Posted on 20 October
2010
by Geralda Maghela,
WWF-Brazil
Walk by the entrance to Professor Vanderlei
Rosa de Oliveira School at lunchtime and
it smells good – like seasoned home cooking.
In the kindergarten
classroom where Walkiria Santini teaches,
children enjoy the beef sandwiches provided
by the school. But what looks like a common
snack is actually an innovation in school
nutrition in Brazil: It is made with certified
organic meat.
Professor Vanderlei
Rosa de Oliveira School is one of the 130
public schools in Campo Grande, the capital
of Mato Grosso do Sul state, to include
organic meat on their menu. Since April
2010 they have procured meat from certified
cattle ranches in the Pantanal, where WWF-Brazil
supports organic beef production.
This innovation was
made possible through a bidding process
launched by the municipal government in
the beginning of 2010 to source food supplies
for school lunches. A preference for organic
products was included among the selection
criteria. Currently, the municipal school
network buys 11,000kg monthly (around 24,200
pounds) of organic meat to feed 70,000 students
attending public schools.
The city’s food supply
director, Danilo Medeiros Figliorino, explained
that the goal of including organic meat
in school luncheons was to offer students
healthy and environmentally friendly food.
“In Mato Grosso do Sul, eating beef is a
tradition. By choosing organic meat, we
try to value our regional production,” said
Figliorino.
Production and Conservation
in Pantanal
Michael Becker, WWF-Brazil’s
Pantanal Program Coordinator, is pleased
with the city’s shift organic meat in schools.
“It’s one further incentive for sustainable
production in the Pantanal,” he said.
Since 2003, WWF-Brazil
has supported certified organic cattle ranching
in the Pantanal, with the goal of conserving
the region’s wetlands. At 10 times the size
of the Florida Everglades, this huge wetland
ecosystem is home to the greatest concentration
of wildlife in South America. Working with
the cattle industry is crucial for conservation,
as ranching is one of the main economic
activities in the region.
President of the Brazilian
Organic Cattle Ranching Association, Leonardo
Leite de Barros, praises the initiative
by Campo Grande’s municipal government.
“Initiatives like this give greater visibility
to the organic segment and reward producers
who are committed to sustainability,” he
said. He believes that, besides the city’s
influence, the consumer also has an important
role to play. “By choosing a product with
certified origin, the consumer contributes
to the country’s environmental sustainability,”
said Barros.
“Meating” with approval
Organic vegetables were
already regular ingredients in the school’s
lunches, but organic meat was new for the
1,872 students – and the administrators
and cooks. “I was not even aware that such
a thing exists. I knew nothing about it,”
said the school principal, Angela Maria
Faustino de Oliveira. Nevertheless, she
thoroughly enjoyed what she sampled and
was curious to learn more about it. “When
I went home, I asked my son, who is a veterinarian.
He explained to me that organic meat is
from animals raised on certified farms,
without the use of pesticides and other
chemical products,” said the school director.
Maria Hervaz has been
preparing school snacks for years now, and
the organic meat has her approval. She says
she was able to tell the difference from
the start. “Even considering that it was
minced meat, we could see that it looked
good, without much fat at all. It also smelled
different,” said Hervaz. But she did not
understand what “organic” meant and the
novelty made her curious. Just a few days
later, she watched a news story about it
on TV. “I learned that the cattle are raised
with special care, that they are free on
the pastures, and that the land is not treated
with chemicals,” she explained.
Raimunda Pereira has
worked in school meal preparation for 24
years, yet she still enjoys creating new
dishes. The good quality of the meat allowed
her to improve the menu. Besides the popular
sandwich, she has prepared spaghetti and
meat balls, and even the typical Brazilian
farofa, made with cassava flour. The children
are enthusiastic about their snacks and
lunches. In teacher Walkiria’s classroom,
some of the children went for a third serving.
Environmental education
in practice
The hype around shifting
to organic meat provided Walkiria with new
ideas for the classroom. “I started talking
about their snacks, and moved on to bigger
themes, like healthy food, hygiene and environmental
conservation,” she said.
Walkiria says she tries
to help children understand the dynamic
and fragile ecosystem on their doorstep.
Field trips have included a visit to an
animal rehabilitation center near the school.
She wanted to introduce them to the animals
of the region, and instill respect for wildlife.
Five-year-old Amanda
says she just loved watching the animals.
She recounted: “I saw one jaguar, a large
snake, a monkey, a toucan and an ant-eater.”
Then she added that people should not harm
the animals, because “they are very important
to nature and they live in the forest.”
Her classmate Antonio Joelson, who is also
5 years old, chipped in with his new knowledge:
“We must not let the forest come to an end
because it is the animals’ home,” he concluded.
+ More
South African delegates
visit Vietnam to address illegal rhino horn
trade
Posted on 20 October
2010
This week five representatives from South
Africa are in Vietnam to discuss ways to
address the growing illegal trade in rhinoceros
horn from South Africa to Vietnam.
The delegation represents
key government departments involved in monitoring
and enforcement in the rhino trade in South
Africa.
They will meet with
Vietnamese counterparts in Ha Noi and Ho
Chi Minh City to learn more about national
policies and how cases of illegal horn trade
are dealt with in Vietnam.
The aim of the trip,
facilitated by TRAFFIC, is to increase collaborative
law enforcement between the two nations
in order to stop the illegal trade in rhino
horn.
Rhino poaching crisis
in South Africa
South Africa has lost
nearly 230 rhinos so far this year, one
rhino every 30 hours, the worst conservation
crisis over the last two decades.
“It’s vitally important
to scale up Africa’s law enforcement efforts
and link with Asia in the fight to save
the world’s rhinos”, says Tom Milliken,
Regional Director for TRAFFIC in East and
Southern Africa.
“We’ll only win this
war if both sides align against the criminal
syndicates behind this trade.”
TRAFFIC is a joint programme
of WWF and the International Union for Conservation
of Nature. This week’s visit adds strength
to the WWF Rhino campaign, initiated in
September this year, to raise support and
funding for those rangers who put their
lives on the line to protect Africa’s rhinos.
The visit also comes
as world governments meet this week in Nagoya,
Japan to discuss new targets to halt biodiversity
loss as part of the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD).
Vietnam a high consumer
of rhino horn
Vietnam has been increasingly
implicated as a main driver of the illegal
rhino horn trade in Asia, and a major trade
route has emerged connecting illegally killed
rhinos in South Africa with consumers in
Vietnam.
In 2008, a Vietnamese
diplomat working for the embassy in South
Africa was filmed making an illegal purchase
of rhino horn. In another incident, a Vietnamese
man was sentenced in July 2010 to three
years in prison for trying to smuggle five
horns weighing 18 kg through Ho Chi Minh
City’s international airport.
Asian rhino most likely
gone from Vietnam
While Asian rhinoceros
have likely been extirpated in Vietnam,
in part due to poaching for their horns,
there are still important wild populations
of rhinoceroses in Africa, especially South
Africa where about 90% of all rhinos are
found. Some ownership of rhino horns from
trophy hunting is allowed, under strict
regulations, but it is illegal to trade
the horns commercially.
In Vietnam, the lack
of a system to register and track privately-owned
horns could be allowing them to enter the
trade illegally.
Continued strong use
in traditional medicine
Throughout parts of
Asia, rhino horn is believed to cure a range
of ailments, with some claims that it can
cure cancer. In Vietnam, rhino horns (including
fake horns) are being sold through traditional
medicine stores, hospitals, and online sites.
The South Africa visit
is being hosted by the Vietnam CITES Management
Authority, with support from TRAFFIC, the
wildlife trade monitoring network. CITES
(Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is the
primary international agreement regulating
the trade in wildlife.
The visit was made possible
through the financial support of WWF-Germany,
WWF African Rhino Programme and the US Government,
who made a commitment to support such an
initiative at the March meeting of CITES.
About TRAFFIC
TRAFFIC works to support
government agencies in law enforcement networking
across Asia and globally to combat illegal
wildlife trade. Technical assistance across
the enforcement continuum, including facilitation
of inter-governmental dialogues, engaging
the judicial sector, and working with WWF
to improve linkages from national level
agencies to field-based rangers, is provided
on demand to member countries of the ASEAN
and South Asia Wildlife Enforcement networks,
as well as to China and its immediate neighbours.
