Pinyon-Juniper Forests: BLM’s False Claims to Virtue

Pinyon-Juniper Forests: BLM’s False Claims to Virtue

by | Jan 5, 2016 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
Featured image: The author surveying the devastation of Pinyon-Juniper deforestation (Photo: Max Wilbert)

 Once I recovered from the shock I experienced witnessing the carnage produced by a Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) so-called “pinyon-juniper treatment project” just south of Spruce Mountain in Nevada, all I wanted was the destruction to stop. In order to stop the destruction, we have to ask the question: “Why are they doing this?”

BLM’s justifications [are] moving targets … Once a justification is proved to be based on bad science and incomplete research, BLM throws up a new target.

To learn the answer, I embarked on a long, strange trip through BLM documents, books on pinyon pine trees, YouTube propaganda, and countless scientific articles. I found so many justifications, my head was spinning. On a phone call with staff from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA), Field Attorney Neal Clark described BLM’s justifications as “moving targets.” Once a justification is proved to be based on bad science and incomplete research, BLM throws up a new target. Meanwhile, the destruction of pinyon-juniper forests intensifies.

The BLM, Carson City District, Sierra Front Field Office is proposing a vegetation treatment project in the Virginia Mountains area north of Reno and west of Pyramid Lake in Washoe County, Nevada. The Virginia Mountains Vegetation Treatment Project would destroy “approximately 30,387 acres” of pinyon-juniper forest.

The BLM’s online notice lists some of the most common excuses used for pinyon-juniper deforestation. Those excuses include: to “reduce the potential of large-scale high severity wild land fire,” “provide for public and firefighter safety and protection of property and infrastructure,” “maintain sagebrush habitat, riparian plant communities, wet meadows, and springs,” and “protect and enhance historic juniper woodland habitat.” In order to achieve these goals, the BLM’s online notice says the “proposed treatments include mechanical mastication, mechanical removal, hand cutting, chemical treatments, chaining, and seeding.”

BLM’s claims in their campaign against pinyon-juniper forests directly contradict the body of scientific literature.

Of course, the notice ends with the currently fashionable nod to protecting greater sage-grouse habitat and reads, “treatments would be designed to address threats to greater sage-grouse from invasive annual grasses, wildfires, and conifer expansion.”

When BLM claims that their proposed pinyon-juniper treatment projects will achieve the results like the ones listed in the Carson City District, Sierra Front Field Office’s notice, they are making claims that are not supported by scientific research. In fact, many of BLM’s claims in their campaign against pinyon-juniper forests directly contradict the body of scientific literature.

Since I began researching pinyon-juniper forests, writing this Pinyon-Juniper Forest series, and participating in a grass-roots campaign to demand a nationwide moratorium on pinyon-juniper deforestation, I have heard BLM’s claims replicated many times. It is time their erroneous assertions are put to rest. In this essay, I will address the common justifications BLM uses for destroying pinyon-juniper forests and show how BLM is lying.

***

The first reason BLM’s Carson City District, Sierra Front Field Office uses to support its proposal to clear-cut 30,387 acres of living forest is typical in the nationwide assault on pinyon-juniper forests. BLM claims their proposed project will “reduce the potential of large-scale high severity wild land fire.” According to BLM, this will “provide for public and firefighter safety and protection of property and infrastructure.”

BLM’s justification suggests that there is a serious potential for high severity, wild land fire in pinyon-juniper forests, but is that true?

William L. Baker and Douglas Shinneman wrote an article “Fire and Restoration of Piñon-Juniper Woodlands in the Western United States: A Review” (PDF) which is considered one of the leading reviews of fire incidence in pinyon-juniper forests. Baker and Shinneman argue that there simply is not enough scientific evidence for land managers to apply uniform fire and structural treatments like BLM’s proposed Virginia Mountains Treatment Project in pinyon-juniper forests.

[The BLM’s proposed] treatments have actually been found to increase pinyon-juniper forests’ potential for burning.

Not only are scientists cautioning BLM not to assume pinyon-juniper forests have a serious risk of large scale fire, mechanical treatments have actually been found to increase pinyon-juniper forests’ potential for burning. Allison Jones, Jim Catlin, and Emanuel Vazquez, working for the Wild Utah Project, wrote an essay titled “Mechanical Treatment of Piñon-Juniper and Sagebrush Systems in the Intermountain West: A Review of the Literature” (PDF). Their essay is a comprehensive review of the scientific literature surrounding pinyon-juniper forests and their review undermines many of the goals often given as the reasons for prescribed mechanical treatments of pinyon-juniper forests.

In regards to using pinyon-juniper mechanical treatment as a tool for reducing the potential of wild land fire, Jones et al. write, “There are… many studies that report when piñon-juniper is mechanically treated and if cheatgrass and/or other exotic annuals are present in the system before treatment, then cover of these species will increase post-treatment.” Cheatgrass, of course, is an invasive species that quickly outcompetes native grasses. The relevant problem with cheatgrass is that it is more flammable. When cheatgrass dominates rangelands, it speeds up the natural fire interval of those rangelands. In other words, cheatgrass makes the land it occupies more prone to wild fires.

Regardless of what BLM says, what they are actually doing is contributing to global climate change, a longer wildfire season at home, and hastening the destruction of the entire planet.

When BLM rips up pinyon-juniper forests in the interests of reducing the potential for wildfires, their destruction produces the opposite of their stated goal. Instead of providing for public and firefighter safety, BLM is actually making it easier for cheatgrass to choke out native species which in turn makes it more likely the Great Basin will burn. On the global scale, we know that deforestation speeds climate change. Trees sequester carbon and the prevalence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a leading cause of climate change. Warming climates lead to longer and more intense wildfire seasons. Wildfires burn forests releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the vicious cycle intensifies. Regardless of what BLM says, what they are actually doing is contributing to global climate change, a longer wildfire season at home, and hastening the destruction of the entire planet. “Public and firefighter safety”? Hardly.

Healthy Pinyon-Juniper forest (Photo: Max Wilbert)

Healthy Pinyon-Juniper forest (Photo: Max Wilbert)

The next justification BLM’s Carson City District, Sierra Front Field Office lists for why it must destroy pinyon-juniper forests is to “maintain sagebrush habitat, riparian plant communities, wet meadows, and springs.” Before I address this justification, remember that BLM plans to maintain different plant habitats through processes like chaining tens of thousands of acres of living forest. Chaining, you may recall, involves stretching an anchor chain from a US Navy battleship between two trawler tractors and dragging the chain across the forest floor ripping up everything the tractors’ path. Chaining, BLM claims, improves sagebrush habitat, riparian plant communities, wet meadows, and springs.

There are two mistaken beliefs underlying BLM’s stated goal to maintain sage brush habitat, riparian plant communities, wet meadows, and springs. The first idea is rooted in BLM dogma that insists that pinyon-juniper forests are “encroaching” into lands (including sagebrush habitat) they did not previously occupy. The second idea accuses pinyon pine and juniper trees of somehow using too much water and hypothesizes that cutting these trees will lead to increased water yield. Both of these arguments have been soundly defeated in scientific literature.

The pinyon-juniper encroachment theory is a product of settler colonialism’s historical amnesia. One of the products of the white supremacy brought to the Great Basin by European settlers is a selective memory that ignores guilt-inducing facts of ecological destruction wrought on the Great Basin by European mining activities.

When BLM claims pinyon-juniper forests are encroaching, the forests are actually recovering from the shock of European development.

Pinyon pine expert Ronald Lanner described the catastrophic destruction of pinyon-juniper forests in Nevada in his book “The Piñon-Pine: A Natural and Cultural History.” Lanner explains how pinyon and juniper wood was essential for fuel for smelting operations, lumber for buildings in boom towns, and as mine supports in mine-shaft construction. Lanner says western Nevada’s Comstock mines used 18 million board feet of pinyon-juniper timber annually while Eureka, Nevada burned 17,850 bushels of pinyon-juniper charcoal daily. Lanner explains that by 1870 – a mere 11 years after the European discovery of silver in Nevada – charcoal makers had denuded forests for a 50 miles around Eureka, NV.

When BLM claims pinyon-juniper forests are encroaching, the forests are actually recovering from the shock of European development. It wasn’t just mining, either. Lanner estimates that 3 million acres of pinyon-juniper forests were destroyed to make room for cattle between 1960 and 1972 in the Great Basin and Intermountain West. Jones et al. explain that “what we see today in many cases is piñon-juniper simply recolonizing places where they were dominant but then gained in the 1940s to 1970s.” They go on to state, “what is actually natural recolonization is often mistaken for encroachment.”

A classic accusation hurled at juniper trees in particular is that they consume more water through their roots compared to other plants where junipers live. Jones et al. cite 8 recent studies to state that this simply is not the case. Jones et. al also demonstrate that mechanical treatments of pinyon-juniper forests do not produce the effects BLM wants the treatments to: “There are many indications from the literature that mechanical piñon-juniper…treatment, especially if followed by mechanical drill seeding, can fail to meet the goals of ‘ecological restoration and watershed health and productivity.” The seedings enable grazing by large herds of cattle that also disturb the soil crusts and cause flammable cheatgrass to proliferate.

Why do these mechanical treatment projects fail to promote restoration? They fail to promote restoration because, as Jones et al. explain, mechanical treatments are extremely destructive to biological crusts. Additionally, Jones et al. point out how mechanical treatments like chaining lead to the greatest degree of soil disturbance. And, soil losses due to erosion following destructive activities like chaining can take 5,000 to 10,000 years to reform.

Wide view of Pinyon-Juniper clear-cuts (Photo: Max Wilbert)

Wide view of Pinyon-Juniper clear-cuts (Photo: Max Wilbert)

Next, we have BLM’s claim that their Virginia Mountains Vegetation Treatment Project will “protect and enhance historic juniper woodland habitat.” Again, even without the science, it is difficult to understand how dragging a giant chain across a forest floor to rip up pinyon pine and juniper trees by their roots can protect and enhance the very juniper trees being destroyed. As you might expect, the science reveals the lunacy in BLM’s stated goal.

In addition to the way mechanical treatments of pinyon-juniper forests destroy a natural community’s biologic crust and lead to practically irreversible soil loss, Jones et al, describe how mechanical drill seeding or mechanical clearing of dead pinyon-juniper trees after a fire “can lead to significantly increased wind erosion…” They also state that, “there are many examples in the literature of cases where mechanical clearing of piñon-juniper has led to increases in erosion by both air and water.” And finally, they remind us that “any kind of land treatment that clears the existing vegetation and disturbs the soil (so all mechanical treatments but also fire and chemical treatments) can result in increases in exotic annuals, especially cheat grass, when these species are present in the system before treatment.”

It is quite clear, then, treatment projects like the proposed Virginia Mountains Vegetation Treatment Project do not protect and enhance historic juniper woodland habitat. These projects destroy historic juniper woodland habitat and seriously degrade the ecosystems they are found in.

***

Protecting greater sage-grouse habitat has become the newest justification for pinyon-juniper deforestation and BLM explains that the Virginia Mountains Treatment Project “would be designed to address threats to greater sage-grouse from invasive annual grasses, wildfires, and conifer expansion.”

These lists of threats to greater sage-grouse suggest that if BLM was truly interested in protecting the birds, they would spend their energy combating oil and gas development, conversion of land for agricultural use, and climate change.

First, we should double-check precisely what are the threats to greater sage-grouse. The World Wildlife Fund, for example, takes a slightly different perspective than BLM saying, “Unfortunately, because of oil and gas development, conversion of land for agricultural use, climate change and human development, sage grouse only inhabit half their historic range.” A similar website run by Defenders of Wildlife echoes WWF, “Remaining sagebrush habitat is fragmented and degraded by oil and gas drilling, livestock grazing, mining, unnatural fire, invasive weeds, off-road vehicles, roads, fences, pipelines and utility corridors.”

These lists of threats to greater sage-grouse suggest that if BLM was truly interested in protecting the birds, they would spend their energy combating oil and gas development, conversion of land for agricultural use, and climate change. I will play BLM’s game, though, to discover if mechanical treatments really will produce the results BLM thinks they will.

They will not, of course. Jones et al. made it clear that mechanical treatments of pinyon-juniper forests pave the way for invasive annual grasses to dominate treated areas. Invasive annual grasses choke the ground surface with continuous fuel, and burn more easily than clumped native bunchgrasses. And, as I wrote earlier, “mechanical treatments” are codespeak for deforestation. Deforestation leads to accelerated climate change which leads to more wildfires which kill greater sage-grouse.

I have already cited Lanner and Jones et al. (who cite many, many more) to explain that “conifer expansion” in most places is not really happening. This time, I want to address this argument from a psychological level. Notice how BLM is blaming conifer expansion for greater sage-grouse habitat loss while many other organizations are blaming oil and gas development, agricultural conversion, and mining. These other organizations, in other words, are blaming human expansion for greater sage-grouse habitat loss. When BLM’s rhetoric is viewed in this way, it becomes possible to analyze BLM’s words as a psychological distraction away from the role of humans in the destruction of the Great Basin. It is easier to blame trees than it is to blame humans for the deterioration of the Great Basin. Maybe this explains why so many readily accept BLM’s bogus arguments?

***

Learning that BLM is mistaken or spreading downright lies about what they’re doing to pinyon-juniper forests, the question, again, becomes, “Why?”

Why are they lying? How have they convinced themselves this is acceptable? Are they so beholden to ranching interests that their rationality has been destroyed by cattle money? Do they truly think they are doing what is best for the lands they “manage?” Or, with the amount of destruction they are wreaking on the Great Basin, do they hate pinyon-juniper forests?

I think there must be good-hearted people working for BLM who truly do care for the Great Basin. I wonder how they could have been misled in this way. I recall an article I recently read by Robert Jay Lifton, the brilliant psychologist who asked these very same questions of those involved in the rise of Nazism in his book “The Nazi Doctors.” Lifton’s article appeared in the New York Times and was called “The Climate Swerve” about the world’s deepening awareness of climate change.

Whether [the BLM staff] believe their false claims to virtue or not, is irrelevant for the thousands of acres of beautiful, ancient pinyon-juniper forests set to be destroyed by BLM. What matters is that we stop them.

In the article, Lifton explains, “Over the course of my work I have come to the realization that it is very difficult to endanger or kill large numbers of people except with a claim to virtue.” I would extend his realization to the natural world and explain that BLM’s justifications stand as their claims to virtue clearing their conscience before they murder millions of trees and the beings who live in them. The only way BLM can cut 30,387 acres of pinyon-juniper forests is to claim they are “protecting the public and firefighters” or “enhancing historic juniper woodland habitat” or addressing “threats to greater sage-grouse” so they do not have to face the truth of their violence.

Whether they believe their false claims to virtue or not, is irrelevant for the thousands of acres of beautiful, ancient pinyon-juniper forests set to be destroyed by BLM. What matters is that we stop them.

Earth at Risk 2014: The Proper Diagnosis

by | Dec 19, 2014 | Culture of Resistance, Education

Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
originally published at Generation Alpha

The proper cure requires the proper diagnosis.

On November 22 and 23, the Fertile Ground Environmental Institute offered the proper diagnosis for the ecological crises we all face to over 700 attendees at Earth at Risk 2014. Focusing on environmental and social justice, the conference brought together seemingly disparate voices to weave together diverse perspectives to offer a comprehensive response to global destruction. The keynote speakers were Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, Chris Hedges, Thomas Linzey, and Derrick Jensen.

Shiva detailed how multi-national corporations like Monsanto and DuPont are using genetically modified organisms (GMO) to undermine local communities’ ability to produce their own food. Walker shared her experiences as a Pulitzer Prize winning author to give an artist’s perspective for the necessity of solidarity with women. Hedges drew upon nearly two decades as a foreign war correspondent to argue for the moral imperative of resistance to topple industrial civilization. Linzey, an attorney, illustrated how citizens come to him asking for help drafting ordinances against fracking and are converted into revolutionary cadre when they learn through the legal system that they do not live in a democracy. Jensen addressed the question “Why are so few of us fighting back?” with an explanation that most of us in this culture are suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

Time is short and Earth at Risk displayed the appropriate urgency in the face of total environmental destruction. Studies around the world confirm what we feel in our hearts to be true. A recent study by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London shows that half the world’s population of wild animals has died off since 1970. This is consistent with the findings of the University College of London showing insect populations crashing 50 percent in the last 35 years. Human destruction is necessarily implicated in the death of the natural world. We know, for example, dioxin – a known carcinogen – is now found in every mother’s breast milk.

A mere conference is insufficient to stop the madness, but Earth at Risk offered the most complete examination the movement has seen to date offering six panel discussions to go with the five keynote speakers. The first day was devoted to sustainability and featured panel discussions titled Colonization and Indigenous Life, Indicators of Ecological Collapse, and Building Resistance Communities. The second day was devoted to social justice with panels covering Capitalism and Sociopathology; Race, Militarism, and Masculinity; and Confronting Misogyny.

Personal Reflections

In a world gone mad, there are simply too few resisters struggling on. This is one of the reasons we are losing so badly. I left Earth at Risk feeling that patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism are the most serious threats to a living world. To save the world, alliances must be built on all fronts. While our movements remain relatively small, strength can be maximized in this way.

Earth at Risk’s speakers illuminated opportunities for coalition building and pointed out weak spots in the system ripe for targeting. There were too many highlights to document in one article, but my favorite moments included native Hawaiian filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly’s stinging remarks on the colonization of Hawaii and implorations for real decolonizing help from the mainland during the Colonization and Indigenous Life panel. Fighting for Hawaiian sovereignty would necessarily involve undermining the United States’ military presence there. Hawaii is the site of the United States’ Pacific Command that polices over half the world’s population.

During the Building Communities of Resistance panel, Mi’kmaw warrior Sakej Ward described how native warrior societies protect land bases so they may support the next seven generations. He drew attention to the 500 years of experience North American indigenous peoples have in resisting colonization and offered this experience as a valuable resource.

I was deeply moved by the entire conversation during the Race, Militarism, and Masculinity panel where military veterans Kourtney Mitchell, Vince Emanuele, Stan Goff, and Doug Zachary called on men to topple the patriarchy, stop rape, and support women with actions instead of words.

I attended the conference as a director of the Vancouver Island Community Forest Action Network (VIC FAN) in support of Unist’ot’en clan spokeswoman Freda Huson and Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief Dini Ze Toghestiy who spoke on the Building Communities of Resistance panel about their experiences at the Unist’ot’en Camp. The Unist’ot’en Camp occupies the unceded territory of the Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en people and is a pipeline blockade sitting on the proposed routes of 17 fossil fuel pipelines in central British Columbia.

My visits to the Unist’ot’en Camp have taught me the strength in connecting the rationales for different social and environmental movements under one banner. It has also taught me how to think strategically. The Camp, as just one of many examples present at Earth at Risk, incorporates principles of indigenous sovereignty and environmentalism to bring activists from both communities together to combat imperialism and fossil fuels. More importantly, perhaps, the Camp demonstrates how a handful of volunteers can effectively neutralize huge, multi-corporate projects by focusing physical strength on chokepoints in industrial infrastructure. From a strategic perspective, the military-industrial complex wrecking the world runs on fossil fuels. Corking the fossil fuels would be a grievous blow to the dominant culture’s ability to continue business as usual.

Additionally, I am a member of the worldwide social and environmental justice organization Deep Green Resistance (DGR) based on the strategy developed by Lierre Keith, Derrick Jensen, and Aric McBay in the book Deep Green Resistance. DGR played a large role organizing the event. Keith brilliantly points out that, “Militarism is a feminist issue. Rape is an environmental issue. Environmental destruction is a peace issue.”

Hearing Kourtney Mitchell explain how his education in pro-feminism enabled to him to overcome the inherently abusive training he received as an infantry soldier in Georgia’s National Guard proved this to me. When Derrick Jensen was confronted for describing the destruction of the natural world in terms of rape and sexual violence and he refused to stop making the connection on grounds that both hinge on men’s perceived entitlement to violation, I understood that radical feminists and radical environmentalists were logical allies. Finally, hearing Richard Manning explain how dire the world’s lack of topsoil has become drove the point home that those of us sick of war would do well to defend the land’s ability to support food.

Finally, the Earth at Risk 2014 website promised to craft “game-changing responses to address the converging crises we face.” The conference successfully fulfilled its promise. The truth is we simply do not have the numbers to mount an effective resistance movement without forming coalitions between groups serious about stopping the murder of the planet and other humans.

I wrote earlier that a conference is insufficient to stop the madness. This is still true, but Earth at Risk 2014 accurately analyzed the world’s sicknesses and gave us a treatment plan to work from. Now, it’s time for all of those fighting so hard in our various causes to link up in solidarity to bring down the patriarchy, stop capitalism, and undermine the colonialism that is killing humans and obliterating the natural world.

Amazon in dire threat as Brazil finalizes forest bill shaped by lobbyists for agricultural industry

by | May 30, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Vincent Bevins / Los Angeles Times

The Brazilian government is pressing forward with controversial legislation that critics say will lead to widespread destruction of the Amazon rain forest.

After months of heated discussion, President Dilma Rousseff on Monday presented a final version of the bill that was heavily influenced by the country’s powerful agricultural lobby.

The update to the country’s 1965 Forestry Code would reduce both the amount of vegetation landowners must preserve and the future penalties paid for those who currently flout environmental laws. After valuable wood is sold, much of the land in deforested areas ends up being cleared for grazing cattle and agriculture.

“The project approved in Congress is the fruit of a torturous legislative process, made to serve the interests of a small part of society that wants to increase the possibility of deforestation and give amnesty to those who have already cut it down illegally,” said Maria Cecilia Wey de Brito, head of the World Wildlife Fund in Brazil.

Rousseff suffered a surprise defeat in April at the hands of Congress’ ruralista voting bloc, which represents farming interests. The lawmakers managed to push through a version of the bill that rolled back environmental protections and gave amnesty to past violators.

Since then, she has faced widespread pressure from those opposed to the changes — scientists, public figures, celebrities, as well as business leaders and politicians — to veto the bill. However, facing long odds of winning approval for tougher environmental legislation in Congress, she announced Friday only a partial veto, leaving it much more lenient than the laws currently in place.

Though Rousseff enjoys widespread support among Brazilians, her party controls only 15% of the seats in a Congress divided between more than 20 parties. Rousseff often has difficulty corralling a coalition to support her positions and may not have been able to hold back revisions to the forestry law any more than she did, analysts say.

“In environmental terms, the law should have been vetoed completely,” Luiz Antonio Martinelli, agronomist at the University of Sao Paulo, told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. “But we know that would be very difficult politically.”

Over the weekend, activists from Greenpeace blocked a shipment of pig iron used by the U.S. steel industry from leaving a port, saying its production relied on illegal deforestation and slave labor. Q’orianka Kilcher, the American actress who played Pocahontas in the 2005 film “The New World,” participated last week by climbing the anchor chain of a cargo ship to stop it from docking. The protest was meant to raise awareness of the issue outside of Brazil, which will host the United Nations’ “Rio+20” environmental conference next month.

For decades the Amazon rain forest, the world’s largest, has been shrinking steadily. The forest is so vast that the Brazilian government monitors the rate of deforestation using satellite imagery.

Read more from Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-forests-20120529,0,2383595.story

“Big Conservation” organizations using public reputations to sell out forests

by | Mar 6, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

Imagine an international mega-deal. The global organic food industry agrees to support international agribusiness in clearing as much tropical rainforest as they want for farming. In return, agribusiness agrees to farm the now-deforested land using organic methods, and the organic industry encourages its supporters to buy the resulting timber and food under the newly devised “Rainforest Plus” label. There would surely be an international outcry.

Virtually unnoticed, however, even by their own membership, the world’s biggest wildlife conservation groups have agreed to exactly such a scenario, only in reverse. Led by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, still known as the World Wildlife Fund in the United States), many of the biggest conservation nonprofits including Conservation International and the Nature Conservancy have already agreed to a series of global bargains with international agribusiness. In exchange for vague promises of habitat protection, sustainability, and social justice, these conservation groups are offering to greenwash industrial commodity agriculture.

The big conservation nonprofits don’t see it that way of course.

According to WWF’s “Vice President for Market Transformation” Jason Clay, the new conservation strategy arose from two fundamental realizations.

The first was that agriculture and food production are the key drivers of almost every environmental concern. From issues as diverse as habitat destruction to over-use of water, from climate change to ocean dead zones, agriculture and food production are globally the primary culprits. To take one example, 80-90% of all fresh water extracted by humans is for agriculture, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s “State of the World’s Land and Water” report. This point was emphasized once again in a recent analysis published in the scientific journal Nature. The lead author of this study was Professor Jonathan Foley. Not only is Foley the director of the University of Minnesota-based Institute on the Environment, but he is also a science board member of the Nature Conservancy.

The second crucial realization for WWF was that forest destroyers typically are not peasants with machetes but national and international agribusinesses with bulldozers. It is the latter who deforest tens of thousands of acres at a time. Land clearance on this scale is an ecological disaster, but Claire Robinson of Earth Open Source points out it is also “incredibly socially destructive,” as peasants are driven off their land and communities are destroyed. According to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 60 million people worldwide risk losing their land and means of subsistence from palm plantations. By about 2004, WWF had come to recognize the true impacts of industrial agriculture. Instead of informing their membership and initiating protests and boycotts, however, they embarked on a partnership strategy they call “market transformation.”

Market Transformation

With WWF leading the way, the conservation nonprofits have negotiated approval schemes for “Responsible” and “Sustainable” farmed commodity crops. According to WWF’s Clay, the plan is to have agribusinesses sign up to reduce the 4-6 most serious negative impacts of each commodity crop by 70-80%. And if enough growers and suppliers sign up, then the Indonesian rainforests or the Brazilian Cerrado will be saved.

The ambition of market transformation is on a grand scale. There are schemes for palm oil (the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil; RSPO), soybeans (the Round Table on Responsible Soy; RTRS), biofuels (the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels), Sugar (Bonsucro) and also for cotton, shrimp, cocoa and farmed salmon. These are markets each worth many billions of dollars annually and the intention is for these new “Responsible” and “Sustainable” certified products to dominate them.

The reward for producers and supermarkets will be that, reinforced on every shopping trip, “Responsible” and “Sustainable” logos and marketing can be expected to have major effects on public perception of the global food supply chain. And the ultimate goal is that, if these schemes are successful, human rights, critical habitats, and global sustainability will receive a huge and globally significant boost.

The role of WWF and other nonprofits in these schemes is to offer their knowledge to negotiate standards, to provide credibility, and to lubricate entry of certified products into international markets. On its UK website, for example, WWF offers its members the chance to “Save the Cerrado” by emailing supermarkets to buy “Responsible Soy.” What WWF argues will be a major leap forward in environmental and social responsibility has already started. “Sustainable” and “Responsible” products are already entering global supply chains.

Read more from TruthOut: http://www.truth-out.org/way-beyond-greenwashing-have-corporations-captured-big-conservation/1331048650

Human Supremacy Where You Might Least Expect It

Human Supremacy Where You Might Least Expect It

by | Oct 31, 2024 | ANALYSIS, Human Supremacy, The Problem: Civilization

By Elizabeth Robson / RadFemBiophilia’s Newsletter

 

In general, the United Nations (UN) Biodiversity Conference gets far less press than the UN climate change conferences, but I’ve seen more news items for this year’s Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP 16) than I have for previous biodiversity COPs. Still, I didn’t initially pay it much attention, because I’ve become so leery of these annual (for climate change COPs) and biannual (for biodiversity COPs) UN affairs. Why? Because, so far at least, these meetings have amounted to mostly good vibes, with little to no action that has any meaningful consequence in protecting the natural world.

This year’s biannual Biodiversity COP is in Cali, Colombia, a country with the dubious distinction of topping the list of the number of environmental activists killed by country in both 2022 (60) and 2023 (79). It runs until November 1, 2024.

I decided to take a deeper look at the biodiversity goals of these UN meetings at the prompting of two friends who both shared news items related to this year’s COP; one with a dismal “Expect less than nothing from COP 16. Much less.” and the other with a much brighter “Protection of nature efforts are being attempted globally.” outlook.

I learned that the outcome of the previous biodiversity conference, COP 15, is the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). This is an agreement among COP 15 parties that “sets out an ambitious pathway to reach the global vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050.”

It’s important to note that the framework “supports the achievement of the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals.” I’ll come back to this point later on.

COP 16 will build on previous work by asking the participating parties to agree on a plan for meeting the goals and targets agreed to in the GBF from COP 15.

So, to understand the goals of these biannual biodiversity conferences, we must take a look at the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) from COP 15.

~~~

The GBF (PDF) opens with “Biodiversity is fundamental to human well-being, a healthy planet, and economic prosperity for all people…”. This might sound good to most peoples’ ears, but to me, it sets the tone of “for all people” that suffuses the rest of the document—one that is human supremacist to its core.

The agreed upon outcomes specified in the framework are described in the vision, the mission, four goals and 23 targets. Let’s take a look.

The vision: “A world of living in harmony with nature where ‘by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.’”

This clearly states that the primary goal of biodiversity is benefits for all people.  There is no indication here that nature and living beings exist for their own sake. There is no recognition of the rights of non-human beings, including wildlife and ecosystems. Biodiversity is seen as something to be “wisely used” (by humans) so that we can continue to get the benefits of “ecosystem services.”

“Sustaining a healthy planet” sounds nice, but is incredibly vague and seems secondary to the “benefits essential for all people.”

The mission: “To take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity and by ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources, while providing the necessary means of implementation.”

Halting biodiversity loss and putting nature on a path to recovery would be fantastic. Especially for nature. But no, this isn’t a mission for nature’s sake at all. It is “for the benefit of people.”

“Ensuring … benefits from the use of genetic resources” is interesting. It seems a bit out of left field until you understand that this means the genetic material from plants, animals, and microorganisms, which holds potential value for research, development, and commercial applications.

In other words, the authors of this framework see the natural world as a source of genetic materials to use for making a profit. That is, they objectify the natural world in the extreme, reducing living beings to genes, with the goal of conserving biodiversity to make more opportunities to profit from those genes.

Well, at least we know what their priorities are! And again, we see no understanding or recognition that nature and living beings exist for their own sake, and have the right to do so.

The Goals and Targets described in the framework flow from this vision and mission, so we can assume they will have similar issues, and they do.

The four Goals are identified as Goals A through D.

Goal A sounds good—to maintain, enhance, and restore the integrity of ecosystems—until you get to the last paragraph, which clarifies the point to all the lovely sounding language that precedes it: “The genetic diversity within populations of wild and domesticated species, is maintained, safeguarding their adaptive potential.”

We already know that the primary purpose of that “genetic diversity” is “genetic resources” for the “benefit of all people.”

Essentially, the point of Goal A is to maintain and restore ecosystems so we can get as many “genetic resources” as possible to make a nice hefty profit. Got it.

Goal B is worse:

“Biodiversity is sustainably used and managed and nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services, are valued, maintained and enhanced, with those currently in decline being restored, supporting the achievement of sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations by 2050.”

So, we are to value “nature’s contributions to people.” What about nature’s contributions to itself? Apparently those don’t matter. This goal reduces nature to “ecosystem functions and services” that are useful to people and to “sustainable development.” (See the last section below for more on “sustainable development.”)

Basically this is saying that biodiversity is for people; that ecosystems are “services” for people. “Present and future generations” are generations of people, not of wildlife and ecosystems.

Goal C elaborates on the reduction of nature to “genetic resources” for people and profit, saying that “the monetary and non-monetary benefits from the utilization of genetic resources and digital sequence information on genetic resources… are shared fairly and equitably” among people.

Are you starting to get the picture now?

Their Targets are similarly problematic.

Target 1 is to “Ensure that all areas are under participatory, integrated and biodiversity inclusive spatial planning and/or effective management processes.” In other words, humans should “manage” all areas on the planet for—per their goals—people.

Don’t wild beings get a single square inch of the planet to manage (or just live in) for themselves that isn’t managed by people? Apparently not.

Target 2 is to “Ensure that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and marine and coastal ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.”

So we are to restore ecosystems, not because nature needs intact ecosystems to survive and thrive, but rather to enhance “ecosystem functions and services” (that benefit humans, as earlier established) and “ecological integrity and connectivity” (for genetic resources to benefit humans, as earlier established). It’s all for people.

I won’t bore you with all 23 Targets, but allow me just one more.

Target 9 is to “Ensure that the management and use of wild species are sustainable, thereby providing social, economic and environmental benefits for people…” (emphasis added).

I’m sure you have the picture now.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

We should not be surprised by the human supremacy at the heart of these biodiversity goals. This is a UN program, and as stated by the UN and in the GBF itself, the framework is “a contribution to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” which is itself a human supremacist agenda.

Before we go further, we should talk about what “sustainable development” means. The definition of “sustainable” is “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level,” according to the Oxford Dictionary. The UN defines “development” as “a multidimensional process that aims to improve the quality of life for all people.”

The UN’s Quality of Life Initiative defines “quality of life” by a broad range of factors including health, work status, living conditions, and command of material resources.

We can thus understand the UN’s “sustainable development” as development that improves the health, work status, living conditions, and command of material resources for all people in a way that can be maintained at a certain rate or level.

Looking at the UN’s list of Sustainable Development Goals, we see included in that “affordable and clean energy,” “industry, innovation, and infrastructure,” “sustainable cities and communities,” “decent work and economic growth”, and so on.

Development usually means converting nature into commodities for human use, whether that’s converting a wetland into a parking lot, a river into electricity via a dam, or a forest into timber. These are the activities that drive economic growth, that are required for “affordable energy,” “industry,” and “infrastructure,” and the typical outcome of “innovation” is doing these things faster.

So “sustainable development” really means sustaining the conversion of nature into commodities at a certain rate or level.

If that certain rate or level looks anything like our lives here in the developed world, this is clearly impossible. Humans already use 1.75 Earth’s worth of “resources” (with the developed world using the vast majority of those “resources”), and so we are drawing down Earth’s carrying capacity at a rapid pace. There will be no sustaining anything at the current rate and level in the near future, given how quickly we are drawing down Earth’s carrying capacity now.

I hope it’s clear to you that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is all about people, and that it comes at the expense of the natural world. If you doubt that the agenda is entirely human supremacist, I would urge you to spend some time reading this substack and others about the impacts of “industry, innovation, and infrastructure” on the natural world and about how economic growth is incompatible with a living planet (e.g. my article about Ecological Overshoot and some of the resources I point to from there).

Returning to the GBF, we find that Section C affirms the role that the biodiversity framework plays in these Sustainable Development Goals by specifying that the framework is to be “understood, acted upon, implemented, reported and evaluated, consistent with” the “Right to development” (among other considerations):

“Framework enables responsible and sustainable socioeconomic development that, at the same time, contributes to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.” (emphasis added).

The framework was doomed from its start by virtue of this “right to development.”

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It might be tempting to believe that a global conference on biodiversity would put the needs and interests of the natural world first, but we would be mistaken in that belief. Reading the details of the vision, mission, goals, and targets of the GBF, we can clearly see that human needs are prioritized and that the entire framework is structured around protecting biodiversity for the benefit of people.

This is a human supremacist framework. That it is should not be surprising, as human supremacy is the primary and most pervasive ideology held by humans.

 

Banner by Shutterstock/Molishka from COP16 UN-HABITAT