Kabir
Arora (K.A.): Starting with South Asia, we have some nation states that
are at political crossroads with each other. At the same time there is a
need for collective approach to conservation efforts in this region.
How does one float in such troubled waters of our sub-continent?
Ahan
Marker Kabraji (A.M.K.): At one level if you look at the politics of
South Asia both within the country and across trans-boundary aspects,
yes there are lots of issues such as civil war within them or a war like
situation with one-another for decades now. Having said that, they have
still managed to maintain an alliance called SAARC (South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation). They still meet regularly and
they still plan for various joint initiatives over the years. Though
admittedly nothing goes as fast & efficiently as it could if they
did have a better relationship amongst them.
In
the area of environment and biodiversity they have actually managed to
do quite a lot and it’s really quite interesting because under such
circumstances you would not expect cooperation agreements to be made on
things like water, trans-boundary resources, etc. But they have managed
to put them into SAARC statement. So if you take that as a given stature
then that is quite an achievement there.
I
think we have a kind of regional governance mechanism in South Asia
which is intergovernmental on which we can bid. Now in addition to that,
my experience is if you start working strictly outside
intergovernmental mechanisms, you bring in civil society & private
sector while keeping government informed but not necessarily asking for
their approval. This way one can do a lot of work which is
trans-boundary and/or within the countries and so on & so forth. For
example, we have a number of trans-boundary initiatives that are
bi-lateral, tri-lateral, multi-lateral within South Asia which we are
running with the knowledge of the governments and their asset support
but largely implemented through agencies that are research bodies,
universities, NGOs, civil society as well as some government agencies
which include Conservation in their mandate like forest department,
wildlife department etc.
So
you know without necessarily formalizing and making some of these
processes very official in nature, there is lot of space to play in and
that’s where youth becomes very important because inevitably when you
are young you have much higher level of optimism, you don’t see barriers
as something that are insurmountable and that’s how it should be. That
is how change comes, that’s how youngsters push barriers and make change
because they are not necessarily willing to accept status quo and have
not been so conditioned by lessons of the past. If they don’t challenge
it there is no future! I would say yes, there are issues but I don’t see
them as something which cannot be changed and challenged. In a sense
emergence of a new order is very much possible!
K.A.:
That is very encouraging, thank you! The second question is around
development in fragile eco-systems. We are seeing “run-off-the-river”
projects coming up in Himalayan states which are said to be environment
friendly while we are seeing their impact on river ecology which is
devastated by such developments. On the other side we have a whole
debate on the conservation of species. There is large scale green-wash
happening on the name of such projects. How does one who is working in
conservation see this situation?
A.M.K.:
It is always a question of looking at trade-offs and balances and I
hesitate to make a general statement because every project is so
different. There are some characteristics which are similar but you know
one makes a decision in a given situation at a particular point of
time, in a particular geographical area, under certain social
indicators. There are some dams, run off the river projects which are
clearly bad for the environment. If they are bad for the environment,
they would be bad for social stability, they are (will be) bad for
sustainability, in a longer term they are going to be bad for the
economy. They may give some short term gains though they will not be
able to give any long term gains. There are other projects at the other
extreme which may seem to be bad, may seem to be having problem areas
but they are not examined closely. With environmental safeguards they
can bring economic benefits and somewhere one has to overlook the costs
which a community might suffer at micro level but at the macro level
there can be economic benefits for them and for the country. Here we
need finely arrived-at trade-offs. Yes, one community will suffer but
if the impact can be softened through alternative livelihoods, if they
get acceptable standards of living and benefits from such projects then
it is probably acceptable. These are two extremes. In between, there is a
whole generation of projects that could be actually made perfectly
sustainable with a little bit of tweaking, advocacy, policy change,
and/or different design. I think one has to determine which kind of
projects we are looking at.
K.A.:
There are people in the forests since generations, there are fishermen
near the coast who contribute in conservation effort but nowadays we are
seeing large scale youngsters migrating or opting out from such
biodiversity hotspots. How do we get these people back? How do we get
them interested in conservation-friendly livelihoods? Additionally, we
have a mechanism of Access & Benefit Sharing in CBD where
traditional knowledge sharing is quantified in monetary terms. Are there
any examples where communities have benefitted from this mechanism?
A.M.K.:
Efforts like Joint Forest Management (JFM) are there to be used if one
has good understanding of how indigenous communities play a role in the
forests and their management. Certainly for that to work, the whole
regime in terms of people living within their biosphere needs to be
respected. But remember also that you are hearing about rural-urban
conflict due to the kind of information that flows in the rural areas.
Today there are farmers who may not be able to read & write, and
still are negotiating the crop prices over cell-phones. Now there are
very few areas of the world that are so remote where the technology has
not penetrated. The point is if those human beings really wish to move
out then there is nothing you can do. You have to respect their choices.
We can’t assume that if it suits our image of them living a simple life
based in the forest then it is something they actually want! They may
want a better health care, a cash-based economy. They may have
aspirations and I think one is to respect it.
It
becomes an issue when indigenous people wish to stay where they are,
have their rights respected, and have their claim to access &
benefit sharing and whatever comes from that. Then one must do
everything one can to maintain and protect that right, that privilege
and recognize how much they are part of the ecosystems they live in and
without them those ecosystems might never survive! I can give an example
of a Mangrove forest in Thailand we work on in a large programme called
“Mangroves for the Future” which was started post the Tsunami. In that
forest when we launched the programme there were beautiful trees and we
asked the villagers who have lived there for centuries “how long have
you been living here?” They said “We don’t remember as it goes back to
many generations”. We asked them “What effect the Tsunami had?” and
their response was, “Hardly any because the tide went up & went
down”. The forest there is so thick, protection is so enormous that the
wave which Tsunami brought did not really penetrate. The forest broke
the force of the wave near the shore, so by the time it came inland to
the forest the community was hardly affected and anyway, there houses
are on stilts, they are used to these very high tidal rises. Now those
people have no land tenure rights and as far as the forest department is
concerned, they shouldn’t be living there. But the forest department
accepts and says that without them the forest would have been devastated
by real estate developers! These people are safeguarding the forest;
they are looking after the forest.
Thankfully,
there are a whole lot of such informal set-ups which exist at various
levels where the legality of affairs is not always recognized &
implemented. There is common sense between governments and communities
which sometimes I think is best to leave it alone. There is an informal
sector of environmental management which one has to recognize.
K.A.:
IUCN is such a huge network with so many scientists and other people.
Is there a space for Youth in IUCN? What level of role youth are playing
in your organization?
A.M.K.:
They have a very important rule if youth organizations are registered
with IUCN. They can become members. In recognition of the importance of
youth, at the last IUCN council we even had a youth council which was
there to speak on behalf of youth. There is a very strong recognition of
the importance of youth and the role they play. In every IUCN programme
in terms of education, outreach, and involvement, you will notice us
looking at universities & schools - basically going out there and
sending a message, asking young people to get involved in the
conservation programme. Everywhere there is desire to include them and
involve them more. It is a question of where does the youth want to be? I
am more than happy to work with any kind of youth associations.
K.A.:
We have Aichi targets 2020. As a conservationist are you satisfied with
the progress which has been made by the CBD COPs? We are eight years
away from the targets. We are still discussing the finance mechanism
& are yet to finalize it. What are your thoughts on current status?
A.M.K.:
Of course, one is not satisfied with the current progress. The
processes of these conventions are sometimes ten to twenty years behind
the curve in terms of action! Implementation & financial mechanism
are an issue. Then on the other hand there is so much being done anyway.
One has to accept that the architecture of global governance today is
just not adaptable enough, nimble enough, or quick enough to really deal
with the kind of global problems one faces all the time. But it is all
we’ve got unless an alternative architecture emerges. Hopefully, it will
evolve towards a more hybrid association of government, private sector
and civil society. We have to live with what we’ve got; we are part of
that architecture so we have to make it better. If the COP is one venue
to do it, then so be it. You will find that in last ten years of COPs
there has already been quite a lot of change. It may be slow because it
has to build on consensus. It may be unyielding and often very clumsy,
but that is all we’ve got.
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