This was the topic of the workshop, “Helping farmers and community forest managers adapt to a changing climate and join the green economy movement”. The workshop took place on Sunday, the 4th of September, at the 64^thAnnual UN DPI/NGO Conference entitled “Sustainable Societies; Responsive citizens”, in Bonn, Germany.

Garzon introduced the speakers and moderated the workshop.

Ana Maria Garzon, from the Rainforest Alliance (Alianza Para Bosques) and the moderator of the workshop, gave a brief overview of the organization. The Rainforest Alliance is a non-profit organization which assists farmers and community forest managers in adapting to a changing climate. The Alliance operates in 30 countries, and has initiated a certification program for sustainable forestry.

Adriana Rodriguez Retana, another speaker from the Rainforest Alliance, explained their climate-friendly farm management guidelines. The point of these guidelines is to assist food producers in implementing sustainable practices which contribute to a green economy. This entails farmers and community forest managers being directly involved in environmental and social management systems. Farms register their energy use, try to reduce it, and use renewable energy sources. “Farmers are great to work with; they do the best they can, and since they know the negative effects of climate change – they actually experience these effects – they are more willing to assist in any way they can,” said Retana.

The adaptation practices which are utilized include:

• Mapping land use
• Litigation practices
• Assessing climate risks
• Mapping community vulnerabilities
• Use of solar drying for coffee and cocoa instead of using mechanical processes
• Farmers using climate-friendly practices in their operations
• Helping farmers assess ecological risks on their farm
• Practicing ‘ferti-irrigation’ (fertilizing crops using a liquid vector)
• Implementing organic residue management practices

These practices also improve the livelihoods of the producers themselves, by reducing green house gas emissions, increasing on-farm carbon stocks, and improving the farms’ resilience to a changing climate. Retana mentioned that this is where these practices need to be promoted, at the most basic level – that’s where the change happens.

Andre Giacini de Freitas, the Executive Director of the Forest Stewardship Council, said we need to move from large-scale farms/plantations to small-scales ones. “Local development is the key,” he stated. He also explained that the government’s role in this is to establish the benchmark for private sectors, by setting supportive agendas for better sustainable practices.

Retana and de Freitas discuss how to involve producers in the green movement.

The Rainforest Alliance makes sure that the farm’s land use is legitimate, that they employ community members, and that they implement biological and/or mechanical pest control (Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are prohibited). In addition, the Alliance does not permit wildlife hunting or child labour, and prohibits pesticides. According to Greenpeace, agricultural production has a huge effect on climate change, for example the nitrous oxide from fertilized soils. To combat such effects, the Rainforest Alliance uses an integrated cattle management system, they look out for animal welfare, they implement practices to control carbon footprints, and they set land aside for conservation or recovery of nature’s ecosystems.

De Freitas said there is still much to be done however, as many farmers have problems with food security, and there are still so many forests that are not certified or properly managed. “There is not enough livelihood from forests for communities, so people either move away or cut down forests,” he said. We need to demonstrate how forests can be an efficient livelihood, he added. Problems such as these still stand in the way of a real progress. Yet despite social, labour, and production issues, if more producers can implement green practices, this will set the global standard for sustainable agriculture.

This point was reiterated throughout the 64^th Annual UN DPI/NGO Conference, “Sustainable Societies; Responsive citizens”, in Bonn, Germany. It was discussed in-depth at one of the conference workshops, “Re-assessing the role of young people in tackling climate change: A case for youth participation”, which took place on Monday, the 5^thof September. The workshop was held by Israel, and highlighted how youth participation can have a great impact on global sustainability.

Israel discusses the role of the youth in climate change.

Yet, as Daniel Palmer from Fairleigh Dickinson University pointed out, how can the youth be motivated when many of the older generations don’t even want to acknowledge that there’s a problem? Israel pointed out that people need incentives; we need to highlight personal benefits for the public, and they need to see the effects and reality of the state of our environment.

Peter M. Adriance, the NGO liaison for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the U. S., said we need to address environmental issues at the level of values, participation, and ethics. Citizens should go beyond attending conferences and seminars and actually do something; we have to implement all the conferences into effective participation. “I believe that together we aspire, together we achieve, together we will make great things happen; because we can, we must, and we will,” Israel said. So what can young people do? He outlined several strategies:

• Understand what climate change is and what effect it has on the community, and inform and educate other people about it.
• Start clean and renewable energy campaigns.
• Promote recycling.
• Advocate for better regulations for industrial emissions.
• Lobby leaders to adopt strategies that reduce our environmental footprint.
• Engage the media to spread awareness about these issues.
• Look for economic incentives that appeal to corporations.
• Present realities to policy makers, the government – keep persisting through the media and statistics.
• Adopt a sustainable lifestyle – starting at an individual level (driving less, creating sustainable technologies, supporting organic farming, buying fair trade products, encouraging education in schools).

The little things like that count, Israel said. People need to make use of the ‘domino effect’: starting with one sustainable practice, which soon leads to others of a similar kind. “We must think globally, we must act locally, and we must do domestically,” he remarked.

Climate change has serious implications for not only ecosystems, but also for human health, job security, and social development; this is why the green revolution needs to begin now. It’s the youth’s generation, and their children, that will suffer the consequences of environmental instability. Therefore, they must implement sustainable practices without waiting for the government to initiate something. Israel concluded that it’s about “Understanding that dealing with climate change is not a matter of choice, but of survival. There’s no time as important as now.”

This version incorporates all comments submitted during the conference.

It touches on the four conference round-table themes, giving specific recommendations to be implemented at a national and international level, through governmental and non-governmental bodies.

Take a look here and tell us what you think. Will this take us to Rio+20?

This year, the NGO Declaration was released on the final day of the conference and given to delegates for adoption. The 15-page document was the culmination of workshop and roundtable discussions and serves as a recommendation to decision makers – civil society as well as governments. Members of NGOs and a youth committee were permitted to participate in crafting the Declaration, but final edits were made by members of the planning committee.

But this was not where the real action took place. The conversations on effective public policy, population growth, volunteerism, sustainability, and green economy would not be meaningful or substantive if not for the accomplishments and progress made by NGOs out in the field.  Organizations such as the United Kingdom based Tearfund, for example, has helped communities in high-risk disaster areas reduce their vulnerability. The Buddhist “Tzu Chi” Compassion & Relief Foundation has provided preventative physical and mental health care to impoverished communities in over 40 Latin American, Asian, and African countries. Soroptimist International has implemented family planning services in small tribal communities in Papau New Guinea and pushed for women’s reproductive rights.

These organizations are different in nature, but united on principle. NGOs are typically volunteer-based organizations with a small paid staff that run on grants, donations, and membership fees. In the United States, nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status means that no part of the organization’s assets can be used to benefit members, directors, and principals. The “profit” remaining after administrative costs – employees, systems, logistics – can only be used to support the organization’s charitable activities. This structure limits an NGO’s access to resources that various private, for-profit corporations have.  The idea is that because a non-profit NGO’s function is charitable and its goals selfless, it can and should run operations without the tools and incentives that private corporations do.

Applying the same logic to private corporations that operates with these very tools and incentives assumes that they are neither charitable nor selfless.  But is this principle correct? If private companies are permitted unrestricted access to resources and have the capacity to utilize them to their own advantage, then what is the reason that NGOs, with nobler goals that benefit a wider scope of society, do not have the same privilege? Some might argue that private companies have no such financial advantage because they pay taxes whereas NGOs are tax-exempt, but a simple comparison of financial statements between the two make it quite apparent that corporations have larger operating budgets and expenditures than NGOs.  Non-exemption is not a disincentive.  In fact, knowing that profits will be taxed may be even more incentive to put them to good use (i.e. regular systems upgrades, strategy consulting, employee bonuses, etc.).

But is this just a technicality or does it actually make a difference in the way these entities are run?
Yuru Chou, a former corporate risk management consultant and Ernst & Young auditor, sees the practical disparities between NGOs and private companies. Having worked in the private sector for 10 years before taking an 80 percent pay cut to work at a nonprofit, Chou brought years of corporate experience to her current organization, the Buddhist Compassion & Relief Foundation.

Chou’s foundation is a faith-based organization that defines its work in four major missions: Charity, Medicine, Education, and Culture.  Better known as “Tzu Chi,” which is Mandarin for Compassion and Relief, the Foundation has provided humanitarian aid and disaster relief in over 70 countries, including Haiti, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chile, Mexico, South Africa, China, and many more. The Foundation has established free health clinics all across the developing world, as well as in underprivileged communities in the U.S. They provide vaccinations, primary health care, dental care, and spiritual support.

Chou serves as the Secretary to the Executive Director of the Northeast Region of the Foundation. But she says that her position does not really explain what she does.

“Title isn’t really important – it’s about skill set. If I had to sum up what I do in one word, it’d be ‘Troubleshooter.’  What I’ve done is gone from financial risk management to life or emergency risk management,” Chou joked.

However Chou characterizes her position, it is unmistakable that since she joined the Foundation nine years ago, her contributions have made all the difference.  She has served as the liaison between the Foundation and the public. In 2010, she successfully obtained Special Consultative Status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on behalf of the Foundation.

The reality is, however, that for many of us working in the private sector, whether it’s consulting, investment, or management, the high pay and large bonuses can help justify the decision to work in such high stress, unhappy environments, even if just temporarily. The six-figure salaries, high-rise apartments, and 330-horsepowered leather and wood grain convertibles reassures us that the unhappy days and sleepless nights are not in vain.

But Chou argues that that lifestyle is not sustainable. “I always wanted to do more. At some point I realized that I did not think that my life should be limited to profit seeking. I wanted money – I wanted to make a lot of money, but then what? I wanted something more permanent.”

Chou may have taken a dramatic leap into nonprofit, but she reassures others considering the same that her career has become more fulfilling.

“I see a lot of similarities between what I used to do and what I do now,” she observes. “But here, I’m happier.”

Chou’s experience is rare. It is unlikely that anyone will follow in her footsteps. But the crucial point  is that her corporate training and big-firm experience have been  instrumental to her success in nonprofit.

If there is some way to implement private sector strategies into the NGO sector, the path to reaching the MDGs may prove more feasible.  Nonprofits could, theoretically speaking, function as private corporations but serve an entirely different purpose. But if the goal of General Motors was to build pipelines and sell government-subsidized irrigation technologies to small farmers instead of building unsustainable automobiles and receiving taxpayer bailouts, then perhaps food shortages and diseases resulting from unsafe drinking water would disappear. This is something for all of us to consider.

Therefore, during the 64th UN DPI/NGO Conference in Bonn, Germany earlier this month, I looked forward with an expectant heart to listen to the experts from around the world in the field of environment and green economy.   I was interested in learning its significance to the people of Africa and whether it would improve their lives.

“Green economy is highly concerned with improving the human well being, mitigating climate economy, reducing poverty and lowering emissions of carbon and fossil fuels,”  Surveyor Efik, National Coordinator of Climate Change Network in  Nigeria, explained during the conference. He believes  2012 -2020 should be made a decade of green economy.

Surveyor Efik speaking at a press conference at Maritim Hotel Bonn, Germany

Surveyor Efik speaking at a press conference at Maritim Hotel Bonn, Germany
Nature is at the heart of a green economy and there is great need to promote our biodiversity, water and the ecosystem at large. With our environments and forests being depleted, and the air becoming contaminated at a high rate, the future looks grim.

Therefore a green economy is critical because it will call upon everyone, the government, civil societies, corporate and responsive citizens to take up the task of taking care of their environments at the local level. The bottom-up and up-down approaches should be combined so efforts from everyone at local, national and international levels are utilized. Green economy brings everybody together for a common good.

“African governments should undertake a paradigm shift whereby they put political will aside and put natural infrastructure and ecological restoration on the forefront,” said Constanza Martinez of International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Constanza Martinez explaining her presentation at a Round table at Maritim Hotel in Bonn

The Earth Climate Commons Trust endorses managing global common resources; soil, biodiversity, energy and ecosystem, as one. The Trust proposes that the petroleum users in the world should pay for a permit anytime they drill for oil. The money acquired would be equally distributed to all nations in the world since the resource comes from Mother Earth.
“All nations would benefit,” said Efik.

The Trust also strives to put a stop to fossil fuel use and promote renewable energy, thus reducing risk to our ecosystem. The Trust is being forwarded to Rio+ 20 next year for adoption by the United Nations.
Such an act is also aligned with the eight Millennium Development Goals, a UN blueprint to improve the world.

Therefore, Green Economy is very important to Africans because it will encourage pragmatic remedies to our most pressing environment and development challenges. African states should combine efforts and work towards a common goal, promoting green economy in their states.

“Green economy is for the people and by the people,” said Martinez. This makes it critical to inform people about green economy, let them decide on what befits them and most importantly enforce them.

The three day UN conference has been a great eye-opener and I appreciated the immense knowledge I acquired about green economy and its importance in our lives. Without a doubt, I believe that Africa needs a green economy and it is a high time they take up the task of salvaging the continent and making it a better place for ourselves and the future generations.

My appeal to the governments is to focus efforts on creating and implementing policies that work toward sustainable societies. In Kenya, there is massive campaign towards replenishing our water towers like the MAU Complex through tree planting. Therefore, this is very important because as a young person who has big plans for the future, I am looking forward to a sustainable society with a flourishing environment and economy.

This is the path I choose to follow.