Youth Music Festival to Promote Maternal and Newborn Health in Uganda

By Eric Akasa

 Seventh Day Adventist Church, Makindye District Youth Executive Committee has organized a youth music festival with the theme “Zero Tolerance to Maternal & Newborn Deaths, Change Starts with You!” to be held in Kampala on Sunday, 25th November, 2012.

 The purpose of the festival is to raise awareness on maternal and newborn health amongst the youth and the community.

 The festival will be used to call on the individual youth, church leaders and role players in the community to take action and promote maternal and newborn health. The primary target will be the young people, because they make the biggest proportion of Uganda population and the mothers who are losing their lives and babies every day.

 Youth groups from 15 local SDA churches of Makindye District will unite at Soya Bunga SDA church along Ggaba Road, Kampala on Sunday, 25th November, 2012 beginning at 10:00AM to raise awareness among the young people on maternal and newborn health through music, dance and drama, poetry and photography. The festival will carry messages emphasizing behavioral change amongst the youth, abstinence and delaying sex encouraging young people to stay longer in school and avoid unsafe abortions. We hope to achieve this through emphasizing behavioral change, abstinence and delaying sex; encouraging young people to stay longer in school, avoid unsafe abortions. Youth will also greatly emphasizing male involvement ensuring that every pregnancy is planned for and supported. 

The problem of maternal and newborn health in Uganda and its magnitude is big and claiming many lives that would be saved. According to Government of Uganda statistics (Uganda Demographic Health Survey, 2011), we continue to lose over 20 women every day from preventable pregnancy and childbirth related causes. Recent reports indicate the rate of teenage pregnancy in Uganda stands at 30% the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Half of Ugandan girls giving birth before the age of 18; with young teenagers as young as 11 becoming pregnant! This is attributed to early sex, early marriages, dropping out of school, and rape among other causes, which result into unsafe abortion leading to complications, disabilities and at times death!

 The World Health Organization guidance on abortion-related services reveals that in Uganda, about 300,000 abortions are carried out every year. Professor Florence Mirembe at the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Mulago hospital said that abortion related complications are one of the leading causes of admissions to gynecological wards in hospitals across the country.

 In addition, youth especially girls are also at a high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, thus contributing to the 20 mothers who die daily due to preventable pregnancy and child birth related causes.

This event is free and open to the public. We therefore request you to ‘play your part’ by contributing to the success of this youth initiative in monetary terms and or in-kind support. Maternal health is not only the responsibility of mothers; it is also the responsibility of us all. Your contribution will save a life!

“Our generation will not tolerate girls and women continuing to die during pregnancy and childbirth.  Change starts now!  We will play our part to prevent unintended pregnancies, to raise awareness in our communities and to encourage the girls and boys to delay sex and women to seek for skilled birth attendance.”

We also call upon the Government of Uganda to ensure that youth have access to youth friendly reproductive services and information, post abortion care services and every pregnant woman has access to skilled birth attendance.

Faster Progress Needed on Targets to Protect World’s Key Nature Sites, says UN Report

By Eric Akasa

 Despite the growing number of nature reserves, national parks and other protected areas across the globe, half of the world’s richest biodiversity zones remain entirely unprotected.

Protected areas are being managed in a more equitable way, with a greater role for indigenous communities. But current investment in protected areas is only around half of what is needed to support endangered species, protect threatened habitats and deliver the full benefits that sustainably-managed protected areas can deliver.

These are among the main findings of a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that tracks progress towards internationally-agreed targets on the world’s protected areas.

The report was presented today at the 11^th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB COP 11) in Hyderabad, India. The study received the official backing of countries at COP 11 this week as a major contribution towards tracking progress on global efforts to increase protected areas.

Two years ago countries set a goal under the CBD that by 2020; at least 17 per cent of the world’s terrestrial areas and 10 per cent of marine areas would be equitably managed and conserved.

The Protected Planet Report 2012 says that protected areas have increased in number by almost 60 per cent and in area by just under 50 per cent, since 1990. But the study states that poor management, under-funding and a lack of critical data on protected areas mean that the world is making insufficient progress towards the 2020 goals.

Produced by UNEP’s World Conversation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) in partnership with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the study is the first in an annual series that will monitor global efforts to support and expand protected areas.

“Protected areas contain some 15 per cent of the world’s carbon stock and support the livelihoods of over one billion people, making them a crucial factor in supporting biodiversity, ecosystem services and human livelihoods,” said UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“This new report provides not only the fact and figures required by decision-makers, but outlines ways to overcome fundamental challenges in the management of protected areas. It highlights the key actions required to meet international goals, and to harness the multiple economic and environmental benefits that sustainably managed protected areas can provide,” added Mr. Steiner.

Global Protected Area Coverage

According to the most recent figures, just over 12 per cent of the world’s terrestrial areas are thought to be protected today.

To meet the CBD target of 17 per cent, an additional 6 million square kilometres of land and inland waters would have to be recognized as protected by world governments - an area more than twice the size of Argentina.

Marine protected areas are lagging even further behind. Around 1.6 per cent of the global ocean area is protected, mostly in near-coastal areas. To meet the CBD target of 10 percent, an additional 8 million square kilometres of marine and coastal areas would need to be recognized as protected - an area just over the size of Australia. However, the UNEP study states that the number of very large marine protected areas (MPAs) has grown significantly in recent years. Today, there are over 13 MPAs each with an area greater than 100,000 square kilometres. Overall, marine protected area coverage has increased by over 150 percent since 2003.

Coverage of Biodiversity - Are Protected Areas in the Right Place?

The UNEP study uses a number of indicators to assess the location of existing protected areas. These include ‘Eco regions’ (large areas with characteristic combinations of species distinct from adjacent areas) and other internationally-recognized biodiversity zones, such as Important Bird Areas.  

The study finds that the global protected area network does not yet provide adequate coverage of the world’s terrestrial ecoegions. Latest figures show that half of the world’s key Eco regions only have 10 per cent of their area protected. A further 10 per cent of global Eco regions have less than 1 per cent of their area protected, suggesting critical gaps in biodiversity protection.

Only 13 percent of the world’s marine Eco regions meet the CBD’s 10 per cent coverage target.  The UNEP study says that a dramatic acceleration in the creation or expansion of marine protect areas is needed to cover strategic sites and reduce biodiversity gaps.

The number of Important Bird Areas completely covered by protected areas has risen to 28 percent, yet just under half had no coverage at all.

This could have significant impacts on efforts to reduce the loss of species and habitats:  In Australia, 13 per cent of all threatened species and 21 per cent of critically endangered species are not covered by any protected area and in Africa, around 26 per cent of threatened bird species are not covered by any protected area

Global datasets for Important Bird Areas and other key diversity sites have only become available in the last ten years. More effort is needed, says the UNEP study, to ensure that decision-makers have access to updated data on the location of marine and terrestrial ecoregions.

The UNEP report says that the ecological performance of protected areas also remains poorly understood. Further studies are needed to anaylze the impacts of protected areas on species, ecosystems and genetic resources. This will also require improved, comprehensive datasets on protected areas, and on biodiversity trends outside protected zones.

Management and Governance – Key Challenges

From small nature reserves to large national parks, all protected areas require effective management to achieve their objectives. Countries have also committed to managing protected areas in a more equitable way, where indigenous communities, civil society and other non-government bodies play an active role.

According to a 2010 study, less than a third of the world’s protected areas have a management plan in place, and only a quarter of all protected areas have been judged to have ‘sound management’. Lack of funding, facilities and equipment, staff shortages and limited interaction with local communities are among the main barriers to effective management.

In order to encourage effective management and more regular assessments, IUCN is working to develop a ‘Green List’ of well-managed marine and terrestrial protected areas.

In terms of adopting more inclusive approaches to managing protected areas, the UNEP report highlights several positive trends. From 1990 to 2000, the total protected area managed by non-governmental bodies, or under co-management, increased from about 4 per cent to 23 per cent.

In the Pacific Islands, the number of locally managed marine areas has risen from 4 to 419 between 2000 and 2009.

UNEP-WCMC and partners have recently started working on a global registry of forests, wetlands, landscapes, village lakes, rivers and other habitats that are managed by local and/or indigenous communities (www.iccaregistry.org). The aim is to highlight case studies and successful techniques that can improve the equitable management of protected areas worldwide.  

Financing

Protected areas play a vital economic role through the valuable ecosystem services they provide, such as supplying clean water to local communities and promoting eco-tourism, among others. Previous UNEP studies have shown that the overall economic benefits of protected areas greatly exceed the cost of managing them.
 
However, the global funding shortfall for protected areas currently runs into billions of US dollars. In Africa, for example, the effective management of 10 per cent of all ecoregions would cost around US$630 million per year, approximately double the current protected areas spending for the continent.  In Latin America and the Caribbean, the funding shortfall is as much as 64 per cent of the estimated annual cost for managing protected areas.

The UNEP report recommends that protected areas further develop alternative revenue streams, such as tourist fees, private sector funding, and payment for ecosystem services.

Changing current government spending practices on the environment also has significant potential for biodiversity conservation. A terrestrial protected areas system covering 17 per cent of global land area (the 2020 target), could be established and managed at a fraction of the current amount spent by governments on environmentally-harmful subsidies, according to a 2009 study.  

Priority Actions

The UNEP report recommends the following key steps to ensure that the 2020 targets on protected areas can be met:

·        Accelerate the strategic expansion of the protected area network, and increase  coverage of ecoregions and other important biodiversity sites
·        Improve understanding of the benefits of protected areas in supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services
·        Expand management effective assessments of protected areas
·        Strengthen involvement of local communities
·        Secure sustainable funding for protected areas
·        To improve data on protected areas, enhance national reporting to existing datasets, such as the World Database on Protected Areas, managed by UNEP-WCMC

Vital Economic and Environmental Role of Wetlands Must Be Recognized to Avoid Further Degradation and Losses

By Eric Akasa

The key role that rapidly diminishing wetlands play in supporting human life and biodiversity needs to be recognized and integrated into decision-making as a vital component of the transition to a resource-efficient, sustainable world economy, according to a new TEEB report released yesterday.

Water security is widely regarded as one the key natural resource challenges currently facing the world. Human drivers of ecosystem change, including destructive extractive industries, unsustainable agriculture and poorly managed urban expansion, are posing a threat to global freshwater biodiversity and water security for 80 per cent of the world’s population.

Global and local water cycles are strongly dependent on healthy and productive wetlands, which provide clean drinking water, irrigation for agriculture, and flood regulation, as well as supporting biodiversity and propping up industries such as fisheries and tourism in many locations.

Yet, despite the high value of these ecosystem services, wetlands continue to be degraded or lost at an alarming pace, according to The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for Water and Wetlands report, released for consultation today at the 11^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention for Biological Diversity.

Half of the world’s wetlands were lost during the twentieth century – due mainly to factors such as intensive agricultural production, unsustainable water extraction for domestic and industrial use, urbanization, infrastructure development and pollution. The continuing degradation of wetlands is resulting in significant economic burdens on communities, countries and businesses.

The report also highlights that the restoration of wetlands and their water-related services, also offers significant opportunities to address sustainable and cost-effective solutions to water management problems.

“Policies and decisions often do not take into account the many services that wetlands provide – thus leading to the rapid degradation and loss of wetlands globally,” said UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“There is an urgent need to put wetlands and water-related ecosystem services at the heart of water management in order to meet the social, economic and environmental needs of a global population predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050,” he added.

The report – initiated by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands with financial support from the Norwegian, Swiss and Finnish Governments and developed by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), together with the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Wetlands International, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – lays out a raft of recommendations that would slow and ultimately halt the degradation of wetlands.

Taking account of the value of water and wetlands in public policy and private decisions; fully integrating the management of wetlands and securing their wise use in water management; and prioritizing the further loss and conversion of wetlands through strategic environmental assessments are among the many steps that must be taken, according to the report.

“In 2008 the world’s governments at the Ramsar Convention’s 10^th Conference of Parties stressed that for water management carrying on ‘business as usual’ is no longer an option”, said the Ramsar Convention’s Deputy Secretary General, Nick Davidson.

 “This report tells us bluntly just how much more important than generally realized are our coastal and inland wetlands: for the huge value of the benefits they provide to everyone, particularly in continuing to deliver natural solutions for water - in the right quantity and quality, where and when we need it. If we continue to undervalue wetlands in our decisions for economic growth, we do at our increasing peril for people’s livelihoods and the world’s economies,” he added.

Rapid Wetland Loss

Inland wetlands cover at least 9.5 million km² (about 6.5 per cent of the Earth’s land surface), while inland and coastal wetlands together cover a minimum of 12.8 million km².

Between 1900 and 2003, the world lost an estimated 50 per cent of its wetlands, while recent coastal wetland loss in some places, notably East Asia, has been up to 1.6 per cent a year. This has led to situations such as the 20 per cent loss of mangrove forest coverage since 1980.

The main pressures on wetlands come from:

Habitat loss, for example through wetland drainage for agriculture or infrastructure developments, driven by population growth and urbanization ,Over-exploitation, for example the unsustainable harvesting of fish ,excessive water withdrawals for use in, for example, irrigated agriculture; nutrient loading from fertilizer use and urban waste water, which can lead to eutrophication – the excessive growth of algae that deprives other species of enough oxygen and can create dead zones; Climate change, which can alter ecosystem conditions through rising temperatures and pollution, remarkably through extractive industries, invasive species and siltation.

Such pressures threaten wetlands’ natural infrastructure, which delivers a wider range of services and benefits than corresponding man-made infrastructure at a lower cost.

The Benefits of Wetlands

Water

Wetlands are a key factor in the global water cycle and in regulating local water availability and quality. They contribute to water purification, denitrification and detoxification, as well as to nutrient cycling, sediment transfer, and nutrient retention and exports. Wetlands can also provide waste water treatment and protection against coastal and river flooding.

For example, The Catskill / Delaware watershed provides about 90 per cent of the water used by New York City citizens. In 1997, a study showed that building a new water treatment plant would cost between US$6 and US$8 billion, whereas ensuring good water quality through measures to reduce pollution in the watershed would only cost US$1.5 billion. This study led to programmes to promote the sustainability of the watershed.

Food Security

Wetlands play a key role in the provision of food, and habitats and nurseries for fisheries. One example is the Amu Darya delta in Uzbekistan where Intensification and expansion of irrigation activities left only 10 per cent of the original wetlands. Yet a pilot restoration project initiated in the delta – with the support of community, government and donors – led to increased incomes, more cattle, more hay production for use and sale, and an increase in fish consumption of 15 kilogrammes per week per family.

Job Security

Wetlands can be important tourism and recreation sites and support local employment. For example In the Ibera Marshes in Argentina, conservation-based tourism activities have revived the economy of Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, near the Ramsar Site “Lagunas y Esteros del Iberá”, creating new jobs and allowing local inhabitants stay employed in the town rather than migrate to cities to look for work. Around 90 per cent of the population now works in the tourism sector. In order to favour local employment, the site managers provide local rangers and guides with training on working with guiding tourists. In addition, local communities receive support to establish municipal nature trails.

Biodiversity

Wetlands are some of the most important biologically diverse areas in the world and provide essential habitats for many species. Coral reefs, peatlands, freshwater lakes, waterbirds, amphibians and wetland-dependent mammals such as hippopotamus, manatees and river dolphins are among those examples of biodiversity covered by the global Ramsar Convention network of “Wetlands of International Importance”, which comprises over 2,000 sites covering over 1.9 million km.

Examples of major wetlands in the Ramsar network include: the Danube Delta in Romania and the Ukraine; the Pantanal wetlands across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay; and Lake Chad across Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

Climate change

Wetlands provide climate regulation, climate mitigation and adaptation, and carbon storage – for example in peatlands, mangroves and tidal marshes.

Peatlands cover 3 per cent of the world’s land surface, about 400 million hectares (4 million km2), of which 50 million hectares are being drained and degraded, producing the equivalent of 6 per cent of all global Carbon Dioxide emissions. While vegetative wetlands occupy only 2 per cent of seabed area, they represent 50 per cent of carbon transfer from oceans to sediments, often referred to as ‘Coastal Blue Carbon’.

UN Report Warns Ecological Foundations that Support Food Security, Including Biodiversity, Are Being Undermined

By Eric Akasa

The aim of achieving food security across the globe will become increasingly elusive unless countries factor the planet's nature-based services into agricultural and related planning, a report released today from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says.

Safeguarding the underlying ecological foundations that support food production, including biodiversity will be central if the world is to feed seven billion inhabitants, climbing to over nine billion by 2050 argues the study Avoiding Future Famines: Strengthening the Ecological Basis of Food Security through Sustainable Food System.

Inefficiencies along the food delivery chain further complicate the challenge, and the report highlights that an estimated one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes per year.

The debate on food security so far has largely revolved around availability, access, utilization and stability as the four pillars of food security, barely touching on the resource base and ecosystem services that prop up the whole food system.

The report aims to increase the focus on these crucial aspects, which are being undermined by overfishing, unsustainable water use, environmentally degrading agricultural practices and other human activities. It also frames the debate in the context of the green economy, calling for food production and consumption practices that ensure productivity without undermining ecosystem services.

“The environment has been more of an afterthought in the debate about food security,” said UNEP Chief Scientist Joseph Alcamo. “This is the first time that the scientific community has given us a complete picture of how the ecological basis of the food system is not only shaky but being really undermined.”

While pointing out the current challenges, the report also offers a clear way forward to shore up the ecological foundations and improve food security. It issues recommendations on the redesign of sustainable agriculture systems, dietary changes and storage systems and new food standards to reduce waste.

“The era of seemingly ever-lasting production based upon maximizing inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, mining supplies of freshwater and fertile arable land and advancements linked to mechanization are hitting their limits, if indeed they have not already hit them,” said UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. “The world needs a green revolution but with a capital G: one that better understands how food is actually grown and produced in terms of the nature-based inputs provided by forests, freshwaters and biodiversity.”

The report, produced in collaboration with other international organizations including the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), took a holistic approach to analyzing the food system. Twelve scientists and experts authored the report, covering many different areas of expertise including food consumption patterns, agricultural production, marine fisheries and inland fisheries.

They found that while agriculture provides 90 per cent of the world's total caloric intake, and world fisheries provide the other 10 per cent, these life-supporting industries face many threats, all of which are exacerbated by underlying driving forces such as population growth, income growth and changing lifestyles/diets linked to urbanization.  

The report identified the following specific threats to these systems:

Agriculture

Competition for water. Some experts believe that future food demands need to be met by additional irrigated land, but there is already strong competition from rapidly growing domestic and industrial water withdrawals, Conventional agricultural practices have a variety of ecosystem impacts, such as a reduction of on-farm biodiversity and attendant increase in pests and disease, soil loss, eutrophication and contamination of ground water, traditional agricultural practices, if practiced inappropriately, can lead to severe land degradation and Climate change and its impacts will compound the preceding threats to agriculture by shifting crop-growing zones and bringing an eventual decrease in crop productivity.

Marine Fisheries

Overfishing is the foremost force in undermining the ecological basis of fisheries. The FAO estimated that as of 2008, 53 per cent of global marine stocks are fully exploited, 15 per cent are either underexploited (3 per cent) or moderately exploited (12 per cent), while 32 per cent are either overexploited (28 per cent), depleted (3 per cent) or are recovering from depletion (1 per cent),loss of coastal habitat such as coral reefs and mangrove forests. At least 35 per cent of mangrove forests and 40 per cent of coral reefs have been destroyed or degraded over the last decades, bottom trawling, dredging and destructive fishing practices such as the use of dynamite and cyanide, which lead to habitat loss or modification, degradation of coastal water quality. Nutrient runoff causes coastal eutrophication, zones of severely reduced dissolved oxygen and depleted aquatic life. Over four hundred dead zones have been identified in coastal areas and climate change will lead to warmer water and a more acidified ocean, with many impacts on marine fisheries. The IPCC projects a global loss of 18 per cent of the world's coral reefs in the next three decades, shrinking a crucial fish habitat.

Inland Fisheries

Infrastructure developments such as dam construction in river catchments are destroying or modifying inland fishery habitats. More than 50 per cent of the world’s large rivers have been fragmented by dams on their main channel and 59 per cent on their tributaries, land-use change and removal of vegetation cover leads to increased runoff, erosion and sediment pollution of water. Human activities have increased sediment flow into rivers by about 20 per cent worldwide, agricultural expansion disrupts connectivity between floodplains and rivers – floodplains provide some of the most productive habitat for inland fisheries, agricultural runoff and domestic and industrial wastewater discharges are degrading the quality of many inland waters. Wastewater loadings to inland waters in Africa may increase by a factor of four to eight between the 1990s and 2050.



Biodiversity

The variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels are necessary to sustain key functions of the ecosystem. For example, a diverse range of soil organisms interact with the roots of plants and trees and ensures nutrient cycling.  

Many food production activities negatively impact on this supporting biodiversity, such as:

Fertilizer run-off, which causes eutrophication, poses a threat to the diverse life of lakes and coastal areas, excessive tillage – tilling to greater depths and more frequent cultivations – has an increased negative impact on all soil organisms, in particular organisms living in surface areas, such as earthworms ,deforestation and pesticide contamination of lands adjacent to farmland degrade "off-farm biodiversity", impacting pollinators and natural pest control of crops ,overfishing may result in the removal of important components of the ecosystem, such as algal-feeding fish in coral reef systems, with a consequence of altered biodiversity and ecological states that may be impossible to restore ,aquaculture activities are also a source of pollution and biodiversity concerns as they may lead to the introduction of pathogens, strains and/or species that can alter marine habitats and diversity ,the destructive fishing methods mentioned above can disrupt marine ecosystems, and it may take hundreds of years for vulnerable habitats such as cold water corals and seamounts to recover from such practices.

While the problems are many and varied, the report issues a raft of recommendations that can shore up the ecological foundations and create the conditions for sustainable food production.

“The solutions are to be found along the whole food value chain - from the farms that need to grow food more sustainability, through the large companies that need to ensure that their products are from sustainable fisheries and farms, up to the consumer who needs to think seriously about switching to a sustainable diet and reduce food wastage,” said Prof. Alcamo.

“Of course, we have to deal first and foremost with all the socio-economic issues having to do with food security - questions of access and affordability of food, and so on,” he added. “But ultimately we won't have enough food to distribute unless we find out a way to produce it sustainably without destroying its ecological foundation.”

In summary, the scientists pointed out that to neglect the ecological aspects of food security would hamper efforts in its other four pillars. While we can’t avoid famine simply by making the food system environmentally friendly, neither can we go on producing food by wearing away its ecological foundation. In the end we’ll find – no foundation, no food, says UNEP Chief Scientist.