Category Archives: Resource Based Economy

Three leading climate and human rights nonprofits have asked the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague to pursue rampant land grabbing by the government of Cambodia and its commerce partners as a crime against humanity under the courts jurisdiction.

In an open letter to Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Tuesday, Global Witness, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Climate Counsel said that, since 2002, at least 830,000 Cambodians have been affected, many illegally forced off their land, by the government and various corporations involved in timber and other resource extraction activities.

The Cambodia situation offers a unique opportunity for the ICC to engage with the single greatest threat facing humankindthe climate and environmental emergency, the letter said. In many countries around the world, land grabbing is the harbinger for illegal resource exploitation, persecution of indigenous people, and environmental destruction.

The letter was endorsed by the United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries and by over 50 lawyers and civil society organizations.

Fatou promised a decision last month in a speech before the Institute of International and European Affairs. If she takes the case, it would be the first time that the court investigates alleged crimes against humanity that are so directly linked to environmental destruction.The ICC has 123 member nations, but not the United States, and jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and crimes of aggression.

The Cambodian government did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment, but previously denied the allegations in other news reports, saying they are politically motivated.

Land grabs have led to large-scale deforestation and pollution across Cambodia, said Richard J. Rogers, the attorney who first filed the complaint with the ICC in 2014. The case has sat dormant ever since. But Fatou said in a February speech that she would issue a decision on whether to open a formal investigation into the allegations before June.

Advocates see the matter as a test case for whether the court will link instances of environmental destruction, illegal land takings and the illegal exploitation of natural resources to crimes against humanity.

I think this will be a very important case for the ICC prosecution because it would show they are addressing the most pressing issue thats facing mankind, which is the environmental destruction crisis, Rogers said.

Cambodias lush rainforests are home to rare and threatened species like the pangolin, Asian elephants and clouded leopards, and play an important role in the livelihoods and spiritual practices of the more than 20 indigenous groups that live there.

From 2001 to 2018, the Southeast Asian country lost nearly a quarter of its tree cover, an area nearly the size of New Jersey, according to a report by Global Forest Watch that used satellite data from the University of Maryland.

The data shows that deforestation in the country has accelerated significantly since 2002, when senior members of the Cambodian government, its security forces and government-connected business leaders allegedly began a campaign of illegal land grabs from both public and privately owned properties.

After seizing land, the government often granted long-term leases, called economic land concessions, to companies from a variety of countries for agriculture, mining and other development projects. The government has defended the concessions as part of the countrys plan to develop its economy, but the benefits have accrued mainly to the countrys ruling class, according to the complaint.

Although the countrys economy grew at an average rate of 8 percent between 1998 and 2018, its GDP per capita was about $1,600, and access to education and other public services is lacking, the World Bank said.

Theyre treating the country like a personal bank account, said Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness, a London-based watchdog organization that has issued reports linking government corruption to deforestation.

Alley said concessions granted in forests are particularly lucrative because grantees make money from selling hardwoods as well as from the subsequent development of the land.

Biodiversity is affected, there are carbon emissions from deforestation itself, and then there are impacts like the usage of large amounts of industrial fertilizers, pesticides and dumping into rivers, he said.

Land grabs have also led to significant human suffering, particularly for the countrys poor and indigenous populations who have been uprooted from their homes with little to no notice and placed in dismal relocation sites.

The complaint highlights over 100 allegations of forced evictions, murders, violence and illegal imprisonment of land activists. Despite making up less than 1.5 percent of Cambodias population, indigenous groups are about 10 times more likely to be victims of land grabbing compared to other Cambodians, it said.

Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, a Spanish activist, has documented the violence and environmental devastation through his organization Mother Nature Cambodia.

He was arrested and deported in 2015 in connection with his advocacy work but continues to operate from outside the country. Last fall, three other Mother Nature Cambodia activists were arrested and charged with incitement. Their crime: reporting on government plans to fill in a portion of Boeung Tamok Lake to build a military base, he said.

Gonzalez-Davidson, who first came to Cambodia as an English teacher in 2001, said he felt compelled to document the toll deforestation and other forms of environmental destruction have taken on local populations after a 2010 visit to the countrys eastern highlands, which is known for its beautiful waterfalls, wildlife and thickly forested hills.

There, he said he met a Pnong woman whose entire community had been forced off their ancestral lands because the forested area where they lived was part of a government land concession. The woman had refused to leave, her hut the only remaining structure left standing, he said. The entire area around her home had been cleared of trees, he said. That isnt just forest, that is where your father, your grandparents, your ancestors are buried.

Much of Cambodias poor population, including subsistence farmers, depend on the countrys natural resources for their subsistence. Forced evictions move them away from their source of income and relocation sites are typically far from areas of economic activity, leaving them few job opportunities, according to the complaint.

The evictees of the An Dong relocation site, according to one observer cited in the complaint, had become ghost people, with no right to vote, no health care, and who suffer from malnutrition and are more prone to illnesses such as dengue fever.

Peoples livelihood has just been decimated. Its not just in the destruction of the environment, which causes so much pain to the local community, so much economic loss, but also so much cultural loss, Gonzalez-Davidson said. Cambodia is a country that has an incredible attachment to nature.

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The countrys prime minister, Hun Sen, and his ruling Cambodian Peoples Party have dominated Cambodias political system for decades, with international observers criticizing national elections as neither free nor fair.

For Alley, of Global Witness, that disqualifies government officials from any claim that exploitation of the countrys natural resources is their sovereign right. This is an argument we meet all over the place, he said. But when those activities are themselves illegal according to the countrys legislation and commitments to various international treaties, theyre on very shaky ground.

Land conflict in Cambodia stretches back to 1975 when the Khmer Rouge regime destroyed all property records in the country during its quest to establish a communist state. As the country has transitioned to a market-based economy, corruption has plagued all branches of government, making it impossible for victims to obtain justice, according to reports by multiple non-government organizations, as well as the U.S. government.

Corruption is the bedrock of the problem. If the government does a corrupt deal with a business person, then the governments loyalty is no longer to its citizens. Its to the people that are paying them, Alley said.

Cambodia voluntarily joined the ICC in 2002. The court, established by treaty that year, exists to prosecute the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, when its member nations are unwilling or unable to pursue them.

Despite the limitation of its jurisdiction to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression, the courts prosecutor said in a 2016 policy paper that it would give particular consideration to prosecuting crimes that are committed by means of, or result in, the destruction of the environment, the illegal exploitation of natural resources or the illegal dispossession of land.

As of this month, the court has not acted on its policy declaration, but Rogers says hes hopeful the Cambodia situation will be the first.

This is the best opportunity for the ICC to get involved and to play its role in the climate emergency, he said, calling the case groundbreaking and noting that it could open the door for international criminal law to address environmental destruction.

Legal experts say the case could have major implications for businesses that are knowingly and unknowingly complicit in land grabs, signaling that they have to be much more careful about where they invest and what due diligence checks they do.

The case would also have a profound impact on the victims. It would create massive upheaval, especially in peoples minds in Cambodia, said Gonzalez-Davidson. When Cambodians hear the United Nations or ICC, they think, Finally somebody is helping, somebody is paying attention to our suffering.

Katie Surma is a Roy W. Howard fellow at Inside Climate News focusing on environmental justice. Before joining ICN, she worked at the Chicago Tribune, the Arizona Republic and practiced law, specializing in commercial litigation and international rule of law. Katie has a masters degree in investigative journalism from Arizona State Universitys Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, an LLM from ASUs Sandra Day OConnor College of Law, a J.D. from Duquesne University, and was a History of Art and Architecture major at the University of Pittsburgh. Katie lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, Jim Crowell.

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Lands Grabs and Other Destructive Environmental Practices in Cambodia Test the International Criminal Court - InsideClimate News

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Over the last year, the Covid-19 pandemic has not only revealed the true depth and scale of structural global inequalities but has also exacerbated a dire need for liquidity across most of the Global South. Countries face stalled economic activity, sharp drops in revenue and increased costs of shoring up domestic economies amidst a rise in unemployment and business closures, while they must also respond to the public health emergency. Fiscal needs are urgent. In response, a wide range of civil society organisations (CSOs), academics and governments started calling for a new issuance of the IMFs Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in March last year. SDRs are an international reserve currency maintained by the IMF that can be exchanged by governments for cash, based on a basket of five currencies (the US dollar, the Euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen and the British pound) (see Background, Special Drawing Rights). Unlike other IMF instruments, SDRs are a non-conditional, non-debt creating resource. It is, in effect, a liquidity booster. Yet, no new allocation was made in 2020 because US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, blocked the initiative, reportedly over geopolitical concerns (see Dispatch Spring 2020).

After a new US administration was voted into office in November, calls for an SDR allocation regained strength. In January at the World Economic Forum, UN Secretary General Antnio Guterres called for SDRs to form part of a worldwide fiscal relief campaign, so that no one is forced to choose between providing basic services for their people or servicing their debts.

Ahead of a Group of 20 (G20) finance ministers meeting in February, more than 200 civil society organisations from around the world called for a $3 trillion allocation of SDRs in an open letter. Because SDRs are allocated across countries according to the IMFs quota formula, which is mostly based on the size and openness of economies, around 60-70 per cent of a new allocation would go to rich countries and large emerging market economies, who largely do not need them. In order for a new allocation to meet the needs of the worlds most vulnerable countries in this period of health, social and economic crises, the overall allocation needs to be significant. A $3 trillion allocation would enable the countries that need it most to boost reserves and stabilise economies, helping to minimise other economic and social losses. The CSO letter stressed that developing countries need liquidity in order to free up funds urgently required for the pandemic response, including gender-responsive public health systems, universal social protection and comprehensive vaccine rollouts (see Observer Spring 2021). The letter also pointed out that SDRs would provide much-needed foreign exchange resources to countries whose capacity to earn them continues to be severely constrained in the short-to-medium term. SDRs do not add to countries debt burdens, promote debt sustainability and do not represent a loss for anyone only a gain. Importantly, they would provide a liquidity injection with economic stimulus benefits worldwide.

After their February meeting, the G20 issued a statement expressing their support for the IMF to formulate a proposal for a new SDR allocation. That means the ball is now in the court of IMF staff, who are expected to propose a figure for a potential SDR allocation during the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in April. While it seems the political reality of the moment dictates that any new allocation made is lower than $680 billion, because anything above that requires the approval of the US Congress which is considered unlikely to materialise, it is essential that the economic analysis underpinning the IMFs proposal be unbiased by such political considerations and be based solely on the needs of the worlds most vulnerable countries.

While this potential new allocation, its size, and how rich countries unused SDRs might be reallocated are crucial discussions perhaps the most consequential in terms of the international financial response to the pandemic it is also critical this opportunity is used to revisit deeper, systemic questions about how our international monetary architecture operates, how it is failing us, and how we got here.

When the SDR was created in 1969, one of its main purposes was to allow rich countries other than the US to reduce their dependence on running a balance-of-payments surplus with the US, which they had to do to accumulate US dollars for foreign exchange reserves under the Bretton Woods System. In part to prevent that system from collapsing, the US agreed to introduce SDRs, but when it collapsed anyway in 1971, the SDR stuck around.

In negotiations that then took place between 1972 and 1974, IMF member states were unable to agree on a new international monetary system in a dedicated committee, known at the time as the Committee of Twenty. As a result, the system that evolved in an ad-hoc fashion instead has been termed to effectively be a non-system, in that it is still based on the US dollar but is open in principle to competition from other reserve currencies. In other words, nation states are free to choose their exchange rate regime, as long as they avoid manipulating their exchange rates a term that has never been clearly defined.

This non-system poses three central challenges and has long been critiqued for lacking an effective multilateral arrangement that averts the distortions created by the global reliance on the US dollar as the reigning reserve currency.

First, the asymmetric adjustment problem was highlighted by Keynes early on. It relates to the strong pressure that deficit countries face to reduce their balance of payment imbalances versus the weak pressure hat surplus countries experience to do so.

This generates a global recessionary effect during crises when global financing circuits dry up. Deficit countries are expected to adjust their ledgers while enduring the fallout of economic crises, while surplus countries are off the hook. This results in a spectre where surplus countries have the opportunity to recover from crises at a much faster pace and in more equitable ways than deficit countries can, as we see in the responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Second, an inequity bias is generated by the need for developing countries to self-insure against the volatility in external financing flows through the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves. This generates an inequity because reserves are invested in safe industrial countries assets, which creates a perverse reality where developing countries are actually systematically lending to rich countries at low- or zero-interest rates. Developing country reserves, on average, have increased from 5 per cent of GDP in 1990 to almost 30 per cent in 2018.

As developing countries accumulate reserves, global imbalances between surplus and deficit countries are worsened and a deflationary bias is created, in that dormant reserve holdings have a contractionary effect on the world economy. The large sums of financial resources frozen in reserves are essentially foregone development resources, which, if invested in social and economic development needs, could yield higher long-term returns and allow countries to escape their export-led growth dependence.

This precautionary move to self-insure by developing countries contributes to the generation of global imbalances, i.e. the third central problem of the current system: the instability link. Together with the inequity bias, this results in a dangerous combination of inequity and instability baked into the post-war design of the world reserve system.

Meanwhile, reserve accumulation is not a systemic or sustainable solution to prevent financial vulnerability and instability, or the threat of conditional loans from the IMF. Capital outflows, and in particular sudden and volatile exits, could be prevented by capital controls, but the IMF continues to maintain an overly restrictive approach to their use, as confirmed by the Funds Independent Evaluation Office in September last year (see Observer Spring 2021). In the absence of both a normative acceptance of capital controls by international capital and financial markets, and in particular credit rating agencies, as well as the lacuna of a fully adequate global safety net, developing countries are left with little option but to accumulate reserves as a form of self-insurance.

The more general problem with a global reserve system that relies on a national currency, also known as the Triffin dilemma, is that the provision of international liquidity requires that the country supplying the reserve currency run balance-of-payments deficits, which could eventually erode the confidence in that currency. It also implies that the stability of the global reserve system may be inconsistent with the monetary policy objectives of the reserve-issuing country, i.e. that the world economy is effectively hostage to the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve and US Treasury Department.

Over the years, proposals to reform the global reserve system have stressed the need to address the systemic inequalities that characterise the international monetary system. In 2010, after a new issuance of SDRs was made in response to the global financial crisis (GFC), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development called for abandoning the dollar as the single major reserve currency and moving to a system that permits the disbursement of international liquidity that could underpin the financing of investment in long-term sustainable development. Such annual, or regular, counter-cyclical issuances of a global reserve currency could serve to create a more stable, equitable and resilient global financial safety net, without an attendant risk of inflation, particularly if they are equivalent to the estimated additional demand for foreign reserves in times of economic crisis and recession. Another salient advantage of using a global reserve currency in such a counter-cyclical manner is that it would, in principle, facilitate the task of preventing excessive currency depreciations for countries in crisis. Over time, different proposals have been made for what the principal global reserve asset itself could look like, from Keynes original Bancor concept to the more recently proposed International Currency Certificates. While originally proposed by some with the intent of becoming the principal global reserve asset, SDRs have in practice been designed as a residual reserve asset instead, with severe limitations to their use. A 2018 IMF report on SDRs revealed that using SDRs for such larger, pro-cyclical issuances was avoided in the 1970s because their unconditional nature began to raise concerns that it could be used by members to avoid necessary policy adjustment.

In addition to those debates on currency, a broad range of proposals have been made on what type of international architecture would be required to govern such a global reserve asset. In his 2009 report to the UN General Assembly in the aftermath of the GFC, former vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, recommended such a new reserve currency system could be established by broadening out existing SDR arrangements and therefore be maintained by the IMF. Critically however, Stiglitz pointed out that this could only work if the long-standing deficiencies in governance of non-representative institutions like the IMF are addressed, which had impaired the ability of these institutions to take adequate actions to prevent and respond to the crisis. The report specifically recommended restoration of the weight of basic votes, which are equally distributed among all countries, and the introduction of double or multiple majority voting at the IMF and electing IMF and Bank leaders under an open, democratic process (see Inside the Institutions, IMF and World Bank decision-making and governance).

Eleven years on, the clock has run out. These critical reforms have not been implemented and the typically slow pace of IMF governance reforms even came to a complete halt in December 2019, as the US blocked the 15th regular review of IMF quotas (see Observer Winter 2019). Just a few months later, this failure in governance reform that continues to provide the US with an effective veto on major decisions on the IMF board, allowed a particularly insular US administration to hold the entire world hostage and block an SDR allocation in the midst of a global pandemic painfully demonstrating the human costs of the failures of our international monetary architecture.

It is therefore high time to consider alternatives. One counterproposal is that of creating a new global reserve currency and a new institution to manage this, such as a Global Reserve Bank. Under such a new agency, an SDR-like allocation methodology could be carried out more equitably, based on a combination of economic needs, size and consideration of global economic trends. Such an arrangement, according to Stiglitz, should be designed to regulate the creation of global liquidity and maintain global macroeconomic stability and make problems related to the creation of excess liquidity by the reserve currency country less likely to occur. On a systemic level, a new global reserve system should put pressure on surplus countries to reduce their contribution to the insufficiency of global aggregate demand and productive financing.

Another method of implementing a reformed reserve system would be to assign regional economic formations (e.g. BRICS, ASEAN, SADC, Mercosur, etc.) to lead the process. Regional mechanisms can be based either on swap arrangements between central banks to exchange an agreed reserve currency or on a pooling of foreign reserves. While governments may hesitate to collectivise their reserves, establishing reserve pools allows for a counter-cyclical use of the funds as well as the issuance of a currency or reserve asset that could be used at the regional or global level.

While the specific contours of the institutional architecture, methodology and governance of a Global Reserve Bank or regional formations may vary in detail, scope and ambition, the point is that reforming the current reserve architecture through counter-cyclical and regular allocations of some type of global reserve currency would create a more equitable and efficient reserve architecture by mitigating the three central challenges described above. By embodying characteristics such as being unconditional, predictable and needs-based, regular global reserve allocations would be akin to a global public good. Deficit countries could concentrate on better financing domestic development priorities rather than protecting themselves through reserves or balancing their payments, while the entire world could benefit from greater autonomy from US monetary policy. Dethroning the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency ultimately represents a decolonial approach, one which creates a more stable, equitable and just international monetary system.

The pandemic has revealed the true depths of structural inequalities between Global North and South, as the North hoards vaccines and enacts generous fiscal stimulus, while many countries in the South spend more public resources repaying private creditors than they do on domestic health and economic resuscitation. The urgency of democratising multilateral economic and financial governance has never been clearer.

by Bhumika Muchhala. Bhumika Muchhala is an advocate, activist, public speaker, researcher and writer on international financial architecture, feminist economics and global economic governance. She has 20 years of experience in global justice policy advocacy organisations. Since 2009, she has been the senior policy researcher on global economic governance at Third World Network where she is engaged with UN processes, as well as G20, IMF and World Bank policies. She is a PhD candidate in political economy and decolonial theory at The New School in New York, and has a Masters of Science in Development Economics from the London School of Economics.

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Tip of the iceberg: How the call for SDRs reveals the urgency for deeper reforms of the global reserve system to address systemic inequalities -...

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following eight years extensive research, Nextek Ltd has launched a global multi-participant project (NEXTLOOPP) to address a missing link in the plastics recycling stream - Polypropylene (PP).

PP accounts for around 20 percent of the worlds plastic.1 Mostly used in pots, tubs, trays and films for food packaging, it is also prevalent in non-food household and personal care products, which complicates recycling the 700,000 tonnes/annum used in the UK alone.2

Currently PP packaging is either going to waste-to-energy, landfill or being down-cycled into low-performance applications, wasting precious resources. Furthermore, the absence of food-grade recycled PP (FGrPP) means that all PP food packaging is currently made from virgin plastics.

Looming plastic packaging taxes have sharpened a focus on including at least 30 percent recycled content in packaging and transforming the way we manage our short-lived materials to minimise and reduce current waste levels.

NEXTLOOPP uses commercially-proven technologies to separate food-grade PP using marker technologies. These include cutting-edge decontamination stages to ensure compliance with food-grade standards in the EU and the USA. Now we can finally close the loop on FGrPP.

Major organisations including brand-owners, suppliers, universities and industry associations, through to end-users in the PP supply chain, have joined NEXTLOOPP to produce a world-first; high-quality FGrPP that will be available in the UK by 2022.

Professor Edward Kosior, founder and CEO of Nextek Ltd, explains that creating a circular economy for food-grade PP packaging waste fills the enormous gap in the packaging recycling sector and helps reach Net Zero Carbon targets. It will allow brand owners to meet their recycling targets and significantly reduce the use of virgin plastics from petrochemicals. It will also greatly reduce CO2 emissions and divert waste from landfill and waste-to-energy.

UK-based WRAP has confirmed that The UK Plastics Pact is pleased to support the NEXTLOOPP project in delivering a technology that will achieve food-grade polypropylene. WRAPs Acting Director Insights and Innovation, Claire Shrewsbury, says that finding a way to successfully recycle food-contact polypropylene is a key challenge. Achieving this will enable UK Plastics Pact members to reach the target of an average of 30 percent recycled content across all packaging by 2025. WRAP believes that NEXTLOOPP offers a potential solution to this and we will work closely with the other stakeholders to develop the project further.

Viridors Director of Business Development (Polymers), Luke Burgess, says the companys participation in the food-grade trial is in line with Viridors ongoing commitment to the UK circular economy. Viridor believes that extending its polymers expertise and recycling experience to cross-sector collaboration and innovation is key to ensuring more waste is valued as a resource and returns to the circular economy where it belongs. Reducing our reliance on virgin plastic not only empowers greater circularity, but the continued use of recycled material also offers significant energy savings, contributing to considerable wider environmental benefits for the UK.

Lubna Edwards, Group Sustainability and Marketing Director at Robinson Packaging says: NEXTLOOPP is absolutely aligned with Robinsons goals and those of our customers for closed-loop solutions, as well as governmental circular economy targets. Demand for this high-value recycled material will continue to rise as we shift away from using virgin material. Much of our UK business depends upon PP and this ground-breaking project gives us the opportunity to tap into cutting-edge technology, learn from industry partners and trial the material for sustainable use in our packaging.

Andrew Fisher, Managing Director of leading plastic packaging manufacturer Sharpak Yate, says: As part of the Guillin Group, Sharpak has recyclability in its DNA. NEXTLOOPP is an industry-leading initiative and we are proud to be collaborating with this multi-participant project.

Adam Elman, Group Sustainability Director at Klckner Pentaplast says: Capturing the value of plastics by keeping them within the economy and out of our natural environment is key to meeting the Plastics Pact targets and very much part of our business strategy. Swapping the traditional take-make-waste linear model for a circular system is also one of the many important steps towards significantly reducing our carbon emissions. We are proud to be working in collaboration with NEXTLOOPP on this important project.

As of 23 March 2021, 29 organisations across the PP supply chain have joined NEXTLOOPP. Other multinational companies are soon to join.

About Nextek Ltd

Nextek is a global sustainability consultancy that offers strategic advice to regional and multi-national organisations and recycling companies. Launched in 2004, Nextek researches and develops innovative strategies and processes within the recycling ecosystem from designing recycling plants to developing ground-breaking projects for governments and major organisations. Nextek launched NEXTLOOPP, a two-year multi-participant project, to close the loop on food-grade rPP. This project incorporates unique technological breakthroughs that include innovative sorting and cutting-edge decontamination technology.

http://www.nextek.org

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Nextek Reveals Global Participants in Ground-breaking Project to Tackle Post-consumer Polypropylene Packaging - Business Wire

Although it should go without saying that women have long played an invaluable role in conservation, were going to say it anyway. From those who work in companies, nongovernmental organizations, or government to individuals stepping up on local issues, women have helped to safeguard lands and waters that are vital to the health of our planet, and to the economies and well-being of communities. To mark Women's History Month, The Pew Charitable Trusts celebrates five women who are leading efforts across the U.S. to ensure that our rivers remain clean and free-flowing for future generations.

Courtesy of Julie Nania

Julie Nania is the water program director at High Country Conservation Advocates in Crested Butte, Colorado, where she works to protect the states rivers. One approach is to identify and advocate for rivers that qualify for designation as outstanding natural resource waters, and another is to recommend rivers for protections as part of the forest planning process for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison national forests. She also leads stewardship projects to enhance watershed health and restore riparian habitats and works with municipalities to improve water efficiency and landscape conservation. One can find Nania building community support for river protections, advising local decision-makers, or collecting water quality data in the field with partners. Relationships with rivers are both a personal affair and essential to the survival of our ecosystems, she says. Spending time on rivers offers us an opportunity to grow. Few things can match the experience of a rowdy whitewater run with friends, helping to pick up the pieces if things go awry. And while these experiences are irreplaceable, our landscapes would simply not exist were it not for the life force that rivers provide. Nania has also served on the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District board of directors for the past four years.

Faith Briggs Tracy Nguyen-Chung

Riversare such a part of my understanding of this country, says Faith Briggs, a documentary filmmaker and storyteller who grew up near the Hudson River in New Yorkwhich she notes is the first place I jumped off cliffs and learned to skip rocks. While working on the series Drought at Discovery Communications, she learned about water rights controversies along the Colorado River. It hit home to me then that rivers are our lifeblood. I think the more we understand that, the more we'll know how important it is to keep them clean and support river health. Briggs lives in Portland, Oregon, and works with nonprofits, institutions, and outdoor businesses to increase diversity and create media that represent the world in which we live. Since I've fallen in love with fly fishing, I've experienced rivers from Kamchatka, Russia, to Alaska to eastern Oregon. I've had the joy of working at nonprofits like Soul River that connect people to rivers and help young people from [communities of color] learn about entomology. Briggs is also an ambassador for Brown Folks Fishing, which works to expand access for people of color in fishing and its industry. I've always felt a kinship with rivers based on the place they occupy in the African American literary tradition, she says. I think about 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers' by Langston Hughes, which begins, I've known rivers. The more that I have the joy and opportunity to experience rivers, the closer I feel to that part of my heritage."

Courtesy of Liz Hamilton

As executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association, an Oregon-based association of businesses , Liz Hamilton has spent the past three decades working to ensure that healthy rivers and the fisheries they sustain will be around for future generations. Recovering salmon and steelhead is about so much more than saving a fish, Hamilton says. Our entire ecosystem, culture, andNorthwest economy is built on the backsof salmon and steelhead, she told the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper in December.If we have any hope of safeguarding our fishing jobs and sustaining them into the future, we need to actand we need to do it now. Hamilton is backing legislation introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) to safeguard thousands of miles of Oregon rivers as wild and scenic, and she speaks to the need for river protection in an upcoming segment of This American Land, which will air on PBS stations nationwide. Rivers not only provide recreation and food for our table through fishing; they provide nourishment for our souls and unparalleled bonding with close ones, she says. I love teaching my grandchildren to fish, but a close second is helping someone catch their first salmon!

Courtesy of Ashley Nichole Lewis

Born and raised on Washington states Olympic Peninsula, Quinault Indian Nation member Ashley Nichole Lewis spent much of her childhood outdoors, exploring the areas lush rainforests, remote landscapes, and clear, clean rivers such as the Quinault and Queets. Now the owner of Bad Ash Fishing and host of a new show for aspiring anglers, Break Out With Bad Ash, which will air on NBC Sports, she guides clients on those waterways in the pursuit of salmon and steelhead. As she explains on her company website, When you take people outside and they experience how great that time spent is, they become more curious and invested in what happens to our environment. Lewis has been a local leader in the coalition backing legislation by Representative Derek Kilmer (D-WA) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to protect about 126,000 acres of wilderness and hundreds of miles of rivers on the Olympic Peninsula. When that bill cleared the House of Representatives in February, Lewis told the Aberdeen, Washington, newspaper The Daily World: Conservation for me on the Olympic Peninsula means that generations to come can come out here and experience it the way that I experience it and the way my grandpa experienced it when he fished out here, and that forever we always have this."

Courtesy of Axie Navas

AxieNavasis the first director of New Mexicos newly formed Economic Development Departments Outdoor Recreation Division. She comes by this work naturally as a former journalist withOutside magazine and an outdoor recreation enthusiast. Her office is petitioning for an outstanding national resource waters designation for 150 miles of New Mexico rivers, which would protect their water quality in perpetuity. The division is leading this effort for the upper Rio Grande, Rio Hondo, headwaters of the Jemez River, and Rio Guadalupe.Navas office also supports federal efforts to win a wild and scenic designation for the states Gila and San Francisco rivers,citingdata showing that protecting these important waterways will boost the local economy. Rivers are the ecological, cultural, social, and recreational centers of New Mexico, Navas says. We gather on their banks and in their waters to fish, raft, feel wonder, and come together as communities. Their waters flow through our acequias and our biologically rich riparian areas. Sheadds that her love of nature came from spending her childhood outside, skiing, biking, and exploring the Rockies. I am fortunate enough to live within walking distance of the Rio Hondo. My favorite activity isnt a high-adrenaline one: Its listening to the murmur of the water in the early mornings when the birds and the valley are just waking up.

Nicole Cordan oversees river corridor work for The Pew Charitable Trusts U.S. public lands and rivers conservation project.

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Five Women Work to Keep U.S. Rivers Clean and Free-Flowing - The Pew Charitable Trusts

Government has approved the implementation of the Education and Training Sector Strategic Plan (ETSSP).

ETSSP is the Ministrys roadmap for transforming education and supporting Botswanas ambition to graduate from a resource based to a Knowledge Based Economy.

This was said by the Minister of Basic Education, Fidelis Molao in parliament when delivering his speech during the Committee of Supply sitting.

Molao said that With the Covid-19 pandemic depleting resources, these reforms will be more relevant now than ever as Botswana needs to rely on its own knowledge and skills to drive innovation and other sectors of the economy such as manufacturing.

Molao said that through the implementation of the ETSSP, curriculum is being overhauled and other flagship programmes undertaken which include the rollout of Early Childhood Care, School Leadership Training, the development of an Outcome Based Education (OBE) curriculum for senior secondary schools, and the introduction of multiple education pathways for learners to access higher education as well as the introduction of e-learning at all levels.

The senior secondary school curriculum has been reviewed. To date, all the planned 38 subjects for senior secondary level have been developed, checked and quality assured for implementation. The Ministry will implement the new subjects in a phased approach where three phases of implementation are planned with Phase-1 starting in 2021, said Molao.

The Minister further noted that the new subjects to be introduced are; Animal Production; Field Crop Production and Horticulture for Moeng College and Hospitality and Tourism Studies for Maun Senior Secondary School.

Some of the learning facilities have been altered and new facilities are being constructed within the two schools to make a provision for teaching of the new subjects to Form 4 learners, explained the minister.

He added that the Ministry is also developing a new Junior Certificate outcome based curriculum aligned to the new Senior Secondary School Curriculum.

He said that the implementation of outcomebased education curriculum requires the modernizing and digitalising of schools to create an environment that is conducive to learning.

Going forward, the Ministry needs to be facilitated and fully supported by Honourable Members to fast-track expanding access as well as attending to the aged school infrastructure across the country,said Molao

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Govt approves Ministry of Educations transformation Roadmap - The Voice Newspaper Botswana

Jessica Cejnar / Friday, March 19 @ 4:31 p.m. / Business, COVID-19, Community Crescent City Contracts With Brand Strategist to Leverage Resources For Local Businesses, Nonprofits

People stroll along Crescent City's B Street Pier. On Monday, the city contracted with a brand strategist to further economic development locally. LoCO File photo: Andrew Goff

Previously:

Crescent City Introduces and Is Already Chipping Away At An Economic Development Plan

While Awaiting Federal Assistance, Local Task Force Offers No-Interest Business Loans to Del Norte's Smallest Businesses

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Nearly a year after Crescent City and the Del Norte Office of Emergency Services created the Economic Resiliency Task Force to help businesses weather the COVID-19 pandemic, the city is thinking long-term resiliency.

Councilors on Monday unanimously approved a $104,992 contract with Berry Strategy LLC. Using $100,000 in grant dollars from the California Endowment and a $5,000 donation from the Humboldt Area Foundation, the goal is to take advantage of state and federal resources that facilitate economic recovery for local businesses, nonprofits and residents.

The grant calls for this work to build capacity and the capacity to take on other available funding and put it to the highest possible work for the community, said Rick Bolton, a Berry Strategy consultant, who specializes in business and brand strategy. The first step is the attraction part, developing a brand identity, using language deliberately and then as an extension, a communications strategy thats clear and compelling to draw those dollars out and create something thats so appealing Im talking about making sure the core purpose and core meaning and core assets of the community are really showing through.

Bolton said that strategy could revolve around the recreational opportunities in Del Norte County or its natural resources.

By putting a sharp point on whatever the scenario whatever the platform we land on we not only attract new money, but we also are most of the way to prescribing where the dollars should go in order to be on strategy, he said.

Created early in the pandemic, the Economic Resiliency Task Force initially gauged the level of injury businesses went through as a result of shut downs and public health orders and provided $5,000 no-interest loans.

The task force also held weekly webinars to connect business owners to state and federal federal resources through the North Coast Small Business Development Corporation and the Small Business Administration.

The contract with Berry Strategy also comes after the city introduced the community to its Economic Development Strategic Action Plan an cookbook with 86 recipes that include revamping Front Street and Beachfront Park and other areas of economic growth.

As part of his contract, Bolton will work with PlanWest Partners, which completed the Economic Development Strategic Action Plan, said City Manager Eric Wier.

According to Wier, in addition to working with companies like Kaiser Permanente, Bolton is also working with Crescent City-based Rumiano Cheese on sales and marketing strategies.

He does have an understanding of the community and will take that forward as we start moving forward on a new endeavor of being more innovative, Wier said.

On Monday, Crescent Citys recreation director, Holly Wendt, who helped create the Economic Resiliency Task Force, noted that though the pandemic brought a lot of trauma and stress to business owners, there was also opportunity. She referenced the Tolowa name for the area as a place of plenty.

Rebranding Crescent City isnt just for tourists, Wendt said, but for the community itself.

We have everything we need to be a beautiful and wonderful place, Wendt said. We have nature. We have hard-working humans. We have a rich culture that goes back for generations, wonderful tribal communities and an opportunity to redefine who we are together from a place of strength.

Under its contract with the city, Berry Strategy will also attempt to reach out with Del Norte Countys black and indigenous community, particularly business owners and non-profit leaders, according to the citys staff report.

This will include holding at least three learning sessions and create a place to share resources and communicate with each other via the Del Norte Economic Resiliency Task Force website.

The project is expected to be completed in December, according to the staff report.

During the Councils discussion, Crescent City Mayor Jason Greenough summed up the projects goal.

The way I took this is we as a community need to come together and find out who we are as a community, he said. That way we can move forward together and find common ground and find common goals and then implement those into projects and figure out how we can work together to better our community.

Mayor Pro Tem Blake Inscore compared Crescent Citys efforts to rebrand itself to Leavenworth, Washingtons transition from a resource-based economy to one reliant on tourism.

Inscore noted that in the late 1800s, Leavenworths economy was dominated by the fur trade, gold, timber and the Great Northern Railway. But by the 1930s, the railroad had been rerouted and the city was on life support, Inscore said.

After 30 years of trying to make do and looking at empty storefronts, the community leaders said, We got to think outside the box and do something new, he said. It was almost unheard of and Im sure there were people who thought these people were crazy, but the reinvented themselves as a Bavarian village. Today, they average around 2 million visitors a year.

That decision, Inscore said, is no different to the changes Crescent City and Del Norte County are needing to make to survive.

That change may require radical thinking on our part, he said. We want our community to not just survive, we want our community to thrive and be something that is a product of dreams, not just a product of trying to make do.

Original post:

Crescent City Contracts With Brand Strategist to Leverage Resources For Local Businesses, Nonprofits - Lost Coast Outpost

Lets work to replace oil-based products with plant-based ones

March 18 was Global Recycling Day, a day dedicated to recognizing the role recycling plays in promoting a more circular economy that reduces our reliance on finite natural resources. As we celebrate the benefits of recycling, we should also consider other steps that can be taken to securing our planets future, including the use of more renewable plant-based materials.

Many of the products we use every day, from packaging to plastic car parts to yoga pants, are often made from petroleum, a finite resource that comes from the extraction of carbon embedded deep in the Earth. While recycling can play a role in helping to extend the life of some of these materials, some may still end up as pollution, and some may end up as new carbon dioxide in the atmosphere if recycling is no longer an option. As an alternative, many of these products can be made from renewable, plant-based materials, like hemp, corn, soy, algae, and agricultural waste. These plants actually take carbon out of the atmosphere as they grow. Further, like their petroleum-based counterparts, many plant-based products are recyclable or commercially compostable. These factors combine to help drive a circular economy one where sustainable products are in use longer, waste is reduced and fewer finite resources are utilized.

The Plant Based Products Council works every day to support the transition to a circular economy that includes adoption of more renewable materials. Global Recycling Day reminds us to keep advocating for solutions that help ensure a more sustainable future.

Executive Director, Plant Based Products Council

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Let's work to replace oil-based products with plant-based ones - Logan Daily News

March 19, 2021

Sofis has extensive experience in economic development and will play a critical role in strengthening the city's economy and supporting workers as San Francisco recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic

San Francisco, CA Mayor London N. Breed today appointed Kate Sofis to serve as the Director of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD).

Kate Sofis is an internationally-regarded leader in equitable urban economic development. Her experience integrates a uniquely diverse background in entrepreneurship and innovation, manufacturing, creative, and technology industry expertise, workforce development, real estate development, and local and regional economic development strategy. Since 2010, she has served as the co-founder and CEO of SFMade, a public-private initiative that has helped catalyze a resurgence in local manufacturing and diverse employment in San Francisco. She recently served as a member of San Francisco's COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force.

"I am excited to appoint Kate Sofis to lead our Office of Economic and Workforce Development," said Mayor Breed. "The programs and services that OEWD provides will play a critical role in our City's economic recovery from COVID-19. Her longstanding commitment to economic development and experiencing supporting local San Francisco businesses, along with her demonstrated focus promoting equitable economic development, make her a perfect fit for this role. I have full confidence that Kate has the experience and skill-set to lead the organization and ensure San Francisco comes back even stronger than before."

"It is a privilege and an honor to be asked to lead OEWD during this critical time for our community," said Kate Sofis. "I am excited to work with our Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, the incredible OEWD team, and across the public and private sectors to chart a path forward to economic recovery for the city I love."

The Office of Economic and Workforce Development is responsible for supporting the economic vitality of San Francisco by promoting programs that attract and retain business, promote workforce development, maximize long-term public benefits in new development, strengthen small businesses, create international business opportunities in the City, and facilitate the revitalization of commercial corridors. This work is especially important as San Francisco gets on the road to recovery from COVID-19 and continues to support businesses and workers throughout the city.

Under Kate's leadership, SFMade has supported more than 650 manufacturers to start, grow, and stay in the City, sustaining more than 7,500 jobs for local residents from all walks of life. In partnership with the City of San Francisco, in 2013 SFMade launched the first hiring program dedicated to manufacturing, followed one year later by the Bay Area's first summer youth jobs program focused on "maker-careers." The program, YouthMade, has provided paid internships to more than 500 low-income youth and career exposure classes to more than 1,000 youth in San Francisco public high schools. Most recently, Sofis led SFMade to launch the City of San Francisco's first advanced manufacturing sector bridge academy, Next Generation Manufacturing, along with non-profit training partner, Humanmade.

"Kate Sofis has been an important leader and innovator in the local manufacturing community in San Francisco for over a decade. Throughout, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to creating good paying, blue collar jobs of the future, advancing local economic opportunities and celebrating the resilient character of San Francisco entrepreneurs," said Assessor-Recorder Joaquin Torres, and former Director of OEWD. "Now she's joining an extraordinary team at OEWD and together I know they will continue to execute Mayor Breed's vision for an equitable economic and cultural recovery, one that benefits our diverse small businesses, neighborhoods and industries, and places San Francisco on a stronger and more just economic footing and centers those historically marginalized and now hardest hit by this pandemic."

"As San Francisco begins to round the corner on the COVID-19 public health crisis, we see that the path to recovery must include our local business community who has stood by us," said City Administrator Carmen Chu, Co-Chair of the San Francisco Economic Recovery Task Force. "In the decade that I have known Kate Sofis, I have witnessed her fierce commitment to development of our local manufacturing sector. She understands that for businesses to thrive, the pieces around land use, affordability, and regulations all need to work in harmony."

In addition to her work at SFMade, Sofis has experience working with the City of San Francisco to develop and implement key policies to support economic development. She represented manufacturing on Mayor Ed Lee's Business Tax Reform task force. She also played a lead role in developing San Francisco's current industrial land use strategy, which led to the genesis of the City's only non-profit affordable industrial development corporation, PlaceMade, and the completion of its first project, the Manufacturing Foundry at 150 Hooper. Kate served as the at-large Mayoral Appointee to the newly-formed Eastern Neighborhoods Citizens Advisory Committee for the first five years. Kate currently chairs the regional 30-city Bay Area Urban Manufacturing Initiative.

Since the onset of COVID-19, OEWD has helped lead the City's response by serving as a central information hub and support for businesses and workers as they grapple with the incredible uncertainty and challenges created by the pandemic. OEWD has coordinated with public health officials and the business community to maximize safety and limit economic damage, led development and implementation of relief programs and policies for businesses and workers, and built a foundation for an equitable recovery. The department's staff and resources, as well as its extensive network of civic and business leaders, philanthropy and community-based organizations, have been critical for providing these COVID-19 relief initiatives.

"Kate Sofis brings rare expertise and experience in both economic development and workforce development," said Abby Snay, Former CEO, JVS. "Her vision of a strong economy that builds businesses and trains workers for good jobs makes her the right person to lead the Office of Economic and Workforce Development in this time of economic recovery."

"Kate Sofis is such a natural fit to lead the OEWD. She has an incredible track-record, having taken SF Made from being merely an idea to being such an incredible resource for manufacturers and giving San Francisco businesses a seat at the table, on the local, state and even federal levels," said Eileen Hassi Rinaldi, Founder and CEO, Ritual Coffee Roasters. "We are entering a time that will be critical for our citythe very things that make San Francisco what it is: the small businesses, the vibrant neighborhood corridors, the people, are going to be in need of someone effective, someone who knows both how to listen and how to synthesize great ideas into an actionable plan. And that's Kate Sofis. As a small business owner and someone who loves San Francisco, I couldn't be more confident that the people and the businesses of San Francisco will be in great hands."

"San Francisco's many small makers you know and love today, have made their businesses work in our city because of Kate Sofis' vision to revitalize urban manufacturing in our city and the support structure she built to enable this movement through SFMade. It's a big reason why Heath Ceramics is here," said Robin Petravic, Managing Director, Heath Ceramics. "Whenever Heath Ceramics is adding to our production team at our factory in the Mission, we look to the jobs program Kate built at SFMade. There's no doubt she'll continue to support our local workforce and enable better job opportunities in her new role."

"For more than a decade, Kate Sofis has built up our city's manufacturing base and enriched our small business community," said Rodney Fong, President and CEO, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. "She is a champion for San Francisco's economic development, workers, and entrepreneurs. We are so excited for her leadership as Director of OEWD, and the department is lucky to have her essential industry-specific knowledge and deep understanding of San Francisco based businesses."

Prior to founding SFMade, Sofis was the Statewide Director for Pacific Community Ventures, and held senior positions at ICF Consulting, Bay Area Economics, and Ernst and Young. Sofis has a Master of Science in City Design and Social Policy from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Harvard University.

Sofis was born and raised in a working-class neighborhood in Buffalo, New York and is the daughter of a single-parent musician mother. She followed her childhood dreamto live and work in one of the most creative and vibrant cities in the worldto San Francisco 30 years ago and never looked back. Kate lives with her partner, Peter DeHaas, the founder and Executive Director of the San Francisco Disability Business Alliance, and their three teenage children, the youngest of whom is intellectually and developmentally disabled, in the West Portal neighborhood of San Francisco.

This press release was produced by the Office of the San Francisco Mayor. The views expressed here are the author's own.

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Mayor London Breed Appoints Kate Sofis As Director Of The Office Of Economic And Workforce Development - Patch.com

BRUSSELS & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

Today, Groupe Renault, top automotive player, with Veolia (Paris:VIE), global leader in optimized resource management, and Solvay, leading science-based company, are pleased to announce their partnership to enable the circular economy of EV battery metals in Europe through closed-loop recycling.

The existing Veolia and Solvay consortium, created in September 2020, is thus reinforced with Groupe Renaults pioneering position and experience in circular economy and in the life cycle of EV batteries, leading to a highly complementary partnership benefitting from Solvays expertise in the chemical extraction of battery metals and Veolias 10 years of experience in lithium-ion battery dismantling and recycling via a hydrometallurgical process.

With the number of electric vehicles on the road expected to grow from 10 million in 2020 to over 100 million by 2030 worldwide*, ensuring stable access to responsibly sourced battery materials is a strategic challenge.

In that respect, the three partners seek to establish a secure and sustainable supply source for strategic battery metals, such as cobalt, nickel and lithium. The companies plan to achieve this goal by leveraging their respective expertise at each step of the value chain from collection of end-of-life electric vehicle batteries to dismantling, metal extraction and purification and by enhancing existing mechanical and hydrometallurgical battery recycling processes. Through Solvay and Veolias joint innovative technology, strategic metals that were previously recovered in a form only suitable for metallurgical applications will be extracted and purified into high-purity metals ready to be reused in new batteries, thereby reducing the environmental footprint of future EV batteries through this closed loop.

The three partners are already actively engaged in an experimental phase, which involves setting up a pre-industrial demo plant in France with the capability to extract and purify end-of-life EV battery metals.

Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault, declared: Groupe Renault has a holistic approach to the battery life cycle: repairing first-life batteries to extend their automotive lifespan, developing second-life applications for energy storage and setting up a system for collecting and recycling batteries. Today, we are proud to reinforce our commitment to battery recycling by joining forces with Veolia and Solvay. We aim at implementing innovative and low-carbon battery recycling solutions to pave the way to sustainable sourcing for strategic battery materials as electric mobility is growing. Together, we will leverage our strong presence on the entire EV value chain in Europe to take a competitive position in the battery materials market and generate value beyond our core business.

Antoine Frrot CEO of Veolia, commented, Given the magnitude of the environmental issues the world is facing, ecological transformation is an urgent need. With Groupe Renault joining Veolia and Solvay, we are collectively taking a step further towards closed-loop solutions to preserve natural resources. This shows how companies working together can think up and implement new solutions that both better our environment and renew our economies.

Ilham Kadri, CEO of Solvay Group, added, This consortium is a great example of partnership in the value chain that makes circular economy come true for battery metals. We are thrilled to have Groupe Renault join the consortium and view them as a strategic partner in closing the loop of circularity, bringing input material for recycling and re-injecting purified metals into the battery cycle. This project exemplifies how we walk the talk with our Solvay One Planet sustainability roadmap as we aim to more than double revenues generated in a circular economy by 2030.

About Groupe RenaultGroupe Renault is at the forefront of reinventing mobility.Thanks to its alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, and its unique expertise in electrification, Groupe Renault leverages the complementarity of its 5 brands: Renault, Dacia, LADA, Alpine and Mobilize, to offer solutions for innovative and sustainable mobility to its customers. Established in more than 130 countries, it now has more than 180,000 employees and sold 2.95 million vehicles in 2020.Ready to take on challenges on the road as in the market, the Group is committed to an ambitious, value creating transformation focused on the development of new technologies and services, a new range of vehicles that is even more competitive, balanced and electrified. In line with environmental challenges, Groupe Renault aims to achieve carbon neutrality in Europe by 2050.

About VeoliaVeolia group is the global leader in optimized resource management. With nearly 179,000 employees worldwide, the Group designs and provides water, waste and energy management solutions which contribute to the sustainable development of communities and industries. Through its three complementary business activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, preserve available resources, and to replenish them. In 2019, the Veolia group supplied 98 million people with drinking water and 67 million people with wastewater service, produced nearly 45 million megawatt hours of energy and treated 50 million metric tons of waste. Veolia Environnement (listed on Paris Euronext: VIE) recorded consolidated revenue of 27.189 billion in 2019 (USD 29.9 billion).

About SolvaySolvay is a science company whose technologies bring benefits to many aspects of daily life. With more than 23,000 employees in 64 countries, Solvay bonds people, ideas and elements to reinvent progress. The Group seeks to create sustainable shared value for all, notably through its Solvay One Planet roadmap crafted around three pillars: protecting the climate, preserving resources and fostering a better life. The Groups innovative solutions contribute to safer, cleaner, and more sustainable products found in homes, food and consumer goods, planes, cars, batteries, smart devices, health care applications, water and air purification systems. Founded in 1863, Solvay today ranks among the worlds top three companies for the vast majority of its activities and delivered net sales of 9 billion in 2020. Solvay is listed on Euronext Brussels and Paris (SOLB), and in the United States, where its shares (SOLVY) are traded through a Level I ADR program. Learn more at http://www.solvay.com.

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Groupe Renault, Veolia & Solvay Join Forces to Recycle End-of-life EV Battery Metals in a Closed Loop - Business Wire

Khunta (Odisha): The 50 Mankdia households of Dengam village in Khunta block on the fringe of the Simlipal forest in Odisha watched nervously as angry flames raced through the forest a forest that has sustained their particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) for centuries.

The Simlipal wildfire had started in the second week of February and it had been two weeks since 28-year-old Dilip Mankdia had been able to enter the forest to collect sialilata (siali fibre). Without siali fibre, we cant survive, said Dilip.

Source: Vasundhara

Dilips friend, 29-year-old Dasarath Mankdia, added, We often face intimidation from the forest authorities while collecting siali bark in the dense forest. But with the wildfire, our people are in a depression. If we dont go to the forest, how will we survive? We cant depend only on the public distribution system.

Elsewhere, in Kaptipada block, 40-year-old Sushil Bhodta, a member of the Lodha tribal community, also watched the fire rage through the forest. This is the right time to collect honey, he told The Wire. But the wildfire is creating too much smoke. Our honey bees are leaving the area. What should we do now? How we will collect honey?

Habitats and homes

When news of the wildfire in Simlipal broke, concerns were raised about the possible destruction of the tiger reserve in the inner forest as well as that of the other local wildlife and plants. But little thought was given to the socioeconomic conditions of the displaced tribal communities of the Simlipal Tiger Reserve, particularly PVTGs like the Mankdia community, a semi-nomadic offshoot of the Birhor tribe, many of whom have yet to secure habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006. The main source of livelihood for the Mankdia community is the collection of siali fibre from the deep forests of Simlipal, from which they make and sell rope.

The wildfire has dismantled the tribal economy, said Gopinath Majhi, convener of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), a national forum of tribal and forest dwellers that works for tribal land and forest rights. There is an urgent need to assess the vulnerabilities of the tribal communities around Simlipal.

Several scheduled tribal communities live around the Simlipal reserve, including the Kolha, Santal, Bhumija, Bhatudi, Gond and Ho. The area is also home to three particularly vulnerable tribal groups: Mankdia, Lodha and Hill Kharia. While many of the scheduled tribal communities who once sustained themselves via the forest economy have started practicing settled agriculture and wage labour, the PVTGs and other forest dwelling indigenous communities still make their livelihoods from minor forest produce (MFPs) such as siali fibre, honey, mushrooms and so on.

Also read: Wildfire Ravages Similipal, Asias Second Largest Biosphere Reserve

The collection of MFPs contributes significantly to the livelihood of tribal communities, said Rama Chandra Dalai who is in charge of block livelihood coordination at the Odisha Livelihood Mission, Khunta, Mayurbhanj. Around 50-60% of most tribal household income is generated from the collection and sale of MFPs around the year. But the livelihood of the PVTGs is 100% forest-based.

Sricharan Behera, a Bhubaneswar-based researcher and member of the CSD, said, Tribal communities are the best guardians of forests and wildlife. It is high time we understood the traditional conservation and coexistence nature of our forest dwelling communities.

Out of place

Increasing restrictions on the collection of forest-based produce and the poor implementation of pro-poor schemes and programmes have worsened the socioeconomic situation of the displaced forest dwelling communities.

According to tribal rights activists, wildfires are a natural occurrence in the forests of these dry regions and can be controlled within the first few hours of their outbreak with the support of local tribal communities. But over the years there has been increased alienation between the local communities and the forest department authorities and with the displacement of the communities from within the forests, they are no longer the forests first line of defence.

The tribal rights activists have been advocating for the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006, to ensure the habitat rights of the PVTG communities, mainly the Hill Kharia, Mankdia and Lodha. So far, however, the conflicts between the the indigenous communities, local civil societies and the forest department seem insurmountable. While in 2015 the Forest Rights Act granted the PVTGs from the displaced villages community forest resource rights, from 2017, after the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) issued an order that banned the process of distributing tribal rights in the tiger reserves across India, the habitat rights of the Mankdia community have been contested. According to activists and the local people, the forest department opposed the decision of the district collector to recognise the Mankdias habitat rights in the core of the tiger reserve.

Dilip Mankdia weaving siali rope his main source of livelihood in Dengam village. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty

Some people have land on the official records, but it is not demarcated as yet, said Sibashankar Sing, sarpanch(village head) of Mankidiasahi.

The homes of the displaced communities were constructed in 1976 and are in poor condition. My home needs repair before the rainy season. It is fragile and cant withstand heavy rains, said 42-year-old Sahira Mankidia of Dengam village.

For many of them, it is also hard to get their dues from the government. I have been struggling to get my old age pension for more than five years, said 72-year-old Surumuni Mankadia from Dengam. Each time I meet the sarkari babus (government authorities) I plead with them to process my application. But I dont know when I will get my pension.

In Champagarh village, the Lodha people are interested in working under the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). But the last time they received work under the Act was in 2015, said 48-year-old Budhia Bhakta, a villager. Most of the NREGA work is related to the construction of roads or water tanks. This does not help our community as the contractors mostly use machines, Budhia said.

Natural resources

About 4.2% or 8,111.55 square km of the total geographical area of Odisha is forest land and11.4% of these forests are protected areas. The state hosts 18 sanctuaries and two national parks, the majority of which are located in the Scheduled V areas where the tribal communities prevail.

The forest fringe areas of Simlipal Biosphere Reserve in Mayurbhanj district, for instance, is home to 1,265 villages with a total population of over four lakh people, of whom 73.44% belong to the scheduled tribes.

Most of the people of the Hill Kharia community live in the Morada, Jashipur Udala and Karanjia blocks under Mayurbhanj district. A small population of the community also resides in the Balasore, Sundargarh, Keonjhar and Dhenkanal districts.

Also read: With Hydro Projects in the Himalayas Flouting Norms, Disaster Is an Eventuality

The Hill Kharia community is divided into three sections: the Hill Kharia, the Dhelki Kharia and the Dudh Kharia. They mainly subsist by collecting forest-based produce, such as honey in the summer season, mushrooms during the rainy season, sal resins at the end of the rainy season and arrow-root in winter.

They also collect seasonal fruits around the year, including kendu, bhudur, banicha, mango and guava, as well as edible roots such as pitalu, ramalu, panalu, mahualu, khamaalu, chimalu, churkalu and kandalu and a variety of green leaves, including banjari, chatani, jhinei, gardi, jail, kundali, matha and kaunra. In addition to rice, traditional millets and maize are their staple foods.

Women help fuel the household economy by weaving mats from date palm leaves, harvesting bamboo shoots from the forest and preparing ambasadha or mango jelly. They also make leaf plates and cups for household use and to sell in the local weekly markets.

The Lodha tribal community is settled mainly in the Morada and Siliapada blocks of Odishas Mayurbhanj district. According to the 2011 census, their population consists of 9,785 people. For the last 150 years, the Lodhas have had to live with the stigma of being criminals, due to being listed by the colonial British government under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. This has led to severe discrimination against them and the denial of their rights.

Surumuni Mankedia in Dengam village under Khunta block of Mayurbhanj district. Photo: Abhijit Mohanty

The Lodha community primarily depends on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood, but also relies on fishing and the collection of tussar cocoons and seasonal minor forest produce. This includes arrow-root and karanj seeds between December and February, honey and jhuna (wax) between March and May and September and October, gum in August and September, kusum seeds in June and July, resin in November and December and May and June, sal seeds in May and June and mahua flowers between March and May.

One of the communitys primary income-generating activities is conducted by women, who make ropes from sabai grass. Bamboo crafts sold in weekly markets are a recent income addition for their households.

The Mankdia tribal community lives in the Mayurbhanj, Kalahandi and Sundargarh districts of Odisha. In Mayurbhanj, the community is called Mankdia, while in Kalahandi and Sundargarh, it is known as Mankidi.

According to the 2011 census, the Mankdia community consists of 2,222 people, 255 families of whom live in nine villages in Mayurbhanj district and 160 families of whom reside in Kaptipada sub-division in five villages.

Abhijit Mohantyis a Delhi-based development professional and freelance journalist. He has worked with indigenous communities, refugees, internally displaced people and migrant workers across India and Cameroon.

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Odisha: How the Simlipal Wildfire Razed the Economy of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups - The Wire