Prelude :- Upon checking the newspapers and different website , we at UPSCTREE came to a conclusion that , today is a ‘Roll-on-News-Day’ , i.e. Newspapers have published the old news in a new avatar for today. If you check our 30 th OCT 2015 , you may find all the relevant news that are running in 31 Oct 2015 newspapers. ‘Roll-on-News-Day’ are good as it gives us space to focus on something important from preparation perspective.
We are publishing all environment related organization , such as – wetland international , bird-life international etc .UPSC has asked questions on this kind of organization every year . For eg- Birdlife International ( 2015 Prelims) ,Wetland International (2014 prelims).
1)BirdLife International:-
- BirdLife International is the world’s largest nature conservation Partnership. There are 120 BirdLife Partners worldwide – one per country – and growing.
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Vision
The BirdLife Partnership wishes to see a world where nature and people live in greater harmony, more equitably and sustainably.
Mission
The BirdLife Partnership strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources.
Commitment
- To prevent extinctions in the wild
- To maintain and where possible improve the conservation status of all bird species
- To conserve the sites and habitats important for birds and other biodiversity
- To sustain the vital ecological systems that underpin human livelihoods, and enrich the quality of people’s lives
- In the process, BirdLife will empower people and contribute to the alleviation of poverty, and strive to ensure sustainability in the use of natural resources
- Histroy :-
- 1922 was the year that the birth of the world’s first true international conservation organisation, The International Council for Bird Preservation (ICBP), the organisation which grew into the BirdLife International Partnership, was founded.1922 has been described as the 20th Century’s annus mirabilis, a miracle year for many reasons. It was the year that public radio hit the airwaves, especially in the USA and Europe. Suddenly, it became possible to reach huge audiences with new ideas and information and for people to take an active interest in the world beyond their provincial and national borders.It is world’s oldest international conservation organisation.
- Focus Areas:-
- Saving species
- Conserving sites
- Focusing on the marine environment
- Sustaining migratory species
- Climate Change
- Addressing Invasive Alien Species
- Providing Scientific support to policy
- Programmes:-
- Capacity Development
- Forest of Hope – BirdLife Partners have been working in tropical forest conservation for decades, in more than 50 countries. Around the world Partners are involved in numerous projects to conserve intact forest and restore degraded forest ecosystems, and promote sustainable forest use.
- Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) – The BirdLife Partnership has, since the late 1970s, been working collectively to identify, document and protect all places on earth of greatest significance for the conservation of the world’s birds. As a result, over 12,000 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) are now recognised. Fully 33% of IBAs lack any form of formal protection and a further 45% are only partially protected. Achieving adequate protection for these sites is among the most urgent of global conservation priorities.
- Invasive Alien Species :-
- Introduced species have been the primary driver of documented bird extinctions. They are implicated in the decline of more than half of all threatened bird species
- BirdLife Partners are designing, implementing and sharing techniques to control and eradicate invasive alien species at IBAs.
- At least four bird species have been saved from extinction by Partner action against invasive species.
- BirdLife’s Pacific Partnership has cleared thirty islands of invasive rodents. Bird populations are recovering, and people are benefiting from increased crop yields and reduced disease risk.
- Local Engagement and Empowerment Programme
- Changing the way the world’s fisheries operate, to reduce seabird mortality.Albatross Task Force, the world’s first international team of seabird bycatch mitigation instructors working at-sea on commercial fishing vessels.
- Migratory Birds and Flyways – Two thousand species of bird, 20% of all known species, make regular seasonal movements. Many travel thousands of miles between their breeding places and their wintering grounds. More than 40% of these migratory species are declining, and nearly 200 are now classified as globally threatened. They face many dangers: destruction and degradation of habitats, loss of critical stopover sites such as coastal wetlands, illegal hunting, poisoning and pollution, and collisions with badly-sited infrastructure like power lines and wind turbines
- Preventing Extinctions :- BirdLife is the global Red List authority on the threat status of birds.
2)Conservation International :-
- Conservation International (CI) is an American nonprofit environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Its goal is to protect nature as a source of food, fresh water, livelihoods and a stable climate.
- For more than 25 years, Conservation International has been protecting nature for the benefit of everyone on Earth.
- Theme– Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature. Our food, our water, our health, our jobs — they all rely on the health of the planet’s ecosystems.
- CI has helped establish 1,000 protected areas across 77 countries and protected more than 612 million hectares of land, marine and coastal areas.
- Conservation International was founded in 1987 with the aim of analyzing the problems most dangerous or harmful to nature and building a foundation dedicated to solving these issues on a global scale. This model:-
- detects the problems most threatening to nature,
- prevents the industry side of the world from being detrimental to nature,
- ensures the knowledge the institution has acquired over its first twenty five years is shared with governments and, in doing so,
- establishes policies within these countries that serve as a great benefit to people and nature.
- Criticism:-CI has been criticised for links to companies with a poor environmental record such as BP, Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto and Shell and for allegedly offering greenwashing services.
- Program – Nature is Speaking awareness Campaign
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Recent Posts
- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.