Solutions Volume 6, Issue 2

March-April 2015, Volume 6, Issue 2

For a sustainable and desirable future

Solutions Rebuilding more Resilient Coral Reefs

by Jason Wolf Scaling Up Seafood Sustainability: An Illustrated Journey

by Katherine Short Resolving the Increasing Risk from Wildfires in the American West

by Ray Rasker Envisioning a World without Emerging Disease Outbreaks

by Catherine Machalaba A View of Saudi Arabia through a Photographer’s Lens

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Zlinszky, J. (2015). Slow Variables in the SDG Development Process. Solutions 6(2): 1. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/slow-variables-in-the-sdg-development-process/

Editorial by János Zlinszky

Slow Variables in the SDG Development Process

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s every climate conference goes by without meaningful resolutions—and with this year’s, in Paris, already labelled a likely flop—one would be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that international consensus for saving the planet is impossible.

Yet, amid the gloom that followed last year’s conference in Lima, there was a salutory reminder that compromise and a shared vision for the future is possible. Last September, the United Nations unanimously endorsed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the post-2015 development agenda at its General Assembly in New York. The moment is certainly etched in the memories of all those who were present and who participated for two years in the work of the Open Working Group (OWG)—the large, inclusive, multi-stakeholder group tasked with developing SDGs for consideration by the UN. Though not legally binding, the agreement will now be “the main basis for the post-2015 intergovernmental process,” as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon put it.

It would be very misleading to single out one factor behind this success. A perfect concert needs many inputs: good instruments, skilled musicians, and the right stage.

Similarly, a policy-making endeavour needs to harness its component parts.

The goals agreed upon by the OWG in July 2014 reflect the inputs of over 190 member states, who gave their input in many ways: by wording, editing and endorsing texts, creating platforms for the discussion of special issues, bringing

in stakeholders, and giving support to their concerns. They worked in groups of states, and with their own national stakeholders. They argued their corners relentlessly, but they brought with them a spirit of compromise.

States decided to open up the process widely, even at the cost of increasing their own workload considerably.

Academic and expert institutions were invited to join, while non-governmental stakeholders and civil society groups were given regular access to the work.

At times, delegates were making their points before a keen and diverse crowd of critics, supporters, and observers, making the discussions, quite literally, a piece of performance art.

The two co-chairs accepted the challenge to lead not the states, but the process of designing this therapy.

They took full responsibility to ‘enforce’ the common agreement about the methodology of the OWG, to keep it on track, to keep it moving, and to keep it open. Internal rules for the co-chairs’ teams were straightforward: neutrality, availability, predictability, transparency, respect for the ownership of the member states of the process, and adherence to the Rio+20 mandate. The team met everyone who approached us, government or NGO, group or individual, and we attended every event to which we were invited.

The working groups took the truly unprecedented decision to benefit together from a long learning process, before debating future tasks.

Yet, the most crucial step to reaching compromise came from preparations that took place before the delegates gathered. The working groups took the truly unprecedented decision to benefit together from a long learning process, before debating future tasks. And, they did so patiently and thoroughly, devoting well over one year to more than 30 topics of global concern. This evidencebased approach saw delegations listen together as diverse groups of academics laid out the facts.

Through this approach, the usual political divides became less apparent.

‘Science,’ as opposed to ‘my expert’ and ‘your expert,’ gave evidence to ‘Politics.’

Scientific evidence was challenged and debated, and a common foundation laid—a diagnosis of the ailing world accepted by all. Now, development of the best plan for therapy could start.

With the invaluable assistance of the experts of the UN secretariat, the team recorded and screened all opinions received, written or verbal. Reflected in the co-chairs’ reports is first, the initial evidence, then, the forming of conclusions reported back to the Group, and finally, the reception of criticisms.

The co-chairs noted the evolution of opinions and proposals, sampled the mood of the room, and relentlessly offered improved texts. After two years, a complex system of goals and targets was endorsed by acclamation, in consensus, by the diverse crowd called the international community.

Incremental, manifold, patient, parallel, repetitive, and consequent inputs gradually and slowly built up a structure that proved ambitious, attractive, and resilient. May Paris benefit from the experience!

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Contents

March/April 2015

Features

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Scaling Up Seafood Sustainability: An Illustrated Journey by Katherine Short Efforts to combine the worlds of marine and coastal ecosystem services, corporate transparency, and sustainable seafood are transforming marine fisheries and building a more sustainable seafood sector.

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Resolving the Increasing Risk from Wildfires in the American West by Ray Rasker Larger, longer, and deadlier wildfires in the American West in recent years demand innovative solutions in preparation and policy. Increased involvement of local governments, cost distribution, and incentives programs could better prevent irreparable damage to property and lives.

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Envisioning a World without Emerging Disease Outbreaks

by Catherine Machalaba and William B. Karesh What can we learn in the aftermath of the devastating Ebola crisis in West Africa? The increasing threat of emerging infectious diseases in a rapidly globalized world demands a new emphasis on prevention, risk identification, and early detection with collaboration across human, animal, and environmental health systems.

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On the Web

Perspectives

www.thesolutionsjournal.org Explore the Solutions website for more content and interactivity. What are your solutions? Share your vision for a sustainable and desirable future and learn more about the Solutions community.

Envisioning

Rebuilding more Resilient Coral Reefs by Jason Wolf

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An Emerging Mystery: A View of Saudi Arabia through a Photographer’s Lens by Maisam Alahmed

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Radical Farmers use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow by Leah Penniman

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A Place for Creative Growth by Dawn Starin

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100 Years After the Genocide, Armenians and Turks Work to Heal by Audrey Pence

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On the Ground

76 Has Your Coffee Killed a Songbird?

by Bridget Stutchbury Were the beans used in your daily cup of coffee grown on a South American farm that threatens the natural environments of many beloved songbirds? Increased awareness of such unsustainable farming practices will inform consumers of more eco-friendly products, produced at no harm to the coffee farmers, the land, or the song birds who winter there.

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Looking Back Through the Glass Darkly by Edward O’Neil A retrospective assessment of the impacts of the Affordable Care Act on the American healthcare system describes a streamlined industry focused on prevention rather than treatment, with innovative solutions emerging from both sides of the political spectrum.

Idea Lab Noteworthy

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From Commuters to Corals: Reincarnating New York’s Subway Cars Innovative Education for Innovative Industries Building a Rain Garden Female Drivers Tackle Gender Based Violence in Transport Mosha the Three Legged Elephant My Dream Partner— A Young Turkish Changemaker

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The Path to Global Food Security: An Interview with Jim Morris Interviewed by Audrey Pence The former Executive Director of the UN World Food Program discusses the roles of technology and politics in creating a food secure world, and describes a world in which all children have access to nutritious food produced by environmentally sustainable agriculture.

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In Review Seeing the Future While Blinded by the Present

by David E. Kaun

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Editorial “Slow Variables” in the SDG Development Process

by János Zlinszky

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Solutions

Contributors

Editors-in-Chief: Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski

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Associate Editors: David Orr, Jacqueline McGlade Managing Editor: Colleen Maney Senior Editors: Christina Asquith, Jack Fairweather

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History Section Editor: Frank Zelko Book & Envisioning Editor: Bruce Cooperstein Editors: Naomi Stewart, Dana Rawls Graphic Designer: Kelley Dodd Copy Editors: Maria Hetman, Hana Layson, and Barbara Stewart Interns: Audrey Pence, Maisam Alahmed

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Editorial Board: Gar Alperovitz, Vinya Ariyaratne, Robert Ayres, Peter Barnes, William Becker, Lester Brown, Alexander Chikunov, Cutler Cleveland, Raymond Cole, Rita Colwell, Robert Corell, Herman Daly, Thomas Dietz, Josh Farley, Jerry Franklin, Susan Joy Hassol, Paul Hawken, Richard Heinberg, Jeffrey Hollender, Buzz Holling, Terry Irwin, Jon Isham, Wes Jackson, Tim Kasser, Tom Kompas, Frances Moore Lappé, Rik Leemans, Wenhua Li, Thomas Lovejoy, Hunter Lovins, Manfred Max-Neef, Peter May, Bill McKibben, William J. Mitsch, Mohan Munasinghe, Norman Myers, Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Bill Rees, Wolfgang Sachs, Peter Senge, Vandana Shiva, Anthony Simon, Gus Speth, Larry Susskind, David Suzuki, John Todd, Mary Evelyn Tucker, Alvaro Umaña, Sim van der Ryn, Peter Victor, Mathis Wackernagel, John Xia, Mike Young

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On the Cover Tourists pay a premium price to holiday and dive in the Maldives, but it is the coral reefs paying the ultimate price. Environmentalists from arkipal.org initiated a coral conservation program in 2012, planting the first man made coral frames around local islands in the country (opposed to the same practice around resort islands previously). Small cuttings of resilient corals are attached to a steel frame and then placed on damaged or dead parts of the coral reef. Over a matter of months, the coral fragments turn into developed heads, bringing a wealth of crustaceans and fish back to the reef. Photo by Alexander Brown / basementvision.com Solutions is subject to the Creative Commons license except where otherwise stated.

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1. Katherine Short—Katherine

3. Catherine Machalaba—Catherine

Short is a thought leader in marine fisheries conservation and sustainability globally, having worked deeply through WWF with the Marine Stewardship Council and ecosystem-based management of fisheries since 1996.

Returning to New Zealand in 2011, she completed a sponsored Masters at Imperial College London to explore ecosystem services and seafood sustainability. Now Katherine runs F.L.O.W. Collaborative Ltd (Fisheries.Livelihoods.

Oceans.Well-being) and Terra Moana Ltd, a business partnership with Tony Craig, a New Zealand seafood industry veteran, to bring collaborative natural capital and ecosystem service approaches to primary industry, including as sustainability advisers to the largest Maori seafood company, Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd.

Machalaba is the Program Coordinator for Health and Policy at EcoHealth Alliance. Her research interests focus on One Health approaches to human, animal, and environmental health challenges and strengthening public health systems. She serves as the Science Officer for the Future Earth ecoHEALTH project, which is aimed at generating solutions-oriented research to address the health impacts of global environmental change. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biology and a Master’s in Public Health, and is currently a doctoral student in environmental and occupational health at the City University of New York School of Public Health.

2. Ray Rasker—Ray is the Executive

Director of Headwaters Economics, an independent, nonprofit research group based in Bozeman, Montana.

The mission of the organization is to improve community development and land management decisions in the West.

They partner with rural communities, state legislatures, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, universities, and non-profit organizations. Ray has a Ph.D. from the College of Forestry (economics) at Oregon State University.

More of Ray’s work related to wildfire can be found at http://headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire.

4. David Kaun—David studied at

Arizona State, Claremont College, and received his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford in 1963. Before coming to UCSC as a founding member of Stevenson College, he was at the Brookings Institution and the University of Pittsburgh for two years each. His original work focused mostly on labor related and military defense issues; more recently his interests, written and teaching, have turned to the economics of the arts. David says that he’s a better clarinet player than economist, but has been paid better as an economist. Given his age, many people wonder why he’s still working. David claims that as a labor economist, and experiencing the pleasures of university teaching and research, he’s spent his career wondering why people work.

Contributors 5 8 9

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5. Jason Wolf—Jason Wolf is the

Protect Our Reefs Program Manager at Mote Marine Laboratory in the Florida Keys. He has been working with Mote to develop funding programs and awareness for coral reef restoration and research since 2008. Jason moved to Key West 12 years ago from Southern New Jersey, where he graduated from Stockton State College with a degree in Economics.

6. Leah Penniman—Leah Penniman is

an educator, farmer, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, NY. She is committed to dismantling the oppressive structures that misguide our food system, reconnecting marginalized communities to land, and upholding our responsibility to steward the land that nourishes us. Leah joyfully and reverently connects learners to the intricate miracle that is this living planet and to their own power as agents of positive change in the community. In recognition of the truth that food sovereignty is a global struggle, Leah is also a core collective member of Ayiti Resurrect, and coordinates an ongoing reforestation and sustainability project with farmers in Haiti, her ancestral homeland.

7. Sebastian Farmborough—

Sebastian Farmborough was born and educated in England, but has lived in several different countries around the world since. He loves languages and interacting with people from diverse cultures. His passion for photography was first aroused at school, where he came across the work of Bill Brandt. He was captivated by Brandt’s ability to mislead an audience and trick

them into seeing something that was never actually there. In Dubai, Farmborough had the opportunity of working with photographers within the advertising industry. This enabled him to learn the fundamentals of lighting and appreciate how best to manage a photoshoot.

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Affairs with a concentration in Middle East Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

10. Edward O’Neil—Edward O’Neil

rently in her second year at Northeastern University, where she is studying International Affairs and Arabic. She spent one month in Amman, Jordan studying Arabic in the summer of 2014 and is currently stationed in Istanbul, Turkey working for Solutions Journal and the Fuller Project on journalism projects in the region. She will be participating in an internship for the Center for Solutions in International Studies in Washington, D.C. and studying international conflict and negotiation in the Balkans in the upcoming summer of 2015. She hopes to pursue a career that will keep her engaged in foreign affairs through a form of journalism.

is the owner of O’Neil & Associates, a management consulting and leadership development firm focused on change and renewal in the health care system.

His clients include some of the nation’s leading health systems, hospitals, health plans, professional groups, pharmaceutical firms, state and federal agencies, and educational institutions.

He retired in 2012 from his position as Professor in the Departments of Family and Community Medicine, Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences and Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, where he also served as the Director of the Center for the Health Professions.

More information on his current work is available here at the firm’s website: www.oneil-and-associates.com.

9. Maisam Alahmed—Maisam

11. Bridget Stutchbury—Bridget

Alahmed is currently interning as a freelance journalist with the Fuller Project for International Reporting in Istanbul, Turkey. In the past, Maisam worked as a researcher for the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies in Boston, Massachusetts and Amman, Jordan. She has also worked as a Junior Program Officer with the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention Implementation Support Unit in Geneva, Switzerland. Maisam is from Saudi Arabia. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in International

Stutchbury is a professor at York University, Toronto. She completed her M.Sc. at Queen’s University and her Ph.D. at Yale, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution. Since the 1980s, she has followed songbirds to their wintering grounds in Latin America and back to their breeding grounds in North America to understand their behavior, ecology and conservation. Her latest research uses “geolocators” to track the amazing migratory journeys of Wood Thrushes, Purple Martins and Red-eyed

8. Audrey Pence—Audrey Pence is cur-

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Vireos. She serves on scientific advisory committees for Wildlife Preservation Canada and Earth Rangers. She is author of Silence of the Songbirds (2007 finalist for the Governor General’s Award) and The Bird Detective (April 2010).

12. János Zlinszky—János Zlinszky

served as a senior scientific adviser to the Co-chair of the UN Open Working Group for Sustainable Development Goals. He is also the former Head of Department for Strategy and Research in the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations. During the recent EU Presidency of Hungary in 2011, Zlinszky chaired the two international environmental policy committees (WPIEI Horizontal and Global) of the EU Council. Zlinszky also served as Senior Adviser for Environmental Policy to the President of Hungary from 2006 to 2010. He is an Associate Professor in the Department for Environmental Law and Competition Law at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and Director of the Sustainable Development Academy of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, both located in Hungary.

13. Dawn Starin—Dawn Starin

is an honorary research associate at University College London and has spent decades doing anthropological research. Her non-academic articles have appeared in publications as varied as The Ecologist, Gastronomica, The Humanist, Natural History, New Internationalist, New Statesman, The New York Times, Philosophy Now, and Scientific America, amongst others.

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Noteworthy. (2015). Solutions 6(2): 6-11.

Idea Lab Noteworthy From Commutes to Corals: Reincarnating New York’s Subway Cars

by Colleen Maney The secret is out: New York City has been quietly dumping its retired and decrepit subway cars into the ocean for years. But before you accuse the city of gross environmental crimes and large-scale pollution, consider that their unusual method of disposing of the cars actually serves a beneficial ecological purpose, but one not apparent to the eye.

Once settled on the ocean floor, the sunken subway cars are assimilated

into the local ecosystem. The bare metal surfaces attract corals, eventually acting as frames and foundations for new coral reefs. Over time, the cars are overtaken by coral growth, creating artificial but substantial reefs.

After ten years, the structures are nearly unrecognizable as the cars that once carried millions of New Yorkers, having traded crowds of commuters for schools of fish, with colorful corals bursting forth from the metal seats and hand rails.

At a time when coral reef ecosystems have been greatly threatened and diminished by human activity, these subway car reefs act as restorative hubs, supporting coral regrowth.

This method is not unique to New York City; on one occasion, engineers sunk an entire aircraft carrier for the purpose of regenerating a coral reef system.

Photographer Stephen Mallon has captured the intriguing process in a series of pictures taken over the course of three years. His collection slowly brings the viewer from indignation at the sight of apparent mass pollution to awestruck at the realization of the recycled purpose of subway cars, with the culmination of beautiful coral structures.

His photos can be viewed at www. stephenmallon.com/photography/ next-stop-atlantic.

David Jones

Retired New York City subway cars are stacked on a barge in preparation for dumping into the Atlantic Ocean, where they will be repurposed on the seafloor as foundations for vibrant new coral reefs.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy

Berkeley Lab

The Owensboro Innovation Academy curriculum will focus on technical skills in the STEM areas, with an emphasis on small group learning.

Innovative Education for Innovative Industries

by Colleen Maney This fall, a new kind of public school will open its doors for a new era of students in Owensboro, Kentucky in the United States. The Owensboro Innovation Academy is demonstrative of the innovation it aims to teach. Housed in the local Center for Business and Research (CBR), and with a curriculum focused on technical skills and the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) areas, the Academy will foster an entrepreneurial and creative environment for its students.

The inaugural class of freshmen will have only 100 students. Dr. Nick Brake, the Superintendent of the Owensboro Public Schools, explained the small class size to Owensboro Living saying, “The small size of the academy promotes a positive culture of trust, respect, and responsibility. Students have exceptional ownership of their learning experience and environment and the CBR space is a perfect fit for creating this culture and building the workforce of the future.”

Each student at the Innovation Academy will work with guidance counselors to choose a post-secondary pathway, culminating in a careeroriented technical program or a college degree. These pathways include:

• Computer Information Technology • Life Sciences and Bio-Medical • Industrial Engineering • Entrepreneurship and Innovation The Owensboro Academy will be the newest school in the New Tech Network, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help high school students attain the skills and education for success in the careers of tomorrow. Currently, the Network has 134 schools operating in 23 U.S. states, as well as in Australia. Armed with a strong, specialized education and critical thinking skills, the soon-to-be students of the Owensboro Academy are perhaps a glimpse of the future of technical education in the U.S.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy

Center for Neighborhood Technology

Rain gardens such as this one in Illinois are designed to absorb and filter runoff rainwater.

Building a Rain Garden

by Audrey Pence Nineteen-year-old Sara Covelli is leading the charge at Union College in New York towards a more sustainable way of living. Covelli developed a passion for the environment as a child at summer camps and programs that fostered her mission to care for the environment. She designed her own major in Environmental Policy at Union College after being awarded a Seward Fellowship and became involved in the faculty, staff, and student-led U-Sustain Committee that focuses on implementing ecoconscious habits at the college.

After her freshman year of college, she spent the summer working at the

environmental resource department of Nassau County, New York. Working on the county’s campaign to install rain gardens on Long Island lit a spark in Covelli, who was especially inspired by the beauty and accessibility of rain gardens and the impact they could have.

Rain gardens are composed of a thoughtful mix of drought resistant plants and plants that can thrive in excess water, planted in areas that tend to collect excess water after rain.

The gardens can absorb and filter the runoff rainwater before it reaches nearby watersheds or bodies of water. In a report by Hometalk, Covelli explained the sustainability of such gardens, saying, “If designed correctly, a rain garden will never need maintenance.”

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Covelli returned to campus on a mission and was awarded twice the funds of a Presidential Green Grant by the U-Sustain Committee to install a rain garden in the new senior college dorms. Covelli was also recently awarded $100,000 from the Green Fee Grant so that she can include and plan for solar panels to cover the entire roof of the new senior dorms. Such awards are generally only given in the amount of $24,000. The unusually large grant underscores the promise of Covelli’s innovative project.

Her example not only inspires others to consider a rain garden at their homes or communities, but to also explore other ways to live a more sustainable life and and share these ideas with the world.

Idea Lab Noteworthy

Asim Bharwani

Cab companies in New York City have capitalized on providing female drivers for female passengers.

Female Drivers Tackle Gender Based Violence in Transport

by Audrey Pence At a time when using public transportation can instill fear in a woman, cab companies from India to New York City are providing safer options for travel. Meru Cab chief executive Siddhartha Pahwa launched a new initiative called Meru Eve at the start of 2015. Meru Eve is a line of taxis in Delhi to be driven by women. These female drivers will be armed with pepper spray and have panic buttons that will notify Meru if the drivers find themselves in a dangerous position.

Delhi’s Special Commissioner of Police (General Administration and Planning and Implementation) Vimla Mehra

told The Wall Street Journal, “You don’t see many women professionals in India. Programs like this build confidence in women to earn a living. They become role models.”

However, some worry that programs like this only work to segregate women from the rest of society instead of solving the actual issues of gender equality. Jayati Ghosh, a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, told The Washington Post, “It’s appalling.

It’s a way for a patriarchal society to announce it’s not going to protect women. It’s simply going to segregate women and restrict their freedom, instead of securing it.” However, 20-year-old Aishwarrya Kapoor defended the use of female cabs in the same article saying, “Because in India, even though we are in the 21st

century, with any [male] cab driver, it’s not really safe.”

This kind of business has been capitalized on in the West as well.

SheTaxis was launched in the fall of 2014 in New York City and employs only female drivers to transport only female customers. One of the drivers of SheTaxis, Josephina Soto, told The New York Times, “I love the whole SheTaxis thing. Most of the time, there’s a lot of men-to-men stuff, but it’s not usually about the women.”

With sexual harassment and rape reports continuing to pile up against taxi services, including a case against the ridesharing company Uber in Delhi, this kind of service offers a level of comfort to female passengers and empowers female drivers by giving them a job that they can feel safe and confident in.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy Mosha the Three Legged Elephant

by Maisam Alahmed Landmines are an old weapon that were used heavily in WWII and continue to pose a threat today in many developing countries. CIn Cambodia, land mines have claimed more than 64,000 casualties since 1979. Humans are not the only casualties. Land mines in the outskirts of Cambodia along the Thai borders claim the lives of many wild animals as well.

One of these animals was seven-month-old Mosha, a young female Asian elephant. In 2007, Mosha stepped on a landmine near the Cambodian border, causing her to lose her front right leg. She was immediately transported to the Friends of the Asian Elephant Hospital in Thailand. Upon her arrival, veterinarians feared for her life as she refused food, was antisocial with other elephants, and showed signs of depression.

Dr. Therdchai Jivacate, who runs a foundation for human amputees, was interested in Mosha’s case. His foundation had made prosthetic limbs for over 16,000 people at the time but had never fitted one for an elephant before. With sheer determination, Dr. Jivacate was successful in creating a new limb for Mosha made from plastic, sawdust, and metal and was suitable to support her weight and allow her to move around at a normal elephant’s pace.

Soon enough, with daily exercises prescribed by the doctor, Mosha was eating again and was happy around others. With her rapid growth, however, she had to be fitted for a new leg in 2009. She has since been fitted with two more legs as she continues to outgrow her older ones.

Denish C.

This disabled elephant named Sama lost her right front foot to a landmine in Sri Lanka. She was fitted with an artificial foot and treated at the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage in Central Sri Lanka.

Mosha became famous as the world’s first elephant to be fitted for an artificial leg and was spreading hope for others of her kind. Since the hospital opened in 1993, it has attended to 15 elephant landmine victims. In 2009, a patient named Motala became the second elephant to receive a prosthetic leg.

My Dream Partner— A Young Turkish Changemaker

by Maisam Alahmed At age two and a half years old, young Duygu Kayaman of Turkey lost her sight due to a lump behind her visual nerve. Not willing to give up,

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she began her educational journey at Turkan Sabanci Primary and Vocational School for the Blind and graduated from Haliç University with a degree in psychology. Now aged 26 years old, Kayaman has channeled her disability towards great social innovation in her country.

Kayaman created a mobile application called “My Dream Partner” in an attempt to make daily activities for the visually impaired easier and simpler through using voicerecognition technology. With the support of Turkcell, a leading mobile phone operator in Turkey, Kayaman developed an application that gave blind people the ability to access news, articles, books, and many other resources. The application also provided them with training

Idea Lab Noteworthy

tedxistanbul

Duygu Kayaman speaking at TEDx Istanbul in 2014.

and easy access to primary locations including hospitals, banks, schools, markets, and pharmacies. As of February 2015, more than 110,000 visually impaired Turks are using “My Dream Partner.”

When the “Innovators Under 35 Competition” of MIT Technology Review included Turkey for the first time in 2014, Duygu Kayaman was

awarded “Social Innovator of the Year.” She was the winner of the first regional edition along with 10 other Turks and one of three women under the age of 35. She is now an “inside sales specialist” working at Microsoft.

In addition to her phone application, Kayaman worked in the “Blind Leaders” Project of the Young Guru

Academy, an establishment that raises socially conscious leaders, which she later became the leader of. This initiative, which supported the development of the application, became one of Kayaman’s various venues to share her experiences and journey to encourage other youths with disabilities in her country to break barriers together.

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O’Neil, E. (2015). Looking Back Through the Glass Darkly. Solutions 6(2): 12-15. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/looking-back-through-the-glass-darkly/

Envisioning

Looking Back Through the Glass Darkly

by Edward O’Neil

This article is part of a regular section in Solutions in which the author is challenged to envision a future society in which all the right changes have been made.

T

he changes began to appear in the final two quarters of 2014. By mid-2015, the movement to increase access to health insurance seemed established enough to appear to be a trend. Some of these developments were publicly reported: percentage of lives covered overall, numbers accessing coverage through the exchanges and trends that seemed to indicate that costs were holding constant, and if not, then perhaps bending away from increasing. There was active discussion over validity, meaning, and, of course, causality. Were these developments a function of the Accountable Care Act (ACA) or a reflection of a deep recession followed by a fairly long-running recovery?

Other changes were less obvious to the general public and too small to account for a trend: a large delivery system in the Midwest reporting that after three years, over half of new appointments were being made online and that consumer satisfaction with its service was up 22 percent; a major East Coast medical school’s OB/ GYN department announcing that by 2020 it planned to have 80 percent of its births assisted exclusively by a nurse midwife; and, a large medical group in California incorporating a collaborative approach between primary and specialized care, coupled with advance directives and palliative

care as it improved the quality of endof-life experiences for patients and their families.

The system was so large—comprising almost 20 percent of the nation’s productive effort—and famously segregated into silos governed by a complex and at times conflicting set of state and federal regulations and funding, that it was hard to see that the policy changes of universal coverage, global payments to providers, and consequences for outcomes that had been established with the ACA had

On the heels of this ruling that was, in the end, seen as more technical than landmark, many Republican-dominated states began to acknowledge that their fiscal and physical health could only be addressed by using a revived and restructured Medicaid program to provide universal coverage in their states.

Without such a state policy in place, they would be trapped supporting the old variegated and disconnected arrangements for care that were increasingly expensive and produced inferior outcomes. The contrast to those states that covered nearly all of their citizens through revamped insurance markets and subsidies became increasingly stark.

Many other parts of health care delivery were deregulated because now, a single oversight body could more effectively guarantee performance and public protection.

been deeply, if not perfectly, aligned with the broader changes that were driving themselves through society.

These changes included an aging population, growing consumer demand for more control and responsibility, anxiety over the cost of care, and dramatic changes in work and life driven by information technology. The alignment between these two pivotal changes was producing the synergy needed to rework the system from the bottom up, not to dictate the changes from the top down. With a pending Supreme Court review of the legality of subsidies from states without their own purchasing exchanges in mid-2015, Chief Justice Roberts again voted with the majority to sustain the efforts of the essential reforms.

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As the economic and health advantages of integration became more obvious, several states realized that the regulatory infrastructure that had been built up around health and health care no longer served the interests of their citizens. These states were the first to experiment with a new structure that looked at finance, delivery, and population health with policy, operational, and oversight dimension in each area.

The states could then set health goals tied to outcomes and effectively focus all public and private resources on meeting these goals. The reduced duplication allowed policymakers to know what worked, allowing them to push for change in the ‘system’ to move along faster.

Envisioning

Myfuture.com

Healthcare reforms in the United States during this time streamlined services, decreased patient costs, and transformed the system to emphasize prevention.

Once these states had the whole picture in front of them, they could focus on global budgets and aligning state policies to with the direction of the change. The shortage of primary care providers disappeared as physician assistant and nurse practitioner practice acts were rewritten to expand access. Many other parts of health care delivery were deregulated because now, a single oversight body could more effectively guarantee performance and public protection. This also allowed states to more effectively plan for longer-term changes as society aged, information technology proliferated, and the nature of work aligned itself with the shifting global economy.

Perhaps the most significant change in states came about as the population covered with health insurance approached 90 percent, which was reached by early 2015. At this point, just about everyone had public or private health care, and the burden of financial risks coming from catastrophic or chronic health problems was no longer borne by individuals. Primary prevention then became of significant interest to these insurers. An emergency room admission for a drive-by shooting has always been a tragedy for the family and patient, but now some other entity would be responsible for the hundreds of thousands of immediate and

long-term costs. In this world, effective public safety for all neighborhoods, employment, and improved education became of interest to large, powerful, and well-resourced organizations.

This change of focus from downstream treatment to upstream prevention led to changes in public policy and a realignment of resources.

The shift began to increase support for public policy changes not only in public safety, but also in education, housing and income security as well.

These changes not only improved life, more importantly they ‘compressed’ morbidity leading to fuller more productive lives that were not burdened by health care maladies and costs.

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Envisioning

Nancy Pelosi

To mark the one year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act in March 2012, House Democrats held a press conference to highlight the benefits of its reforms for families and small businesses.

Thinking of care in this manner allowed for the development of new approaches to how chronic diseases were managed. In the traditional system, the most expensive part of the health care system, the hospital, was the place where most people with chronic diseases were provided care. Increasingly the value of providing new services in the community and home that kept patients healthier and lowered the use of expensive acute-based services, proved effective for overall

costs and outcomes and desirable for individual consumers.

The successful evolution of the US approach to health care did not come exclusively from either the political left or the right. The left promoted universal access, control of excessive profiteering, and more population-based approaches to social welfare, including health and health services. Meanwhile, the right encouraged innovation, often driven by entrepreneurial action, appropriate deregulation, and competition

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that could deliver lower cost services that were of higher quality and more responsive to customer needs.

These mutual contributions worked best in those states that lowered the competitive political rhetoric and focused on mixed solutions. Those states that focused on addressing immediate problems with caring and creativity were able to break through the constraints that had driven the old arrangements of care and provide better service, to more people, and at increasingly lower costs.

Envisioning

SEIU

On March 4, 2015, hundreds of supporters of the Affordable Care Act rallied on the steps of the Supreme Court as oral arguments were heard in King v. Burwell, a case that challenged the reforms based on a legal technicality. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | March-April 2015 | Solutions | 15

Pence, A. (2015). The Path to Global Food Security: An Interview with Jim Morris. Solutions 6(2): 16-17. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-path-to-global-food-security-an-interview-with-jim-morris/

Idea Lab Interview

The Path to Global Food Security: An Interview with Jim Morris Interviewed by Audrey Pence

T

he United Nations (UN) has said that the World Food Program faces today its worst challenge since WWII, with five top-level humanitarian crises to attempt to address. Jim Morris served as Executive Director of the UN World Food Program from 2002 to 2007, the largest humanitarian agency in the world, and had the rank of Under Secretary General within the UN. He also served as the Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Southern Africa.

You have done quite a bit of work to end child hunger. Of your work, what’s been the most successful strategy that you’ve found?

It seemed to me that if we were going to work on cutting hunger in half in the world, the best investment we could make would be to cut child hunger in half or try to eliminate it.

There were 400 to 500 million hungry kids in the world that didn’t have 2,300 nutritious calories every day. I became consumed with this notion of so many hungry kids in the world, understanding that hunger is the most serious health issue in the world, and investment in the nutrition and wellbeing of a pregnant mother or a child the first two years of his or her life.

That’s the most powerful economic investment any country in the world can make in its future.

The understanding was that you would provide a meal at school, usually lunch, which would become a tremendous incentive for the child to come to school and to learn and to be successful in school. The hungry child has no chance. We had special

incentives in that program to encourage parents to send their girls to school.

And, you send that little girl to school, and she stays for even five years, everything about her life will change.

Are we becoming a more food-insecure world? And, if so, why?

I actually think we’re becoming more food secure. There’s a lot more productivity. There’s a lot more agricultural engineering. Products are stronger and safer. We’re better equipped for storing food for longer periods of time all the time. And I think farmers are doing a better job. Now, with the growth of the population in the world over the next 10, 20, 30 years, we’re dramatically going to have to improve with supply, and improve productivity.

What role is technology playing in alleviating food insecurity?

Technology, I think, is the key. I think to the degree that we can improve our seeds to be drought-resistant, to be resistant to weeds, and to have a stronger genetic make-up, have more nutritional value, and a greater yield per acre, that will make all the difference in the world. Oftentimes, very simple technology is available in the West that we’ve taken for granted for years. That simply technology being available in Southeast Asia or in much of Sub-Saharan Africa makes all the difference in the world.

Are political problems at the root of most food insecurity?

I think it’s a huge problem. When leaders are corrupt, it tends to

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Pacers Sports and Entertainment

Jim Morris, former Executive Director of the UN World Food Program.

pervade the system. It decreases the amount of capital available for research, for re-investment in improving the land and conservation, for protecting the water supply and investment in dams and reservoirs, and for irrigation equipment. When a leader steals money that ought to be spent on research and infrastructure, that holds the whole thing back. So, it’s a serious problem.

What’s the connection between the environmentalist movement and food security? Do you think that the two groups work together enough?

Well, I don’t know. But, I do know that protecting the environment is really important to protecting the greatest asset in terms of food production, and

Idea Lab Interview

Gates Foundation

Students eat a provided lunch at a primary school in Osun, Nigeria. Providing a meal for students at school increases child enrollment, retention, and completion rates, and is crucial to both child nutrition and education.

that’s the land. As the quality of the soil decreases, the quality of the agricultural opportunity and productivity decreases. So, clearly, taking care of the environment and being good stewards of the land is very important.

How have the ways we address food insecurity changed since the 1980s when starvation in Ethiopia really captured the world’s attention? Have we made gains since then?

I think, generally, there are more resources around the world committed to this issue. I think some of the terrible famines and examples of starvation

sort of got the world’s attention. When the world is made aware of a dilemma, a need, the money just keeps rolling in. But, you know, the vast majority of hungry, starving people are not in that kind of daily crisis, and the world’s probably not aware of that as much.

As I began to ask my final question, looking forward with a sense of hope, Jim Morris pointed out the call to prayer underlining our conversation.

If you can picture a world in which everyone is food secure, what would that look like, and how could we get there?

I would say that we would live in a world without a hungry child. There are places in the world where people spend 80 percent of their income feeding their children. And, when you do that, you have to make all these hard choices about going to school, about buying books, about your housing. You can look at it from a moral perspective, an economic perspective, or a peace and security perspective.

Addressing this issue calms people down. It gives them a chance to think about bigger issues, about the future of their children. It’s a powerful discussion, and a powerful issue.

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Wolf, J. (2015). Rebuilding more Resilient Coral Reefs. Solutions 6(2): 18-22. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/rebuilding-more-resilient-coral-reefs/

Perspectives Coral Reefs

by Jason Wolf

O

ur oceans are vast, mysterious, full of natural beauty, and vital to life on earth. The oceans drive our weather patterns, keep our air clean, and provide the foundation of a complex food web that sustains life as we know it. With so much depending upon the oceans, it is hard to believe that we know more about the surface of the Earth’s moon than we do about what lies beneath the surface in this amazing marine ecosystem.

Partly, what makes our oceans such incredible places are the animals and organisms that inhabit them. Some of the most complex and interesting of these are corals.

Hard corals live in dense colonies made up of hundreds or thousands of individual polyps connected by living tissue. A coral polyp has one of the most interesting symbiotic relationships we know of in our oceans because it’s comprised of a plant, algae which is what gives it color, an animal, the coral itself, and a bacteria which serves as an antibiotic coating that protects the coral from disease and certain types of predation. The algae create a photosynthetic reaction to sunlight which creates energy that feeds the bacteria, while the coral itself feeds on microorganisms floating by in the currents and tides. The result is the production of calcium carbonate, which gives corals their shape and creates the hard surfaces and structure that we know as a coral reef.

Coral reefs make up less than one percent of our oceans and yet, despite their small size and sea floor coverage, more than 4,000 species of fish, and as much as 40 percent of marine life worldwide depend on coral reefs at some point in their life

Florida Fish and Wildlife

A Mote team prepares corals for outplanting.

cycle.1 Whether for spawning, nursery grounds, refuge, or forage, coral reefs play a key role in the health of our oceans and of the planet as a whole.

Sadly, in the past 30 years, 25–40 percent of all corals worldwide and 92 percent of the branching corals indigenous to Florida and the American Caribbean have perished due to climate change, pollution, ocean acidification, and disease.2 With such disturbingly low numbers remaining, recovery without help from humans is extremely unlikely and probably would not occur in our lifetime.

However, there is hope. Scientists and researchers at Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida in the US have made some exciting discoveries and breakthroughs over the last seven years that appear to be a potential answer to save our dying coral reefs.

Through processes called coral fragmentation and micro-fragmentation, researchers have found that corals, which grow very slowly and only reproduce roughly once per year, can

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actually grow very quickly when cut down into small pieces. Branching corals, such as staghorn and elkhorn, when fragmented into one- to twoinch pieces will grow very rapidly and will nearly double in size over just a couple of months. In only 6 to 12 months, reef building corals, such as brain, boulder, and star corals, when cut down into fragments of just two to three polyps, respond with growth rates of 25 to 40 times what occurs in a mature colony. When these corals are outplanted back to reef areas where their ancestors once thrived, the corals quickly stabilize, affix themselves permanently to the hard substrate, and begin to grow rapidly to a mature size.

The results have been nothing short of amazing and the survival rate of these outplanted corals is more than 92 percent after three years in the wild.

Human skin grows relatively slowly, however, when cut or injured, it grows extremely quickly as a healing response and overall physiological survival instinct. Corals, when cut into

Perspectives

Mote POR 2014

Outplantings of staghorn corals. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | March-April 2015 | Solutions | 19

Perspectives

The Mote team works to outplant corals which are arranged in close arrays of 10-20 corals. Once close enough to touch, they will then merge together.

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Perspectives smaller fragments, have demonstrated a similar response by growing as fast as they can in order to both heal and compete for space to survive in the marine ecosystem.

The outplanted branching corals grow upwards and outwards into dense thickets, and immediately begin to attract fish and a wide variety of marine life. Juvenile fish, fingerlings, crabs, shrimp, and a whole host of critically important marine animals now have some cover from predators once again and this helps to bolster overall fish populations and biomass.

The food web begins to expand and the ecosystem once again comes alive with diversity and volume that we have not seen in many decades.

the changing sea conditions that have been responsible for wiping out more than 90 percent of their species to this point. From this, it is now understood that corals are similar to humans and other organisms which have varying tolerances to disease, habitat change, temperature, etc., and corals, just like humans, have varying genetic qualities and traits within the same species that allow some of them to survive in today’s changing oceans.

It is because of this varying genetic tolerance, and what is hoped to be continued adaptation, that the scientists at Mote feel they have a potential answer to restoring our precious reefs. To take this a step further, the Mote team, addressing the fact that

The outplanted branching corals grow upwards and outwards into dense thickets, and immediately begin to attract fish and a wide variety of marine life.

Florida Fish and Wildlife

The reef building corals are planted just a few inches apart in an array of between 10–20 pieces. As long as they are fragmented from the same genetic parent, once they get close enough to touch, they recognize each other as a member of the family and merge together. This tissue merge, now called coral “reskinning,” makes it possible to restore what might have taken 50–100 or 1,000 years to occur naturally, achieving that same growth within two to three years.

The question most often asked is: why won’t these newly restored corals simply perish like the rest of them have done over the last 30 years? It is a valid concern that the researchers at Mote have taken on in a very innovative way. The corals that still exist in the wild today appear to have survived

our oceans are becoming more acidic as the CO2 levels in our atmosphere rise, is looking at how corals might adapt and survive ocean acidification in the future by creating those future sea conditions in a lab setting and subjecting the currently living corals to tests in these conditions. The findings have been encouraging as they have found that certain genetic subsets are much more tolerant than others in warmer and more acidic seawater.

Naturally, the more tolerant corals are the ones being used, at this point, for replication through fragmentation.

Additionally, to avoid the chance of in-breeding, this restoration program uses more than 45 different genetic subsets of the same species, putting them in close proximity to similar reef areas. So that when these newly

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Perspectives

Mote POR 2014

A nursery of staghorn coral posts and trees, planted by the Mote team.

outplanted corals mature and begin to reproduce, they are enhancing the likelihood of carrying on some of the genetic material that has allowed them to survive in more acidic and warming waters.

Today, conservation of our oceans is a top-tier concern for the health of our planet as the state of our oceans affects each and every human in some way. Our corals and coral reefs are keystone elements of our marine ecosystem, helping it thrive, and the

decline in their health is a warning sign that something needs to be done.

Corals and coral reefs are also critical in maintaining a strong domestic economy. According to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the US Department of Commerce, reef-related activities generate approximately US $6 billion in revenue in South Florida and more than US $15 billion statewide annually, with both the commercial and recreational value of the fisheries

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supported by coral reefs amounting to more than US $750 million annually in the Florida Keys alone.3 References 1. Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [online] (2014) http://floridakeys.noaa.gov.

2. Corals. NOAA Fisheries [online] (2014) http://www. nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/invertebrates/corals.htm.

3. National Marine Sanctuaries. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [online] (2014) http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/science/socioeconomic/ floridakeys.

Alahmed, M. (2015). An Emerging Mystery: A View of Saudi Arabia through a Photographer’s Lens. Solutions 6(2): 23-26. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/an-emerging-mystery-a-view-of-saudi-arabia-through-a-photographers-lens/

Perspectives An Emerging Mystery: A View of Saudi Arabia through a Photographer’s Lens

by Maisam Alahmed

Sebastian Farmborough

An Emerging Mystery

I

was born and raised in Alkhobar, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.

Growing up in Saudi, I honestly had everything a girl like me could ask for in this world: a loving family, a good education, free health care, and a safe and secure environment. According to the standards of the world happiness report, I was happy, and I truly did feel extremely blessed and content.

While wars and conflicts were being waged across the globe in places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, and Lebanon, while people starved in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, and Burundi, and while girls were being trafficked in places like Thailand, Cambodia, and India, I was safely

tucked in a bubble that made my world seem like a paradise compared to any other place. How could anyone not want to live in Saudi Arabia?

Eventually, the right time came for me to explore and experience the world outside of my safe haven, and I decided to go to the United States to pursue higher education. However, what I saw of how the majority of the West perceived Saudi Arabia appalled me. Women are oppressed in Saudi, one would say. Yet here I stand, an independent college student with my full tuition paid by my government.

Women are confined to their houses and are not allowed to leave without a male guardian, another would claim.

Yet I spent my teenage years hanging

out at the mall with my friends and dining in restaurants across Khobar Corniche beach. Saudi is full of terrorists and safety problems, some would argue. Yet I have never felt safer and more respected as a woman than in my hometown. The perception of Saudi was terrible, and the knowledge was lacking.

I found myself constantly having to defend my country, my leaders, our values, our culture, and our religion, as the gap between our two cultures continued to grow.

When Sebastian Farmborough first accepted a job in Saudi Arabia to teach English to executives at a petrochemical company, he expected to stay there for a year, save some money, fly under

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Perspectives

Sebastian Farmborough

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Perspectives

Sebastian Farmborough

A Desert Rose

the radar, and then return to Spain where he was residing at the time.

Little did he know that not only would he spend the next three years living in Saudi Arabia, but that he would come to enjoy his time there exploring the beautiful reality of the Saudi Kingdom and its people.

Farmborough was born and raised in England, but lived and worked in several countries such as the US, Spain, and Chile before finding himself drawn to the Arab world and its way of life.

Farmborough was very skeptical before moving to Saudi. His perception of the country, similar to that of the majority of Westerners, was negative. He was expecting to be alone in a closed and conservative environment, facing security and safety issues, and a lack of hospitality in general.

What Farmborough saw upon his

arrival struck him. Everything he had seen and learned from the media about Saudi Arabia was the complete opposite. The people were welcoming and extremely hospitable, and the culture was different yet inviting and appealing.

At that moment, Sebastian decided it was time to pick up on an old hobby that he hadn’t attended to since his high school days: photography.

When Sebastian told his family and friends about what he was seeing and experiencing in Saudi, and how the world’s view is anything but accurate, they did not believe him. He started taking evidential photos to send back home to prove to them what he saw, and with that his artistic project was born. Farmborough wanted to use his photos to send a message to the Western world about real Saudi citizens and their lives.

Sebastian was not only touched by the extreme generosity and hospitality that he received from Saudis, but by the different culture he witnessed as well. Strong family ties, ardent lifetime friendships, and extreme faith gave him the determination to pursue this project and to change the image that the West has of the Kingdom. His project aims to humanize Saudis, and to portray them in a light that shows their noble characteristics, such as their generosity, their respect for elders, their social relationships, and their cultural and religious values.

Although his project does not particularly focus on women in the Kingdom, Farmborough has dedicated a part of his project to portray the true lives of Saudi women, focusing on their strength, their independence, and their lifestyles in general. This part was inspired due to the many stories he

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Perspectives

Sebastian Farmborough

An Emerging Mystery

previously heard and read in the West that portray Saudi women as dark and mysterious “objects” who are oppressed and denied their basic rights. This is yet another image that Farmborough aims to change as he saw and met women in the country who were living their lives normally, yet differently than both the women in Western cultures and the misconceptions.

Now living in Dubai, Sebastian continues to pursue his artistic project by working with photographers in the advertising industry. He is hoping to soon get permission from the Saudi government to re-enter the country and be able to complete his photography project. In the meantime, various Arabic media sources, news channels, and talk shows continuously interview him about his work in an attempt to promote his project and get the Kingdom and its citizens excited and cooperative to help him build a bridge between Saudi Arabia and the West.

It has been almost four years now since I left Saudi Arabia to pursue my Bachelor’s degree in Boston, Massachusetts, and during those years, I have traveled across the world trying to find new adventures in every place I landed. In Istanbul, Turkey, I happened to come across Sebastian’s work. Browsing through his photos, I knew that I was not alone in battling the harsh views the West had of my country. I also felt proud; proud of my people who welcomed Sebastian into their homes and allowed him to experience and see for himself what life is truly like in the Kingdom, and thus his project was inspired. I was also proud of Sebastian and his work. It takes a great deal of courage, compassion, and understanding to dedicate one’s work to stand up for a culture, a country, and a religion that is different from his own. His project gives me hope that if we worked collaboratively as Arabs and Westerners,

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we could indeed change not just the Western perception of the Arab world, but the Arab perception of the West as well.

Sebastian Farmborough’s project, with his lead photo “An Emerging Mystery,” is an ideal way to start bridging the cultural gaps between Saudi Arabia and the West. These photographs will have the strength to speak not only for me, but for many citizens in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There is great importance in bringing these two different worlds together through his images.

“Essentially, we are the same, with the same basic needs and aspirations.

If only we could communicate better and try to understand and accept our differences. Neither of our cultures is perfect, but perhaps by combining values from both we might be a lot closer to attaining that.”

The world needs to see what Sebastian saw through his lens.

Penniman, L. (2015). Radical Farmers use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow. Solutions 6(2): 27-32. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/radical-farmers-use-fresh-food-to-fight-racial-injustice-and-the-new-jim-crow/

Perspectives Radical Farmers use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow

by Leah Penniman

Jonah Vitale-Wolff

Participants in Project Growth pose after mulching the blueberries at Soul Fire Farm. Author is third from the right.

If we are to create a society that values black life, we cannot ignore the role of food and land.

I

n August, five young men showed up at Soul Fire Farm, a sustainable farm near Albany, New York, where I work as an educator and food justice coordinator. It was the first day of a new restorative justice program, in partnership with the county’s Department of Law. The teens had been convicted of theft, and as an alternative to incarceration, chose this opportunity to earn money to pay back their victims while gaining farm skills. They looked wary and unprepared, with gleaming sneakers and averted eyes.

“I basically expected it to be like slavery, but it would be better than jail,” said a young man named Asan.

“It was different though. We got paid and we got to bring food home. The farmers there are black like us, which I did not expect.”

“I could see myself having my own farm one day,” he added.

As staff at Soul Fire, we were attempting to meet a challenge presented to us by Curtis Hayes Muhammad, the veteran civil rights activist: “Recognize that land and food have been used as a weapon to keep black people oppressed,” he said, while sitting at our dinner table months earlier. “Recognize also that land and food are essential to liberation for black people.”

Muhammad explained the central role that black farmers had played during the civil rights movement, coordinating campaigns for desegregation and voting rights as well as providing food, housing, and safe haven for other organizers. With his resolute and care-worn eyes, immense white Afro, and hands creased with the wisdom of years, this was a man who inspired us to listen attentively so that we might stand on the shoulders of activists who had gone before.

“Without black farmers, there would have been no Freedom Summer—in fact, no civil rights movement,” he said.

Arguably, the seminal civil rights issue of our time is the systemic

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Perspectives racism permeating the criminal “justice” system of the United States.

The Black Lives Matter movement has brought to national attention the fact that people of color are disproportionately targeted by police stops, arrests, and police violence. And once they’re in the system, they tend to receive subpar legal representation and longer sentences, and are less likely to receive parole. The deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of police in Missouri and New York were not isolated incidents but part of a larger story of state violence toward people of color.

And yet, state violence is only one among many dangers. The biggest killers of black Americans today are not guns or violence but diet-related diseases, including heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. These illnesses affect minorities at greater rates than white people, in part because of a broken food system that allows only certain populations to access healthy food while subsidizing low-quality food for the rest.

Black youth are well aware that these systems do not value their lives.

“Look, you’re going to die from the gun or you are going to die from bad food,” one young man said while visiting Soul Fire Farm. “So there is really no point.”

This fatalism, a form of internalized racism, is common among black youth in the U.S. It’s a clear sign that this country needs a united social movement to rip out racism at its roots and dismantle the caste system that makes these young people unable to see that their beautiful black lives do matter.

Because society’s racism is glaringly apparent in the criminal justice system, many activists are building the foundation of the movement we need by starting there.

Crystal Clarity

Jalal Sabur stands in front the cooperatively-owned and vegetable oil-powered Victory Bus he uses to drive families and food to prisons in upstate New York.

Combining Prison Visits with Farm-fresh Food In 2009, black farmer and prison abolitionist Jalal Sabur helped to start the Freedom Food Alliance, a collective of farmers, political prisoners, and organizers in upstate New York who are committed to incorporating food justice to address racism in the criminal justice system.

Sabur says he was inspired by conversations with the political prisoner Herman Bell, who has been incarcerated 40 years for his role in the Black Liberation Army. He was convicted of killing two police officers, although he continues to maintain his innocence.

While incarcerated, Bell collaborated with others to start the Victory Gardens project, which brought urban and rural folks together to plant, grow, tend, and harvest organic fruits and vegetables in Maine.

Between 1995 and 2005, the Victory Gardens project distributed food for free to political prisoners and community residents around Maine and New Jersey, as well as in Boston,

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Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx.

Bell has said that the Victory Gardens project is based on the idea that only through collective self-help can people improve their conditions.

“I wanted to find a way to recreate that transformative work,” Sabur says.

One of the Freedom Food Alliance’s central efforts is the Victory Bus Project, a program that reunites incarcerated people with their loved ones while increasing access to farm-fresh food.

The New York State Department of Corrections once operated free buses for visitors to all 54 facilities across the state but shut the program down in 2011 for budgetary reasons, leaving many of its 2,120 monthly passengers with no way to see their family members.1 Sabur purchases produce and eggs from local farmers and puts together large food packages, which families of prisoners can purchase for US $50 using SNAP/EBT (formerly known as food stamps). Once they purchase the food, families get a free round trip to visit their loved ones at correctional facilities in upstate New York. Families

Perspectives

Maura Ewing

Jalal Sabur dropping off Rita and Lincoln Dozier, Victory Bus Project trip participants, after a visit to see an incarcerated family member.

may choose to give the food to prisoners as a care package, take it home, or both. While on the bus, Jalal facilitates conversations about the prison-industrial complex and food justice, using texts such as Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.

For Sabur, one of the most powerful moments in the history of the Victory Bus Project was the reunion between political prisoner Robert Seth Hayes and his granddaughter, Myaisha Hayes.

“It was the first time she had seen her granddad in years,” Sabur says. “It was really powerful to witness this, not only the connection between them but also knowing he was getting the fresh food that he needed to manage his diabetes.”

Teaching Convicted Black Teenagers How to Grow Food Soul Fire Farm joined the Freedom Food Alliance in 2014, supporting the Victory Bus Project with produce and providing a place to work and learn for young people enrolled in Project Growth, Albany County’s new restorative justice program. Advocates of restorative justice argue that incarceration and other forms of punishment brought by the state against an assumed or convicted offender escalate a cycle of violence, and that it makes more sense for a person who has harmed another to restore the relationship. The only problem is that this often means paying out. A teenager who has damaged a vehicle, for

example, would need to pay the owner for the cost of repairs. These payments are known as restitution.

A longtime friend of mine and customer of Soul Fire Farm, Jillian Faison, works as an attorney for Albany County.

She says that restitution was the main sticking point when she advised the county’s Department of Law to try out restorative justice. The courts hesitated to require teenagers to pay restitution because the young people had no means of acquiring the funds. It was simpler to mandate more punitive measures.

“There needs to be a way for the youth to earn money to compensate their victims and have a meaningful work experience in the process,” Faison explained.

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Perspectives

Leah Penniman

Project Youth participants plant turnip seed at Soul Fire Farm.

After researching the strongest restorative justice programs in the US, Jillian helped to create Project Growth in 2013 and brought Soul Fire Farm on as a pilot partner.

The following year, Project Growth brought small groups of convicted teenagers to nonprofit organizations such as Albany City Rescue Mission, Senior Services of Albany, and Soul Fire Farm for internships where they learned job skills and earned money to pay their restitution. Most of them owed their victims less than US $500 and were able to keep their wages once those obligations were met. Project Growth’s pilot year was funded by the Albany County Legislature and designed by Mission Accomplished Transition Services and Soul Fire Farm.

For the staff at Soul Fire Farm, Project Growth was about more than just restitution. We agreed with the position of Malcolm X in his “Message to Grass Roots,” a speech he delivered in 1963. “Revolution is based on land,” he said. “Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.”2 We saw Project Growth as an opportunity for these young men to heal relationships with their communities, the land, and themselves, as well as to recognize their potential to be agents of change in society. We wanted to make sure the participants knew we saw them as valuable human beings right from the start.

So, on the first day, we began by asking for their stories.

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“My original charge was loitering, and then once I was in the system, everything got harder and started getting out of control,” said a young man named Ben. As others spoke, we learned that his story was not unique—in fact, most of the young men’s first arrests had been for loitering. I shared with the group that loitering laws were part of the vagrancy statutes included in the Black Codes. These were laws written to control the black population after Reconstruction, a set of policies that followed the Civil War. The teens started to make eye contact.

I asked the participants to tell me what they thought was broken about the criminal justice system and then co-create a list of suggested

Perspectives policy changes with the New York State Prisoner Justice Coalition, a group that holds its strategic planning meetings here at Soul Fire Farm. Among many suggestions, the participants identified the need for access to good lawyers who actually defend the accused rather than “making them cop a plea” (slang for a plea bargain, an arrangement where the defendant pleads guilty in exchange for a more lenient sentence). The young men also explained that discrimination against people with a criminal record makes it harder to get into college, get a job, or find housing.

Staff members at the farm also did what they could to make sure that the young men in Project Growth gained tangible, land-based skills in addition to the wages they earned.

Together we transplanted kale, handseeded turnips, packed vegetables into boxes for distribution, cooked meals for the farm crew and our guests, and studied the business of running a farm.

We made time for personal reflection and introspection as well. One afternoon, we challenged the participants to sit alone in the farm’s forest for 15 minutes making observations of their external and internal environments. At first, the young men got up from their spots to seek out the company of others or initiated loud call-and-response games to break the isolation. It took several tries to actualize this activity, which was so foreign from their daily experiences.

“I know we were supposed to be looking at nature or something, but I was just thinking about how I want to be an engineer,” Ben said during the conversation afterwards. So we had an impromptu career counseling session for the whole group, which was perfect.

“The most amazing moment for me was when they all took their shoes off and stepped into the mud,” says Carmen Duncan, Project Growth’s facilitator. “They went from being highly ambivalent at the beginning of the day, then seeing how they weren’t being judged and could just be themselves at the end of the day—barefoot.

If there was a word for this it would be…fantabulous!”

This summer, we plan to bring Project Growth alumni back to the farm as mentors for the newer participants.

But land and food have also been used as a weapon to keep people of color in second-class citizenship.

In the 19th century, the United States government sanctioned the slaughter of buffalo to drive Native Americans off of their land.6 And in the 1950s and 1960s, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Federal Housing Administration denied access to farm credit and other resources to any black person who joined the NAACP, registered to vote, or signed any petition pertaining to civil rights.7

“Without black farmers, there would have been no Freedom Summer—in fact, no civil rights movement.”

—Curtis Hayes Muhammad

Land and Food are Essential to the Black Lives Matter Movement For generations, black activists have made sure that farms and food played a role in the struggle for civil rights and dignity. Today, we stand on the shoulders of Fannie Lou Hamer, who created the Freedom Farm Cooperative in Mississippi in 1969 to provide food, housing, and education to families targeted by racism in the Delta region.3 We stand on the shoulders of the Black Panthers, who created free breakfast programs for children, along with other essential community survival initiatives across the United States in the 1960s.4 We stand on the shoulders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who both inspired and supported the 1965–1970 Delano Grape Boycott, a campaign to create just working conditions for Latino farmworkers.5

According to the think tank Race Forward, even today, blacks, Latinos, and indigenous people are more likely than whites to earn lower wages, receive fewer benefits, and are more likely to live without access to healthy food.8 Black people also own less than one percent of the nation’s farmland, just a fraction of the 14 percent they owned in 1920.7 “Police shootings are modern day lynching, and lynching was the tool used by white supremacists to drive black folks off of their valuable land and out of Mississippi,” says Dr. Monica White, president of the board at the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. “We still see a systemic failure to value black lives in terms of policing, access to food, education transportation, etc. The issue is privilege and oppression. It’s the same communities dealing with policing issues and bad food.”

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Perspectives White’s comments point to an essential truth: if we are to create a society that values black life, we cannot ignore the role of food and land.

I believe that black people’s collective experience with slavery and sharecropping has created an aversion to the land and a sense that the land itself is an oppressor. The truth is that without good land and good food we cannot be truly free. The Freedom Food Alliance represents one important voice among many insisting that the senseless deaths of our black brothers and sisters by all forms of violence—police shooting, diet-related illness, economic marginalization—must end.

Owning our own land, growing our own food, educating our own youth, participating in our own healthcare and justice systems—this is the source of real power and dignity.

References 1. Advocates want free bus service to state prisons reinstated. The Associated Press [online] (2014). http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2012/08/ advocates_want_free_bus_servic.html.

2. Malcolm X. Message to Grassroots.

TeachingAmericanHistory.org [online] (2014). http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/ document/message-to-grassroots/.

3. Moye, T. Freedom Hhammer. Southern Changes 22(1) (2000). http://beck.library.emory.edu/ southernchanges/article.php?id=sc22-1_018.

4. Community Survival Programs. PBS.org [online] (2002). http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/ actions_survival.html.

5. The 1965–1970 Delano Grape Strike and Boycott.

United Farm Workers [online] (2014). http://www. ufw.org/_board.php?mode=view&b_code=cc_his_ research&b_no=10482.

6. Jawort, A. Genocide by other means: US Army slaughtered buffalo in Plains Indian Wars.

Indian Country Today Media Network [online] (2011). http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork. com/2011/05/09/genocide-other-means-us-armyslaughtered-buffalo-plains-indian-wars-30798.

7. The Civil Rights Years (1954–1968). PBS.org [online] (2014). http://www.pbs.org/itvs/homecoming/ history5.html.

Leah Penniman

8. Food justice. Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation [online] (2012). https://www. raceforward.org/research/reports/food-justice.

Two participants in Project Growth and Soul Fire Farm’s manager, Jonah Vitale-Wolff, admire the vegetables that they harvested and prepared for lunch.

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Starin, D. (2015). A Place for Creative Growth. Solutions 6(2): 33-37. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/a-place-for-creative-growth/

Perspectives A Place for Creative Growth

by Dawn Starin

T

he late Judith Scott was born with Down syndrome, went deaf as a child, and never learned how to speak. For over three decades she languished in a Dickensian institution until her twin sister, Joyce, enrolled her in the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, California where she eventually created extraordinary and idiosyncratic fragile sculptures. With tenacious intensity, working five days a week for eighteen years, Judith produced over 200 cocoon-like sculptures at the center.1 Now, with her recent private show at the Brooklyn Museum’s Sackler Center for Feminist Art, rave reviews being published in the international press, and her creations finding homes in worldwide collections, Judith Scott has truly come into her own.2 Tom di Maria, former Assistant Director of the U.C. Berkeley Art Museum and Creative Growth’s director since 2000, recognizes that “when you ask someone to participate in society, to tell you their story, to express themselves, and like Judith, they had been silenced or have not been asked to do this before, the results can be astonishing.”3 For just over 40 years the non-profit organization Creative Growth Art Center has provided developmentally, emotionally, mentally and/ or physically disabled artists with a professional studio and gallery exhibition space, expert representation to an international artistic community, and a social environment amongst peers.4 Today the center is ‘home’ to over 160 adult artists engaged in a variety of inspired and imaginative artistic mediums: ceramics, collages, drawing, dressmaking, fiber arts,

Dawn Starin

Every surface in the Creative Growth Art Center studio is covered with art work.

painting, photography, printmaking, rug making, tapestry, video animation, and woodworking.

Ranging in age from 22 to 89 years old, many of the artists have previously lived in isolation or been institutionalized, while others live independently or have spent their entire lives with their families.

Among them, a variety of cultures, backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and disabilities are represented and many languages are spoken—though some do not speak or are unable to use language. To be eligible to participate, an individual must live in the Bay Area of California, be at least 22 years old with a disability, and have an interest in art.

Over the years, Creative Growth Art Center has grown into a studio program that is now open five full days per week from 9:30 am to 3.30 pm, staffed by five administrative staff and

23 instructors, all professional artists, and 40 volunteers and interns. Outside this weekly adult program, a Saturday morning two-month summer program is also run for disabled, artistic high school students where they receive individual attention and have the thrill of seeing their artwork exhibited and sold in the gallery.

Since its inception, Creative Growth has played a major role in increasing the public’s interest in the artistic capabilities and achievements of people with disabilities.

As a testament to its success and the various artists’ immense talents, some of the artworks sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Work fostered in this unique environment has been included in international collections and prominent museums, and three of their artists have had their work acquired by the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

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Perspectives Its international presence is further enhanced by a showroom in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

It is easy to see why. Opening the door of the center, there is an immediate explosion of creativity, inventiveness, and joy as one walks through the gallery—thought to be the largest and the oldest exhibition space dedicated to the art of people with disabilities. The colorful, cubist clay masks, whistles, and paintings

by Cedric Johnson, the sophisticated, compelling black and white drawings crammed full of rows of haunting figures by Donald Mitchell, the quirky, fun-filled paintings and ceramics

by Terri Bowden, the forceful and yet totally enigmatic cocoon-like sculptures of Judith Scott, and more, so, so much more—all of it the result of astonishing creativity, talent, encouragement, and inspiration—fills the gallery. Something about these pieces of art makes it almost impossible not to stop and look and stand in awe. I can understand why so many contemporary, international artists are inspired by the talent displayed on the walls, the floors, and the plinths.

Walking from the gallery into the studio, the exuberance of total concentrated creativity explodes into the sun-filled room. At one table a number of artists are creating ‘avant-garde’ outfits. At another table three artists are working with ceramics. At a third table a number of artists are drawing.

Individuals who would normally have no access to complete self-expression and total creativity have been given an oasis where they can learn and express themselves, and they can do this as part of a community.

The original impetus behind Creative Growth came from the artist/ educator Florence Ludins-Katz and her clinical psychologist husband Elias Katz over 40 years ago, when they invited a group of adults with

The members of this community of artists inspire, learn from, and support one another on their creative paths, and in the process, they grow both as artists and as people.

Dawn Starin

Judith Scott invented her own art form, spending years weaving, sewing, knotting, and twisting colorful and compelling fiber art.

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Perspectives

Dawn Starin

This colorful, cubist clay mask was created by Cedric Johnson.

disabilities into their home to create artwork. Eventually they obtained a National Endowment for the Arts grant and opened the Creative Growth Art Center (formerly Creative Growth) as a part-time program with six students. What started out as a simple home-grown idea in a California Bay Area garage has now become an internationally renowned art program housed in a former car showroom in midtown Oakland.

It is clear that the artists are having fun. It is also clear, however, that

artistic endeavors are taken seriously here. Artwork in almost every known medium decorates the walls and floors and hides in files, cardboard boxes, bins, cubby-holes and closets.

Hundreds of items thoughtfully created and lovingly displayed or protected threaten to burst out of the room and take over the rather drab, grey Oakland Street.

All the artwork on display (and much of it not on display) is for sale, and each time something is sold, the artist receives half the money and the

center keeps half. Everyone here— even if they don’t sell anything—gets a check every quarter from a communal pool made up of the items sold for less than 25 dollars.

Having worked with Barneys, Marc Jacobs, Nordstrom, and other wellknown businesses, Creative Growth is not afraid of being seen as ‘commercial.’ In fact, they see it as a way for their artists to participate in society and change people’s perceptions about what disability is and is not and how disabled people can participate in society. Di Maria feels strongly that “our artists are earning an income from their work, not in institutions, not selling Christmas cards or pencils.

It rocks my world.”

Forty years ago, when Florence Ludins-Katz and Elias Katz first envisioned that selling the artists’ work should play an important part in the life of the center, they probably did not anticipate that the works would be selling in world-famous art fairs and be included in major collections and museums around the globe.

While this program provides the artists with an income, it also ensures that they receive recognition, encourages increased participation in a community, decreases social isolation, and supports a sense of self-worth and self-sufficiency. The members of this community of artists inspire, learn from, and support one another on their creative paths, and in the process, they grow both as artists and as people.

But the creative, caring, and professional accomplishments don’t end with providing a professional studio environment for artistic development, gallery exhibition, and representation.

This center also serves as an advocate for the disabled while providing them with educational and independentliving training, counselling, and vocational opportunities within a comfortable and safe physical and

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Perspectives social atmosphere. The Center also offers services to teachers, caregivers, families, therapists, and other persons who work in the fields of arts and disabilities. Creative Growth has played a significant role in increasing public interest in the artistic capabilities and achievements of people with disabilities while their public education efforts include the publication of award-winning monographs on outstanding individual artists with disabilities.

According to di Maria, “It is important not to romanticize the art or the artists. Obviously, disability is a very important part of who the artist is and where their art comes from, but the art is contemporary art and the artist is a contemporary artist.”

Steven Garen, an artist, has worked at Creative Growth for three years, first as a volunteer and now as a gallery assistant. Garen feels strongly that the center is a beneficial hub for both the clients and the artists who visit and volunteer at the center. “This is a special place where people’s personalities are allowed to flourish and they are able to express themselves in a way they cannot do in public. This is a home away from home for many of them. For them it is a safe and secure haven where they are free to be who they are, free to express their inner selves.”5 For me as an artist and the other artists who work or visit here, this place is inspirational. As Garen says, “every day I am inspired and amazed by the creativity that surrounds me.”

While the program is artist-run and artist-led, it does not teach, guide, or steer people in one direction or another. It does not offer therapy or instruction and it is not a drop-in center. According to di Maria, “We are not sophisticated and we do not demand or even expect certain models of success. We believe art

Dawn Starin

Cedric Johnson doesn’t just make ceramic whistles, he also plays them.

is an essential part of the human experience, everyone has the ability to create art, and artistic expression is an important means of self-growth. We believe in our artists and because we believe, the artistic responses we get are astonishing.” Di Maria feels that the work created here is the “purest form of spontaneous expression by people who are creating a world, or environment, with their art; a world that they genuinely expect to live in or see around them.”

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As I wander around the Center, it strikes me that I am not just visiting a gallery and a studio. I am visiting a community—a community where both creativity and creative camaraderie blossom. This is a community of friends and colleagues who are not just creating works of art, they are also socializing, learning, laughing, conversing and collaborating. And, this safe, simple, secure, and encouraging environment has made it possible for this community—this tight-knit

Perspectives

Dawn Starin

Legally blind Terri Bowden at work in the studio. Terri’s artworks include whimsical drawings and ceramics.

creative group of individuals—to reach out to the larger community outside these glass plated windows and be accepted.

In the outside world, serious participation in a community is often denied to the disabled. Creative Growth has given the artists a community of peers within which they create, and it has also allowed them to become part of a larger community—the community of contemporary artists. By presenting their work in significant museums and galleries, and by positioning their work alongside noted academically trained artists and designers, Creative Growth has shown that the work created by the disabled is something to be valued. And over time, the

Creative Growth participants often see themselves as artists, and the artwork they created and the responses they received, including the purchase of a piece of their work, act as validations of themselves as skilled and competent individuals. After all, being seen as an artist carries a certain amount of cachet both for the artist and for the society at large.

This means that the artist becomes a valued member of society and then society perceives disability in a new, valuable, and enlightened way. Quite simply, Creative Growth is helping to break down centuries-old barriers and prejudices about what it means to be disabled.

For most individuals with intellectual and developmental

disabilities in the United States, true integration into the social and economic life of the community remains a dream, not a reality. Here at the Center, dreams are painted, drawn, sculpted, sewn, sawed, woven, and carved into reality.

References: 1. Judith and Joyce Scott [online]. http:// judithandjoycescott.com/artwork.shtml.

2. Exhibitions: Judith Scott—Bound and Unbound.

Brooklyn Museum [online] (2014). http://www. brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/judith_scott/ touring.php.

3. Tom di Maria [personal communication with author] (November 2014).

4. Creative Growth Art Center [online]. www. creativegrowth.org.

5. Steven Garen [personal communication with author] (November 2014).

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Mitchell, R. (2015). 100 Years After the Genocide, Armenians and Turks Work to Heal. Solutions 6(2): 38-41. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/100-years-after-the-genocide-armenians-and-turks-work-to-heal/

Perspectives 100 Years After the Genocide, Armenians and Turks Work to Heal

by Audrey Pence

Lars Kjølhede Christensen

A commemoration of the Armenian genocide at Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey in 2013.

H

abab’s fountains in eastern Turkey ran dry in 1915. That year, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians who lived in the region were driven from their homes by the Turkish forces of the Ottoman Empire. They were sent on forced marches into the Syrian Desert that killed over a million people. As the two countries that emerged out of the break-up of the Ottoman empire, Turkey and Armenia have been at loggerheads over the massacres ever since. Armenians, and much of the rest of the world, say it was genocide.

Turkey refutes the label.

The Turkish-Armenian border is currently closed and diplomatic relations are at a standstill. While

reconciliation at a national level seems far-off, there are hopes that in this centennial year of the killings, grass-roots organizations can lead the way to greater understanding. The restoration of Habab’s fountains in 2011 by the Hrant Dink Foundation, an Istanbulbased NGO, are a symbol of that hope.

Over the past few years, young Turks, Kurds, and Armenians from the foundation are giving new life to the fountains while holding workshops for local residents. In turkey it’s still a crime to talk about the Armenian genocide, as it’s seen as an insult to “Turkishness’’ by casting the republic’s creation in a negative light. Such nationalistic sentiment can still be toxic—Hrant Dink was an Armenian

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reporter who pushed for reconciliation but was murdered in 2007 by a Turkish nationalist over the misguided perception that he was insulting the republic.

The foundation was created to continue Dink’s work of promoting dialogue.

Recently, there has been a general easing of restrictions, and a greater willingness to talk. In Habab, foundation members talked about the history of the fountains, why the water stopped running, and their restoration work.

Villagers began to share their own stories. Some had Armenian ancestors.

Others had ancestors that had evicted Armenians from their homes.

The genocide is commonly referred to as beginning on April 24, 1915, when Ottoman soldiers arrested

Perspectives

Chiaracomeluna

A vigil for Hrant Dink in Freedom Square in the city of Yerevan, Armenia after his murder in January 2007.

around 250 leaders and intellectuals of the minority Armenian community in Istanbul.1 Following this, over the course of three years an estimated 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in death marches to the Syrian Desert and by massacres committed by Ottoman soldiers.

While these events are well known in Armenia, they remain virtually unknown in Turkey, leading to mistrust and confusion that thwart diplomacy.

A July 2010 German Marshall Fund survey found that 55 percent of Turks opposed the ratification of a mooted opening of diplomatic ties with Armenia in 2009 during a brief thaw in relations between the two countries. Only 29 percent supported normalization of relations and an opening of the border.2

A survey by Boratav in 2009 found that coverage of Armenia-Turkey relations tends to focus on the state agenda and statements from politicians, disadvantaging the views of the other side in each situation and in turn affecting the views of each society.3 Yet, “perceptions of people are changing,” said Burcu Becermen, the Armenia/Turkey projects coordinator for the Hrant Dink Foundation.

“We can see that they’re opening up. They’re telling their stories. And they’re transforming.” Other civil society organizations have now begun using this strategy of open communication in the hope of restoring Turkish-Armenian relations, metaphorically making the water run again.

Repairfuture.net is an online forum where people from either side can come together to have dialogue over the issues and create more communication by voicing their opinions. Beyond Borders: Linking Our Stories brings together Turkish and Armenian women to tell their stories at performance art workshops.

Actress Tuba Keles told SES Türkiye of the project, “We have listened to each other. We came together to tell our stories. We have experienced that the most efficient cure for the pains and for building communication is to establish eye-to-eye contact with each other.”

What is crucial here is for people from either side to get to know each other and share in each other’s stories

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Perspectives in order to begin the healing process.

Becermen said, “Hrant Dink had a saying like the Turkish society is paranoid, and the Armenian society is traumatized. And, they are not healed, and they will need a doctor to heal them. And, actually their doctor is for [the] Turkish, Armenians; for Armenians, it’s Turks. There is no one else who can really heal or improve that situation.”

It is important that Armenia and Turkey create a diplomatic relationship in order for both economies and societies to flourish. However, it is crucial that the societies be able to come together to have an open dialogue about the past and the present, and to not let another generation be born into a still bitter, unhealed memory.

As a TESEV report from 2010 said, “The role of civil society in the rapprochement process is paramount. Civil society debate allows for often complicated issues to be discussed, brings the sides closer together and creates momentum around rapprochement.”4 References 1. Elanchenny, S & Maraşlıyan, N. Breaking the Ice: The Role of Civil Society and Media in TurkeyArmenia Relations. Global Political Trends Center, Istanbul Kultur University [online] (2012). http://gpotcenter.org/dosyalar/BreakingTheIce_ ElanchennyMarasliyan_April2012.pdf.

2. Elanchenny, S & Maraşlıyan, N. Breaking the Ice: The Role of Civil Society and Media in TurkeyArmenia Relations. Global Political Trends Center, Istanbul Kultur University [online] (2012). http://gpotcenter.org/dosyalar/BreakingTheIce_ ElanchennyMarasliyan_April2012.pdf.

3. Elanchenny, S & Maraşlıyan, N. Breaking the Ice: The Role of Civil Society and Media in TurkeyArmenia Relations. Global Political Trends Center, Istanbul Kultur University [online] (2012). http://gpotcenter.org/dosyalar/BreakingTheIce_ ElanchennyMarasliyan_April2012.pdf.

4. Görgülü, A, Iskandaryan, A & Minasyan, S. Turkey-Armenia Dialogue Series: Assessing the Rapprochement Process. Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation [online] (2010). http:// www.tesev.org.tr/Upload/Publication/d0fd468bc642-444b-9d90-4662e2edef1e/Assessing%20 the%20Raprochment%20Process_05.2010.pdf.

A demolished bridge breaks the link between Turkey and Armenia.

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Perspectives

Martin Lopatka

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Short, K. (2015). Scaling Up Seafood Sustainability: An Illustrated Journey. Solutions 6(2): 42-54. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/scaling-up-seafood-sustainability-an-illustrated-journey/

Feature

Scaling Up Seafood Sustainability:

An Illustrated Journey

by Katherine Short

Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd.

Fishing for pā ua (abalone) in New Zealand. In 2014, Aotearoa Fisheries Limited and Terra Moana Limited conducted an Ecosystem Service Review of New Zealand pā ua, believed to be the first such review carried out in the fishing industry internationally.

In Brief After fifteen years of deep involvement in the sustainable seafood movement globally, it became apparent where the movement has excelled and where particular challenges remain. Two things are clear: the ecological health of oceans is still deeply threatened and funding is not always successfully appropriated to address these threats. The solutions proposed in this article come from both ecosystem service science and sustainable business and complement efforts to improve fisheries. These include practical ways of reducing overfishing, protecting marine habitats, and proving company sustainability commitment to society through eco-labelling schemes such as the Marine Stewardship Council.

Seafood is a significant source of food, and industry, governments, nongovernmental organizations, companies, and philanthropists care deeply about the health of fisheries and fish farming. The question is, who pays how much to fix the problems? Ecosystem service review, and, where data is strong enough, valuation, can be used to figure out which impacts are being caused by whom as well as who is dependent on nature and to what extent. This can then inform who could or should pay, and based on their level of responsibility or dependency, how much they should pay to fix problems. Lastly, increasing scrutiny is coming from investors, insurers, and financiers on company environmental, social, and governance performance. A new set of metrics has been developed to enable seafood companies to more consistently assess and measure their operations. This will improve the transparency of seafood production and support efforts to reduce not just their environmental impacts but also the social conditions under which seafood is produced.

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O

ceans cover almost three- quarters of the planet, hold 97 percent of its water, produce more than half of the oxygen in the atmosphere, and absorb the most carbon. We evolved from the oceans and they are crucial for life on planet earth.

The marine environment is also where we work, trade, recreate, and obtain food. About 40 percent of humanity lives within 100 kilometers of the coast and ocean-based businesses—from fisheries to tourism to energy generation and shipping— contribute more than US$500 billion to the global economy.

With increasing pressures and the degradation of many parts of the marine environment, including reduced fish and other species’ populations, there is a growing awareness that more holistic approaches are needed to manage our impacts on the marine realm.1 Since the famous, tumultuous, and catastrophic crash of the Newfoundland cod fishery and its eventual closure in 1992, much progress has been made in developing and applying economic incentives to improve fisheries management.2 The most successful of these is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), with 11 percent of the total wild marine fisheries harvest certified or under assessment. However, the MSC cannot deliver everything a sustainable fishery requires, including habitat and social sustainability.3 It simply wasn’t designed to do so.

This article describes academic and practical research applying ecosystem services to marine fisheries, including how this can empower the seafood sector to better manage fisheries and the habitats that they depend upon, better understand the relevant social context, fill knowledge gaps to complement certification, and communicate more transparently. The seafood sector is a broad description for those involved in the production of seafood, whether farmed or wild harvest, and includes the large and small fishing and seafood industries, fishers and fish farmers,

processing and logistics along the supply chain, as well as government and nongovernment organizations and science providers. There is a core of practitioners across this broad community who are increasingly working together to improve seafood sustainability. This work is bringing together the three worlds of marine and coastal ecosystem services, corporate transparency, and sustainable seafood.

Key Concepts • Government, industry, and nongovernment organizations foster fisheries improvement and marine health initiatives, yet only around 20 percent of global fisheries production is certifiable or improvable.

• Obstacles include sharing the fluid marine environment amongst users, often without explicit rights, and transforming at scale requires financing.

• Many parts of the solutions lie in ecosystem services approaches that include review, analysis, payments, and valuation, and enable more holistic understanding. Assessment can include impacts both from within the sea and from the land into the sea.

• Natural capital impacts and dependencies of all participants in a supply chain can be assessed and better quantified to enable clearer apportioning of who should pay how much to restore ecosystems.

• Efforts to improve seafood sustainability need to learn from sustainable business.

Why is a New Approach Required?

Globally, marine fisheries are simply not prioritized on state and international governmental agendas.

Fortunately, there is growing awareness and acceptance of the need for ecosystem approaches (EA), including in the Aichi Convention on Biological Diversity Targets (2011–2020) and in key jurisdictions such as under the European Common Fisheries Policy and the US Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Over the last 20 years, a number of nongovernmental and private sector initiatives have incorporated EA aspects with initial success, including the MSC and multi-stakeholder fisheries improvement projects. While this work has driven many improvements, it still needs to be underpinned by ecosystem-based legal, regulatory, and management reform.

Furthermore, while the marine environment has multiple users and influences, the costs associated with those uses and their impacts are largely opaque and usually inequitably shared—making it difficult to identify those causing the impact, to hold them accountable, and to adjust management accordingly.4 In fisheries, the costs of improvements falls largely on the fishers and are not often evenly distributed over the supply chain or consumers.

Although few, there are an increasing number of examples of consumers willing to pay a premium for MSC-certified seafood and of fisheries reaping greater rewards. However, other than in a few exceptional cases, such as the American Albacore fishery, these benefits rarely reach the fishers themselves.5

A Time for Change

Marine fisheries are in crisis internationally given overfishing, climate change, and pollution. Management systems, such as New Zealand’s Quota Management System, manage key aspects such as sustainable harvest levels, but they can also be fragmented, as well as receive insufficient attention to manage ocean health.

There is a willingness, especially within the seafood supply chain, to more directly support specific management measures to implement ecosystem approaches. Facets of the seafood supply chain are investing in fisheries improvement projects (FIPs), often through supporting fisheries towards the MSC.6 However,

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Ecosystem Services in Seafood—A Visual Journey Ecosystem service tools can be powerful for primary industries and contribute to building ecological, social, economic, and corporate resilience. This interdisciplinary systems analysis work links marine conservation, sustainable seafood, sustainable business, and academia and as such is complex. A series of illustrative infographics have been developed to depict the core concepts and interlinkages and to guide future development.

the sheer number of fisheries needing improvement means that this must be significantly scaled up. Industry empowerment also needs to be scaled up such that the seafood sector front foots improvement and is no longer driven there by NGO scrutiny, public campaigning, or the courts.6 The question is, who pays and how and can that investment occur through payment for ecosystem service (PES) frameworks? Academic and practical research conducted over the last four years has explored whether private sector supply chain investment could be deemed payment for ecosystem services in a marine context, what the methods could be to apply this in practice, whether this can contribute to rebuilding fisheries, and the challenges and opportunities of doing so.

Case studies such as the New Zealand pāua (abalone) industry, as well as international science and policy leaders in this space provide promising prospects for success.

A Model for Success Ecosystem services link ecosystem processes and human well-being in terms of the direct and indirect benefits people obtain from ecosystems. Efforts such as the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) have helped to socialize ecosystem services and foster their uptake in business.7 While some detractors have criticized this as utilitarian, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that ecosystem

services support both conservation efforts and sustainable use.8 For terrestrial ecosystems, such as in Namibia and Ecuador, PES has delivered both conservation and improved livelihoods. In fact, terrestrial PES models have evolved to the point of being highly context specific, returning benefits to local communities, improving environmental and ecological outcomes, and enabling meaningful collaboration across public, private, and community entities.9,10 On the coast and in the fluid marine environment, it is these context-specific responses that are required to foster ownership of local problem solving and solutions across multiple sectors (recreational, commercial, customary fishers, tourism, wildlife conservation, etc.). PES models can enable this.

Payment for Ecosystem Services in the Marine Environment PES conditions include voluntary transactions whereby a well-defined environmental service or a use that is likely to secure that service is being ‘bought’ by an environmental services buyer from an environmental services provider.11 This transaction is conditional and occurs only if the provider secures the promised ecosystem service. This holds promise for fisheries given that it focuses on using positive incentives and conditionality to influence behavior—fisheries management is after all about managing behavior, not fish! Both certification and eco-labelling have been identified as

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having potential PES mechanisms as there is a preferential market for more sustainable products.12 However, fisheries incentive analysis shows that this needs further development in practice and that specific PES conditions could strengthen fisheries improvement.13 Marine and coastal ecosystem service (MCES) analysis and quantification is a relatively young field being tested in specific sites such as the MesoAmerican Reef, Jamaica, and the Bird’s Head in Indonesia. In addition, the proposed global TEEB Oceans and Coasts will assess how to effectively apply ecosystem services.14 Market interest is growing in harnessing MCES including carbon sequestration, fish nurseries, water purification, and marine biodiversity, as well as developing payment approaches for this uncaptured value to finance conservation and sustainable management.15 However, reinforcing the need for accountability is this caution: “…there are no good measures or accountability systems for most marine ecosystem services, so ecosystem service characterization, quantification, and modelling will be central to these efforts.”16 MCES measurement frameworks are being developed to support accountable marine PES and include the condition of the ecosystem (supply metrics), the amount of ocean resources actually used or enjoyed by people (service metrics), and peoples’ preference for that level of service (value metrics).17 In addition, a Stanford University group has developed 30 indicators for seafood system sustainability assessments (see Infographic 5),18 which can guide best practices in seafood business corporate environmental reporting, especially if using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 or Integrated Reporting frameworks.19,20 This could improve the information available to the C-suite executive and board level management and their advisers (bankers, auditors, insurers, investors, etc.).21 This research has enabled understanding of how these elements could fit together

Annette Ellis

Infographic 1. Three worlds coming together: Using ecosystem service review and analysis can address ecological, economic, social, and cultural perspectives.

Being a best-practice business tool, it empowers businesses ownership and responsibility for their impacts and dependencies on nature and the environment.

It is an opportunity for corporate, science, public, and NGO entities to work together toward clear and achievable outcomes.

to strengthen a seafood company’s understanding of its impact and dependencies on natural capital, biodiversity, and ecosystem services (i.e. what are the material issues?), use a consistent set of seafood sector-specific metrics to track management to address those impacts and dependencies, and report transparently. Although gradually increasing, currently only a handful of large seafood businesses (excluding retail and restaurants) are reporting using GRI G4, yet none have consistent metrics, nor current guidance on how to apply the materiality analysis required under the G4 specifically to seafood.22

A Progression in Fisheries Management While internationally fisheries policy and management improvements, such as the 1995 United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (2003), have been increasingly well received, there is much debate on the status of fishery and ecosystem health overall.23 To counter the decline of marine fisheries, many experts have called for ecosystem approaches.24 Agreement also exists about the significantly increased

wealth potential of rebuilt marine fisheries, the significant cost of recovering them, and the need for collaboration. According to Sumaila and colleagues (2012), it’s a worthwhile investment, with research showing that restoration can increase productivity four-fold and decrease variability by 21 percent on average.

Economically, estimates are that a fishery rebuilding investment of about US$203 billion would result in benefits surpassing costs after 12 years.25 Interdisciplinary tools, including certification, marine spatial planning, bycatch reduction, and fisheries and

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Annette Ellis

Infographic 2. Seafood ecosystem service assessment: Applying ecosystem services in seafood requires starting with as clear an understanding as possible of the qualitative and quantitative values of an ecosystem (social, cultural, ecological, and economic). In many cases this will require a full marine ecosystem service review and, where data is strong enough, valuation (using the most appropriate valuation approach). Once this has occurred, goals can be set and ways to achieve those goals identified. These can include fisheries improvement projects (FIPs), certification such as through the Aquaculture and Marine Stewardship Councils, or other measures such as marine spatial planning and habitat restoration.

habitat restoration projects are already being used by the seafood sector and could be expanded to embed fishery and ecosystem sustainability throughout supply chains, and so share the costs more equitably (see Infographic 4). Given the significant impact and dependence of the seafood sector on the marine environment, the question can be asked whether adapted PES models could guide investment, improve fisheries, and strengthen corporate accountability? These could operate alongside other sustainable fisheries financial initiatives including adapting the UN Principles for Responsible Investment to fisheries (UNEP 2009) and others.26-29

The First Global Ecosystem Service Review of a Commercial Seafood In 2014, the largest Māori-owned seafood company, Aotearoa Fisheries Limited (AFL), and Terra Moana Limited conducted a Qualitative Ecosystem Service Review of New Zealand pāua under the auspices of the New Zealand Sustainable Business Council Business and Biodiversity project.30,31 It is believed to be the first application of the Corporate ESR methodology to a commercial seafood.32 Pāua, the Māori name for abalone, is one of the most valuable AFL products. Traditionally, AFL canned the prime pāua meat, sold the trimmings

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to the nutraceutical sector and the shell to the ornamental and jewelry trade. This is changing, however, with increasing interest in live export by key Asian markets that are also being undermined by cheaper farmed products. Along with increasing pressures on all inshore New Zealand fisheries, AFL embarked on a sustainability journey to ensure that their fishing and business practices were aligned with community values and more deeply expressive of Kaitiakitanga, Maori for guardianship.33 The ESR offered AFL an opportunity to holistically evaluate both its dependence and impact on natural capital, biodiversity, and ecosystem

Annette Ellis

Infographic 3. Reconciling who pays for restoring marine fisheries: With ecosystem service analysis a seafood company, fishery, or product supply chain (group of companies linked by mutual interest in a species or place) can understand their relative impacts and dependencies on natural capital, biodiversity, and ecosystem services and can guide fairer sharing of restoration costs.

services relevant to pāua and to identify any business risks and opportunities. AFL’s pāua ESR is a first for the New Zealand seafood industry, and potentially internationally, and represents a steep change in fisheries management and industry empowerment. As Allyn Glaysher, the AFL Sustainability Director said, “We had never done anything of this nature in AFL. To be perfectly honest, it was a ‘leap of faith,’ an opportunity presented to us. We have been surprised at the amount of information we’ve got out of it and what it might mean going forward.”

The review identified priority shortterm actions: information needs (e.g. the effects of rising sea temperatures and changing acidity associated with climate change on pāua), internal changes, public policy engagement,

and collaborative ecosystem restoration. Into the future, PES schemes linking ecosystem service buyers and providers across the terrestrial–marine interface, or the coastal zone, could support ecological restoration, such as for kelp in the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand to recover pāua (see Infographic 6). This would also enable related species to recover, including the blue cod, popular with recreational fishers who could also participate in the PES scheme.

Onto the Sustainable Seafood Map This work was recently presented at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in New Orleans in February 2015, in a program titled, “Putting Ecosystem Services on the Sustainable Seafood Map.”34,35 The Summit is the premier gathering

of sustainable seafood leaders from across the seafood industry, retail, and support services including investment advisers, nongovernment and government organizations, science, and academia.

A panel demonstrated how natural capital and ecosystem services have great potential to strengthen sustainable seafood efforts in both the developed and developing world.

The global context was introduced, explaining current sustainable seafood gaps and how ecosystem service and natural capital approaches might fill them. Dr. Tundi Agardy described the basic science and policy of why ecosystem service perspectives can strengthen fisheries management, while Allyn Glaysher of the AFL described the aforementioned Sustainability Journey and ESR.

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Infographic 4. Bridging next generation sustainable seafood: Sustainability is a journey for all involved. Starting with getting ones’ house in order, becoming more proactive, collaborative, accountable, and transparent to include all environmental services, providers, and buyers, and returning rewards in improved staff morale, shareholder satisfaction, economic and environmental efficiency, and social licence to operate.

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Annette Ellis

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ECOLOGICAL SCORE

SOCIOECONOMIC SCORE

GOVERNANCE SCORE

Water quality

Native biodiversity

Equity

Free labour

Leadership

Legislation

Habitat integrity

Food-web integrity

Compliance with child labour laws

Socioeconomic development

Enforcement of legislation

Governance structure and function

Resilience

Stock abundancy

Education

Fair wages and benefits

Incentives

Management plan

Interaction with endangered species

Connectivity

Occupational health and safety

Fair conditions of employment

Harvest control

User involvement mechanisms

Bycatch

Chemicals/drugs/ pesticides

Traceability

Diversification

Defined boundaries and access rights

Presence of MPAs

These come from the Global Reporting Initiative G4 Reporting Framework, 2013 and a paper: Fiorenza Micheli, Giulio De Leo, Geoff G Shester, Rebecca G Martone, Salvador E Lluch-Cota, Cheryl Butner, Larry B Crowder, Rod Fujita, Stefan Gelcich, Monica Jain, Sarah E Lester, Bonnie McCay, Robin Pelc, and Andrea Sáenz-Arroyo 2014. A system-wide approach to supporting improvements in seafood production practices and outcomes.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12: 297–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/110257 – reproduced with permission. The Seafood Sector can report methodically using these and the GRI Food Processing Sector Supplement which is currently being reorganised to align with the G4 framework. This is a step towards full Integrated Reporting (IIRC) which is a deeper assessment of Natural Capital. N.B. The indicators are set randomly for illustration purposes only.

Annette Ellis

Infographic 5. R&D on tracking and metrics system is needed: These thirty indicators could significantly strengthen seafood company corporate reporting in both the GRI G4 and Integrated Reporting Frameworks.21 With refinement, it will become possible to calculate and weigh criteria to score across ecological, socioeconomic, and governance—of increasing interest to future employees, c-suite advisers, finance analysts, stock exchanges, investors, and insurers.

Annabelle Bladon, a PhD candidate at Imperial College London, explained her research into using PES, and specifically conservation trust funds, to enable fairer and more accountable financial support to the Bangladesh hilsa fishermen during the no-fishing season.36 Nia Evans, the Sustainability Manager at Sanford, introduced the company’s corporate report. Basing its

report on the GRI materiality analysis framework drives the company to consider its risks and dependencies on natural capital and ecosystem services, or as Sanford calls them, its enablers.

Discussion following the panel included concerns expressed by a Louisiana fisherman about the information costs for ecosystem approaches. From the audience,

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Fiorenza Micheli, David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science at Stanford University, responded, pointing to the efficiency opportunities from ecosystem approaches for both the seafood sector having their own information, and through more integrated management.

The following day, Terra Moana Ltd and Future of Fish,37 an

entrepreneur lab for sustainable seafood, co-hosted an exploratory workshop to further understand the challenges and breakthroughs associated with applying natural capital and ecosystem services to foster sustainable seafood globally.

Key informants included Mike Kraft, Sustainability Director for Bumblebee Tuna, Thomas Kraft, Managing Director of Norpac (a fresh tuna company), Micheli, who introduced the 30 indicators developed to enable seafood system-wide assessment and reporting (see Infographic 5), and Trip O’Shea of EKO Asset Management, a New York-based impact investment firm. Workshop participants included major seafood buyers from the U.S. and United Kingdom, impact investment advisers, social and marine scientists, nongovernment organizations, and other global seafood sector representatives, including from indigenous interests. Three conceptual pitches for why a company should use natural capital and ecosystem services arose, including very relevant fisheries improvement scenarios relating to pole and line tuna and baitfish, tropical reef ecosystems and local tourism, and Pacific Northwest watersheds, sustainable timber production, and salmon.

Feedback and interest in subsequent activity to develop these ideas was generous, and the resulting discussion among participants made clear the following points: 1. Interdisciplinary work is hard; 2. We each had whole or parts of solutions to each other’s challenges; 3. The immature science and lack of accountable financing are the greatest challenges; 4. There is a need to establish a collaborative consortium to provide a foundation upon which the opportunities of ecosystem services and PES can support seafood sustainability to go to scale, and that;

Devin Harvey

Katherine Short speaking at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in New Orleans in February 2015. Joining her on the panel, from left to right were Annabelle Bladon, Allyn Glaysher, and Nia Evans.

5. Learning from terrestrial experience shows ecosystem service approaches can address critical challenges in fisheries, including the following: • appropriate rights-based management frameworks, especially in indigenous and developing country contexts, through mechanisms such as conservation trust funds, and • accountability and producing quality outcomes for people, the supply chain, investors and, more importantly, nature.

Initiatives to progress the integration of the three spheres of ecosystem services, sustainable seafood, and corporate transparency for seafood will continue to be explored. AFL, Sanford, Terra Moana Ltd., and Future of Fish are working through options for progressing this work both internationally and in New Zealand, including with the New Zealand Sustainable Business Council.

Using ecosystem services offers a way to express multiple values about the natural world and so better share the responsibilities and costs for restoring the planet.

References 1. Grafton, Q & Kompas, T. Fisheries forever. Solutions [online] 4, 47–53 (2014). www.thesolutionsjournal. com/node/237110.

2. Marin Stewardship Council. Global impacts report 2014. [online] (2014). http://www.msc.org/ documents/environmental-benefits/global-impacts/ msc-global-impacts-report-2014.

3. Blomquist, J, Bartolino, V & Waldo, S. Price premiums for providing eco-labelled seafood: Evidence from MSC-certified cod in Sweden.

Journal of Agricultural Economics [online] (2015) (doi: 10.1111/1477-9552.12106).

4. Short, K. Exploring seafood sector evaluation of ecosystem services to guide investment in fisheries rebuilding (Master’s Thesis, Imperial College London, pp. 48) (2012).

5. Webster, N. Personal communication (2010).

6. Short, K. Stakeholder perspectives on ecosystembased management of marine fisheries: a basis for improved seafood sustainability? (Master’s Thesis, Imperial College London, pp. 65) (2011).

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Annette Ellis

Infographic 6. Ecosystem Service Review of New Zealand abalone (pā ua): The AFL ESR found that, among other threats to pā ua, sedimentation in the Marlborough Sounds was a severe impact and affected kelp habitat, and that in other locations where coastal native forest remained intact, there are more productive pā ua fisheries. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | March-April 2015 | Solutions | 53

7. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

Report for Business (Executive Summary) [online] (2010). http://www.teebweb.org.

8. Millenium Ecosystems Assessment. Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis (Island Press, Washington DC, 2005b).

9. Naidoo, R, Weaver, L, De Longcamp, M & Du Plessis, P. Namibia’s community-based natural resource management programme: an unrecognized payment for ecosystem services scheme.

Environmental Conservation [online] 38, 445–453 (2011). (doi:10.1017/S0376892911000476).

10. Herbert, T et al. Environmental funds and payments for ecosystems services: RedLAC capacity building project for environmental funds. RedLAC [online] (2010). http://redlac.org/.

11. Wunder, S. Payments for environmental services: some nuts and bolts. CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 42. Center for International Forestry Research [online] (2005). http://www.cifor.org/publications/ pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-42.pdf.

12. Zwick, S et al. Ecosystem marketplace paying Poseidon: financing the protection of valuable ecosystem services—ecosystem marketplace. IUCN, Forest Trends 40 [online] (2010). www.forest-trends. org/publication_details.php?publicationID=2375.

13. Bladon, A , M, Yassin & Milner-Gulland, E. 2014. A review of conservation trust funds for sustainable marine resources management: conditions for success. IIED Working Paper [online] (2014). http://pubs.iied.org/16574IIED. 14. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

TEEB Oceans [online]. http://teeboceans.org/.

15. Lau, WWY. Beyond carbon: Conceptualizing payments for ecosystem services in blue forests on carbon and other marine and coastal ecosystem services. Ocean and Coastal Management [online] (2012) (doi: 10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2012.03.011).

16. Chan, K & Ruckelshaus, M. Characterizing changes in marine ecosystem services. F1000 Biology Reports [online] 2, 54 (2010). http://f1000biology.com/ reports/10.3410/B2-54.

17. Tallis, H et al. New metrics for managing and sustaining the ocean’s bounty. Marine Policy 36, 303–306 (2012).

18. Micheli, M et al. A system-wide approach to

Katherine Short

Tony Craig from Terra Moana Ltd presents the Pacific North West watershed, forestry, and salmon ecosystem services model at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit in New Orleans in February 2015.

supporting improvements in seafood production practices and outcomes. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12, 297–305 (2014).

19. Global Reporting Initiative [online]. www.globalreporting.org.

20. International Integrated Reporting Council [online]. www.theiirc.org.

21. Investopedia. C-Suite [online] (2015). http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/c-suite.asp.

22. Highliner, Pacific Andes, Sanford, Bumblebee, Chicken of the Sea, Grieg Seafood, Leroy Seafood, Thai Union Frozen Products, Tassal (not exhaustive).

23. Worm, B et al. Rebuilding global fisheries. Science [online] 325, 578–585 (2009) (doi: 10.1126/science, 1173146.).

24. Tallis, H et al. New metrics for managing and

sustaining the ocean’s bounty. Marine Policy 36, 303–306 (2012).

25. Sumaila, U et al. Benefits of rebuilding global marine fisheries outweigh costs. PLoS ONE, [online] 7, 40542 (2012) (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040542).

26. Fish 2.0 [online]. www.fish20.org/.

27. 50-in-10 [online]. www.50in10.org/.

28. Prince Charles International Sustainbility Unit [online]. www.pcfisu.org/.

29. Sustainable Seafood Finance Project [online]. www.sustainableseafoodfinance.org.

30. Terra Moana Ltd. [online]. www.terramoana.co.nz.

31. Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd. Pāua as taonga [online] (2014). www.afl.maori.nz/documents/AFL%20 1501%20ESR%20Paua%20Book%20V7%20 %5BLR%5D.pdf.

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32. Hanson, C, Ranganathan, J, Iceland, C & Finisdore, J. The corporate ecosystem services review. World Resources Institute [online] (February 2012). http://www.wri.org/publication/corporateecosystem-services-review.

33. Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd. Sustainability strategy [online]. www.afl.maori.nz/documents/ AFLSustainabilityStategy281114_000.pdf.

34. Seafood Summit [online]. www.seafoodsummit.org.

35. Pandya-Dalal, S. Personal communication, February 2015.

36. Bladon, A, Short, K, Mohammed, E & MilnerGulland, E. Payments for ecosystem services in developing world fisheries. Fish and Fisheries [Online] (2014) (doi: 10.1111/faf.12095).

37. Future of Fish [online]. www.futureoffish.org.

Rasker, R. (2015). Resolving the Increasing Risk from Wildfires in the American West. Solutions 6(2): 55-62. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/resolving-the-increasing-risk-from-american-wildfires-in-the-american-west/

Feature

Resolving the Increasing Risk from Wildfires in the American West

by Ray Rasker

State Farm

A wildfire threatens a home near Possum Kingdom, Texas.

In Brief Wildfires have always been part of living in the American West, but today they are bigger, burn longer, cause more damage, and kill more people than ever before. This situation is getting significantly worse in large part because more and more people are choosing to live in forested landscapes, further risking lives and property and putting a significant strain on agency budgets. Add to this scenario the lingering effects of past management practices that have exacerbated fire danger and the expectation of continued changes to the Earth’s climate, and we have a management situation where the solutions don’t match the severity of the problem. This article describes the trends in wildfires, the challenge of defending private property, the solutions tried so far, and outlines new ideas that could significantly reduce costs and risks by altering the pattern of future home building on fire-prone lands.

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W

ildfires have always been part of living in the American West, but today they are bigger, burn longer, cause more damage, and kill more people than ever before. Much of this drama plays out on public lands of the West, where almost half of the land is managed by the federal agencies like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. From 2000 to 2013, 88 percent of wildfire acreage burned has occurred in the West.1

Wildfires Occur Primarily in the West The challenge of wildfires center in large part on the need to defend homes on private lands that are at risk from fires that originate either on private lands or nearby public lands. The term often used to describe these lands is the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI), defined in this paper as private land within 500 meters of forested federal land.2 Even though land use planning—the decision of where to allow the building of homes—is a local government responsibility, the cost of defending the homes from wildfires is often a state and federal burden. When a fire breaks out, regardless of where it started, land management agencies like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management spring into action, sending ground crews, helicopters, and air tankers to battle the blaze. The priority to defend private property sometimes comes with catastrophic results, as was the case last year when 19 elite firefighters died defending homes in Yarnell, Arizona.

The wildfire challenge is driven by two overriding problems. First, long-term trends indicate the costs and dangers associated with defending homes will continue to increase. In the West, 84 percent of these forested lands are not yet developed,3 the housing market has picked up once more, and climate change is acting as an accelerator, increasing the size and

intensity of fires as well as the length of the fire season.

Wildfire appropriations to the Department of the Interior and to the Forest Service have tripled from US$1 billion per year on average in the 1990s to US$3 billion on average annually from 2002 to 2012.4 Contemporary fires are more expensive for a number of reasons. Fires are larger in size,

Key Concepts • The threat of wildfires in the American West is growing due to past management practices, climate change, and the building of homes on fire-prone lands.

• Wildland firefighting budgets of federal land agencies have tripled in size in the last decade, driven in large part by the need to defend homes. As a result, funds that would otherwise be used to reduce risk (by reducing fuels, for example) are instead diverted to fire suppression.

• Solutions tried to date—voluntary landowner education and fuel reduction—are important but not sufficient given the magnitude of the problem and future trends.

• To create a strong incentive for improved land use planning and direct future home building away from fire-prone lands, local governments must bear a higher proportion of the firefighting costs.

• The federal government can create significant rewards for better planning through a community rating system, allocating funds and assistance to communities willing to reduce wildfire risk on private lands.

driven in part by climate change and fuel buildup resulting from past fire suppression. Fires are also becoming more expensive due to the high cost of defending an increasing number of homes. Estimates of the costs of defending homes from wildfires vary, from around 30 percent of total costs to 50–95 percent.5,6

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The second problem is that communities are not controlling future development on fire-prone lands because the bulk of the firefighting costs are paid for by federal taxpayers and not at the local level where the land use decisions are made. The Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and state governments pay the bulk of the firefighting costs. Meanwhile, communities either financially benefit—or perceive to benefit—from tax revenues from new residential developments.

Like government-subsidized flood management programs, firefighting policy in the U.S. has an element of moral hazard; since a significant portion of the costs associated with building in hazardous areas are not borne by the local governments or homeowners, there is little incentive to build on safer lands.7 Because of this, it will be difficult to control the rising costs, damages, and dangers related to home development in forested areas unless there are negative financial consequences for private land management decisions that increase risk and positive financial rewards for decisions that reduce risk.

Because wildfires will continue to be part of the western landscape, the challenge is to successfully live with fire. This will mean an increase in local responsibility for allowing home building on fire-prone lands and land use regulations that minimize the risk from wildfires.

Long-term Wildfire Trends Indicate a Need for Better Planning on Private Lands Wildfires are increasing in size and burning longer. In part due to a changing climate, during the last decade, the average acreage burned by wildfires have increased from 44 to 88 acres per fire. The average fire also burns twice as long,8 and since the 1970s, the length of the fire season has increased by over two months.9,10 By 2050,

Wildfires, 2000–2013 Ray Rasker

Figure 1. Wildfires occur primarily in the Western part of the country.

wildfire activity is expected to double in the Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and Rocky Mountain regions.11,12 Since 1990, the average number of structures burned per year by wildfires has more than tripled,13 yet home building continues. Since 1990, 60 percent of new homes in the U.S. have been built in forested areas, and today 40 percent of total single-family homes in the U.S. (46 million homes) are exposed to the risk of forest fires.14 The potential for more home development in harm’s way is significant. In the West, 16 percent of forest lands open for home building have been built on, which means 84 percent (amounting to almost 13 million acres) is not yet developed. In some states, the potential for further development is high: for example, 91 percent of this forested land in Montana is not yet developed; 89 percent in Oregon; 84 percent in

Arizona, 83 percent in California; and 80 percent in Colorado.3 The human cost of defending homes from wildfires is also escalating. In the 1990s, the average number of firefighter deaths per year was 17.2, rising to 19.3 per year in the 2000s, and 34 in 2013 (including 19 at Yarnell, Arizona).15 One of the consequences of rising costs is that firefighting is consuming agency budgets and robbing money from other projects. In 2014, wildfire management appropriation has grown to 51 percent of the Forest Service’s budget, up from 17 percent in 1995.16 Because of rising firefighting costs—driven in large part by the need to defend homes—agencies have to continually shift money from other departments (“fire transfers” or “fire borrowing”) to pay for the rising costs of fire suppression. For example, in fiscal year 2013 the Forest

Service transferred $505 million from other departments to pay for fire suppression.17 As a result, a number of programs—including fuel reduction efforts that would decrease fire risk— are not funded.18

Solutions Tried to Date To date, two solutions have been tried to reduce the costs and risks associated with home development on fire-prone lands: fuel reduction and landowner education.

According to agency estimates, about 230 million acres of Forest Service and Department of Interior lands are in need of treatment (mechanically or through prescribed burning) because they are at risk from ecological damage from wildfires due to excessive fuel loads (75 million acres are at “high” risk, plus 156 million at “moderate” risk). Yet, on average, less than three million acres are treated per

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U.S. Department of Agriculture

Firefighters work to control the Springs Fire in the Boise National Forest, Idaho in August 2012. The financial and human costs of fighting wildfires have increased in recent years.

year, which is insufficient to reduce risk significantly.19,20 A number of efforts are aimed at landowner education, including the Firewise,21 Ready Set Go,22 Living with Fire,23 the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network,24 and others. These programs are aimed at increasing the survivability of homes by creating defensible space around buildings, clearing flammable materials, using flame-retardant building materials, and other means.

Landowner education efforts are essential and important, yet there is still a long way to go. At least 70,000 communities are at risk from wildfires.25 Of these, less than two percent are designated as Firewise communities, one of the predominant

landowner education efforts. Less than three percent of the 46 million at-risk homes have been inspected by insurance companies for wildfire survivability (and only 2 percent of policies were cancelled due to lack of homeowner follow-up). Community Wildfire Protection Plans have been developed by 21 percent of the at-risk communities and less than 10 percent of these communities have a WUI development code.9,26

Solutions Not Yet Tried: Improved Planning and Controlling Future Home Development There is a need for improved land use planning on private lands that would result in directing future home

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building away from the most dangerous, fire-prone lands. For better local planning to occur, several things must happen simultaneously.

First, local governments, who have the authority to regulate development on private lands, must share a higher percentage of the firefighting costs. This would create a strong incentive for better planning. This is the stick approach. It is aimed at eliminating the subsidy local governments currently receive, where residential subdivisions are routinely approved on lands that have a high chance of burning, yet there is no financial consequence because the cost of defending the homes when a fire breaks out is borne by the federal government.

The second approach is the carrot approach, built around a set of incentives for local government to improve land use planning to reduce wildfire risk. To implement better planning, local governments, especially understaffed rural counties, need assistance.

This can come in the form of detailed fire-risk mapping, grants to hire professional planning consultants, and in some cases, funds to purchase lands or development rights to prevent them from being developed.

Shifting Firefighting Costs to Local Governments A mechanism already exists for sharing the cost of fighting wildfires and assigning responsibilities among the federal agencies and local governments. They are called Master Cooperative Wildland Fire Management Agreements, or simply Master Agreements. Master Agreements set the general framework for how to fight fires and pay for them, and Cost Share Agreements spell out the specifics for who pays for different elements of individual fires. However, there is currently a disincentive for local governments to agree to sign cost share agreements if, in the end, the vast majority of the cost of defending homes is borne by federal agencies and state firefighting agencies. One way to incentivize signing of cost-share agreements is to offer higher levels of financial and technical assistance (described below) to communities that sign Master Agreements.

In addition, the Interagency Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations, also known as the Red Book, clearly states that “structure protection” (defending homes) is a local responsibility.27 Yet, agencies continue to spend federal dollars to protect homes from wildfires, thereby sending a clear message that if local governments do nothing to reduce risk, the federal government will still act to protect private property. It would be helpful if federal land management

Wildfire Trends Are Worrisome: Fires are bigger Burn longer The season is longer Climate is getting hotter Homes are built on fire-prone lands More homes are burned Danger is increasing Costs are soaring Firefighting as % of agency budget is growing Ray Rasker

Figure 2. Worrying trends indicate that toady’s wildfires are larger, burn longer, inflict more damage, and kill more people than ever before.

Some Trends Can Be Reversed: Fires bigger Burn longer Season longer

Things we can’t control

Climate warmer Homes built Homes burned Danger Cost % of agency budget

Things we CAN control

Ray Rasker

Figure 3. While we cannot control all variables affecting wildfires, we can mitigate the damage that they cause with better planning and preparedness. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | March-April 2015 | Solutions | 59

agencies stopping sending these sorts of mixed signals and instead clarified to local authorities what it says in the Red Book: “Local governments assume financial responsibility for emergency response activities, including structure protections, within their jurisdictions.”27 Provide Financial and Technical Assistance to Local Governments to Minimize Risk from Wildfires Local governments can regulate future home development by making use of guidance and regulatory documents.

These include Comprehensive Land Use Plans, Community Wildfire Protection Plans, and Local Hazards Mitigation Plans. However, many communities are understaffed and lack the technical guidance and finances to develop plans that ensure future development is done in a way that minimizes risk to homes from wildland fire.

Sometimes regulatory documents are even in conflict with each other, making wildfire risk planning a challenge. A community in Colorado, for example, regulates through its comprehensive land use plan that new home developments need to be hidden by mature trees. This is done for aesthetic considerations. Yet, its wildfire protection plan calls for clearing vegetation from around homes, a necessary action to reduce the risk from wildfires. Coordinating planning documents so that they “talk to each other” is necessary but often difficult and time consuming.

County comprehensive plans can also be improved by integrating policy language and tools that give local governments the authority and responsibility to reject, redirect, and redesign subdivision and home site proposals based on fire risk. This could include, for example, regulatory tools, such as zoning overlays and subdivision regulations, development and design standards, landscape regulations, transfer of development rights programs, and incentives to encourage

developments away from wildfire danger. In addition, local governments would benefit from understanding the details of how, when, and where wildfires may pose a risk to the community.

Yet, they often lack the capability to map in any detail the fire risk.

The federal government can help communities with detailed fire-risk mapping, land use planning, and in selected instances, land purchases. But where would the funds come from, and how would the assistance be prioritized?

The Forest Service in fiscal year 2015 has a US$2.2 billion fire budget, with US$1 billion devoted to its Preparedness fund.10 While money is allocated for fuel reduction and education programs like Firewise, no funds are spent on assisting communities to direct future development away from fire danger. A modest portion of the fire budget, such as one percent (US $22 million per year), could be devoted to a new program called the Community Planning Assistance Program.

One way to allocate the funds is to take a lesson from national floodplain management.28 The National Floodplain Insurance Program, while not without its challenges, has a few elements that are worth considering for wildfire management, namely, flood mapping and assistance allocated based on a community rating system. Mapping of the floodplain is a federal responsibility, managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Fire risk mapping could also be standardized by federal agencies, such as the Forest Service, who could provide course scale maps that could be improved on at a finer scale by local communities.

The National Floodplain Insurance Program also provides an incentive for communities in the form of reduced insurance rates (for homeowners who must carry insurance if they are in the floodplain) based on a Community Rating System. The rating system is based on the community’s actions to reduce flood risk. In a similar fashion,

Because wildfires will continue to be part of the western landscape, the challenge is to successfully live with fire.

Communities could apply for assistance and they could use the funds to hire consultants, including land use planners and companies that specialize in fire risk mapping. Assuming a generous US$100,000 for planning consultants and another US$100,000 for detailed fire risk mapping, the total cost per community to help them identify and plan to reduce the risk of wildfires would be approximately US$200,000. Using one percent of the Forest Service’s fire budget this way, the agency would be able to assist more than a 100 communities per year (or more than 50 communities using only 0.05% of the fire budget).

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a community rating system could be created for wildfires. Because there is no federal insurance program for wildfires, nor is such a scheme likely (see Box 1), a different set of incentives would have to be created.

The system could be voluntary, and communities could choose to join the program and be awarded points for adoption of different wildfire risk reduction measures, with more points awarded to those policies that have a greater impact. The risk reduction methods could include such efforts as local fuel reduction on private lands, zoning ordinances that limit or redirect development, and the

signing of cost-share agreements by local governments, among others. As communities gain more points, they could be rewarded with greater levels of support. The rewards could be a combination of three elements: 1. Land use planning assistance: grants of up to US$200,000 would be awarded to communities to be used to hire planning and mapping services. This could include assistance with tools such as zoning, landscape and subdivision regulations, and growth management policies. The grants could be used for detailed fire risk mapping, improving on the course scale maps provided by federal agencies.

2. Management priority: the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management do not have the resources for active management to thin forests and reduce fuel loads everywhere. They could direct their efforts to the highest-rated communities. Management actions on federal lands, in the form of prescribed burning, mechanical treatment, and forest restoration, could be given to communities that rank high in terms of on-theground actions to reduce wildfire risk on private lands (clearing flammable materials near homes; creating fire breaks; clustering future homes away from fire-prone lands; detailed fire-risk mapping; zoning ordinances, etc.).

3. Land purchase: federal land purchase programs such as the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Forest Legacy Program, the Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program, and others, could be used to buy land or development rights. The criteria for the use of these funds could be expanded to include reduction of wildfire risk, and communities who rank high in terms of actions taken to reduce fire risk get priority access to these funds.

Insurance is Not the Solution to Directing Future Home Development Away from Danger Insurance may not be the strongest tool for altering the pace and nature of development on undeveloped forested areas. While homeowner premiums may be higher in these areas for some insurance companies in selected locations, reflecting the higher wildfire risk, it appears unlikely that they are high enough currently to be a deterrent to future development.

Carole Walker of the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association put the situation succinctly: “A homeowner’s insurance premium is the result of the decision to live in the Wildland—Urban Interface, but it is not the primary driver of that decision. A governmentrun high-risk insurance fund would ultimately encourage, rather than discourage people to live in the WUI.”1 It is doubtful that insurance rates will rise high enough in the near term to influence the redesign of a subdivision to direct future homes onto the safest areas, or prohibit home development on the most dangerous lands. And further, replicating a federally funded insurance requirement for people living on fire-prone lands, similar to national floodplain insurance requirements, might exacerbate development on fire-prone lands.

Wildfires are increasingly expensive and dangerous, burning homes and consuming agency budgets. A large portion of the costs and risks are related to the need to defend private homes next to federal lands. Attempts to mitigate, including voluntary landowner education and fuel reduction, are essential, yet these approaches alone are insufficient for the magnitude of the growing wildfire problem.

To fully address future wildfire risks, the U.S. needs a national conversation about how to direct future development out of harm’s way. Ideas presented in this paper are hopefully the beginning of this conversation.

MC. Evidence for the effect of homes on wildfire suppression costs. International Journal of Wildland Fire 22(4), 537–548 (2013).

6. Report No. 08601-44-SF (U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, Washington DC, 2006).

7. Lessons for wildfire from federal flood risk management programs. Headwaters Economics [online] (November 2014). http:// headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/lessons-for-firefrom-floodrisk.

8. Total Wildland Fires and Acres (1960–2009).

National Interagency Fire Center [online]. http:// www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires. html.

9. Statement Thomas Tidwell, Chief, USDA Forest Service before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources U.S. Senate. U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources [online] (June 4, 2013). http://www.energy.senate. gov/public/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=e59df65c09c6-4ffd-9a83-f61f2822a075.

References

10. Fiscal year 2015 budget justification. U.S.D.A. Forest

1. US Historic Fire Perimeters, 2000–2013. U.S.

Service [online] (March 2014). http://www.fs.fed.us/

Geological Survey, Geospatial Multi-Agency

aboutus/budget/2015/FS15-FS-Budget-Justification.

Coordination Group (GeoMAC) [online]. http:// rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/outgoing/GeoMAC/historic_fire_

pdf.

11. Climate change and wildfires: what’s the connection? U.S. Global Change Research

data/.

2. Gude, P, Rasker, R & van den Noort, J. Potential for future development on fire-prone lands. Journal of 3. As wildland urban interface develops, firefighting costs will soar. Headwaters Economics [online] .

(2014) http://headwaterseconomics.org/interactive/ wui-development-and-wildfire-costs.

4. The rising cost of wildfire protection. Headwaters Economics [online] (June 2013). http:// headwaterseconomics.org/wphw/wp-content/ 5. Gude, PH, Jones, KL, Rasker, R & Greenwood,

globalchange.gov/news/climate-change-andwildfires-what’s-connection.

Forestry (June, 2008).

uploads/fire-costs-background-report.pdf.

Program [online] (August 22, 2013). http://www.

12. Yue, X, Mickley, LJ, Logan, JA & Kaplan, JO. Ensemble projections of wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations over the western United States in the mid-21st century.

Atmospheric Science 77 (October 2013).

13. Congressional Research Service Report R43077.

Congressional Research Service [online] ((March, 2014). http://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/ uploads/assets/crs/R43077.pdf.

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State Farm

Existing programs, such as Firewise, aim to educate homeowners and encourage fire-resistant building practices. Currently, less than 2 percent of at-risk communities are designated Firewise communities, indicating a need for further solutions.

14. Blue Ribbon Panel report on wildland urban

18. Fire transfer impact by state and territory. U.S.

interface. International Code Council [online]

Department of Agriculture Forest Service [online]

(April 2008). https://inawf.memberclicks.net/assets/

(June 9, 2014). http://www.fs.fed.us/publications/

blueribbonreport-low.pdf.

15. Historical wildland firefighter fatality reports.

forest-service-fire-transfer-state-impacts.pdf.

19. The rising cost of wildfire protection. Headwaters

[online]. http://www.fireadapted.org/region/faclearning-network.aspx.

25. Communities at risk report. National Association of State Foresters [online] (2013). http://www. stateforesters.org/fy-2013-communities-risk-report.

National Interagency Fire Center [online]. http://

Economics [online] (June 2013). http://

www.nifc.gov/safety/safety_HistFatality_report.html.

headwaterseconomics.org/wphw/wp-content/

Association of Wildland Fire [online] (August,

uploads/fire-costs-background-report.pdf.

2013). http://www.iawfonline.org/pdf/WUI_Fact_

16. The rising cost of fire operations: effects on the forest service’s non-fire work. U.S. Forest Service [online] (August 2014). http://www. fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/media/2014/34/nrfirecostimpact-082014.pdf.

17. Meador, R. U.S. to budget for fighting wildfire as a natural disaster — one recurring every year.

MinnPost [online] (June 10, 2014). http://www. minnpost.com/earth-journal/2014/06/us-budgetfighting-wildfire-natural-disaster-one-recurringevery-year.

20. Congressional Research Service Report RL33990.

Congressional Research Service [online] (July, 2001). http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33990.pdf.

21. Firewise Communities [online]. http://www. firewise.org/.

22. Ready, Set, Go. International Association of Fire Chiefs [online]. http://www.wildlandfirersg.org/.

23. Living With Fire [online]. http://www.livingwithfire. info/.

24. Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network

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26. Wildland urban interface fact sheet. International

Sheet_08012013.pdf.

27. Redbook 2014 Interagency standards for fire and fire aviation operations. National Interagency Fire Center [online] (2014). http://www.nifc.gov/policies/ pol_ref_redbook_2014.html.

28. Lessons for wildfire from federal flood risk management programs. Headwaters Economics [online] (November, 2014). http:// headwaterseconomics.org/wildfire/lessons-for-firefrom-floodrisk.

Machalaba, C. (2015). Envisioning a World without Emerging Disease Outbreaks. Solutions 6(2): 63-71. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/living-by-strict-rules-co-management-as-a-way-to-prevent-eviction-from-a-conservation-area/

Feature

Envisioning a World without Emerging Disease Outbreaks

by Catherine Machalaba and William B. Karesh

UNMEER

An Ebola treatment unit in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

In Brief Recent outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) have seemingly appeared without warning and have resulted in resource-intensive responses. With our current public health systems largely emphasizing reactive approaches without a lens to ecological links and anthropogenic pressures causing their appearance, new approaches are urgently needed. In the shortterm, systems can look toward strengthening capacity for surveillance of infectious disease in human populations, including more rapid and precise detection of cases, effective reporting channels, and collection of samples to document pathogen evolution and guide vaccine or other potential therapeutic development to yield greater infrastructure for early detection of and efficient response to outbreaks. As a long-term goal, public health systems can include paired human-wildlife surveillance and utilize sentinel monitoring toward pre-emption of spillover in humans. While these approaches will require upfront investments, cost-savings can be seen from more integrated and more preventive approaches that can benefit both human and animal health. To support these operational advancements, governance structures are needed that enable a ‘One Health’ approach that proactively considers connections between human, animal, and environmental health across disciplines.

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H

uman outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) may be relatively rare compared to widely established diseases, but as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has demonstrated, they can be catastrophic to societies. They can also be vastly expensive. For example, the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, which caused fewer than 900 deaths, cost the global economy an estimated US $30 billion to $50 billion.1 Ebola, SARS, and other EID outbreaks have seemingly appeared without warning. An international spread of people and goods, including wildlife trade, may be increasing their frequency and extent, or at least, detection and attention may be increasing. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, there was a concurrent (unrelated) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a case of Marburg virus in Uganda, additional deaths from Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Saudi Arabia, and the highly pathogenic avian influenza H7N9 in China. The world was lucky that SARS was controlled and has not since reappeared in humans, although a recent study has found its causal virus in bats in China.2 The emergence of MERS in 2012 continues to yield new human cases, but the transmission pathway is still not definitively known. The difficulty of anticipating EIDs is a symptom of the public health system’s emphasis on response rather than prediction and prevention. This status quo in public health leaves us unequipped to address emerging disease threats.

Genuine changes in the public health system are needed to boost surveillance efforts and to build capacity to respond to early detection of disease risks through a ‘One Health’ approach. In doing so, innovative investments should be made to ensure environmental, financial, and capacity sustainability. Enhanced understanding of EID risks and mechanisms for detection can also provide benefit and lessons for addressing related threats, such as bioterrorism.

Where to Start: Our Current Public Health Systems Preventing outbreaks of EIDs, such as Ebola, requires knowledge of what the risks are through routine surveillance that detects new or evolving threats in a timely and actionable way.

Key Concepts • Current public health surveillance systems are highly reactive, targeting control in humans rather than prevention of outbreaks at their source. The Ebola crisis in West Africa highlights the need for strengthened global health capacity, including a more coordinated, proactive approach to EIDs. • Conservation research has yielded key information about EIDs, especially Ebola. Integrating pathogen surveillance of wildlife into routine disease monitoring systems can provide information on pathogens circulating before humans are infected.

• A One Health approach considering human-animal-environment connections provides a more robust understanding of the dynamics leading to zoonotic disease threats, including the underlying anthropogenic causes that facilitate disease emergence.

• Government ministries, IGOs and other sectors can maximize health system investments through crossdisciplinary information sharing and collaboration on surveillance and preparedness and response planning.

• Requiring health impact assessments before development project approval can help anticipate disease risks to allow for prevention or mitigation measures.

At present, most public health systems have limited capacity for detecting diseases that are known, but have not yet been seen before in a location. For example, the precise cause of unusual encephalitis cases in humans in 1999 was only identified as West Nile virus after the first detection of its

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appearance in North America through the investigation of avian die-offs.3 Similarly, despite no prior outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa, a paper published during the current outbreak reported that Ebola virus antibodies had been circulating in humans in Sierra Leone from 2006 to 2008.4 There is an urgent need to collect this type of information systematically and in a timely fashion, and to convey research to government and other public health authorities.

Additionally, undiagnosed illnesses (including viral hemorrhagic fevers) in many parts of the world compromise knowledge on true incidence of disease, as well as potentially novel outbreaks.5 Imprecise or missing diagnoses are largely a result of inadequate screening capacity, taxed healthcare systems, or resource inequity. Infrastructure for detection and diagnosis are critical for identifying and initiating proactive responses to disease risks.6 Boosting screening efforts for known pathogens and identifying causes of undiagnosed illnesses in human populations can be implemented in the current system to more precisely identify current risks to populations on a local level.

At least some level of ongoing surveillance should encompass continued strain analysis to detect pathogen evolution. Research opportunities are not always salvaged during outbreaks in favor of response measures, but could provide crucial information.

Public health surveillance can provide samples from infected patients to be available rapidly for whole genome sequencing that can detect specific changes in a virus,7 as well as provide genetic material for vaccine development or other therapeutics.

Future Opportunities for Public Health Systems More challenging is the detection of zoonotic pathogens in other species before they appear in humans so that outbreak prevention or early detection may occur. Pathogen

NIAID

An Ebola virus particle. Although there have been no prior outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa, a paper published during the current outbreak reported that Ebola virus antibodies had been circulating in humans in Sierra Leone from 2006 to 2008.

surveillance of wildlife is not currently routinely conducted as part of government activities, despite over half of known human pathogens originating from animals and approximately three-quarters of recent EIDs stemming from wildlife.8,9 Recent developments in diagnostic technology have enabled sample screening for novel pathogen discovery, and thus expanded public health horizons. However, on-theground capacity for the detection and prevention of EIDs has not improved

significantly in decades, despite even the global burden of HIV/AIDS, which emerged from non-human primates.10 Screening of wildlife for known and yet undiscovered pathogens would complement human health and veterinary health surveillance activities. The relatively high risk of pathogen transmission from bats, rodents, and non-human primates offers a starting point.11 Efforts from the conservation community provide a platform for implementing wildlife disease

surveillance, and also a testament to its potential benefits. For example, the limited knowledge available on the animal source of Ebola has been largely generated by the conservation community through wildlife health assessments and investigations of mortality in wildlife. Ebola has been recognized as causing severe declines in great ape populations—especially the critically endangered wild lowland gorillas—and thus is a threat to conservation of biodiversity, as well as to human populations.12,13 Pathogen

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surveillance suggests that some bat species are the natural reservoir for the virus, harboring it without signs of disease. Investigations of wild animal carcasses have detected infection and mortality in chimpanzees, gorillas, and duiker antelopes, and evidence from human outbreaks suggests that they have served as brief intermediate hosts for human infection when hunted or handled.14,15,16 The 2014 DRC outbreak and prior Ebola outbreaks elsewhere have also been linked to the hunting or handling of wild animals (with subsequent human to human transmission).

Wildlife may thus provide sentinel value. While Ebola virus outbreaks in humans are typically seemingly sporadic, information generated from recent surveillance studies in Gabon and the Republic of Congo suggest that surveillance for the Ebola virus circulating in wildlife may enable early detection or prevention of outbreaks in humans.17,18 Testing of great ape fecal samples for traces of the virus may provide a cost effective public health surveillance method, while simultaneously providing data that could benefit conservation strategies.19 Such information can yield public health action. To manage and reduce risks from Ebola virus transmission from one species to another (pathogen ‘spillover’), reporting of deceased or sick animal sightings by hunters and foresters can provide important sentinel or early warning benefits for public health and conservation monitoring.20,21 This allows for preventive actions prior to transmission of Ebola to humans. Educating people living in areas where Ebola occurs about how they can avoid the disease from both wildlife and animals can prevent deadly outbreaks.

Reducing hunting and other contact with infected non-human primates may especially reduce contact opportunities that can result in human outbreaks.22

From 2009 to 2014, the United States Agency for International Development Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT program implemented pathogen surveillance programs in 20 developing nations that were considered ‘hotspots’ for disease emergence. It generated protocols for sampling and screening for 25 viral families at high-risk interfaces (such as hunting and wildlife markets), and worked with local partners to create a system for sharing findings across human health, agriculture, and environment or forestry ministries.23 These approaches can serve as best practices

Mortality Monitoring Program in Uganda, with park rangers submitting reports of animal morbidity or carcasses via a mobile phone-based template. Trained responders can follow up on reports to collect specimens as needed, allowing collection of information that benefits the conservation of wild species, and potentially informs assessment of public health risks. This activity is not resource intensive, allows for targeted data collection within the workflow of park officials, and can provide rapid access to information from remote areas.

Screening of wildlife for known and yet undiscovered pathogens would complement human health and veterinary health surveillance activities. for continuation and for implementation in additional countries.

The benefits seen from the few existing pathogen surveillance programs have been encouraging. For example, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in the DRC, where there is in-country capacity for viral screening of known and novel viruses, led to early detection and containment of the outbreak through swift and thorough science-based action by the government and its partners.

The ultimate aim should be to get far enough ahead of viruses to prevent their emergence in humans, but DRC’s example shows that effective surveillance systems can provide benefits for early detection and control.

Leveraging global mobile phone infrastructures can promote the efficient communication of health information.24 Mobile reporting is not only useful for tracking human cases of disease, but also for reporting disease in animals.25 For example, partners under the PREDICT program rolled out an Animal Morbidity and

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Costs and Benefits Recent response costs for EIDs have totaled in the hundreds of billions of USD over the past two decades.26 Ebola’s persistence for more than 15 months in humans in West Africa has been massively disruptive to trade networks, tourism, and the capacity for treatment of other diseases. A preliminary assessment by the World Bank estimated short- and mid-term losses through 2015 of up to US $32 billion if Ebola spread from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to neighboring nations.27 Ebola-related disruption could result in much higher actual long-term costs from hits to other medical condition campaigns, such as vaccination for preventable diseases and treatment of malaria and HIV, educational attainment from school closures, declining trade and travel, and perceived ongoing risks for business investments.

Implementing enhanced disease surveillance in humans and pathogen surveillance in wildlife will also have a price tag, but warrants cost-benefit

UNMEER

Temperatures are monitored as spectators enter a stadium in Mali in January 2015. Boosting screening efforts for ongoing, rather than merely reactionary, surveillance of diseases could improve early detection and response.

considerations for investments. A study based on viral screening findings in one bat species from a surveillance program estimates that 85 percent of mammalian viral diversity could be captured through investments of approximately US $1.4 billion over 10 years, or approximately 100 percent through investments of US $6.3 billion.28 This information would potentially provide value for assessing and prioritizing zoonotic disease risks. A recent analysis suggests that implementing interventions now to mitigate emerging zoonotic disease risks, compared to response policies, would yield a cost saving of more than US $340 billion over the next century.29 The assessment was based on mitigation policies including building capacity for surveillance and diagnostics to prevent new emerging diseases,

addressing the human-animal interface, and cross-disciplinary control and prevention approaches.

A challenge remains in paying for this global good. Ideally, budgeting for wildlife disease surveillance would be implemented through national health ministries in partnership with animal health and environment ministries, to promote cross-sector sharing of results, and to demonstrate the sentinel and preventive value of this information for human health.

The information generated through surveillance findings may also inform on practices that present EID risks, providing opportunities for future cost shifting.

Importantly, addressing EID risks requires sustained investments to build One Health systems, which cannot be achieved through the

‘roller coaster’ funding cycles that occur in response to each new EID threat. Donor engagement is crucial to meet this goal, since funding streams and investments themselves are often siloed. Investments must ensure a solid foundation upon which to build capacity, with realistic attention to the basic needs of a functioning system. For example, specimen storage and timely diagnostics may not be practical when a laboratory’s power is intermittent. As of the end of August 2014, a high level of Ebola treatment facilities and intervention strategies (e.g., safe burial access) in West Africa were reported as only partially functioning, and the course of upkeep of facilities post-outbreak for future outbreaks or other healthcare needs is unknown.

Innovative approaches may be

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sought when increasing structural capacity, for example, at the 2014 UN Climate Change Summit, the WHO’s Director General, Dr. Margaret Chan, suggested developing solar power infrastructure to equip the 40 percent of hospital facilities in parts of Africa that lack access to reliable power.

A ‘One Health’ Approach Looking to the source of new potential EIDs can help move towards a ‘One Health’ perspective that can elucidate connections between humans, animals, and ecosystem health. The One Health approach recognizes the integral health links and dependencies among different species, as well as the ecological dynamics that provide protection from or introduce risk of pathogen transmission. By taking into account information from multiple disciplines, we would gain a fuller understanding of disease ecology that would allow us to better monitor risks and intervene earlier.30 Where available, archived or prospective clinical specimens from paired human-animal surveillance can be screened to inform on pathogen spillover dynamics. One unique opportunity for paired sampling and consideration of human-animalenvironment links is via One Health clinics. A One Health clinic in Bwindi, Uganda, on the border of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, was developed in the community hospital. Given the proximity to the forest, the community has close contact with and direct dependency on the local environment for the provisioning of resources, including food and tourism. At the same time, the introduction of domestic (e.g., pet or feral dogs or cats) or agricultural species (livestock, e.g., cattle, goats, sheep, swine) in a new location, some that may become invasive, may introduce new pathogens and transmission dynamics. Similarly, wildlife in the region, including highly threatened gorilla populations, have suffered declines

from diseases, such as measles and pneumonia, acquired from humans through ecotourism and research.

The direct collaboration between human, domestic animal, and wildlife health experts can have synergies in disease understanding, detection, and control for humans, livestock, and conservation not yet seen from currently siloed approaches. These collaborative approaches can also be applied to address other health concerns, such as vector-borne and ecotoxicology threats.

One Health Governance Despite the existence of strong wildlife health and zoonotic disease expertise, current policy structures do not provide formal governance around wildlife diseases nor a mechanism for integrated human-animal-ecosystem approaches. Although the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) stipulates requirements for certain diseases in relation to international trade in animals, the movement of most wildlife is not covered beyond the officially listed diseases, nor is

The nature of ecology-health connections and dynamics lends itself to a holistic, broader, and integrated approach for cross-disciplinary collaboration, co-investments and co-benefits.

Development of One Health capacity for EID prevention requires understanding and addressing the underlying drivers of disease emergence. Wide-scale land use change, intensified food production, trade and travel, climate change, and other pressures on the environment to meet increasing societal demands are resulting in significant changes in ecological dynamics that place people and animals in novel contact, and facilitate pathogen transmission.31,32 Rather than viewing disease transmission as isolated random events, the impact of ecological changes on disease risks can be quantified and risks prioritized.

Risk analysis infrastructure can also be developed within economic planning sectors to ensure risks are anticipated and mitigated. While development and uptake of voluntary guidelines should be encouraged directly with corporate and other development stakeholders, compliance across industries will likely require mandates from policy makers.

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wildlife disease reporting required on non-listed diseases. OIE’s recent development of a voluntary wildlife disease reporting system (WAHIS-Wild) is a step in the right direction to help monitor wildlife diseases, but incentives are needed to encourage wildlife disease surveillance and reporting.

Similarly, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) focus has limited attention to animal diseases, despite the zoonotic origin of many priority human diseases. The WHO’s International Health Regulation (IHR) can be formally expanded to more fully incorporate animal health considerations through emphasis on the role of veterinary services and environmental authorities as allies and participants in the public health system. The IHR can also emphasize the need to move from reactive to proactive public health risk assessment and interventions, and the importance and responsibility of numerous sectors in moving this forward. For example, investment and approval policies can be enacted to

John Atherton

This photo from 1968 Sierra Leone shows children displaying freshly caught bats. Pathogen surveillance suggests that some bat species harbor the Ebola virus.

Bats are a traditional source of food for many West African cultures, which could in part explain the link to human infection.

require upfront health impact assessments for proposed extractive industry projects, and detection of risks can inform mitigation strategies that can be integrated into planning (such as requiring projects that place employees in forests to provide safe food sources in order to reduce demand on wildlife for nutrition).

To date, much of the push for an ecosystem perspective to promote health has come from the conservation world. This is remarkable, given the relatively limited investments in conservation versus veterinary and human medicine, and shows the potential of

investments that effectively span the three sectors. At the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Twelfth Conference of the Parties in October 2014, CBD parties officially agreed to recognize the value of a One Health approach, acknowledging the shared drivers of biodiversity loss and disease emergence, and the urgent need for the world to address EIDs in light of the Ebola outbreak. The CBD can lead meaningful engagement with the public health sector by identifying priority areas for collaboration, and by driving a research agenda through the CBD-WHO Joint Work Program

on Biodiversity and Human health, and engaging experts to establish best practice guidance for CBD Parties.

Implementation opportunities also abound at the national level for CBD Parties. CBD delegates, who are often based out of the environment ministry, can form inter-ministry One Health networks and task forces to promote discussion about zoonotic disease risks, and to identify a country context-specific roadmap for zoonoses prevention. These long-term plans can inform investment requests and reduce duplication of efforts by working in a cross-disciplinary and synergistic way.

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The integrated policy approaches needed for EID prevention could be prioritized through the pending UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The current iteration of the SDGs does not sufficiently capture the complementarity and efficiencies that can be leveraged to maximize resources and outcomes. The nature of ecology-health connections and dynamics lends itself to a holistic, broader, and integrated approach for cross-disciplinary collaboration, co-investments, and co-benefits.

For example, conducting paired environment, health, and social risk assessments before approval of development projects and ensuring that results inform preventive or mitigative actions, may more effectively promote environmental sustainability, reduce disease threats, and protect vulnerable populations from worsening inequities.

Lastly, while international policy and donor engagement are crucial for priority setting and resource allocation to support EID prevention, involvement in a local context is also essential. Given the role of cultural practices in the spread of Ebola (e.g., close contact with deceased relatives through burial practices or hunting and butchering practices linked to prior outbreaks), on-the-ground community-engaging interventions can serve an important long-term role in reducing risky practices. There is great benefit in expanding the construct of what constitutes public health. Local community leaders and other trusted members with strong cultural awareness must be seen as vital partners in public health efforts to find realistic solutions.

Conclusion: Lessons from a Current Challenge The ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa is the worst Ebola outbreak recorded in history, with approximately 24,000 known cases and over 9,800 deaths as of early March 2015.

Most transmission has been focused in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, but cases have spread thousands of miles via international travel. Ending the current outbreak has seen signs of progress in Guinea and Liberia through successful control measures to reduce transmission and perhaps through natural development of protective immunity.

Response efforts have involved healthcare and public health providers, military forces, and financial investments from around the world.

Despite global concern, the situation has demonstrated major challenges in detection, reporting, and resource mobilization, and widespread deficits in capacity and baseline knowledge of Ebola virology. Its trajectory provides insight on solutions to help prevent, and more effectively respond to emerging diseases in the future.

The first known human case in the current outbreak was traced back to December 2013 in Guinea, but national health authorities did not receive reports until March 2014, and the scale of the outbreak was not realized until summer 2014.33 The delayed timeframe for response resulted in months of missed opportunities for equipping countries with the support and materials they needed to fight new infections.

Emphasis has been placed on control measures, including vaccination and treatment research. Yet minimal attention has been paid to learning about the dynamics that caused this outbreak and enabled such a devastating crisis, and to preventing future outbreaks.

The current outbreak especially articulates the need for more rapid detection and reporting mechanisms, integrated surveillance systems, and governance for One Health capacity.

Public health systems can take immediate steps to better detect current human disease risks, and to move toward future approaches that assess risks to enable prevention. Ebola

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is one of many zoonotic EIDs that present a risk to humanity, and their impact may increase as we continue to fundamentally change our planet’s ecology and transmission dynamics.

Getting ahead of EIDs requires urgent upstream and systematic solutions that realize the potential of our connected society, recognize integral human-animal-environmental links, and promote sustainable and healthy development.

Acknowledgments The authors thank Marc Levy, IsabelleAnne Bisson, and Naomi Stewart for their constructive reviews, which improved this paper. We are also grateful for the generous support of the DIVERSITAS-Future Earth ecoHEALTH project.

References 1. The World Bank. People, Pathogens and Our Planet.

The Economics of One Health Volume 2 (2012).

2. Ge, XY et al. Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor.

Nature 503(7477):535–538 (2013).

3. Nash, D et al. The outbreak of West Nile virus infection in the New York City area in 1999. The New England Journal of Medicine 344(24):1807–1814 (2001).

4. Schoepp, RJ, Rossi, CA, Khan, SH, Goba, A & Fair JN. Undiagnosed acute viral febrile illnesses, Sierra Leone. Emerging Infectious Diseases 20(7):1176–1182 (2014).

5. Gire, SK et al. Epidemiology. Emerging disease or diagnosis? Science 338(6108):750–752 (2012).

6. Gire, SK et al. Epidemiology. Emerging disease or diagnosis? Science 338(6108):750–752 (2012).

7. Gire, SK et al. Epidemiology. Emerging disease or diagnosis? Science 338(6108):750–752 (2012).

8. Taylor, LH, Latham, SM & Woolhouse, ME. Risk factors for human disease emergence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences 356 (1411):983–989 (2001).

9. Jones, KE et al. Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature 451 (7181):990–993 (2008).

10. Faria, NR et al. HIV epidemiology. The early spread and epidemic ignition of HIV-1 in human populations. Science 346 (6205):56–61 (2014).

11. Olival, KJ, Weekley, CC & Daszak, P. Are bats really ‘special’ as viral reservoirs?: What we know and need to know. In Bats and Viruses: From Pathogen Discovery to Host Genomics (ed. Wang, LF) (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. In Press News, Etobicoke ON, 2014).

UNMEER

Traditional leaders in Sierra Leone meet in Freetown to discuss the Ebola response in October 2014. Local leaders with strong cultural awareness are integral to public health solutions.

12. Olson, SH et al. Dead or alive: animal sampling

27. World Bank. The Economic Impact of the 2014 Ebola

19. Reed, PE et al. A new approach for monitoring

during Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in

ebolavirus in wild great apes. PLoS Neglected Tropical

humans. Emerging Health Threats Journal 5 (2012).

Diseases 8(9):e3143 (2014).

13. Rouquet, P et al. Wild animal mortality monitoring

Africa. (World Bank,Washington, DC, 2014).

20. Olson, SH et al. Dead or alive: animal sampling during Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in

of Congo, 2001–2003. Emerging Infectious Diseases

humans. Emerging Health Threats Journal 5 (2012).

14. Olson, SH et al. Dead or alive: animal sampling during Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in humans. Emerging Health Threats Journal 5 (2012).

15. Rouquet, P et al. Wild animal mortality monitoring and human Ebola outbreaks, Gabon and Republic of Congo, 2001–2003. Emerging Infectious Diseases 11(2):283–290 (Feb 2005).

16. Leroy, EM et al. Multiple Ebola virus transmission events and rapid decline of central African wildlife.

Science 303(5656):387–390 (2004).

17. Rouquet, P et al. Wild animal mortality monitoring and human Ebola outbreaks, Gabon and Republic

21. Bisson, IA, Ssebide, BJ, Marra, PP. Early Detection of

(2013).

29. Pike, J, Bogich, T, Elwood, S, Finnoff, DC & Daszak

Emerging Zoonotic Diseases with Animal Morbidity

P. Economic optimization of a global strategy to

and Mortality Monitoring. EcoHealth (2015).

address the pandemic threat. Proceedings of the

22. Olson, SH et al. Dead or alive: animal sampling

National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111(52):18519–18523 (2014).

during Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in humans. Emerging Health Threats Journal 5 (2012).

23. PREDICT Consortium. Reducing Pandemic Risk, Promoting Global Health. One Health Institute,

30. Karesh, WB et al. Ecology of zoonoses: natural and unnatural histories. Lancet 380(9857):1936–1945 (2012).

University of California, Davis (2014).

31. Jones, KE et al. Global trends in emerging infectious

24. Freifeld, CC et al. Participatory epidemiology: use

diseases. Nature 451(7181):990–993 (2008).

of mobile phones for community-based health

32. Loh, EH et al. Targeting transmission pathways

reporting. PLoS Medicine 7(12):e1000376 (2010).

for emerging zoonotic disease surveillance and

25. Bisson, IA, Ssebide, BJ, Marra, PP. Early Detection of

control. Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases. In

of Congo, 2001–2003. Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging Zoonotic Diseases with Animal Morbidity

11(2):283–290 (Feb 2005).

and Mortality Monitoring. EcoHealth (2015).

18. Leroy, EM et al. Multiple Ebola virus transmission

28. Anthony, SJ et al. A strategy to estimate unknown viral diversity in mammals. mBio 4(5):e00598-00513

and human Ebola outbreaks, Gabon and Republic 11(2):283–290 (Feb 2005).

Epidemic: Short- and Medium-Term Estimates for West

Press (2015).

33. Baize, S et al. Emergence of Zaire Ebola virus disease

26. Karesh, WB et al. Ecology of zoonoses: natural and

events and rapid decline of central African wildlife.

unnatural histories. Lancet 380(9857):1936–1945

Science 303(5656):387–390 (2004).

(2012).

in Guinea. The New England Journal of Medicine 371(15):1418–1425 (2014).

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Kaun, D.E. (2015). Seeing the Future While Blinded by the Present. Solutions 6(2): 72-75. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/seeing-the-future-while-blinded-by-the-present/

Reviews Book Review

Seeing the Future While Blinded by the Present

by David E. Kaun REVIEWING The Cost Disease

by William J. Baumol

W

hen browsing among the shelves at the local book store, The Cost Disease is apt to be a turnoff for those looking for an upbeat read. In a sense, this would be a serious error, and a daring reader would soon discover that in less than a century, “the amounts we can consume of virtually everything will have gone up about 700 percent.” Real income per capita in 2010, the time the book was written, was a bit over US $49k, implying a real income for our nottoo-distant ancestors of close to US $350k. Per capita! No, The Cost Disease (hereafter, CD) is not located in the Science Fiction section. Indeed, its primary author, Willam J Baumol, is a distinguished economics professor, currently at NYU, professor emeritus at Princeton, and come every October, among those mentioned as deserving of a Nobel Prize in economics. If, in fact, this were to come to fruition, then one of the major preoccupations in the advanced economies would be, namely, whether the cost of health care and other services would bankrupt governments and overwhelm their societies.

On the face of it, no one is more qualified than Baumol in regard to the subject matter of CD. It was his pathbreaking 1966 work in cooperation with William Bowen that provided the basis for today’s CD. In the former, the authors presented what was an inherent dilemma across the industries in our society. Simplifying, if one

compares a live string quartet with the production of an automobile, pretty much the same number of players were on the stage over the past 150 years, while the number of workers on the “assembly line” has declined dramatically. That is, the productivity of the auto worker has increased dramatically, while the violinist’s not at all. If workers were paid on the basis of their productivity, auto workers would be doing extremely well, while string players not so well. Indeed, there would be none of the latter. The only way the violinist can afford to continue to perform is with an increase in pay. End of story in a sense. The cost of the automobile will decline over time and the concert ticket will rise inexorably. While an obvious simplification, this is the essence of what was then called a “dilemma,” and has now morphed in to a “disease.”

Professor Baumol, along with several others, has returned to the subject he so significantly raised more than half a century ago. Sadly, anyone familiar with the earlier work will find little of value in the “new” venture. For those new to the subject, the authors provide an excessive and overly detailed discussion of the health care industry, both in the U.S. and abroad (61 percent of the text).

Given the discussions dealing with business services, terrorism, and the environment, there is little more than passing mention of both the arts and education, industries subject to the

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Yale University Press

dilemma, and both of core significance to the nature and well-being of our society. In a sense, the authors alert the reader to this situation in the subtitle, “Why Computers Get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn’t.”

Alas, even accepting the alert provided by the subtitle, I found the work problematic in a significant number of ways. In addition to the incomprehensibly sanguine prediction about the future noted above, the book is rife with problems that distract, divert, and delude, far too many for the space allotted here. But by way of example, among the most problematic include the following:

Reviews Book Review 1. If I may coin a phrase, the book suffers from a Citation Disease. Thirty percent of the book is devoted to references, this for example in contrast to 13 and 21 percent respectively for two major, widely reviewed and extensive works, The Holocaust (Gilbert) and Fields of Blood (Armstrong).

2. There are several tables and charts throughout the book, a number of which are labeled either in a confusing or contradictory way, or simply not the actual table referred to in the text. The former include Figures 1.2 with the labels reversed; Figure 1.5 with health expenditures for the six countries virtually impossible to identify, and as listed, totally inconsistent with the text regarding relative growth rates; Figure 3.1 has the key in opposition to the data shown on the graph, and worse yet, its description has nothing to do with the reference in the text itself.

3. Chapter 11, written with Monet Malach, a clinical professor at NYU, is perhaps a classic in its specific detail per page. The chapter discusses 25 particular ways to reduce health care spending, often using technical jargon, all in the space of 24 pages, with the assist of 114 footnotes.

4. Finally, it’s almost as if the different authors weren’t quite on the same page, as the following vivid example suggests. Chapter 11 ends as follows: “…no matter what measures we take to improve efficiency and reduce waste in health care, we can expect medical care expenditures to continue to rise rapidly, as the cost disease mechanism grinds on.”

With the very next sentence opening Chapter 12 suggesting: “The picture that emerges in not so daunting. We can have it all: better health care, good education, and even more orchestral performances.”

The list goes on, but I think the reader understands my frustration with the book. And it’s not as if Baumol seems totally devoid of realistic possibilities. Indeed, in the introduction, he does question the plausibility of the rosy scenario just introduced, recognizing that events, “wars, earthquakes, and a myriad other things that cannot be foreseen by anyone…” may significantly dampen such prospects.

But if we can avoid the latter, as noted above, our descendants are going to have it seven times rosier than do we.

It’s the seven times that I would argue is patently ridiculous. And, I’m pleased to say, I think I’m in good company.

Not that long ago, a rather well-known economist, John Maynard Keynes, saw that same growth possibilities in a capitalist system, assuming the avoidance of wars and other unforeseen distractions.

In his short but well known essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren,”written in 1930, Keynes took on precisely the issues under discussion in the CD. That is, the implication for the future of continued economic growth, unimpeded by wars and other unforeseen external intrusions. As is the case with Baumol and company, Keynes saw the very positive benefits of even modest but compound economic growth. He writes that for the sake of argument, assume that we are all of us “eight times better off in the economic sense than we are today.” After some

discussion about the implications of such a situation, Keynes assumes that for the vast majority of us, our material needs will be satisfied. He writes: “We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudomoral principles which have hag-ridden for two hundred years by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities…we shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money motive at its true value….a somewhat disgusting morbidity…which we hand over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease… …We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously and well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the filed who toil not, neither do they spin.

But beware. The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair, and foul is useful and fair is not.

Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.”1 For Keynes, the date when we will have in a significant sense solved the “economic problem” is on the horizon, in 2030- only another 15 years from now. As noted, he did offer a similar set of qualifications regarding war and other unforeseen events as is evident in Baumol’s writing today.

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Reviews Book Review Based on projections of the Economic Research Service, GDP per capita in 2030 will be US $70,000 in the United States, but for the entire world, a mere fraction, at 15 percent.

I think it’s fair to say, that at least for much of the developed world, Keynes is probably closer to the mark than Baumol and his collaborators.

However, in considering the realities of our seeming inability to avoid war, the perfectly understandable desire on the part of much of the less than fully developed world to emulate the affluent west, along with what is becoming more and more apparent with respect to the environmental limits to growth, neither of these rosy scenarios should offer excessive optimism for our future. In a sense, given the ever increasing tensions around the world, coupled with our relatively recent understanding of climate change, one might be willing to give Keynes a pass. It’s a good bit more difficult to account for Baumol’s sanguine perspective.

Finally, and in an effort to diverge from the “gloomy science” of most of my kin, a bit of “upbeat” optimism can be drawn, ironically, from the excess of our present system. Data for 2011 indicates that total U.S. health expenditure as a percentage of GDP was 17.7 percent, as compared to an average of 10.5 percent for the next nine countries, based on per capita health expenditures. In other words, the U.S. spends about 70 percent more on health needs per citizen than literally every other wealthy country in the developed world. If health standards in the U.S. reflected a similar disparity, one may argue that the price we pay is worth it. The opposite is the case, as indicated in a 2010 study by the Commonwealth Fund:

401(K) 2012

The authors of The Cost Disease discuss at length the rising costs of health care, particularly in the United States.

“Despite having the most expensive health care system, the United States ranks last overall compared to six other industrialized countries— Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom—on measures of health system performance in five areas: quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and the ability to lead long, healthy, productive lives…the U.S. stands out for not getting good value for its health care dollars, ranking last despite spending $7,290 per capita on health care in 2007 compared to the $3,837 spent per capita in the Netherlands, which ranked first overall.”2 The reader might well ask: what is upbeat about this situation? The answer is relatively simple. In the CD, Baumol focuses on changes in spending and not levels. The former

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are indeed destined to rise; it’s the nature of the beast. But with a more rational system, one widely available in nations all around us, Baumol’s projection of a rise in health spending from 15 to 62 percent of GDP over the next century can be significantly moderated. The extent of such moderation is surely unknown. After all, we are dealing with an imprecise as well as dismal science.

References 1. Keynes, John Maynard. Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. AspenInstitute.org [online] (1930). http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/ files/content/upload/Intro_Session1.pdf.

2. Davis, K., C. Schoen, and K. Stremikis. Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally, 2010 Update.

The Commonwealth Fund [online] (2010). http:// www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/files/ publications/fund-report/2010/jun/1400_davis_ mirror_mirror_on_the_wall_2010.pdf.

Reviews Media Reviews One Woman Greening Fashion

by Maisam Alahmed The influence and impact that the fashion industry has on this world is no secret. However, few know the tremendous amount of pollution created by the fashion industry, and even fewer realize its extremely harmful impact on the environment.

The industry that dictates the style of this generation is posing a threat to future generations and to this planet as a whole. Regardless of how seriously you take fashion or whether you are against having Vogue magazine and such dictate what styles are ‘in’ and

what are the ‘must-haves’ of the fall collections, our choices of clothing are contributing to the pollution of our planet and we are, sadly, behind it.

Goldie Francesca Abony, a woman with a passion for fashion, has found a suitable solution that is green and does not have to cost one their sense of style or their love for trends. With a goal in mind to save the planet and to preserve the fashion world, Goldie has recently launched her own fashion blog, I Love Goldie, to promote environmentally friendly fashion ideas and inspirations.

Through her various blog posts, Goldie aims to encourage consumers

to choose brands, labels, and products that are produced by eco-friendly industries, and to force fashion industries, such as modern textile industry—a big source of greenhouse gases—to change their policies. Goldie believes that we consumers can control the promotion of every industry from which we choose to buy.

“After all, as consumers we have the power to vote with our dollar and ensure that the right brands and practices are in vogue,” she states in her message to the world. “Choose aesthetics that go with your ethics!”

Visit the blog at: http://ilovegoldie .com.

Rainforest Action Network

The fashion industry has a significant negative impact on the environment. Abony’s blog promotes environmentally conscious brands. www.thesolutionsjournal.org | March-April 2015 | Solutions | 75

Stutchbury, B. (2015). Has Your Coffee Killed a Songbird? Solutions 6(2): 76-80. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/has-your-coffee-killed-a-songbird/

On The Ground

Has Your Coffee Killed a Songbird?

by Bridget Stutchbury

Ron Mumme

The author with a hooded warbler at a study site in Pennsylvania, in the Northeast United States.

I

t is the first day of February and a major snowstorm is bearing down on the Great Lakes region with the overnight low forecasted to be a bonechilling 0°F. I am Canadian to the core, but by this stage of winter I long for the sight of my first red-winged blackbird and tree swallow in March, as they return from the southern United States. A month later, these first migrants will be followed by a wave of warblers, tanagers, orioles, grosbeaks, and thrushes that spent their winter in Central and South America. These

long distance migrants will fill our neighborhoods, fields, and forests with vibrant color and song as they set up territories, and fulfil the purpose of their odyssey and breed.

For now, I am sitting at my kitchen table in Toronto, well-slippered, fleeced, and sipping a cup of Bird Friendly® certified shade coffee, the floral aroma of which conjures up thoughts of what “my” birds are doing at this very moment. I can imagine a camouflaged wood thrush hopping under a strangler fig tree and flipping over leaves in

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search of food, a flock of Tennessee warblers delicately sipping nectar from Inga tree flowers, a summer tanager skulking in the forest canopy and suddenly barking out its sharp “ki-ti-kuk” call.

The Bird Friendly® shade coffee farms where my coffee was grown are two thousand miles away, in Nicaragua. Unlike conventional sun coffee plantations, these Bird Friendly® farms provide forest-like habitat, with no pesticides, and a safe and much-needed home for many of North America’s migratory songbirds. Every

On The Ground morning, my cup of coffee, along with every sustainably sourced brew, is helping our songbirds to come home.

The tide of birds that sweeps over North America each spring, and recedes each fall, has been captured at a continental level by eBird sightings reported to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.1 These graphics leave the impression of overwhelming abundance, but the harsh reality is that dozens of species of migratory songbirds have been in a steep decline in recent decades. Many of our migratory songbirds are steadily dwindling in numbers, including the wood thrush. This iconic forest bird has lost half of its North American population since annual Breeding Bird Survey counts began 50 years ago. Wood thrushes are best known for their flute-like song which is bold, beautiful, and full of life. For many people, the refreshing and ringing dusk chorus of “ee-oh-lay,” from thrushes in the forest near their house, is now only a distant memory.

There are many factors that have contributed to the wood thrush’s decline, but two major factors are pesticides and tropical deforestation.

Shade coffee offers an encouraging solution because high quality coffee can be grown in a sustainable agro-forestry system that is good for farmers, birds, and biodiversity of all manners.

The lights are going out for songbirds like the wood thrush, but we can all play a role in reversing its decline.

Since the 1980s, I have studied migratory songbirds to understand their surprisingly complex mating behavior, to map their incredible migration journeys, and to help halt the alarming declines in so many species. My students at York University, in Toronto, and I have started studying the wood thrush because it has become an ambassador for forest bird declines, and is the proverbial ‘canary in the coal mine.’ We

have tracked their year-round migration and studied their abundance and health in a variety of forest types in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Belize.

Like all our Neotropical migrants, the wood thrush leads a double life, spending over over half of the year in tropical countries. Wood thrushes can be difficult to see in their tropical homes owing to their earth tones and shy nature, but their rapid-fire calls quickly reveal the character in the shadows. Although the wintering range of this species is well known, and stretches from southern Mexico to Panama, until recently it was impossible to track individual songbirds to map the core wintering areas and find out what threats the birds face while there.

We band and weigh each bird, take a tiny blood sample, and then attach a harness around the bird’s hips so that the geolocator sits comfortably on the lower back. A month or more later, the bird disappears on migration to parts unknown. If we are lucky, it returns after migration to almost the same spot where we first tagged it. The bird has to be lucky, too to survive the 7,500 km (approximately 4,500 mile) round trip, which usually includes a non-stop flight over the Gulf of Mexico in the spring. Only a third of the birds make it and return to breed, whether or not they were wearing geolocators.

In May 2008, my graduate students caught the very first wood thrush to be tracked for its entire migration.

Unlike conventional sun coffee plantations, these Bird Friendly® farms provide forest-like habitat, with no pesticides, and a safe and much-needed home for many of North America’s migratory songbirds.

My students and I used newly miniaturized tracking devices called ‘geolocators,’ which weigh less than a US dime, so that the birds can carry them as little backpacks. The geolocator measures light levels every few minutes, and the resulting sunrise and sunset times can be converted into approximate latitude and longitude. The hard part is that we must retrieve the geolocator after the bird’s round-trip migration to download the archived data.

The first step is to catch a wood thrush using a long, rectangular, and loosely strung ‘mist net’ that is held upright by poles at either end.

In a shady forest, the net is hard to see and birds fly into it by mistake.

We discovered that this male, along with four other wood thrushes that had bred in the same forest in northwestern Pennsylvania, all spent their winter in eastern Honduras and Nicaragua. This was not just a coincidence. We have now tracked dozens of wood thrushes that bred in the central-east or north-east part of the US breeding range, and the vast majority also wintered in eastern Honduras, Nicaragua, or western Costa Rica. Overall, as we report in a recent paper published in Conservation Biology, just over 50 percent of all wood thrushes in North America depend on this narrow region to survive their stay in the tropics.

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On The Ground This eastern part of Central America is a wood thrush haven, but it is also a global deforestation hotspot, and is losing its tropical forests at one of the highest rates in the world.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization 2011 State of the World’s Forests report, since 1990 Honduras has lost 27 percent of its forest, and Nicaragua 31 percent, to agriculture.2 It should come as no surprise, then, that wood thrushes that depend on these forests are disappearing quickly.

Numerous studies on wood thrushes and other forest songbirds have shown that the extent and quality of tropical forest directly affects the health and survival of the birds that live there.

The scale of our assault on this endearing forest icon is enormous.

According to the Breeding Bird Survey, an annual census of North America’s bird abundance, the wood thrush has been declining by 1.8 percent per year.3 This may not sound so bad, but it means that the total North American population size of wood thrushes has plummeted by about 50 percent since the 1960s, which is a loss of 12 million birds from our forests. If forest loss continues at its current pace, we can expect the population will drop by another four million birds by 2025.

And, these depressing statistics are for one species alone, while many other forest species are similarly affected.

What can be done to make sure that our wood thrushes, and other forest songbirds, remain common and serenade future generations for years to come? Bird Friendly® shade coffee farms offer one win-win solution because they provide high quality forested habitat for dozens of species of migratory songbirds, as well as tropical birds that live there year round. In the village of San Juan del Río Coco, Nicaragua, for instance, a cooperative of more than 400 small coffee producers raise more than 2.5 million pounds

Bill Lynch

A wood thrush in Helyar Woods, New Jersey in the Northeast United States.

of Bird Friendly® certified coffee every year. This one co-op adds up to approximately 8,000 acres, a green oasis that is surrounded by miles of deforested land devoted to pasture, sun coffee, and other crops. Smalland medium-size coffee farmers gain many ecological and economic benefits from keeping a multi-layered and diverse set of tree species on their

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farm. Recent studies have also shown that birds that depend on the trees directly benefit farmers by controlling insect pests and increasing coffee production. Saving heavily shaded coffee farms throughout this region would protect tens of thousands of acres of habitat for the wood thrush and other migratory songbirds. But, farmers need our help.

On The Ground

Jefferson Schriver

The Gaia Estate, a Bird Friendly certified shade coffee farm in Nicaragua.

What is missing is large-scale support and commitment from the millions of coffee drinkers in America to buy Bird Friendly® certified coffee.

Too many consumers are not aware of the benefits of shade coffee to birds and farmers, or do not realize how easy it is to buy Bird Friendly® shade coffee. Few people know how or where their coffee is grown, but would be alarmed if they did. Most of the coffee sold in North America today is grown in the full sun, provides no habitat for wildlife, uses heavy amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, and causes extensive soil erosion in the tropical

rainy season. In the last decades of the 20th century, coffee production underwent a massive commercial shift from small, family-owned and forested farms to large, industrialized, tree-less sun coffee farms.

Sun coffee is literally killing the songbirds we love—and is destroying a sustainable method of farming that supports rural communities in Latin America and keeps toxic chemicals away from farm workers and their children. Many prominent conservation organizations endorse the Smithsonian certification of Bird Friendly® coffee, including the Cornell

Lab of Ornithology and the American Bird Conservancy. Nevertheless, it has been challenging to get the word out to the average coffee drinker, even those that recognize the importance of environmental protection and sustainability. The basic problem is that industrial farms can produce large quantities of bad tasting ‘robusta’ sun coffee (that some say tastes like burned tires), and consumers will unknowingly pay for this inferior product and are unaware of its environmental and social costs.

The travels of the wood thrush showcase the importance of providing

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On The Ground a strong market for Bird Friendly® certified coffee and creating a longlasting incentive for coffee farmers to keep the farms forested. This is good for farmers and good for nature.

There are five key reasons why people who love birds, and who care about the environment, should buy and drink Smithsonian Bird Friendly® certified coffee: 1. To save migratory birds.

2. To preserve forest-like habitat and biodiversity in Latin America by supporting coffee production methods that have the lowest environmental impact.

3. To protect farm workers, their children, and their neighbors from exposure to toxic chemicals.

4. To support entire rural communities with jobs and trade via an economically viable farming model.

5. To preserve tropical forests, their biodiversity, and their important global role as carbon sinks as a buffer against climate change.

Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world after oil. An astounding 330 million cups of coffee are consumed every day in North America. In the United States and Canada consumer coffee sales for 2014 were over US $55 billion, but coffee with any kind of environmental certification was only four percent of this huge market. Smithsonian Bird Friendly® coffee, which is the gold standard for sustainability (high habitat standards, organic, Fair Trade), is less than 0.5 percent of the North American coffee market, but even so, is helping to protect 30,000 acres of forest-like habitat in Central America.

Roughly 40 percent of coffee lands in Central America would qualify for Bird Friendly® certification. With more awareness and engagement,

W. Plynn

A hooded oriole migrating through the Green Valley in Arizona, en route from its wintering habitat in Central America to the Northeast United States.

coffee drinkers could do much to help these coffee farmers and our birds who visit them each year. Increasing the portion of Bird Friendly® coffee, even to just two percent of the market, would protect another 360,000 acres of forested farms. Smithsonian Bird Friendly® certified coffee offers consumers a chance to harness this economic potential and to take a step toward a more sustainable world.

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References 1. eBird Occurrence Maps. Audubon and Cornell Lab of Ornithology [online] (2015). (http://ebird.org/ content/ebird/occurrence/wood-thrush/).

2. State of the World’s Forests 2011. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States [online] (2011) (http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/ i2000e/i2000e.pdf).

3. Sauer, JR et al. The North American Breeding Bird Survey, Results and Analysis 1966-2013. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center [online] Version 01.30.2015 (2015) (http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/).

EARTHACTION

Gund Institute

for Ecological

Economics

University of Vermont

The Alliance for Appalachia

National Council for Science and the Environment Improving the scientific basis for environmental decisionmaking

Associated  Socie0es  International Society for Ecological Economics

Paula Chang / Green Patriot Posters

Planting trees and urban gardens in city centers not only contributes to cleaner air and water, but enriches quality of life for city dwellers by offering green havens for recreation. Find a community garden in your area and volunteer to help green your city!