 August 12, 2002
‘People
should benefit from natural wealth’
Representatives from five Northeastern states have a simple message for national
and global policy-makers: Put the interests of the people at the heart of development
The economy of India’s Northeastern
states is inextricably linked to the region’s ecology. These states are rich in
forest resources and biodiversity, which have the potential to generate livelihoods and
income for people -- for instance, from the sale of medicines developed from the rich
knowledge that local communities have of medicinal plants of the region, or from tourism.
However, according to civil society representatives from these states, national and global
policies are not designed to ensure that the benefits from these biological and knowledge
resources accrue to local communities.
At a meeting organised by the New Delhi-based Centre for
Science and Environment (CSE), representatives from five states -- Assam, Arunachal
Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya, met in Guwahati on August 11, 2002, to discuss
the region’s local environmental problems and their interests at the World Summit on
Sustainable Development (WSSD) that will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, from
August 26 to September 4, 2002.
WSSD is being held to find global solutions to world poverty. But according to CSE’s
Anju Sharma, the last 10 years of global negotiations on environment and development have
failed to address poverty as rich country governments refuse to address hard issues, such
as fair terms of trade for poor countries. If anything, Sharma said, global environmental
problems caused by the lifestyles of people in rich countries are worsening the situation
for the poor of the world. For instance, emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon
dioxide, mostly from rich countries, are causing the Earth to warm up and changing the
world’s climate. This phenomenon could have disastrous impacts on the Northeast
states of India.
According to Dr DC Goswami, head of the department of environmental sciences, Gauhati
University, such climatic changes could worsen the flood situation in these states. In
addition, climate change could reduce soil fertility by affecting its moisture content,
and lower agricultural yields. It could worsen the shortage of fresh drinking water, due
to increased evaporation from water reservoirs, and changing rainfall patterns. Climate
change may also cause dramatic changes in biological diversity, as those species that
cannot survive the rise in temperatures, could easily die. The combined affect of these
changes on the ecology of the Northeast will most affect the poor people of the region,
those who are heavily dependent on their environment for their food, fuel, fodder and
housing needs.
WSSD is not expected to come up with any dramatic
solutions to the problems of environmental degradation and equitable global development.
The Indian government has made little effort to consult and inform the people and develop
firm WSSD proposals. At the global level, governments are resisting firm targets and
deadlines to stop or reverse impending environmental disasters, or in implementing changes
to generate more income for poor countries. For instance, despite promises to reduce farm
subsidies in the Doha, Qatar meetings of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the US
announced massive agricultural subsidies for its farmers in April this year. This was done
to please farmers, whose votes will be important for the November mid-term elections in
the US. According to the World Bank, if the US were to stop subsidising its cotton
farmers, this alone would generate as much as US $250 million a year for the cotton
exporters of West and Central Africa.
Dr Goswami listed several problems that are common to the
Northeastern states -- including the loss of biodiversity with the associated problems of
habitat loss, human-animal conflicts, and alienation of communities from their traditional
habitats; the impacts of climate change in the region; fresh water shortages; the use of
pesticides in agriculture, particularly in tea production; and even insurgency. He
emphasised that strong public opinion is needed in India to change the situation and make
national and global policies more responsive to the needs of people, along with a
commitment to speak up for the silent majority of the poor in India.
Background Note: What is WSSD?
- In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) took place in Rio de Janeiro. UNCED resulted in the adoption of Agenda
21 -– a legally non-binding blueprint for governments to promote ‘sustainable
development’.
- In 1997, a five-year review of UNCED agreed that UNCED had
by and large failed to deliver. In particular, poverty continued to be an enormous
challenge.
- The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) is a
ten-year review of UNCED. It will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 26 to
September 4, 2002. Several heads of state are expected to come to the meeting.
- Negotiations on preparing for WSSD have not been very
successful so far. The last preparatory meeting, held in Bali from May 27 to June 7, 2002,
ended in failure, as governments failed to come to agreement on any concrete deadlines for
action.
- WSSD is likely to come up with an Action Plan, a Political
Declaration, and several "partnerships" to promote sustainable development. NGOs
around the world fear that governments will focus on short-term partnerships, and not
commit to long-term solutions to implement sustainable development.
- Five issues are expected to be contentious at WSSD. These
include:
1. Getting governments to commit to
concrete time schedules;
2. Globalisation, which currently works
against poor countries rather than for them. For instance, Indonesia is rich in
copper, aluminium and tin; but while the country exports these minerals in the raw form,
it cannot add value to these export processed goods and earn more foreign exchange. This
is because the import duties for processed goods are kept very high in industrialised
countries.
3. World trade, which remains heavily
biased in favour of industrialised countries;
4. Finance, which has always been a
sticky issue between the rich and poor countries. At the meeting on Finance for
Development in Monterrey, Mexico in March this year, rich countries refrained from making
any concrete pledges to increase funding, but made some "announcements" that
amount to much less than the 0.7 percent of GDP they had agreed to in the past. There was
no discussion at Monterrey on the counter-productive conditionalities that come with the
aid, and there is likely to be no discussion on these in Johannesburg as well; and,
5. The principle of common but
differentiated responsibilities, the controversy over which has struck a particularly sour
note with developing countries. The principle implies that while both rich and poor
countries have a responsibility to protect the world’s environment, the contribution
of the rich countries to the destruction of the environment has been greater so far, and
that the rich countries should take the lead in taking remedial action. Several
environmental treaties since then have been based on this edifice -- for instance, under
the climate change convention, rich countries have to reduce their harmful greenhouse
gases first, while poor countries can increase their emissions in the interests of meeting
the developmental needs of their people.
For more information, please contact
E-mail: cse@cseindia.org |
