Chinese walker

UN-led climate talks drew to a close in Copenhagen on December 19. Although a weak outcome had been widely predicted, many were still shocked by just how little the conference managed to achieve.

The World Resources Institute had listed five indicators for success at Copenhagen: targets, timetables and actions for cutting emissions; funding for global climate action; common standards for tracking emissions reductions; a peer review mechanism for measurement, reporting and verification of cuts; and a legally-binding climate agreement. The conference failed on virtually all counts.

Al Gore may believe a carbon pricing mechanism can create a link between emissions reductions and incentives in daily life, but the negotiations achieved almost nothing in this regard. The only concrete achievements were the statement of intent on the need for urgent global action on climate change, and the US$100 billion (683 billion yuan) in aid from developed nations to the developing world and island nations to be disbursed from 2020.

The endless stream of proposals put forward at the negotiations %26ndash; and accompanying diplomatic onslaughts %26ndash; highlighted how much disagreement still surrounds four basic issues; namely, emissions cuts by developed nations; emissions caps for developing nations; assistance to poor nations; and a future emissions reduction deal. Clearly, there are still barriers to joint action on climate change.

There is a limit to the world%26rsquo;s capacity for greenhouse gases and the international community must curb the emissions of individual nations. But they must do so while taking into account economic growth, inter-generational equality and human survival. The result is tension between environmental capacity and development needs.

At the same time, if we are to slow down climate change, we need innovation in new energy sources and a technological revolution. These areas will affect any nation%26rsquo;s basic ability to compete and influence changes in the international system.

Climate change has gradually morphed from a matter of science and environmental diplomacy into one of economics and geopolitics. Developed and developing world camps have split into three groups: the European Union, the US-led Umbrella Group, and the Group of 77, a loose coalition of 130 developing countries, including China. Within these, there are further divisions %26ndash; eastern and western Europe; the United States, Japan and Australia; the African Union; island nations; and the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) group. The multiple dealings and checks and balances created by this system make for exceptionally complex negotiations.

In the past, the most prominent characteristic of climate talks has been to pre-empt the other side and make concessions, or to propose environmental protection measures %26ndash; with conditions attached. But all the signs at Copenhagen suggest the differing interests of small island nations and superpowers cannot always be settled by negotiations and discussion.

The Copenhagen talks have overturned some accepted beliefs; for example, that climate change is a classic, non-traditional security issue that can only be solved by global cooperation, and that doing so will create new areas of growth for all nations.

This idealistic thinking ignores the fact that action by sovereign nations is invariably driven by their own ecological vulnerability, the costs of emissions cuts and special interests. No nation will sacrifice its own welfare for the sake of the world%26rsquo;s %26ndash; even if it means disaster for others.

Realism may be cruel, but it makes clear that the existing system of international governance is powerless in the face of irresponsible superpowers; and that the current arrangements, above all, serve the interests of northern nations. People once believed that the election of president Barack Obama would lead to fundamental change in US climate change policy %26ndash; that the United States would start to consider its image as an international leader and the competitiveness of its green industries and thus commit to mandatory emission reductions and a return to multilateralism.

But during the negotiations, Obama and US climate representative Todd Stern showed that, while the US stance may have softened somewhat in line with international trends, the new administration has done little to set itself apart from George W Bush on the substantive matters of mandatory emissions reductions, necessary cuts from emerging economies, financial and technical support and the principle of %26ldquo;common but differentiated responsibilities%26rdquo;. Changes in US climate-change policy are therefore limited and, at most, merely alterations in attitude, intention and ideals.

From start to finish, US climate-change policy has prioritised its own national interests; it is designed to fight for the lifestyle of its citizens and national supremacy, even in the context of this global issue. The principle of sovereignty above all else still survives, even in the postmodern era.

Thanks to determined campaigning from developing nations, the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, the Bali roadmap and the two-track negotiation mechanism were all upheld at Copenhagen. But the future direction of development trends also began to emerge %26ndash; developing nations will also gradually commit to emissions targets, and emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil should sign up to mandatory measurable targets and submit to international verification.

In the run-up to Copenhagen, China and many other emerging nations announced carbon reduction targets and used a meeting of BASIC nations to express support for the Copenhagen negotiations and their unshakeable diplomatic %26ldquo;red lines%26rdquo;. A string of incidents during the negotiation process showed that developed nations, on the other hand, were not prepared to accept and respect the interests and hopes of the developing world.

It is clear from these events that, in international climate diplomacy, the right to speak has to be fought for and this is how climate-change mechanisms are formed. We should not think that developed nations will surrender their own interests and provide finance and technology of their own accord, nor should we expect continued unity among developing nations when interests among them are so varied.

Developing countries will have to protect the just principles of climate negotiations and fight for even the smallest of interests. Climate change has become an accepted part of political discourse, but that does not mean, as some Chinese academics have suggested, that we should adopt mandatory emission targets too soon and surrender our development rights and future environmental capacity.

Emerging nations have already made remarkable efforts with voluntary emissions reductions, but it is hard to convince the developed world that these countries are already doing as much as they can. Red lines aside, emerging nations must let the climate diplomats know that we need, support and, as far as possible, will adopt measures to ensure humanity%26rsquo;s success in the battle against climate change %26ndash; but, crucially, we should not fear pressure and demands that are beyond our ability to meet.

Tang Wei is assistant researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences%26rsquo; Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development Institute.

Homepage image by Polska Zielona Sieć

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Dialogue china, financial

China%26rsquo;s National Audit Office (NAO) recently published a report on the last seven years of efforts to deal with pollution in the Liao, Hai and Huai rivers and the Tai, Chao and Dianchi lakes, known collectively as the %26ldquo;three rivers and three lakes%26rdquo;. According to the report, 91 billion yuan (US$13.3 billion) in government investment and bank loans was spent between 2001 and 2007 on 8,201 separate water-pollution projects, including environmental infrastructure in urban areas in the river and lake basins, ecological construction and general improvements. Yet the water quality remains very poor.

Almost 100 billion yuan were spent and 515 million yuan (US$75 million) were wasted on false reports and embezzlement. The ecological crisis, the public suffering and the constantly changing plans for megacities along these rivers and lakes all make one fear for the future of China%26rsquo;s environment and its cities.

I started researching the pollution of Dianchi Lake, in Yunnan province, as an investigative journalist and later completed a doctoral thesis on the matter, looking at the lake from an ecological and anthropological perspective. I focus on the paradoxes and conceptual risks at the heart of how China handles the ecological crisis %26ndash; in particular, the costs of foresight. The German sociologist Ulrich Beck was the first to propose the concept of the risk society, where decisions increasingly produce unforeseen future hazards. These hazards proliferate and can eventually overwhelm safety systems. A nation may fall into crisis due to a loss of foresight.

The NAO said that management of the rivers and lakes had failed because of inadequacies in these areas: environmental examination and approval; environmental compensation; water pollution statistics; assessment indices; implementation of pollution control plans; enforcement of environmental law; and treatment of urban waste-water. It also pointed to a lack of environmental concern in economic development zones.

But none of these are the crux of the issue. Faced with an unprecedented environmental crisis, the real danger arises from a contradiction between awareness and systems. The systems that exist for managing and investing in the environment perpetuate the pollution.

For instance, the authorities in charge of Dianchi Lake decided to bring water in from the Jinsha River to help control pollution in the lake and water shortages in the city of Kunming. By 2010, Kunming%26rsquo;s population will reach nearly 3.5 million, by 2020 almost five million; the urban area will expand from 201.5 to 470 square kilometres. Meanwhile, Yunnan%26rsquo;s government is working on creating a megacity, one part of which is the idea of a third land bridge between Asia and Europe. This %26ldquo;bridge%26rdquo; would run from China%26rsquo;s eastern port city of Shenzhen, through Kunming to Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey. It would end up in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, after passing through 21 different cities %26ndash; a distance of around 15,000 kilometres (3,000 kilometres shorter than the sea route).

Yunnan %26ndash; a water-poor, inland province, with a rich yet fragile ecology %26ndash; has not yet developed an effective or intelligent environmental management system. Nor have policy-makers thought about how to create sustainable cities for the province, preferring to simply propose expansion. Hence long-term plans about land bridges and megacities are unpersuasive.

In dealing with pollution, solving social issues created by urbanisation and searching for sustainable modes of development, there is still a tendency to focus on technological fixes. But these do not clarify our plans for the future of cities or necessarily make them more scientific or advanced %26ndash; in fact, they often continue to create problems.

This lack of foresight means that many areas in need of assistance have become host to manoeuvring by various power groups. There is a tendency to ignore future dangers and confuse their relationships to current pollution problems. In many cases of dealing with pollution, the influence of power is becoming more complex, and the allocation of resources and interests is changing.

A large-scale plan to build a city and scenic area surrounding Dianchi Lake is already underway. Historic villages and semi-urban areas are being flattened. Under that kind of %26ldquo;long-term%26rdquo; guidance, both natural and social sciences need to provide research and analysis. The combination of technology and power in urbanisation will no doubt lead to controversial projects, such as waste incineration, the transportation of water and the construction of clusters of cities.

Dianchi Lake has been given many names through history, from the %26ldquo;Pearl of the Plateau%26rdquo;, to the %26ldquo;Sick Lake%26rdquo; and the %26ldquo;Geneva of the East%26rdquo;. The question is: which one will prove true in the future?

Zhou Lei is a postgraduate anthropology student at Yunnan University and Chevening Scholar at the London School of Economics.

Homepage image from Wikipedia

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Dialogue bank, china, Investment, SAFE

If climate change were only an environmental issue, there would be a far easier solution. However, the interplay of national interests that are involved %26ndash; involving politics, economics and development %26ndash; places multiple strains on the prospects of an international agreement.

Many observers feel that the two-week climate-change conference in Copenhagen was a disastrous failure. The Copenhagen Accord, produced in closed talks by a small number of key nations, could not have been less substantive; it fell far short of most predicted goals and lacked any legal force. At least five nations tangled over issues of transparency and legitimacy. The angry language used by their representatives on the final evening provided a farcical finale for the conference%26rsquo;s global audience.

There is still disagreement over what really happened in those final 48 hours. Xinhua, China%26rsquo;s official news agency, reported that Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was not invited to secret US-initiated talks on the evening of December 17 and early the next morning, to China%26rsquo;s great displeasure. India%26rsquo;s climate envoy Shyam Saran also raised this matter in a press conference on the afternoon of December 18.

Mark Lynas, a British journalist and member of the Maldives delegation, wrote in the Guardian that he saw at first hand how China %26ldquo;wrecked%26rdquo; closed-door talks between the leaders of 20 nations. Wen Jiabao did not attend, dispatching instead a vice-minister from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Western media reports said that Wen Jiabao, unhappy with US insistence on international verification of China%26rsquo;s emission reductions, refused to join president Barack Obama at the meeting, blocking the negotiations.

Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for energy and climate, told The Guardian that China had tried to %26ldquo;hijack%26rdquo; the Copenhagen Accord. UK prime minister Gordon Brown expressed a hope that China and the United States would show %26ldquo;they were doing more%26rdquo;.

Besides the rift between China and the United States over measuring, reporting and verification (MRV), the cited evidence of China%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;wrecking%26rdquo; behaviour was its firm opposition to inclusion of the target of global emissions reduction of 50% on 1990 levels by 2050, with developed nations making cuts of 80%.

The reason for China%26rsquo;s opposition was simple: it would restrict China%26rsquo;s development. Given the country%26rsquo;s rate of development and its economic and energy structure, the target would be a tough one for it to reach. L%26uuml; Xuedu, a Chinese delegate and deputy director of the National Climate Center, pointed out that global carbon emissions in 1990 were 21 billion tonnes, so a 50% cut by 2050 would mean emissions of 10.5 billion tonnes. In 2005, China emitted 6 billion tonnes of carbon. If the current rate of development continues, those 10.5 billion tonnes might not be enough for China alone, let alone the rest of the world.

China is concerned about domestic political and economic stability. It does not want international legislation restricting its development and is unwilling to see any language that may lead to caps on its emissions.

China did not suddenly arrive at this stance. It has held to this line consistently, particularly after the Bangkok climate talks in October. At that point the European Union%26rsquo;s position changed, and the crux of negotiations became whether or not to stick to the twin-track system of the Bali Roadmap, or merge the two tracks. Under a twin-track arrangement, China and other developing nations are not required to commit to compulsory reductions. But if the two tracks merged, China could face much more stringent restrictions. A worsening conflict between China and the major developed nations became a new piece in the climate-change puzzle.

However, it is unrealistic to believe that without China%26rsquo;s opposition a binding agreement would have been reached. Take the example of the Doha Development Round of WTO negotiations, which were initiated in 2001 but are currently stalled, in which China is not one of the major players. Prior to Doha, the US and EU could remain in control. But now that era has passed: developing nations have a larger say in world affairs. Multilateral negotiations can no longer be dominated by a single nation, or even a single group of nations. This is true for trade talks, and even more so for the more complex interests involved in climate negotiations.

Even if China had not said %26ldquo;no%26rdquo;, the reduction targets that the United States %26ndash; the other decisive force in climate negotiations %26ndash; were able to commit to would still make an agreement hard to reach.

The climate bill passed by the House of Representatives proposes that the United States make cuts of 17% on 2005 emission levels by 2020. Against a 1990 baseline, this is around 4%. This is nowhere near the 40% cuts proposed by developing nations, and far short even of the 20% to 30% goal proposed by the EU. But the United States continues to argue that its efforts are sufficient.

The US political system does not give the president absolute decision-making power. The last two decades has seen Congress become ever more partisan and any proposed bill will face strong opposition. Currently, the US climate bill is under discussion in the senate. Senator John Kerry is an active supporter of a climate deal and made a trip to Copenhagen to campaign for one. But it will not be easy for a bitterly divided senate to pass his proposal without significant changes. Therefore, the United States was unable to put forward stronger targets at Copenhagen.

In fact, the United States was happy to see a weak accord emerge from Copenhagen. Congress is not yet ready to accept any international binding agreement. The Obama administration needs to use greater wisdom and better tactics to ensure the climate bill passes the senate in the spring. Otherwise, any commitments the US makes at negotiations are simply bad cheques.

Other richer developing nations, such as India, are also unwilling to accept caps from the developing world. The Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh visited Beijing in August to discuss an alliance against western pressure. India%26rsquo;s emissions %26ndash; both in total volume and per capita %26ndash; are far lower than China%26rsquo;s, but it still has major problems in balancing development and the environment. China is not alone in opposing curbs on overall emissions.

Since Copenhagen produced a weak and non-binding political document, China bought more time for its development. But it is hard to say how long this expediency can last. International pressure on China is already building, and not just from the developed world %26ndash; it also comes also from the developing nations most at risk from climate change. China%26rsquo;s 30-year economic miracle has come at the cost of a rapidly deteriorating environment; this has not been sustainable development. China has no cause to avoid its responsibilities, either internationally or domestically.

The negotiations, I believe, will eventually have to move towards a single track. Any agreement which does not include China and the United States %26ndash; the world%26rsquo;s two largest emitters by volume %26ndash; will not achieve any meaningful result. In one sense then, the Copenhagen Accord at least has achieved something by putting China and the US in the same boat.

Cao Haili, formerly senior reporter at Caijing magazine, is a reporter for chinadialogue.

Homepage image from The White House

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Dialogue china

In the attractive Atlantic coast city of Savannah, where the river of the same name meets the ocean, we visited the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), famous worldwide for its work on dams and levees. USACE is the main builder of dams in the United States.

One hundred years ago, the United States was already building more %26ndash; and bigger %26ndash; dams than any other nation. The country manipulated its rivers to maximise human gains but, in the process, ignored other life forms such as fish, aquatic plants and microorganisms, not to mention the forests, wetlands, lakes, grasslands and animals that depend on the rivers. As Philip Fradkin writes of the Colorado River in A River No More: the Colorado River and the West, %26ldquo;A great river passing through arid lands has been wrung dry by man.%26rdquo;

Yet today, the US government, USACE, energy companies, conservation groups and the public all agree about the need to protect the rivers and each is doing its bit to help rescue river ecosystems. Few people in the United States now deny the true value of the rivers; it is recognised that only free-flowing rivers can ensure biodiverse, natural ecosystems, of which humanity is a part.

The International Commission of Large Dams defines any dam higher than 15 metres as %26ldquo;large%26rdquo;. In China, there are 22,000 such dams %26ndash; 46% of the global total and more than any other country. The United States has 6,575. Major dam-building projects, which can easily cost tens of billions of yuan, have played a significant role in China%26rsquo;s GDP growth.

There is a clear difference between Chinese and US attitudes towards rivers. In the United States, canoeing, fishing and hunting are popular outdoor sports; in China they are either a way to earn a living or hobbies for the rich.

Outdoor sports associations have played a crucial role in the recovery of US rivers. Fans of these pastimes will not stand by and watch the rivers being tamed, or the forests falling silent. Nature lovers are loyal partners of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and have a lasting enthusiasm for the cause %26ndash; along with plenty of good ideas. For the majority of US citizens today, the ecological value of rivers is much higher than their use for energy generation. Perhaps it is this that has ultimately allowed the rivers to be saved.

We drove upriver to see a dam near Augusta, also on the Savannah River.

The Savannah marks the border between the American states of South Carolina and Georgia. In a river basin stretching over 17,000 square kilometres, there is a wide range of ecosystems, supporting almost 100 rare animal and plant species and providing habitats for more than 100 species of fish; indeed, this stretch of water is home to more fish varieties than any other in the south-eastern United States.

Suddenly Megan, our TNC guide, stops the car %26ndash; she has seen several people pointing cameras at a pool in the river. An alligator is casually observing the people on the bank. It suddenly leaps out of the water, revealing its full length, and then falls back down, leaving only the top of its head exposed.

This is my closest encounter with a wild alligator but afterwards, as we follow the river upstream, we frequently come across them in the marshes and pools. Amazingly, birds and ducks float only two or three metres away from them, seemingly oblivious to the danger.

The Savannah River%26rsquo;s ecosystem was also once in danger.

USACE experts tell us that, sixty years ago, they built three dams on the Savannah. The Hartwell, Richard B Russell and J Strom Thurmond were constructed upstream of Augusta, in order to generate electricity, prevent floods, provide reservoirs for recreation and tourism and supply water. But the dams dealt a grave blow to the integrity of the ecosystem, altering seasonal fluctuations in the river%26rsquo;s flow and threatening the continued existence of crabs, oysters, shrimp and unique fish species. The dams also limited the growth of broadleaf trees on the floodplains, which further affected water quality and reduced survival rates among the fish, mammals and birds reliant on the river water and floodplain forests. Moreover, the dams prevented fish from returning to breeding grounds, forcing them to spawn elsewhere and causing populations to shrink.

In a bid to improve management of the Savannah River, in March 2004 USACE adopted a TNC strategy for operating the dams. The plan restored and increased the number of spawning grounds for fish, while periods of low flow improved growth of broadleaf trees and increased fish reproduction and survival rates. As more water was released, seeds of broadleaf trees and other plants were disseminated and nutrient levels in riverside soil recovered, providing habitats for birds and giving highly endangered animals and plants, such as alligators and floodplain vegetation, another chance at survival.

USACE was applauded for its actions. A good environmental image is crucial for any US firm or organisation and, with public encouragement, USACE is increasing its efforts to restore river ecosystems.

According to USACE hydrologist Stan Simpson, the organisation carefully plans the river%26rsquo;s flow in order to meet the changing needs of the fish; software provided by TNC calculates how much water to release according to the time of year and weather. In the process, USACE has discovered that it used to release the water too quickly for fish to pass through the dam. The team implanted tracking chips into a number of fish and found none were making it back to the river mouth. Where had they gone? Had they turned back? And would they use the shallows in front of dams as new spawning grounds?

%26ldquo;We analysed the relationship between water temperature and flow rates,%26rdquo; says Simpson. %26ldquo;Water from the base of the reservoir, tens of metres deep, can be too cold, and the fish don%26rsquo;t like it. Similarly, they don%26rsquo;t like it if you release the water at the wrong time. Some fish swim near the surface of the water, but trout swim near the bottom; you can%26rsquo;t just release water because you need to give the trout a channel they can use. They are very sensitive to the environment.%26rdquo;

He tells us that the previous winter USACE implanted tracking chips, costing US$250 (1,707 yuan) a piece, into 30 fish to observe how dry years affect their mating patterns. This was done in winter because the chips have he least impact on the fish at that time.

Simpson adds that the role of dams in human life cannot be ignored when planning the river%26rsquo;s flow. %26ldquo;We also need to take into account the dams need for water for electricity generation,%26rdquo; he says. %26ldquo;We need to find a balance between forestry, agriculture, fish, electricity generation, and urban water supply.%26rdquo;

Simulating the natural water flow needed by the fish is no easy task. Hundreds of scientists took two years to produce a plan for dams to release water in waves over different seasons %26ndash; a plan that is adjusted annually according to the weather, air temperature and changes in water quantity.

According to a TNC freshwater and river conservation expert, the acceptance of these conservation ideas and river restoration methods has prompted USACE into becoming more active in developing response plans. It has launched research programmes on a range of energy sources, including coal, nuclear and wind, to help it make better decisions about the most appropriate type of power to use and reduce the impact of hydropower on the rivers.

The Savannah%26rsquo;s future now looks brighter. But what about the prospects of saving China%26rsquo;s rivers? TNC%26rsquo;s expert argues that the Yangtze River%26rsquo;s situation is more complex than that of the Savannah and achieving the same aims will be more difficult. But, if all parties work together to improve dam management, she says there is still hope that bit by bit, stretch by stretch, China%26rsquo;s rivers can be revived.

Zhang Kejia is a reporter for China Youth Daily

Homepage image by brothergrimm

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Dialogue bank, china

The Colorado River is one of the most dammed in the world. Over the last two hundred years, fortunes have been made harnessing its flow. But the Colorado%26rsquo;s role in supporting a unique and biodiverse ecosystem for long went unnoticed.

Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the area and see for myself its rivers, mountains, forests, grasslands and snowfields. But what made the greatest impression on me was the contrast between US and Chinese attitudes when it comes to dams and ecology; to development and conservation.

About 50 years ago, people in the United States realised that the country had made a huge blunder; too many dams were causing rivers to dry up, deltas to become deserts, and species to disappear, with many varieties of fish facing extinction. The idea of returning the rivers to nature took hold and, decades of hard work later, we are seeing the results: sluice gates opened according to the needs of fish; some dams demolished; nearby forests, grasslands and wetlands recovering; birds returning to their old haunts; and threatened alligator populations rising.

Unfortunately, the foolish errors made by the United States in the past are still happening in China.

The most important %26ndash; and last %26ndash; endangered fish reserve on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is soon to be %26ldquo;moved%26rdquo; to allow the building of the Xiaonanhai Dam. Aquatic organisms unique to the river are, one after the other, being sacrificed, and this relocation of the reserve will prove a disaster for biodiversity.

Even more astonishing is a recent announcement by China%26rsquo;s Ministry of Environmental Protection. While construction of two dams on the Jinsha River, a western tributary of the Yangtze River, will cease, work is set to begin on a dam at Liyuan on the same river. This is close to Tiger Leaping Gorge, home to stunning rapids and the stretch of the Jinsha River least affected by humans. The Liyuan reservoir will partially submerge the Haba Snow Mountain nature reserve as well as Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and its celebrated scenery.

China%26rsquo;s rivers, lakes and wetlands are already in a sorry state. Despite the desperate pleas and unstinting efforts of scientists, conservation groups, the public and the media, the interest groups that thirst for profit from the rivers have not been stopped.

Robert Wigington is a freshwater conservation expert at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and is based in its Colorado office, in the city of Boulder. He says his organisation aims to have one million kilometres of river under protection and flowing freely by 2020.

TNC has 170 river and freshwater experts and runs over 500 river recovery and protection projects worldwide. In the United States, it works with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which is known for building dams, on ecology protection projects around 60 dams of particular importance for biodiversity.

According to Wigington, the Colorado River flows through many different ecosystems during its course from the mountains to the river basin, and is of huge ecological value. It irrigates some 23,000 square kilometres of farmland and provides water for many cities, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and Salt Lake City. Analysis of its 45 different ecosystems %26ndash; including comparative studies of soil constituents, fish, microorganisms and aquatic plants %26ndash; has shown that, while the upper reaches of the river are well-protected, downstream there are problems.

On the Colorado River, USACE and TNC have removed just one dam, concentrating instead on mimicking natural river flows. This allows fish to breed naturally and ensures the dams can continue to generate electricity and provide water for irrigation.

The next stop on the tour is the Flaming Gorge Dam in Utah. Looking down from the 229-metre high structure, you can see five metres into the clear waters below and watch the huge brown and rainbow trout swimming around. The Green River downstream is said to offer some of the best trout fishing in all of the US. These are not farmed fish and the dam operators are not even allowed to catch them %26ndash; local bylaws state that fishing must take place at least one kilometre downstream of the dam.

John Morgan, an official at the US Bureau of Land Management, tells me about his work to protect the river%26rsquo;s four endangered fish species %26ndash; the bonytail, the Colorado pikeminnow, the humpback chub, and the razorback sucker. Images of these are two a penny in Colorado; found everywhere from newspapers and tourist brochures to restaurants, schools and even the family fridge. Their numbers are seen as a measure of how well the biodiversity of the Colorado River is recovering and they are a major part of the work of TNC%26rsquo;s Colorado office.

On the way to Flaming Gorge, we pass a 20-metre high dam on the Yampa River, which is now defunct. The structure reached the end of its working life years ago and is no longer needed to keep the river navigable, generate electricity or irrigate fields. But in response to TNC pleas, its operators have kept the water flowing to allow fish to pass through. Most importantly, the dam raises the water level downstream every spring in line with scientific advice, allowing fish %26ndash; including those four endangered species %26ndash; to reach their spawning grounds more easily.

The dam is said to have survived because the locals like to see it standing there; it has become a part of the landscape. Plus, it would cost US$2 million (13 million yuan) to dismantle. But, while it has hung on through the dams debate, some now say its days are numbered. One TNC project worker tells me it will be %26ldquo;demolished soon%26rdquo; %26ndash; the costs of maintenance and ensuring it is safe are now as much as the costs of demolition.

The Flaming Gorge Dam was completed in 1964, bringing 50 years of regular flooding to an end. Photos in its exhibition hall record two major inundations that killed dozens and left many more homeless when riverside towns and homes were swept away.

There may have been no floods since the dam was built, but there are a lot less fish. By the 1970s, monitoring data found that the populations of the four endangered species mentioned above had fallen by 99% %26ndash; and the remaining 1% was unsustainable.

According to fish experts, dams cause extinction by blocking routes to spawning grounds. They also create a steady, year-round flow of water, putting an end to the seasonal fluctuations that tell the fish when it is time to reproduce. And, as the waters at the base of a dam are very cold, the fish are forced to swim further to find warm waters in which to spawn.

After the last of these problems was identified in 1978, the way in which water is released at Flaming Gorge began to change, explains Morgan. %26ldquo;We realised we couldn%26rsquo;t just raise the sluice gate and let water out of the bottom of the dam any more, as that water is cold,%26rdquo; he says. %26ldquo;We needed to find a way to give the fish warmer water.%26rdquo;

Their solution was to install three extra gates in the dam, at different heights. During the spring floods, water is released from the top of the reservoir at about 18 degrees centigrade; the natural temperature of the river water and just what mating and spawning fish need.

A document put together by the US Bureau of Reclamation, TNC, and a number of conservation groups, says that water released by the dam in winter should be no colder than 6%26deg; Celsius and, in summer, no colder than 18%26deg; Celsius. Nor should the water released be more than 5%26deg; Celsius colder than the natural river temperature.

The fruits of this strategy are being seen %26ndash; the populations of the four endangered species have clearly increased and other, less endangered species are also benefitting.

China also has a story about endangered fish %26ndash; this time relating to three species %26ndash; but it has a very different ending. When dams were being built on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, fish experts and conservationists called for efforts to be made to save the Chinese sturgeon, Chinese high fin sucker fish and the Yangtze River dolphin, which are all unique to China. But one advocate for the dams summed up the response: %26ldquo;It%26rsquo;s just three fish! Are there not enough to eat in the fish farms?%26rdquo;

Zhang Kejia is a reporter for China Youth Daily

NEXT: Recognising the value of a nation%26rsquo;s rivers

Homepage image from Wikipedia

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Dialogue china, SAFE

Imagine Karl Marx calling for capitalism, Gandhi advocating war or the Pope embracing atheism. That is the scale of the disbelief that will likely greet a new book by one of my favourite thinkers, Stewart Brand. He is perhaps best known as the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog series, a powerful icon of the Sixties counterculture, recently described by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a forerunner of the World Wide Web. From 1968 on, this was a basic reference for people like me, focusing on back-to-the-land pioneers, appropriate technology, renewable energy, self-sufficiency and sustainability, though we didn%26rsquo;t then use that word.

So it will come as a huge shock to many to find Brand arguing robustly for rapid urbanisation, the urgent application of genetic engineering, the widespread adoption of nuclear power technology and the development of new forms of geoengineering, all of which are seen as almost satanic forces by most environmentalists.

Don%26rsquo;t get me wrong%26mdash;I like and admire most environmentalists. Indeed, almost 50 years ago, in 1961, I became one, raising money for the World Wildlife Fund in its first year. At the time, environmentalists were seen by many as some sort of weird mutation. Now, in the face of climate change, you risk being seen as a mutant if you are not an environmentalist. But, as Stewart Brand argues in a new book, Whole Earth Discipline, the tipping point where almost everyone becomes an environmentalist is %26ldquo;tough not just for people who have been comfortable thinking of themselves as antienvironmentalist; it%26rsquo;s even tougher for long-term Greens.%26rdquo;

At a time when much of the environmental movement is morphing into a climate-change movement, Brand argues that the greens %26ldquo;are no longer strictly the defenders of natural systems against the incursions of civilization; now they%26rsquo;re the defenders of civilization as well.%26rdquo; And the climate challenge to civilisation is going to force us all to think %26ndash; and do %26ndash; the currently unthinkable.

The central problem is that environmentalism, at root, is an ideology, %26ldquo;and ideologies hate to shift.%26rdquo; Worse, we are not simply talking about an ideological shift but a paradigm shift, something that happens very rarely. The scale is planetary, the scope will be measured in centuries %26ndash; and the stakes are now civilisational.

The key feature of the climate challenge, Brand argues, still escapes many of those who have been negotiating global policy in the build-up to the Copenhagen COP15 climate conference. This thing doesn%26rsquo;t go in straight lines, it is discontinuous. For example, some years back the Global Business Network (GBN), which Brand also co-founded, predicted that the melting of Arctic ice would lead to massive releases of freshwater into the Atlantic, in turn triggering abrupt climate change %26ndash; with the result that by 2020 much of Europe would suffer a climate like Siberia%26rsquo;s.

Instead of dealing with predictable climate trajectories, we are dealing with a system that is intrinsically unstable %26ndash; and is characterised by what scientists call %26ldquo;positive feedback%26rdquo;. So, for example, as the highly reflective Arctic ice melts, it is replaced by dark, energy-absorbing seawater, which accelerates a vicious cycle of warming and of the release of powerful greenhouse gases like methane from the tundra. As the process of climate change accelerates, Brand argues that there is a growing risk that the twenty-first century will see an unparalleled %26ldquo;die-back%26rdquo; in human numbers, measured in billions of deaths.

Given current %26ndash; and likely future %26ndash; human population numbers, back-to-the-land policies, renewable energy and the like are not going to save us if the climate starts to go haywire. Instead, Brand insists, we must abandon key parts of our old ideologies and embrace genuinely transformative solutions. Foremost among these, he believes, will be a radical acceleration of urbanisation worldwide, with slum-dwellers seen as the leading edge of this trajectory. Whereas half the world%26rsquo;s human population now lives in cities, the goal should be at least 80% by mid-century. Why? Well, partly because the more concentrated cities are intrinsically more resource-efficient than rural settlement patterns %26ndash; and because as rural areas are progressively abandoned, nature will move back in, cutting back on greenhouse emissions.

Even more controversial, however, will be Brand%26rsquo;s conclusions on genetic engineering (which he argues can help create crops that use less land, less pesticide and less water), nuclear power (the carbon footprint of which is dramatically lower than that for fossil fuel-powered electricity generation) and geoengineering (ranging from ships that create artificial clouds over the oceans to giant space mirrors, both designed to bounce back incoming solar radiation into space).

What is most striking about Brand%26rsquo;s vision of the future is not so much the nature of the solutions proposed but the long time-scales he envisages governments, business, financial markets and communities being forced to embrace. %26ldquo;We%26rsquo;re facing multidecade, multigeneration problems and solutions,%26rdquo; he concludes. %26ldquo;Accomplishing what is needed will take diligence and patience%26mdash;a sustained bearing down, over human lifetimes, to bridge the long lag times and lead times in climatic, biological, ands social dynamics, and to work through the long series of iterations necessary for any apparent solution to become practical.%26rdquo;

Brand is worried that environmentalists won%26rsquo;t change fast enough, so that we will see the emergence of what he calls %26ldquo;Post-Greens, Greens-plus, Greens 2.0, Off-Greens%26mdash;who knows?%26rdquo; Whoever ends up doing what needs to be done, the rules of the game are likely to run along the following lines: %26ldquo;Find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c) that actually need to be solved, and (d) deliver them as informally as possible, (e) starting with a very crude version 1.0, then (f) iterating rapidly.%26rdquo;

Very much, in fact, as the environmental movement began. With China planning to build three times more nuclear reactors than the rest of the world over the next decade, some may recall what happened last time a major nation went nuclear fast. The United States was shaken by controversies around reactors at Diablo Canyon and Three Mile Island, helping launch modern environmentalism. Will history repeat itself?

John Elkington is co-founder of SustainAbility and of Volans.

The homepage image is a detail from the cover of Whole Earth Catalog (Fall 1969 issue), published by Stewart Brand.

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Dialogue china, financial

What is the state of play for climate-change legislation in America?

Barack Obama put his reputation on the line at Copenhagen by saying America would act on climate change. Now it%26rsquo;s up to Congress. The House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey bill last June, which would set a price on carbon and would put progressively tighter limits on greenhouse-gas emissions, with a 17% cut from 2005 levels by 2020, and 80% by 2050.

Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, passed a nearly identical version of the bill out of the Senate environment committee last November. But action in the Senate has stalled. Boxer stared down a Republican boycott to get a bill through her committee. But Democrats are deeply reluctant to throw themselves into another full-on confrontation with Republicans so soon after the bruising battle over health-care reform.

What happens next?

US environmental organisations say there is still a good chance the Senate will move ahead on a climate-change bill this year. A triumvirate of senators — Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and independent Joe Lieberman — are working to craft a climate-change bill they think would have a good chance of getting support from Republican as well as Democratic senators. Kerry had earlier promised a blueprint late last year. The newest deadline is at the end of January. The Senate is then expected to begin its push in the spring.

Did the Copenhagen climate summit hurt or help prospects for the bill?

Obama%26rsquo;s 13-hours-on-the-ground diplomacy at Copenhagen was seen as evidence of his commitment to action — which should help give momentum to the bill. The deal reached at Copenhagen by the largest emitters — though it fell far short of hopes for the summit — also includes important concessions from China to begin curbing its rate of emissions and to open its books on how it cuts emissions. That will help neutralise the argument that China is not doing its bit, and that the United States would give up competitive advantage if it took on energy reform.

Will the Senate bill look just like Waxman-Markey?

Not entirely. Kerry and Graham are determined to get Republican support, which could mean a number of hard compromises for environmentalists. One is an expansion of nuclear power, with Republicans pushing hard for more cheap government loans for new plants, plus streamlined regulations. There is also a push for offshore oil-drilling. Other ideas include limiting the kinds of industries that would be compelled to begin reducing their emissions. One proposal under discussion would only put an emissions cap on power plants.

What about the US midterm elections?

The Democrats %26ndash; Obama%26rsquo;s party — anticipate losses in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 2010 elections, which will further impair the prospects of getting climate-change law. But even the approach of the 2010 elections is making an impact.

Democratic leaders say the Senate must pass a climate-change bill by spring 2010, if there is to be any US legislation at all. Democrats from coal and old-industry states will be cautious about signing up to sweeping energy and climate laws in the run-up to the midterm elections in November. The oil, coal and manufacturing lobbies have been spending millions of dollars to frame the proposed laws as measures that will fuel unemployment and increase home-heating bills.

What if the Senate fails to act?

Climate-change legislation may stall in the Senate, but the federal government — and several states and cities — are moving ahead. The business world is also coming on side. The Obama administration has raised fuel efficiency standards for cars. California, the most-populous state, has ordered power companies to provide one-third of its electricity from clean and renewable energy by 2020. Perhaps most importantly, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said last month that it would begin regulating greenhouse-gas emissions. However, some Republicans want to keep the EPA out of that role. The Senate is due to vote on January 20 on whether to delay EPA regulatory action.

How does this affect a global deal to curb carbon emissions?

One of the key outcomes from Copenhagen is a commitment from industrialised countries to raise $100 billion a year from 2020 to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to climate change. But America%26rsquo;s promise to mobilise its share of the $100 billion depends on the establishment of a carbon market — which will be created through climate-change legislation. Obama administration officials have said the country will raise its share from a variety of sources — not just government funds. No climate-change law means no US carbon market and sharply reduced funds for poor countries.

www.guardian.co.uk/

Copyright Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Homepage image by cerebros1

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Dialogue china

Until the 1980s the Mekong River flowed freely for 4,900 kilometres from its 5,100-metre-high source in Tibet to the coast of Vietnam, where it finally poured into the South China Sea. The Mekong is the world%26rsquo;s twelfth longest river, and the eighth or tenth largest, in terms of the 475 billion cubic metres of water it discharges annually. Then and now it passes through or by China, Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is south-east Asia%26rsquo;s longest river, but 44% of its course is in China, a fact of capital importance for its ecology and the problems associated with its governance.

In 1980 not only were there no dams on its course, but much of the river could not be used for sizeable, long-distance navigation because of the great barrier of the Khone Falls, located just above the border between Cambodia and Laos, and the repeated rapids and obstacles that marked its course in Laos and China. Indeed, no exaggeration is involved in noting that the Mekong%26rsquo;s overall physical configuration in 1980 was remarkably little changed from that existing when it was explored by the French Mekong Expedition that travelled painfully up the river from Vietnam%26rsquo;s Mekong Delta to Jinghong in southern Yunnan in 1866 and 1867. This was the first European expedition to explore the Mekong from southern Vietnam into China and to produce an accurate map of its course to that point.

Since 2003, the most substantial changes to the Mekong%26rsquo;s character below China have related to navigation. Following a major program to clear obstacles from the Mekong begun early in the present decade, a regular navigation service now exists between southern Yunnan and the northern Thai river port of Chiang Saen. It is not clear whether the Chinese, who promoted the concept of these clearances and carried out the work involved, still wish to develop navigation further down the river, as was previously their plan. To date, the environmental effects of the navigation clearances have been of a limited character.

The Mekong plays a vital role in the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB): Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. (Burma is not within the basin). In all four LMB countries the Mekong is a source of irrigation. In Vietnam%26rsquo;s Mekong Delta the annual pattern of flood and retreat insure that this region contributes over 50% of agriculture%26rsquo;s contribution to the country%26rsquo;s GDP. For all four LMB countries the Mekong and its associated systems, particularly Cambodia%26rsquo;s Great Lake (Tonle Sap), are a bountiful source of fish, with the annual value of the catch conservatively valued at US$2 billion. More than 70% of the Cambodian population%26rsquo;s annual animal protein consumption comes from the river%26rsquo;s fish. Eighty per cent of the Mekong%26rsquo;s fish species are migratory, some travelling many hundreds of kilometres between spawning and reaching adulthood. Overall, eight out of 10 persons living in the LMB depend on the river for sustenance, either in terms of wild fish captured in the river or through both large and small-scale agriculture and horticulture.

Since the 1980s, the character of the river has been steadily transformed by China%26rsquo;s dam-building program in Yunnan province. The important changes that had taken place on the course of the river since 1980 and up to 2004 were outlined in the Lowy Institute Paper, River at Risk: The Mekong and the Water Politics of Southeast Asia. In 2010 three hydroelectric dams are already in operation and two more very large dams are under construction and due for completion in 2012 and 2017. Plans exist for at least two further dams, and by 2030 there could be a %26ldquo;cascade%26rdquo; of seven dams in Yunnan. Even before that date and with five dams commissioned, China will be able to regulate the flow of the river, reducing the floods of the wet season and raising the level of the river during the dry. In building its dams, China has acted without consulting its downstream neighbours. Although until now the effects of the dams so far built have been limited, this is set to change within a decade, as discussed below.

For despite the limited environmental costs of the dams China has so far completed, and of the river clearances to aid navigation, this state of affairs will change once China has five dams in operation. And the costs exacted by the Chinese dams will be magnified if the proposed mainstream dams below China are built.

Even if no dams are built on the mainstream below China, the cascade to which it is committed will ultimately have serious effects on the functioning of the Mekong once the dams are used to control the river%26rsquo;s flow. This will be the case because the cascade will:

* Alter the hydrology of the river and so the current %26ldquo;flood pulse%26rdquo;, the regular rise and fall of the river on an annual basis which plays an essential part in the timing of spawning and the migration pattern. This will be particularly important in relation to the Tonle Sap in Cambodia, but will have an effect throughout the river%26rsquo;s course;

* Block the flow of sediment down the river which plays a vital part both in depositing nutrients on the agricultural regions flooded by the river and also as a trigger for fish migration %26mdash; at present well over 50% of the river%26rsquo;s sediment comes from China;

* At least initially cause problems by restricting the amount of flooding that takes place most importantly in Cambodia and Vietnam; and

* Lead to the erosion of river banks.

Proposed dams below China

So China%26rsquo;s dam-building plans are worrying enough, but the proposed new mainstream dams would pose even more serious concerns. In contrast to what has occurred in China, and until very recently, there have been no firm plans for the construction of dams on the mainstream of the Mekong below China. This situation has changed over the past three years. Memoranda of Understanding have been signed for 11 proposed dams: seven in Laos; two between Laos and Thailand; and two in Cambodia. The proposed dams are being backed by foreign private capital or Chinese state-backed firms. Government secrecy in both Cambodia and Laos means that it is difficult to judge which, if any, of these proposed dams will actually come into being. Attention and concern have focused on two sites: Don Sahong at the Khone Falls in southern Laos and Sambor in north-eastern Cambodia. The reason for this attention is that if built these dams would block the fish migrations that are essential to insure the food supplies of Laos and Cambodia.

Those built at sites higher upstream would cause the least damage to fish stocks, but if, as currently seems possible, the most likely dams to be built would be at Don Sahong and Sambor, the costs to fish stocks could be very serious. This is because unanimous expert opinion judges that there are no ways to mitigate the blocking of fish migration that would occur if these dams are constructed. None of the suggested possible forms of mitigation %26mdash; fish ladders, fish lifts, and alternative fish-passages %26mdash; are feasible for the species of fish in the Mekong and the very large biomass that is involved in their migratory pattern. Fish ladders were tried and failed at the Pak Mun dam on one of the Mekong%26rsquo;s tributaries in Thailand in the 1990s.

Why are the governments of Laos and Cambodia contemplating the construction of dams that seem certain to have a devastating effect on their populations%26rsquo; food security? The answers are complex and include some of the following:

* A lack of knowledge at some levels of government;

* A readiness to disregard available information on the basis that it may be inaccurate; and

* A belief or conviction that fishing is %26ldquo;old-fashioned%26rdquo;, whereas the production of hydroelectricity is %26ldquo;modern%26rdquo;.

In Cambodia%26rsquo;s case, and in particular in relation to the proposed dam at Sambor, the fact that a Chinese firm is seeking to construct the dam raises the possibility that prime minister Hun Sen is unready to offend the country that has become Cambodia%26rsquo;s largest aid donor and Cambodia%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;most trusted friend%26rdquo;. In Laos, the proposal for a dam at Don Sahong is very much linked to the interests of the Siphandone family for whom southern Laos is a virtual fief. Of all the proposed dam sites, Don Sahong is the most studied in terms of knowledge of fisheries so that it can be safely said that the planned dam would wreak havoc on a migratory system that involves fish moving through the Hou Sahong channel throughout the year, movement that takes place in both directions, upstream and downstream.

In the face of the threats posed by both the Chinese dams and those proposed for the downstream stretches of the river, there is no existing body able to mandate or control what individual countries choose to do on their sections of the Mekong. The agreement establishing the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in 1995 does not include China or Burma, and though the latter%26rsquo;s absence is not important, the fact that China is not an MRC member underlines the body%26rsquo;s weakness. In any event, the MRC members%26rsquo; commitment to maintaining the Mekong%26rsquo;s sustainability has not overcome their basic commitment to national self-interest. A prime example of this is the manner in which the Lao government has proceeded in relation to the proposed Don Sahong dam. For at least two years while the dam was under consideration there was no consultation with Cambodia. Similarly, so far as can be judged, Cambodia%26rsquo;s consideration of a possible dam at Sambor has taken place without consultation with the governments of either Laos or Vietnam.

At the moment the best hope is that both the Cambodian and Lao governments will abandon their plans for Sambor and Don Sahong. If they do not, the future of the Mekong as a great source of food, both through fish and agriculture, is in serious jeopardy. At the time of writing the intentions of the Lao and Cambodian governments remain uncertain.

Concern about dams in China and the LMB is given added importance in the light of worries associated with the likely effects of climate change in the region through which the river flows. Research suggests there will be a series of challenges to the Mekong%26rsquo;s future ecological health. Until recently concerns about the likely impact of climate change tended to focus on the ongoing reduction in the size of the glaciers from which its springs in the Himalayas and which feed it as the result of snow melt. But while there is no doubt that a diminishment in size of the glaciers feeding the Mekong is taking place, recent research has suggested that a more immediate serious threat to the river%26rsquo;s health will come from sea-level changes, particularly as rising levels could begin to inundate large sections of Vietnam%26rsquo;s Mekong Delta. To what extent the threat posed by rising sea levels will be affected by another predicted development linked to climate change %26mdash; greatly increased precipitation leading to more flooding during the wet season %26mdash; is not yet clearly established. But research is pointing to a greatly increased precipitation that is likely to cause major increases in flooding in the future, possibly as early as 2030.

Against the pessimistic views outlined in this article perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that once serious consequences begin to become apparent advice can be offered to mitigate the worst effects of the developments taking place. Where once it was appropriate to write of risks, when assessing the Mekong%26rsquo;s future it is now time to write of fundamental threats to the river%26rsquo;s current and vital role in all of the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin.

Milton Osborne is visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute. He has been associated with the south-east Asian region since being posted to the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh in 1959. Osborne is the author of 10 books on the history and politics of south-east Asia, including The Mekong: turbulent past, uncertain future (2006) and Southeast Asia: an introductory history.

An earlier version of this article was published as %26quot;The Mekong River Under Threat,%26quot; The Asia-Pacific Journal, 2-2-10, January 11, 2010. It is used here with permission.

This article draws on the author%26rsquo;s Lowy Institute Paper 27, 2009. See the complete paper here. To read the complete paper, it is necessary to type in the current year after entering the site.

Homepage image shows the proposed location of the Sambor Dam, Kratie province, Cambodia. Photograph by Carl Middleton, International Rivers.

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Dialogue bank, Banks, china, SAFE, Stock

Greenpeace recently discovered genetically modified (GM) ingredient Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in Nestl%26eacute;-branded baby cereal in China. According to the organisation, Nestl%26eacute; has promised not to use GM ingredients in the European Union, Australia, Russia and Brazil, but has different standards in China, where it refuses to make the same commitment. Its report has sparked off another round of public debate over the safety of GM food.

The Chinese authorities are pushing ahead with research into, and application of, GM technology. Many experts believe its benefits outweigh any harm it may cause, describing the changes as a %26ldquo;second green revolution%26rdquo; that will ensure food security. Faced with this blind optimism, I find I must protest. Besides the potential impact on ecosystems and food safety, I fear that the large scale planting of GM crops, particularly those controlled by multinationals, will affect China%26rsquo;s food sovereignty and even food security. Poorly managed, it may rock the very foundations of China%26rsquo;s ability to feed itself. A look at agriculture in Argentina will illustrate.

Until 1996, traditional agriculture in Argentina provided food security for the nation, with no need for government subsidy. But the introduction of GM soya beans has virtually destroyed the industry. Fields used for growing lentils, peas and mung beans have been turned over wholesale to GM soya-bean production. Crops from Monsanto, an agriculture biotech company based in the United States, accounted for 99% of soya bean production in Argentina by 2002. The country%26rsquo;s unthinking adoption of foreign inventions meant it ignored the need to develop its own technology and, by the time it woke up to the threat to its own food security, it was too late to stop using Monsanto%26rsquo;s crops.

In fact, the widespread use of GM crops did not, as experts imagined, cut down on the use of pesticides and herbicides and improve rural environments; quite the opposite. GM soya-bean crops actually need special treatment; besides the usual liberal quantities of chemicals and fertiliser, a weed-killer named Roundup is used. This chemical treats wild plants and even other crops as weeds, leaving only the biotech firm%26rsquo;s own soya-bean plants alive. Roundup killed off Argentina%26rsquo;s other crops and, according to some, caused mutations in livestock. In humans, long-term contact with the chemical has also been found to causes health problems, including nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting and skin damage.

Argentina is the proof that multinational biotech firms can cause a nation to lose its food sovereignty. But this has not halted the advance of such firms; rather, they are continuing their global expansion. For long, Brazil resisted GM technology but the companies have allegedly bought off officials, planted large areas with GM crops and put pressure on government. Today, traditional agriculture in Brazil is under immediate threat.

Having conquered Argentina and Brazil, the GM giants started their attack on China%26rsquo;s farming sector, where there are huge profits to be made. The US Department of Agriculture supports the overseas expansion of biotech firms such as Monsanto and DuPont and even helps promote their products in countries including China, where they claim their %26ldquo;Roundup Ready 2%26rdquo; will increase harvests by up to 11%. In the second quarter of 2009, Monsanto%26rsquo;s sales income reached US$4 billion (27 billion yuan), up 8% year-on-year. Gross profits were US$2.5 billion (17.1 billion yuan), up 14% on the previous year.

Huge quantities of GM seeds have %26ldquo;invaded%26rdquo; China, causing great damage to local agriculture. China is the largest market for US soya-bean exports and, according to an industry website, imported 15.4 million tonnes of GM-soya beans in 2008 %26ndash; 41% of total imports. Meanwhile, higher costs mean domestic soya-bean crops fail to sell. Last year non-GM soya-bean crops in Heilongjiang, in north-east China, were selling for less than the cost of planting, and 40% of the harvest did not sell at all. Sixty-eight soya-bean processing firms in the province have ceased work, while supermarkets in provincial capital Harbin stock GM-soya bean products almost exclusively.

Once the United States has control of China%26rsquo;s staple foods, China will have little say in the matter. The GM seeds imported by China are planting problems for the future. But the GM giants%26rsquo; ambitions do not stop with the seeds %26ndash; it is China%26rsquo;s 1.2 million square kilometres of farmland that gets them excited. If they can extract a few extra yuan for each kilogram of seeds sold, there will be hundreds of millions of US dollars in profit to be made, even before they start selling the associated chemicals, pesticides, fertilisers and herbicides.

This is another Opium War; an expropriation taking place behind a high-technology smokescreen. The GM giants estimate that, by 2012, the agricultural biotechnology market will allow them to take home US$7.3 billion to US$7.5 billion (49.8 billion yuan to 51.2 billion yuan), leaving China with the ecosystem and food security risks inherent in an addiction to a %26ldquo;new opium%26rdquo;.

So what should China do? The government has already invested 26 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion) in attempting to keep up with US biotech firms but this does not get to the root of the problem. The real threat to food security is not in the seeds, but in the people. Cheap grain prices and high production costs mean that farmers abandon their fields for urban jobs; that is the real threat to food security. When frost, drought and pest-resistant GM seeds appear on the market, farmers are naturally happy to spend a little extra to save some work. But, even if yields increase in line with expert predictions, there will still only be an extra US$6 (41 yuan) of income per 667 square metres of rice. There will be no great changes in food production and we will have paid the licensing fees for nothing.

China has always been an agricultural nation; a state built on the soil, by the farmers. Increasing food production requires restoration of degraded land, the recirculation of nutrients, better ecological balance and increased incomes for farmers, who will then grow more crops. If we ignore these facts and blindly adopt GM technology, we are simply giving up our food sovereignty. We need to learn lessons from Argentina and Brazil and be alert to the dangers of %26ldquo;biological invasion%26rdquo; by the GM giants.

Jiang Gaoming is a professor and PhD tutor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Botany. He is also vice secretary-general of China Society of Biological Conservation and board member of China Environmental Culture Promotion Association.

Homepage image by DawnOne

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Dialogue china, SAFE, Stock

Tibetan grasslands constitute one of the most important grazing ecosystems in the world. Since 2000, when China began its %26ldquo;Western Development Strategy%26rdquo;, the global significance of the Tibetan plateau region has been widely recognised, both as the %26ldquo;third pole%26rdquo; %26ndash; a water tower upon which around 40% of the world%26rsquo;s population depend %26ndash; and as a geographic region with a unique natural and cultural heritage.

Traditional pastoralism, and to a lesser extent subsistence hunting, have been practiced in this high-altitude, fragile ecosystem for over 5,000 years. However, climate change is now leading to historically unprecedented pressures. For example, at the centre of the plateau at the source of the Yellow River, over one-third of the grasslands have transformed into semi-desert conditions.

The Chinese government has introduced a number of policies aimed at reversing this trend and protecting the ecology and biodiversity of the grasslands over the last decades. Since the 1980s, these have included the assignment of property rights and the fencing of rangeland. As the Western Development Strategy began, the first programme to be adopted and implemented was a nationwide environmental restoration program. The %26ldquo;farmland to forest%26rdquo; policy, or %26ldquo;grain to green%26rdquo; (tuigeng huanlin), which converted steep cultivated land to forest, was one of the most important initiatives. In grassland areas, it is known as the %26ldquo;pastures to grassland%26rdquo; policy (tuimu huancao). The basic premise of this policy is that a decade of respite from livestock grazing is necessary for degraded grassland to be restored to its natural state, and therefore domestic livestock %26ndash; and their herders %26ndash; should be moved away. Now, new fencing is being erected at an unprecedented rate in rural grassland areas.

However, this policy has been recently overshadowed by another attempt to conserve the region, known as %26ldquo;ecological migration%26rdquo; (shengtai yimin). Since the mid 1990s, %26ldquo;ecological migration%26rdquo; has been used to describe the planned relocation of people from areas under environmental pressure. It was adopted as official state policy in 2002. The major target of this policy has been the Sanjiangyuan (%26ldquo;Three river sources%26rdquo;) region of Qinghai, situated in the centre of the Tibetan plateau, which encompasses the headwaters of three major Asian rivers: the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and Mekong River. In 2003, the area became the second-largest nature reserve in the world, as well as the highest and most extensive wetland protected area.

Now, tens of thousands of families have been asked to move from these fragile grassland areas and adopt new livelihoods in farming, or to live in new towns. In Qinghai, for example, 35 resettlement communities have already been built and 51 more are under construction. According to government plans, over 100,000 people (17% of the region%26rsquo;s population) will have been relocated from Sanjiangyuan by the start of this year, with the aim of restoring the grassland ecosystem.

However, these resettlement projects have raised serious concerns, mainly among academics, about the policy and its effects on minority groups in China. According to some scholars, these kinds of projects have historically been as much about the urbanisation of nomadic peoples (in this case, mostly ethnic Tibetans and Mongolians), as they have been about protecting the environment. Moreover, recent studies have suggested that overgrazing may not in fact be the major driver of environmental degradation

In her article for chinadialogue tomorrow, %26ldquo;Restoring the grasslands?%26rdquo;, Emily Yeh reviews recent Chinese government grassland policies and relocation programmes. Yeh writes that recent studies suggest the environmental and social benefits of such measures have been overstated. Later in the week, Judith Shapiro looks in detail at the tragic history of the Lakota Sioux in the American state of South Dakota, and asks what China can learn from the sad history of Native American resettlement.

Beth Walker is a researcher at chinadialogue%26rsquo;s %26ldquo;the third pole%26rdquo; project

Homepage image by reurinkjan

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