Study 3: Ecodestruction and the Right to Food: The Cases of Water ...

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Starving the Future Study 3 VI Conclusion The International Botanical Congress 1999, the world’s largest gathering of plant scientists held in August 1999 in St.Louis, documented the following grim perspectives: Half of the Earth’s land is transformed, 50 dead zones expand in the world’s oceans, and before 2100 two thirds of all plant and animal species could be lost. 53 “Scientists have documented five mass extinctions since complex life emerged on the planet. It is generally accepted that each was caused by a catastrophic natural disaster. For example, the disappearance of the dinosaurs was likely the result of a large meteorite crashing on Earth about 65 million years ago. Some scientists believe that we are in the midst of another mass extinction and that we are the primary cause. In contrast to previous mass extinctions, the current rate of biodiversity losses is higher than ever recorded. That is, we are losing more species per year than ever before.” 54 Given the dependence of human beings on biodiversity and their supportive web of ecosystems, one of the species vanishing in this “catastrophic natural disaster” could be the human species itself. Nobody can say today that there is lack of scientific evidence of what is happening. There is also no serious dispute about the looming water crisis. The question is a question of political response. Obviously, political response has to address the causes for ecodestruction – which tend to be closely linked to the causes for oppression. “We are the primary cause” holds mainly true for that part of humanity which has the greatest impact on the planet’s ecosystems: Scientists have developped the concept of “ecological footprint” to measure the ecological impact for nations, regions, individuals. The ecological footprint is the size of the bioproductive area which would be necessary to run the economic activities of the nation, region or individual in a sustainable way. The ecological footprint provides an indicator for ecological impact : The larger the area, the bigger the impact. 55 In terms of nations, US citizens have the largest impact with an average footprint of 9.6 ha per person. 56 European citizens consume between 4 and 5 ha, whereas the Indians or Chinese take only 1.0 ha resp. 1.4 ha - well below the sustainable global average of 2.1 ha. 57 Population, of course, plays a role – but what has to be counted is the footprints and not the heads: The US footprints add up to 25 billion km 2 (about 20% of total human impact) for a population of just 4.6% of the global population, whereas China’s impact is 17.3 billion km 2 (13.7% of total global impact), but accomodating 21.4% of the world’s population. Total footprint has to be reduced very urgently – both in terms of unsustainable per capita footprint, as well as in terms of population size – in particular in those nations showing unsustainable per capita footprints, but elsewhere as well. The right of women to control the size of their families must be implemented. In many countries it is the victims of the violations of the right to food who have at the same time the least access to measures of reproductive health. Measures must be taken to stop population growth well before the carrying capacity of a country has been reached. Biodiversity concerns would also call for a policy of excluding a considerable portion of bioproductive area in each country from human use as a reservation for biodiversity. Ecodestruction is largely due to the economic activities under the current paradigm of “development” measured basically by growth of GNP. GNP, however, does not measure wellbeing, but ecodestruction. 58 The conclusion is obvious: A fundamental paradigm change is urgently necessary to halt the tendencies indicated in this study. Measures taken will have to curtail the “liberty” of corporations: Future regulation should be firmly based on human rights – not only to check powerful state and intergovernmental authorities, but also to provide protection and fulfilment for today’s victims of ecodestruction – the forerunners of future generations of victims: The indigenous peoples, the peasants and fisherfolk. FIAN International 140 June 2002
Starving the Future Study 3 Within the corporate economic paradigm disrespecting, marginalizing and destroying small-scale sustainable economic activities of the so-called “poor”, the detrimental role of agribusiness was mentioned in this study in the context of biodiversity. Instead of a change of paradigm in the centers of “development” (calling themselves the “developped countries”) we witness the globalization of a destructive paradigm. Corporations taking over areas (in the name of progress, productivity and – ironically – the management of scarce resources and the fight against hunger) that have so far been managed sustainably by communities feeding themselves. Human rights like the right to food and the right to feed oneself need justiciable implementation in national and international law – and so does environmental law. Klaus Töpfer, the Director of UNEP, said in a recent interview: ”We now suffer from our failure in Rio [at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development] to deal with the justiciability and control of the treaties [on Biodiversity and Climate Change] .” 59 The US administration has so far signalled more than others its disregard both for these treaties and for human rights law around the right to food. 1 FIAN / The Impact of Ecodestruction on the Right to Food: On Topsoil, and in Marine and Forest Ecosystems; Heidelberg 2001; FIAN / Violations of the human right to food leading to Ecodestruction: Soil, forest and marine resources. Heidelberg 2002; 2 P.Bartelmus (ed.) / Wohlstand entschleiern ; Stuttgart 2001;p.14 3 A.Alonso, Francisco Dallmeier, Working for Biodiversity, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.2000, p.10 4 (2000) UNDP, UNEP, World Bank and World Resources Institute, “World Resources 2000-2001”, Washington DC, p.104 5 FAO, Food for All, Rome 1996, p.23 6 See FAO, Fishery Country Profiles, www.fao.org/fi/FCP. 7 See US Energy Information Agency, www.eia.doe.gov / International Energy Outlook 2001 8 (2000) UNDP, UNEP, World Bank and World Resources Institute, “World Resources 2000-2001”, Washington DC, p.116 9 (1997) Shiklomanov I. A., Comprehensive Assessment of the freshwater resources of the world: Assessment of water resources and water availability in the world. Stockholm, Sweden:WMO and Stockholm Environment Institute. 10 (1997)World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World. Geneva:WMO 11 (2000) UNDP, UNEP, World Bank and World Resources Institute, “World Resources 2000-2001” 12 See FAO data, www.fao.org/WAICENT/OIS/PRESS_NE/PRESSENG/1999/pren9916.htm 13 (2000) UNDP, UNEP, World Bank and World Resources Institute, “World Resources 2000-2001” 14 FAO 1996: Food for All 15 Soil erosion is therefore – for all practical purposes – irreversible. 16 All data: FAO 1996: Food for All 17 www.ifg.org/gbsummary.html 18 R.Petrella, The Water Manifesto, Arguments of a World Water Contract, Zed Books, London, 2001 19 Data on water consumption from FAO / Food for All, Rome 1996 20 These data and the following are taken from G.Fischer et al. / Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21 st Century, 2001 IIASA and FAO 21 J.Pretty / Regenerating Agriculture, Earthscan, London 1995 22 G.Fischer et al., op.cit. 23 FIAN / The Impact of Ecodestruction on the Right to Food: On Topsoil, and in Marine and Forest Ecosystems;Heidelberg 2001; 24 To read more, see (1993), Greer, Jed : The Price of Gold / Environmental Costs of the New Gold Rush, In : The Ecologist, Vol.23, No.3, May/June 1993 25 (1993), Young, John E. : For The Love of Gold, World Watch, May/June 1993 & Mining the Earth, World Watch Paper 109, World Watch Institute, Washington DC. 26 http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/chiledam.htm 27 cf section VI,B 28 See www.panda.org/resources/programmes/mpo/library/download/rcindia.doc 29 See www.worldlakes.org/Biodiversity.htm 30 http://www.american.edu/TED/ice/chiledam.htm 31 H.Priebe / Die subventionierte Unvernunft, Siedeler Berlin 1985 FIAN International 141 June 2002
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