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2. Inclusive biodiversity conservation and the unsustainability of ‘sustainable use’
- Author:
- Ross Harvey
- Publication Date:
- 06-2024
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Good Governance Africa (GGA)
- Abstract:
- The South African Government’s Reviewed National Biodiversity Economy Strategy (2024) continues to promote trophy hunting as a conservation tool. This policy briefing challenges this approach, arguing that trophy hunting, particularly of endangered species, should be removed from the national biodiversity strategy due to overstated economic benefits and high ecological costs. Instead, the briefing suggests exploring sustainable, non-consumptive alternatives to trophy hunting. Successful pilot programmes should be expanded, integrating local communities into ecotourism and conservation-enhancing agriculture. This strategy aims to join fragmented landscapes into larger, ecologically sustainable areas, providing sustainable livelihoods while conserving biodiversity. Moreover, the current focus on consumptive use, such as game ranching and trophy hunting, needs re-evaluation. This philosophy creates unrealistic revenue expectations and promotes fundamentally unsustainable practices. The briefing emphasises the need to prioritise ecological sustainability over consumptive use, aligning with the constitutional duty to protect the environment for future generations. These recommendations are based on the analysis that the economic value of trophy hunting is often inflated and that the opportunity costs are significant. Non-consumptive alternatives can better support both conservation and community livelihoods, ensuring a genuinely inclusive conservation strategy.
- Topic:
- Conservation, Sustainability, Hunting, and Biodiversity
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa
3. Non-economic loss and damage: closing the knowledge gap
- Author:
- International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
- Publication Date:
- 01-2023
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
- Abstract:
- Climate-related loss and damage is escalating, with many countries experiencing new forms of climate impact, of increasing intensity. The focus until now has been on calculating the economic repercussions of climate risk. Its wider impacts and resulting hidden costs of climate change — such as loss of cultural heritage — are less understood and harder to quantify. This knowledge gap on non-economic loss and damage, which is largely due to limited coordination around research and sparse evidence originating from the global South, urgently needs addressing. This briefing proposes a comprehensive approach for building the evidence base on non-economic loss and damage, particularly the creation of a Loss and Damage Research Observatory. This online platform will lay the foundations for a collaborative South–South–North community of practitioners, ultimately leading to informed policy on this critical area of climate action.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Health, Displacement, Conservation, Indigenous, Resilience, and Biodiversity
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. Earth Day: Environmental Opportunities and Challenges in the Middle East
- Author:
- Mohammed Mahmoud
- Publication Date:
- 04-2023
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- Middle East Institute (MEI)
- Abstract:
- April 22 marks the annual observation of Earth Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness on issues of environmental conservation and protection. Mohammed Mahmoud, director of MEI's Climate and Water Program is joined by Alicia Dauth to discuss recent global and regional developments regarding the current climate crisis and their implications towards preserving the earth's environment, with a special focus on opportunities and challenges for the Middle East.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, Water, and Conservation
- Political Geography:
- Middle East
5. Good to the Last Drop
- Author:
- Thomas L. Crisman and Zachary S. Winters
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Cairo Review of Global Affairs
- Institution:
- School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
- Abstract:
- In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt was asked how his cup of coffee tasted, to which he responded “good to the last drop”. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is exhausting its limited water resources, and without adaptive management and alternative water sources will soon reach the “last drop”. This threatens the future of humanity in this region, as the UN recognized in 2010 by declaring that access to water and sanitation (termed the “human right to water and sanitation” or HRWS) is a basic human right due to its necessity for sustaining human life. Many MENA countries always had scarce surface waters, mainly springs, that were quickly diminished or totally lost to pumping of groundwater for agriculture. In 1990 and before placing significant curbs on pumping, Saudi Arabia had forty-six active springs. It now has only fifteen. Major aquifers of the region containing “fossil water” from moderate climate periods thousands of years ago have been significantly reduced in size and volume to a point where they are no longer viable water sources. Nations have recently resorted to building expensive desalination plants to supply their basic water demands. Even nations relying on major rivers (the Nile, Tigris, or Euphrates) as traditionally inexhaustible sources of water have seen both the quantity and predictability of water threatened by climate change and increased human demands in the multiple countries they flow through. Current water sources are either too expensive or too threatened politically to be wasted.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Water, Food, Conservation, Energy, and Conference of the Parties (COP)
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and North Africa
6. Biden’s Opportunity To Protect the Western Arctic in the Wake of the Willow Project
- Author:
- Sam Zeno and Jenny Rowland-Shea
- Publication Date:
- 11-2023
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for American Progress - CAP
- Abstract:
- The Biden administration has the opportunity to champion conservation by strengthening protections in the Western Arctic to ensure the United States isn’t faced with another controversial Willow Project.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Environment, Conservation, and Protection
- Political Geography:
- Arctic
7. Adoption Rate and Trends in Adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Ethiopia
- Author:
- Zaide Hailu and Kinde Teshome
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Oxfam Publishing
- Abstract:
- Since 2019 the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture has offered extension advice on conservation agriculture (CA). However, agricultural policy focuses mainly on intensive tillage whereas CA calls for zero or minimum tillage. Policy seems to favour productivity over sustainability, with CA adoption remaining low. Supply-side constraints include lack of access to high-quality inputs, credit, and machinery. Demand-side constraints include risk aversion and competition for crop residues needed for mulching from requirements for fuel and feed. Women farmers like CA because it does not require draft animals. However, some women in male-headed households report a shift of labour responsibilities to women.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Labor Issues, Conservation, and Farming
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Ethiopia