In a few days time, in Sweden, I will be presenting together with Martin von Hildebrand of Fundacion Gaia Amazonas (FGA) in Colombia, a blueprint we jointly prepared on how to move forward creatively with the pressing question of the governance of the Amazon. It was developed with the support of the Tallberg Foundation in Sweden and the Avina Foundation in Latin America.
The paper can be downloaded here.
The analysis builds on over two decades of FGA’s pioneering work with indigenous communities and the Colombian Government in a region of the Colombian Amazon. It proposes a new dialogue that involves indigenous communities, international investors, and the government based on common security concerns. It seeks to re-frame the discussion of the conservation of the Amazon from an Earth security perspective.
The session will take place at this year’s Tallberg Forum in Sigtuna, Sweden (June 29-July 3), a high-level gathering of political and business leaders, activists, and opinion formers to discuss the challenges of global governance.
Our blueprint will help frame and inform the issues of global governance through the lens of a critical, regional ecological system, and will seek further support to implement the suggested actions on the ground in the Colombian Amazon.
Alfredo Carlo (of Housatonic, Italy) and Cristoph Kellner (of Animanova, Germany) both graphic artists members of The Value Web joined the ESI for a first brainstorming meeting of the Red Lines Agenda at the Zoological Society of London, and produced 8 stunning visuals that capture and communicate the concepts.
Coming out of the meeting, they said: “The idea of creating ‘red lines’ around ecosystems is artistically intriguing. We believe are united by nature, which knows no boundaries. But we are eating up our resources very fast. The red lines both brings us together in the shared risks of collapse, and divide us in fighting over resources. We believe that the central theme of the ESI is about the importance of partnerships and collaboration to solve these pressing issues.”
The artwork can be downloaded here.
The ESI will now use these new visuals to communicate the Red Lines agenda as we move forward with the research, and dialogues with policy-makers, politicians and industry sectors around the world.
A BIG THANK YOU to Alfredo and Cristoph, we look forward to continue working together!
Alfredo and I, together with Value Web co-founder Patrick Frick, have been working together to design visuals that can be used to convene stakeholders to discuss a fishery security agenda. It is great to see this growing collaboration between the ESI and The Value Web.
A Chinese agribusiness firm is to buy 320,000 hectares of privately-owned land in Patagonia, Argentina, along with irrigation rights and the concession of a port. Critics fear it will bring heavy agrochemical use and ecological degradation, and strain the region’s water resources through an immediate planned investment of $20m in irrigation infrastructure.
With other countries like India and Saudi Arabia also acquiring or leasing vast tracts of land in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America to produce food, some argue that international land deals should be also seen as water acquisitions deals. As foreign investors use other countries’ water for irrigation they are generating a global trade flow of ‘virtual water‘. Food production worldwide accounts for 70-80% of total consumption. The ownership of land, the monopoly of food production in less developed countries, and prime access to water resources by foreign interests could lead to increased conflicts and political instability. More…
ESI’s Director, Alejandro Litovsky, joins as advisor to Social Investors Partners, a Zurich- and Geneva-based philanthropy advisory firm in a move to involve philanthropists in the ESI’s agenda.
Commenting on its collaboration with ESI, Social Investors co-Founder, Patrick Frick said: “In response to the growing demand from our clients to address the big environmental agendas of our time, we have partnered with Alejandro Litovsky and the Earth Security Initiative to provide our clients with some of the best analysis and creative ideas currently available on how to move these agendas forward.”
The ESI will help SIP develop projects with its clients that provide philanthropists with the analysis, the process design and facilitation, and the emergence of practical, fundable ideas to overcome gaps in governance of ecological limits.
We have kicked off this collaboration by working with one of the most active foundations in marine conservation to develop a blueprint for a Fisheries Security agenda. We are now using these ideas to engage stakeholders to plan a series of activities that will catalyze new partnerships to steward the oceans more effectively.
“The current unrest in Libya means there is no chance of effective monitoring and enforcement of the fishery in its waters,” environmental groups said recently. This risks fatally undermining an internationally agreed recovery plan for mediterranean tuna, a high-value, severely overfished species.
As a result of the armed conflict, the Libyan government is not allowing the foreign inspection of their fishing vessels, which means their catch would go virtually unreported. The fragile cooperation agreement that exists to police the Mediterranean’s precious stocks of bluefin tuna could be wrecked by “illegal” fishing by Libyan-flagged trawlers. More…
In partnership with the Tällberg Foundation in Sweden, I am designing and chairing a session with
- Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP;
- Fadi Zaghmout, a young blogger with The Arab Observer in Jordan;
- Oded Grajew, the Brazilian businessman who initiated the World Social Forum in Brazil;
- Christine Loh, CEO of the Civic Exchange in Hong Kong, and
- Alexandra Wandel, Director of the World Future Council in Germany.
The Earth Security Initiative is bringing together leaders from different backgrounds, nations, and institutions to discuss: Can a new generation of leaders take the baton to enforce the Earth agenda after 2012? Where are they and how can they be supported?
Date: Sunday July 3rd, 10.30 – 12.00, Tällberg Forum, Sigtuna, Sweden.
Twenty years after the UN-sponsored ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro, the sustainability agenda remains largely unfulfilled. The Rio+20 Conference to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 provides an opportunity to create a new momentum for the sustainability agenda.
Even if the protesters in Jordan, which rallied against the construction of a military academy in the Bergesh forest (Jordan’s last standing forest, covering just 1% of the country) were inspired by the Arab spring movements, they were also gently dismissed with promises by the Jordanian Armed Forces. The response might have been different if the Kingdom’s authorities and the army were better informed of the role that forests play in maintaining water (and therefore National) security.
Earlier this year, the world watched as a wave of protests destabilised North Africa and the Middle East. Young people played a key role, as they do in the environmental movement. And while Jordan’s case was milder, it was not exempt either. More…
