Prof Dave Richardson of the Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology at Stellenbosch University is the lead author of a ground-breaking paper that describes a tool to help policy-makers and scientists employ “managed relocation” to move species into “more accommodating habitat” where they are currently absent.

“We hope that the tool will help to reduce the polarity that has emerged in the debate on whether managed relocation should be added to the conservationist’s toolbox,” says Prof Richardson.

“Scientists are, for the first time, objectively evaluating ways to help species cope with rapidly changing climate and other environmental threats by implementing strategies that were considered too radical for serious consideration as recently as five or ten years ago,” explains Prof Richardson, one of the world’s leading minds on matters pertaining to invasive species.

“Our decision-making tool is ground-breaking because managed relocation has traditionally been categorically eschewed by scientists for fear that relocated species would harm receiving habitats by reproducing wildly out of control, causing extinctions of local species,” says Prof Richardson, who cites the way in which invasive alien trees have reduced water production from mountain catchments in the Western Cape as an example of the damage that translocation can do.

Now that is radical. It seems climate change is so rapid, that a more than 2 degrees C average global temperature increase this century is inevitable, that we are going to intervene radically in ecosystem functioning in order to help our fellow species survive. I wonder where we can relocate the polar bears to?

Ralph Pina is an ecoAfrica.com founder

Deforested slopes under cultivation

A few kilometres outside Lilongwe the contrast could not be starker. Lumbering 4×4′s give way to the dominant mode of transport – bicycles. Bicycles by the thousands, bicycles loaded with towers of wood and charcoal, bicycles as taxis. So while the inexorable rise in the oil price over the longer term has serious consequences for Malawi’s small formal economy as it gets priced out of the world oil market – not to mention for the operations of the 4×4-mounted NGOs et al – 85% of the population who live and sustain themselves in the rural areas could well be less affected by peak oil. However, there is a new indirect and perverse threat as indigenous woodland is replaced with Jatropha, a cash crop for biofuel, in a country already suffering severe and accelerating deforestation and destruction of biodiversity. I’ll return to the issue of deforestation later.

Bicycles everywhere

It is difficult to comprehend how dependent Malawi is on agriculture until you have travelled there (of course we all are ultimately; supermarkets alone are not sufficient – Bartlett’s 16th law of sustainability). Agriculture accounts for a third of GDP and 90% of exports. But dependence on agriculture is more fundamental: almost everybody is a farmer and a subsistence farmer at that. Malawi suffers from an ongoing food security crisis that affects more than five million people in the south of the country. Every scrap of land is cultivated, even the road verges in Lilongwe, to feed a burgeoning population growing at 2.39% annually. No wonder that much of the development aid is targeted at developing agriculture. While I am no agricultural expert it did bother me somewhat that the input of chemical fertiliser, which has as feedstock natural gas, to improve agricultural yields is regarded as one of the major interventions. To my mind this creates a new dependency on an imported resource, which is in any case unsustainable, and over the long term and with injudicious use, destroys the soil.

Bags of charcoal at the roadside

Almost as critical as the food security situation is hunger for basic energy in the rural areas. From simple observation I concluded that the average rural peasant’s day consists of cultivating, collecting and preparing food, and collecting building materials, wood and charcoal. Access to electricity, almost all of it generated by the hydro plants on the Shire River, is limited to the towns and cities and to only 7.9% of the population. Ninety percent (90%) of the country’s energy demand is met by burning wood or charcoal. And the effect of this hunger for biomass can be seen in a landscape denuded of woodland. Rural people are having to travel further and further for wood, and the production and sale of charcoal for cash is a serious problem.

At the same time small, informal brickworks dot the countryside and consume massive amounts of wood. Perhaps there is a perception that a house is only truly a house if it’s built from brick.

In summary there seem to be two drivers of deforestation:

1) energy demand: for cooking, for firing bricks, somebody else’s demand for biofuel crops

2) food cultivation.

As we climbed out of Lilongwe on the flight back to SA, the difference in vegetation cover along the border between Malawi – stripped and cultivated – and Zambia – forested – was stark, a light-dark line of contrast. Between 1990 and 2005 Malawi lost 12.7% of its forest cover. The situation is plainly unsustainable.

Charcoal transporter

Firing bricks with forest

All this got me wondering about development projects that address rural energy needs, deforestation and loss of biodiversity. In my short week in Lilongwe and 500kms of driving to Cape Maclear and back I had seen little or no evidence of rural energy projects, although clearly there must be. And there are – as a cursory Google search will reveal.

The obvious solution to the demand for cooking fuel is solar cooking, and it seems to be getting wide attention and government support. An alternative project involves the production of briquettes from wood and paper waste and other agricultural residues, and another promotes the use and manufacture of clay stoves. Clearly a wide array of technologies, methods and resources are being employed to address the problem of basic energy production.

So, if you want to make a contribution to sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in Malawi, make a contribution to these basic energy projects, especially the solar cooking projects. They need to be scaled up drastically to make a substantive difference. Some links are provided below.

Livestock transport

There are alternative paths too. Africans are resourceful and this young Malawian built a home-made wind turbine to power the family compound from what he had to hand from ideas that he read in a text book. You must watch this remarkable story:

Ralph Pina is ecoAfrica‘s chairman and is currently studying renewable and sustainable energy

References:

Ndirande Nkhuni Biomass Briquette Programme: http://www.undp.org/energy/publications/2001/files_2001a/06_Malawi.pdf

Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi: http://www.escommw.com/distribution.php

Programme for Basic Energy and Conservation in Southern Africa (ProBEC): Malawi: http://www.probec.org/displaysection.php?czacc=&zSelectedSectionID=sec1192918473

The World Fact Book: Malawi: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mi.html

Malawi Deforestation Rates and Related Forestry Statistics: Malawi: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/2000/Malawi.htm

Malawian Food Crisis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi_food_crisis

The Solar Cooking Archive Wiki: Malawi: http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Malawi

Populations of the poor and uneducated will be pushed to the high ground as the sea levels rise.  There the already denuded and desertified lands will face increased pressure.   In the less prepared countries where governments are not equipped to deal with the influx, law and order will soon collapse and marauding gangs will soon rise and become the law of the land.  Just as the Difaqane wars displaced the peoples of southern Africa, so will we have waves of displaced people escaping the gangs.   Murder and starvation will prevail.  I have a vision of a small nomadic family fighting its way through a sandstorm, dragging their prize possession, a goat.  Out of the miasma comes a group on horseback (or in a vehicle, if there’s any fuel to be obtained).  They are strong and consist of men.  They take the goat and kill the father and son for good measure.  They rape the women and move on.  Sound familiar?  Could be Zimbabwe or it could be Darfur right now.  Most people in Africa know what desperation feels like.  It is a visceral rather than cerebral knowledge, born out of immediate and personal experience.

The strong countries will put up barricades and run police states to combat the rising tide of environmental refugees.   Civil liberties will fall away and the average person in these so-called civilized countries will soon be living as people in Johannesburg already do, with security systems that diminish the enjoyment of every day life.

It doesn’t require much of an imagination.  All this is already happening and the likelihood that the situation will deteriorate further, before it improves, is substantive.

Ignoring the problem is a cop-out.  Believing that you’re so mighty you’ll be one of the winners is fantasy.  There will be no winners.  There will only be losers.  (The significance of 9/11!)

Personally I can’t think of anything more dull and unhealthy than a world that is centered purely around human beings – just as cultural diversity is stimulating, so too is biological and spiritual diversity.  Be that as it may, even for those people who don’t think there’s any merit in preserving biodiversity, there is the incontrovertible truth that the resources available cannot match the demand.

But what keeps me awake at night, and it truly does, is that it seems that everyone pussyfoots around the root cause of all this:  if all humans are to enjoy a comfortable, Western lifestyle ( and it seems that everyone aspires to this) then there are way too many people on this planet to support that luxury.  Never mind the projections of population growth.

So what can be done?  Try and convince all the developing nations that material comfort and good health are not really what they want?  Or try and reduce the breeding numbers?  It’s strange, but even educated people have a mental block about the latter.  When you mention that the numbers need to be reduced they immediately jump to the conclusion that some kind of die off is what you’re suggesting.  On the contrary, the educated world has had the means to prevent pregnancies for some decades.  Yes, there are concerns about aging populations having to be supported by a declining working population, but there is no problem-free solution to the pickle we’re in.

A two pronged approach would probably do the trick, with a leg up from education.  Reducing our consumption and reducing the number of children we have is an individual’s choice.   We see in international politics the theme of the South not prepared to toe the line because the North isn’t prepared to lead by example.  So it will take ordinary people, people like you and me, the grass roots if you like, to figure this out on an individual level and do what we think is right to avoid having future generations cursing us for our selfishness and short-sightedness.

Having been born and raised in Africa I often think about the reverence that Africans hold for the ancestors.  What if we get to a point that future generations curse us, the ancestors, for what we’ve left as a legacy?  It is time for us all to take responsibility for what we leave behind.

What the world really needs is a new ethos, a new culture, a new spirituality.  One that celebrates diversity and takes responsibility for the power, we as a species, possess.   I believe we should be looking for it in the arts, the space where creative energies flourish.   But as there is a definite correlation between power and ostentation, we should be looking for it on the fringes.  Did you know that the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa is second only to Edinburgh for its programme diversity?

Let’s take the second question first: what is eco-travel? Without entering into a debate about eco-travel – or ecotourism – definitions, it is worth pointing out that ecotourism represents a travel ethic rather than a market segment or type of tourism. It is purposeful travel, where the salient purpose, besides experiencing Nature, is the preservation of Nature.

Two generally accepted definitions of ecotourism are:

Ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation.

Ecotourism Association of Australia

Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.

The International Ecotourism Society (TIES)

One could write an academic article on just the differences between these two definitions e.g. “ecologically sustainable” versus “responsible” travel; and the one’s emphasis on “understanding” versus the other’s call to improve the “well-being of local people”. But let’s suffice by observing that there are usually three core elements in most definitions: preservation or conservation of nature; understanding of natural and cultural environments through education and interpretation, and benefits to local communities.

Eco-travel and sustainability

However, eco-travel is also a human economic activity and therefore has to be (ecologically) sustainable. And here we head into contested territory once more, because the concept of “sustainability” (and sustainable development) has been hotly debated since 1987 when the UN’s Brundtland Commission attempted to define “sustainable development” for the first time. I subscribe to the notion of strong sustainability, which basically means that human (e.g. people, knowledge, skills, etc.) and human-made capital (e.g. technology, goods, money, etc.) cannot substitute for natural capital (e.g. ecosystems, species, natural resources, etc.) ^[1] and that human and natural capital should be separately maintained. Eco-travel satisfies strong sustainability conditions as it is primarily concerned with the conservation (maintenance) of nature, with minimal trade-offs, if any. I would go further by arguing that nature should be conserved and preserved for its own sake, and not only because it has value to humans (ecotourism is a way of assigning human value to nature).

For eco-travel to be sustainable, the consumption of non-renewable resources should occur at a rate at which renewable sources can generate substitutes, and secondly, waste and pollution should be generated within the absorbtive capacity of the ecosphere. Eco-travel to Africa, which generally involves long-haul, air travel from the rich, developed countries, consequently has a problem on two counts:

1. Air travel is powered by non-renewable fossil fuels, and for air travel there is as yet no viable renewable fuel substitute;
2. Air travel greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contribute a growing proportion of global GHG emissions, although the absolute amount is small. And as we know GHG emissions are probably influencing climate systems in unpredictable ways.^[2]

By these measures, even eco-travel fails the sustainability test. Does this then mean that we shouldn’t fly to Africa to experience its wild places? In the next section I will try to argue why one should.

Eco-travel makes a difference

Deforestation is the second largest source (20 to 25%) of anthropogenic carbon emissions globally. Conservation International has identified the miombo-mopane woodland and savanna of southern Africa as a global biodiversity hotspot, threatened by unprecedented deforestation. The vast wooded wilderness stretches from coast to coast, from Mozambique to Angola, spanning ten countries. It is the habitat for a diverse and vast collection of Africa’s animals, who live cheek by jowl with millions of poor, rural Africans, who use the woodlands and savanna as a natural resource and depend on its ecosystem services. One result is increasing deforestation. Zambia is a case in point where charcoal has become a major energy source and its production a livelihood for its rural peoples – and where the population is set to double by 2020.

So how does eco-travel contribute to avoiding deforestation?

It is fortunate that a large proportion of Africa’s charismatic mega-fauna occur here, making wildlife tourism a major economic activity. Eco-travel and wildlife safaris depend on, and occur most often, in protected areas. The miombo/mopane wilderness is reasonably well protected by national parks and reserves, and more recently the advent of transfrontier conservation areas (TFCA) and parks (known as peace parks) are stitching protected areas together to ensure the integrity of entire ecosystems. Traditionally, national parks and other formally protected areas exclude humans, and thus prevent deforestation. However, the TFCAs recognise that people are part of the ecosystem and national park policies are becoming more enlightened. Unfortunately, the reality is also that in many of these poor and under-resourced countries, protected areas’ continued survival is increasingly dependent on tourism – so that protected area security is at the mercy of global and local political-economic events and conditions and yes, the response of western tourists to calls not to fly…

While conserving biodiversity irrespective of its perceived value for humans is essential – which is what formal protected areas are meant to do – it is also clearly vital that local communities must benefit from conservation. Ecotourism is one way that they can. So it is important to vet tourism operations in these areas for the extent to which they invest in and help to develop local communities and establish sustainable livelihoods. Without a stake in the continued existence of wild lands and animals, it is understandable that locals will degrade the land in their efforts to survive.

In the final analysis, I suppose that it boils down to an ethical question: do I as a traveller heed the call not to fly to long-haul destinations in Africa because of concern about my contributions to carbon emissions and the depletion of non-renewable fuels, or do I rather continue flying in the knowledge that my visit will contribute to avoided deforestation, continued protection of wilderness, biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods for and development of local communities?

I would argue that you should make the trip and buy the carbon offsets^[2], but be sure that the suppliers of the trip truly adhere to the tenets of ecotourism and that the suppliers of the offsets invest in projects that ensure true sustainability.

If these conditions are met, then eco-travel does make a difference, not only in Africa, but also globally – and on various levels, including mitigation of climate change.

Links to ecoAfrica’s pages for selected protected areas in the miombo/mopane wilderness:

• Chobe National Park, Botswana
• Moremi Wildlife Reserve, Botswana
• Kafue Nationa Park, Zambia
• Luangwa Valley, Zambia
• Kruger National Park, South Africa
• Manda Wilderness, Mozambique
• Mana Pools World Heritage Site, Zimbabwe
• Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia
• Liwonde National Park, Malawi

About the author: Ralph Pina is ecoAfrica’s chairman

[1] Weak sustainability would almost always countenance trade-offs between socio-economic benefits and ecological impacts. This would generally be the type of sustainability that the business and industrial sectors would subscribe to.

[2] Although there are ethical problems around buying carbon offsets to make your air travel carbon neutral, it does have value if the carbon offset scheme a) invests in renewable energy projects that would generate renewable energy equivalent to your proportion of the fossil-fuel energy used in your flights, and b) invests in projects that result in substantive reductions in emissions, because our emissions have already overshot what can be absorbed. See a previous post on carbon offsets.

Yes, at this rate of growth we will double our economy. What is it we will be doubling? We will double our GDP. This means we will double what we produce. In order to double what we produce we will need to double what goes into what we produce. This includes raw materials and crucially, energy. Yes. Roughly speaking, on this growth path, in the next 11 years we are going to need to double the amount of energy we are currently consuming.

As Albert Bartlett, Professor Emeritus, Physics Department, University of Colorado, once wrote: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function”.

Predictably, the local media latched on to these statements, which I agree are rather sensationalist, and trumpeted them loudly, but failed to even mention the other half of his statement which asks what we as citizens and businesses are doing to curtail our consumption of energy. (Also see my post on this subject recently)

Tatalias asked:

We in civil society all bear our fair share of the responsibility too. What have we done to make our homes, offices and companies as energy efficient as possible? To be fair the rumblings and warnings of impending power disaster have been building for a while now for anyone who cared to listen. … Al Gore was imploring us to make changes two years ago. Our own industry has been grappling with Green aspects of Responsible Tourism for a few years with conferences and awards, but few have implemented. Time to stop grumbling and blame-storming; time to become part of the solution and change our own personal habits. If we all reduce our energy consumption we save ourselves money, and at the same time collectively solve a national crisis.

Right on! Now why would the media have missed this I wonder…?

But what interests me are the reactions to the crisis from my fellow citizens, which only serve to show how difficult it is to change behaviour and how invested in our energy-intensive consumer-age paradigm we are.

But first some background about power generation in South Africa. Eskom generates more electrical power than the rest of Africa together. However, most of this is generated by burning low-grade coal, of which the country possesses massive reserves. The consequences are twofold: a) our electricity remains amongst the cheapest in the world, not least because the costs of air and groundwater pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been conveniently externalised; b) we are the twelfth largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world and our per capita emissions are higher than China’s. Access to cheap electricity has come to be a given, an entitlement and even a right, over many years. So the crisis has come as a rude shock to the populace and business in general, leading to disbelief and anger.

ecoAfrica has not escaped unscathed either. Our operations are interrupted for a couple of hours on a daily basis at present, meaning that our “shop” is effectively closed and productivity and service levels are negatively affected. However, I am aware that the situation in many other African countries is a lot worse, and has been so for years. Many countries are dependent on oil-fired generation and the inexorable increase in oil’s price threatens those countries’ development, and even social stability.

But I digress. In my “other” life I am an IT director at a leading South African university located in a university town. We have spent millions installing emergency diesel generators because as you can appreciate, power cuts are enormously disruptive to academic programmes. But that can be but one short-term response. Given that the university accounts for the lion’s share of the town’s activity and thus a significant proportion of its power consumption, the actual and rational response should be an immediate and intensive campaign to conserve energy on campus. This also makes good sense for reducing the university’s carbon footprint, thus exercising leadership in climate change responses – and now we have a compelling motivation to take the requisite steps. Obvious, isn’t it?

Apparently not. The first stage in dealing with trauma is denial. Although they cannot deny the existence of blackouts, many people are still engaged in the “anger” stage of apportioning blame either to the government, Eskom or affirmative action. Many rail against poor planning and increasingly, lately, against the unpredictability of the blackouts and the way in which “load-shedding” – what a wonderful engineering euphemism – is managed. Amongst some there is an attitude that “they got us into this, so let’s see if they can get us out”. Only a few seem to accept that demand is too high for the supply and that we as consumers of electricity need to review and curtail our own usage.

I have started to note how few households hang out their washing to dry since my daughter, who did some house-sitting recently, recounted how the home only had a tumble-dryer and no washing lines. And this in a Mediterranean climate characterised by “hot, windy and long summers”.

In the university IT building, since Eskom indicated more that a year ago that blackouts would occur, we have added tens of office air-conditioning units, and there are plans to add more. Proposals to rather invest that money in more energy-efficient equipment are not met with nearly the same levels of enthusiasm. An attitude of “we pay for the power, so we are entitled to use as much as we can afford to” sometimes seems to prevail. And while our electricity remains so cheap, this is a rational economic response.

Some of the most intransigent naysayers are amongst a few of my fellow engineers. As an engineer myself I can state, without fear of being accused of bigotry, that a fair number regard “green” initiatives, movements and “greenies” as a bit “soft” and consequently tend to frown upon any action or proposal that carries the emerald tinge. Concern for the environment and conservation, whether it be of energy or biodiversity, are regarded as fringe concerns. Also, many engineers, amongst others, have an unshakable faith that technology will solve all problems. I don’t wish to denigrate technological innovation and human ingenuity, but too often this faith is blind. William Catton referred to such faith as “technological cargoism”.

As I think about the situation more, I perversely welcome the crisis. Although it is a crisis of our own making that has not been precipitated by any constraint on reserves of non-renewable resources – such as would play out in a “peak coal” scenario – it is forcing people to think and consider their alternatives well before the inevitable shortages in fossil fuels occur. More importantly, it’s good for our carbon footprint and combating climate change. But climate change is too long-term, too remote, so a shortish-term, man-made crisis will have to suffice to change behaviour.