Farmers in Samoa grow a mix of different crops in an agricultural system that might seem inefficient. But these farmers expect the unexpected. They use several techniques to cope with recurrent and unpredictable cyclones. Their flexible approach to living with uncertainty holds lessons for resource managers working in an ever more unpredictable environment due to global environmental change.


The coastline of Samoa looks calm on this picture. But cyclones are common. Local communities have developed many ecological and social strategies to cope with the recurrent and unpredictable cyclones. Photo: Louise Hård af Segerstad


Tropical cyclones are common in Samoa, located in western Polynesia. More than 40 cyclones have been recorded there since 1831. It is impossible to say when and where they will occur, but when they hit, they cause widespread destruction of villages and plantations. Traditional agriculture in Samoa has, however, learnt to live with these recurrent disturbances. After two severe cyclones in the early 1990's, farmers were asked what they would do to reduce the effects of another cyclone. The most common answers were: 1) pray, 2) diversify my crops, and 3) work harder. In practice, their strategies have been much more sophisticated. They have developed an array of techniques to cope with uncertainties in their environment. These include traditional techniques for long-term storage of food and "polyculture" - the growing of a mix of different crops together with many different trees and shrub species. Trees and shrubs provide shade, erosion control, soil improvement and wind protection. In addition, they are a source of timber, medicines, rubber, and fuel wood and are also used to craft objects of religious value. Polyculture is a conscious strategy to reduce the risk of a total loss of food supply. After the two major cyclones a decade ago, the most important cash crops (banana, breadfruit, coconut) were damaged, and less common crops (like yams) became the staple for a rather long period of time. After cyclones, taboos are also used to protect certain forest species that show significant decline. In Samoa the village councils organize the practice of polyculture and other techniques to cope with cyclones. This is a sophisticated decision-making structure that allows control from the family to village level.
    

Dancing with the river or drowning in aid in Bangladesh
An estimated four to five million poor people in Bangladesh live on chars, temporary islands made up of sand and mud. Some chars are washed away in a single day and others can become more or less permanent for decades. When the river starts to rise during the monsoon season people leave the chars with their belongings and return when the water recedes. Some people have shifted their homes up to twenty times. Bangladesh is vulnerable to extreme floods, but the traditional farming system depends on the milder annual monsoon floods to irrigate and fertilize the fields.
     In 1988 Bangladesh was hit by one of the worst floods of the century. Its devastating effects and international media attention convinced the heads of state of the developed countries (G8) that the international community should solve the problem of floods once and for all. In 1989 the Flood Action Plan (FAP), financed by the World Bank and fourteen donor nations, constructed embankments and dikes to protect humans and industries from floods. However, many claimed that this was just throwing money in the river and that Bangladesh was drowning in aid. FAP was widely criticised for not understanding that rural populations perceived the yearly floods as a normal part of agriculture. "We need to apply 50 kilograms of fertilizer to the same amount of land inside the embankment whereas outside we apply only 15 kilograms. Yet the crop yield inside is not any better," complained one char-dweller.
     The FAP construction also had surprising consequences for water flow in the rivers, actually leading to increased char erosion in many places. By blocking fish migration paths between rivers and submerged floodplain fields, the FAP-funded embankments have also hurt fisheries. Worse, FAP neglected the most pressing flood danger, that posed by cyclone-driven coastal floods. Several scientists and NGO's suggested that it would be much more cost-effective to help local farmers adapt to living on the flood-prone delta (see box) and to replant coastal mangrove forests that provide shoreline stability, erosion prevention, and storm protection.
     In recent years The World Bank seems to have learned its lesson from experiences with the FAP. Recent documents describe a strategy for a long-term, sustainable water management system that emphasises environmental impact assessment and public participation. Others say that little has been done and indeed in 1998, tens of millions of people lost their homes during another major flood. More recently, however, the experiences from the FAP have resulted in the establishment of a holistic National Water Policy and a National Water Management Plan in Bangladesh. Both call for a multi-use approach to water, participatory planning and low-tech initiatives.
         

Western resource management strives for too much control
In an influential 1996 article, American ecologists CS Holling and Gary Meffe argue that western society wants too much control over Nature. To suppress natural disturbances and ensure consistent harvests we fertilise and irrigate more and spray more pesticides. In the short term, this strategy is almost always successful. However, it is seldom sustainable in the long run. When pests, small fires, and other natural variations are constantly thwarted, the future capacity of the ecosystems to cope with disturbance and gradual changes is reduced. Resistant pests devour harvests sprayed with pesticides. Unstoppable fires destroy protected forests. There are often many other negative side effects of this command-and-control strategy, like polluted rivers, nutrient pollution in lakes and the coastal zone, and the build-up of salt in the soil due to irrigation.
     Instead of striving after ever greater control also we in the developed countries in the Western World must accept that Nature is complex and unpredictable, Holling and Meffe argue. We must learn to both read and understand changes in Nature, such as fires, drought and floods, to be able to cope with these "surprises." Biodiversity often plays a crucial role in this management strategy by spreading risks and providing "insurance," for both ecosystems and agriculture as seen in the Bangladesh and Samoa examples above.

Learn to live with disturbance again
This is not to say that modern western societies can or must live as the traditional societies do. However, modern societies can learn from local communities with long-term experience in environmental uncertainty that have developed valuable rules of thumb to avoid large-scale crises. Many traditional management techniques to cope with environmental variability and disturbance appear to have developed by trial and error and by responding to environmental feedback. In fact, this is the same approach now advocated by modern science and promoters of "adaptive co-management" (see In Brief this issue: Adaptive co-management: learning-by-doing to meet environmental uncertainty).
     Recent research, such as that from the UN climate advisory body (IPCC), has warned that we all face increasing environmental variability and uncertainty due to global environmental change. So, developed countries themselves must learn to live with disturbance again, instead of clinging to the belief that Nature is predictable. Rigid governance systems with prescriptions for resource use, and aid to developing countries that fund command and control measures seem more and more outdated.

Flood in Bangladesh.

Virtual water is the water embedded in traded commodities such as wheat and livestock. It requires approximately 1 000 tonnes of water to grow a tonne of wheat, 2 000 tonnes of water for one tonne of rice, and 1 200 tonnes of water for one tonne of maize. (The actual crop volume that can be produced with a given amount of water depends on climatic conditions, the irrigation system used, soil type, and so forth.)
     Trading foodstuffs implies the trade of virtual water. With increasing trade and globalisation, the export of virtual water has also grown. Today, most of the world's poorest countries are in zones where there is or will be water scarcity. Many feel that importing food is the best way to feed these countries, because it is much easier to move a tonne of grain than 1000 tonnes of water. A key question for human development is if there will be sufficient freshwater, part of it traded as virtual water, to meet population growth. The Middle East and North Africa import up to 40 million tonnes of cereals and flour annually. The virtual water represented by these commodities amounts to twenty percent of all water used in the region. More virtual water is imported into the region each year than flows down the Nile into Egypt for agriculture.
    
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Article about virtual water by Professor J.A. Allan, University of London.

Foreign invasive species in African wetlands cost billions of dollars annually

Foreign invasive species, like the water hyacinth and the Louisiana crayfish, threaten African wetlands. As the damage runs into billions of dollars annually this issue is not only a concern for conservationists. It should be high also on the agenda of economists and planners.

Woman wading through water hyacinths in Lake Victoria. Photo: Nils Kautsky

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More information about the booklet itself is available from IUCN's Eastern Africa Regional Office, or to order: mail@iucnearo.org.

The Ramsar Convention site about the booklet and with an excerpt.

Sida-report on utilisation and control of Water Hyacinths.

State of the World 2003 focuses on positive signs

The Worldwatch Institute has often focused on environmental problems. This year's edition of their annual report, State of the World, instead highlights encouraging signs that we now have the building blocks for constructing economies healthy for both people and the environment.

The 20th edition of State of the World, Worldwatch Institute's annual report, was recently presented in Stockholm, Sweden. This year, the Worldwatch Institute wants to wash away its "doom and gloom" reputation by focusing on positive signs. "The impossible environmental revolution is already happening," according to their press release. The Worldwatch Institute's research director Gary Gardner, and chairman Öystein Dahle, seem convinced that we now have the building blocks for a sustainable society. However, the challenge is to mobilise governments, businesses, and civil society to actually use these blocks to build, reminds Dahle.
     The report documents many positive achievements. For example, production of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) declined 81 percent during the 1990's, leading to decreased growth of the Antarctic ozone hole that may even begin to heal. Moreover, the use of solar energy and wind power has grown by more than 30 percent annually over the past five years in many countries, compared to 1-2 percent annual growth for fossil fuels. But the report also reminds us of some gloomy statistics. Every day, malaria claims 7 000 lives and more than 5 000 children die from diseases linked to polluted food, air, and water. The global rate of ice melt has more than doubled since 1988 and could raise sea levels 27 centimetres by 2100. Biodiversity loss is also on the gloom list: birds, for example, are becoming extinct at about 50 times the natural rate because of human activity.
     There is also a chapter dealing with gender, population growth and biodiversity. Population growth puts strains on the environment, including biodiversity. This chapter therefore advocates increasing women's status, which tends to lead to lower birth rates and facilitate better management of natural resources. Poor women are often the first to suffer from the degradation of natural systems since they collect wood, water, and plants to meet daily household needs.
     Gary Gardner closed his Stockholm presentation by asking: what is development ? Increased opportunities or options, many say. In the developing world people certainly need more options, but what about western society? "I was in a supermarket recently and counted all the different kinds of cereals-- there were 140. Should we go for 200?"

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www.worldwatch.org

Renaissance for old knowledge shows the way to wiser use of marine resources in Oceania

Pacific Island cultures used advanced marine resource management practices centuries before Europeans. These ancient practices were largely abandoned due to modern pressures, but are now being reinstituted to manage increasingly scarce marine resources.


Traditional outrigger used by Samoan fishermen. Photo: Tony Persson

In 1978, Canadian ecologist Robert Johannes demonstrated that some tropical Pacific Island cultures invented and employed marine resource management practices centuries before Europeans. These included limited entry, closed seasons, closed areas, size limits, and gear restrictions. He also described how the impacts of cash economies, export markets and new technology were severely eroding these practices. However, in a recent paper, Johannes describes how many island nations, such as Fiji, the Cook Islands and Samoa, are rediscovering traditional practices. Factors contributing to the upsurge include a growing perception of scarcity, the strengthening of traditional village-based authority and marine tenure, better conservation education, and increasingly effective assistance and advice from regional and national governments and NGO's. Johannes concludes that "the Pacific Island region has much to contribute to innovative thinking about small scale fisheries management worldwide."
     Nowhere has this renaissance been as dramatic as in the islands of Samoa (see box). Strong incentives for local conservation and the re-establishment of traditional marine management practices emerged in the 1990's, when village councils were given the right to exclude outsiders from their fishing grounds. Previously, local incentives to conserve the marine resources were weak, since outsiders always could expropriate the benefits. The introduction of specific bylaws reinforced traditional authority by recognizing the primacy of village rights to manage near-shore fisheries. Now, village councils can take formal legal action against outsiders if traditional measures do not work. The traditional laws are culture-specific and locale-specific as needs and customs can differ greatly from village to village. The new bylaw system preserves the flexibility and heterogeneity of village laws. Each village has its own set of bylaws, which may be altered or revoked as necessary. The ability of traditional laws to adapt quickly to meet changing circumstances is especially useful in Oceania, which has changed significantly over the past few decades.
     In 2002, 52 of 64 Samoan villages (86%) had established community-owned fish reserves (marine protected areas). Interviews indicate that virtually all villagers support conservation efforts and the establishment of reserves, and that other coastal villages also wished to be included in the program.

Thomas Elmquist

Source:

Johannes RE. 1978. "Traditional marine conservation methods in Oceania and their demise." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9:349-64

Johannes RE. 2002. "The renaissance of community-based marine resource management in Oceania." Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 2002. 33:317-40


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More about Robert Johannes, who died on 4 September 2002.

Transgenic cotton better option for poor farmers?

Transgenic cotton can lead to higher yields and less pesticide use in the tropical developing world, according to a new study. This could help poor farmers. However, the use and success of the transgenic cotton is still disputed.   

According to a February report in Science, the genetically modified cotton variety "Bt cotton" gave astonishingly higher yields in India compared to conventional varieties. The transgenic cotton had an 80 percent higher yield and used almost 70 percent less pesticides compared to cotton without foreign genes. As the largest yield gains are expected in developing countries, the transgenic cotton can positively impact the lives of poor farmers, the authors of the study say. Bt cotton plants carry a gene from a bacteria for a toxin that makes them resistant to bollworm caterpillars. The toxin does not affect non-target species.
     However, the use and success of Bt cotton is disputed. In June 2002 a summary of Chinese research on Bt cotton reported several negative results. For example, natural enemies to the bollworm decreased whereas other pests on cotton showed an increase. Later in the season, when the bollworm had gone through 3-4 generations, the Bt resistance to the bollworms decreased and the farmers needed to apply insecticides two or three times. The Chinese report also concluded that the bollworm would become resistant to the Bt toxin in 8-10 years.
     Notably, the Chinese study was produced in cooperation with Greenpeace whereas the Indian study was based on trials initiated by the Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Company (Mahyco), which distributes Monsantos Bt cotton. The genetically modified cotton has been grown commercially in India since last year. About 0.4 percent of the Indian cotton fields were planted with Bt varieties in 2002. Farmers have, however, protested and even burnt crop trials.
    

Louise Hård af Segerstad

Sources:

Qaim, M., Zilberman, D. Yield Effects of Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries. Science, Vol 299, 7 February 2003.

Dayuan XUE. A Summary of Research on the Environmental Impact of BT Cotton in China. Nanjing Institute of Environmental Sciences the State Environmental Protection Administration of China


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Science Development Net

Nature Science Update

Press release about the Chinese report

Genetically modified mosquitoes no good malaria-fighters

Transgenic mosquitoes, containing a gene that stops the malaria parasite, would not survive in competition with wild mosquitoes.

A new way to fight malaria is to replace natural malaria-carrying mosquitoes with transgenic ones unable to spread the virus (see SDU 5/2002). "Genetic modification of mosquitoes offers exciting possibilities for controlling malaria, but success will depend on how transformation affects the fitness of modified insects" a research team reports in Science. The transgenic mosquitoes were introduced two years ago, but already researchers have found that the GM mosquitoes would not survive in competition with wild mosquitoes. The transgenic mosquitoes are inbred and have been reared in laboratories for years, while the wild mosquitoes have a much higher genetic diversity, which gives them a survival advantage.
     Malaria kills one million people a year, and finding a way to stop it would reduce much suffering. Researchers suggest that the genetically modified mosquitoes would be stronger if they where crossed with wild ones before released into the wild.
     So, along with high-technology GM-solutions it is still important to tackle the underlying causes for malaria's spread. These include poverty, hunger, lack of sanitation and public health access, land-use changes, biodiversity and climate change. The ecological effects of spreading GM-mosquitoes are far from being fully understood.


Louise Hård af Segerstad


Source:

Catteruccia, F., Godfray, C. J. & Crisanti, A. "Impact of genetic manipulation on the fitness of Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes." Science, 299, 1225 - 1227, (2003).     
    
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Nature Science Update

New programme to involve science in sustainability issues in the developing world

The International Council for Science (ICSU) is planning a new programme on science and technology for sustainable development. Initially the focus will be on developing countries in collaboration with several other organisations. We asked the Executive Director of ICSU, Thomas Rosswall, about the new programme.

1) What is the purpose of the new programme?

The science community must become more deeply involved in issues related to sustainable development. It is necessary with a new programme that integrates the environmental, social and economic pillars of sustainable development. Previous research efforts have primarily focused on the environmental issues. The global change programmes are essential, but they should be complemented with a new research effort. This must be policy relevant and in its planning and priority setting involve many other stakeholders. The research must also be place-based and develop in a bottom-up fashion. However, it is also necessary with focused initiatives synthesizing information in a regional context.

2) Sustainable development is a huge concept that covers many different aspects. Is the programme focusing on any special aspect of sustainable development?

We will start the planning in early 2003 with the aim of defining the priorities. It is too early to say what the focus will be, but the importance of traditional knowledge has been emphasized by ICSU and its partners during the WSSD process. Together with UNESACO we organized a separate session on the topic at the Science Forum in Johannesburg and we have also published a report on traditional knowledge as part of the ICSU Series on Science for Sustainable Development (see www.icsu.org). The other reports in the series outline some other priorities developed by the international science community during the WSSD process.

3) ICSU will establish regional offices in Africa, Asia, the Arab States and Latin America including the Caribbean. What will the role of these offices be?

One of ICSU's top priorities is to ensure that the scientific community in all parts of the world gets involved in international science. It also important to link developing countries more closely to the activities of the ICSU Scientific Unions. In order to facilitate this, ICSU will establish four regional offices. These offices will help develop links between the science communities in these regions with the international efforts. They will also ensure that future priority setting takes due account of the needs and priorities of each region. The offices will also be important in helping to strengthen regional collaboration and can also provide rosters of experts to be tapped for various tasks within ICSU.

More at:

www.icsu.org

Adaptive co-management: learning-by-doing to meet environmental uncertainty

Nature's inherent change and uncertainty makes it a moving target for management. Adaptive co-management sees ecosystem management as a continuous learning-by-doing process that recognizes public participation and collaborative learning. Ecosystem resilience reduces the damage from human mistakes and allows for learning along the way.

Seeing Nature as a moving target implies that it is critical that institutional and organisational structures allow for experimentation with different strategies for natural resources management. Recently many scientists have emphasized so-called adaptive co-management. This is a system of flexible management whereby researchers, managers and local resource users collaborate at the local, regional, national and international levels. We too often divide authority according to political borders that rivers and forests do not respect. Instead, advocates of adaptive co-management stress that human organizations must mirror the scale and variability of the ecosystem or natural resource in question. Ecosystem resilience, the capacity of ecosystems to cope with disturbance, is important in this context. It provides a buffer that protects systems from the failure of management actions. It allows us to learn and to actively adapt resource management policies without moving onto unsustainable and undesirable development paths. Adaptive co-management can provide social structures that better monitor, detect, and respond to signals of environmental change.
     Similar structures for decision-making have been suggested by Elinor Ostrom, Professor of Political Science at Indiana University. Ostrom advocates "polycentric governance," a system of flexible decision-making shared by many different democratic subunits, from national governments to local villages, seeking a balance between local and central governance. Subunits are allowed to experiment with different kinds of rules and can learn from the experiences of parallel units. This makes governance less rigid and less vulnerable, since the failure of one or more units can be compensated by the successful reaction of other units in the area.

Per Olsson
    
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Article about adaptive management.

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