainable use of its biodiversity. The country is home to ten per cent of the world's known biodiversity.

The new policy should reduce the bottleneck created by the current regulations on access to genetic resources, Mauricio Rodríguez, manager of the biotechnology programme at the National Department for Science, Technology and Innovation and co-author of the document, told SciDev.Net. He said that new, more efficient regulations based on the policy will be ready in a month.

Juan Lucas Restrepo, director of the Colombian Corporation of Agricultural Research, a public research institute, welcomed the policy. He said the current legislation on access and benefit-sharing is not working adequately.

But Fernando Casas, a Colombian economist and a co-chair of the Intergovernmental Committee of the Nagoya Protocol, said it would be difficult to adapt this policy to the existing Andean Community of Nations agreement to which Colombia is a signatory.

The Andean agreement stresses sustainable conservation and the importance of recognising benefit-sharing with indigenous and local people, while the Colombian one stresses the importance of commercialising biodiversity through biotechnology research.

Some Colombian scientists have also said that the main obstacles in research on biodiversity resources are bureaucracy and lack of expertise within the Ministry of Environment — which are not addressed in this policy. This leads to delayed decisions in approval of licenses to get access to genetic resources.

Casas welcomed the policy as overdue but said it does not advance the three goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity — conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from using genetic resources.

He also warned that the document does not analyse the policy's possible effects on Colombia's Free Trade Agreement with United States, which has been in negotiation for years, especially with regards to its impact on intellectual property.

Link to full policy document (in Spanish)

RE-ECHOING CLEAN ENERGY

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


In the province of Ilocos Norte, in northern Philippines, is a pilot project for wind energy… Hydraulics application has already seen the rise of dams that generate at least couples of thousands of megawatts of power… Geothermal energy will be breaching the 3,000 megawatt level soon, making PH the world’s top geothermal power producer.

There are more such narratives of nascent and maturing power producers that tap alternative energy sources, or energy other than fossil fuel. We have vast reserves of natural gas in the country, which is fossil-related though clean energy in classification.

Solar power is a sunrise industry, and the good news is that our engineers here have exceeded the capability level of those in California and elsewhere in producing state-of-the-art solar panels. Ocean power research & development is proceeding at rapid pace, with installations projected in pilot areas in the short run.

Wind power potentials of the Philippines itself is projected at past the 70,000 megawatt level, which is a whopping figure that is over five (5) times the current electricity needs. Already, over 3,000 megawatts of wind power projects are in the pipeline, either as on-going or soon-to-start-installation projects.

In Manila, shuttle vehicles powered by electricity ferry shoppers at the Araneta Center and the Mall of Asia or MOA. Jeepneys in Makati using electricity are also shuttling shoppers as well as employees around the classy Ayala Central Business District, the country’s financial center. Tricycles powered by electricity are also rising, while motorbikes powered by electricity are now in use in Palawan.

The news about the usage of alternative energy is increasing by the day in the Philippines. Hopefully, the industrialized Northern countries will move ahead in shifting towards clean energy despite the economic downturns they are now experiencing. Emerging markets are surging ahead in this very dynamic field, and this phenomenon is causing me a sense of fulfillment and happiness being a habitué of the ASEAN.

In previous articles, I already shared the information about China’s perfection of the nuclear fusion technology. The news first reached my attention in 2007, and at that time it was projected that the first commercial prototypes for fusion breeder plants will be out in 10 years time. That means that as early as 2016 China will launch nuclear plants powered by fusion technology.

So dynamic is the field of alternative energy R & D that the sources of ideas for it are like oceans of thought. There simply are too many options for deriving alternative energy, so that in the not-so-distant future the starships for traversing space will be fueled by clean-recyclable-inexhaustible energy.

Let’s take the planet itself and its constant motion. As the planet moves around its axis, torque is generated. Torque is a potential source of energy, and for as long as the Earth revolves around its axis, torque will be inexhaustible. This is one area that I wish to be involved in the R&D phase itself.

Airplanes, airships, rockets and satellites can be fuelled in the future by torque among many options. By airships I mean maritime ships of today that can be retrofitted and re-engineered to be able to fly in the air, though at low altitudes, thus turning into a more efficient passenger vehicle more than today’s airplanes.

Another planetary source of energy for tomorrow is albedo. Around 1/3 of the heat that gets to the Earth from the Sun and other celestial sources escape as albedo. My thesis is that the escaping albedo can be tapped as an inexhaustible source of energy.

Necessarily, the policy environment and institutions that will propel clean energy and make it the sole energy source in the future should be prepared and strengthened early enough. Incidentally, the Philippines is among the countries with an exemplary policy environment for clean energy, and so industrialized and emerging markets can emulate the experience of my country in this line of endeavor.

The long-term goal, of course, is to rid the planet of fossil fuel. At some point in the future, extraction of oil & gas should be put to a stop. Prolonged extraction is causing imbalances in the geological structures of the planet, imbalances that can be irreparable in the long run. It would be best to carve out a global policy architecture to cease all fossil fuel extractions in the future, and enforce this strictly.

I would be celebrating the day when fossil fuel will cease to be the source of electricity and vehicular power in the foreseeable future. As far as electricity generation is concerned, the Philippines is almost there. But I shall wait a bit till electricity will be totally clean and using non-fossil energy sources.

[Philippines, 09 February 2011]

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REFLECTING COMMUNITY WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Erle Frayne Argonza

Gracious morning to you!

A country such as Tanzania that is known for possessing large swaths of wildlife can provide to us a wonderful database regarding the impact of political and economic changes on community wildlife management.

Such is precisely the purpose of a report prepared by the Drylands Programme, as summarized below.

[05 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to Eldis database reports.]
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Emergent or illusory? community wildlife management in Tanzania
Authors: Nelson,F.Produced by: Drylands Programme, IIED (2007)

As the country known around the world as the home of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, few natural resources are more closely associated with Tanzania than its wildlife populations.

By the 1980s, Tanzania's wildlife management practices were under increasing pressure from a set of internal and external forces largely linked with the broad economic and political changes occurring in the country at that time. This led to support for greater local community involvement in wildlife management as a means of pursuing both conservation and rural development goals.

This paper considers the outcomes and impacts of wildlife areas in Tanzania, and considers the emergence of community wildlife management (CWM) strategies. The author highlights that the outcomes of over a decade of CWM in Tanzania reflect broader internal political struggles over land rights, resource governance, and participation in policy formulation, as well as challenges facing efforts to devolve natural resource management to local communities throughout the tropics. The paper concludes with some suggestions for how practitioners in Tanzania and elsewhere might foster more effective and adaptive CWM approaches in light of these outcomes and experiences:

• new institutional models are needed if CWM is to emerge in Tanzania in a more effective and robust manner
  
• efforts to support CWM need to take greater account of the institutional incentives that influence reform outcomes, and recognise that in most instances enabling CWM will require long-term negotiations between local and central interests over resource rights and uses
  
• long-term and adaptive strategies for moving the institutional balance of power towards the local level are fundamental to CWM
  
• development aid agencies and international conservation organisations need to find innovative ways of supporting institutional processes if they are to make more productive investments in CWM.
  

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39350&em=240908&sub=enviro