burden of deforestation, desertification, erosion of ... - Social Watch

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The national biomass (above and below ground) is estimated at 5.6 billion tonnes, with an additional 434 million tonnes of dead wood biomass, for a total biomass estimate of 6 billion tonnes. Of this, approximately 2.8 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in forests. The forests therefore hold a considerable amount (90%) of the country’s total aboveground biomass. Deforestation and its impacts Over the last 40 years the forests have been depleted due to population increase, economic imperatives, charcoal production, demand for new land for agriculture and uncontrolled fires. The rate of deforestation that for decades was said to be about 300,000 hectares per annum was reported in 2008 to be 800,000 hectares per annum. 10 Between 1990 and 2010, Zambia lost an estimated 6.3% of its forest cover or around 3,332,000 hectares. 11 Commercial exploitation of indigenous woods started during the third decade of the 20 th century. Increasing activities in mining and construction also contribute significantly to deforestation. The practice of slash-and-burn agriculture to feed a growing population is widespread. Logging is also increasing. The hardwood forests of the western grasslands, which had been reasonably well conserved, have in recent years come under pressure. 12 Households and industries are major consumers of forest resources. The main commercial product from indigenous forests is charcoal for cooking – 27% of households in Zambia use it as their main source of cooking energy while 56% use firewood. Electricity is used by 16% of households for cooking and by 19.3% of households as their main source of lighting. The charcoal industry provides employment for about 50,000 people in rural and urban areas. 13 Forests provide an important source of livelihood for rural communities. In particular, poorer households show a higher dependency (44%) on wood fuel than those who earn more. The demand for wood fuel is increasing exponentially while there are severe local shortages. Poorer households also have a greater dependence on wild plants for medicinal purposes and food. Other uses of forest products include animal grazing and provision of construction materials such as poles and thatching grass. Overall most forests fall under traditional customary management and have no formal management arrangements: 41% fall under traditional management; 36% 10 European Commission, Governance Profile – Zambia, (2008), . 11 Mongabay.com, op. cit. 12 Ibid. 13 World Bank, Delivering Modern Energy Services for Urban Africa - Status, Trends and Opportunities for Commercially Sustainable Interventions, (2003), . are recorded as not having a known management plan; and only 23% have formal management arrangements (national parks and forest reserves). Although both men and women play critical roles in managing natural resources in Zambia, women’s relationship with the environment is critical to their daily lives as they are responsible for the provision of domestic water and fuel as well as for cooking. Women play major roles in forest resource management as gatherers and users of various forest products including grass for thatching. The high poverty levels and lack of alternative livelihoods sources, especially in rural areas, exacerbate environmental degradation resulting from poor people’s dependence on natural resources for survival. Forest destruction is leading to soil erosion, loss of bio-diversity and biomass, dwindling water supplies, reduced agricultural productivity and environmental degradation. There are also widespread negative impacts on food security, energy supply and social welfare. Customary lands are increasingly degraded and deforested because they are under the most pressure for alternative land uses. The use of charcoal and wood fuel is not only harmful for the environment but also bad for people’s health. 14 The country cannot afford to continue losing forests at the current rate. Forests are important for carbon restoration, which helps to mitigate climate change. Key policies and programmes The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources was created in 1991 as the primary institution for environmental management. Successive efforts to deal with the challenges in the sector have included adoption of the National Conservation Strategy, the National Policy on Environment (2007), the National Environmental Action Plan, the Zambia National Biodiversity and Action Plan, the Forestry Policy of 1998, the Zambia Forestry Action Plan and the Forest Act of 1999. To deal with ozone layer depletion, the Government enacted Statutory Instrument No. 27 of 2001, and the country signed and ratified the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and subsequently prepared a national plan of action in 2002. Zambia also implemented its Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) from 2006 to 2010, the key policy objectives of which included the promotion 14 Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR), The Path Away from Poverty: An Easy Look at Zambia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper 2002–2004, . Social Watch 191 Zambia of sustainable forest management by encouraging private sector and civil society participation in forest resource management. A number of activities were introduced to deal with forestry matters during this period, but in the final analysis it was difficult to monitor progress because of a lack of data and information. The deforestation rate, the only indicator available, showed that FNDP objectives in that area were not achieved in full. In fact, it is clear that the pace of forest depletion has accelerated. Furthermore, there are inadequate macroeconomic policy incentives or disincentives to promote sustainable management of environmental resources and discourage unsustainable consumption patterns. Conclusions and recommendations Development cannot be sustained in a deteriorating environment, and the environment cannot be protected when economic growth does not take into account the cost of environmental destruction. The high poverty levels, limited access to basic rights such as education and health, and continued degradation of the forests mean that sustainable development is under threat in Zambia despite high economic growth. The Zambia Social Watch Coalition therefore recommends the following: • To ensure sustainable forest management, and mitigation of or adaptation to climate change, Zambia must recognize the importance of land tenure and ownership, especially with respect to customary lands, which account for nearly two thirds of forest land. • Government must accelerate the pace of adopting the revised draft forest policy and the subsequent revision of the Forest Act of 1999. • In revising existing policies, laws or programmes or developing new ones, gender mainstreaming must be strengthened to ensure both women and men are not adversely affected and they both benefit equally. • Coordination in the environment sector should be strengthened and environmental issues mainstreamed in all sectors. • Government and other key stakeholders in the field must embark on massive public education campaigns on the environment. n
Made possible thanks to the funding and support of the European Union and Oxfam Novib. ISSN: 0797-9231 S O C I A L W A T C H R E P O R T 2 0 1 2 0797-9231 USA: The country is home to 5% of the world’s population, yet it consumes 25% of the world’s energy and is responsible for 22 percent of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide emissions. MALAYSIA: Annual deforestation rate jumped nearly 86% between 1990 and 2005, with a total loss of forest coverage of 140,200 hectares per year since 2000. HOUSING: 1.6 billion people are currently living in sub-standard housing, 100 million are homeless, and around a quarter of the world’s population is estimated to be landless. VIETNAM: Average temperature rose by about 0.5 - 0.7°C between 1958 and 2007 while the sea level rose by 20 cm. THAILAND: Nearly 74,640 hectares of mangrove forest have been used for aquaculture fishery, in particular shrimp farms. TANZANIA: In order for the district of Chamwino can satisfy its basic needs 63,501,000 kg of food are required, while the realized production for 2008/09 was only 12,178,000 kg. SLOVENIA: 25% of young people not in the formal education system are unemployed. PANAMA: In 1970 70% of the country was under forest cover but by 2011 this had been reduced to around 35%. NIGERIA: Almost 350,000 hectares of arable land are being lost annually to the advancing desert. ITALIA: Currently at risk are 68% of its terrestrial vertebrates, 66% of its birds, 64% of its mammals and 88% of its freshwater fish. HONDURAS: The murder rate in 2010 was 77.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. GUATEMALA: The deforestation rate is around 82,000 ha per year. If exploitation continues at this level, all the country’s native forests will have been wiped out by 2040. ERITREA: All adults, male and female, up to the age of 45 are subject to what amounts to slavery. ECUADOR: The exploitation of copper deposits at Mirador will generate at least 326 million tons of waste, which is equivalent to four hills like El Panecillo in Quito or the volume of all the rubbish collected in Guayaquil for the next 405 years. CANADA: One in three Aboriginal and racialized people in Canada live in poverty. One in four people with disabilities, immigrants, and female single-parents in Canada live in poverty. CAMBODIA: 64% of mothers and girls are reducing their food intake in order to leave more to the other members of the family. BURMA: During the construction of the Yadana gas pipeline, Government soldiers and proxy military groups providing security forced civilians to cut down trees, serve as porters, and build military infrastructure. Those who refused were beaten, raped, tortured and killed. AZERBAIJAN: In many cases the Soviet era oil industry created huge petroleum lakes which literally destroyed all of the biomass around them. ARGENTINA: In the period 1998 to 2006 around 250,000 hectares per year disappeared, which is a rate of one hectare every two minutes. BCI: With carbon dioxide emissions at three tons per capita a year, Costa Rica and Uruguay have managed to lower their infant mortality to the same level of a country that emits twenty tons a year: the United States. GENDER: Feminist economics has shown that over 50% of all work hours is unpaid. Social Watch is an international network of citizens’ organizations in the struggle to eradicate poverty and the causes of poverty, to end all forms of discrimination and racism, to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth and the realization of human rights. We are committed to peace, social, economic, environment and gender justice, and we emphasize the right of all people not to be poor. Social Watch holds governments, the UN system and international organizations accountable for the fulfilment of national, regional and international commitments to eradicate poverty. GRAPHIC DESIGN: MONOCROMO
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SOCIAL WATCH R E P O R T 2 0 1 2 SU
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SOCIAL WATCH REPORT 2012 The right
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Social Watch in the world SW Nation
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• GUATEMALA: CONGCOOP - Coordinac
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Española de la Educación; Movimie
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Social Watch: promoting accountabil
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Global Assembly The Global Assembly
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Table of contents The right to a fu
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The right to a future An overview o
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has similarly led to population dis
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In the current international trade
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Rio+20 and beyond: no future withou
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ated into many other international
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• Emphasizing progressive taxatio
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A compensation scheme to pay off cl
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Rio+20: implementation is the key A
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Sustainable development and a renew
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policies that have only exacerbated
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neoliberal model, it gained even mo
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Thus, the advances of the sustainab
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Networking cities that use new indi
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Green and equal: financing for sust
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fROM AID EffECTIvENESS TO TAx jUSTI
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casions, often reaching agreement.
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The indignados are asking the right
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Green jobs but no justice From the
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Human right to adequate housing and
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have its most negative impacts and
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BASIC CAPABILITIES INDEx 2011 The b
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TeChnICal noTes 1 The following are
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surviving under-5 Birth atended Chi
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education malawi 89 57 32 59 malays
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Achievement Possibility Frontiers (
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promoTIng eConomIC and soCIal rIghT
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Core Country serf Index Country Cor
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From the grassroots: NATIONAL REPOR
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Education and gender equality Accor
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- have gradually put sustainable de
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FIGURE 1 GDP - Real growth rate (%)
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diversified manner and underscored
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was re-opened shortly afterwards wi
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waste water is often polluted by hu
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“Europe is alone with its unilate
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into the atmosphere, with emissions
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The Kyoto Protocol includes an anti
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However, the Government has not tak
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One egregious example is the offici
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The grim face of militarized develo
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Cooperation Agency study stated dur
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Unemployment According to a 2009 st
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and experience their status in the
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vere reduction in productivity in t
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However, discussions about reform d
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harmful impact on the environment.
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FIGURE 1 Unemployment in Croatia me
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the Ministry of Education and Cultu
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have been more women in the judicia
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liable to arbitrary detention and c
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companies acquired State concession
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Taking a broad view, even though in
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a government which does not hesitat
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Indigenous peoples’ rights A conf
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WORLD LEVEL COMMITMENTS The world h
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A study by Diakonie, the Protestant
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TABLE 1 Trends in Forest Cover in G
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union and research groups and other
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underlying factors that generate la
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Energy consumption declining In the
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te Mitigation Action Plan for low c
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nance of an exclusionary culture in
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In terms of development cooperation
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State shall (…) ensure sustainabl
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trial effluents have caused water p
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has been a high priority, efforts a
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ment protection agency. There have
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concerning the La Parota dam since
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