Category Archives: Food & Water Issues

PLEA Network

19 October 2015, The Conversation, The race to fish: how fishing subsidies are emptying our oceans. Fish numbers are rapidly dwindling globally, and fishery subsidies are one of the key drivers behind this decline. In 2009, these subsidies totalled about US$35 billion, creating incentives for fishers around the world to increase their catch. But this short-term “race to fish” is jeopardising the long-term environmental, social, and economic security that fisheries offer us all. My group at the University of British Columbia recently cast our net into the troubling waters of fishery subsidies, to see how this ship might be turned around. Overfishing: a major issue facing our oceans Fish numbers are rapidly dwindling globally, and fishery subsidies are one of the key drivers behind this decline. In 2009, these subsidies totalled about US$35 billion, creating incentives for fishers around the world to increase their catch. But this short-term “race to fish” is jeopardising the long-term environmental, social, and economic security that fisheries offer us all. My group at the University of British Columbia recently cast our net into the troubling waters of fishery subsidies, to see how this ship might be turned around. Overfishing: a major issue facing our oceans According to the recently released World Wildlife Fund Living Blue Planet Report, our oceans are in a bad state. Climate change, habitat destruction, and deep-sea mining are wreaking havoc on marine biodiversity. But overfishing is in a league of its own. The WWF report found that population numbers of utilised fish (those species used by humans for subsistence or commercial purposes) have fallen by half in the four decades from 1970 to 2010. A full 90% of fish stocks globally are now classified as either overexploited or fully exploited. Common seafood choices such as tuna, shrimp, whiting, and salmon are among the worst affected. According to the recently released World Wildlife Fund Living Blue Planet Report, our oceans are in a bad state. Climate change, habitat destruction, and deep-sea mining are wreaking havoc on marine biodiversity. But overfishing is in a league of its own. The WWF report found that population numbers of utilised fish (those species used by humans for subsistence or commercial purposes) have fallen by half in the four decades from 1970 to 2010. A full 90% of fish stocks globally are now classified as either overexploited or fully exploited. Common seafood choices such as tuna, shrimp, whiting, and salmon are among the worst affected. Read More here

PLEA Network

6 October 2015, The Guardian, Perth’s water worries: how one of the driest cities is fighting climate change, From locating leaky pipes with acoustic listening to reusing wastewater, Western Australia’s capital is using technology to bridge the water gap. Perth, the capital of Western Australia, is not only one of the most isolated cities in the world, it is also becoming one of the driest in Australia. Since the gold rush of the 1890s, impressive engineering schemes have transported enough water to make Perth a city of lush lawns and eye-catching flowerbeds, to the surprise of some visitors. But a drop in average annual rainfall in recent years, along with some truly dire climate change projections, have required government and business to focus on water security. Australia’s Climate Council estimates that water flow from rainfall into Perth’s dams has slumped by 80% since the 1970s, with precipitation in the south-west corner of Australia forecast to drop by up to 40% by the end of the century. Coping with climate change Last year, Perth’s dams received just 72.4bn litres of water – far less than the 300bn currently demanded by Perth’s two million-strong population. A huge desalination facility, completed in 2006, has helped make up this shortfall, but behavioural and technological change is also bridging the gap. Read More here

PLEA Network

1 October 2015, , State of the World Report World Institute, Land “Grabbing” Grows as Agricultural Resources Dwindle. As global agricultural resources shrink or shift, countries are crossing border to obtain new farmlands. Since 2000, more than 36 million hectares—an area about the size of Japan—has been purchased or leased by foreign entities, mostly for agricultural use. Today, nearly 15 million hectares more is under negotiation (www.worldwatch.org). “Farmland is lost or degraded on every continent, while ‘land grabbing’—the purchase or lease of agricultural land by foreign interests—has emerged as a threat to food security in several countries,” writes Gary Gardner, contributing author of the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2015: Confronting Hidden Threats to Sustainability. About half of grabbed land is intended exclusively for use in agriculture, while another 25 percent is intended for a mix of agricultural and other uses. (The land that is not used for agriculture is often used for forestry.) Land grabbing has surged since 2005 in response to a food price crisis and the growing demand for biofuels in the United States and the European Union. Droughts in the United States, Argentina, and Australia, has further driven interest in land overseas. “Today, the FAO reports that essentially no additional suitable [agricultural] land remains in a belt around much of the middle of the planet,” writes Gardner. As a result, the largest grabbers of land are often countries that need additional resources to meet growing demands. Over half of the global grabbed land is in Africa, especially in water-rich countries like the Congo. Asia comes second, contributing over 6 million hectares, mainly from Indonesia. The largest area acquired from a single country is in Papua New Guinea, with nearly 4 million hectares (over 8 percent of the country’s total land cover) sold or leased out. Read More here

PLEA Network

26 August 2015, The Carbon Brief, Celebrating soils: Why are they so important for our climate? From the 800th anniversary of the Magna Cartato the 60th birthday of the Birds Eye Fish Finger, there are plenty of reasons to mark 2015 as an important year. But you could be forgiven for being unaware that 2015 is also theUN International Year of Soils. By putting soils centre stage, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) aims to raise awareness of how important soils are for producing food and fuel, and keeping ecosystems healthy. But soils have also been thrust to the forefront of international science because of climate change. Globally, the top metre of soils contains about three times as much carbon as in our entire atmosphere. Losing carbon from the soil into the atmosphere can add to climate warming. But if soils can be managed in a way that means they store more carbon, they can help to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and thereby help limit climate change. Read More here