DESPITE cautious signs of a recovery in recent months, the economic crisis continues. Trade, employment and manufacturing data all point to a shrinking international economy, and 2009 growth is likely to remain lower than in recent years. This is bad news for the 60 million people that live in the Mekong Basin, but maybe not as bad as first expected. Nor is it perhaps so prominent in the minds of the poorer sections of the community compared with other development challenges facing them.
Internationally, commodity prices have dropped, leading to reduced output from the region's mining concessions, and lower foreign exchange earnings. Some people have had to return to rural livelihoods.
But for the many poor people who depend on the abundant resources of the Mekong River, their source of protein and livelihoods from fisheries and other aquatic resources have not been affected by the economic downturn. The Basin is home to fisheries that yield about 2.5 million tons of fish per year and, at first point of sale, amount to an industry worth at least US$2 billion annually. It is the largest inland fishery in the world.
These communities depend on the river as a resource, and are often outside the mainstream economy. They are insulated from global economic fluctuations precisely because they depend so closely on natural systems and not the broader economy for their survival. This is the strength of the natural river system; especially the biodiversity and productivity of the wetlands, marshes, swamps, ponds, lakes and flood plains, and it underlines why the river system is so important for poverty alleviation.
Much can be gained economically by Basin governments in the Lower Mekong. Besides fisheries, hydropower is a renewable energy source and has the potential to generate large amounts of revenue for governments to use in social development programmes; the Mekong agricultural industry is worth billions and there is much potential for increasing water storage and irrigation systems; and the Mekong and its tributaries are vital links for transport and commerce in the region.
However, there are also challenges associated with population growth and climate change. Similarly, if basic livelihoods are to continue to be met by water resources of the Basin, future developments need to be planned carefully. The rural poor should naturally also benefit in the long-term from economic growth underpinned by any larger-scale development of water resources. But this can be achieved only through strategies that make use of targeted benefit- sharing mechanisms.
What is needed is an integrated analytical approach that examines the distribution of benefits, costs and the effects of development on the river system. What, for example, would be the economic and social benefits of a hydropower scheme, compared to the value of a potential reduction in fisheries that it could cause? And how to reconcile the gains to one group and the losses to another? How will salinity intrusion and agriculture downstream be affected if water is used for irrigation upstream? Because the river system is trans-boundary, all of these issues have international implications and need to be resolved through the framework of regional cooperation.
Answers to these questions are not straightforward, but a pragmatic and internationally accepted way of considering them is found in the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which Cambodia, the Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam signed when they established the Mekong River Commission (MRC).
The MRC is the intergovernmental body responsible for cooperation on the sustainable management of the Mekong Basin, whose members include Cambodia, the Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam. In dealing with these challenges, it looks across all sectors including sustaining fisheries, identifying opportunities for agriculture, maintaining the freedom of navigation, assessing the sustainability of hydropower, flood management and preserving ecosystems. Superimposed on these are the future effects of more extreme floods, prolonged drought and sea level rise associated with climate change. In providing its advice, the MRC aims to facilitate a broad range of dialogue among governments, the private sector and civil society on these challenges.
The MRC is working with its member governments and upstream partners, China and Burma, to ensure these factors are taken into account when planning water-based development in the region. In doing so, the MRC is committed to meaningful stakeholder participation to ensure that water resource management helps to reduce poverty. Involving stakeholders provides a communication channel for the needs and interests of member states and their people to be reflected in decisions that affect them.
This requires engagement throughout planning and decision-making processes, and involvement in setting objectives and development paths to meet them. Such a level of engagement depends on transparency, and creating trust and confidence. This is about more than meetings. It is about building a strong sense of ownership. That is why, this week, community representatives, researchers, civil society organisations, government agencies, the private sector and financing institutions will be meeting in Chiang Rai to discuss the various development scenarios for the water resources of the Mekong Basin.
This builds on efforts to consult with communities that have in the past included community surveys and questionnaires, a website where people may make public submissions and using the broad knowledge that NGOs hold about the way villagers feel regarding the use of water resources.
Among the questions to be discussed are: How do governments balance hydropower, fisheries, irrigation, navigation and flood management in the Lower Mekong Basin? What are the needs of stakeholders and how can we collectively develop an equitable Basin Development Strategy? How can we include poor and marginalised groups in the decision-making process? How will the effects of climate change influence medium- to long-term planning?
There is bound to be healthy discussion and inevitably some disagreement. That is to be expected. Through these discussions and the process of formulating an integrated development strategy, it will be possible for a broader range of voices to be heard in the debate on sustainable development of the Mekong. A debate that goes beyond the short-term concerns of the economic crisis.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Blue roses make worldwide debut in Tokyo
Which colour would you like your roses? Red, white, yellow ... or perhaps blue?
Japan's Suntory Ltd said yesterday it would start selling the world's first genetically modified blue roses next month,20 years after it began research to create the novelty flowers.
The major whisky distiller said it succeeded in developing blue roses in 2004 with the Australian biotech company Florigene Pty Ltd.
The blue roses are created by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of the blue pigment Delphinidin in pansies, the firm said. The product was approved by the Japanese government in 2008 on the basis of an international agreement on biosafety.
It took one year for the company to establish its production and marketing systems, Suntory said.
Named Applause, the new variety is "recommended as a luxurious gift for special occasions", the company said.
They are expected to cost between ฅ2,000 and ฅ3,000(740-770 baht) per stem, about 10 times more expensive than normal roses in Japan. There are no plans to sell Applause overseas.
Japan's Suntory Ltd said yesterday it would start selling the world's first genetically modified blue roses next month,20 years after it began research to create the novelty flowers.
The major whisky distiller said it succeeded in developing blue roses in 2004 with the Australian biotech company Florigene Pty Ltd.
The blue roses are created by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of the blue pigment Delphinidin in pansies, the firm said. The product was approved by the Japanese government in 2008 on the basis of an international agreement on biosafety.
It took one year for the company to establish its production and marketing systems, Suntory said.
Named Applause, the new variety is "recommended as a luxurious gift for special occasions", the company said.
They are expected to cost between ฅ2,000 and ฅ3,000(740-770 baht) per stem, about 10 times more expensive than normal roses in Japan. There are no plans to sell Applause overseas.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
BILL GATES GIVES MILLIONS TO HELP SMALL FARMERS
Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates on Thursday announced US$120 million (Bt40 billion) in grants to help small-scale farmers in Africa and indian mprove their lives through sustainable agriculture.
The grants, announced on the eve of World Food Day, are from the Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organisation co-chaired by Gates and his wife.
"Three-quarters of the world's poorest people get their food and income by farming small plots of land," Gates said as he announced grants to nine projects, mostly in Africa, during a speech to the World Food Prize Symposium in Iowa.
"So if we can make smallholder farming more productive and more profitable, we can have a massive impact on hunger and nutrition and poverty."
Gates also paid tribute to the late Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who is often called the father of the green Revolution and who has been credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives by developing disease-resistant wheat.
The Green Revolution "was one of the great achievements of the 20th century, but it didn't go far enough", said Gates. "It didn't go to Africa," where the bulk of the grant money announced by Gates will go.
In keeping with the Gates Foundation's approach to promoting development, which Gates described as "investing across the value chain in ways that will benefit small farmers and their communities," the grants will help "bring the technology that has transformed farming in other parts of the world" to Africa and India.
Funds will be used to promote the development of crops which can help the environment - such as legumes, which are a natural fertiliser - or improve health, such as a new variety of sweet potato enriched in Vitamin A, which is often missing from the diets of children in the developing world.
Crops will also be developed with the possible ravages of climate change in mind, said Gates.
He cited a study conducted by reseacrchers at Stanford University in California which showed that if farmers in southern Africa are planting the same variety of maize, the staple food of many Africans, in 2030 as today, "the harsher conditions from climate change will reduce productivity by more than 25 per cent.
"Declining yields at a time of rising population in a region with millions of poor people means starvation," said Gates. "We have to develop crops that can grow in a drought; that can survive in a flood; that canresist pests and diseas.
The grants, announced on the eve of World Food Day, are from the Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropic organisation co-chaired by Gates and his wife.
"Three-quarters of the world's poorest people get their food and income by farming small plots of land," Gates said as he announced grants to nine projects, mostly in Africa, during a speech to the World Food Prize Symposium in Iowa.
"So if we can make smallholder farming more productive and more profitable, we can have a massive impact on hunger and nutrition and poverty."
Gates also paid tribute to the late Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who is often called the father of the green Revolution and who has been credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives by developing disease-resistant wheat.
The Green Revolution "was one of the great achievements of the 20th century, but it didn't go far enough", said Gates. "It didn't go to Africa," where the bulk of the grant money announced by Gates will go.
In keeping with the Gates Foundation's approach to promoting development, which Gates described as "investing across the value chain in ways that will benefit small farmers and their communities," the grants will help "bring the technology that has transformed farming in other parts of the world" to Africa and India.
Funds will be used to promote the development of crops which can help the environment - such as legumes, which are a natural fertiliser - or improve health, such as a new variety of sweet potato enriched in Vitamin A, which is often missing from the diets of children in the developing world.
Crops will also be developed with the possible ravages of climate change in mind, said Gates.
He cited a study conducted by reseacrchers at Stanford University in California which showed that if farmers in southern Africa are planting the same variety of maize, the staple food of many Africans, in 2030 as today, "the harsher conditions from climate change will reduce productivity by more than 25 per cent.
"Declining yields at a time of rising population in a region with millions of poor people means starvation," said Gates. "We have to develop crops that can grow in a drought; that can survive in a flood; that canresist pests and diseas.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
AS THE ECONOMY GROWS, SO DO CHINA'S GARBAGE WOES
Visitors can smell this village long before they see it. More than 100 dump trucks piled high with garbage line the narrow road leading to Zhanglidong, waiting to empty their loads in a landfull as big as 20 football fields. In less than five years, the Zhengzhou Comprehensive Waste Treatment Landfill has overwhelmed this otherwise pristine villge of about 1,000 people. Peaches and cherries rot on trees, infested with insect life drawn by the smell. Fields lie unharvested, contaminated by toxic muck. Every day, another 100 or so tonnes of garbage arrive from nearby Zhengzhou, a provincial capital of 8 million.
"Life here went from heaven to hell in an instant," says lifelong resident Wang Xiuhua, swatting away clouds of mosquitoes and flies. The 78-year-old woman suddenly coughs uncontrollably and says the landfill gases inflame her bronchitis.
As more Chinese ride the nation's economic boom, a torrent of garbage is one result. Cities are bursting at the seams, and their officials struggle to cope. The amount of paper, plastic and other garbage has more than tripled in two decades to about 300 million tonnes a year, according to Nie Yongfeng, a waste management expert at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
Americans are still way ahead of China in garbage; a population less than a quarter the size of China's 1.3 billion generated 254 million tonnes of garbage in 2007, a third of which is recycled or composted, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. But for China, the problem represents a rapid turnalout from a generation ago, when families, then largely rural and poor, used and reused everything.
"Trash was never complicated before, because we didn't have supermarkets, we didn't have fancy packaging and endless things to buy," said Nie. "Now, the government is panicking about the mountains of garbage piling up with no place to put it all."
In Zhanglidong, villgers engage in shouting matches with drevers and sometimes try to bodily block their garbage trucks coming from Zhengzhou, 32 kilometres away.
"Zhengzhou is spotless because their trash is dumped into our village," says Li Qiaohong, who blames it for her five-year-old son's eczema. Li's family is one of a few who live within 100 metres of the landfill, separated from it by a fence. These families get 100 yuan ($15) a month in government compensation.
The dump has poisoned not just the air and ground, but relationships. Villagers say they were never consulted, and suspect their Communist Party offcials were paid to accept the landfill. In China, especially in rural regions, there is often no recourse once local officials make a decision. The villagers say not only were their petitions ignored, but they were warned by the Zhengzhou police to stop protesting or face punishment.
"We vilagers were too naive...we didn't know what a landfill was," said Li. "If we had known earlier about all the pollution it wiuld cause, we would had done every thing possible to stop the construction. Now it's too late."
Elsewhere, thousands of farmers in the central province of Hubei clashed with police last year over illegal dumping near their homes. A person filming the clash died after being beaten by police.
Proterts in cities are driving trash to the countryside. Residents in central Beijing swarmed the offices of the Ministry of Environment last year, protesting the stench from a landfill and plans for a new incinerator there. In July, officials scrapped the incinerator plan and closed the landfill four years early. In eastern Beijing, officials investedmillions of dollars to make the Gao An Tun landfill and incinerator one of a handful in China to meet global health standards. That was after 200,000 residents petitioned for a year about the smell.
"Our standard of living is improving, so it's natural that more and more of us begin to fight for a better quality of life," says Zhang Jianhua, 67, one of the prtitioners. "Widespread media coverage embarrassed the local government, so they finally decided to take action," she says.
After millennia as a farming society, China expects to be majority urban in five years. Busy families are shifting from fresh to packaged foods, consumption fo which rose 10.8 per cent a year from 2000 to 2008, well above the 4.2 per cent average in Asia, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. By 2013, the pack-aged-food market is expected to reach US$195 billion, up 74 per cent from last year.
At least 85 per cent of China's seven billion tonnes of trash is in landfills, much of it in unlicensed dumps in the countryside. Most have only thin linings of plastic or fibreglass. Rain drips heavy metals, ammonia and bacteria into the groundwater and soil, and the decomposing stew sends out methane and carbon dioxide.
Regulations allow incinerators to emit 10 times the level of dioxins permitted in the US, and these release cancer-causing dioxins and other poisons, according to a Chinese government study.
"If the government doesn't step up efforts to solve our garbage woes, China will likely face an impending health crisis in the coming decade," warns Liu Yangsheng, an expert in waste management at Peking University.
In Zhanglidong, resident Zheng Dongxiao says the village's only water well is polluted and causes chronic ulcers.
Wang Ling, a spokesman for the Zhenzhou Ministry of Environment, said the landfill has a polyethylene liner to protect the ground beneath. "Test results of the local soil, water, and air quality, in 2006 and this year, showed that everything was in line with national standards," he said.
Residents say the liner has tears and only covers a fraction of the landfill.
The government knows its garbage disposal will always draw complaints, says Liu. "What they need to do is invest more money into building and maintaining better plants."
That remains a tall order in a country bent on growth, where economic planners hold more sway than environmental regulators and are loath to spend scarce funds on waste management.
"Life here went from heaven to hell in an instant," says lifelong resident Wang Xiuhua, swatting away clouds of mosquitoes and flies. The 78-year-old woman suddenly coughs uncontrollably and says the landfill gases inflame her bronchitis.
As more Chinese ride the nation's economic boom, a torrent of garbage is one result. Cities are bursting at the seams, and their officials struggle to cope. The amount of paper, plastic and other garbage has more than tripled in two decades to about 300 million tonnes a year, according to Nie Yongfeng, a waste management expert at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
Americans are still way ahead of China in garbage; a population less than a quarter the size of China's 1.3 billion generated 254 million tonnes of garbage in 2007, a third of which is recycled or composted, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. But for China, the problem represents a rapid turnalout from a generation ago, when families, then largely rural and poor, used and reused everything.
"Trash was never complicated before, because we didn't have supermarkets, we didn't have fancy packaging and endless things to buy," said Nie. "Now, the government is panicking about the mountains of garbage piling up with no place to put it all."
In Zhanglidong, villgers engage in shouting matches with drevers and sometimes try to bodily block their garbage trucks coming from Zhengzhou, 32 kilometres away.
"Zhengzhou is spotless because their trash is dumped into our village," says Li Qiaohong, who blames it for her five-year-old son's eczema. Li's family is one of a few who live within 100 metres of the landfill, separated from it by a fence. These families get 100 yuan ($15) a month in government compensation.
The dump has poisoned not just the air and ground, but relationships. Villagers say they were never consulted, and suspect their Communist Party offcials were paid to accept the landfill. In China, especially in rural regions, there is often no recourse once local officials make a decision. The villagers say not only were their petitions ignored, but they were warned by the Zhengzhou police to stop protesting or face punishment.
"We vilagers were too naive...we didn't know what a landfill was," said Li. "If we had known earlier about all the pollution it wiuld cause, we would had done every thing possible to stop the construction. Now it's too late."
Elsewhere, thousands of farmers in the central province of Hubei clashed with police last year over illegal dumping near their homes. A person filming the clash died after being beaten by police.
Proterts in cities are driving trash to the countryside. Residents in central Beijing swarmed the offices of the Ministry of Environment last year, protesting the stench from a landfill and plans for a new incinerator there. In July, officials scrapped the incinerator plan and closed the landfill four years early. In eastern Beijing, officials investedmillions of dollars to make the Gao An Tun landfill and incinerator one of a handful in China to meet global health standards. That was after 200,000 residents petitioned for a year about the smell.
"Our standard of living is improving, so it's natural that more and more of us begin to fight for a better quality of life," says Zhang Jianhua, 67, one of the prtitioners. "Widespread media coverage embarrassed the local government, so they finally decided to take action," she says.
After millennia as a farming society, China expects to be majority urban in five years. Busy families are shifting from fresh to packaged foods, consumption fo which rose 10.8 per cent a year from 2000 to 2008, well above the 4.2 per cent average in Asia, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. By 2013, the pack-aged-food market is expected to reach US$195 billion, up 74 per cent from last year.
At least 85 per cent of China's seven billion tonnes of trash is in landfills, much of it in unlicensed dumps in the countryside. Most have only thin linings of plastic or fibreglass. Rain drips heavy metals, ammonia and bacteria into the groundwater and soil, and the decomposing stew sends out methane and carbon dioxide.
Regulations allow incinerators to emit 10 times the level of dioxins permitted in the US, and these release cancer-causing dioxins and other poisons, according to a Chinese government study.
"If the government doesn't step up efforts to solve our garbage woes, China will likely face an impending health crisis in the coming decade," warns Liu Yangsheng, an expert in waste management at Peking University.
In Zhanglidong, resident Zheng Dongxiao says the village's only water well is polluted and causes chronic ulcers.
Wang Ling, a spokesman for the Zhenzhou Ministry of Environment, said the landfill has a polyethylene liner to protect the ground beneath. "Test results of the local soil, water, and air quality, in 2006 and this year, showed that everything was in line with national standards," he said.
Residents say the liner has tears and only covers a fraction of the landfill.
The government knows its garbage disposal will always draw complaints, says Liu. "What they need to do is invest more money into building and maintaining better plants."
That remains a tall order in a country bent on growth, where economic planners hold more sway than environmental regulators and are loath to spend scarce funds on waste management.
Monday, October 12, 2009
The King IN ALL THAI HEARTS
Thailand is like a big house with a multitude of family members.
This house has had a chequered history and been through some extreme changes in its long history, and yet it still stands strong today.
The reason for this is that there is a very strong and powerful pillar that supports this house and uniles all 60 million Thai people as one the Boyal Institution. His Majesty king Bhumibol is the one who fortities thailand's strength by laying a solid loundation for the nation with his insight and genus as is manitest in over 3,000 development initatives executed to help people get out of poverty and live their lives sustainably. During sixty years of continuous self-sacrifice for the betterment of all Thais as the King. His Majesty has lived his oath on coronation day: "We will reign with righteouseness for the benefit and happiness of the Sia mese people."
All these many royal development projects initiated by His Majesty reflect his genius and vision in solving problems at the root which, in turn, provides a basis for sustainable development for the people and the country. With such a solid foundation put in place for Thailand by His Mejesty, the people can live comfortably and contentedly.
The Pikunthong Royal Development Study Centre is among these royal initatives. Located in Narathiwas. The centre was established to solve the problem of brackish soil in the area snd make it cultivable. Having experimented over the years with His Majesty's methodologies, people in Narathiwas. both Buddhist and Muslim, now again enjoy productive land and a good living.
In a big house in which diverse people live togethe such as Thailand. it is normal that there are sometimes conflict and problems between them.
But for His Majesty, whether one is a Buddhist or a muslim does not matter as long as we are all good citizens. His Majesty cares for everyone equally, regardless of ethnicity or religion. This is because he knows that if everyone is treated wequally, then there will certainy be conformity, unity, and peach among all people. Showing his respects to the King, the Chief of Muslims in Thailand, Mr. Sawasdi Sumalayajsajk said"
"His Majesty always graces all Muslims in Thailand with his benevolence and compassion. He patronises lslam and has iniated a translation of the Quran from Arabic into Thai. Moreover, Thaksin Ratchaniwet Palace in Narathiwas was not onlybuilt as a royal residence. It also serves as His Majesty's office where he can meet and listen to local people closely. As such, he thoroughly understands the situation and problems that people are facing and he tries to solve those problems for them effectively. This truly proves his great concern and regardless of religion and other factors. His utmost self-devotion to the betterment of all people has made His Majesty the beloved King who is in our hearts forever."
Pictures and recordings of His Majestgy travelling around the ingdom helping people develop themselves and their communities throughout 60 years testify to His Majesty's strong will and determination to build a firm foundation for Thai people so that the country and all the family members in it can continue to grow sustainably with happiness and peace.
"Nai Luang" is a term we have become very comfortable and familiar with for a long time. It is deeply rooted in the hearts of all theis to identify our Great King who cares so actively and deeply for all Thais. As Thais, we are grateful for His Majesty's grace that brings us all together in our hearts to create a peaceful and abiding Thailand for everyone forever.
This house has had a chequered history and been through some extreme changes in its long history, and yet it still stands strong today.
The reason for this is that there is a very strong and powerful pillar that supports this house and uniles all 60 million Thai people as one the Boyal Institution. His Majesty king Bhumibol is the one who fortities thailand's strength by laying a solid loundation for the nation with his insight and genus as is manitest in over 3,000 development initatives executed to help people get out of poverty and live their lives sustainably. During sixty years of continuous self-sacrifice for the betterment of all Thais as the King. His Majesty has lived his oath on coronation day: "We will reign with righteouseness for the benefit and happiness of the Sia mese people."
All these many royal development projects initiated by His Majesty reflect his genius and vision in solving problems at the root which, in turn, provides a basis for sustainable development for the people and the country. With such a solid foundation put in place for Thailand by His Mejesty, the people can live comfortably and contentedly.
The Pikunthong Royal Development Study Centre is among these royal initatives. Located in Narathiwas. The centre was established to solve the problem of brackish soil in the area snd make it cultivable. Having experimented over the years with His Majesty's methodologies, people in Narathiwas. both Buddhist and Muslim, now again enjoy productive land and a good living.
In a big house in which diverse people live togethe such as Thailand. it is normal that there are sometimes conflict and problems between them.
But for His Majesty, whether one is a Buddhist or a muslim does not matter as long as we are all good citizens. His Majesty cares for everyone equally, regardless of ethnicity or religion. This is because he knows that if everyone is treated wequally, then there will certainy be conformity, unity, and peach among all people. Showing his respects to the King, the Chief of Muslims in Thailand, Mr. Sawasdi Sumalayajsajk said"
"His Majesty always graces all Muslims in Thailand with his benevolence and compassion. He patronises lslam and has iniated a translation of the Quran from Arabic into Thai. Moreover, Thaksin Ratchaniwet Palace in Narathiwas was not onlybuilt as a royal residence. It also serves as His Majesty's office where he can meet and listen to local people closely. As such, he thoroughly understands the situation and problems that people are facing and he tries to solve those problems for them effectively. This truly proves his great concern and regardless of religion and other factors. His utmost self-devotion to the betterment of all people has made His Majesty the beloved King who is in our hearts forever."
Pictures and recordings of His Majestgy travelling around the ingdom helping people develop themselves and their communities throughout 60 years testify to His Majesty's strong will and determination to build a firm foundation for Thai people so that the country and all the family members in it can continue to grow sustainably with happiness and peace.
"Nai Luang" is a term we have become very comfortable and familiar with for a long time. It is deeply rooted in the hearts of all theis to identify our Great King who cares so actively and deeply for all Thais. As Thais, we are grateful for His Majesty's grace that brings us all together in our hearts to create a peaceful and abiding Thailand for everyone forever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)