Cabo Verde ou da necessidade de uma nova parceria

Cabo Verde vive um período único de estabilidade: é um caso exemplar de boa governança. A segurança da Europa passa por uma análise descomplexada do fervilhado de ilícitos a Sul (tráfico de droga; armas de destruição maciça; imigração ilegal, terrorismo). Quer isto dizer duas coisas: (1) a Europa precisa de parceiros resolutos; (2) qualquer solução de paz para África, implica o empenho de países como Cabo Verde na fiscalização das suas Zonas Económicas Exclusivas. África readquiriu centralidade numa nova balança de poder. Existem novas dinâmicas de segurança das quais são exemplo organizações regionais como a União Africana; recentemente, a NATO realizou ali o seu principal Exercício (LIVEX). Existe também uma intensificação das relações com a UE que pode encontrar em Cabo Verde um parceiro em condições de corresponder aos desafios geoestratégicos e um elo decisivo numa nova parceria de segurança para o Atlântico e a África Ocidenta

Conservation history, hunting policies and practices in the South Western Mozambique borderland in the 20th century

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, August 2017This study uses both primary and secondary sources to investigate the history of the communities living in the southern Mozambique hinterland in the 20th century. It specifically examines the evolution of the colonial hunting laws and the establishment of hunting reserves in southern Mozambique. In this thesis, I argue that the Portuguese colonial administration put little effort into the protection of fauna and ecosystems in the south western Mozambique hinterland. Portuguese hunting laws were issued to provide the colonial system with revenue – through a system of fees imposed on licensed hunters when entering Mozambican forests and hunting reserves – rather than to improve fauna management. Colonial laws (particularly fees for the hunting permits) made it difficult for the majority of local African peasants to access game resources, on which during periods of drought and lack of foodstuffs they depended for subsistence. The study explores the extent to which postcolonial development projects affected conservation and the livelihoods of communities living in conservation areas. It shows how the period following independence was also characterised by mass killing of wildlife. In 1978, as part of the construction of the Massingir dam, Frelimo government officials relocated families living along the Elephants valley to areas having poor soils in Coutada 16, thus reducing the ability of the cultivators to produce enough food to sustain their families. Lack of food supplies increased the dependence of local families on bush meat for food. The armed conflict, which broke out immediately after independence in 1975 and lasted until 1992, contributed to the mass killing of wildlife, as both government soldiers and RENAMO fighters exploited bush for food. The end of the armed conflict allowed the Government of Mozambique (GoM) to implement projects aimed at rehabilitating the ecosystems destroyed by war and the transformation of Coutada 16 into the Limpopo National Park (LNP) in 2001. In 2002, the integration of the LNP into the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) turned into reality Hertzog´s 1927 desire to create a transnational conservation area across the South Africa – Mozambique border.XL201

“Deus criou, de acordo com suas espécies, os monstros marinhos e todas as criaturas vivas que se movem nas águas”: a centralidade do monstruoso no imaginário marítimo medieval

The reflection we propose to carry out here is guided by a fundamental issue: the centrality of the figure of the monster in medieval maritime imagination and the important role of the monstrous in structuring that imagination. In medieval man’s worldview, fantasy and reality, truth and the implausible had no boundaries. Everything was interconnected in a mental process resulting in the entire receiving public avidly “drinking in” information about strange and exotic things originating from places beyond the boundaries of what was known, i.e., beyond the Order and safety ensured by Christian authority. Because it is immense, unstable and above all unknown, the ocean is par excellence one of these places. And for this reason, it is also perceived as being widely inhabited by monstrous beings. Although in the late medieval period, metamorphosed by increasingly frequent experiences of the high seas and especially by a number of religious solutions which, by sacralising the ocean, enabled people to face it as well as the risk of contact with the excessive and portentous beings that inhabited it, the mental state of apprehension and fear caused by sea monsters remained until at least the last decades of modernity.A reflexão que aqui propomos desenvolver é orientada por uma problemática fundamental: a centralidade da figura do monstro no imaginário marítimo medieval e o importante papel desempenhado pelo monstruoso na estruturação do mesmo. Na mundividência do homem medievo, fantasia e realidade, verdadeiro e inverosímil, não conhecem fronteiras. Tudo se interliga num processo mental, que tem por consequência o público receptor, todo ele, “beber” avidamente as informações respeitantes ao estranho e exótico proveniente dos espaços situados para lá das fronteiras conhecidas, isto é, para lá da Ordem e segurança garantidas pela autoridade cristã. Porque imenso, instável e sobretudo desconhecido, o oceano é por excelência um destes espaços. E também por essa razão é percepcionado como largamente habitado por seres monstruosos. Ainda que, nos derradeiros séculos medievais, metamorfoseado pela experiência cada vez mais frequente do mar alto e, especialmente, por todo um conjunto de soluções de carácter religioso que, sacralizando o oceano, permitem enfrentá-lo bem como ao risco de contacto com os seres excessivos e portentosos que nele habitam, o estado mental de receio e medo provocado pelo monstruoso marinho mantém-se até, pelo menos, aos decénios finais da modernidade

Is REDD Accounting Myopic?: Why Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Programs Should Recognize and Include Other Ecosystems and Services Beyond CO 2 Sequestration

This article argues that the current design of REDD is a myopic Partial PES at best. Forest ecosystems provide numerous services beyond the sequestration of CO2, such as protecting upstream watersheds, conserving biodiversity and gene pools, soil formation, nutrient recycling, and plant pollination. Thus REDD programs should recognize and include these and other ecosystem services. After reviewing REDD in the international context and the accounting scheme, recommendations and concerns are provided for why the expansion of REDD to include other ecosystems and services would result in not only a greater CO2 reduction, but also other important environmental benefits. The article concludes by recognizing that REDD’s accounting loopholes, by focusing solely on CO2 reduction without recognition of the ensuing impact from that reduction, will impose negative externalities on other ecosystem services, and that REDD needs to transition to a program that internalizes these externalities

FSM vs. Czech: A New “Standing” For Climate Change?

In 2005, CEZ Power Company (“CEZ”) announced plans to completely rebuild a lignite (brown coal) fired power plant in Prunérˇov, Czech Republic. Shortly before the expected approval of CEZ’s Environmental Impact Assessment (“EIA”), the Federated States of Micronesia (“FSM”) sent two letters to the Czech government. In December 2009, FSM requested the Czech government to conduct a Transboundary EIA, which was followed in January 2010, by an additional request for the government to review the Best Available Technology (“BAT”) on the proposed modernization of the Prunérˇov II plant. FSM’s petition represents the first time that a Non-Member State of the European Union (“EU”) has brought a claim under EU Directive and Czech law requesting a review of the environmental impacts of an EU Member State project on a Non-Member State country. However, does FSM have standing to bring these claims