Category: Environment

{In Zimbabwe, there’s no effective way to track cyanide—and elephants are suffering terrible deaths because of it.}

According to Zimbabwe authorities, poachers have killed a total of 80 elephants by poisoning them with cyanide, a highly toxic industrial chemical, during various incidents in recent months.

First, 11 elephants were killed in Hwange National Park and 3 in Matusadona National Park. On October 26, the parks authority announced that another 22 had been poisoned and killed in Hwange. A week later, it was reported that cyanide had taken the lives of 26 in the park. And during the past three weeks, more cyanide deaths were found in Mana Pools, Chizarira, and Gonarezhou National Parks.

A court in Hwange has sentenced three men to a range of from seven months to 10 years in prison in connection with the cyanide poisonings in the park. Raids conducted by the police and parks units on November 22 yielded other arrests, with charges including illegal possession of ivory, ammunition, and cyanide concentrate.

Two men, who were implicated in cyanide killings in Hwange in 2013, also appeared in court yesterday. They’re accused of possessing 37 kilograms of ivory that they allegedly took from dead elephants in the most recent cyanide poisonings. One of the men used to work for the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

Elephant poaching has been on the rise in Zimbabwe, and cyanide is becoming an increasingly common way to kill. It’s cheap and quiet. Poachers have laced salt licks with the cyanide and poured the chemical into watering holes. They’ve even baited oranges with it.

But who’s using it? And where does it come from? A closer look at Zimbabwe’s hazardous substance laws shows a thriving black market for cyanide, thanks to a weak inventory control system and lack of tracking once it leaves the primary seller’s possession.

In early November, Oppah Muchinguri, Zimbabwe’s minister of water, climate and environment, told the Sunday Mail, a weekly paper owned by the government, that investigations into the cyanide poisonings had revealed that poaching syndicates smuggle cyanide into the country from Zambia and South Africa.

She also said that the probe has been expanded to include park employees, seven of whom have already been arrested in connection with the earlier cyanide killings. Two local police officers have also been arrested.

The latest spate of killings, splashed across papers from Zimbabwe to the United States, raise concern about a possible resumption in the use of the chemical. Two years ago, more than 300 elephants were killed with cyanide by well-organized poaching syndicates operating from the capital, Harare, and Bulawayo, the country’s second city. According to investigative sources within the parks authority, Chinese ivory traffickers in Harare were implicated.

Zimbabwe has more than 83,000 elephants, according to government estimates, most of them in Hwange National Park and along the Zambezi Valley. Elephant poaching has been on the rise. A 2014 report, the National Survey for Elephants in Zimbabwe, said that the number of elephants in the Zambezi Valley had fallen from 19,000 in 2001 to 13,000—a 40 percent drop.

More Zimbabweans were arrested for elephant poaching than foreigners in 2012—mainly South Africans but also Zambians, Congolese, and Botswanans, according to a report released by safari operators in the Hwange and Gwayi areas. Several Chinese citizens have also been arrested for alleged involvement in ivory trafficking to Asia.

What Is Cyanide?

Cyanide is a fast-acting, potentially deadly chemical. It exists in two states: as the colorless gases hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen chloride or in crystal form as sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide.

The chemical is used for everything from making paper, textiles, and plastics to mining gold—an important application in Zimbabwe. Miners use cyanide concentrate to catalyze the separation of pure gold from bulk ores during the chemical purification process. In gas form, it’s used to kill pests in buildings and ships. It has also been used as a weapon of war.

Cyanide kills the body’s cells by starving them of oxygen. In mammals, the poison is most harmful to the heart and brain—organs that depend heavily on oxygen supplies.

Elephants, according to Dave Dell, of Friends of Hwange, an elephant welfare group working in the park, are especially vulnerable to mass killings because they move together in large groups, sharing the same salt licks and water sources.

“Usually they don’t get more than 100 meters” after taking the poison, Dell told the Los Angeles Times. “The suffering is horrible. They get weak very quickly and collapse.”

Zimbabwe’s Cyanide Black Market

There’s no way of knowing where cyanide goes to see whether miners are using or proliferating it.

Tshinga Dube, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

Under Zimbabwe’s Hazardous Substance Act, cyanide can only be sold by accredited chemical substance dealers to customers in the mining and chemical industry. The customers, mostly gold miners, are then required to produce written proof that they’re authorized to handle and use it.

These accredited chemical substance dealers must have valid permits from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development.

The Zimbabwe Defence Forces also hold large quantities of military grade mercury, cyanide, and hydrogen gas compounds. The army is allowed to acquire and use cyanide concentrate for specified military purposes.

But dealers don’t always follow the law.

“In some cases, dealers divert their legal stocks for sale in the black market,” said Tshinga Dube, chairman of Zimbabwe’s National Chapter of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an inter-ministerial committee tasked with monitoring the control and use of chemical and hazardous substances in the industrial, agricultural, and mining industries.

In other cases, it appears that cyanide is being stolen or illegally sold from the mines themselves, after it has been purchased legally from dealers. “Many mines are unable to secure their stocks, and some people in positions of responsibility steal and sell cyanide to unlicensed people,” Dube said.

Miners are required to obtain a license and be subject to inspections in order to ensure the substance is not re-sold or misused, said Wellington Takavarasha, the CEO of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation, a union representing small-scale gold miners. “When a miner buys cyanide, the Environmental Management Agency inspects the receipts and insists on seeing where it will be kept and used.”

Takavarasha, like Dube, said the substance needs more stringent monitoring. “There’s a need for a multi-stakeholder approach to keep track of the sources,” Takavarasha told the Sunday News.

One small-scale gold miner, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution by the miners union, agrees. “What the law says and what people do is another thing,” he said.

He has three mines in the Inyathi gold belt, about 30 miles north of Bulawayo, and although he’s been in the gold mining business for six years, he’s never been personally certified for any of the thousands of tons of cyanide concentrate he’s used to keep the mines running.

“The mines I operate are registered in the name of a local indigenous consortium,” he said. The consortiums enjoy certain legal exemptions and waivers that make it less financially burdensome for small-scale miners to acquire mining equipment and chemicals.

“The consortium holds the license, so the consortium acquires and distributes inputs like cyanide concentrate to members,” he explained. “How the member use it, or who they share it with or sell it to afterwards is their business. That way cyanide from registered mines gets sold to illegal gold panners who also use it to process ores.”

That, he said, is just the beginning. “Gold panners then proliferate it by selling to each other in small quantities, and as a result, every household with a gold panner has a quantity of illegally acquired cyanide from time to time.”

After the highly publicized 2013 cyanide killings in Hwange, the miner said, “many people realized that [cyanide] pays a lot more than its gold purification value if sold to poachers, and they now buy it for resale to poaching syndicates around Hwange.

“We know of many middlemen who come from Hwange to buy cyanide from miners. Anyone can get cyanide as long as they can pay $50 or more per 5-kilogram bag of concentrate. Poachers buy the same measure for $100.”

Tracking Cyanide

A big part of the problem, Dube said, is that cyanide in Zimbabwe isn’t tracked. “There’s no way of knowing where cyanide goes from the dealerships and no follow-ups to see whether the miners are using or proliferating it.”

Dube believes that the only way to stop poachers from getting hold of cyanide is to monitor gold miners’ use of it and create a tracking system to follow it from port of entry to end user.

Local police don’t have the proper scientific training to monitor the substance. “Only the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, which keeps national import records, could be the starting point for monitoring,” he said. “The authority is better positioned to create a database of importers and registers of the quantities they order.”

It remains to be seen what will be done to prevent more cyanide killings. As Muchinguri, the environment minister, told the Sunday Mail, “What I want to make clear is that we are going to change a lot of things in the wildlife industry. There are going to be serious reforms. We are going to factor in all issues, starting from the bosses down to the rangers. We are therefore going to conduct an audit to get to the bottom of the matter. It is clear that the system is not watertight.”

Dube said that to improve accountability, the Zimbabwe chapter of Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is leading other government agencies in the creation of a comprehensive database of companies that import and use cyanide.

The Zimbabwe Defence Forces has also been deployed to Hwange, Matusadona, Chizarira, Gonarezhou, and Mana Pools National Park to crack down on poaching.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that three men have been sentenced to prison and others have been arrested in connection with the cyanide poisonings.

SOURCE:NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC:[How Black-Market Poison Is Helping Poachers Kill Animals->http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151124-zimbabwe-elephants-cyanide-poaching-hwange-national-park-africa/]

{The World Bank Group has unveiled a new plan that calls for $16 billion in funding to help African people and countries adapt to climate change and build up the continent’s resilience to climate shocks.
}

Titled Accelerating Climate-Resilient and Low-Carbon Development, the Africa Climate Business Plan will be presented at COP21, the global climate talks in Paris, on November 30. It lays out measures to boost the resilience of the continent’s assets – its people, land, water, and cities – as well as other moves including boosting renewable energy and strengthening early warning systems.

“Sub-Saharan Africa is highly vulnerable to climate shocks, and our research shows that could have far-ranging impact — on everything from child stunting and malaria to food price increases and droughts,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. “This plan identifies concrete steps that African governments can take to ensure that their countries will not lose hard-won gains in economic growth and poverty reduction, and they can offer some protection from climate change.”

Per current estimates, the plan says that the region requires $5-10 billion per year to adapt to global warming of 2°C.

The World Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme estimate that the cost of managing climate resilience will continue to rise to $20-50 billion by mid-century, and closer to $100 billion in the event of a 4°C warming.

Of the $16.1 billion that the ambitious plan proposes for fast-tracking climate adaptation, some $5.7 billion is expected from the International Development Association (IDA), the arm of the World Bank Group that supports the poorest countries. About $2.2 billion is expected from various climate finance instruments, $2.0 billion from others in the development community, $3.5 billion from the private sector, and $0.7 billion from domestic sources, with an additional $2.0 billion needed to deliver on the plan.

“The Africa Climate Business Plan spells out a clear path to invest in the continent’s urgent climate needs and to fast-track the required climate finance to ensure millions of people are protected from sliding into extreme poverty,” explains Makhtar Diop, World Bank Group Vice President for Africa. “While adapting to climate change and mobilizing the necessary resources remain an enormous challenge, the plan represents a critical opportunity to support a priority set of climate-resilient initiatives in Africa.”

The plan will boost the region’s ability to adapt to a changing climate while reducing greenhouse emissions, focusing on a number of concrete actions. It identifies a dozen priority areas for action that will enhance Africa’s capacity to adapt to the adverse consequences of climate variation and change.

The first area for action aims to boost the resilience of the continent’s assets. These comprise natural capital (landscapes, forests, agricultural land, inland water bodies, oceans); physical capital (cities, transport infrastructure, physical assets in coastal areas); and human and social capital (where efforts should include improving social protection for the people most vulnerable to climate shocks, and addressing climate-related drivers of migration).

The second area for action focuses on powering resilience, including opportunities for scaling up low-carbon energy sources. In addition to helping mitigate climate change, these activities offer considerable resilience benefits, as societies with inadequate access to energy are also more vulnerable to climate shocks.

And the third area for action will enable resilience by providing essential data, information and decision-making tools for climate-resilient development across sectors. This includes strengthening hydro-met systems at the regional and country levels, and building capacity to plan and design climate-resilient investments.

“The plan is a ‘win-win’ for all especially the people in Africa who have to adapt to climate change and work to mitigate its impacts,” said Jamal Saghir, the World Bank’s Senior Regional Adviser for Africa. “We look forward to working with African governments and development partners, including the private sector, to move this plan forward and deliver climate smart development.”

The Africa Climate Business Plan reflects contributions and inputs from a wide variety of partners with whom the Bank is already collaborating on the ground, in a coordinated effort to increase Africa’s resilience to climate variability and change. The plan aims to help raise awareness and accelerate resource mobilization for the region’s critical climate-resilience and low-carbon initiatives.

The plan warns that unless decisive action is taken, climate variability and change could seriously jeopardize the region’s hard-won development gains and its aspirations for further growth and poverty reduction. And it comes in the wake of Bank analysis which indicates climate change could push up to 43 million more Africans into poverty by 2030.

SOURCE:WORLDBANK:[World Bank Group unveils $16 Billion Africa Climate Business Plan to Tackle Urgent Climate Challenges ->http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/11/24/world-bank-group-unveils-16-billion-africa-climate-business-plan-to-tackle-urgent-climate-challenges]

{Nola was known for her love of back scratches and mild manner}

A rare northern white rhino has died in San Diego Zoo Sarafi Park, leaving just three across the world.

The 41-year-old female called Nola had received treatment for an infection before undergoing surgery, according to a statement from the zoo.

She was placed under vetinary watch for a week after her activity levels and appetite declined, but the zoo decided to euthanise her after she took a turn for the worse.

The 4,000-pound (1,800-kg) white rhino was the only one of her kind left in captivity in the Western Hemisphere, with her death leaving three others remaining in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.

“Nola was an iconic animal, not only at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, but worldwide,” the zoo said in a statement.

“Through the years, millions of people learned about Nola and the plight of rhinos in the wild through visits to the Safari Park, numerous media stories and social media posts.”

Nola was known for her love of back scratches and gentle disposition, making her a favourite among zoo staff.

The species was declared extinct in the wild in 2008 because of poachers hunting them for their horns, but Nola had lived in the San Diego zoo since she was captured in 1989 at age of two.

SOURCE:THE INDEPENDENT:[Rare northern white rhinoceros Nola dies to leave three left in the world->http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/rare-northern-white-rhinoceros-dies-at-san-diego-zoo-sarafi-park-to-leave-three-left-in-the-world-a6744696.html]

{Developed nations must take responsibility for their historic emissions and contribute the funds and transfer of technologies to developing countries needed to help avoid dangerous climate change}

We are only days away from the climate change summit in Paris. Several world leaders are likely to be present to applaud a successful outcome, which is virtually guaranteed since the bar has been set so low in terms of effort expected from the major industrialized economies.

Under the UN process which the negotiations have been taking place, countries are required only to present their climate pledges (known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs, which are voluntary and subject to an international review but with no strict compliance procedure.

It is this pledge and review system which will become the template for future climate change action. Past experience shows that such weak international regimes, which posit only a best endeavour commitment, rarely deliver expected results.

The UN recently reported that aggregating all the INDCs so far, the world would be on an a trajectory of 2.7C, when a 2C rise is already the limit of safety defined by scientists.

What many people fail to realize is that global warming is the consequence of the stock of greenhouse gas emissions, chiefly CO2, which has accumulated in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of fossil fuel based industrial activity in the industrialized countries of the world.

This is the reason why the UN recognizes the historical responsibility of the developed countries in causing global warming even though current industrial activity in major developing countries such as China and, to a much lesser extent, India is adding incrementally to that stock.

If developed countries do not make significant and absolute reductions in their emissions there will be a progressively smaller carbon space available to accommodate the development needs of developing countries. There is a difference between the emissions of developing countries which are “survival” emissions and those of developed countries which are in the nature of “lifestyle” emissions. They do not belong to the same category and cannot be treated on a par.

To blur this distinction is to accept the argument that because “we got here first, so we get to keep what we have, while those who come later must stay where they are for the sake of the saving the planet from the threat of climate change.” Far from accepting their historical responsibility developed countries are instead trying to shift the burden on to the shoulders of developing countries.

This they have been doing by keeping attention focused on current emissions while ignoring the source of the stock of emissions in the atmosphere. A sustainable and effective climate change regime cannot be built on the basis of such inequity.

One often hears the argument that it is all very well to preach equity but given the planetary emergency the world faces from the threat of climate change we must set aside the equity principle in the interests of humanity as a whole. This is a wholly specious and self serving argument. It reflects the sense of entitlement to an affluent lifestyle, based on energy intensive production and consumption, while denying the even modest aspirations of people in developing countries.

In a densely interconnected and globalised world, it will be impossible to maintain islands of prosperity in an ocean of poverty and deprivation. It is not that developing countries are claiming the right to spew as much carbon as possible into the atmosphere without regard to the health of the planet.

As the main victims of climate change– the impacts of which they are already suffering – they have a much bigger stake in dealing with this challenge. They are, in fact, doing much more than most developed countries, to adopt energy frugal methods of growth, conserving energy, promoting renewable power and limiting waste within the limits of their own resources.

They could do much more if they had access to finance, technology and capacity building from developed countries, a commitment which is incorporated in the UN. Success may elude Paris if developed countries continue to evade their responsibility to provide adequate financial resources and transfer appropriate technologies to developing countries to enable them to enhance their own domestic efforts.

Climate negotiations have become less about meeting an elemental challenge to human survival and more about safeguarding narrowly conceived economic self interests of nations. These are negotiations conducted in a competitive frame, where each party gives as little as possible and extracts as much as possible. The inevitable result is a least common denominator result and this is what is expected at Paris.

Imagine if each country came with the intention to contribute as much as it can and take away as little benefit to itself as possible, because we are all faced with an urgent and global challenge. We would then get a maximal outcome – which is what the world requires if it has to escape the catastrophic consequences of climate change. The negotiating dynamic may change dramatically.

The leaders can capture the imagination of people around the world if they explicitly acknowledge the seriousness of the threat we all confront and commit themselves to a global collaborative effort to deal with it based on the principle of equitable burden sharing.

Why not create a global technology platform which brings together the best minds from developed and developing countries alike to create new climate-friendly technologies which can then be disseminated as global public goods? Given the promise of solar power, why not announce a global solar mission designed to make it a mainstream energy source in a decade? Since coal will continue to be a major source of power generation in many countries of the world, could we collaborate together on a clean coal mission which reduces harmful emissions and increases the efficiency of coal combustion?

Countries can then contribute according to their capacities and resource availability and I have no doubt that emerging countries such as India, China or Brazil will be enthusiastic participants in such initiatives. Even if we are unable at this stage to go beyond the INDCs which have already been submitted the adoption of these initiatives may reassure the world that a new and more promising process has been set in motion to deliver a more sustainable future for our common home.

THE GUARDIAN

{Michigan is considering a move that would allow fish farming in the waters of its beautiful Great Lakes. But the recommendation has as many downsides as potential upsides.}

Michigan is considering a move that would allow fish farming in the waters of its beautiful Great Lakes. But the recommendation has just as many downsides as potential upsides, experts warn.

The cautionary recommendation was one of several reports submitted by a panel of scientists and other experts intended to advise regulators who are considering whether “net-pen aquaculture,” as commercial fish farming is sometimes known, would work in the Great Lakes that surround Michigan.

If Michigan does go forward with the concept, the fish-farming should begin on a smaller and more exploratory scale to test its effects on both the environment and the wild fish populations, according to one report advising a cautionary approach.

“There are a lot of concerns that would have to be addressed for any type of net-pen facility to move forward,” Tammy Newcombe, senior water policy adviser for Michigan’s state Department of Natural Resources, told the Associated Press.

She added that the net-pen concept will be open for public comment and debate during November.

Supporters of net-pen aquafarming say that when properly managed, they can be operational without causing significant damage to the environment. In 2014, Michigan Sea Grant reported that they could be a key segment of an aquaculture industry that could eventually be worth $1 billion to the state.

Another reports, produced by Michigan State University’s Center for Economic Analysis and submitted to state officials considering the aquafarming proposal, said that the potential value of caged trout produced by aquafarms in the Great Lakes top $6.6 million and result in the immediate creation of 17 jobs, with potential for an additional 27 jobs through spinoff economic activity.

But the Michigan Environmental Council said Friday that the rewards of aquafarming don’t outweigh their risks.

“If one thing goes wrong, it could sacrifice the quality of the Great Lakes for years to come,” Sean Hammond, deputy policy director of the council, told AP.

Aquaculture is an area of considerable interest to government officials and researchers, as it is poised to become an ever-larger source of the world’s consumed fish. The Monitor’s Michael Holtz reports that “farmed seafood exceeded global beef production for the first time in 2011 and now provides about half of all fish consumed by humans.” Since crossing that threshold of demand, the world is looking for even more sources for its supply.

CS MONITOR

{Rwanda today hosts the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regional workshop on Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) to climate change. The 3-day meeting will end on August 19th, 2015 }

The meeting, co-organised by United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat in partnership with the Government of Rwanda through the Ministry of Natural Resources, brings together over 70 climate change experts from across Africa, including country representatives, representatives of international organisations and the private sector.

The workshop aims to strengthen the use of NAMAs as a tool for pre-2020 and post-2020 climate change action. Regional mitigation experts and the private sector will present on designing and implementing NAMAs, support programmes, and participants will share experiences, lessons learned and best practices. Discussions will focus on challenges and issues faced, financial engineering and investment strategies for leveraging multi-source financing, measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), sustainable development co-benefits, and the NAMA Registry.

Rwanda was chosen to host the meeting because it has taken a proactive approach in mainstreaming Climate Change in its long term national development strategy, its experience in hosting international events, available facilities and its efforts in environment protection and climate change mitigation.

The Minister for Natural Resources Hon. Vincent Biruta said Rwanda is pleased to host the meeting and noted that it is another opportunity for the country to share with others the experience on the development and implementation of NAMAs.

“The meeting is an opportunity for Rwanda to build network with experienced international organisations, share our experience with other countries and learn from the best practices for further implementation of national mitigation actions for climate change,” Honourable Biruta said. “The meeting is also an opportunity to build capacity for the public and private entities and individuals on the various aspects and benefits of NAMAs”, Dr. Biruta noted