36 research outputs found
Multifunctionality of Agriculture Products: Towards Collaborative Policy Guidelines on Sustainable Agro-Related Fuel Development
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Biofuels on 23 January 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17597269.2017.1278930.The primacy of food security overrides that of energy. This is a reasoned view under the United Nations rights-based theories and practice. Within this context, there are voluntary guidelines according to which countries must secure an adequate food supply. Nevertheless, agro-related fuel has recently attracted scientific and commercial attention, following revolutionary thinking concerning the multifunctionality nature of agriculture products and the innovative use of crop resources as conduits in building our energy security and promoting economic growth. Consequently, many countries may be facing the need for strategic decision-making in developing an agro-related fuel programme, given the lack of a credible global framework to inform policy approaches. On the back of this complexity, a key objective of this paper is to provide a critical assessment of whether a credible global collaborative framework can bring much-needed certainty to enable developing countries to weigh up the importance and risks involved and to manage all of the related biodiversity intricacies connected to agro-related policy development in relation to the realisation of sustainable food security.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio
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The voices of youth in envisioning positive futures for nature and people
The unpredictable Anthropocene poses the challenge of imagining a radically different, equitable and sustainable world. Looking 100 years ahead is not easy, and especially as millennials, it appears quite bleak. This paper is the outcome of a visioning exercise carried out in a 2-day workshop, attended by 33 young early career professionals under the auspices of IPBES. The process used Nature Futures Framework in an adapted visioning method from the Seeds of Good Anthropocene project. Four groups envisioned more desirable future worlds; where humanity has organised itself, the economy, politics and technology, to achieve improved nature-human well-being. The four visions had differing conceptualisations of this future. However, there were interesting commonalities in their leverage points for transformative change, including an emphasis on community, fundamentally different economic systems based on sharing and technological solutions to foster sustainability and human-nature connectedness. Debates included questioning the possibility of maintaining local biocultural diversity with increased connectivity globally and the prominence of technology for sustainability outcomes. These visions are the first step towards a wider galvanisation of youth visions for a brighter future, which is often missing in the arena where it can be taken seriously, to trigger more transformative pathways towards meeting global goals
Identifying Where REDD+ Financially Out Competes Oil Palm in Floodplain Landscapes Using a Fine-Scale Approach
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) aims to avoid forest conversion to alternative land-uses through financial incentives. Oil-palm has high opportunity costs, which according to current literature questions the financial competitiveness of REDD+ in tropical lowlands. To understand this more, we undertook regional finescale and coarse-scale analyses (through carbon mapping and economic modelling) to assess the financial viability of REDD+ in safeguarding unprotected forest (30,173 ha) in the Lower Kinabatangan floodplain in Malaysian Borneo. Results estimate 4.7 million metric tons of carbon (MgC) in unprotected forest, with 64% allocated for oil-palm cultivations. Through fine-scale mapping and carbon accounting, we demonstrated that REDD+ can outcompete oil-palm in regions with low suitability, with low carbon prices and low carbon stock. In areas with medium oil-palm suitability, REDD+ could outcompete oil palm in areas
with: very high carbon and lower carbon price; medium carbon price and average carbon stock; or, low carbon stock and high carbon price. Areas with high oil palm suitability, REDD + could only outcompete with higher carbon price and higher carbon stock. In the coarse-scale model, oil-palm outcompeted REDD+ in all cases. For the fine-scale models at the landscape level, low carbon offset prices (US 27 million to secure these areas for 25 years. Higher carbon offset price (US 380â416 million in carbon financing. REDD+ has been identified as a strategy to mitigate climate change by many countries (including Malaysia). Although REDD+ in certain scenarios cannot outcompete oil palm, this research contributes to the global REDD+ debate by: highlighting REDD+ competitiveness in tropical floodplain landscapes; and, providing a robust approach for identifying and targeting limited REDD+ funds
The State of Indigenous Education in the Philippines Today
This chapter looks into the interplay of indigenous education and global citizenship in the Philippines. The country is one of the first nations in Asia to have passed a law recognizing the specific needs of its indigenous people (IP). In 1997, the Indigenous Peopleâs Rights Act was passed into law to ensure that IPs have access to basic health and education. But much has remained wanting in its implementation even after two decades. This chapter spells out first the historical development and the emergent conceptualization of indigenous education insofar as national policy is concerned. After which, local experiences of indigenous education are considered â particularly, the case of a local school in Bukidnon, the Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center; and an institutional program, the Philippineâs Response to Indigenous Peoplesâ and Muslim Education. The chapter concludes by considering whether or not the concept of global citizenship is understood at the level of both policy and local experience
The voices of youth in envisioning positive futures for nature and people
The unpredictable Anthropocene poses the challenge of imagining a radically different, equitable and sustainable world. Looking 100 years ahead is not easy, and especially as millennials, it appears quite bleak. This paper is the outcome of a visioning exercise carried out in a 2-day workshop, attended by 33 young early career professionals under the auspices of IPBES. The process used Nature Futures Framework in an adapted visioning method from the Seeds of Good Anthropocene project. Four groups envisioned more desirable future worlds; where humanity has organised itself, the economy, politics and technology, to achieve improved nature-human well-being. The four visions had differing conceptualisations of this future. However, there were interesting commonalities in their leverage points for transformative change, including an emphasis on community, fundamentally different economic systems based on sharing and technological solutions to foster sustainability and human-nature connectedness. Debates included questioning the possibility of maintaining local biocultural diversity with increased connectivity globally and the prominence of technology for sustainability outcomes. These visions are the first step towards a wider galvanisation of youth visions for a brighter future, which is often missing in the arena where it can be taken seriously, to trigger more transformative pathways towards meeting global goals. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Social Status and Work Participation of Transhumant Pastoral Bhotiya Women in the Kumaon Himalayas
Strategic Identity: Bridging Self-Determination and Solidarity Among the Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao, the Philippines
This article introduces the concept of âstrategic identityâ as a bridge between the indigenous peoplesâ struggle for self-determination and their search for solidarity in the context of globalization, with a focus on the Lumads, or indigenous peoples in southern Philippines. The paper begins with an encounter with a global actor affecting a local community. We realize the impact of powerful, well-networked forces that challenge even the operation of the state. Without trivializing the threats associated with this model of globalization, we also insist that a realistic and hopeful approach may emerge if we acknowledge the many âselvesâ in the indigenous peoplesâ self-determination. At the heart of this proposal is a matrix that unpacks the complex ways that local, national, sectoral, and global actors can engage in conflict or solidarity with these strategic identity assertions. Solidarity work, then, becomes diversified and strategized in response to the evolving multiple indigenous identities that modernity paradoxically both endangers and engenders
Sharing Traditional Knowledge: Who benefits? Cases from India, Nigeria, Mexico and South Africa
Benefit sharing is a relatively new area in international law, given that the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was only adopted in 1992. However, the history of formal benefit-sharing agreements between the users and the providers of traditional knowledge goes back beyond the adoption of the CBD. This chapter outlines indigenous peoples' rights in the context of access to plants, animals, micro-organisms and associated tradtional knowledge, and discusses four paradigm cases: The Kani people (India); Niprisan (Nigeria); the Inteernational Cooperative Biodiversity Group project (Mexico), and the San/Hoodia case (southern Africa). These cases straddle the historical boundary between unregulated and regulated access to non-human biological resources, and are thus highly instructive in terms of lessons learned, best practice and emerging policy challenges for the access and benefit sharing regime of the CBD