POLLUTION PROBLEMS, DOUALA METROPOLIS, CAMEROON

 POLLUTION PROBLEMS, A CONSEQUENCE OF COLONIAL INFLENCED AND GOVERNMENT POLICY. (CASE STUDY OF DOUALA, CAMEROON.)

Abstract                                                                                                                             

Environmental pollution continues to be one of the world’s most serious ecological problems. In Cameroon, land protection from industrial pollution remains the Government and society concern in the Urban Metropolis of Douala.  This is as a result of the high concentration of industrial plants in urban areas without existing adequate and efficient monitoring of their activities.

In this research, I intend to bring out the influence of colonization which through time has saved as pull factor creating a path-dependency for industrial location and population movements in Cameroon.  Also I will be examining some Government policies and it consequential environmental impact using the Government Decree on Industrial Zones Legislation.  Douala happens to be the Economic Powerhouse of Cameroon with almost 80% of the country’s industrial production. As a result, demographic explosion without adequate policy of industrial zones location, poor waste management and ever shrinking border between industrial zones and inhabited areas has made environmental pollution to be a major issue in this region. It is commonly said breathable air is a rarity in Douala. In this study, I intend to bring out the pollution problems faced by this city  today due to it past colonial attraction in serving as a  sea port for European transaction around the Central African Regions in disfavor of other parts of the country and later Government policies with recommended suggestions that can ameliorate the situation.

Key Words: Cameroon, Douala, Colonization, Pollution, Industrial Location, Government Policy, Legislation, Decentralization.

I.SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND:

The Republic of Cameroon commonly referred to as Africa in miniature is a Sub-Saharan West-Central African nation conspicuously situated at the hinge of Africa, surreptitiously termed as the armpit of Africa. It is bordered to the west by Nigeria, to the Northeast, east, and Southeast by Chad, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo respectively.  On it Southern borders is situated the Republic of Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.  The map 1 below shows the geographical location of Cameroon within the African Continent.  Cameroon enviously exhibits an amazing reserve of fauna and flora, one of the most spectacular in the whole World.

                              The country boasts of a population of about 18 million, annual growth rate of 2.2% according to the World Bank Environmental Department annual report.  While 55% of the country’s population remains rural average population density is 34 people per square kilometer, with uneven human population density as some areas may exceed more than 100 persons per square kilometer.  Cameroon has a total surface area of 475,440 square kilometer with about 6,000 square kilometer occupied by water, giving a global ratio of 1:100.  The terrain displays diversity with coastal plains in the South- West, mountains in the West, and plains in the North, all surrounding plateau regions. The country displayed a tropical climate along the coast and semiarid and hot in the north.  Cameroon has abundance natural resources in crude oil, hydro power, cocoa, coffee, rubber, cotton, timber and minerals such as iron ore, nickel, cobalt and bauxite.  The country spectacularly possessed active volcanoes, among which is the Mount Cameroon, the highest peak in Western Sub-Saharan Africa.

 Agriculture is the main economic driving force of the country, constituting about 46%, followed by industry 21%, and 17% in other sectors and services, with a UNDP Human Poverty Index of 35.9 and Human Development Index of 0.499, ranked 142 of 175 countries.(UNDP 2003ab)

 The Environmental Sustainability Index for Cameroon was 45.9(Yale University & Columbia University 2002). Meanwhile the per capita emission of green house gases in Cameroon from 1998 measurement records, culminated to 0.112 tons of Co2 per person (GEO3, 1998). This stunningly rich and biodiversity country with about 409 mammalian and 165 bird species, experiences health damages which are estimated for about 0.7% of its G.N.I (Gross National Income) arising from particulate emission (PM10).   Access to sanitation facilities is 79%, which is well above the regional and low income group levels (Environment at a Glance 2004, Cameroon)

From the above, you can get a view on some important key aspects as environmental, political and socio economic indicators of Cameroon. This will later be interrelated to  colonial influence, Government policy,  demographic response to areas were colonial interest and activities are concentrated and subsequent environmental impacts. It is very certain that today’s environment problems cannot be understood without looking at how human history has reshaped the earth landscapes.

                                                                                                                                  

Map1: Map of Cameroon within the African Continent. Source; Adopted from Lonely Planet Publication; May 2008.

II.DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT:

My project will be focusing on the main industrial hub of Cameroon, the largest metropolis of the country, Douala. It host the country biggest sea and air ports, with 80%  of the country industrial activities with a population of about 3.5 million  people representing the largest city in Cameroon. In all these particularities of Douala, colonization had a played a great role on the concentration of the country’s economic activities which is today refer to as one of the most polluted city of the Central Africa region.  Before giving you a brief history of this colonization process, will like to draw your attention to the fact that, before colonial influenced in Douala, Tiko, a town southwest of the country used to host the country most important sea port and represented the economic heartbeat of this part of Cameroon. In later years, around the 18th century, the European colonialists concentrated their activities in Douala because of it location at the Bank of the Wouri River with an entry to the Atlantic Ocean, hence easy accessible to the Central African Region.  Around this period (18thC) Douala was the centre of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The Portuguese explorers were the first Europeans to come to the Port of Douala in the late 15th Century. By the middle 17th Century, immigrants from Africa’s interior had created a town there. It got its name from Duala, the name of the ethic group that settled the area. In the 18th Century, it became a focal point for the slave trade known as Cameroons Town. The Port of Douala came under the rule of Germany in 1884 when it was made capital of the German protectorate of Cameroon. In 1907, it was renamed Douala, and it became part of the French colony in 1919. The Port of Douala was capital of Cameroon from 1940 to 1946.

Modern Douala is a mix of modern, colonial, and traditional architecture. The city grew quickly after World War II, becoming the country’s most populous city today. It is a patch-work of western-style residential neighborhoods sprinkled with poorer areas where unskilled workers who have migrated from Cameroon and other countries in Africa.  Colonial interests and controlled of Douala did not allow for economic development decentralization in Cameroon thus creating a path-dependency situation. Colonial interest was concentrated in Douala as it was easy for them to export and handled trading activities between Europe and the Central African Region. This in later years greatly influenced the location of economic and especially industrial activities in this part of Cameroon with demographic explosion, people moving from the countryside into Douala looking for jobs.  Douala sea port handles export and imports to countries like Chad with  the town being home of the Eko Market, not only the largest in the country, but also the largest in the whole C.E.M.A.C region (Economic Community of Central African States). This dominance of colonial interest and activities in Douala in later years put Douala at the focal point for economic and industrial location in Cameroon. This has continued in subsequent years with increasing presence of industrial plants such as hydro power, metal, chemical, plastic, cement, and gas installations without adequate stakeholders competent in wastes management policy.  Inadequate monitoring and control of industrial activities by the Government in Douala is clear in the city’s poor scenery. Uncontrolled discharge of effluents from chemical plants, presence of fume from industrial emission, plastics and household dumping is the order of the day around the city. 

   In 1971, a presidential decree created MAGZI (Mission d,Amenagement et du Gestion des Zones Industrielle), a public company in charge of decentralizing and controlling industrial activities in the country, a type of “watch dog” organization of industrial activities. This company became operational in 1976 and instead of decentralizing industrial activities around the country, created the Bonaberi and Bassa industrial zones in Douala with increasing concentration and rapid demographic increase without implementing an adequate waste management system. The result is uncontrolled waste discharge by industries and population pressure leading to household waste dumping. The Government continue with it bonanza policy to encouraged industrial location without adequate decentralization policy by enacting in 1990 the Free Trade Zones Legislation conceding fiscal, regulatory and customs incentives to industries exporting at least 80% of their products. This legislation only came to confirm the path-dependency situation created by colonial economic dominance of Douala and encourage more industrial siting with corresponding demographic increased.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency(1998), Environmental Pollution is any discharge of materials, energy into water, land, or air that causes or may acute(short-term) or chronic(long-term) detriment to the Earth’s ecological balance or that lowers the quality of life.

Environmental experts at BOCOM International (a Douala based company specialized in environmental protection) have raised an alarm about increasing rate of industrial pollution in Douala. The experts says this is due to the increasing concentration of industrial plant and poor handling of industrial wastes especially by companies that deal in petroleum, plastic, metal and chemical products. Boasting as the country economic power house, demographic explosion, poor wastes management and the ever shrinking border between industrial zones and inhabited areas are all consequences of colonial interest and dominance. Also recent Government policy on industrial location without corresponding decentralization policy is held to blame for today’s condition of Douala. It is not uncommon to find factories belching foul smells and wastes dumped in the surrounding with scant respect for environmental laws.  Although according to United Nation Report, household waste plays an important role in pollution, there is ample indication that industrial waste alone is estimated at about 2187 metric tons per year in biochemical oxygen demand with a corresponding 48,000 metric tons per year in suspended solids in the Cameroon’s coastal city of Douala alone(UNEP,1982). Hence, it is fair to say this figure might have doubled or triple over the last decades. Effects of industrial effluents had been noticed around the aquatic ecosystem from fish capture along the coast of Cameroon’s large marine ecosystem of the Gulf of Guinea. (Van den Bossche and Bernacsek, 1990) From an increase of 20,800 tons in 1970 to 73, 2214 tons in 1979 to a succeeded and steady declined to 62,529 tons in 1987.  The photos below show some polluted sites in Douala.

  Photo1: Dumping on the Bessengue Valley

Photo2: An overview of the Douala seaport.

Photo 3: The SCDP Hydro carbon plant

Photo4: poor drainage system around the Bonaberi Industrial Zone neighborhood.

Photo5: Chemical and solid wastes at the Bepanda neighborhood Douala, Cameroon.

III.OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT:

 Recent attempts by Government in enacting legislative regulations like the Law No. 96/12 of 5th August 1996 relating to the management of the National environment and the overdue Decree No 2005/0577/PM of 23 February 2005 on the procedural framework governing Environment Impact assessment (EIA) in Cameroon had all proved futile.  Even industrial decentralization program meant to balance colonial path-dependency on Douala, including stakeholder’s participation on waste management program had not been able to achieve the goals for which they were created. Still Douala continues to represent the most attractive area for industrial sitting with correlated demographic explosion, poor waste control and hence continuous environmental pollution, problems.

    My main objective  is to demonstrate to an extend how the first colonial settlement and concentration of it activities like the Centre For Transatlantic Slave Trade  around the 18th century had created a path- dependency situation in making Douala the most attractive site for industrial location in Cameroon. This in return left the rural population around the countryside with no option rather than the massive movements into Douala.

 Secondly to explore ways in which the Government can fully implement the industrial zones decentralization policy, that is understanding the colonial role of the dominance of Douala in terms of industrial location, thus limiting the path dependency condition created by colonial influence upon Douala with complete stakeholder’s participation on the control and management of pollution problems. In all this, I intend to investigate on the willingness of the  industrial sectors and  population to accept relocation possibilities if the Government decentralization program are to be enforce in the near future which will also affects the direction of the demographic flow. 

IV.METHODOLOGIES OF STUDY

In other to come up with this research project, I intend to study the colonial history of Cameroon around 18th and 19th century with emphasis on colonial activities, influence and interests. I will also be checking on historical documents on why Douala became the most favorable area for colonial concentration, settlements and activities among the Sub- Central African Region.  I will be reviewing Government legislative documents on industrial decentralization policy and Environmental Assessment Programs in Cameroon.

Also I will be conducting random interviews on the population and industrial actors on what influence their location in Douala and their reactions if the Government Decentralization is to be enforced. Will have formal talks with Local Government Administrative Head in Douala on pollution  problems in the city, with special interest on the reasons of the failure of the decentralization policy and stakeholders involvements in Environmental Control Programs.

Finally I will be seeking samples opinions of residents on how they feel and hope in future in relation to the environmental pollution problems in Douala.

V. EXPECTED RESULTS

It is my wish to use the information collected from this study to come up with an independent research report title “Pollution Problems, A Consequence of Colonial Influenced And Government Policy” (Case Study of Douala, Cameroon) I hope this research will contribute in looking for another way in which environmental pollution problems in Douala can be understand and perceive if real decisions are to be taken.            

   ANTICIPATED OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS

Chapter 1: A Brief Colonial History of Cameroon.

Chapter 2: Why Douala?

Chapter 3: Industrial Location, Demographic Response and Government Policy.

Chapter 4: Pollution Problems and Outcomes.

VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Harry, R Rudin (1982) Germans in the Cameroons. 1884-1914, A Case Study of Modern Imperialism.

Victor Julius Ngoh (1992) Cameroon 1884-1985, Emphasizing French and British Colonial Rule and Changes since Independence.

The Herald Editorial: Cameroon Timeline 1989.

Alemagi, D, Oben, M.P., Ertel. J. (2006) Mitigating Industrial Pollution along the Atlantic Coast of Cameroon; An overview of Governments Efforts. The Environmentalist 2006.

Asaah et al (2006) Heavy Metal Concentration and Distribution in the Surface Soils of the Bassa Industrial Zone 1, Douala, Cameroon. The Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, Vol.31,nº 2 A.

Chebo, K. Asangwe (2006) The Douala Coastal Lagoon Complex, Cameroon; Environmental Issues. Barcelona Field Studies Centre, Industrial Location Factors, 2008.

Bogdan, R. and Taylor, S. J; (1975) Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods. A Phenomenological Approach to the Social Science Sciences. Wiley, New York.

Daly, Herman and John Cobb, Jr; (1989) For the common Good: Redirecting the Economy towards Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future. Boston, Beacon Press.

Fombad, C. M (1997) The Effectiveness of Environmental Protection Measures in Cameroon’s 1999 Law laying down Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries Regulation; Journal of Environmental Law, Oxford University Press.

French Development Agency (AFD) 2003: Support Programmed for the Urban Development of Douala and Yaoundé.

IPS, (2004) Politics-Cameroon: Democracy Does Not Come Easily. Inter Press Service.

Luken. R.J.Alvarez and P, Hesp ;( 2002) Developing Countries Industrial Source Book, First Edition, Vol.01-89605, UNIDO, Vienna, Austria.

Manga et al ;( 2008) Waste Management in Cameroon. A New policy perspective? Resources, Conservation and Recycling.

United Nation Development Program (2003) Monitoring Human Development.

United Nation Development Program (2004) Need Assessment for Capacity Building at the National Level.

UNIDO (2002) Cameroon Rio+10 Assessments, UNIDO, Vienna.

Submitted by;

Fomukong Julius Ntonibe,  Master Program (2010-2011) ICTA. Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.

The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights

THE FUTURE OF LITHIUM IN BOLIVIA.

                 THE FUTURE OF LITHIUM IN BOLIVIA.

LITHIUM:

Every time we pick up a cell phone or iPod, look at our watch, or plug-in a laptop we are relying on batteries that contain lithium. It is also used in ceramics and glass production, bi-polar medication, air conditioners, lubricants, nuclear weaponry, and other products. The lightest metal on Earth, lithium is mined from many sources, but most cheaply from underground brines like those found in abundance under Bolivia’s vast Salar de Uyuni.

Today the global focus on lithium is about its potential as a key ingredient in a new generation of electric cars batteries with increasing reality of Peak Oil sink. Powerful global players are investing billions of dollars in lithium’s future. Some predictions speculate that lithium car battery sales could jump from $100 million per year to $103 billion per year in the next 2 decades. If so, the countries that possess lithium are poised to become much bigger players in the global economy.

Despite the growing enthusiasm about lithium’s future, there are also real doubts as well. The process for transforming lithium into its commercially valuable form, lithium carbonate, is complex and expensive. The electric vehicle batteries currently being developed with lithium are still too large and heavy, and too slow to charge. The batteries are so expensive that they put the cost of electric cars beyond the reach of most consumers. Lithium batteries also have a record of catching fire. So while lithium car batteries might become a massive global market, they could also turn out to be the energy equivalent of the 8-track tape bringing along many social and environmental conflicts.

CASE STUDY OF BOLIVIA:

Based even on conservative estimates, Bolivia’s lithium reserves are the largest in the world. The Salar de Uyuni, a 10,000 square kilometer (3,860 square miles) expanse of salt-embedded minerals, located in Bolivia’s department of Southwest Potosí, is ground zero for Bolivia’s lithium dreams.

Foreign corporations and governments alike are lining up to court a Bolivian government intent on getting the best deal possible for its people. Among the major players are two Japanese giants, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, the latter of which already has a stake in the controversial San Cristobal Mine known for contaminating the same region. The French electric vehicle manufacturer, Bolloré, is also courting the Morales government, as are the governments of South Korea, Brazil, and Iran.

The Bolivian government has sketched out a general plan for the various phases of its lithium ambitions, but many of the details of how all this will be done have yet to be defined. To get its feet wet in the technical and economic waters of lithium, the government of Bolivia has invested $5.7 million in the development of a “pilot plant” at the edge of the Salar de Uyuni. The plant is intended to test drive the steps in getting the lithium-rich brine out from under the Salar’s crust and separating it into its distinct (and marketable) parts. Based on the experience of this pilot plant, the government aims to then construct a much larger industrial-scale plant, capable of producing up to 30,000 to 40,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate per year. This will be followed by a third phase to produce marketable lithium compounds, which the government plans to undertake in partnership with foreign investors.

To get help in meeting the formidable challenges it faces, the government has assembled a Scientific Advisory Committee (Scientific Research Committee for the Industrialization of the Evaporitic Resources of Bolivia) comprised of experts from universities, private companies, and governments, to give free, and mutually beneficial, advice. The Government has plan to commit 900 million Dollars to develop a state-run Lithium industry according to the Strategic Plan for Lithium Industrialization unveiled by president Evo Morales on October 21 2010. According to this strategic plan, Bolivia will extract and process lithium for commercial use on its own and is prepared to finance the entire chain of production including a battery plant on Bolivian soil by 2014.

STAKEHOLDERS AND CHALLENGES:

At heart, Bolivia’s lithium ambitions are simple: to lift a people out of poverty by squeezing the maximum benefit possible from a natural resource on the cutting edge of global markets. But between where Bolivia sits today and where it aims to go on its lithium highway there are major challenges that it will need to face;

The electric car battery market looks to be the most lucrative and the Morales government wants it to be a 100% state affair. Also the government aim at local lithium market such as glass and ceramics with a middle option of producing batteries for watches, cell phones, iPods, laptops and other electronic gadgets.

The cost of building a lithium battery industry in Bolivia is the most peculiar of the scenery. According to experts in the field about 200 millions dollars is needed for the main plant. Another investment in terms of chemical industries and huge infrastructure development will cost about 1 billion dollars according to a Bolivian official. Because of this Bolivia is looking for serious partnerships with investors, an approach that some local community groups do not support. A great concern about the Bolivian lithium race is the environmental impacts. The adequacy of Bolivia’s environmental strategy for lithium development in Southwest Potosí is doubted by several well-regarded Bolivian environmental organizations.

SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN:

The adequacy of Bolivia’s environmental strategy for lithium development in Southwest Potosí is doubted by several well-regarded Bolivian environmental organizations. The development of lithium may bring about a major crisis to a region already suffering from a serious water shortage, impacting Quinoa farmers, Llama herders the region’s vital tourism and drinking water source. Contamination of air, water and soil as a result of the toxic chemicals which will be needed to process the lithium, an example is the Chili Solar de Atacama which today describes a landscape scanned by mountains of discarded salt and huge canals filled with blue chemically contaminated water. Bolivia official and ministry of the Environment and Water which has dismissed those risks lack the capacity or authority to intervene in an effective way.

 Many groups in the region are in support of lithium development as they see it as a vital opportunity for jobs creation, increase incomes and infrastructural development. But there are also deep concern of the Quinoa producers and tourism operators about the benefits of this project to the Bolivian Government and it promised to the local needs which can easily damage the region thriving economy of agriculture and tourism.

GOVERNMENTAL:

Despite that the Bolivian government has being doing some important things right like beginning a pilot effort to test the technological and economical water, there are also fear and concern about the government ability to manage such an ambitious project with high level of external influence. Taking in to consideration that it require high level of trained qualified expert in the technical and scientific fields, in business management and economics and social and environmental impacts who are to be accounted to the Bolivian people. Despite the reality and future challenges of lithium development, it is hope the Bolivian Government and people be able to the task and reap the benefits the ‘super hero of metals’.

I end this review with ‘Bolivia the paradox of plenty’

“There is a curious phenomenon that social scientists call the “resource curse.” Countries with large endowments of natural resources, such as oil and gas, often perform worse in terms of economic development and good governance than do countries with fewer resources. Paradoxically, despite the discovery and extraction of oil and other natural resources, such endowments all too often impede rather than further balanced and sustainable development.”- Macartan Humphreys, Jeffrey Sachs, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Escaping the Resource Curse1

“[Latin America] continues to exist at the service of others’ needs, as a source and reserve of oil and iron, of copper and meat, of fruit and coffee, the raw materials and foods destined for rich countries which profit more from consuming them than Latin America does from producing them.” – Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America.

 Fomukong Julius Ntonibe

 Msc, Student

ICTA UAB 2011

POLITICAL ECOLOGY

Political Ecology

30^th January 2011

Fomukong Julius Ntonibe

Msc Student   (ICTA) Universitat Autonoma De Barcelona.

1-World Water Crisis, Commodification And Unequal Global Distribution.

Introduction:

I will like to began this essay with a quotation from the United Nation,s World Water Development Reports Number 2: “Water, A Shared Responsibility”. According to the European Commission,s Water Framework Directive, water is not a commercial goods like any other, water is a heritage and we must protect it. However it is a short road from treating water as a complex entity ( in-terms of value and importance to nature and humanity) to turning it in to a commodity.

The question here is how did we move from regarding water in a complex way to turning it in to a commodity? It is believe world water supply on the planet is infinite. But this assumption is completely false considering that available fresh water amounts to less than one half of one percent of all the water on earth. The rest is sea water, or is frozen in the polar ice. Fresh water is renewable only by rainfall, at the rate of 40,000 to 50,000 cubic kilometers per year. Due to intensive urbanization, deforestation, water diversion and industrial farming, however, even this small finite source of fresh water is disappearing with the drying of the earth's surface; if present trends persist, the water in all river basins on every continent could steadily be depleted.

Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth. According to the United Nations, more than one billion people on earth already lack access to fresh drinking water. If current trends persist, by 2025 the demand for fresh water is expected to rise to 56 percent more than the amount that is currently available.

Commodification:

In conventional terms, it can be described as a process whereby goods and services which were formerly used for subsistence purposes are bought and sold in the market. “Capital has proven unable to grow by itself, by its own exploitation of labor and technical change” (Martinez Alier, 2004) therefore it needs the steady increase of materials and energy coming from outside the economic system relying on the transformation of nature into commodities, i.e. tradable goods. The commodification of water begins with public policy. Public policy must serve social ends, and in order to determine social ends, we must engage in a valuation process, treating water as a good that can be traded and marketed, thus giving a common metric. There is also an in-building of the economic of water, which comes from the Dublin principles and the notion that water falls freely; but pipes cost money.

Water crisis and Commodification Process :

As the water crisis intensifies, governments around the world - under pressure from transnational corporations - are advocating a radical solution: the privatization, commodification and mass diversion of water. Proponents say that such a system is the only way to distribute water to the world's thirsty. But, in fact, experience shows that selling water on the open market does not address the needs of poor, thirsty people. On the contrary, privatized water is delivered to those who can pay for it, such as wealthy cities and individuals and water-intensive industries, like agriculture and high-tech. As one resident of the high desert in New Mexico observed after his community's water had been diverted for use by the high-tech industry: "Water flows uphill to money." Meanwhile, the future of one of the earth's most vital resources is being determined by those who profit from its overuse and abuse. A handful of transnational corporations, backed by the World Bank, are aggressively taking over the management of public water services in developing countries, dramatically increasing the price of water to local residents and profiting from the developing countries desperate search for solution to the water crisis. Examples are numerous especially serious is that of the Middle East were the King of Jordan threaten to go to war with Israel for controlling Jordan water supply.

The big question here is “should water be treated like any other tradable goods, with it use determined by market principles”?.

References;

1- Maude Barlow (2001). Blue Gold “The Global Water Crisis and the Commodification of the World's Water Supply”

2- Sierra Club conservation policies 2003.

3-Stephen Diamond (2008). Water Ethics and Commodification of Fresh Water Resources.

2-Environmental Justice and Ecosystem Degradation.

Introduction.

Here i intend to highlights the relationship between the poor and ecosystem goods and services. While everyone is affected by ecosystem degradation, the poor suffer the harmful effects disproportionately. In fact, the disparities between the poor and rich have grown in recent decades. For instance, despite global increases in the amount of food available per capita, over 800 million people remain undernourished, and food production per capita has actually decreased in Sub-Saharan Africa. While water availability has increased in many regions of the world, half of the urban population in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean suffer from contaminated water and its burden of disease. Ecosystem degradation has very real human and financial costs. The burning of 10 million hectares of Indonesia’s forests in 1997-8 resulted in additional health care costs of US$9.3 billion and affected some 20 million people.

Need for Environmental Justice.

Robert Bullard (1999): “The environmental justice movement has basically redefined what environmentalism is all about. It basically says that the environment is everything: where we live, work, play, go to school, as well as the physical and natural world. And so we can't separate the physical environment from the cultural environment. We have to talk about making sure that justice is integrated throughout all of the stuff that we do”

Inaccessibility and loss of ecosystem are mostly suffered by the poor through privatization of formerly common resources. This is particular evident in countries were local communities dependent on small scale fishing for livelihood have seen their source of living converted in to large ship farming and other forms of aquaculture for export. This not explain the decline in inland and coastal fisheries but deprived the local poor communities from the source of proteins and income. This is particularly true in countries like Ecuador, Thailand, Honduras, Chile, Indonesia, The Philippines, Bangladesh and India. According to World Resource Institute Report (2005) the substantial degradation of ecosystems that is now occurring is a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. For many of the1.1billion people living in severe poverty, nature is a daily lifeline, an asset for those with few other material meaning. This is especially true for the rural poor, who comprise three-quarters of all poor households worldwide. Harvests from forests, fisheries, and farm fields are a primary source of rural income and a fall back when other sources of employment falter. But programs to reduce poverty often fail to account for the important link between environment and the livelihoods of the rural poor. As a consequence, the full potential of ecosystems as a wealth-creating asset for the poor not just a survival mechanism has yet to be effectively tapped. According to Robert Bullard, one of American most prominent Environmental Justice Movement Leader, “Environmental justice is not a social program, it's not affirmative

actions, its about justice, and until we get justice in environmental protection, justice in terms of enforcement of regulations, we will not even talk about achieving sustainable development or sustainability issues until we talk about justice”. The big question here is, “if humanity depends on it ecosystems environment for survival, who is responsible for it management and protection? Being rich or poor, we need to be sustainable in dealing with our ecosystems if we hope to achieved Millennium Development Goals”.

References;

1- World Resources (2005). The Wealth of the Poor Managing Ecosystems to Fight poverty in collaboration with UNDP, UNEP, World Bank.

2- World Resource Institute (2005) Ecosystems Degradation and the Poor.

3- Environmental Justice: An Interview with Robert Bullard (1999)

3- Political Ecology and the Global Climate Change Discourse.

Introduction.

Despite the debates concerning political ecology “refer to the social and political conditions surrounding the causes, experiences, and management of environmental problems” (e.g. Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Bryant, 1992; Greenberg and Park, 1994; Zimmerer, 2000) it understanding is of great importance if we are to address the present global climate change debate. Political ecology opens a conceptual management analysis and understanding taking in to consideration important aspects as Environmental Valuation, Natural Resource, Waste and Energy, Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice.

Applying Political Ecology to the Climate Change Debate.

Adaptation to Climate Change is not only a “response to climatic stimuli” (IPCC 2007) but it depends on Adaptive Governance, Environmental perception, Capacities, Knowledge which could only be possible through the application of political ecology concepts. Political ecology thus represents a particular approach to the study of peace and conflict, emphasizing the role of

inequality in access to wealth, and the natural resources upon which wealth is based, as one of the principle drivers of the interrelated dynamics of human discord and ecological degradation. A characteristic feature of political ecology analysis entails elucidation of the interconnection between the various stakeholders involved in a conflict at different levels or scales from the regional to the global and the local to the national that may underlie seemingly spatially bounded conflicts, as well as contestation among actors at each of these levels (Watts 2000). Central to the climate change debate is the way we construct environmental knowledge and only through political ecology concepts can we be able to construct an environmental knowledge particularly understanding the power relationships inherent therein. At such using political concept of Governmentality we can be able to address the following four key question (Scot & Sullivan, 2000:2);

i- Who currently holds power over influential narratives?

ii- How is this power employed and for what political purposes?

iii- What is the science that support these defined narratives?

iv- What are the ideals of the morality infusing these narratives and their supporting science?

From Rio to Cancun, citizen participation is a recurrent and democratically important issue in the ongoing debate about climate change. However, different meanings are ascribed to citizen participation in different contexts and discourses, ranging from top-down involvement to bottom-up engagement. Only through political ecology framework can this issue be address. Therefore understanding political ecology concepts is very necessary in analyzing and managing the global climate change debates for the good of humanity.

References;

1- Timothy Forsyth (2003). Critical Political Ecology; The Politics of Environmental Science.

2- The Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (2005).

3- Detlef et al. (2010). The Political Ecology of Climate Change in South Korea.

4- Peace & Conflict Review. Vol.5, Issue1 ISSN:1659-3995 (2010).

5- Anthony R. Turton (2001). The Construction of Knowledge and the Climate Change Debate: A Perspective from the Developing South.

A Summary of the Dust Bow.(The Southern Plains)

                               AN ESSAY ON THE DOST BOWL

                  The Southern Plains in the 1930s By DONALD WORSTER

Dust Bowl,The Southern Plains in the 30s by Donald Worster published in 1979 had been considered as one of the most important works of environmental history. This classic work of Donald Worster shapes the understanding of human interactions with the southern plains consisting of the states of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas sprawling over 100 millions acres of land. According to him, the Dust Bowl was as a result of the irrational and insistent exploitation of the southern plains through out the twentieth century resulting to environmental in- balance that wreaked havoc and was felt by the entire United States of America and even of planetary significance. Others like George Borgstrom of the world food program considered the Dust Bowl as one of the three worst ecological blunders in history. The Dust Bowl was considered the darkest moment in the twentieth century life of the southern plains as described by Donald Worster coinciding with the 1930s Great Depression all resulting from the same societal production for similar reasons. Worster begins the first chapter his book with a description of the severe drought that gripped the nation beginning in the early 1930s referring to it as the “dirty thirties”. Traditional explanations of the Dust Bowl emphasize the lack of rain as the fundamental cause of the severe dust storms that struck the southern plains. It represents a period of drought, famine, and poverty that existed in the 1930's not withstanding the crisis of Great Depression. Worster considered the cause of both crisis as a chain of events that was perpetuated by the basic capitalistic society's need for expansion and consumption with elusive breath as private property, business, laissez-faire, profit maximization , pursuit for self interest, free enterprise, an open market and the bourgeoisie. “In Worster word,during the laissez-faire expansionist 1920s, the plains were extensively plowed and put to wheat-turned in to highly mechanized factory farms that produced unprecedented harvests. Plains operators, how ever, ignored all environmental limits in this enterprise. In a more stable natural region, this sort of farming could have gone on exploiting the land much long with impunity. But on the plains, the elements of risk were higher than they were anywhere else in the country, and the destructive effects of capitalism far more sudden and dramatic. There was nothing in the plains society to check the progress of commercial farming, nothing to prevent from taking the risks it was willing to take for profit. That is how and while the Dust Bowl came about”. Considered by some as one of the worst ecological catastrophes in the history of man, Worster argues that the Dust Bowl was created not by nature's work, but by an American culture that was working exactly the way it was planned. Therefore he considered with certainty that the Dust Bowl was the effect of a society which deliberately set out to take all it could from the earth while giving next to nothing back. Worster goes forward to explained that the farmers actions on the lands were insufficient to explained the damages on the plains without taking in to consideration the social systems, set of values and economic order that brought them to the region. Therefore the concurrent existence of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression during the 1930's. Worster sets out in an attempt to show that the tragical Dust Bowl and Great Depression of the 1930s existed simultaneously not by coincidence, but by the same culture, which brought them about from similar events. Worster argues that it is no coincidence the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression struck at the same time. In fact, one of the principal themes of his book is the link between fundamental weaknesses in traditional culture of America, the one in ecological terms, the other economic. According to Worster, both suggested the need and presented an opportunity for fundamental reforms. Both events revealed fundamental weaknesses in the traditional culture of America, the one in ecological terms and the other in economic. Worster was convinced that in American society, as in all others, existed certain accepted ways of using the land. He sums up the capital ethos of ecology into three simply stated maxims which he represented as:

Nature must be seen as capital in the form of assets that can become a source of profit or advantage; Man has a right and obligation to use this capital for constant self-advancement through profits maximization and private properties accumulation; and finally the social order should permit and encourage this continual increase of personal wealth therefore protecting individuals aggressive use of nature. It is through these basic beliefs that Worster claims the plainsmen ignored all environmental limits much like the brokers and investors on Wall Street ignored a top heavy economy. While acknowledging other "contradictory values" at work in American history, Worster concludes that "capitalism was the major defining influence" in American treatment of the land, and particularly in "the laissez-faire, expansionist 1920s," the decade that laid the conditions for both the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Worster lay more emphasis on Cimarron County, OK and Haskell County, KS, to explain the effect of these ecological precepts at work. Dirt, dust, and grime, loosened from the soil as a result of excessive over plowing and "sod busting," enveloped the country and choked the lungs of the nation. And New Deal officials, un-cognizant of the deeper environmental origins of the storms (they, like farmers, blamed it on "drought") offered the afflicted only superficial hope and failed to alter "the system of non-resident tenure, factory like monoculture, and market speculation that had dominated “New Era agriculture”. Not only did it fail to induce these changes, the emerging welfare state actually prevented their occurring. In the main it propped up an agricultural economy that had proved itself to be socially and ecologically corrosive." (163).
Worster explains that our business oriented society began to transform farming into a mass producing industrial machine, becoming another excess of free enterprise that not even Roosevelt's New Deal could remedy. The dirty thirties, as it was called by many, was a time when the earth ran amok in southern plains for the better part of a decade. This great American tragedy, which was more devastating environmentally as well as economically than anything in America's past or present, painstakingly tested the spirit of the southern plainsmen. The proud folks of the south refused at first to accept government help, optimistically believing that better days were ahead. Some moved out of the plains, running from not only drought but from the new machine controlled agriculture. As John Steinbeck wrote in the bestseller The Grapes of Wrath, it was not nature that broke the people they could handle the drought. It was business farming, seeking a better return on land investments and buying tractors to pursue it, that had broken these people, smashing their identity as natural beings wedded to the land. The machines, one crop specialization, non resident farming, and soil abuse were tangible threats to the American agriculture, but it was the capitalistic economic values behind these land exploitations that drove the plainsmen from their land and created the Dust Bowl. Eventually, after years of drought and dust storms, the plains people had to accept some form of aid or fall to the lowest ranks of poverty in the land, and possibly perish. Although overall three out of four farmers stayed on their land, the mass exodus depleted the population drastically in certain areas. The government set up agency after agency to try and give federal aid to the plains farmers. Groups such as the Farm Credit Administration, the Works Progress Administration, the Land Utilization Project, and the Agricultural Adjustment program, among others, were formed to give the plainsmen some sort of relief from the hardships of the Dust Bowl. In Cimarron county, Oklahoma 306 households were drawing government relief in June 1934 of which 60 of them were paid entirely in commodities and the rest mostly in cash. President Roosevelt and the government of the United Sates seemingly planned ways to give the plains aid and when later the Supreme Court ruled that a certain agency was unconstitutional, Roosevelt was ready replaced it with another one in its place. Worster was not quite convinced with the government response to this tragedy, arguing that the government agencies relief actions were not sufficient to improve the lot of the large number of poor, marginal farmers, and in fact, none of the federal activities altered much of the factory like culture of the plains. In coherent terms the government programs failed to induce the changes that were needed to save the southern plains. Some communities were able form groups outside of the government in order to help the plains with their own plan of actions. Communities like the Haskell County, Kansas were able to organized Local women,s groups. These groups were aimed at strengthening the most common counter force of the outside consumer society with attention on the family. Ultimately though, as Worster writes, the effect of the magnetic outward pull of the capitalistic ideals was stronger than the principals of the family. Others like Lewis Gray who was a Post-Progressive Conservationists also tried to lend a hand in correcting what went wrong in the Dust Bowl. Gray was looking at possibilities to end homesteading completely, add unprofitable private lands to the public domain, and extend agricultural conservation. Although here, Worster claims these attempts were not enough, calling men like Gray problem solvers, often bogged down in the immediate issues of Depression America and did not give enough attention to the broader issues, nor did they talk boldly enough about the dimensions of change. Ecological conservationists like Paul Sears using their expertise also suggested important measures to solve the miseries cause by the dust bowl tragedy. Worster argues, though, that the conservationists would evaluate the problem, make a diagnosis, and then back off leaving the plainsmen to fix the problems. Ecologists were doomed to futility and self-deception as long as they supposed that man's use of the land was controlled by disinterested reason alone or that recommendations served up with scientific credentials would necessarily be adopted. The dust bowl tragedy was also an opportunity for agronomists to come in, introducing new farming techniques such as terracing and planting shelter belts of trees as an attempt to recapture the essence of the land. The agronomists, although they were more successful in getting their version of conservation translated into action, were ultimately ineffectual, too. Worster finally claims that neither the federal land-use planners, ecologists, nor the agronomists made a lasting impact on the region. Conservation as a cultural reform had come to be accepted only where and insofar as it had helped the plains culture reach its traditional expansionary aims. The Dust Bowl, even more so than the Great Depression, became the dominant national symbol of bankruptcy and ecological decay-the irony is that it was the capitalistic values that our country holds so highly that ultimately facilitated both the creation of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. This classic work of Worster is very important in understanding and confirming the effects of our society today, which largely is consumer based and it consequences on nature,s land. Worster set forth a strong argument and supported it finely with great details. Worster arguments about dust bowl tragedy was real but what actually happened on the southern plains were as a result of the increasing pressure from the capitalistic sector of the country. A society based on purely expansionist consumption-consumer culture. So to say in my opinion, the only way for the Dust Bowl to have been curtailed sooner would have been for the people there to stop breaking the land all together and let mother nature take over and fix herself. Of course, that would be asking the impossible since it would mean the plains people would have to give up, and lose to the capitalistic society of which they were trying to keep up with. For as much as attempts were made to curb the dust bowl tragedy, it only goes to maintain the status-quo of increasing consumerism and the dust bowl itself. Droughts and famine will come and go during our time here on earth, but we must learn to look to the earth for the remedy and give back to the earth what is rightfully hers for capitalism cannot fill the needs of human life without the resources of the land.

Finally, Worster's book is not intended as a work of history alone, but a cautionary tale. "For he declares, "is the agriculture that America offers to the world: producing an incredible bounty in good seasons, using staggering qualities of machines and fossil fuels to do so, exuding confidence in man's technological mastery over the earth, running along the thin edge of disaster." (234) Ultimately, Worster declares, man "needs another kind of farming by which he can satisfy his needs without making a wasteland." (243) . Worster stresses the need for societies to be ecologically adaptive, in other words,a culture that is in-syn with the environment,s needs rather than continuing the pursuit of capitalist desires that essentially destroy the land.

Fomukong Julius Ntonibe
MSc. Student ICTA UAB, Spain.

Bibliography:

Donald Worster: “Dust Bowl; The Southern Plains in the 1930s” Oxford University Press 1979.