Beautiful Earth - JICA · “strangest looking, largest and smallest, loudest and quietest, more dangerous and least frightening animals on earth.” But already around 20% of the

AUGUST 2010 JICA’S WORLD 32 JICA’S WORLD AUGUST 2010

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...Endangered

Beautiful Earth...



Mount Kilimanjaro: Receding Ice Caps. Endangered Wildlife.


Nearly 12,000 beautiful saiga antelopeswere found dead, possibly from a bacterium, pas-teurellosis, which can attack an animal’s immunesystem, at a time when the entire species is literallyfighting for its very existence.

Uncontrolled poaching following the collapse ofthe Soviet Union had already wiped out 95% of theremaining population, putting the antelope on theso-called Red List of Threatened Species released bythe International Union for the Conservation of Na-ture (IUCN), even before this latest setback. Thousands of miles further south, but at approx-

imately the same moment, it was announced that a

tiny bird species on the Indian Ocean island of Mada-gascar, the rusty grebe or the Alaotra grebe tachy-baptus Rrufolavatus, had become officially extinctfollowing the introduction of alien carnivorous fishinto lakes around which it lived.The world’s biodiversity—a collective term mean-

ing the totality and variety of life on earth—is incrisis. (Continued on page 8)

As the unusually harsh winter snows and stormsretreated from the central European steppes earlierthis year, a terrible slaughter was uncovered.

The World at RiskFlora and fauna are disappearing at an alarming rate. Bold action is needed.

help mitigate global climate changecould receive financial and other bene-fits. But to substantiate their claims

states would need the kind of accurate information which will be provided by thenew project.

JICA has worked actively with Brazil forseveral years on earlier forestry projectsand in this case, experts from theForestry and Forest Products ResearchInstitute of Japan (FFPRI) and The Univer-sity of Tokyo are working with theirBrazilian counterparts.The basic research is divided into two

broad components. Using simple muscle-power and human observation, morethan 1,000 monitoring spots are beingestablished throughout the Amazon andat each site trees will be counted, meas-ured and the amount of carbon dioxideeach contains will be calculated. At the other extreme of investigative

techniques, satellites and other sophisti-cated equipment will be able to fill in anymissing blanks and provide a detailedoverview of the forests. Together they should provide the most

comprehensive data ever compiled onhow much carbon dioxide the basin con-tains which will also highlight how muchCO2 is not being released into the atmos-phere fueling even further climatechange and environmental degradation. It is literally a race against time. One

hectare of the forest may contain 750types of trees, 1,500 other plants andwhat one report calls some of the“strangest looking, largest and smallest,loudest and quietest, more dangerousand least frightening animals on earth.” But already around 20% of the Ama-

zon forests have been destroyed and afurther 2.7 million acres are being losteach year.


The Amazon – Helping the World Breathe

South America’s Amazon riverbasin is the most importanteco-system in the world. Its 2.5 million square miles sprawl

over nine nations. The basin containstwo-thirds of the world’s fresh water,more than 50% of the globe’s remainingrainforests and, combined with the adja-cent Andes mountain range, it accountsfor half of all the world’s flora and fauna. The region also acts as a giant lung for

the planet, absorbing vast amounts ofcarbon dioxide and recycling it to pro-duce 20% of its oxygen needs. Effec-tively, without the Amazon and even asvast tracts of forest are being destroyeddaily, the world would choke to death.

JICA and Brazil’s National Institute forAmazon Research (INPA) and National In-stitute for Space Research (INPE) in Maylaunched an ambitious four-year project,using both the most sophisticated satellite and other technology and themost rudimentary techniques involvingarduous journeys by foot and human observation, to discover just how this system works. It promises to be the most comprehen-

sive project of its kind ever undertaken.Project researchers will be able to ac-

curately plot how the Amazon forest as awhole, and how individual tree and plantspecies, are reacting to changing climaticconditions; at the end of four years how

much carbon monoxide the entire eco-system contains, and from the accumu-lated data they will hopefully be able topredict future trends. The information will be vital in

the highly complicated and sensi-tive area of ongoing internationalnegotiations which are trying toestablish a system of obligations,responsibilities, rewards andpenalties in such areas as climatechange. Under one mechanism known

as REDD (reducing emissionsfrom deforestation and forestdegradation), for instance, na-tions which use their forests to

NASA

Taking theheartbeat ofthe Amazon

A spectacular space viewof destructive forest fires in the Amazon basin

The Amazon River basin

AUGUST 2010 JICA’S WORLD 9

gions are spread across the globefrom California to the Caribbean,South America, theMediterranean andAfrica’s Congo basin,from the Himalayasto Japan, where thefamed snow mon-keys are threatened,and into the Pacificregion. The rate of species

extinction since 1600was, until recently,50-100 times the his-torical rate trackedby scientifically ana-lyzed fossil records.Alarmingly this extinction rate is now expected toaccelerate to between 1,000-10,000 times the naturalrate by 2020.For the first time in history, according to Ahmed

Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the CBD, “expertsare talking about a human-generated mass disap-pearance of species.”According to the recently published Global Bio-

diversity Outlook, natural systems that support hu-man activity are at risk of further rapid degradationand collapse unless there is “swift, radical and creativeaction to conserve and sustainably use the variety oflife on earth.”This year, 2010, was declared the International

Year of Biodiversity, an opportunity to raise awarenessabout the importance of biodiversity for life on earth,what has been done to safeguard it and a chance tofocus on new action. A special high-level meeting of the U.N. General

Assembly is planned for September, followed fourweeks later by a biodiversity summit in the Japanesecity of Nagoya (the 10th Conference of the Parties,

8 JICA’S WORLD AUGUST 2010

(Continued from page 5)The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity

(CBD) estimates there are some 13 million species ofwhich only 1.75 million have thus far been trackedand described.And to be sure, new species are being uncovered

all the time. In an area of Indonesian New Guinea,sometimes described as the ‘Lost World’, several newmammals, a reptile, an amphibian, 12 insects and anew bird were recently discovered. In the rain forestsof the West African state of Gabon new species havebeen found in recent years (see story on page 10).

Facing Extinction But 17,315 mammals, birds, plants, insects, coral,fungi and other species are currently threatened withextinction according to the IUCN. The number ofso-called ‘hot spots’ or particularly endangered re-

More than17,000 speciesare faced withimminentextinction

World at RiskThe

Kenya: A stark warningSpace: The threat ofnatural disasterMexico: Human wasteand wildlife

NASA

DANGEr

JICA At work

Palau: Protecting the world’s dwindlingcoral reefs

Viet Nam: Rejuvenating the forests

Malaysia: Protecting Borneo’sbiodiversity

Burkina Faso:Promoting sustainableforestry


or COP 10) which will elaborate a new vision for2050, set new targets and develop a new strategy toaddress biodiversity loss. The year will end in Japan, at Kanazawa, with a

ceremony marking the beginning of the InternationalYear of Forests, 2011.

Essential, Not SentimentalBiodiversity protection, a rather forbiddingscientific phrase, is not the sentimental protection ofa rare antelope or bird, but encompasses the basicfunctions of earth itself and governs the well-being

and future of the human population which, ironically,has largely triggered the latest crisis. “The extinction of individual species, but also habi-

tat destruction, land conversion for agriculture anddevelopment, climate change, pollution and thespread of invasive species are only some of the threatsresponsible for today’s crisis,” according to the IUCN. Consider: coral reefs provide food, jobs and recre-

ation for more than 500 million people, yet 70% ofreefs have already been destroyed or are now threat-ened. When Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmarin 2008 an estimated 140,000 people were killed. A

Humpback whales sport thunder-ously in the pristine ocean waters.Hippopotamuses wade in the shallows ofsome of the world’smost spectacularbeaches. Forest ele-phants can be spottedon the edge of thenearby rainforestwhich is home to goril-las, panthers, rarebirds and plants andwhere ancient treestwist themselves intounimaginable shapes. The west African

state of Gabon is littleknown to the larger in-ternational community,but to afficionados and

environmental specialists it is sometimescalled an unknown or hidden Eden. At a time when many areas of the

world are suffering from adverse climatechange, environmental degradation andbiodiversity loss, Gabon is a rare excep-tion, having avoided the worst excessesof wrenching change.Indeed, in the last 10 years 50 new

species of butterflies, 100 plants, three birds, one monkey, 15 new lizardsand snakes, 10 frogs and 100 fish have all been identified, according to LeeWhite, the director of the country’s

parks system. Gabon is a ‘lucky’ country. When an-

cient ice sheets covered the region only afew forest areas and their flora and faunaescaped—two of them in Gabon. When oilwas discovered the country escaped the

environmental ravages visited on nearbycountries such as Nigeria. As much as80% of Gabon remains forested.Most importantly perhaps for biodiver-

sity preservation, the human populationis small, an estimated 1.5 million peoplein an area the size of France. To be sure Gabon faces difficulties. Ani-

mal poaching is increasing. Illegal log-ging has been around for years. Despiteits oil wealth, the parks system is seri-ously underfunded. Infrastructure is cur-rently inadequate to develop seriouseco-tourism.JICA is involved in a series of projects,

both in Gabon and other countries comprising the Congo River basin, to help protect a region second only to the Amazon in its biodiversity. In the case of Gabon education is key.

Along the southern coast, Gamba is animportant oil center but is also in theheart of a vast forest and coastal eco-system.

For the past eightmonths YoshikoFukushima fromKanagawa Prefec-ture has been work-ing as a Japanesevolunteer (JOCV)with local schoolsteaching environ-mental education—the importance ofprotecting the re-gion’s natural her-itage particularly forthe time when the

oil runs out. She has helped form local clubs, helps

run their activities and on a particularday recently was encouraging youngstersto re-enact an old Japanese tale about achild and a turtle— particularly resonanthere because Gabon is globally famousfor its leatherneck turtles. Further north, the 4,910 square kilo-

meter Lope national park is a UNESCOworld heritage site, not only because ofits abundant wildlife but because ancientartifacts and paintings have establishedthat the forests here have been continu-ously inhabited for 400,000 years. But today there is friction. Local com-

munities are poor, without basic ameni-ties such as running water, transport ormuch opportunity to eke out a modestlivelihood. The forest has been their nat-ural provider but there is inevitable con-flict over hunting animals for food orcutting trees for farmland. Utako Aoike from Kobe City is also

working with local schools—“We want thechildren to help educate their parents”—to try to restore a traditional balance. “We are teaching them the importance

of protecting animals, but also about pollution, the ebola virus, health issues,garbage etc.” she said. “At the same timewe try to promote and respect the tradi-tions and culture of the people.”It is clear there is now an awareness

that biodiversity cannot be protected bygovernment diktat but that the localcommunities must be persuaded and co-opted into the battle to preserve someof the world’s most beautiful and rare

major contributing factor to the high death rate wasthe systematic and widespread destruction of pro-tective mangrove forests around the country’s coast-line (see page 13).About 80% of the world’s biodiversity is found in

the kind of tropical forests wonderfully illustrated byHenri Rousseau’s painting on the cover of this mag-azine. The forests are a veritable ‘supermarket’ forthe world yet 13 million hectares are disappearingeach year. More than US$4 billion generated annually in

tourist and other revenues in southern Africa could

disappear as the region’s wildlife dwindles.An international commitment to achieve a sig-

nificant reduction of biodiversity loss by 2010 hadnot been met, according to Ahmed Djoghlaf, but theGlobal Biodiversity Outlook suggested further dete-rioration could be overcome if effective and coordi-nated action is urgently taken to reduce the multiplepressures being imposed on biodiversity.

Biodiversity and PovertyIn a news release, the Convention on Biodiver-sity said the continued loss of flora and fauna could

World at RiskThe

Volunteer and Lope Park director(above); Poor villages create frictionwith surrounding wildlife (left)

Children learnimportance of legallogging (top); Children re-enactJapanese fairy talewith volunteerteacher

JICA hasincreasinglyfocused itsattention onlinks betweenbiodiversityand helping theworld’s poorest

people.

Gabon is a rare exception to widespreadenvironmentaldegradation

Preserving a Hidden Eden


not be viewed as an issue separate from the core con-cerns of society. It noted that realizing objectives “such as tackling

poverty and improving the health, wealth and secu-rity of future generations will be greatly strengthenedif we finally give biodiversity the priority it deserves.” These are key targets for the Japan International

Cooperation Agency (JICA), which has increasingly

focused its attention on links between biodiversityand climate change issues and helping hundreds ofmillions of the world’s poorest people—the so-calledbottom billion—to improve their lives. Between 2000-2008 the agency was involved in

73 technical cooperation biodiversity projects, ingrant aid and 28 yen loan programs, allocating someUS$2.4 billion to activities promoting forest moni-

When Cyclone Nargis slammedinto Myanmar in 2008 it becamethe country’s worst recorded nat-ural disaster.An estimated 140,000persons were killed, some 2.5 million in-jured or displaced and the country is stillstruggling to recover fromthe catastrophe. For centuries, Myanmar’s

vast mangrove forests hadprovided a protective shieldagainst such natural disas-ters as well as providingbountiful harvests of fish,building wood and charcoalto local communities. Butthe ongoing destruction ofaround 60% of the forestshad left the country open tothe full fury of Nargis’ 130 mile per hour winds and12 foot high waves. Some 40 million acres of

mangrove forests straddle the earth’stropical and sub-tropical regions, butthough they provide millions of peoplewith a livelihood, help protect againstcoastal erosion and, as in the case ofMyanmar, protect coastal communities,they have often been misunderstood,abused and even feared because of their

often brooding appearance. National Geographic magazine graphi-

cally described the forests: “Mangroveslive life on the edge. With one foot onland and one in the sea, these botanicalamphibians occupy a zone of desiccatingheat, choking mud and salt levels thatwould kill an ordinary plant within hours.Yet the forests mangroves form areamong the most productive and biologi-cally complex ecosystems on earth.” Cyclone Nargis provided a deadly

wakeup call—but with 20% of global wet-

lands already destroyed and one in six ofthe estimated 70 remaining species ingrave danger according to the U.N. a raceis now on to save the remaining man-groves worldwide. JICA is involved in several projects. In

Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis destroyed atwo-year-old agency program in theAyeyarwady Delta aimed at conservingand reviving the forests by reseeding,strengthening local forestry capabilitiesand devising programs to try to strike abalance between the needs of local communities while ensuring the sustain-ability of the forests themselves.The project has been relaunched as

part of the cleanup process. Nearby Indonesia is home to the

world’s largest remaining mangroveforests. But the wetlands have been seri-ously degraded and JICA has been work-ing for several years with thegovernment, first to establish a nationalnerve center for mangrove oversight, the

Mangrove Information Center, and continue withongoing activities includingtraining local personnel,both in Indonesia and inJapan, environmental education, the establish-ment of mangrove monitor-ing systems and ongoingresearch. Halfway across the

world, Mexico’s Yucatanpeninsula is internationallyrecognized as an ‘impor-tant wetland’ for migrating

birds and nesting areas for pink flamin-gos and marine turtles. But there too itsmangrove forests are being destroyed,the area despoiled by overfishing andawash with three tons of waste daily fromnearby communities. JICA is working with Mexican authori-

ties to revive the mangroves, find alter-nate means of waste disposal and newbut sustainable fishing possibilities andprovide environmental education to localpeople and tourists.

Coffee is second only to water asthe most popular drink in theworld. It is second only to petroleum asthe largest item of international com-merce. The beverage provides a living foran estimated 100 million people and isworth an estimated US$30 billion to producing countries. Despite this global status coffee had a

humble beginning, being discovered andharvested in the highlands of Ethiopiacenturies ago by local goat herders andvillagers. In a remarkable twist of historycoffee is now playing a central role inhelping preserve the very forests and thelivelihoods of local peoples in the areawhere it was first discovered—and in theprocess helping to protect the country’sbiodiversity. Ethiopia is one of the world’s oldest

countries but with an exploding popula-tion of an estimated 75 million people,90% of the forests which once coveredthe land on the Horn of Africa have already been chopped down and the rest are under threat. Since 2003 JICA has been working with

local authorities to help preserve the last

great area of forests in the southwest ofthe country. The key to success is to per-suade local communities to harvest thebounty of the woodlands as they havetraditionally done, but in ways which alsomaintain the integrity of the foreststhemselves. Targeted villages have been organized

into WaBuBs, which in the local Oromolanguage means Forest Management As-sociations. The associations have bothrights and obligations— receiving agricul-tural training and the official right to har-vest and sell both timber and non-timberforest products but also acting asguardians of the forest—preventing thefurther spread of farmland and destruc-tion of trees and managing the bountiesof the forest in a responsible manner. Coffee grows wild in the forest —

indeed it needs the higher tree cover forgrowth — and it is an important source ofrevenue for the 6,000 farmers who havetrained in the program. Because theprocess is now carefully controlled andmonitored, the Ethiopian coffee hasgained ‘fair trade’ status which allows itto be sold at a premium price and into

key world markets, including Japan. Another traditional treasure, the shea

tree, is helping poor farmers in the WestAfrican state of Burkina Faso to halt thedestruction of that country’s forests, pro-tect its biodiversity and raise the stan-dard of living of local communities. Ethiopia and Burkina Faso are among

the world’s poorest countries. They havesuffered from the effects of climatechange — being responsible for virtuallynone of the global warming but sufferingenvironmental degradation from its effects. In the case of Burkina Faso thathas resulted in unpredictable rainfall patterns, desertification and drought.Villagers in one area of Burkina Faso

have now been organized into Groupe-ments de Gestion Forestiere, or forestmanagement groups, with similar aimsand obligations to the WaBuBs of Ethiopia.Among the forest products they are

harvesting responsibly, in addition totimber, honey and fruit, is seed of theshea tree whose fat is used as the basis ofexpensive cosmetics such as so-calledshea butter and is now marketed in fash-ionable stores from Tokyo to New York.

Mangrove forests – living life on the edge

Mexico’s endangered mangroves

Learning toharvestwildcoffee from the forests

Making luxurycosmetics fromthe shea tree

RevivingMyanmar’s mangrove forests

The amazing world of the mangrove forest

World at RiskThe

Coffee Comes Home

toring systems, sustainable forestmanagement, coral reef protec-tion, tree planting and local liveli-hood improvement. Current JICA projects include

mangrove programs in Mexico,Myanmar and Indonesia (see page13); using satellite technology inforest protection in the Amazonand Indonesia, exploring ways to enable wild animalpopulations and human settlements to co-exist inGabon, China and Costa Rica; the impact of climate

change on forests in Viet Nam;and ensuring both the preserva-tion and sustainable use of forestsand their resources in Ethiopia,Burkina Faso and Viet Nam.Each year JICA invites more

than 8,000 trainees from devel-oping countries to attend a myr-iad of short and longer term

courses in Japan, many of them linked with biodi-versity and climate change. It is also encouraging and working closely with

private companies. At a recent seminar on the issue Shinji Yoshiura,

director general of JICA’s Yokohama InternationalCenter, said the Year of Biodiversity “represented anexcellent opportunity to focus on the issue and JICAis accelerating its collaborative works with other part-ners” such as the IUCN and the International Trop-ical Timber Organization (ITTO). According to scientific research up to 30% of all

known species may disappear before the end of thiscentury, according to Yoshiura, and “the main causeis due to human intervention. The ability of eco-sys-

tems to meet the needs of future generations is nowseriously—perhaps irreversibly—at risk.”JICA’s overriding aim, he said, was “to build sus-

tainable societies with the right balance between thenatural environment and human activities.” JICA President Sadako Ogata said: “For JICA the

key to our activities is to strike a balance between acommunity’s legitimate needs, at the same time pre-serving the very diversity of the world which will en-sure people the brighter future they want. Humanprogress and biodiversity should be mutually sup-portive, not destructive.”

The elephant is probably the mostinstantly recognizable symbol ofthe world’s wildlife.

An awesome creature dating from theEocene era 50-60million years ago,weighing in ataround 6 ½ tons, thelargest livingmammal reachingheights of 11 feet andliving from 60-70years, the elephantis also at the centerof the strugglebetween man andhis environment tosave the world’s

biodiversity. Early in the 19th century there were

perhaps 27 million elephants worldwide.Today that figure has dwindled to severalhundred thousands, the elephantsincreasingly victim to poaching andlatterly the encroachment of humanactivity on their habitat.

A modest project by a Japanese non-governmental organization , theInternational Water Project (IWP), to drillboreholes for Masai villagers living in theshadow of Africa’s highest mountain,Kilimanjaro, highlights how intertwineddevelopment projects designed to helpstruggling communities have becomewith efforts to protect the wider globalbiodiversity, in this case the threatenedAfrican elephant.

Supported by JICA, a husband and wifeteam heading IWP have been sinking aseries of boreholes in Kenya’s Loitokitokarea since 2005 using a method known askazusabori, pioneered in Japan around1870.

The system’s great value is its

simplicity and cheapness according toIWP director Hisayo Ohno. All that isneeded are several steel, iron andaluminum pipes, a simple flap valve andthe raw muscle power of local villagers.All materials are generally obtainableeven in rural areas. Training andmaintenance are relatively simple andthe cost of each well is around one-thirdof other methods used in developing

countries, according to Ohno. Loitokitok has been ravaged by

drought since 2005. Masai womenwatching one new well being sunkrecently said last year they had lost mostof their animals—cows, goats and sheep—and females had to spend most of theirday fetching water from far away waterpoints. Intercommunal strife hadincreased, as had the struggle between

the pastoralist Masai and increasinglythirsty elephant herds for scarce watersupplies.

But as more boreholes are sunk inKenya and perhaps in other semi-aridcountries, rural villages will be assured ofa continuous and safe supply of water,and the struggle between settlementsand other species such as the elephantwill also benefit.


The Japan InternationalCooperation Agency (JICA) is the world’slargest bilateraldevelopment organ-ization, operating insome 150 countries tohelp some of the globe’smost vulnerable people.

Publisher: Noriko SuzukiOffice of Media and PublicRelations

Editor: Raymond Wilkinson

Art Director: Vincent Winter Associates

JICA’S WORLDis published bi-monthlyby JICANibancho Center Bldg 5-25, Niban-choChiyoda-ku Tokyo 102-8012 JAPAN

TELEPHONE: +81-3-5226-6660-3FAX: +81-3-5226-6396INTERNET:http://www.jica.go.jp

Comments: [email protected]

Cover : “Tropical Forestwith Monkeys,” by HenriRousseau; John Hay Whit-ney Collection, image cour-tesy of the National Galleryof Art, Washington D.C.

The photographs on pages 2-3 are copyright protected and canonly be used to illustrate the Bio-diversity issue of JICA’s Worldmagazine. Any other uses are not allowed without the expresswritten permission of IUCN, Inter-national Union for Conservation ofNature and Natural Resources.

JICA aims to build

sustainablesocieties with

the rightbalance

between theenvironmentand humanactivities.

’ sJICA

WORLD

Japanese engi-neer supervisesconstruction of anew well (far left);Masai villagewomen look onapprovingly at wellconstruction (left);Drawing safedrinking waterfor the first time

Schoolchildren andnature’s grandeur

World at RiskThe

Drilling for water kazusabori style.Helping rural communities and elephants

Documents

Beautiful Earth - JICA · “strangest looking, largest and smallest, loudest and quietest, more dangerous and least frightening animals on earth.” But already around 20% of the