The Swedish government has notified the African Forest Research Network Afornet of its intention to freeze its 20-year old support over what Sweden's ambassador Ann Dismorr described as “administrative problems in recent years.”Mrs Dismorr announced the decision at a conference organised by the network in Nairobi, but explained that the governance problems in the Nairobi-based organisation arose from its huge area of coverage.”To establish and run a programme like this in approximately 30 countries is not an easy task,” she argued but remained firm that the funding would be stopped.

via allAfrica.com: Africa: Fears Over Planned Cut in Research Funding.

“More meetings does not mean success,” de Boer, who steps down from his UN post on July 1, said today at the Carbon Market Insights conference in Amsterdam. “We need to get down to business.”

The Copenhagen summit in December 2009 was a failure even though it was preceded by many meetings, de Boer said. While about 150 nations agreed to submit plans or targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the meeting failed to produce a global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which lapses in 2012.

“Going back from Copenhagen, I was extremely disappointed,” de Boer said. “My first feeling was it had been an absolute disaster.”

via UN Climate Process ‘Needs a Good Spanking,’ Yvo de Boer Says – BusinessWeek.

Chaos greets new climate pact

By Stephen Collinson (AFP) – 2 hours ago

COPENHAGEN — Chaos and farce reigned at the birth of a climate accord agreed by a clique of leaders, with statesmen going missing, critics crying foul and hacks stampeding on vain hunts for Barack Obama.

Fatigue fermented a feverish cocktail of human emotion overnight Friday as the US president claimed to have staved off a default in the dying hours of global warming talks in Copenhagen.

But small nations like Cuba and Nicaragua erupted in fury at being snubbed in a game of big power diplomatic chess also involving developing giants Brazil, China and India.

Chaos greets new climate pact

By Stephen Collinson (AFP) – 2 hours ago

COPENHAGEN — Chaos and farce reigned at the birth of a climate accord agreed by a clique of leaders, with statesmen going missing, critics crying foul and hacks stampeding on vain hunts for Barack Obama.

Fatigue fermented a feverish cocktail of human emotion overnight Friday as the US president claimed to have staved off a default in the dying hours of global warming talks in Copenhagen.

But small nations like Cuba and Nicaragua erupted in fury at being snubbed in a game of big power diplomatic chess also involving developing giants Brazil, China and India.

Contrary to popular perception, indigenous or local communities have intimate knowledge of their environment (soils, water, forest, flora, fauna, etc), and most of their decisions and actions are informed by this knowledge-base.

The landscape within which indigenous knowledge can efficiently be used to support adaptation and mitigation action is heavily degraded, this is a reality we all need to wake up to

Indigenous or local knowledge is the basis for local-level decision-making in many rural communities. It has value not only for the culture in which it evolves, but also for scientists and planners striving to improve conditions in rural localities.

Over time, human relationship with nature has produced complex knowledge systems, which are responsive to change, self regenerating as well as being multidimensional in nature. The close knit association between this knowledge systems and ecosystems offers us the greatest opportunity to understand how humans respond to change. This is crucial especially now that we are faced with a major environmental crisis related to climate change.

Incorporating indigenous knowledge into climate change policies can lead to the development of effective adaptation strategies that are cost-effective, participatory and sustainable (IPCC). However, the papers in this publication point out that the ecological space within which indigenous knowledge can effectively be used for adaptation has severely been degraded. They also highlight the continued and existing threat from development practices including those meant to assist in the processes of adaptation and mitigation.

The papers explore the role of the indigenous knowledge from two extreme ecological systems; the wet ecological systems of Vietnam and Bangladesh to the dry to semi arid ecosystems of Kenya. The three country case studies show that, often linear solutions have been designed to resolve issues or problems that are multidimensional in nature. This approach has more or less tended to shift the temporal problem and transferring the inherent risks to solitary ecological units or to whole ecosystems. This in turn degrades the active role of indigenous or local knowledge systems.

There is an emerging trend on how the role of indigenous or local knowledge systems has been systematically marginalised through developmental interventions over time in the Global South.

Eight million Ethiopians could need food aid this year, agencies say

Oxfam has launched an emergency appeal for £9.5m ($15m) to reach millions of starving people in Ethiopia and other East African countries.

The UK-based agency says thousands of animals have already died because of a drought which is the worst in 10 years.

Warning signs indicate that the lives and livelihoods of 23 million people are threatened – twice as many as the last serious crisis in 2006.

Seven countries are affected, with half of those threatened living in Ethiopia.

I often get bemused when people, mostly use blanket terms to define Africa, the cradle of civilisation. It is not uncommon to hear even the most educated academics talk of Africa as though it is a hut in the middle of small village under the rule of a chief.

It is equally annoying when people who have visited parts of Africa claim to be experts yet fail to recognize the extreme differences within a village of less that 2 km square. They persistently insist that the population within the village conforms to a unified community working for the common good of their society! Is this so?

When such generalizations are used to define Africa, they become fodder for the use by those in development, to at times justify a persistently failed model of human advancement!

The new face of Africa is far from that “romanticized dream of wild animals and villagers lead by chiefs”, Africa entered the era of individualism the day Democracy knocked on its doors!!

By Agencies

Even before President Obama arrived for his visit to Ghana, Kenya was feeling the heat.

In a meeting with African leaders attending the G8 summit in Italy on Friday, Obama vilified Kenya as a country where bribery and corruption were the way of life and institutions had failed.

Deputy National Security Advisor Michael Froman was quoted by the ABC News online edition saying: “His cousin in Kenya can’t find a job without paying a bribe, and that’s not the fault of the G-8.”

And he was not done with Kenya. He added that companies “can’t operate without paying, in some parts of Africa, a 25 per cent fee off the top in bribes”.

Developed countries must address global warming to prevent disease, hunger in developing world

7. July 2009 20:54

Pollution from the world’s wealthiest countries is spreading disease and hunger in developing countries, according to a new Oxfam International report, which calls on developed countries to address global warming when G8 leaders meet in Italy, the Globe and Mail reports.

The report, titled “Suffering the Science: Climate Change, People and Poverty,” says, “It is in the tropics where the bulk of humanity lives – many of them in poverty – that climate change is hitting now and hitting hardest” (Bailey, 7/6).

via Developed countries must address global warming to prevent disease, hunger in developing world – Udongo.

“There is no reason why Africa cannot be self-sufficient when it comes to food” Barack Obama, President of USA- July 2009.

Agriculture has proved more resilient to the global crisis than other sectors, according to the annual Agricultural Outlook report, published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Although the scenario varies by commodity, the sector as a whole is expected to be relatively better off because of the recent period of high incomes and income-elastic demand for food.

Downstream sectors are still having difficulties to access credit, liquidity is low, and trade finance remains constrained, the report says, but the agricultural sector seems to be withstanding the recession fairly well.

For the next 10 years, average prices for agricultural products are projected at or above levels of the decade prior to the 2007-08 peaks. Prices for vegetable oils, for example, are expected to increase by about 30%, and crop prices by 10% to 20%. While meat prices are not expected to surpass the average, dairy prices are expected to be only slightly higher.

Prospects for the biofuel markets remain uncertain, mainly because of unpredictable factors such as the future trend in crude oil prices, changes in policy interventions and developments in second-generation technology. As long as crude oil prices remain between $60 and $70 per barrel, the report says, biofuels will also be struggling against fossil fuels.