05 September 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The Dutch International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC) has undertaken an initiative to digitally map the world’s soil. When completed, the map will provide accurate soil information for agronomists and climate modelers, as well as the amount of carbon released by soil into the atmosphere in specific areas. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated US $1 million in seed money to the newly launched GlobalSoilMap.net; the project has also received US $18 million from the Africa Soil Information Service. For ultimate success, a further US $181 million will be needed for high-tech extrapolations of existing, pre-digital maps. Many existing maps for developing countries are at low resolutions, splitting land into polygons of uniform soil compositions. GlobalSoilMap.net will use modern computing and satellite data to take plant cover, surface temperature, elevation, and climate data into consideration. David Lawrence, a climate modeler from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told MediaGlobal, “One of the big questions facing climate science is what will happen to the global carbon cycle under climate change,” he said. “Will the Earth’s ecosystems work to take up excess carbon in the atmosphere, thereby mitigating climate change, or release carbon to the atmosphere, thereby amplifying climate change? Improved spatial estimates of soil carbon amount and distribution…will help contain the problem.” Those working on the project predict Africa will be its biggest beneficiary. At present, not much is known of Africa’s soil content. Most African countries have a shortage of phosphorus in the soil, which is essential for plants to complete photosynthesis. If more were known about the soil composition on the continent, it would be possible for farmers to yield much more. The ultimate goal of GlobalSoilMap.net is a digital soil map that is able to provide snapshots of any land on earth over time, in response to changing environmental conditions. Alison Walkley

Media in the global South gain free access to climate change broadcasting material

05 September 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Media in the global South received a big boost this week in their ability to cover climate change, thanks to the Broadcast Media and Climate Change: A Public Service Remit conference held this week in Paris. The conference, sponsored by UNESCO, the United Nations Environmental Programme, and others brought together broadcasters, broadcast associations, and climate science organizations to discuss the role that the media can play in spreading awareness about climate change adaptation and mitigation. “Coming just three months ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, the outcome of this international conference on broadcast media and climate change will contribute to the high-level discussions in December,” Djibril Kebe, UNESCO media officer, told MediaGlobal. Media in less developed countries traditionally has had a difficult time covering climate change due to the difficulty of accessing up-to-date, regionally specific, and accurate information regarding climate change. Several media partners of the conference, including the BBC, France Télévisions, and the Global Humanitarian Forum, will now be working with UNESCO to provide access to audiovisual climate change material to media in developing countries for free. The conference also laid the foundation for a worldwide media partnership on climate change, and for providing free training to media organizations on how to broadcast climate change information. Molly Slothower

World Food Program prepares for worst with hurricanes in Haiti

04 September 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Eleven major storms and hurricanes are expected to hit Haiti from now until the end of fall, yet parts of the nation remain without a “contingent or evacuation plan,” according to Jean-Pierre Mambounou, the head of the World Food Programme’s Gonaïves, Haiti office. The WFP is among the organizations preparing for a potentially devastating level of destruction with a major relief effort. Already, 5,700 metric tons of emergency-only foods have been set aside for post-disaster relief, enough to supply 500,000 people for one month. WFP has also allocated supplementary high-nutrition food for 35,000 children, as well as pregnant and lactating women, but as the WFP noted in a media release, “that food can only be distributed from warehouses in the capital of Port-au-Prince and WFP warehouses in Jacmel, Gonaïves and Cap Haïtien if the roads are passable. In the immediate aftermath of a major storm and a deluge of rain, many roads will probably be impassable.” Humanitarian regions have been continuously working on various initiatives in Haiti, hoping to provide buffers for the country’s lands and people. In Gonaïves, a northern city, the International Labour Organization, United Nations Development Programme, and the WFP have employed 5,000 Haitians at a time, clearing the region of mud while also building ditches and erosion walls. Though Marc-Andre Franche, UNDP’s deputy country director in Haiti, told MediaGlobal in July that 75 percent of the city’s streets have now been cleaned, Mambounou noted that “most people are not confident about the huge job that has been done here so far to secure them against the flood.” The widening of the River Mapou has also been a successful undertaking, but Mambounou said that “the outcome of the scheme remains uncertain because the river bank is fragile as these and the river bed were not reinforced with concrete materials.” Amy Lieberman

Non-communicable diseases on rise in global South

03 September 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: With growing incomes and changing lifestyles in the global South, the nature of the disease burden in many areas is shifting from infectious diseases to chronic or non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Such illnesses include cancer, diabetes, psychological disorders, and cardiovascular and lung disease, and are related to factors such as lack of exercise, pollution, and unhealthy diets that are now known to make a larger impact on people’s lives in the developing world. Though sometimes approached separately, NCDs can work in conjunction with infectious diseases leading to even higher mortality rates. In a medical study published last month, Dr. Bongani Mayosi of the University of Cape Town’s Department of Medicine and a group of experts described the occurrence of this trend in South Africa–noted not only for its growing economy but also its large professional medical base and facilities–and possible step’s forward for the nation. Mayosi agrees that the South African government has taken solid action, and though it has not yet sufficiently addressed the rise of these NCDs, there are signs of progress. He explained to MediaGlobal, “what is needed now is vigorous implementation of existing legislation, policies, and guidelines, with monitoring and evaluation of the impact thereof.” Mayosi also added that though “the NGO response needs to be better coordinated with the government response, civil society and individuals are the key and this has been demonstrated well in the area of HIV/AIDS whose lessons need to be replicated more widely.” The group’s study outlines a number of recommendations for the government to restructure health care to tackle the rise of NCDs. They include caring for the urban poor–who bear much of the brunt of NCDs–through exercise programs in school and at work; tobacco-use reduction programs, especially for youth; making food healthier; and strengthening local health systems. Experts believe that as the economies of the South grow, those suffering from NCDs will eventually outnumber those with infectious diseases, as is the case in the developed world. South Africa’s experience could therefore offer solid guidelines for the rest of the global South. Henoch Derbew

Training women to handle burden of climate change

03 September 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Poor women living in developing countries will be disproportionately affected by climate change, says the recently-released “Training Manual on Gender and Climate Change,” produced by the Global Gender and Climate Change Alliance (GGCA). The GGCA has called for gender-sensitive policies and actions in countering the effects of climate change. According to Lorena Aguilar, senior gender advisor for the International Union for Conservation Studies (IUCN), rural women are responsible for half of the world’s food production and between 60 and 80 percent of food production in developing countries. This means that the vast majority of food-security problems brought on by climate change, including water shortage and decreased crop production, will be borne by women farmers in outlying areas. Women and children are also 14 times more likely to die from natural disasters and extreme weather events brought on by environmental changes. Aguilar told MediaGlobal “We produced the training manual to develop capacity at different levels: as a practical tool at for policy-making at government level, and in field initiatives to train women farmers in different parts of the world.” This training includes strategies to improve farming methods and disaster management, political ability to demand access to risk-management instruments, and financial empowerment through improved access to global markets. “Before the IUCN work on gender and climate change, there was very little known about the issue. Now we are working to mainstream the issue of gender next to climate change,” said Aguilar. Despite her emphasis on gender-sensitivity, Aguilar stressed the importance of seeing women as “powerful agents of change,” rather than victims. Historically, rural women have passed knowledge down through generations about traditional ways of handling environmental variations, such as different soil types and access to water. Their role as net producers of food places them in an important position to catalyze progress. Zanele Mji

World must promote development, while saving the planet

02 September 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: According to the UN World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) released today, developing countries must be allowed to pursue high economic growth even while the world tackles the urgent climate challenge. Much of the conversation on climate change has focused on the need to reduce emissions, which may in turn reduce economic output in the short-term until renewable technologies become more affordable. Slowed economic growth, however, is simply not a possibility for developing countries, according to the WESS. “Developing countries have legitimate concerns that when asked to drastically cut emissions, this could come at a cost of poverty reduction and other developmental goals,” Rob Vos, who launched the Survey in the UN’s New York Headquarters today, told MediaGlobal. “Asking [developing countries] to cut emissions without an accompanying development agenda would be unfair.” Vos gave an example of the detrimental impact of forcing developing countries to make blanket reductions in emissions might have. “Deforestation contributes about 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but also almost 2 billion people find a living based on the forest sector. Hence putting a halt to deforestation without a development agenda would jeopardize the livelihoods of all those people.” The goal, according to Vos, should be to get developing countries on a sustainable development path, in particular one which allows them to have economic growth at high rates while emitting ever-lower amounts of greenhouse gases. The way to do that is to make renewable technologies readily available to the developing world quickly and at affordable prices, which requires a large global investment in these technologies immediately to bring down costs. The WESS predicts that this will require additional resource flows of 1 percent of gross world product (US $500-600 billion) per year, from North to South, starting in 2010. Besides renewable technologies, the fund would also target improvement in energy efficiency and forest management in developing countries. Raquel Thompson

Editor: Nosh Nalavala

Assistant Editor: Christina L. Madden

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