Speech by Achim Steiner,
UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive
Director to the International Livestock
Research Institute's John Vercoe Conference
8 November, 2007 - Carlos Sere, Director
General of ILRI; Minster; distinguished
delegates; members of the Nairobi scientific
and research community, ladies and gentlemen,
On hearing that I would be delivering the
key note address here at ILRI today, I must
admit that some of my staff wondered about
the linkages between our respective areas
of work.
"Livestock breeding really isn't part
of UNEP's mandate, why are you going?"
they queried.
And of course on a simplistic level that
may be true.
But such an observation misses some essential
facts-facts that bind both our organizations
and others in common cause.
Facts that all too often when organizations
view each others activities, tend to be
lost because of historical and out dated
notions of each others work and a tendency
to put each other into tight little boxes.
This narrow view of the world is of course
rapidly becoming history.
Shortly we will also see the publication
of the three year-long International Assessment
of Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development, in which a wide range of actors
including UNEP and this research centre
have been involved.
Only a few weeks ago, the World Bank launched
its latest World Development Report entitled
"Agriculture for Development".
Well UNEP's slogan is "Environment
for Development"-I think I need say
no more to any remaining skeptics!
Nairobi - A Developing World Center of
Excellence
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like in this
speech to touch on our mutual areas of interest
and our mutual areas of perhaps common and
future work.
At the local level we are both members of
the international research community here
in Nairobi.
As such we represent an enormous contribution
to the vibrancy of East Africa's scientific
and policy life- and the Continent's as
a whole.
By being here, we are also privileged to
have access to an experience and a knowledge
base that many other international agencies-often
located in developed countries-are in a
way denied.
Knowledge not least in the sense of indigenous
knowledge passed down over generations and
intimately linked with the land; the biodiversity,
seasons and cultural traditions.
Knowledge that, either on its own or combined
with so called 'western science' may hold
clues and solutions to many of the current
and future challenges humanity faces.
On another level we are facing similar
challenges and the need for cooperative
responses to a raft of existing and emerging
challenges.
Climate Change
Climate change is perhaps the most obvious
and in a sense inescapable challenge of
this generation.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-established
by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation-has
in 2007 put a full stop behind the science
of climate change-it is happening, it is
"unequivocal".
It has also mapped out the likely global
and regional impacts with ever greater clarity
and certainty-impacts, from the melting
of glaciers in the Himalayas, South America
and North America to droughts and floods
in Africa and sea level rise in Asia that
will happen within the life time of people
in this room, not in some far off future.
It is a veritable Pandora's Box.
But the IPCC has also offered a key to another
box-it may cost only perhaps 0.1 per cent
of global GDP a year for 30 years to overcome
the worst.
In Bali, Indonesia, this December at the
climate convention conference, governments
need to begin forging that key-in other
words they must set the negotiation parameters
and the timetable for negotiations that
will lead to a new international agreement
of emission reductions kicking in 2012.
UNEP's evolving strategy and slogan in
Bali and Beyond is transition to a low carbon
society-for it is in everyone's interests,
developed and developing, to have the best
and the lowest polluting economies possible.
This, however, does not remotely suggest
that adaptation to climate change is also
not urgently needed.
Even if greenhouse gas emissions can be
stabilized in the atmosphere, some level
of climate change is now inevitable.
The developing world, including Africa,
is likely to be hit hardest. UNEP is working
in partnership with others-such as UNDP
and the World Bank-to climate proof economies.
To what extent can UNEP and ILRI-and the
agricultural community as a whole, including
the FAO-work together more effectively on
the climate change challenge?
There are to my mind many natural partnerships
here and many areas where your work impacts
and echoes to UNEP's and visa versa.
Let me touch on some.
It will be no news to this distinguished
gathering that climate change threatens
agricultural systems on a scale and a pace
that may overwhelm traditional and modern
coping strategies.
The likely impacts are long and interconnected
from the re-emergence and spread of old,
familiar diseases often into new areas,
up to the emergence of new ones and new
strains.
More intensive droughts and floods are
also likely.
Developing countries-the least responsible
for the climate change underway-are clearly
central to our concerns.
But to imagine that developed countries
are immune would also be wrong. Indeed,
UNEP is responsible for the global environment
as ILRI is responsible for livestock research
across the globe.
Few can have failed to watch the crisis
in Australia unfold over recent months if
not years.
Kathleen Plowman of the Feedgrain Partnership
in Australia is quoted as saying last week
that that country's drought is set to trigger
a shortfall in wheat, canola and barley
of significant and costly proportions.
For example, she said that producers there
were as a result of soaring feed prices
losing $50 on each pig and 'the industry
was bleeding something like three to five
million dollar a week".
If a developed economy like Australia is
on its knees as a result of drought-droughts
in line with the assessments of the IPCC,
will Africa fare, Asia, Latin America and
small islands?
How will agricultural systems including
livestock survive in countries surrounding
the Himalayas if, as the IPCC suggests,
river flows become seasonal as a result
of loss of glaciers?
Developed country consumers can, in many
cases, switch to an alternative source of
protein.
Many poorer nation consumers cannot and
there is ample evidence that when livestock
crashes occur-and fish stocks fall too-communities
in Africa may be forced to consume ever
greater quantities and varieties of bushmeat.
This has implications for endangered species
and for the transfer of diseases from the
wild into the human population-all this
must be of mutual concern for UNEP and for
ILRI.
Adaptation-Creative Market Mechanisms
UNEP's latest state of the world's environment
report-the Global Environment Outlook-4-was
released on 25 October.
It was launched 20 years after the Brundtland
Commission report that put the phrase sustainable
development on the global map.
One striking fact is that, on average,
per capita incomes have climbed by something
like a third to around $8,000 per person-albeit
unevenly shared.
So we live in a fabulously wealthy world-one
where markets have developed and evolved
ever more sophisticated financial instruments
from stock and bond options to hedge funds.
The environmental and development arena
has been a bit slower but we are now starting
to see similar creativity emerging.
This is partly as a result of the rise
of green economics where natural or nature-based
resources are finally starting to be ascribed
a wider and more meaningful economic value.
Nature for debt swaps are one example as
are so called payments for ecosystem services.
One specific example was discussed at the
last climate change convention meeting held
here in Nairobi last year.
The World Food Programme has teamed up
with the insurance industry-some of whom
are members of UNEP's Finance Initiative-to
pilot weather derivatives.
In Ethiopia, one country where these have
been tested, these financial instruments
pay out to local farmers when weather forecasts
indicate that drought is on its way.
The payments kick in before families and
communities are on their knees, have sold
or slaughtered their last cow, and have
become dependent on food aid.
Donors, says WFP, estimate it is cheaper
to invest in weather derivatives than in
aid assistance.
Importantly such projects hinge on the
availability of good and historical weather
data and weather and climate stations. Ethiopia
has all this but other countries in Africa
and elsewhere are not so fortunate with
a great deal of their weather networks 'silent'
or non-existent.
The addition of ILRI's voice to the global
call for action on weather data gaps might
be very welcome-it again falls in our mutual
area of interest.
Certainly, and in common with so many aspects
o climate change, the costs of adapting
now are likely to be far cheaper than later.
The out break of Rift Valley Fever in Kenya
in 2005, linked by some experts to climate
change, killed over a hundred people and
devastated the livestock industry.
Yet according to some experts here the
costs could have been far lower if the government
had acted on an early warning predicting
an outbreak following the start of the last
El Nino.
Indeed, instead of spending 450 million
Kenyan shillings on dealing with the disease,
the government could have spent just over
100 million Kenyan shillings on vaccination
of livestock.
So we need early warning systems, but need
to also build the capacity and awareness
of governments to use them effectively alongside
investment in the early response.
Investing in Ecosystems
It is also in our mutual interests to conserve
and to rehabilitate degraded ecosystems
from forests to wetlands-again as an insurance
policy against climate change but also for
wider reasons.
Healthy forests play a critical role in
supplying water but are also good sources
of food during hard times.
And what about wetlands-far too many of
which have been drained over the past century
for crop production.
I will not enumerate the exhaustive list
of benefits wetlands provide to humanity
(or to pastoralists and agriculturalists)
save two.
One is their role as natural reservoirs
and water purification systems-able to buffer
farmers during times of drought.
Another, perhaps overlooked role is in
the area of avian flu and the spread of
avian-related diseases from wild birds to
domestic poultry and fowl and visa versa.
A recent meeting of the Avian Influenza
Task Force, held in Nairobi, made the case.
The scientists argued that the loss of wetlands
meant wild migratory birds are being forced
onto paddy fields and farm ponds to rest
and to feed.
This brings them into ever closer contact
with domestic chickens, ducks and the like.
Restore wetlands, ladies and gentlemen,
and one may restore some balance and a check
in the agricultural disease transmission
system.
Again, an area perhaps of mutual interest.
Rainwater Harvesting
Rainwater harvesting may be another area
of mutual interest in a climatically constrained
world.
UNEP, in conjunction with one of your sister
agencies-the World Agroforestry Centre-launched
a report at the climate convention meeting
last year on the potential.
It emerges that Africa has enough rain
falling on it to provide sufficient water
for 13 billion people-twice the current
world population.
Most of this is however never collected.
We are working with a local NGO called EarthCare
on some pilot projects with the Massai in
places like Kijado.
This low cost and simple technology is,
to use a cliché, transforming that
community's live especially for women.
In 17 provinces in China, an estimated
six million rainwater harvesting tanks supplying
an estimated 15 million people with drinking
water, have been installed-these systems
also provide back-up irrigation used for
food and feed production covering over a
million hectares.
Perhaps scaling up rainwater harvesting
as one simple response to a changing climate
is like so many other areas, in our mutual
interest.
Climate Change and Genetics
I, like so many others, was surprised to
read of the decline of genetic diversity
in livestock outlined by ILRI and the Food
and Agricultural Organization in September
at the First International technical Conference
on Animal Genetic Resources
The increasing over-reliance on a handful
of breeds such as Holstein-Friesian cows;
White Leghorn chickens and fast-growing
Large White pigs, mirrors the trend in agricultural
crops.
Mono-cultures, whether it be in agriculture
or in the narrowing of human ingenuity and
ideas, will not serve humanity well in a
world of over six billion shortly moving
to perhaps 10 billion.
Will not enhance stability and adaptation
in a climatically challenged world.
So I wholeheartedly support you Carlos
(Sere) in your calls for the rapid establishment
of gene banks in Africa-indeed this would
seem the minimum response.
I would be keen to explore how such banks
might work in the mutual interests of those
keen on conserving livestock breeds and
those equally keen to conserve the genetic
diversity of wild flora and fauna.
Perhaps markets can be made to work in
favour of greater genetic diversity in cattle
and livestock.
Consumers in developed countries are increasingly
looking for healthier foods and novel eating
experiences-improved marketing of native
Africa breeds might be a key to their survival.
Tourism may also have a role. In some parts
of Europe, farmers make important incomes
from attracting to visitors to view rare,
domesticated breeds as part of an overall
rural experience.
Kenya, for example, currently makes over
$800 million from tourists coming to enjoy
its abundant wildlife and landscapes.
There is an increasing enthusiasm for cultural
and other experiences in developing countries.
Indeed the city council here in Nairobi
is now looking urgently at how to beautify
and restore the city as an attractive tourist
spot as well as a more attractive place
to live and work.
Why not a working museum for rare Africa
livestock breeds, established in this very
city that might also act as a gene bank?
It may seem far fetched. But if you just
look at the number of people who each year
visit the Potato Museum in Washington DC
or the International Potato Center in Lima,
Peru, then I rest my case!!
Climate Change Emissions from Agriculture
Ladies and gentlemen, I have outlined some
areas of what I believe are of wide and
mutual interest to out two organizations-not
least in the area of climate change and
adaptation.
But there is another area-mitigation and
emission reductions.
According to the latest estimates by the
IPCC, agriculture accounted for around 14
per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions-with
livestock methane emissions around a third
of these.
A recent report by the Food and Agricultural
Organization of the UN-Livestock's Long
Shadow-put the figure even higher at 18
per cent: bigger than all the world's transport
emissions put together.
Manure management methods, including handling
storage and treatment of livestock waste,
causes seven per cent of agricultural emissions.
Fertilizers, used for food and feed production,
may account for close to 40 per cent of
agricultural emissions.
Agriculture, including livestock rearing
and feed production, is also a big driver
of land-use change in some parts of the
developed and developing world-deforestation
accounts of perhaps around 20 per cent of
greenhouse gas emissions.
The FAO report estimated that livestock
plus land used for feed crops is equal to
70 per cent of all agricultural land and
30 per cent of the world's terrestrial surface.
We need to be careful in interpreting all
this data. Some forms of livestock production,
for example that practiced by nomadic pastoralists,
may indeed on balance have positive environmental
benefits in, for example savannas.
if the mobility of pastoralists is curtailed
in a climate-constrained world, by for example
the division of rangelands, then this could
undermine the positive environmental benefits
when compared with intensive livestock systems.
It is worth nothing that some European
countries, such as Spain, are already devising
policies to allow greater mobility of livestock
in their extensive systems.
So, the management of livestock is a part
of the transition to a low carbon world-a
transition that is both and threat and an
opportunity and an issue ILRI is well placed
to address.
The IPCC says: "Compared to other
sectors, relatively little work has been
done on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions
from the agriculture sector".
It estimates that the C02 equivalent of
one Giggatonne of emissions could be saved,
although it may be more or less.
Nevertheless, the IPCC lists several areas
of interesting research avenues including
using nutritional supplements, preventing
over grazing and different feeding patterns
that may reduce methane emissions.
The IPCC also calls for research into the
emissions profiles of different breeds-another
perhaps incentive that can support conservation
of genetic diversity in livestock.
Capturing methane emissions to generate
energy or fuel for a variety of domestic
and industrial uses is also a possibility.
Indeed there are many examples of using
agricultural wastes such as a chicken-litter-into
power station operating in the eastern part
of the UK.
Under the Clean Development Mechanism of
the Kyoto Protocol-the UN emission reduction
treaty-developed countries can offset a
proportion of their greenhouse gas emissions
via cleaner and renewable energy projects
in developing countries.
The CDM is set to deliver $100 billion
worth of funds flowing from North to South
for such projects.
UNEP, in partnership with UNDP, is building
the capacity of smaller developing countries
with small projects to access the CDM.
I would be keen to discuss with ILRI the
opportunities in terms of animal wastes
and methane power production.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In some ways I wish I had double if not
treble the time to talk to this important
gathering. Areas of mutual interest are
clearly broad and wide and rapidly evolving.
We could have discussed biofuels-I know
ILRI is looking closely at crops like sorghum
as food for humans; feed for livestock and
an energy crop-an potentially intelligent
management options that satisfies the triple
challenges of hunger; agricultural development
and climate change as well as improving
farmers' incomes.
UNEP too is actively involved in this field
under a G8 initiative to develop norms and
standards so that biofuels assist in curbing
greenhouse gases but not at the expense
of sensitive ecosystems like tropical forests.
We could also have discussed biotechnology-the
risks and opportunities.
But time today is not on our side-but we
have tomorrow and I look forward to ever
closer ties between ILRI and other members
of the scientific research community here
in Nairobi.
Ladies and gentlemen, livestock has a vital
role to play in feeding people and in lifting
millions out of poverty.
It also represents challenges to the environment-indeed
as incomes rise in Asia and other parts
of the developing world, the numbers of
domesticated cows to fowl continues to climb
with wide ranging direct and indirect impacts
on water supplies, biodiversity and climate
change to issues such as nitrogen discharges
into coastal waters and the emergence of
marine 'dead zones'.
Together, through intelligent management
and creative science, I am sure we can minimize
the environmental impacts of this livestock
revolution and maximize the benefits and
the opportunities.
As part of UN reform, agencies are increasingly
"Delivering as One"-this reform
should not be confined to just the UN but
broaden so that the UN and networks like
the members of the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research also
pull together-also 'Deliver as One'.
Thank you
For More Information Please Contact Nick
Nuttall
