Afghanistan's natural environment a victim of war: activists

Bronwen Roberts, Yahoo News 4 Jun 08;

Years of war saw Afghanistan's forests levelled and its land polluted with fuel and mines, while more recent unchecked building and urbanisation is heaping new pressure on the environment, officials say.

As countries mark World Environment Day on June 5, conservationists and officials say Afghanistan faces many and unique challenges.

The post-Taliban government has passed the country's first environmental law and set up a protection agency, but a lack of capacity and expertise dog efforts to recover from the past and cope with the future, they said.

"The environmental loss was second to the human loss," said Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, founder of Save the Environment Afghanistan, of the decades of war that started with the Soviet invasion of the late 1970s.

Before the conflict, three percent of the country was covered in natural forest, Malikyar said. This has been cut back to 1.5 percent through illegal logging and degradation including from people fleeing war.

"When there was fighting, people migrated to hidden places," he said. "Smugglers and mafia cut trees and took them to neighbouring countries."

The unlawful timber trade is continuing, with some reports of police involvement.

So is the smuggling of falcons with about 1,000 of the birds trapped in the country's deserts every year and smuggled into Pakistan en route to the United Arab Emirates where they can fetch 500 to 30,000 dollars each, Malikyar said.

Another victim has been the endangered snow leopard, native to this area.

"Before the war we had 500 snow leopards," Malikyar said. "Now there is no exact figure but they are estimated at 80 to 120."

The pelts of the elusive animals are however not too hard to come by. In one of dozens of fur shops in Kabul that are filled with sheep, mink and fox, a shopkeeper recently displayed one priced at 2,000 dollars.

At a market for international soldiers at the US military base at Bagram north of Kabul about 180 were seized over a recent two-week period, said Zahid Ullah Hamdard from the National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA).

"There is no legislation to control the export of endangered species."

There is also no wildlife inventory but efforts are under way, led by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, to survey animal populations.

Drought, desertification and deforestation have long been problems, particularly for the 80 percent of the population who live off the land, but one of the biggest new challenges is pollution, Hamdard said.

Four million refugees have returned to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, many of them flocking to Kabul which is now jammed with four million people, several times more than it was built to accommodate.

Air pollution is fed by roads choked with traffic and the burning of wood and plastic in the absence of electricity; garbage is piled in the streets and rivers; water supplies are often filthy.

"In the rapid development of the past six or seven years, the environmental impact has not been taken into account," Hamdard said. "We will again need to invest resources to recover what we have damaged."

The government -- already dealing with insecurity and widespread poverty -- had however taken some "bold steps" to protect the environment, he said.

One was establishing NEPA in April 2005 and the other was passing the Environment Law, the final version of which came into force in 2007.

There were also moves under way to pass environmental impact assessment regulations for new projects and to protect significant areas, such as a group of startling blue lakes at Band-i-Amir in the central province of Bamiyan.

Discussions are meanwhile under way between Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Tajikistan to form a transboundary park in the Pamir mountains, Hamdard said.

Afghanistan largely lacks the resources and expertise it needs to tackle its environmental problems, he said.

And there is general lack of understanding of the importance of environmental protection, with awareness-raising key to events planned for World Environment Day.

"During the last 25 or 30 years environment was ignored and neglected and this needs time, capacity and resources to recover," Malikyar said.

Of efforts so far, he said: "It is not enough for a war-stricken country but it can be a step forward."

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Kiribati likely doomed by climate change: president

Yahoo News 5 Jun 08;

The president of the low-lying Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati said Thursday his country may already be doomed because of climate change.

President Anote Tong said communities had already been resettled and crops destroyed by seawater in some parts of the country, made up of 33 coral atolls straddling the equator.

Although scientists are still debating the extent of rising sea levels and their cause, Tong told a press conference marking World Environment Day that changes were obvious in his country of 92,000 people.

"I am not a scientist but what I know is that things are happening we did not experience in the past," Tong said.

"We may be beyond redemption, we may be at the point of no return where the emissions in the atmosphere will carry on to contribute to climate change to produce a sea-level change that in time our small low-lying islands will be submerged," he said.

"Villages that have been there over the decades, maybe a century, and now they have to be relocated.

"Where they have been living over the past few decades is no longer there, it is being eroded."

At international meetings others had argued that measures to combat climate change would hurt their countries' economic development.

"In frustration, I said, 'No, it's not an issue of economic growth, it's an issue of human survival.'"

Under the worst-case scenario, Kiribati would be submerged by the end of this century and its people would have to be resettled in other countries, he said.

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World Environment Day calls for end to CO2 addiction

Gyles Beckford, Reuters 5 Jun 08;

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - The United Nations urged the world on Thursday to kick an all-consuming addiction to carbon dioxide and said everyone must take steps to fight climate change.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said global warming was becoming the defining issue of the era and will hurt rich and poor alike.

"Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit," Ban said in a statement to mark World Environment Day, which is being marked by events around the globe and hosted by the New Zealand city of Wellington.

"Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions," he said in the speech to reinforce this year's World Environment Day theme of "CO2 Kick the Habit".

"Whether you are an individual, an organization, a business or a government, there are many steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint. It is a message we all must take to heart," he said.

World Environment Day, conceived in 1972, is the United Nations' principal day to mark global green issues and aims to give a human face to environmental problems and solutions.

New Zealand, which boasts snow-capped mountains, pristine fjords and isolated beaches used as the backdrop for the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, has pledged to become carbon-neutral.

"We take pride in our clean, green identity as a nation and we are determined to take action to protect it. We appreciate that protecting the climate means behavior change by each and every one of us," said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

New Zealand, like many countries, staged art and street festivals to spread the message on how people can reduce carbon usage.

In Australia, Adelaide Zoo staged a wild breakfast for corporate leaders to focus on how carbon emissions threaten animal habitats.

GLOBAL EVENTS

In Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, people plan to clean up Gulshan Baridhara Lake that has become badly polluted, and in Kathmandu the Bagmati River Festival will focus on cleaning up the river there.

Many Asian cities, such as Bangalore and Mumbai, plan tree-planting campaigns, while the Indian town of Pune will open a "Temple of Environment" to help spread green awareness.

Global carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are rising quickly and scientists say the world faces rising seas, melting glaciers and more intense storms, droughts and floods as the planet warms.

A summit of G8 nations in Hokkaido, Japan, next month, is due to formalize a goal agreed a year ago that global carbon emissions should be reduced by 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

But some nations think the cuts should be deeper, leading to a reduction of 80 percent of carbon emissions by 2050 to try to stabilize CO2 concentrations in the air to limit global warming.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said climate change was already a reality.

"We have been experiencing the worst drought in living memory and our inland rivers are running dry," he said in a statement.

"We are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050. We will implement emissions trading as the primary mechanism for achieving this target," he said.

North Korean state media said the government was doing its bit for the environment, including updating existing thermal power plants, increasing hydro-power generating capacity, creating more forests and using more organic fertilizers.

The country's carbon output is already fairly small because it cannot afford large quantities of oil and relies heavily on hydro plants for power.

The U.N. Environment Program said the cost of greening of the world's economy would cost as little as a few tenths of global GDP annually over 30 years and would be a driving force for innovation, new businesses and employment.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Seoul; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by David Fogarty)

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Food, oil crises should not overshadow climate danger: UN

Yahoo News 5 Jun 08;

Crises over soaring food and oil prices should reinforce rather than distract from the need for action over climate change, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme said on Thursday.

UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said it was inevitable that attention on climate change would abate this year after the intense international focus on it in 2007.

"What we are saying is take a breath, but don't sit back because the situation is actually worse than we thought two years ago," Steiner told AFP.

Steiner was in New Zealand to mark World Environment Day, with the country's capital Wellington hosting a number of international guests and events.

The focus of attempts to reach a global deal to replace the Kyoto plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions moved to Bonn, Germany, this week where 2,400 negotiators are trying to hammer out a deal by the end of next year.

Steiner said any loss of public support for climate change measures -- amid a shift of focus to food and fuel prices -- could spell disaster for a global deal.

"Unless we get back to the levels of public engagement this year we had last year, I worry that we will not have the political will in the international community to reach an agreement," he said.

"World Environment Day should be a signal it's time to get mobilised again."

Worries about future food supplies were closely linked to climate change and should not be seen in isolation, he said.

"The uncertainties and extreme weather events (of climate change) will simply make the food shortages of the future worse, and that is why there is every reason to connect these agendas."

Higher fuel prices were helping curb consumption but rather than cutting fuel taxes, governments and oil companies should use extra oil revenue to develop lower carbon technologies.

UNEP used World Environment Day to issue a guide to explain climate change and offer ways that governments, companies and individuals can reduce their output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases which cause global warming.

Scientists warn that climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions could put millions of people at risk by century's end as rainfall patterns change and extreme weather events such as hurricanes increase.

"Either we manage to reach the peak point of carbon emissions on our planet by 2015, or we risk another level of global warming and consequences that go far beyond what is already projected now," Steiner said.

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Indonesian president calls for mass tree planting

Yahoo News 5 Jun 08;

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono marked World Environment Day on Thursday with a call for citizens to make a bigger effort to plant trees across the massive archipelago.

Indonesia planted some 79 million trees in a day-long event ahead of a global climate change conference on the resort island of Bali in December, but Yudhoyono said the nation had to do more.

With soaring food prices adding to concerns over climate change, he said people should consider planting fruit-bearing trees.

"Let's continue to plant more trees," he said in a speech to commemorate World Environment Day.

"I have ordered the forestry minister to lead this movement and to choose coconut and breadfruit," he said.

But the president failed to mention some of the most glaring environmental issues facing his country, such as illegal logging, the fight to protect endangered species and the wholesale destruction of forests for plantations.

Indonesia is the world's biggest producer of palm oil which is enjoying a boom on the back of strong global demand and tight supply, driving a massive expansion in the amount of forested land being converted to plantations.

Pressure groups including Greenpeace have called for a moratorium on new plantations in Indonesia to prevent an environmental crisis.

The government however announced last month it was looking at its vast easternmost provinces in Papua to expand its palm oil industry.

Meanwhile one of the biggest populations of wild orangutans on Borneo will be extinct in three years without drastic measures to stop the unchecked spread of plantations, conservationists say.

More than 30,000 wild orangutans live in the forests of Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, or more than half the entire orangutan population of Borneo island, which is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Experts believe the overall extinction rate of Borneo orangutans is nine percent per year, but in Central Kalimantan they are disappearing even faster due to plantation expansion and the destruction of habitat.

The destruction of Indonesia's forests is seen as a major contributor to global warming and climate change.

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on June 5 since 1972, is the initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme.

President calls for concrete actions to save environment
Antara 5 Jun 08;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has called for concrete actions to save the environment in the face of the global warming and climate change phenomena that were degrading the environment.

Nobody should wait to do something to save the environment, Yudhoyono said at a function to mark National Environment Day 2008 at the State Palace here on Thursday.

"Climate change and global warming are real. Let us stop arguing about these issues, let us take concrete actions," the President said at the event which was also attended by First Lady Ani Yudhoyono.

Among the concrete actions people could take were preserving forests and land by planting trees, especially coconut and breadfruit trees, he said.

"My message to the forestry minister is, please plant coconut and breadfruit trees because breadfruit trees can retain water. So, God Willing, there will no more flooding," Yudhoyono said.

The second example of concrete actions was energy saving for the benefit of the environment and the economy, he said.

"The third step is clean up the sewage system. If the sewage system is clean, the environment will be healthy. Besides, it will prevent flooding," he said.

The President also urged the people and the regional administrations to promote healthy, clean and estethic life styles.

In remarks addressed to regional administration chiefs, the president said the quality of the environment in their respective jurisdiction was one of the indicators of their success or failure in running their administrations.

Yudhoyono cited four factors affecting environmental preservation, namely government policies, education, behavior and life style as well as technology.

On the occasion, Indonesian First Lady Ani Yudhoyono and Forestry Minister MS Kaban, received a "Certificate of Global Leadership", an award from the United Nations, for promoting the planting of millions of trees in Indonesia as part of the Billion Tree Planting Campaign spearheaded by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Agro-forestry Center (ICRAF).

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono also presented `Kalpataru` (Tree of Life) awards to nine people and three NGOs who have been helping the country`s environmental preservation, and `Adipura` Awards to a number of cities for keeping up high cleanliness standards. (*)

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Recycling boom adds to hazardous life of Cambodian children

Lucie Lautredou, Yahoo News 4 Jun 08;

Doctor Tuy Puthea was finishing his rounds one day in late March, inspecting a wound on the neck of a young boy, one of a dozen children loitering in an alley behind Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium.

His 10-year-old patient, wearing only ragged shorts and a t-shirt, was just one among thousands of youngsters scraping out an existence scavenging waste on the streets of the Cambodian capital.

Cambodia's growing demand for recyclables -- from bottles and cans to cardboard -- has seen a sharp rise in the number of child scavengers trawling through the capital's waste heaps, many of them press-ganged into what advocates say is one of the world's most hazardous forms of labour.

In 2006, around 4,000 children were working on Phnom Penh's streets, according to Chan Haranvadey, an official with the Social Affairs Ministry.

That number is estimated to have spiraled to between 10,000 and 20,000, though the number dips during the planting season in May and June, when many children return to family farms, non-governmental organisations say.

"These child scavengers are the most vulnerable," said Tuy Puthea, who works with the NGO Mith Samlanh, which helps homeless children.

"They use neither gloves nor shoes, they inhale toxic fumes, eat out of garbage bins," he said, listing ailments he sees every day, from headaches and infected wounds to diarrhoea and hacking coughs.

Across Cambodia an estimated 1.5 million children under 14 are forced to work, child advocacy groups say. They says that while most labour on family farms, up to 250,000 work in hazardous conditions at such pursuits as begging, waste scavenging, factory work or mining.

In Phnom Penh, where an economic boom has also fueled the trash trade, some 70 percent of scavengers are children, according to Mith Samlanh and another child advocacy group, For the Smile of a Child (PSE).

They can be seen day and night, sometimes alone or with their families, picking through piles of trash or begging for bottles and cans from customers at streetside restaurants.

-- Scavengers' lives defined by violence, degradation --

By foraging for plastic, glass, metal or cardboard, a child can make a dollar or two a day -- no small sum in a country where 35 percent of the population is mired in poverty.

But scavenging also places them in a rigid system of patronage, extortion and intimidation at the hands of local thugs acting as middlemen for large recycling outfits operating in Thailand or Vietnam.

These handlers, sometimes children only a few years older than the scavengers themselves, often pay lower than market value in exchange for protection or small tips.

It's a necessary arrangement in a world defined by violence and degradation.

"They are exposed to others problems -- violence, drug use, sexual harassment or trafficking," says Tuy Puthea, whose clinic treats about 30 children a day.

That number could drastically increase as plans to close Cambodia's largest dump get underway. Phnom Penh needs to find somewhere else for its garbage because the current dump is almost full, say city officials.

Only a few short kilometres (miles) from Phnom Penh's burgeoning downtown, at the end of a dirt lane crowded with garbage trucks, is the Stung Meanchey tip, a vast horizon of trash.

Here hundreds of scavengers, many of them children, wander through the smoldering squalor, their clothing stiff with grime and faces tightly wrapped with scarves against the stinging, ever-present smoke.

But without the dump, they will be forced into the streets, swelling the ranks of those already prowling Phnom Penh's litter piles but also taking them further from the reach of the groups most actively trying to help them.

"Closing the dump is a good thing -- this should not be so close to the city," said Pin Sarapitch, director of the programmes at PSE, which for 12 years has operated on the fringes of Stung Meanchey, providing education or vocational training for more than 5,000 children.

"The closure should be followed by more social intervention from the state. The government cannot close the dump and leave these families without a place to live or work," Pin Sarapitch said.

"Where will they go, and how will we be able to our work with them if they cannot be found," he added.

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Climate change spurs scrap metal recycling

Anna Stablum, Reuters 4 Jun 08;

MONTE CARLO (Reuters) - The future looks rosy for scrap metal traders as the world's resources begin to run out and the threat of climate change triggers energy savings, a recycling conference heard this week.

With a rising global population -- forecast to reach 8.2 billion by 2030 from 6.7 billion now -- the generation of waste is increasing rapidly, offering big potential for recycling, which saves energy and helps reduce greenhouse gas production.

"The scarcity of virgin materials will soon become an issue," Henrik Harjula of the Environment Directorate of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development told a Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) conference.

The world's copper resources would last for another 60 years, silver 29 years, zinc 46 years while tin deposits would be exhausted in 40 years, he said.

Annual resource extraction would increase to 80 billion tonnes in 2020, nearly double the level extracted in 2002, and by 2030 it could reach 100 billion, according to the OECD.

"This poses a real opportunity, but it is also a challenge for the recycling industry," OECD's Harjula said.

In the production of copper, aluminum and steel, around 40 percent of the raw materials used comes from recycled metal instead of ore from mines.

CLIMATE CHANGE

By using secondary raw materials, smelters can make large cost savings, for example in aluminum where it takes 95 percent less energy to produce the metal from scrap such as old cans.

By smelting aluminum scrap, 354,000 tons of carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases, is saved per 100,000 tons of aluminum produced, a study by the Imperial College in London showed.

"The half a billion or more tons of greenhouse gas emissions that you avoid through recycling has a value of $40 or more per ton," said Nicholas Stern, the author of an influential report on climate change.

The turnover of the recycling industry, including paper and plastics, per year amounts to around $160 billion and it handles over 600 million tons of raw materials.

Thanks to the recycling industry, the world already saves the equivalent of 1.8 percent of global fossil fuel emissions.

"This is a very significant contribution," Stern said, adding that the recycling industry was saving a similar amount to what the airline industry emits.

By contributing an average of 40 percent of raw materials today through recycling, it could perhaps be 50 percent in the future.

"That will be equivalent to cutting aircraft emissions further by 15 percent," Stern said.

However the recycling industry, in particular the steel industry, still has a long way to go to become energy efficient and reduce its own carbon footprint.

The steel industry accounts for a fifth of the emissions from the recycling sector and it emits some 3-4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI).

(Reporting by Anna Stablum; editing by Christopher Johnson)

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U.S. cities, firms to push consumer climate fight

Timothy Gardner, Reuters 4 Jun 08;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A campaign founded in Europe to help consumers fight climate change will be launched in the United States on Thursday by U.S. cities including New York, leading American companies and non-profit groups.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, along with U.S. companies from JP Morgan Chase & Co. to Target Corp., are involved in the Together campaign.

The initiative plans to steer people toward the most environmentally friendly products and encourage green practices, such as consumers' opting out of receiving paper catalogues.

"Everyone has been talking about big government fighting climate change but more and more consumers are looking for brands to play a role in helping to solve the problem," Callum Grieve, North American external affairs director of The Climate Group, a non-profit initiating Together, told Reuters.

The Climate Group launched Europe's Together program last year with the help of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Since then, it has helped consumers cut 522,00O tonnes of carbon dioxide and saved them over $200 million on household energy bills, the group said.

Bloomberg and Ban are set to help launch Together on Thursday, with mayors from cities including Seattle, Miami and Boston taking part.

As the governments of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, including the United States, China, India and the European Union, struggle to form a global alliance to cut emissions, The Climate Group says Together can help individuals make small carbon output cuts that combined can make big dents in energy use and emissions.

SET TO GO GLOBAL

Cities and companies will help guide consumers to products like shower heads that cut water flow and energy efficient appliances through a Web site, www.together.com.

Some so-called "green" goods are more environmentally friendly than others, so The Climate Group will determine which goods are best with a third party group called Environmental Resources Management, it said.

U.S. companies plan to offer green solutions through Together such as paperless check deposits and paperless banking.

Nonprofit groups including Mercy Corps, which works with victims of disasters, conflicts and chronic poverty, and the National Wildlife Federation, a conservation group, are also joining Together.

NWF, for instance, hopes to use Together's Web site to draw more people to its Catalog Choice program in which consumers can tell companies not to send product catalogs in the mail, saving transport costs.

"What we really haven't had is the wherewithal to fully get the word out on some of our programs," NWF education expert Kevin Coyle said.

After launching Together in America, The Climate Group plans to expand the campaign to China, India and Australia.

(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Cynthia Osterman)

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Drive less, ditch electric toothbrush: U.N. climate tips

Alister Doyle, Reuters 4 Jun 08;

ROME (Reuters) - Better insulation at home, less use of the car and even giving up an electric toothbrush can help people in rich nations halve emissions of greenhouse gases, a U.N. report said on Thursday.

"Adopting a climate-friendly lifestyle needn't require drastic changes or major sacrifices," according to the 202-page U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) book entitled "Kick the CO2 Habit: the U.N. Guide to Climate Neutrality".

Issued to mark the U.N.'s annual World Environment Day on June 5, it outlines ways for people to combat global warming with measures such as packing lighter suitcases when flying or going jogging in a park rather than on an electric treadmill.

World emissions of greenhouse gases blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel for heating the globe total about 4.5 tonnes per person for all of the world's 6.7 billion population.

Most efforts to slow climate change focus on the role of governments -- such as in rules for emissions from cars or power plants or building codes to help avert projected impacts such as droughts, heat waves, more powerful storms or rising seas.

Fewer look at how individuals can do it themselves.

"Multiplied across the world and acted upon by 6.7 billion people, the public have the power to change the future, have the power to personally and collectively influence economies to 'Kick the CO2 Habit'," said Achim Steiner, head of UNEP.

The guide outlines ways for people in Europe, Australasia and North America -- the major contributors to global warming historically -- to halve their emissions. Among examples and their savings of carbon dioxide (CO2):

-- Use a wind-up alarm clock rather than an electric one: 48 grams CO2 a day

-- Dry clothes on a washing line rather than in a tumble dryer: 2.3 kg each load.

-- Pack lighter suitcases. It says that world savings would be 2 million tonnes a year if every airline passenger cut the weight of baggage to below 20 kg and bought duty free goods on arrival.

-- Use a non-electric toothbrush: 48 grams a day.

-- Heat bread rolls in a toaster rather than in the oven for 15 minutes: 170 grams of CO2 each time.

-- Take a train rather than a car for a daily commute of 8 km: 1.7 kg CO2 a day.

-- The average British household could cut 2 tonnes of CO2 annually with more efficient insulation, heating and lighting

-- Reduce winter heating: cutting the temperature by a couple of degrees saves 6 percent in energy bills.

-- Avoid 'carbon binges': a return flight across the Atlantic is equivalent to running a car for a year for each passenger.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:

http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Paper or pricey plastic?

Diane Bartz, PlanetArk 5 Jun 08;

WASHINGTON - You know that flimsy plastic bag the convenience store clerk put your toothpaste in?

The price of those bags, though still cheaper than paper ones, is rising fast because of higher natural gas and oil prices. And the same goes for plastic water bottles, takeout containers, the case around your computer, and car parts.

Let's start with that flyaway plastic bag -- which has gotten flimsier as packaging makers of all stripes cut costs.

That bag is made from high density polyethylene, which cost a little over $70 per pound in early 2007 and now costs $100, according to figures supplied by Integrated Design Engineering Systems (IDES), which follows the plastics industry.

"I think it's pretty safe to say it's the highest ever. I think you'll see some fluctuations but long term I don't think it can go down," IDES President Mike Kmetz said.

John Kalkowski of trade publication Packaging Digest said plastic bag makers of all stripes were struggling. "Most packagers have not been able to pass along most of the cost increases that they've incurred," he said.

Big companies declined to say how much they paid for plastic bags but fruit merchant David Hochheimer of Black Rock Orchard in Maryland was more forthcoming.

A year ago, Hochheimer paid $23 to $25 for a case of 800 to 1,000 grocery-style plastic bags. Now, a case costs him $27.95 -- a double-digit-percentage increase.

The price may go up further since Dow Chemical Co said it would raise the price of all its products as of June 1 by up to 20 percent.

"Our first-quarter feedstock and energy bill leapt a staggering 42 percent year over year, and that trajectory has continued, with the cost of oil and natural gas climbing ever higher," Dow CEO Andrew Liveris said in a statement.

Dow is not alone. "I just saw this morning several price increase announcements," said Ben Miyares of Pack Expo, a website that specializes in packaging.


THINNER, CONCENTRATED, LESS AIR

But even before energy prices began their latest rise, cost-conscious companies were taking a hard look at packaging.

Bottled-water makers such as Arrowhead and Poland Spring, a Nestle unit, redesigned bottles to use less plastic, while other companies put, say, less water in their liquid laundry detergent or less air in potato chip bags.

"You may have noticed that liquid detergent bottles are getting smaller," Miyares said. "Now a thimble full of detergent will give you the same washing power that half a cup used to."

"The head space in a bag is being reduced. Now that's something that was debated for many years ... Were the snack food people cheating the customers by having so much head space? But the new issue is how can we cut the packaging?" he said. "Over the billions of bags of salty snacks that are sold, that (less air in the bag) amounts to pretty big money."

Susan Selke of Michigan State University's School of Packaging said she expected more changes in packaging to use less plastic, and also more plastic made from sugar cane and other renewable resources, rather than natural gas and oil.

"Energy prices are going up dramatically and that means that everything costs more," she added. "I don't see that affecting the competitiveness of plastic in the marketplace."

In addition to cost, the plastic bag already had critics in the environmental movement who point out that the bags are made from a non-renewable resource and few are ever recycled.

China has prohibited stores from giving customers free plastic bags. San Francisco has banned them, and Boston is considering a similar move. Whole Foods Market Inc stores eliminated them this year.

But switching to paper will not help people like Hochheimer, who sells apples, pears and other fruit at farmers markets. The price of paper bags doubled from 3 cents a piece to 6 cents in a year.

"I spend more for bags than I do for (agricultural) chemicals," Hochheimer said. "For me, that's an unbelievable expense."

(Editing by Braden Reddall)

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Senegal farmers see long road to rice revolution

Alistair Thomson, Yahoo News 4 Jun 08;

Senegal wants to transform this baking hot valley into a rice bowl for Africa but farmers scrabbling in the dirt with hand-made hoes say the grand plan will take more than fine words.

Faced with surging world prices for imported rice, the staple for millions of poor people in the West African country, President Abdoulaye Wade unveiled plans in April to raise rice output fivefold in a year.

This week Wade joined world leaders at a U.N. summit on the global food crisis in Rome, where they pledged to tear down trade barriers and invest in farming in poor countries under an emergency plan to eliminate hunger and ensure food for everyone.

"The land here is very good, but we lack resources," said Abdoulaye Ba. He caressed the earth with one hand as he knelt to dig out onions with the other using a hoe fashioned from a short length of steel rod of the type used to reinforce concrete.

Ba has little time for the president's "Great Agricultural Offensive for Food and Abundance," known by its French acronym GOANA, which also aims to ramp up maize, manioc and other crops.

"I hear about GOANA on the radio and the television, but we've been doing GOANA since long ago," said Ba, who will start harvesting his green field of rice in the next fortnight.

"This government doesn't encourage farmers -- it needs to help them. As for me, I'm dispirited."

Here in the broad Senegal River valley, irrigation channels dug since the 1970s have created a lush band of fertile land that sweeps around Senegal's northern and eastern border with Mauritania, slicing through the scorched savanna of the Sahel.

Some farmers here harvest 9 tonnes or more of rice per hectare -- among the world's highest yields -- thanks to sunshine, irrigation, good husbandry and state support services that some agronomists say are the most efficient in West Africa.

LAND NOT USED

Yet most irrigable land lies fallow or underutilized, while those families tending crops by hand say they struggle to raise credit to buy enough seed, pesticides, weed killer and fertilizer for the land they already farm, never mind to expand operations.

That is a major obstacle to increasing farm output, said Canadian-trained agronomist Boubie Vincent Bado.

Farmers take seed and chemicals on credit from suppliers on condition they sell their harvest to the same trader, reducing their bargaining power and ability to benefit from high rice prices.

At the research station Bado heads in nearby Ndiaye for the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), a poster maps out the 108-day life cycle of a rice plant. Bado says farmers could grow two rice crops a year instead of one, with the right support.

"CORRUPTION IS KING"

But some previous state initiatives have had little impact.

The "Return to Agriculture" (REVA) plan Wade launched two years ago to stem an exodus of young Senegalese men risking their lives on small wooden boats to get to Europe, fell flat.

Senegal is one of Africa's top aid recipients, yet farmers complain they have little to show despite the shiny SUVs aid workers and ministry officials drive around the capital Dakar.

"Everything the government gives is politicized. Corruption is king," said Alioun Diop, a sugar company worker who cultivates 1.45 hectares of rice and other crops.

Promised tractors and water pumps had failed to materialize or been snapped up by ruling party cronies, Diop said.

"I've had nothing, nor has my mother," he added.

Wade, an outspoken economist who has called for abolition of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that organized this week's Rome summit, blames aid agencies for squandering money and branded food aid a "huge swindle" at the GOANA launch.

His plan aims to end Senegal's dependence on food imports.

"In terms of land it is possible for Senegal to achieve food self-sufficiency, at least with the population they have," said Aliou Diagne at the Africa Rice Center headquarters in Benin.

"The problem is on the horizon, and whether they will get the necessary funding to make the improvements ... the horizon of 2015 may be a little too ambitious," he said.

(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com )

(Additional reporting by Normand Blouin and Gabriela Matthews; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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Bioenergy: Fuelling the food crisis?

Stephanie Holmes, BBC News 4 Jun 08;

The biofuel debate is electrifying the UN food price crisis summit in Rome, pitting nations against each other and risking transforming bioenergy - once hailed as the ultimate green fuel - into the villain of the piece, the root cause behind global food price spikes.

Biofuel uses the energy contained in organic matter - crops like sugarcane and corn - to produce ethanol, an alternative to fossil-based fuels like petrol.

But campaigners claim the heavily subsidised biofuel industry is fundamentally immoral, diverting land which should be producing food to fill human stomachs to produce fuel for car engines.

They say the growth of biofuels has had a distorting ripple effect on other food crop markets.

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director General Jacques Diouf agrees.

He says it is incomprehensible that "$11bn-$12bn (£5.6bn-£6.1bn) a year in subsidies and protective tariff policies have the effect of diverting 100 million tonnes of cereals from human consumption, mostly to satisfy a thirst for vehicles".

It is a viewpoint shared by Oxfam's Barbara Stocking, who told the BBC News website: "It takes the same amount of grain to fill an SUV with ethanol as it does to feed a person. We don't want any more subsidies for biofuels. This rush to biofuels is absolutely dreadful."

Blame game

Yet the exact ranking of responsibility for the food price rises which have caused political unrest in 30 countries and plunged many into hunger is hotly disputed.

No-one denies that biofuels have a role, but the figures on the sector's inflationary pressure vary wildly from just 3% to 30%.

The US, Brazil and the EU - the main players on the biofuel stage - maintain that soaring energy costs should shoulder a much larger portion of blame.

"Biofuels are not the villain menacing food security in poor countries," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told assembled heads of state in Rome.

Brazil's tropical climate allows the country to efficiently grow sugarcane for ethanol production, which now provides 40% of the country's transport fuel.

"I am sorry to see that many of those who blame ethanol - including ethanol from sugarcane - for the high price of food are the same ones who for decades have maintained protectionist policies to the detriment of farmers in poor countries and of consumers in the entire world."

The US, which heavily subsidises corn cultivation for ethanol, insists that biofuels account for "only 2-3% of the food price increases".

"We recognise that biofuels have an impact, but the real issue is about energy, increased consumption and weather-related issues in grain-producing countries," US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said.

Bitter aftertaste?

But research from the Washington-based agricultural policy think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), has come to very different conclusions.

"We've done some analysis looking at the contribution of biofuels demand on cereals prices indexes. We found that for the price increase from 2006-2007, we attribute about 30% to biofuels," explains the institute's biofuels expert, Mark Rosegrant.

"The most direct effect is the diversion of land from corn, sugarcane and other crops to biofuels instead of food and seed that also shifts land out of other crops, sometimes out of rice and wheat. Once the price of corn starts going up, there was some shift from poor consumers in Africa to alternatives like rice."

But all experts are at pains to highlight that the biofuel situation in Brazil and the US is very different.

Brazil, where sugarcane thrives, produces 19 billion litres (five billion gallons) of the total 52 billion litres of ethanol generated each year.

Their industry, which began 30 years ago, is highly developed, and the country has also introduced a successful tax incentive scheme to help small-scale rural farmers and ensure the profits from the ethanol sector are not concentrated.

Non-conventional crops

"The impacts are just so diverse, but there are some general patterns," FAO agricultural economist Keith Wiebe said.

"Studies tend to show that sugarcane used for ethanol in Brazil is the best performer - sugar is high in energy, Brazil is an efficient manufacturer and they actually burn the residue too."

He says Brazilian-produced ethanol, generated from sugarcane, emits between 80%-90% less carbon than petrol.

"But corn in the US is a different commodity, produced in a system that uses more fuel and fertiliser. Finally, when the crop is converted, lots of the energy comes from fossil fuels. Corn-based ethanol still does reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but only by 10%-30% less than fossil fuels."

Corn for ethanol remains a central plank of US agricultural and energy policy. The 2007 Energy Bill quintuples the country's biofuels target to 35 billion gallons by 2022.

The US continues to heavily sustain its corn-for-ethanol industry, paying out 50 cents a gallon for each of its 27 billion litres of ethanol produced.

Combined with farming subsidies, the ethanol sector receives a total of some $6bn in support each year. But the real hope, analysts say, lies not in conventional food crops, but so-called second-generation biofuels, which can be cultivated with little water and few fertilisers on marginal land that will not compete with food crops.

Researchers are looking at crops like jatropha, for example, already experimented with in India, as holding hope for a future free from the stark choice between food or fuel.

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