Volume 7, Issue 2

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March-April 2016, Volume 7, Issue 2

For a sustainable and desirable future

Solutions

Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services into Future Farming by Harpinder Sandhu et al.

Landscape Features to Improve Pest Control in Agriculture by Philippe Jeanneret et al.

Environmental Disclosure in China by Robert Eccles, Tracy Cai, Guo Peiyuan, and Allegra Fonda-Bonardi

Syria Outbound: Protecting Women on the Migrant Trail by Molly Bernstein and Xanthe Ackerman

Finding the Invisible: Looking for Invasive Species Using eDNA by Ken Rand

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www.thesolutionsjournal.org | March-April 2016 | Solutions | 1

Monetary Solutions: Negative Interest Rates or 100 Percent Reserves?

Central Banks increasingly favor hyper Keynesianism: the quest

to stimulate real growth by increas-ing monetary growth, first by low, then by zero, and now by negative interest rates. Why hasn’t it worked? Because real growth is constrained by real resource shortages, while hyper Keynesianism assumes unemployed resources. There is unemployed

labor to be sure, but not unemployed natural resources, which have become the limiting factor in the full world. As growth converts more of nature into economy we see that these newly appropriated natural resources were not unemployed at all, but were providing ecological services that often were more valuable than the extra production resulting from their appropriation. Growth has become uneconomic—a condition unrec-ognized by economists, but which ironically is logically implied by their absurd goal of a negative interest rate!

Better than a policy of hyper Keynesianism and quantitative easing is the policy of 100 percent reserves on demand deposits, first advocated by British Nobel chemist and under-ground economist Frederick Soddy and then by the leading American

economists of the 1920s, Irving Fisher and Frank Knight, among others. It dropped out of discussion with the Great Depression and Keynesian pana-cea of growth, because it was correctly considered a constraint on growth. But now growth is uneconomic and needs to be constrained, so it is time to recon-sider 100 percent reserves.

What are its advantages?

• The private banking system could no longer live the alchemist’s dream of creating fiat money out of nothing, pocketing the seigniorage, and lending the created money at interest. These enormous privileges would be transferred to the public treasury. Money would be a public utility—a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value.

• Every dollar borrowed would be a dollar saved and unavailable to the saver for the life of the loan. This restores the classical balance between saving and investment. Banks are intermediaries, charging interest to borrowers and paying interest to savers. The interest rate exists as a price between savers and borrowers, but not as a price paid to the banks for their unnecessary “service” of creating money.

• In the absence of fractional reserves, there would be no possibility of bank failure due to a run on the bank by depositors, and consequently no need for deposit insurance and its consequent moral hazard. The entire debt pyramid would no longer collapse with the failure of a few big banks.

• No longer would the money supply expand during a boom and contract during a slump, reinforcing the cyclical tendency of the economy. And the reserve ratio could be raised gradually.

• Money would be issued by the Treasury, and spent into existence for public goods and services. The amount of money issued would be limited by the amount of money that people are voluntarily willing to hold instead of exchanging it for real wealth. If the Treasury issues more than that amount people will spend it on real goods, driving up the price level. That is the signal to the treasury to print less money and/or raise taxes. The Treasury’s policy target is a constant price index, not the interest rate, which is left to market forces, and would thus never be negative. The internal value of the currency is determined by maintaining a constant price index. The external value of the currency would be determined by freely fluctuating exchange rates.

This is too big a policy issue to decide in 600 words. But I hope at least to raise the suspicion in reason-able minds that a 100 percent reserve requirement makes far more sense than a policy of negative interest rates.

Editorial by Herman Daly

Daly, H. (2016). Monetary Solutions: Negative Interest Rates or 100 Percent Reserves? Solutions 7(2): 1.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/monetary-solutions-negative-interest-rates-or-100-percent-reserves/

As growth converts more of nature into economy we see that these newly appropriated natural resources were not unemployed at all, but were providing ecological services that often were more valuable than the extra production resulting from their appropriation.

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Features

Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services into Future Farming by Harpinder Sandhu, Steve Wratten, John R. Porter, Robert Costanza, Jules Pretty, and John P. ReganoldWidespread agricultural as we know it is not not sustainable. Protocols must replace unsustainable methods with renewable counterparts to enable farmland to simultaneously produce food, build natural capital, and provide a range of ecosystem services.

Landscape Features to Improve Pest Control in Agriculture by Philippe Jeanneret, Graham Begg, Marie Gosme, Oscar Alomar, Bert Reubens, Jacques Baudry, Olivier Guerin, Clemens Flamm, and Felix WäckersPromoting natural enemies as a means for biological pest control in agriculture offers a natural alternative to the widespread use of pesticides, which detrimentally affect both the environment and human health. Operational groups including farmers and scientists are crucial to sculpting practical knowledge and innovative solutions.

Environmental Disclosure in China by Robert Eccles, Tracy Cai, Guo Peiyuan, and Allegra Fonda-BonardiAs the leaders of the G20 in 2016, China has a unique window of opportunity to become a leader in corporate environmental disclosure. Solutions should shift disclosure from a compliance exercise to a strategic opportunity for companies and markets.

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Contents March/April 2016


On the Web Perspectives

www.thesolutionsjournal.orgExplore the Solutions website for more content and interactivity. What are your solutions? Share your vision for a sustainable and desirable future and learn more about the Solutions community.

Interview 16Harnessing Innovation for Conservation Interview by Jennie Spector Former Chief Scientist of USAID and co-founder of Conservation X Labs Alex Dehgan speaks about using technology, open sources, and a new ‘tribe’ of conservation visionaries to innovate and reinvigorate conservation science to proactively address the many challenges accompanying increasing rates of change.

In Review 63Techno-Dystopia or Techno-Utopia? by Bruce Cooperstein

Noteworthy 06From Nazis to Refugees: The Story of an Airport in the Heart of Berlin

Stopping Sexual Harassment in Egypt

New ‘ATMs’ Bringing Water to Communities in Need

Breaking the Menstruation Myth in India

Editorial 01Monetary Solutions: Negative Interest Rates or 100 Percent Reserves? by Herman Daly

On the Ground 73Finding the Invisible: A New Way to Look for Invasive Species Using eDNA by Ken Rand Environmental DNA testing is unlocking new ways for scientists to uncover rare and hard-to-find species, without having to capture a specimen. In Montana, the method has great potential as a way of detecting and preventing harmful invasive species.

Solutions in History 68The Four-Legged Lawn Mower by Mary Loomis A lush green lawn has long been symbolic of the American dream. But do Americans love their lawns enough to continue using lawnmowers, though it contributes to five percent of the country’s annual emissions? The latest retro trend in environmental lawn care could also double as the family’s new pet as goats make a comeback as household grazers.

Idea Lab

Syria Outbound: Protecting Women on the Migrant Trail by Molly Bernstein and Xanthe Ackerman 20

U.S.–Mexico Border Militarization Has Cost the Lives of Thousands of Migrants by Kendall Bousquet 23

How to Clean up Recycling Habits in the United States by Krishna Bobba, Velvette De Laney, Sammie Keitlen, and Maggie Wehri 25

A Day in the Life of a Saudi Arabian Social Entrepreneur by Miranda Beggin 30

Pharmaceutical Social Enterprise 2.0 Brings a Small Miracle to Big Pharma by Mike Hamel 32

The Enormous Potential of Industrial Hemp by Anson Allen 36

Envisioning 10The Path to Sustainable Development in North Australia by Jeremy Russell-Smith In the year 2060, North Australia has been transformed into a community-focused regional economy and sustainable powerhouse meeting international energy needs. The regional success is attributed to the growth of the ecosystem services sector and major development of Indigenous enterprise.

Contributors


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1. Harpinder Sandhu—Harpinder Sandhu obtained a PhD in Agroecology from Lincoln University New Zealand. His research involves integration of environmental economics and ecology for understanding of the complex socio-ecological and economic dimen-sions of ecosystem services. Currently, Harpinder is working as an academic at Flinders University in Australia. Harpinder was selected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services as an expert and lead author for a global assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services. He has been nominated to the Advisory Panel on Agroecology for the Asia-Pacific region by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and he is leading the Global Sectoral Group on Agro-ecosystems at the Ecosystem Services Partnership to advance the science and management of ecosystem services in agriculture.

2. Philippe Jeanneret—Philippe Jeanneret is an agroecologist and entomologist. He is senior scientist at Agroscope, Switzerland. He has been involved in national and European projects dealing with biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services in agriculture. He recently participated in a European Focus Group working on landscape features and biological pest control in agriculture.

3. Robert G. Eccles—Robert G. Eccles is the world’s foremost expert on integrated reporting and one of the

world’s leaders on how companies and investors can create sustainable strategies. He is the Founding Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and one of the founders of the International Integrated Reporting Council. Bob is Chairman of Arabesque Partners, the first ESG Quant Fund with headquar-ters in London and a research group in Frankfurt. In 2011, Robert was selected as one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the ACCA.

4. Herman Daly—Herman Daly came to the Maryland School of Public Affairs from the World Bank, where he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department. While there, he was engaged in environmental operations work in Latin America. Previously, Daly was Alumni Professor of Economics at Louisiana State University. He is a co-founder and associate editor of Ecological Economics. His has written over a hundred articles as well as numerous books, including Steady-State Economics (1977; 1991), Valuing the Earth (1993), Beyond Growth (1996), and Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics (1999). He co-authored with theologian John B. Cobb, Jr. For the Common Good (1989; 1994) which received the Grawemeyer Award for ideas for improving World Order. He is a recipient of the Honorary Right Livelihood Award, the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Sophie Prize (Norway).

SolutionsEditors-in-Chief: Robert Costanza, Ida Kubiszewski

Associate Editors: David Orr, Jacqueline McGlade

Managing Editor: Colleen Maney

Senior Editors: Christina Asquith, Jack Fairweather

History Section Editor: Frank Zelko

Book & Envisioning Editor: Bruce Cooperstein

Editor: Naomi Stewart

Graphic Designer: Kelley Dodd

Copy Editors: Anna Sottile, Nadine Ledesma

Business Manager: Ian Chambers

Interns: Kendall Bousquet, N’dea Yancey-Bragg

Editorial Board: Gar Alperovitz, Vinya Ariyaratne, Robert

Ayres, Peter Barnes, William Becker, Lester Brown,

Alexander Chikunov, Cutler Cleveland, Raymond Cole,

Rita Colwell, Robert Corell, Herman Daly, Thomas

Dietz, Josh Farley, Jerry Franklin, Susan Joy Hassol,

Paul Hawken, Richard Heinberg, Jeffrey Hollender,

Buzz Holling, Terry Irwin, Jon Isham, Wes Jackson,

Tim Kasser, Tom Kompas, Frances Moore Lappé, Rik

Leemans, Wenhua Li, Thomas Lovejoy, Hunter Lovins,

Manfred Max-Neef, Peter May, Bill McKibben, William

J. Mitsch, Mohan Munasinghe, Norman Myers, Kristín

Vala Ragnarsdóttir, Bill Rees, Wolfgang Sachs, Peter

Senge, Vandana Shiva, Anthony Simon, Gus Speth, Larry

Susskind, David Suzuki, John Todd, Mary Evelyn Tucker,

Alvaro Umaña, Sim van der Ryn, Peter Victor, Mathis

Wackernagel, John Xia, Mike Young

Subscriptions: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/subscribe Email: [email protected]

Sponsoring Inquiries: http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/sponsor Email: [email protected]

On the CoverBabydoll sheep grazing in a vineyard in the Marlborough wine region on the South Island of New Zealand. Photo by Alexey Stiop / Big Eye Photography.

Solutions is subject to the Creative Commons license except where otherwise stated.


Contributors

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5. Molly Bernstein—Molly Bernstein is a journalist and a fellow with the Fuller Project for International Reporting.

6. Xanthe Ackerman—Xanthe Ackerman is a writer based in Istanbul. She is the founder of Advancing Girls’ Education in Africa, an international non-profit that supports life-changing opportunities for secondary school girls in Malawi. Dr. Ackerman is a former scholar at the Brookings Institution and the United States Institute of Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her writing focuses on education, refugees, Syria, and Africa.

7. Kendall Bousquet—Kendall Bousquet is a senior at Northeastern University majoring in International Affairs. Currently a journalist based in Istanbul, she is a student fellow at The Fuller Project for International Reporting, an organization dedicated to producing investigative journalism on issues related to women.

8. Mike Hamel—Mike Hamel is a self-employed writer currently working on his 20th book. His writing ranges from children’s books to autobiography. Mike is an avid reader, an amateur winemaker, and an aspiring ballroom dancer. As a cancer survivor, he treats every day as a gift and strives to make the most of life.

9. Miranda Beggin—Miranda is a fourth-year student at Northeastern

University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is pursuing a Finance and Political Science combined major with a minor in Global Social Entrepreneurship. Miranda has a strong interest in international development, and she’s especially passionate about the role of small business development and entre-preneurship education in the Middle East. Last year, Miranda traveled to Saudi Arabia through the National Council on US-Arab Relations. Miranda has completed an internship at Amazon.com and has just started work at Endeavour Partners, where she is an Associate Consultant. In her free time, she enjoys photography and running.

10. Velvette Delaney, Sammie Keitlen, and Maggie Wehri—Velvette, Sammie, and Maggie are all students at The Ohio State University. Over the fall semester in 2015 they conducted a four month research project on recycling and city municipalities. Velvette Delaney is a graphic designer and MFA student in the Department of Design, focusing on sustainability for designers. Sammie Keitlen is a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Environment, Economy, Development and Sustainability specializing in Business and Sustainability. Maggie Wehri is also a fourth year under-graduate student majoring in Art and Business specializing in sculpture and Sustainable Enterprise Management with a minor in entrepreneurship.

11. Anson Allen—Anson Allen is a retired entrepreneur and business consultant who lived and farmed for several years in Australia. He now lives in Wales, where he was a joint founder of Hemp Wales and compiled a Welsh Government funded Feasibility Study on this subject.

12. Jennie Spector—Jennie Spector is a student research fellow with The Fuller Project for International Reporting and with Foreign Policy Interrupted. She is completing her undergraduate studies in International Affairs and Political Science at Northeastern University. She has previously written for the Northeastern University Political Review, and assisted Dr. Jessica Stern with the publication of her 2015 book ISIS: The State of Terror. Previous work and studies in conflict resolution, human rights, and arts education have taken her to South Africa, Chicago, the Balkans, Paris, and Istanbul.

13. Jeremy Russell-Smith—Jeremy Russell-Smith is an ecologist with interests in achieving sustainable management outcomes in fire-prone savanna landscapes across northern Australia and nearby countries. He helps coordinate applied research programs of the Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research, Charles Darwin University, and the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance

14. Ken Rand—Ken Rand is second year graduate student in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism at the University of Montana in Missoula. A native of Bozeman, Montana, he works as a freelance photographer and journalist, and has a keen interest in science and telling stories about wildlife and landscape conservation.

15. Mary Loomis—Mary Loomis is a senior pursuing a B.S. in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her studies have been guided by her interest in environmental literature, experiential education, and sustainable agriculture, and she is cur-rently working on a creative-nonfiction thesis exploring “sense of place.”

16. Bruce Cooperstein—Bruce Cooperstein is Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has taught since 1975. He was a Pew National Scholar for Carnegie Fellows from 1999–2000, a Provost of College Eight (one of the ten resident Colleges at UCSC) from 1984–1990, and a W.K.Kellogg Fellow from 1982–85. In addition to his math-ematical specialties in group theory and incidence geometry, he is interested in the interaction of education, politics, economics, and ecology. He has written numerous op-ed pieces on these and other topics as well as articles on economic conversion and the economic foundations of peace.

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Idea LabNoteworthy

From Nazis to Refugees: The Story of an Airport in the Heart of Berlinby Colleen Maney

In the center of Berlin, just beyond the trendy Kreuzberg neighborhood, is one of the city’s most beloved public spaces, the Tempelhof Airport. After closing in 2008, the airfield and large runways have become the city’s larg-est open space. On sunny days, the grounds are filled with children flying kites, families picnicking, and people rollerblading, running, and walking. The large hangars have been used to host conferences, trade shows, and festivals. In a segment from BBC’s The Travel Show, one Berliner described the importance of the park to the city, saying, “It brings so many cultures together, and everyone in Berlin knows Tempelhof. Everyone comes here.” Tempelhof was central to the fabric of the city long before its inau-guration as a beloved park. The airport and its grounds have borne witness to the key players and events that have shaped Germany for the last century.

In the 1930s, Tempelhof was rede-signed as the imposing entrance to Nazi Germany. The four hangars and over 9,000 rooms within the grounds are in the typical style of Nazi archi-tecture: massive and commanding. During WWII, Nazi intelligence mate-rial was stored at the airport. With the fall of Nazi Germany at the close of the war, the airport came under Allied control. In the thick of the Cold War, Tempelhof became a lifeline for West Berlin when American troops used the airport to run the famous airlift in reaction to the Soviet blockade. The food, fuel, and other critical sup-plies delivered into West Berlin from Tempelhof for over a year provided civilians with necessary materials for survival.

Today, Tempelhof remains an invaluable symbol of freedom for many Berliners. While the building and nearly all of its facets, including signs and disused conveyor belts, were originally under legal protec-tion as a national monument, the highly appealing location of the property made it attractive to city

planners and developers for new housing and commercial projects. After a battle between city plan-ners and Berliners, the community triumphed in May of 2015. With a winning margin of over 180,000 votes, the community voted to main-tain the airport grounds as a public facility. This victory was perhaps an act of fate, as Tempelhof would shortly become a symbol of hope for a new generation of people in need of international assistance.

Today, Tempelhof has found itself in the midst of what is sure to be another important chapter in Germany’s history, as it is transformed into Germany’s largest refugee center. When completed, the airport is pro-jected to house up to 7,000 refugees.

Currently, 800 refugees are being accommodated in one of the four hangars.

Next to remnants of the hangar’s past—signs reading “High Noise Protection Required” and “Berlin Brigade/Freedom City” left by the United States Army Aviation Department—are now clear signs of

Bart Bernardes Berliners walk and cycle along the abandoned taxiway at Tempelhof Airport.


Idea LabNoteworthy

its next chapter. Graffiti on the walls include messages in Arabic and flags from Iraq, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and Syria. “Thank you Germane,” reads one message, with a heart drawn next to it.

While refitting the airport will be costly and challenging, and the politi-cal atmosphere regarding refugees in Germany remains uncertain, the Tempelhof Airport continues to be a symbol of hope for many, and a central landmark in the story of Berlin.

Stopping Sexual Harassment in Egyptby N’dea Yancey-Bragg

According to the UN Population Fund, Egypt is ranked the second worst country in the world for sexual harass-ment, after Afghanistan. A study by UN Women found that 99.3 percent of Egyptian girls and women surveyed reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime. Women reported feeling unsafe on public transportation or when walking the streets. In June 2014, the Egyptian government passed a law criminalizing sexual harassment, making it punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years and fines between 2,000 and 5,000 Egyptian pounds (USD$249 to $623). However, many rights groups are skeptical that this law will amount to more than mere words on paper, and are calling for stricter enforcement.

After experiencing near con-stant sexual harassment in Cairo, Rebecca Chiao, Engy Ghozlan, Amel Fahmy, and Sawsan Gad cofounded Harassmap, an online and mobile tool to combat sexual harassment. Harassmap crowdsources text mes-sages and online reports of sexual harassment and assault and adds

them to an online map. The map shows areas affected by 17 different categories of sexual harassment. The campaign conducts research into

social dynamics surrounding sexual harassment and sends volunteers into their own neighborhoods to encourage others to stand up to sexual

Fundación Cibervoluntarios Amel Fahmy, co-founder of Harassmap, speaks at EmpoderaLIVE 2015, a meeting of social entrepreneurs whose mission is to promote citizen empowerment in social innovation through information and communications technology.


Idea LabNoteworthy

harassment. Volunteers also recruit local businesses and universities to serve as Safe Area partners, who pledge to enforce a zero tolerance policy on harassment in their establishments.

Harassmap celebrated its five-year anniversary this January, and it has grown widely since its inception. Harassmap has inspired and coached 28 other similar initiatives not only in the MENA region, but in the United States, South America, and East Asia as well. The campaign ultimately seeks to eradicate the “social acceptability of sexual harassment” with education and diligent reporting.

The organization recently partnered with Uber, the popular private car service, and will provide anti-sexual harassment training to all of its drivers. This could be a big step for Egyptian women, 86.5 percent of whom reported feeling unsafe on public transportation according to the UN Women survey.

New ‘ATMs’ Bringing Water to Communities in Needby N’dea Yancey-Bragg

India has the world’s second largest population, and its growth shows no signs of slowing down. The massive population combined with agricul-tural demands for water is putting a serious strain on the country’s resources. Poor sanitation plagues the already limited water sources. The World Bank estimates that 21 percent of the country’s communicable dis-eases are related to unsafe water.

Kenya, too, is in the midst of a water crisis. Its arid climate limits natural water sources and population pressures are pushing people into slums with little access to fresh water or proper sanitation.

Many small NGOs operate in both countries, digging wells and partner-ing with communities to build wells or otherwise provide clean water, but millions are still left without access. Water.org, for example, supports four microfinance institutions providing microloans to rural and urban com-munities to buy water in Kenya. The Water Project partnered with Wells for Life to fund fresh water well projects in India. However, some activists are concerned with the long-term efficacy of such projects.

To supplement these efforts, a unique initiative is being launched independently in both countries: water ATMs. These ‘ATMs’ dispense affordable, clean water to customers who pay using smart cards. The cards are easily refillable with water credits, often at much lower prices than those of local water vendors.

Danish engineering company Grundfos has set up four such ATMs

in the slums of Nairobi. The Nairobi City Water and Sewage company says they charge half a Kenyan shil-ling (half a US cent), for 20 liters of water—100 shillings cheaper than what vendors charge in the suburb of Eastleigh according to a report by the BBC.

Sarvajal has launched a similar initiative in India, delivering solar powered water ATMs and filtration devices into the care of local busi-nesses. According to The Economist, because they do not accept govern-ment subsidies, they are able to sell 10 liters of water for just six cents.

Of course, these products cannot fully address the systemic inequities that prevent millions in India and Kenya from having access to safe water. Both companies are looking to expand with the hopes that water ATMs can provide a sustainable source of fresh drinking water for communities in serious need.

Jonathan Kalan / DICatUSAID A Kenyan woman stands next to a Dispenser for Safe Water, part of a clean water access initiative run by Innovations for Poverty Action. While many such interventions exist in Kenya to provide clean water, water ATMs have been installed in Nairobi to supplement these efforts.


Idea LabNoteworthy

Breaking the Menstruation Myth in Indiaby N’dea Yancey-Bragg

Of the 355 million menstruating women in India, only 12 percent of them use sanitary napkins, according to a study done by A.C. Nielsen. The vast majority simply cannot afford them, and so they turn to a variety of unsanitary options ranging from newspapers and dirty cloths to sand and corn husks.

When Arunachalam Muruganantham discovered his wife was using old rags because she couldn’t afford proper sanitary pads, he embarked on a years-long journey to create affordable and sanitary options.

The documentary Menstrual Man follows Muruganantham as he fashions a “uterus” out of a football “bladder” filled with blood to person-ally test his product. Once he crafted the perfect pad and a machine to produce them, he began distribu-tion. Now, his machines have been sold to NGOs and women’s self-help groups in over 1,300 villages. Each machine can dispense 200 to 250 pads per day at an average of 2.5 rupees (USD$0.037) each, serving over 3,000 women and employing ten as manufacturers, according to a report by the BBC.

Menstruation in India has long been a taboo subject, and women on their periods are essentially treated as untouchables, barred from kitchens and mosques alike because they are considered to be unclean. This culture of shame is not only damaging to young women, but also incredibly dangerous.

In a country with a historically poor reputation for sanitation, this issue is even more pressing for

menstruating women. The stark lack of access to sanitary options leads to serious health consequences. Tech in Asia reported that 70 percent of all reproductive diseases in India can be traced back to poor menstrual hygiene.

A handful of startups have followed in Muruganantham’s footsteps, such as Aakar Innovations and Saral Designs, which both manufacture affordable sanitary products. Aakar set up over 20 “mini factories” that employ women as both supervisors and producers manufacturing affordable sanitary products. Saral sells low cost sanitary pads and installs vending machines for

convenient and discreet distribution in schools and public restrooms.

Women with internet access can also order monthly subscriptions on Those5days.com, an online distributor of a vast array of sanitary products. The startup boasts that it serves over 20,000 postal codes, ensuring that women in the most remote regions have access to their products.

As affordable sanitary products become more and more available in India, the hope is that social and cultural attitudes will shift, and the shame surrounding menstruation will subside.

TED@Bangalore Arunachalam Muruganantham speaks at a TED@Bangalore in 2012.


Envisioning

Much has changed over the past half century across the socio-

cultural, ecologic-economic, and political landscapes of the northern quarter of Australia. At the start of the millennium, the vast, relatively unspoiled tropical savannas (covering a land area equivalent to Mexico) comprised one of the least densely populated, habitable regions of Planet Earth—with a population of only three percent of Australia’s 20 million or so people. Although the popula-tion has more than tripled recently, regional ecosystems are now in sub-stantially better condition and many of the underlying socio-economic fundamentals are being addressed. Formerly administered under three separate, often competing political jurisdictions, declaration of the North Australia autonomous region was celebrated in 2050.

To appreciate the drivers and changes that have taken place, it is useful to return to the start of the 21st century and consider the regional socio-cultural, ecological, and eco-nomic conditions prevailing at the time. In 2015, the then Australian government released its political vision for northern development—a policy document which exempli-fied the standard business-as-usual view of the era, with its emphasis on big infrastructure developments

including fossil-fuel extraction, dams, and other long cherished, but unfounded development dreams such as food bowls and extensive irrigable agriculture.1 Needless to say, this policy vision included no mention of climate change challenges and renew-able energy opportunities, and only a passing reference to the potential for developing a diversified land-and-sea-sector ecosystem services economy. The outdated agricultural vision had already been critically and authorita-tively dismissed by the 1960s.2

The Early 2000s Development ContextAt the time of the 2011 census, the regional population comprised 750,000 people, over half of whom resided in major urban service centers, with the remainder scattered in small settlements and communities at densi-ties typically less than 0.1 persons/km.3 Indigenous (aboriginal) people constituted about a fifth of the regional population and typically, the majority in remote regions. The Indigenous pop-ulation was increasing at over twice the rate as that of the non-Indigenous population. Remote Indigenous com-munities faced an array of significant social challenges and disadvantages, including: unacceptably high mor-bidity and mortality rates; limited educational opportunities (including support for bilingual programs) result-ing in poor literacy and numeracy outcomes; high unemployment; inadequate housing and related infrastructure; and, very high levels of incarceration. Government attempts to address these issues were generally sincere, if haphazard—and despite the considerable allocation of resources

there was no real understanding of the need to support significant tenure reforms and development of commu-nity based and culturally appropriate land-and-sea-sector enterprises.

Around the turn of the century, mining and off-shore fossil-fuel energy extraction industries were the major private contributors to the regional economy, but directly employed only a small proportion of the workforce. Tourism and hospital-ity industries—the second largest contributor—employed around nine percent of the workforce, and were based on internationally significant natural and cultural assets including the Great Barrier Reef, the Wet Tropics rainforests, Kakadu National Park, and the rugged Kimberley region and its wild coastline. Pastoral, agricultural, and fishing industries provided signifi-cant, if lesser, economic returns and employment opportunities. Publicly funded services, including health, education, defense, community safety and public administration sectors, provided employment for more than 30 percent of the regional workforce.4,5

By the early 2000s, it was well recognized, at least in scientific circles, that agricultural development had limited potential in North Australia—especially given that seasonal rainfall is highly variable especially in more inland regions, evaporation gener-ally exceeds annual rainfall, and flat topography mitigates against water storage. One authoritative report estimated that the maximum potential for growth in irrigable land was likely a tripling of the area then under production, to a maximum of 60,000 ha.6 The potential for ‘mosaic irriga-tion,’ based on localized ground-water

This article is part of a regular section in Solutions in which the author is challenged to envision a future society in which all the right changes have been made.

The Path to Sustainable Development in North Australiaby Jeremy Russell-Smith

Russell-Smith, J. (2016). The Path to Sustainable Development in North Australia. Solutions 7(2): 10–15.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-path-to-sustainable-development-in-north-australia/


Envisioning

resources, was also considered to be very restricted. Assessments of mooted large (if shallow) regional irriga-tion projects noted that substantial non-redeemable public outlays in infrastructure would be required, and even if built, would have significant downstream impacts, especially in low rainfall years.7 Given the distance to southern Australian and Asian markets, it was noted that agricultural development might better focus on crops that do not require refrigera-tion, such as cotton, sugarcane, and sandalwood.8

In terms of primary land use, rangeland beef cattle pastoralism was undertaken over as much as 90 percent of the savannas, mostly on enormous property holdings leased

by non-Indigenous interests from the state.9 By 2013, 19 percent of the tropical savannas region was owned (under freehold title) or managed by Indigenous people. An additional 22 percent had been successfully claimed as ‘native title’ under non-exclusive joint title arrangements with cur-rent landholders, and claims over a further 43 percent of the northern savannas were still to be determined.10 However, at the time such ‘native title’ arrangements did not afford economic property rights. In some regions Indigenous people also owned very substantial portions of the coastline.

Even at the time, it was well recognized that pastoral enterprises in many parts of the north were neither economically viable nor

sustainable given a variety of factors: the prevalence of low fertility soils; seasonal access restrictions; limited infrastructure, high labor, input and capital costs; and, distant and volatile markets.11 Financial assessments of the industry invariably did not account for substantial long-term ecosystem costs associated with pastoral management impacts on soil erosion, water quality, biodiversity values, and greenhouse gas emissions. At that time, much of the industry could be considered as a rural lifestyle choice bolstered by subsidies and hopes of ever-increasing real estate values.

Building on a substantive 2009 report which identified the relatively unmodified North Australian savan-nas as a biomass and biodiversity

Carl Neuschul Kakadu National Park in North Australia.


Envisioning

resource of global significance,12 in following years, opportunities associated with ‘carbon farming’ began to change the way in which the northern savannas were economi-cally perceived and managed. Initially focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from annually extensive savanna fires, carbon and biomass management in savanna systems developed rapidly over the following decade to provide substantial employ-ment and diversified enterprise opportunities for regional land managers, especially for Indigenous communities and interests.13

Transitional DriversIn the years and decades following, a number of regional policy and global realities struck home to transform the way business and community develop-ment initiatives are undertaken in the north. Principal among these have been:

• Lessons learned from unsustainable development experience in southern Australian landscapes (now essentially an over-exploited agricultural wasteland) and industrialized societies elsewhere.

• Stark recognition of the realities of climate change, resulting in:

significant increases in the number of very hot (greater than 370C) days annually and associated effects on increased fire intensity and evaporation from precious water storage infrastructure; higher sea-surface temperatures resulting in intensified cyclones and a range of biodiversity impacts including catastrophic impacts on the Great Barrier Reef; and, coastal inundation and loss of significant wetland resources including in Kakadu National Park.

• Recognition of very substantial economic opportunities to be

Landgate, Government of Western Australia Frequency of large fires (greater than ~4 km2) in Australia, 1988–2015. Recognition of the very high frequency of fires in North Australia savannas, and associated greenhouse gas emissions, prompted the development of a major new fire and carbon industry in the early 2000s. This was the first of a suite of ecosystem services industries which now supports diverse land management enterprises across the savannas. Indigenous interests are the largest player in this new market.


Envisioning

derived from renewable energy sources, especially the potential for supplying all of South-East Asia’s energy needs principally from innovative solar, but also tidal sources—in effect, these nation-building infrastructure projects have more than offset the critical down-turn in energy demand from the fossil-fuel sector.14,15

• Recognition that many mining exploration and infrastructure developments in northern Australia have, on cessation of activities, left long-lasting legacy rehabilitation issues not covered by adequate environmental bonds. This has resulted in the application of much stiffer regulatory frameworks, including realistic offset requirements over appropriate timeframes for all development activities. Stringent offset requirements have been applied also to fossil-fuel extraction activities, including in on-shore and off-shore environments. Collectively, these measures have resulted in North Australia being regarded as an international leader in applying mining best-practice.

• Recognition of the strategic importance of valued relationships with near neighbors in eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Papua New Guinea—including membership of the collaborative Arafura Alliance which serves to promote and regulate sustainable regional marine resource management.

• Recognition that just and equitable land tenure policy reform (especially the granting of joint property rights for those with non-exclusive native title and rights to water allocations), and associated support for the development of Indigenous land and sea sector enterprises, has helped overcome

the seemingly entrenched failure, misery, and expense of past Indigenous rural community development policies.

• Acceptance that development of innovative carbon, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services markets provide for diversified and sustainable land-and-sea-sector enterprise opportunities which complement, or in many situations can replace, other more ‘traditional’ agricultural and pastoral activities. A key challenge for Indigenous involvement in this industry has been the development of robust governance arrangements which meet both Indigenous community cultural needs (e.g. communal title involving various land holding groups), as well as interfacing effectively with standard business regulatory requirements and other non-Indigenous enterprise arrangements.

An integral component for guiding the above development process has been the undertaking of ongoing formal scenario planning activities to inform regional stakeholders.16 This process, established regionally in 2016, has engaged participants from across the community, sectoral, and political spectra to assess plausible outcomes of different development options and develop a shared vision of desired goals.17 In fact, this has been a critical activity for ensuring that development goals have reflected the aspirations of the wider North Australian community rather than those typically imposed by narrow sectoral or political interests.

2060Much has been achieved in North Australia over the past half century. The jurisdiction operates as an inte-grated community-focused regional

economy, as well as providing a suc-cessful and sustainable powerhouse supporting international energy needs and the national economy. In recognition of this, North Australia is Australia’s only declared autonomous region which allows for the enacting of independent regional solutions—the granting of joint property rights to Indigenous native title holders being a case in point.

A number of key initiatives have been implemented. First of these has been substantial national investment in the development of the renew-able energy sector. To date, this has incurred investment of AUS$400 billion, somewhat less than earlier projections,18 but largely utilizing subsidies that formerly were available to the fossil-fuel sector. Currently, solar energy is now being piped to Indonesia from the Lake Argyle solar site; plans are underway to soon supply all of South-East Asia. Related regional activities have involved transitioning all major community centers, as well as remote Indigenous community ‘outstations,’ from former fossil-fuel dependence to complete reliance on localized renewable grids.

Second has been the phenom-enal rise of the ecosystem services sector which now dwarfs economic returns from combined pastoral and agricultural sectors, and provides the underlying basis for exponential growth in the Asian ecotourism market. Markets for enhancing carbon and biodiversity values are now fully operative over all savanna regions which are either marginal or unsuit-able for other agricultural activities. Such markets have also prompted efforts to manage pernicious ecologi-cal pests (e.g. cane toads, cats, Gamba grass), especially through the applica-tion of appropriately funded biological control programs. The beef cattle pastoral industry is now concentrated


Envisioning

on productive grassland regions occu-pying just 20 percent of the northern savannas, and focuses on supplying a quality, ecologically-accredited product to the high end of national and export markets. Increased fencing now restricts cattle from using and damaging waterways and ecologically precious perennial water sources. Rather than see enterprise profitably diminished, these combined activities support a thriving and diversified sus-tainable regional landscape economy.

A third transformation has been the major development of Indigenous enterprise interests in the regional economy—now on par with that of Maori in Aotearoa. This has been assisted by a number of policy

initiatives including changes to title rights, which have allowed for the raising of capital in the same manner as that available to non-Indigenous inves-tors, the rise of the ecosystem services economy, and fostering a raft of other natural resource and community devel-opment enterprises. The process has been assisted in recent years by strate-gic public investment in developing the operational and governance capabili-ties of land and sea management ranger groups and community enterprises. Earlier this century, public investment in Indigenous land and sea manage-ment, although far-sighted for the time, provided limited funding to contracted communities for a few ranger salaries and operational activities.

Public investment has also sup-ported the development of Indigenous Protected Areas which are formally included as part of the conservation estate—by 2020, Indigenous lands already comprised over 50 percent of the national reserve system. Recognition of the greater environ-mental, social, health, educational, community, and associated economic benefits finally convinced government authorities to refocus and substan-tially increase investment. Today, as an outcome of that investment and allied development of broader ecosystem services opportunities and the eco-tourism industry, nearly all protected areas in North Australia, including World Heritage properties, are run and

Dr. Andrew Edwards The North Australia Autonomous Region. By mid-century the great majority of the land area will be managed for a diversified ecosystem services economy focusing on carbon, freshwater supplies, biodiversity, and ecotourism. Cattle production, the dominant land use in the early 2000s, will be conducted on localized high fertility grasslands and open-woodlands (with less than 10 percent canopy cover). Marine resources will be co-managed sustainably with regional neighbors.


Envisioning

managed sustainably by Indigenous land-owning groups.

The above developments have had major flow-on effects to many other aspects of regional society. An important beneficiary has been the tertiary education sector, including the fostering of regional partnerships with institutions in neighboring countries. North Australia is home to major regional universities with internationally recognized expertise in an array of related development disciplines, including renewable energy technology and engineering, ecological economics, tropical health, resource management, and cultural and international development stud-ies. The education industry is a vital and prosperous sector supporting ongoing sustainable development. In an increasingly volatile and uncertain world, it is widely acknowledged that education, innovation, and adaptation are keys to the future.

AcknowledgementsThe vision presented here owes much to the contributions of many col-leagues and friends, particularly those involved in a current project address-ing sustainable development options for northern Australia.

References1. Commonwealth of Australia. Our north, our future:

White Paper on Developing Northern Australia

[online] (2015) http://industry.gov.au/ONA/

whitePaper/Paper/index.html.

2. Davison, B.R. The Northern Myth (Melbourne of

University Press, Melbourne, 1965).

3. Davison, B.R. The Northern Myth (Melbourne of

University Press, Melbourne, 1965).

4. Commonwealth of Australia. Our north, Our

Future: White Paper on Developing Northern

Australia [online] (2015) http://northernaustralia.

infrastructure.gov.au/white-paper/index.aspx.

5. Russell-Smith, J. and P.J. Whitehead. Reimagining

fire management in fire-prone north Australia, in

Carbon Accounting and Savanna Fire Management

(eds Murphy, B.P., A.C. Edwards, C.P. Meyer, and

J. Russell-Smith) (CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne,

2015).

6. Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce.

Sustainable development of northern Australia

[online] (2009) http://inform.regionalaustralia.org.

au/envionment-and-energy/climate-and-natural-

resources/item/northern-australia-land-and-water-

taskforce-final-report.

7. CSIRO. Flinders and Gilbert Agricultural Resource

Assessment: Key Findings [online] (2013) https://

publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP13

13101&dsid=DS5.













10. Russell-Smith, J. and P.J. Whitehead. Reimagining

fire management in fire-prone north Australia, in

Carbon Accounting and Savanna Fire Management

(eds Murphy, B.P., A.C. Edwards, C.P. Meyer, and

J. Russell-Smith) (CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne,

2015).

11. McLean, I., P. Holmes, and D. Counsell. The northern

beef report: 2013 northern beef situation analysis.

Project B.COM.0348. Meat & Livestock Australia,

North Sydney (2014).

12. Garnaut, R. The Garnaut Climate Change Review: Final

Report (Cambridge University Press, Melbourne,

2008).

13. Russell-Smith, J., C.P. Yates, A.C. Edwards, B.P.

Murphy, and P.J. Whitehead. Deriving multiple

benefits from carbon market-based savanna burning

projects: an Australian example. PLoS ONE 10:

e0143426 (2015).

14. Blakers, A.W., J. Luther, and N. Nadolny. Asia Pacific

Super Grid – Solar electricity generation, storage

and distribution. GREEN - The International Journal

of Sustainable Energy Conversion and Storage 2

(2012).

15. Sue, K., K. Hussey, and J. Pittock. Renewable energy

export for the development of an Asia-Pacific Super Grid:

Preliminary Review of Research Directions (Fenner

School of Environment and Society, Australian

National University, Canberra, 2015).

16. Ringland, G. and P. Schwartz. Scenario planning:

managing for the future (John Wiley and Sons, New

York, 1998).

17. Costanza, R. Visions, values, valuation and the need

for an ecological economics. BioScience 51 (2001).

18. Blakers, A.W., J. Luther, and N. Nadolny. Asia Pacific

Super Grid – Solar electricity generation, storage

and distribution. GREEN - The International Journal of

Sustainable Energy Conversion and Storage 2 (2012).

Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research Burning the savannas under controlled conditions for cultural, biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction outcomes—these and related land management activities now support major regional ecosystem services industries.


InterviewIdea Lab

Alex Dehgan is the co-founder of Conservation X Labs, a new startup

focused on bringing innovation to conserva-tion. He most recently served as the chief scientist of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and founded and headed the independent Office of Science and Technology. He previously helped build Afghanistan’s first national park with the Wildlife Conservation Society and worked on science diplomacy efforts with Iran at the US Department of State.

Why is conservation in need of innovation?Our problems are exponential, but our solutions have been linear. We need to increase the speed, scale, efficacy, and sustainability of our conservation inter-ventions. We are in the midst of a sixth great mass extinction, the first in earth’s history that has been driven by a single species’ own actions. Its rates of loss are probably going to increase tenfold in the next few decades. By many standards, the conservation community has been quite successful—we have created new parks and enclaves at increasing rates, we have new regulations, and we have just launched the sustainable develop-ment goals with a recognition that how we do development doesn’t have to mimic the West or China’s pathways through industrialization. However, despite this success, nearly every major group of species is in decline.

These challenges llook like they will only increase. By 2050, the planet will have 9.6 billion people, requiring 70 percent more food, and doubling of inputs. Humanity’s success in lifting billions out of poverty will put

out more demands for meat, dairy, refrigeration, and air conditioning. Producing such food will require an increase in agricultural area equal to that of the United States, or clearance of the Congo Basin and the Amazon Basin for agriculture.

The existing set of conservation tools is increasingly insufficient to match the speed at which the changes are occurring. Moreover, conservation practice has been at times technopho-bic, backwards looking, uninnovative, and incremental in the face of the exponential increases in the problem. Conservation science can no longer merely catalogue the demise of the species on this planet—it has become, as Dr. Kent Redford, an eminent conservation thinker, has said, a society of mourners. Conservation science must continue its shift from being a descriptive, discovery-based science to a transdisciplinary field that seeks to also engineer solutions. While conservation science can help define the problems, it alone does not possess the solutions. However, powerful new tools for con-servation exist and offer hope.

What is unique about Conservation X Labs?Conservation X Labs proposes that we rethink our conservation model, and adopt an approach that harnesses the vast democratization of science and technology and greater intercon-nectivity, and new approaches to collaborative and open innovation that improve the efficacy, speed, cost, and scale of global conservation efforts with the larger goal of ending human-induced extinction.

We see three opportunities that we are focused on harnessing for conservation.

Technology has gained exponen-tially in processing power, memory capacity, number of sensors, pixel capacity, and storage. The power of 3D printing provides tremendous power. Current advances in molecular biol-ogy are rivaling—and in some cases overtaking—the rate of change seen in computing and information technol-ogy. A modern synthesis of biology and technology has created the entirely new field of synthetic biology, which may help accelerate adaptation to a changing environment due to climate change and increase the resilience of ecosystems against human degradation and invasive species. These tools can serve, as well as undermine, conserva-tion. We need them to match the speed and scale of the conservation effort.

Second, greater degrees of global connectivity have created a new para-digm of Open Source Conservation, which is transforming how scientific discoveries are made and how con-servation is conducted. Conservation X Labs is harnessing open source approaches to develop and/or source new ideas or products, distribute the burden for collecting and analyzing data, co-design new solutions, and share in the burdens of research, publication, and funding, while simul-taneously engaging the public.

Finally, we must harness, build, and mobilize a ‘tribe’ of conservation visionaries, solvers, and doers that will bring a new wave of technological, financial, and behavioral innovation to conservation. We will build a novel community from the existing conservation movement, but also incorporate technologists, biological engineers, designers, makers, innova-tors, hackers, marketers, financiers, and anthropologists. Conservation X

Harnessing Innovation for ConservationAlex Dehgan Interviewed by Jennie Spector

Spector, J. (2016). Harnessing Innovation for Connservation. Solutions 7(2): 16–19.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/harnessing-innovation-for-conservation/


InterviewIdea Lab

Labs is serving as a catalyst, connector, amplifier, and mobilizer within the conservation community, relying on an ecosystem of institutions and indi-viduals that enable us to effectively understand, source, test, and accelerate conservation solutions.

What has the process of building this tribe been like?Part of it is something we did two weeks ago—launching a USD$2.2 million prize focused on rethinking aquaculture feed. Why is aquaculture important? Half our fish is farmed. The farm systems are environmentally

disastrous—we use fish to feed fish, which is not a good model of sustainability. A prize allows you to crowdsource the world without making an assumption as to where the best ideas are. Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not. We want to provide opportunity.

The second part is: how do you create opportunities for people to co-create and co-solve problems? Conservationists understand the problem, but don’t necessarily have the solutions. The solution sets need to be bigger. Can we create a way of crowdsourcing expertise, and create platforms that allow people

to design and collaborate on open hard-ware? These are things we’re building right now, with the goal of a product called a “DNA Barcode Scanner,” that allows us to understand illegal wildlife trade—help a customs officer deal with a biological sample that doesn’t look like an Asiatic bear, but may be a gall bladder of that bear in powdered form; or help a store assess whether the fish they’re buying is sustainably sourced tilapia, and actually tilapia—30 percent of seafood is mislabeled, if not higher; or help prevent illegal timber trade from the forests that maintain the Amur leopard and Siberian tiger.

Photo Courtesy of Alex Dehgan Alex Dehgan, co-founder of Conservation X Labs.


InterviewIdea Lab

We’d like to have a conference focused on optimism that shifts us from backwards looking to the future. Let’s bring together hackers, solvers, makers, engineers, anthropologists, economists, and conservation biolo-gists to rethink solutions together.

I’m getting the sense that conservation is a much larger world than I, and I’m sure many others, would imagine. What’s one thing you wish everyone knew about conservation?Part of what I wish people knew are the tradeoffs—GMOs are a great example of that. We’ve seen produc-tivity per plant level off, we’re unable to coax more out of plants than we have been. A large part of the world are subsistence farmers—there are political problems if we get them off farms, but it’s hard for them to be

sustainable, particularly in light of climate change. The worst thing we can do is expect to keep doing what we’re doing and get a different result. We have to change the approach, we have to change who’s part of the approach.

You left a position as the chief scientist for USAID to open this lab. Why did you feel that Conservation X is a more effective launch pad for your work?People think I’m a little crazy, because I built what became the global devel-opment lab at USAID from scratch. I realized what I had done at USAID could be applicable to conservation, which is even more entrenched in tra-ditional ways of looking at problems than development. I wanted to see us launch a set of grand challenges for conservation, to see us develop. Silicon

Valley has been incredibly good at improving dinner reservations for people; how do we actually harness and solve big problems?

You have to measure your life. You only get so much effort over your lifespan to effect change. I want to maximize how I’m trying to do that. This seemed like the best alternative, at the time, to make the biggest differ-ence in this field. Conservation is in a state of flux, and I want to have the chance to direct the trajectory.

In your attempt to maximize your efforts, how do you see public and private sectors interacting?There are three ways we can act. One is as an entrepreneur—you start a busi-ness that can bring about change. You can be an intrepreneur—transform the public and private institutions that

Photo Courtesy of Alex Dehgan Alex Dehgan visits with the residents of a lemur center.


InterviewIdea Lab

bring change from inside. And, you can be an extrapreneur, which asks: how do you transform other industries, and encourage other industries to change?

The private sector is absolutely necessary for these solutions. We need the public sector to fund the research, take the first loss, and unlock addi-tional capital to help these solutions get to scale. Both have important roles to play, and it’s crazy to not use all ele-ments of our society.

Do you see their interaction as one that’s in need of an evolution?They’re different worlds. There’s a lot of talk about private-public partnerships, but not a lot of true partnerships that harness the best of both, because it takes substantial investment. There are ways that public-private partnerships work really well—governments support universities, but it’s not enough to do research and publish a paper,

how do we translate that knowledge in service to society? That takes another partnership with the private sector, universities, NGOs, and organizations to take those ideas to innovation, to enterprise, and help those enterprises get to scale. It calls for a new model. NGOs need to act more like private sector companies. Companies need to be driven by impact beyond corporate social responsibility. Governments need to learn how to unlock the private sector.

If you were to envision a future in which all correct decisions have been made, what would that look like and what were the key decisions?We would have a much greater partnership and sourcing of solutions from universities, industry, govern-ment, and the developing world that help us rethink replacements for products that are driving species, eco-systems, and our own species extinct. We would restore degraded territo-ries, so instead of losing rainforests, we’re gaining them; instead of having to clear new forests for land, we’re going to degraded land and growing more food. We’re helping build resilience into our coral reef systems, our natural systems, and engineering our microbiology. It’s a proactive approach. It’s a world where billions of people are lifted out of poverty not because of donor aid, but because of their own innovation, which the major donors and corporations have worked together to unlock. It’s a world where we use tools that we used to put this Volkswagen-sized rover on the surface of Mars to address the challenges of conserva-tion and development, and we stop losing species because of our own actions.

Photo Courtesy of Alex Dehgan Colin McCormick of Conservation X Labs works on a device that uses lasers to detect chytridiomychosis in the field, a fungal device that is driving species extinct.


Perspectives

Oumo, from sub-Saharan Africa, was forced to trade sex twice for

a fake passport and passage to Turkey on her way to Greece. Noor, a pregnant mother of two, was freezing and in severe pain as she waited for a train near the Serbian-Croatian border, unknowingly sitting just meters away from medical services. The journey for Farah and her daughters, who fled Afghanistan and then Iran, was both difficult and dangerous. Their biggest fear? Men.

Outrage, sparked by recent attacks in Cologne, Germany, rightfully led to conversations about upholding women’s rights in Europe,1 but steered the conversation away from investi-gating widespread, consistent abuses of migrant women’s rights across the continent. Sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation, and a lack of medical resources make the migration route just as dangerous for women and girls, if not more so, than the situations they are attempting to leave behind. European countries consistently top the World Economic Forum’s rankings on gender equal-ity and lead the world in ensuring women’s rights,2 yet refugee women consistently and unnecessarily suffer within their borders.

Oumo, Noor, and Farah are just a few among thousands of women who have fled their countries and traversed Europe toward hope for a safe resettlement. Their stories serve as case studies in a joint assessment conducted by the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), released on January 20, and a second WRC report

released on January 26.3,4 The joint assessment highlights conditions for female migrants in Greece and Macedonia, and the WRC’s second report reveals findings from research in Serbia and Slovenia. The release of these reports follows that of Amnesty International’s January 18 report on the assault, exploitation, and harass-ment of women on the migrant trail.5

These reports shed light on harsh realities that have existed since the beginning of the refugee crisis. Beyond investigating the inadequate services for migrant women, the reports offer exigent recommendations to local governments and international aid organizations to take more concerted action. Their research makes clear that the suffering of refugee women and girls is preventable within the realm of current organizational and govern-mental power. According to Dr. Sarah Costa, executive director of WRC, “The response in Europe so far is failing women and girls on the migration route in every way.”

Failure to ensure the safety of refugee women is not new. “This hap-pens in every humanitarian crisis,” says Deni Robey, director of strategic communications at WRC, “and yet over and over and over, the necessary guidelines, systems and procedures to

protect women don’t get set up in the beginning. It’s hard to go back and set them up later.”

Much of the abuse experienced by women and girls, according to Amnesty International, occurs at the hands of police and other refugees in sleeping and bathroom facilities that are not separated by gender. Marcy Hersch, a senior advocacy officer

at WRC who researched and wrote for both WRC reports, says she saw “no separate bathrooms or sleeping spaces, no lighting, no rape kits. To see this in Europe, I just find it very disappointing.”

Female interpreters and specialists are essential so that women and girls can safely and confidentially discuss their needs, yet they are missing across the board, according to Hersh. When refugees enter European transit centers, they “first encounter police and military officials who play the role of helping everyone get preliminary information. I have never seen a single female police officer. Front line work-ers are uniformly men,” says Hersh.

When female translators and personnel are not visible at entry, exit, or transit centers, women and girls are less likely to seek out relevant services or ask questions about sensitive information, whether it be related to

Syria Outbound: Protecting Women on the Migrant Trailby Molly Bernstein and Xanthe Ackerman

Bernstein, M. and X. Ackerman. (2016). Syria Outbound: Protecting Women on the Migrant Trail. Solutions 7(2): 20–22.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/syria-outbound-protecting-women-on-the-migrant-trail/

“Women’s rights organizations are strong across Europe, and yet we have systematically found that they’re an untapped source of support.” —Dr. Sarah Costa


Perspectives

reproductive health, sanitary napkins, or sexual and gender-based violence. “Even if a woman wanted to come for-ward, she can’t. This is unacceptable,” says Robey.

One of the most glaringly absent structures is systemized, cross-border information sharing about high-risk refugees. The silence between transit points renders any isolated services or progress made with individual refu-gees en route essentially meaningless. To compensate for local governments’ shortcomings, humanitarian aid workers resort to sharing information in WhatsApp groups. Poor handling of information is most harmful to survivors of sexual violence, who are forced to “disclose sensitive details of

their case multiple times, which can be re-traumatizing,” according to the WRC report.

WRC found that local women’s groups were the most effective at sharing information, particularly in the Balkans. These organizations set up ad hoc networks and target areas where refugees are backed up outside of official transit points. They deliver the kind of services and havens for women that governments and inter-national organizations have failed to adequately provide.

“Women’s rights organizations are strong across Europe,” says Costa, “and yet we have systematically found that they’re an untapped source of support.”

One such organization, Atina, gets around government roadblocks by deploying teams to work around the perimeters of transit centers where refugees are waiting.6 The teams they send to assist refugees take a global approach to serving women. By creat-ing safe areas for mothers to drop off their children, they give women time and space to rest. In secure, women-only spaces, they provide a range of medical services, and offer support to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Their cross-border network helps women moving quickly along the migration route.

Yet women’s activists trying to reach and help migrant women report having to navigate obstacles,

Natalia Tsoukala/ Caritas International A refugee woman stranded at Idomeni, on the Greek-Macedonian border in late January 2016.


Perspectives

including circuitous routes to camps. “They’re often told it’s for their own protection,” says Hersch, although she finds the excuse dubious. In fact, the WRC report finds that not only are local governments and aid organizations in Europe neglecting women’s needs on the migrant trail, but they actively refuse women’s rights organizations access to transit centers.

Says Hersch, “I feel outraged at what I saw.”

Ben White/ CAFOD Two Syrian women disembark from a plastic dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos in October 2015. Having made the harrowing crossing from Turkey, they would have then set off on the equally challenging migrant trail through Europe.

References1. ProChange. In Cologne, German Women’s Bodies

Should Not Be Used to Promote Racism. Ms.blog

Magazine [online] (January 12, 2016) http://

msmagazine.com/blog/2016/01/12/in-cologne-

german-womens-bodies-should-not-be-used-to-

promote-racism/.

2. The Global Gender Gap Report 2014. World

Economic Forum [online] (2014) http://

www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR14/GGGR_

CompleteReport_2014.pdf.

3. Refugee women on the move in Europe are at risk,

says UN. UNHCR [online] (January 20, 2016) http://

www.unhcr.org/569fb22b6.html.

4. No Safety for Refugee Women on the European Route.

Women’s Refugee Commission [online] (January 26,

2016) https://www.womensrefugeecommission.org/

gbv/resources/1265-balkans-2016.

5. Female refugees face physical assault,

exploitation and sexual harassment on the

journey through Europe. Amnesty International

[online] (January 18, 2016) https://www.amnesty.

org/en/latest/news/2016/01/female-refugees-

face-physical-assault-exploitation-and-sexual-

harassment-on-their-journey-through-europe/.

6. The Women Helping Refugees Survive Europe’s

Migration Crisis. Atina [online] (2016)

http://www.atina.org.rs/en/content/women-helping-

refugees-survive-europes-migration-crisis.


Perspectives

Bousquet, K. (2016). U.S.—Mexico Border Militarization Has Cost the Lives of Thousands of Migrants. Solutions 7(2): 23–24.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/US-Mexico-border-militarization-has-cost-the-lives-of-thousands-of-migrants/

As presidential candidates in the United States struggle to find

the right answer for the immigration issue, from Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s proposal of the construction of a border wall, to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders’ cries for (still undefined) immigration reform, they all stand the risk of missing the true solution to migrant deaths in the desert: a humane and demilitarized border. The Sonoran desert along the Arizona–Mexico border is one of the most treacherous stretches of land in North America. In the summer time, average temperatures can climb past 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with no water sources for masses of its expanse. Since 2001, more than 2,100 Mexican and Central American migrants have died as a result of exposure,

dehydration, and injuries sustained in the Sonoran desert as they attempted to cross the border into the United States.1 Enter No More Deaths,2 a faith-based humanitarian organization based out of Tucson, Arizona, which distributes water, food, and medical supplies within the 226-square-mile stretch of the Sonoran that sees the highest amount of the desert’s migrant traffic—and the most deaths.

Coming upon water jugs left by No More Deaths might mean the difference between fatal dehydration and survival for migrants traversing the Sonoran. The organization also offers legal support to migrants in the United States facing deportation and gives assistance to migrants who claim to have been abused by Border Patrol officers, providing a means

to document alleged incidents of brutality, mistreatment, and denial of medical care in detention centers. The Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) pro-gram “Need to Know” has aired hidden camera footage from videos taken by No More Deaths that captured Border Patrol agents slashing and pouring out full water jugs left out by the organiza-tion, an act of cruelty volunteers of No More Deaths say is a common occurrence.3

As much of an impact No More Death’s aid might have on the survival of migrants crossing the desert, water alone is not enough to end suffering along the border. The organization recognizes this, having advocated since its inception for the urgency of border demilitarization. The militari-zation of the border, referred to by the Border Patrol as “prevention-through-deterrence,” has seen a campaign of attrition waged along the border as urban areas have seen a surge in border patrol troops—there are now some 21,000 border patrol agents as compared to 10,500 in 2004.4 These troops are armed with military-grade weapons: machine guns, armored cars, aircraft, and surveillance drones. Assuring that areas with the infrastructure to cross easily, such as El Paso, south Texas, and central Arizona, were thoroughly policed, any migrants seeking an entry point would be forced to cross through the most geographically dangerous migration corridors—such as the Sonoran desert.

Mexican net immigration has fallen to practically zero in recent years. Policy experts at the Pew Center cite a drastic drop in Mexican birth rates, the economic recession, and border militarization policies as potentially responsible for the drop.5 However, militarization has not been enough to stem the flow of migrants from Central America, the number of which led the Department of Homeland Security to

U.S.–Mexico Border Militarization Has Cost the Lives of Thousands of Migrantsby Kendall Bousquet

No More Deaths The entrance to the Arivaca desert-aid camp run by No More Deaths.


Perspectives

hold a hearing in 2014 on the crisis of unaccompanied children migrating across the border.6 Recent years have seen an astronomical surge of young girls making the journey, with the Pew Center reporting an increase of 77 percent for girls under the age of 18 migrating in the year 2014 alone,7 compared to an eight percent increase for boys. Girls and women are espe-cially vulnerable on the journey, with Amnesty International reporting the rate of rape of female migrants at 60 percent and other figures estimating up to a staggering 80 percent.8 Despite these dangers, as long as the condi-tions in Central America that compel migration exist—grinding poverty and violence spurred on by years of U.S.-backed dictatorships, interven-tions, and free trade policies—the surge northward will continue. The

geographic climate of the desert is not to blame for thousands of migrants who have lost their lives, but rather a political climate of xenophobia and privatization fueling a border industrial complex of militarization.

References1. McIntyre, E.S. Death in the desert: the dangerous

trek between Mexico and Arizona. Al Jazeera

America [online] (March 11, 2014) http://america.

aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/11/death-in-the-desert

thedangeroustrekbetweenmexicoandarizona.html.

2. No More Deaths [online] (2016) http://forms.

nomoredeaths.org/en/.

3. Epstein, B. Crossing the line, part 2. PBS [online]

(July 20, 2012) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-

know/video/video-crossing-the-line/14291/.

4. Farley, R. Obama says border patrol has doubled

the number of agents since 2004. Politifact [online]

(May 10th, 2011) http://www.politifact.com/truth-

o-meter/statements/2011/may/10/barack-obama/

obama-says-border-patrol-has-doubled-number-

agents/.

5. Gonzalez-Barrera, A. More Mexicans leaving than

coming to the U.S. Pew Research Center [online]

(November 19, 2015) http://www.pewhispanic.

org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-

coming-to-the-u-s/.

6. Fugate, C., G. Kerlikowske, and T. Winkowski.

Challenges at the Border: Examining the Causes,

Consequences, and Responses to the Rise in

Apprehensions at the Southern Border (written

testimony). Senate Committee on Homeland

Security and Governmental Affairs hearing, U.S.

Department of Homeland Security [online] (July

9, 2014) https://www.dhs.gov/news/2014/07/09/

written-testimony-fema-cbp-and-ice-senate-

committee-homeland-security-and.

7. Krogstad, J.M., A. Gonzalez-Barrera, and M.H. Lopez.

At the Border, a sharp rise in unaccompanied girls

fleeing Honduras. Pew Research Center [online]

(July 25, 2014) http://www.pewresearch.org/

fact-tank/2014/07/25/at-the-border-a-sharp-rise-in-

unaccompanied-girls-fleeing-honduras/.

8. Goldberg, E. 80% of Central American women, girls

are raped crossing into U.S. Huffington Post [online]

(September 12, 2014) http://www.huffingtonpost.

com/2014/09/12/central-america-migrants-

rape_n_5806972.html.

No More Deaths A No More Deaths truck is loaded with gallons of water to be left for migrants traversing the Sonoran.


Perspectives

Cities produce 75 percent of the world’s total greenhouse

gases (GHGs), a major contributor to climate change.1 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) state, “Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes are breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner. Effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves. The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the

number, duration, and intensity of tropical storms.”2 The consequences of human output are real and the issue of climate change is gaining aware-ness. A significant number of cities are taking steps at the local government level by proposing to lower their GHG emissions by as much as 90 percent.

One of the largest human impacts are landfills, which are the third largest contributor of methane in the United States. This GHG is roughly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is the second most prevalent GHG that the United States emits.3 Because of both the amount of methane produced and its cogent effects, GHG reduction goals can be immediately impacted by decreasing dependence on landfill use. Therefore, increasing the amount of waste

diverted from landfills is an important step in reducing the United States’ GHG emissions.

The current United States diversion rate is 34 percent.4 This is a relatively low number in comparison to other countries. In 2013 Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Austria each had above a 50 percent recycling rate.5 To determine the cause of low diversion rates, a team of gradu-ate and undergraduate students from The Ohio State University conducted interviews in order to research the recycling market. The team inter-viewed 26 government representatives across the country asking why diversion rates were so low. Research participants pointed to contamination as a primary issue. Contamination happens when non-recyclable materi-als mix into the recycling stream. These non-recyclable materials decrease both the value and quantity of recyclables that can be processed at material recovery facilities (MRFs). Once the material is sorted, it is sold to end markets depending on the purity and commodity market price.

Currently in the United States, for every 100 pounds of recyclable material collected, 22–27 pounds of it are considered contaminated and cannot be recycled.6 Government representatives stated that they use education as a way to address the issue of contamination and have tasked so-called Municipal Recycling Educators with the responsibility of reaching out to, and better educating, com-munity members on recycling habits. Halfway into the research process, the Ohio State team believed that a tech-nological innovation could provide Municipal Recycling Educators with a tool to educate the community on contamination issues. However, after multiple interviews and more second-ary research, the team found that the issue of contamination is a complex

How to Clean up Recycling Habits in the United Statesby Velvette De Laney, Sammie Keitlen, and Maggie Wehri

Bill Ferriter Research reveals that high diversion rates in the United States are primarily due to contamination, when non-recyclable materials are mixed into the recycling stream.


Perspectives

problem that cannot be addressed by a single technology-based tool. A far more robust and flexible system, perhaps involving a change in policy, would be required.

Problem–Solution FitThe Ohio State University team interviewed multiple recycling municipality leaders and discovered that they view contamination as a significant problem. During inter-views, recycling leaders explained how education is used to combat con-tamination by Municipal Recycling Educators. Based on this information, the team believed that the Municipal Recycling Educators could benefit from a new technology, a mobile

application that provides contamina-tion data and additional information to help municipalities educate the public.

Once the team investigated the recycling application market seg-ment, they found that there were a number of resources already available, including mobile phone applications for consumer use. Among these is iRecycle, an application that finds local recycling opportunities and provides ways to recycle over 350 materials in the United States.7 Another example, Gro Recycling, is a game that teaches preschoolers which items are recyclable by feeding recycling bins what they like to “eat.”8 A new application was developed in

2013 with unique barcode scanning technology that tells the consumer what is and is not recyclable based on their location.9 Due to the multiple applications already on the market, it was evident that a new technology would not provide any advantage for city municipalities or consumers look-ing to increase diversion rates. When the team determined that there was no technological problem–solution fit, they decided to investigate what methods cities are currently using to decrease contamination and why the issue of contamination is so difficult to solve.

Every Municipal Recycling Educator the team spoke to had different methods of educating the

Kevin Dooley Pro-recycling graffiti on the Central Avenue bridge in Phoenix, Arizona.


Perspectives

public, including websites, emails, social media outlets, and many others. Informational flyers are used in schools, at events, mailed to residences, and even hand delivered. Recycling bins are labeled to show the consumer what can and cannot be recycled. In addition, Municipal Recycling Educators host community events to raise awareness and educate the public. Strategies involving a variety of methods are used in order to reach all demographics of a city. Each Municipal Recycling Educator stressed the importance of education, but they also explained that their efforts can only do so much. One Municipal Recycling Educator, Caroline Mitchell from Fort Collins, Colorado, summed up the problem by mentioning, “I’m not sure that contamination will ever be ‘solved.’ The general public will never recycle 100 percent in line with local guidelines, but that’s one of the main reasons that all recycling goes through a processing facility (known in the industry as a MRF). Constant education and then sorting the con-taminants out of the recyclables are

just part of the process.”10 Although contamination is a considerable problem, many Municipal Recycling Educators believed it will remain unsettled until the entire recycling system is changed. At the heart of the problem lie four key issues: the vari-ability of recycling structures within each community, the differences in recyclables accepted by different communities, the lack of resources available to municipalities, and a lack of incentive to recycle on the part of community members.

Contamination CausesThe team interviewed municipalities from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, New York, Michigan, West Virginia, California, and Colorado. In their interviews, the team discovered that each recycling program is unique to the area and incredibly complex. For example, in Denver, Colorado, The Public Works Department is in charge of the city’s recycling campaign, while Columbus, Ohio’s recycling campaigns are delegated to The Office of Environmental Stewardship and

the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio. Across the United States, there is great variety in organizational structures, which makes recycling infrastructures difficult to improve. The Communications Coordinator of Santa Monica, California explained that because every city uses a different plan, a different set of instructions, and a different way of educating, each one has a limited impact on the overall market problem as well as consumer behavior.11

In addition, not all cities accept the same recyclable materials, which causes confusion. People visiting, moving to, or working in a new area often come from a region that recycles different materials. For example, Ann Arbor, Michigan collaborates with a nonprofit organization, Recycle Ann Arbor. The Municipal Recycling Educator described Ann Arbor as a college town that has a large turnover of residents each year. This Municipal Recycling Educator described a cul-tural shift where young individuals do not tend to stay in the same location for long periods of time and rather frequently move from city to city. Therefore, residents often come from all over the country and do not realize that their new city may not accept the same materials as their previous one.12 The differences in acceptable recyclable material vary from city to city, based on what the local MRF accepts. Not all MRFs accept the same materials because the profitability of recyclables is different based on their location, and the recycling capabilities of sorting machines can be diverse. Ultimately, the variances in recy-clability create a lot of confusion for residents, resulting in unintentional contamination.

Another factor frequently men-tioned in interviews was the lack of resources available for recycling. Cities often have a limited number of staff

Nestlé A worker waste material for recycling at a confectionary factory.


Perspectives

dedicated to educating the public and the compensation for such a task is relatively low, leading to a difficulty in finding appropriate candidates for the job. Cities also have budget restraints stemming from the need to allocate funds across multiple departments. Local government representatives stated that recycling is a lower priority when compared to other city utilities. The Director of Cleveland, Ohio’s Office of Sustainability explained that it is difficult to allocate a lot of money to “green” efforts when the com-munity is largely poor. He explained that “often, when you’re working in a city with a large low-income popula-tion, collaborating with a variety of different organizations is necessary to get projects done because resources are sometimes limited. Fortunately, collaboration brings a host of other benefits, including better chance at community-wide support.”13 However, many city governments and local orga-nizations focus on other issues besides recycling and are not mandated to take action. Therefore, recycling is pushed down the list and fewer city resources are allocated toward it.

Recycling programs also lack con-sumer motivators. Secondary research found that United States recyclers are primarily motivated by incentives, purpose, and meaning.14 If these are missing, the motivation to recycle, and recycle properly, is diminished. Interviewees mentioned citizens who do recycle often do so out of a sense of personal responsibility. These residents understand the positive benefits associ-ated with recycling and are willing and able to make the effort. However, more strategic efforts are needed to incentivize the majority of residents with external motivation. While the positive impacts of increased diversion rates help avoid excess GHG emis-sions and water consumption, those impacts do not immediately impact

an individual community. There are also no direct repercussions for the consumer if they dispose of items incorrectly. The Municipal Recycling Educators suggested that incentiviza-tion was a key element that needs to be incorporated into a solution in order to create a tangible, immediate benefit, because “responsibility” and “goodwill” are not enough.

Combating Contamination Strategy and ConclusionSuccessful recycling programs in the United States employ policy changes, rather than technology-based solutions. In order to combat contamination, the feedback received suggests that the implementation of a policy-based strategy that incorporates a more multifaceted approach—one that would build a recycling program that incorporates incentives and mandates—is the best course of action.

Communities searching for strategies can explore programs and initiatives already put in place by more successful cities. Examples of this method include pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) programs in cities like Atlanta, Georgia where residents are charged for their trash pick-up but receive free recycling services.15 More progressive programs require homeowners to both recycle and compost. San Francisco,

California provides homeowners with compost bins, recycling bins, and waste bins.16 Seattle, Washington fines residents whose waste bins are filled with 10 percent or more of recyclables or food waste.17

These cities can be great models for other communities to base their efforts on. However, it is apparent that the resources required to implement policy

changes are not easily acquired in every city within the U.S. More research on contamination and its challenges are needed in order to increase diversion rates across the U.S.

This project’s research would suggest that minimally funded cities should focus their efforts on collab-orating with other organizations in order to promote community engagement and education. Educating residents, particularly new residents, on recycling best-practices that are city specific can reduce con-tamination in recycle bins. Engaging residents of all ages in active recycling habits would go a long way towards developing a sense of responsibility and community.

References1. Cities and Climate Change. UNEP. United

Nations Environmental Progamme [online]

(2015) http://www.unep.org/resourceefficiency/

“Often, when you’re working in a city with a large low-income population, collaborating with a variety of different organizations is necessary to get projects done…Fortunately, collaboration brings a host of other benefits, including better chance at community-wide support.” —Director, Cleveland Office of Sustainability


Perspectives

Policy/ResourceEfficientCities/FocusAreas/

CitiesandClimateChange/tabid/101665/Default.

aspx.

2. Global Climate Change: Effects. Climate Change:

Vital Signs of the Planet [online] (2015) http://

climate.nasa.gov/effects/.

3. Overview of Greenhouse Gases. Methane Emissions

[online] (2015) http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/

ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html.

4. Municipal Solid Waste. US Environmental

Protection Agency. United States EPA [online] (2015)

http://www3.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/municipal/.

5. Municipal Waste Recycling Rates in 32 European

Countries, 2001 and 2010. European Environment

Agency [online] (March 19, 2013) http://www.eea.

europa.eu/publications/managing-municipal-solid-

waste.

6. Collins, S. A Common Theme. Resource Recycling

[online] (February 2012) http://www.container-

recycling.org/assets/pdfs/ACommonTheme.pdf.

7. iRecycle. ITunes App Store. Apple Inc. [online]

(2015) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/irecycle/

id312708176?mt=8.

8. Gro Recycling. ITunes App Store. Apple Inc.

[online] (2015) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gro-

recycling/id663552636?mt=8.

9. Scanning Innovation to ‘Transform’ Recycling?

Recycling International [online] (2015) http://www.

recyclinginternational.com/recycling-news/7321/

other-news/united-states/scanning-innovation-039-

transform-039-recycling.

10. Mitchell, C. Contamination and Fort Collins. E-mail

interview. November 13, 2015.

11. Basmajian, A. Santa Monica. E-mail interview.

November 16, 2015.

12. Chessler-Stull, C. Ann Arbor. Phone interview.

December 6, 2015.

13. Gray, M. Cleveland. Phone interview. November 24,

2015.

14. Incentive Programs for Local Government

Recycling and Waste Reduction [online] (October

19, 2001) http://webcache.googleusercontent.

com/search?q=cache:UAmVzba4OxoJ:www.

calrecycle.ca.gov/Publications/

Documents/LocalAsst%255C31001008.

doc+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us.

15. Pay-As-You-Throw Programs. Sustainable Cities

Institute, National League of Cities [online] (2015)

http://www.sustainablecitiesinstitute.org/topics/

materials-management/recycling/pay-as-you-throw-

programs.

16. Zero Waste FAQ. SFEnvironment, Department and

City of San Francisco [online] (2015) http://www.

sfenvironment.org/zero-waste/overview/zero-waste-

faq.

17. Ordinances Prohibiting Recyclables in Garbage.

Seattle Public Utilities [online] (2015) http://www.

seattle.gov/Util/MyServices/Garbage/AboutGarbage/

SolidWastePlans/AboutSolidWaste/BanOrdinance/

index.htm.

John Markos O’Neill A young girl pulls a compost bin in San Francisco, California. The city provides homeowners with compost, recycling, and waste bins.


Perspectives

To most in the social enterprise field, the Middle East is not

known for social innovation. The region is consistently labeled as slow, stagnant, and inflexible—not exactly qualities that foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Saudi Arabia in particular is known for its conserva-tive, collectivist culture and fear of change. Most Saudi citizens are discouraged from starting their own businesses due to both cultural and regulatory factors. Inflexible legal frameworks, such as limited business license classifications and large capital requirements are only a few of the barriers social entrepreneurs face. Although regulatory conditions have improved in recent years, a widespread fear of failure and hesitancy towards the new and different have proved to be culturally ingrained challenges. Regardless, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Saudi Arabia’s percent of total early-stage entrepreneurial activity is 9.4 percent, nearly twice what it was in 2009.1

Despite these barriers, there is a strong culture of volunteerism throughout the Arab world, especially among youth who are involved in community-led activism and philan-thropic charities, which points to a strong potential for social enterprise. According to an online survey carried out by Bayt.com—the MENA region’s largest site for job seekers—and YouGov Siraj, with more than 12,000 residents in 18 Arab countries, 58 percent of people who wanted to start an NGO in Saudi Arabia were unable to do so due to regulatory constraints.2 While some change has already started to occur, transforming the region into a powerful hub of critical thinkers and

strong leaders who challenge the status quo and youth who are encouraged to take stakes in their own futures and families has been challenging.

There is, however, a growing number of innovators throughout the region who are challenging the status quo and working to develop a new generation of leaders in the entrepre-neurial field. Lulwa Al-Soudairy, an MBA recipient from Babson College in Boston, MA, co-founded Artistia.com, an online marketplace to buy and sell goods on an e-commerce platform. Artistia empowers Saudi Arabian artisans to sell their creations and encourages local production, something that is sorely lacking in Saudi Arabia, as most Saudi Arabians purchase their products from multina-tional name brands.3

I met with Al-Soudairy, who is currently based in Boston, to talk to her about her experience with social enterprise in Saudi Arabia. Al-Soudairy first heard about social enterprise while getting her undergraduate degree at Dar Al-Hekma, a private women’s college in Jeddah. As one of 30 students selected to take part in the U.S.–Saudi Women’s Forum on Social Entrepreneurship sponsored by Babson, she and her peers took a crash course in social entrepreneurship and received resources to help them start projects to be implemented when they returned to Saudi Arabia.

From her time in the forum, Al-Soudairy, along with a team of 13 other young Saudi women, launched a program called Reading Nation, which refurbished old vending machines and transformed them into book vending machines with the purpose of encourag-ing reading and an interest in literature

within Saudi Arabia. Although Reading Nation still exists, Al-Soudairy chose to return to the United States to pursue her MBA in Entrepreneurship and take advantage of the resources that exist in a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem like Boston, where she sought greater access to expertise and mentorship to help her start a business. Her most recent venture, Artistia, was launched while Al-Soudairy was completing her MBA.

As a Saudi Arabian entrepreneur, Al-Soudairy has faced a number of challenges, many of which stem from a culture skeptical of new technolo-gies, such as online marketplaces, and an economy that is largely cash-based. The “culture of entrepreneurship is also not well understood,” says Al-Soudairy, as people do not under-stand why someone might leave the security of a stable job to start a small business. As a result, she states the “culture is not supportive” of entrepre-neurs, something Al-Soudairy is trying to change with entrepreneurship edu-cation at universities in Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the cultural barri-ers that she has faced, Al-Soudairy

A Day in the Life of a Saudi Arabian Social Entrepreneurby Miranda Beggin

Karen Pike Photography Lulwa Al-Soudairy, co-founder of Artistia.com.

Beggin, M. (2016). A Day in the Life of a Saudi Arabian Social Entrepreneur. Solutions 7(2): 30–31.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-saudi-arabian-social-entrepreneur/


Perspectives

identified a number of regulatory problems within the Saudi Arabian legal structure that make it difficult for entrepreneurs to succeed. For example, when trying to incorporate Artistia, Al-Soudairy found that Saudi Arabia does not give licenses to e-commerce businesses. As a result, despite having no need for a physical store location, Al-Soudairy must keep a physical space in Saudi Arabia for her business. This is just one example of what she refers to as a legal system that “isn’t supporting young people who are trying to do new and different things.”

According to Al-Soudairy, the exist-ing entrepreneurship infrastructure, such as incubators and mentorship programs, doesn’t push entrepreneurs

to disrupt the status quo and truly innovate. Creativity is lacking, she says, as many of the businesses that come through these programs fail to demon-strate any innovation or localization, and instead often appear to be repli-cates of other successful businesses.

Al-Soudairy is hopeful that the attitude towards entrepreneurship is changing, albeit slowly. She is cur-rently working with Babson to create a university-level entrepreneurship and business program at a school in Saudi Arabia that will foster innovation through critical thinking, discussion-based coursework, and mentorship. Building a country of innovative prob-lem-solvers is a formidable task on its own, but Al-Soudairy believes the educational shifts within institutions

of higher education in Saudi Arabia are the first step in developing a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, one in which the philanthropic motiva-tions of Saudi Arabian people can be utilized to foster innovative and sustainable social change through entrepreneurship.

References1. GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [online]

http://www.gemconsortium.org/.

2. Buckner, E., S. Beges, and L. Khatib. Social

entrepreneurship: why is it important post-

Arab Spring? [online] (2012) http://iis-db.

stanford.edu/pubs/23656/White_Paper_Social_

Entrepreneurship.pdf.

3. Damas, J. 10 Babson startups to watch in 2015.

Babson Blogs [online] (2015) http://blogs.babson.

edu/graduate/2014/12/23/10-babson-startups-to-

watch-in-2015/.

International Labor Organization Participants discuss impact evaluation in a breakout session at the Doha Evidence Symposium on Increasing Youth Productivity in the Middle East and North Africa in March 2014. Representatives of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Labor both participated in and led discussions at the event.


Perspectives

The major companies researching and developing innovative drugs

to improve and extend human life are known as Big Pharma. Big Pharma is dominated by a handful of interna-tional corporations who sink billions into research, spend billions on market-ing, and scoop up billions in sales. Their focus is on the United States—which accounts for more than a third of the global pharmaceutical market—and a handful of other nations that can afford the exorbitant price tag for patented medicines.

But even in the wealthiest countries the cost of lifesaving pills can be hard to swallow. Big Pharma is often in the news for unwarranted price hikes rang-ing from 50 percent to more than 5,000 percent, as in in the case of Daraprim, a drug used by cancer and AIDS patients that went from USD$13.50 per pill to $900 in some places.

Uncommon increases are all too common. According to FiercePharma.com, the company Valeant, “jacked up prices on 54 meds this year alone by an industry-leading average of 65.6%, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis. Last year, it hiked the prices on 62 drugs—by 50%, on average. Some of those increases were big ones. This year’s largest jumper was Glumetza, which is now 550% more expensive than it was on Jan. 1. As of July 31, the drug’s list price stood at USD$10,020 for 90 tablets, up from $896 in January 2013.”1

The same story is being repeated throughout the health-care industry. Pharmaceutical companies acquire medications and hike their prices to reflect what they claim to be the fair market value of the drugs, a practice that’s drawing heat in the national press and on Capitol Hill.2

This is old news to Big Pharma vet-eran Scott Boyer. He joined Big Pharma after college and spent the next 27 years with two of the Top 10 compa-nies, carving out a successful career. After that he spent a few years as a pharmaceutical consultant. He knows the industry from top to bottom. He understands that it takes substantial profits to underwrite research and that shareholders expect a solid return on their investments.

“That never used to bother me,” Scott recalls, “but one day I was analyzing market research data about a new drug. The wealthy and emerging markets were lined up together in a bar graph and there was this small, lonely bar on the far end of the chart that called out to me. ‘ROW’ was the title, and it stood for Rest of World.”

“I began to hear a ‘whisper’ to do something about ROW, to find a way

Pharmaceutical Social Enterprise 2.0 Brings a Small Miracle to Big Pharmaby Mike Hamel

Hamel, M. (2016). Pharmaceutical Social Enterprise 2.0 Brings a Small Miracle to Big Pharma. Solutions 7(2): 32–35.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/pharmaceutical-social-enterprise-2-0-brings-a-small-miracle-to-big-pharma/

epilepsyu.com Global rates of epilepsy.


Perspectives

to equalize the graph when it came to medical care. My sense of injustice was stirred as I thought about ROW in relation to diseases like epilepsy. Very effective, low-cost drugs were available to patients fortunate enough to live in the right countries. But the majority of the world’s epilepsy patients lived in low and middle-income regions and would never receive this life-changing help. Over time the whisper was ampli-fied into an audacious business model I think of as Social Enterprise 2.0.”

Social Enterprise 2.0We’ve all heard of one-for-one social enterprises, or companies that give something to a person in need for every item bought. Among the most famous is Tom’s Shoes. This social enterprise model has helped the company become so profitable that it recently sold to Bain Capital for USD$300 million.3

Scott refers to this approach as Social Enterprise 1.0. He’s joined with other skilled and dedicated people to pioneer a more complex social busi-ness model. They’ve started a for-profit business and a charitable foundation whose symbiotic partnership takes social enterprise to the next level. Here’s how Scott explains it in a recent interview:

OWP Pharmaceuticals is the business and the ROW Foundation is the charitable organization. OWP makes medications for people living with epilepsy. Our branded generics offer highly consistent and reliable medications at very affordable prices. We can significantly reduce the expense of medication from the patented versions and at the same time fund assistance to people in need through the ROW Foundation.

The ROW Foundation’s vision is “to improve the quality of training, diagnosis, and treatment available to people with epilepsy in under-resourced areas of the world. We envision a future when the best treat-ments for epilepsy will be available to all people, at all times, in all the world.”4

Scott and the other founders used their own resources to create OWP. Then they raised capital by selling shares in the company to philan-thropically minded investors. These investors were attracted as much to OWP/ROW’s humanitarian goals as they were to the opportunity to make money. All of the shares carry an “option” provision that guarantees ROW the right to acquire up to 50 percent of the outstanding shares. An

annual independent valuation sets the purchase price for ROW to exercise that option.

Between purchasing 50 percent of shares and acquiring additional shares as charitable contributions, the ROW Foundation will begin receiving a majority of OWP Pharmaceutical dividends within a few years, and regular dividends will fuel ROW’s philanthropic programming in under-resourced areas around the world.

What is the key factor in making this hybrid social enterprise model work? It’s all about philanthropic intent, follow through, and the firmly planted legal right of ROW to reap at least 50 percent of OWP’s dividends. The organizational relationship between OWP and ROW was inten-tionally built for this purpose.

ROW Foundation This graphic symbolizes the relationship between the ROW Foundation and OWP: two organizations working together towards global access to quality epilepsy care.


Perspectives

The founders of OWP decided from the outset that they wanted to accomplish sustainable funding of the nonprofit foundation. Their charitable intent and subsequent gifts of stock to ROW provided the seed money to continue acquiring at least 50 percent of the outstanding stock. Early investors bought in to OWP with the understanding that maximizing their individual profit is not the only goal; helping people in need is. Sustainable philanthropy occurs because program revenues are tied to a successful pharmaceutical business, not to hard-to-raise charitable contributions from individuals.

“It’s very unlikely that OWP could ever be sold or taken over by a larger pharmaceutical company,” Scott points out. “With ROW’s shareholder right to veto any change in ownership, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for other shareholders to force a sale. Even if a sale happened, ROW would remain the majority beneficiary of those proceeds. Those proceeds would then serve as the investment egg allowing ROW to continue its charitable work.”

Scott believes that others can use this hybrid model as a way to “do good while doing well.” It’s best to build the social mission into the organizational DNA from the beginning. Scott warns against restructuring a for-profit enterprise to accomplish such a goal. “After all,” he says, “a successful for-profit company is doing what a for-profit does best: making money for its shareholders, not helping out the disadvantaged.”

ROW FoundationAccording to Dr. Paul Regan, Administrator of the ROW Foundation,

“The ROW Foundation is NOT a short-term solution to a long-term problem. OWP Pharmaceuticals is the sustainable, ongoing economic engine that underwrites the ROW Foundation’s programs…As the for-profit company grows, so does the charitable work of the ROW Foundation.”5

A graphic designed for the enterprise symbolizes the relationship between the ROW Foundation and OWP: two organizations working together towards global access to quality epilepsy care.

How will the ROW Foundation use the profits from OWP? Along with providing effective medications, ROW will help neurologists in the devel-oped world partner in the training of practitioners in the developing world, improving their ability to diagnose epilepsy.

In 2015, the ROW Foundation made an EEG equipment grant to the Armenian League Against Epilepsy (ALAE). The grant included a 32-chan-nel video EEG machine with a portable workstation, computer, and monitor. It is now situated in the Arabkir Pediatric Hospital in the capital city of Yerevan. The Foundation hopes to give more grants in 2016.

Why Epilepsy?Why did Scott choose to tackle epi-lepsy, one of the world’s oldest known diseases? The need was overwhelm-ing. According to the World Health

Organization, epilepsy is one of the most serious chronic neurological diseases, affecting 50 million people of all ages globally. About 40 million people with epilepsy live in low- and middle-income countries, and at best 25 percent of them are diagnosed and treated, leaving 30 million patients untreated. Their risk of premature death is two to three times higher than the general population.

Epilepsy can be successfully treated about 70 percent of the time, enabling

As the for-profit company grows, so does the charitable work of the ROW Foundation.

ROW Foundation The ROW Foundation will use profits from OWP to fulfill its mission of improving the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy globally by providing training and resources to practitioners in the developing world.


Perspectives

patients to live relatively normal lives. The majority of these treatments are pharmaceutical. What do epilepsy suf-ferers in under-developed areas without access to these drugs do? Nothing. OWP aims to help change that.

“Market research shows that branded generic epilepsy medica-tions focused on the U.S. market will be successful,” Scott says. “The consistency and replicatability of the original brand at a lower cost will be well received, and we’ve already gotten encouragement and support from leading neurologists and epilepsy foundations.”

OWP’s first product release is Roweepra™, a branded form of the generic drug levetiracetam. Available in a 500 mg immediate-release formu-lation, it’s slated for release this spring. The OWP website has Roweepra™ being priced at USD$120 for a 90-day supply. This is a fraction of the cost of the patented drug available.

OWP will target its sales force and virtual sales team strategically, focusing initially on select areas of the United States, but its products will be available nationally through an exclusive rela-tionship with a direct mail pharmacy and in retail pharmacies as well.

Sustainable Philanthropic Foresight“My strength is in the pharmaceuti-cal industry,” Scott says, “More specifically, in strategic planning and commercializing products. That’s where I spent my career and where I can have the most impact. I’m not trying to reinvent myself; instead, I’m focused on making the most of my experience and training.”

By creating this hybrid social enterprise, Scott and his fellow founders have secured philanthropic sustainability for ROW to continue its work, even beyond their direct involvement. Scott calls it “sustainable philanthropic foresight.”

This undertaking is in unchar-tered territory; Scott and his co-founders have a lot of their own time and money on the line. Still, Scott insists, “This is the most excit-ing thing I’ve ever done. It makes me want to get up every morning. And every night when I lay down to sleep I think about the ongoing impact and lasting legacy this new social enterprise represents.”

References1. Helfand, C. Valeant’s price-hike strategy goes far

beyond two high-profile cases. FiercePharma

[online] (October 5, 2015) http://www.fiercepharma.

com/story/valeants-price-hike-strategy-goes-far-

beyond-two-high-profile-increases/2015-10-05.

2. Koons, C. This drugmaker suffered the

consequences of price increases. Bloomberg Business

[online] (October 11, 2015) http://www.bloomberg.

com/news/articles/2015-10-12/how-one-drugmaker-

learned-the-consequences-of-price-increases.

3. O’Connor, C. Bain deal makes TOMS Shoes founder

Blake Mycoskie a $300 million man. Forbes [online]

(August 20, 2014) http://www.forbes.com/sites/

clareoconnor/2014/08/20/bain-deal-makes-toms-

shoes-founder-blake-mycoskie-a-300-million-

man/#514bc8f93875.

4. ROW Foundation [online] https://rowpharma.org/.

5. Regan, P. Our graphic tells it all! ROW Foundation

[online] (August 26, 2015) https://rowpharma.org/

updates/65-our-graphic-tells-it-all.

Sylvie F. The ROW Foundation will partner neurologists in the developed world with practitioners in the developing world in an effort to improve ability to diagnose epilepsy worldwide.


Perspectives

Hemp is a plant with a long history. It has the strongest

fiber found in any plant, and in the Elizabethan period, it was used extensively by European fleets for ship construction, ropes, sails, and for the clothing of their crews.

The main variety of hemp, Cannabis sativa, comes with high and low psychoactive levels and has been cultivated throughout recorded history for its industrial fiber, seed oil, food, medicine, and for recreation and spiritual enlightenment.

For recreational use, the plant is generally referred to as “cannabis” or “marijuana.” This utilizes the component chemical of tetrahydro-cannabinol, or THC, to produce a high in the user. It is due to this connection that certain countries throughout

the world have either banned or introduced stringent controls on the growth of hemp. Since the everyday term of “hemp” may include all of the above uses, it has been practical to use terminology that differentiates the legal and nonlegal uses of the plant. This has brought about the use of “industrial hemp” to describe the low, or even zero, THC content of certain varieties of Cannabis sativa.

For the purposes of this article, the term “hemp” will refer strictly to industrial hemp.

The hemp plant is grown for both its straw and seeds. The straw consists of its fiber and core, which is called the shiv. Hemp fiber is the strongest known natural fiber (apart from a certain type of silk) and has been used extensively over the centuries. It

has been utilized not only for ropes, canvas, and clothing, but also for paper, plastic goods, and string. Most ancient manuscripts are written on hemp paper, including the famous British Magna Carta, written in 1215 AD.

Due to its high properties for insu-lation and absorption, the shiv is used predominantly for building insulation and animal bedding.

The seeds are used mainly for food, whether whole, ground, or pressed for oil. The oil is used not only like other oils for cooking and salad dressings but also as a milk alternative. In his comprehensive 1993 book on fat nutrition, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill, Dr. Udo Erasmus concluded that “the best-balanced source of essential fatty acids is hemp seed oil.” According to

The Enormous Potential of Industrial Hempby Anson Allen

Allen, A. (2016). The Enormous Potential of Industrial Hemp. Solutions 7(2): 36–39.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-enormous-potential-of-industrial-hemp/

UK College of Agriculture, Food & Environment An industrial hemp plot at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment’s Spindletop Research Farm in Lexington, Kentucky.


Perspectives

further research based in Kentucky, “the oil is over 70% polyunsaturated or cholesterol-fighting essential fatty acids and contains all 8 essential amino acids.” There is sufficient evi-dence to show that the seeds are one of the healthiest foods available for human consumption.

Hemp is one of the earliest domes-ticated plants known to man and has been grown for hundreds, and even thousands of years in many countries of the world. It is believed to have originated from the Himalayas, where in addition to its many usages, it was particularly beneficial in preventing soil erosion.

Industrial hemp is currently cultivated in 29 countries of the world, including 15 countries in Europe. In recent years, there has been a small amount of licensed crops grown in Wales.

Hemp’s Demise and PotentialWhy was the growing of hemp banned in so many countries? There is much evidence to show that the banning was in effect an industrial conspiracy against the product for a variety of competitive reasons. The manufacturers of synthetic fibers and paper worked together to have it banned in the United States, and then in many other countries, on the pretext that it was only grown for its recreational use as marijuana. Since so many countries have accepted the potential for industrial hemp it is now grown quite widely, but still often with stringent restrictions. For instance in Australia, the United Kingdom, and many other countries, it can only be grown legitimately under license. The process to become licensed is usually expensive and highly bureaucratic.

With hemp’s enormous proven potential, the main barriers to its reju-venation are these legal restrictions.

The Benefits of Industrial Hemp FarmingThe hemp plant grows to a height of up to three meters and is one of the fastest growing biomasses known,

producing up to 25 tons of dry matter per hectare per year.

One farmer in Wales successfully grew a hemp crop in 2009 at over 900 feet above sea level. He harvested it with a traditional disc mower and round baler, and then used the straw very successfully for animal bedding.

In addition to its high yielding poten-tial, hemp has high agronomic and environmental attributes. It requires few pesticides and with its deep root-ing, it survives well in dry conditions, bringing up nutrients from deep in the soil. Hence it is an excellent rotational crop. One farmer in Pembrokeshire reported that a barley crop that followed an earlier hemp trial crop was the best yielding barley crop he had ever grown. Once established, hemp grows very quickly. Its short growing cycle appeals to farmers who are using it as a rota-tional crop, as they are able to introduce the following winter crop in good time.

Since its deep roots enhance soil nutrition, hemp is drought tolerant and usually needs no fertilizers, except possibly nitrogen. However, if sowing follows a legume crop, such as lupins, which have been grown very success-fully in parts of Australia, then hemp may grow well without any artificial fertilizer at all.

Provided it is sown at the appropri-ate time in the season—when the ground is at a minimum temperature of 10ºC and after rain when the soil is moist—hemp germinates and grows quickly, outgrowing competitive weeds. It can therefore be grown without the use of herbicides. What’s more, the plant also contains a natural insect repellent and, therefore, does not require the use of insecticides.

Why is a Revival in the Cards?With a significant number of countries now permitting the cultivation of hemp, its revival is well under way. There is so much evidence both histori-cal and current as to its great potential and benefits that the cultivation, pro-cessing, and use of hemp is developing

Anson Allen A farmer with his hemp crop in Powys, Wales in 2009.


Perspectives

quite strongly around the world. However, its cultivation is not easy in all regions. The areas most suited to its cul-tivation are those with a Mediterranean climate. The climate in parts of the United Kingdom is not ideal.

A few years ago, a group of farm-ers and other interested parties got together in Southwest Wales to re-establish the regular growing of industrial hemp by providing other farmers with the necessary informa-tion and support, and to secure the required processing and distribution channels for the selected products.

The main emphasis of this project, called Hemp Wales, through 2011 was to support a farmer with his four-acre, organically grown trial crop in Pembrokeshire. However, although the trial crop grew very well, it could not be harvested due to wet weather and boggy soils. The following trial in 2012 did not develop properly due to bad weather, and the 2013 crop also grew well but could not be harvested. Very disappointedly, Hemp Wales had to give up the re-establishment of hemp as a regular crop in Wales.

In spite of the disappointing results in Wales, the crop is grown success-fully in some other parts of the United Kingdom, and ever encouraging research indicates the great global agri-cultural and industrial potential for the crop. Since Australia has more suitable climates than Wales, we would encour-age farmers, businesses, and politicians in the country to do much more for this high-potential industry.

The Current ScenarioSo what is the current scenario affect-ing the rejuvenation of hemp and its products around the world? It is a mix of positives and challenges, although there is no question about its enor-mous economic and environmental potential. There is much information about the cultivation of hemp and the

steps being taken by many countries to rejuvenate the growing of the crop. A comprehensive 45-page thesis by Erin Young at Lund University in Sweden gives many insights into current activi-ties and the great potential for hemp.2

Hemp entrepreneur and author of many books on the subject, Paul Benhaim, provides a wealth of information. Having been involved in the various hemp industries for over 15 years, he founded one of the most informative websites on industrial hemp. “Over the past decade I’ve amassed a lot of knowledge on what it takes to grow hemp for profit,” he says. This knowledge “comes from being involved in hemp growing, processing, and manufacturing and from working with successful hemp farmers across the globe. But most people don’t know the wonderful qualities and the amaz-ing potential of the hemp plant.”3

In the United States, the current and historical uses of hemp are well documented; however, due to its current legal constraints, cropping is still virtually nonexistent. The result is that most hemp products in the country are imported from Canada.

The hemp industry thrives on a small basis in parts of the United Kingdom. Good Hemp brand oil, pro-duced in Cornwall, is available for sale in many shops and supermarkets, and there is limited use of hemp and lime in construction. Hemp growing and processing is much more developed in France and other European countries where the climate is more favorable.

The Future of Industrial HempIf THC varieties are legalized, then the market potential for the industrial hemp sector is enormous. Essential oil is highly concentrated, and when the THC variety is used, it is alleged to be an effective treatment for many forms of cancer. Recent reports suggest that there is currently a Cannabis sativa research project developing in Western Australia to explore the medicinal uses of hemp oils.

From the collated data, it can be seen that whether for whole seeds, de-hulled seeds, or oil, the market potential for the development of hemp seeds is considerable. Provided restrictive legislation gets no worse, the market potential is enormous.

Anson AllenA licensed hemp trial crop in Pembrokeshire, Wales in June 2011.


Perspectives

If legislation is eased, this will grow even faster.

Turning to the plant’s straw, the whole straw is equally suitable for animal bedding, providing the mate-rial with a ready market. The market is particularly attractive for small-animal bedding, which is sold at an even higher premium.

There is also great scope for hemp in plastics. At the 2011 Hemp Conference in France organized by Chenvriere de l’Aube, many plastic goods made with hemp were on dis-play, including furniture and footwear.

There are few environmental risks in the growing, harvesting, and process-ing of industrial hemp. In fact, the attributes of the species are highly ben-eficial in terms of potential for carbon sequestration in particular. For every

ton of above ground biomass, 1.83 tons of CO2 are sequestered in the soil. With carbon emissions rising higher on the political agenda, the carbon sequestra-tion potential for hemp products could be of great benefit. The agronomic benefits are considerable.

With its growth rate four times more productive than timber, there are environmental benefits in using hemp for paper and biomass, as well as in construction. It is also a good source of protein for animal fodder.

There are many economic benefits in production of hemp products both locally and on a global scale. With increasing populations and pressing climate issues, the efficient production of more healthy food products is of great benefit to society and should be encouraged by governments.

While the outcomes of Hemp Wales were intensely disappointing due to climate constraints, the overwhelming research on the positive attributes of industrial hemp production should encourage countries with more suitable climates such as Australia to develop the industry for the considerable ben-efits it heralds for farmers, consumers, and the environment.

References1. Erasmus, U. Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill: The Complete

Guide to Fats, Oils, Cholesterol and Human Health

(Alive Books, Summertown, TN, 1993).

2. Young, EM. Revival of industrial hemp: a systematic

analysis of the current global industry to determine

limitations and identify future potentials within

the concept of sustainability. Lund University

[online] (2005) http://www.lumes.lu.se/sites/lumes.

lu.se/files/erin_young.pdf.

3. Hemp Foods Australia [online] www.hempfoods.

com.au.

UK College of Agriculture, Food & Environment University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Agronomist David Williams spoke at the first UK Industrial Hemp Field Day at Spindletop Research Farm in August 2015.


Feature

Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services into Future Farming

by Harpinder Sandhu, Steve Wratten, John R. Porter, Robert Costanza, Jules Pretty, and John P. Reganold

In BriefAgriculture has made remarkable advances in fulfilling the food and nutritional requirement of expanding human numbers worldwide. There are several sustainable farming systems that contribute to overall biodiversity conservation and associated ecosystem services. Yet agricultural practices that have come to predominate since the second half of the 20th century have led to the overuse of fossil fuel-based inputs, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, and loss of biodiversity. These outcomes also have high costs to human health and the environment. Continuing with largely energy-intense, wasteful, polluting, and unsustainable agriculture is no longer a viable option for future world food security and human well-being. There is an urgent need for forms of agricultural production that improve natural capital and ecosystem services (ES) in food systems worldwide.

Mainstreaming ES into future agriculture requires protocols to replace some of the nonrenewable resources (e.g. fossil fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers) with renewable resources (ES such as biological control of insect pests or nitro-gen fixation by legumes). The protocols presented here have been tested in different agricultural systems that enable farmland to simultaneously provide food and a range of ecosystem services. Recent research demonstrates that managed systems with these protocols exhibit higher economic value of ecosystem services. Thus, there is need to support the deployment of these protocols through various policy mechanisms for the long-term sustainability of agriculture.

Sandhu, H. et al. (2016). Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services into Future Farming. Solutions 7(2): 40–47.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/mainstreaming-ecosystem-services-into-future-farming/

Stefano Lubiana Sheep are employed to graze on headland between rows of planted grapes on a vineyard in southern Tasmania.


Although global policies to reduce poverty, ensure food security, and improve

environmental protection are in place, a new paradigm shift is required to fast-track sustainable development.1 This requires a new vision in global efforts and contributions by all sectors of the global economy, including agriculture.2 The agricultural sector supports 45 percent of the global population as farmers, laborers, and agribusiness organizations and also contributes to the above global goals through the provision of ecosystem goods and services (ES) and by improving natural capital.3,4 It con-tributes on average approximately six percent to the global gross domestic product (GDP), ranging from only one percent in advanced economies to 40 percent in the least developed ones.5 Agriculture occupies approximately 38 percent of the global land area and houses the largest managed ecosys-tems on Earth.6

One way that agriculture can contribute to the global agenda of sustainable development is main-streaming ES into current and future farming systems.7,8 This will ensure employment for large populations, improve food security, and deliver multifunctional landscapes benefit-ting not only farm communities but also society at large. Here, we propose that such a goal comprise sustainable intensification through the develop-ment of ES-providing and enhancing practices as part of modified farming systems.9,10 It will require payment mechanisms and market-based instru-ments to support the adoption of these ES-enhancing protocols.11 The latter need to be presented to farmers and advisors in a form that facilitates uptake.

Farmland Ecosystem Services and ProductivityEcosystem services on farmland need to be enhanced as part of global food policy as increasingly dysfunctional

biomes and ecosystems are appear-ing. Moreover, the agriculture, which largely created the problem, has become more intensive in terms of its enhanced use of nonrenewable resources, driven by consumption patterns of a world population likely to reach nine billion people by 2050.12 Therefore, the need for enhanced biodiversity-driven ES in global agriculture is urgent.

Here, we show how simple agro-ecological approaches can be used to demonstrate that ES can benefit modern farming and be adopted to improve productivity. These involve agroecological experiments to mea-sure ecosystem functions combined with value transfer techniques to calculate their economic value. These studies demonstrate that some current farming practices have much higher ES values than suggested in previous work.13 For example, recent data show

that the combined value of only two ES—nitrogen mineralization and bio-logical control of a single pest by one guild of invertebrate predators—can have values of USD$197, $271, and $301 per hectare per year in terms of avoided costs for conventional,7 organic,14 and integrated (e.g. combin-ing food and energy production, or CFE) arable farming systems,15 respectively. Conventional farming systems depend on high rates of syn-thetic inputs, such as pesticides and fertilizers, to control pests, maintain soil fertility along with improved seed, heavy machinery, and irrigation to produce maximum outputs per hectare.8 Organic agriculture is a pro-duction system that virtually excludes synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. It emphasizes on building up the soil with composts and green manures, managing pests using natural pest control and crop rotations.8 The CFE system is a production system which is a net energy producer and is man-aged organically. 15 It produces more energy in the form of renewable bio-mass than consumed in the planting, growing, and harvesting of the food and fodder. The bioenergy component is represented by belts of fast-growing trees (willows, alder, and hazel) that are planted orthogonally to fields that contain cereal and pasture crops. The total value of these two ES to global agriculture, if used on only 10 percent of total area, exceeds the combined cost of pesticides and fertilizers.8 The above values comprise reduced vari-able costs (labor, fuel, and pesticides) and lower external costs to human health and the environment. Although paying for these variable costs does contribute to GDP, it is a poor indica-tor of sustainability and of human well-being.16 Instead, the expenditure on cleaning up those externalities should be subtracted from the GDP.

We think that a better understand-ing of ecological processes and their economic contribution in agroeco-systems can help develop protocols,

Key Concepts

• Many current agricultural practices suppress vital ecosystem services (ES), thereby limiting the ability of agriculture to feed the increasing human population.

• Sustainable intensification by deploy-ing agroecological approaches can be used to enhance ES that can benefit agriculture to improve productivity.

• Well-designed agricultural systems have the ability to increase the concurrent supply of ES and food production.

• Agricultural policy needs to evaluate, enhance, and internalize the value of ES in food production systems for their long-term sustainability.

• Reshaping of global agricultural goals is required in order to utilize biodiversity and ES to increase productivity, protect the environment, and contribute to human well-being.


which do not require major farming system changes, but enhance ES by returning selective functional agri-cultural biodiversity to agriculture.17 Functional agricultural biodiversity is defined as the biodiversity in and around agricultural landscapes that enhances ES and thereby benefits food production. In addition, it can facilitate sustainable intensification and have positive spin-offs for the society.9,10 For example, nutrient cycling, including the role of legumi-nous crops in nitrogen fixation, is a well-known enhancement of farmland ES and can have a value of USD$1200 per hectare per year.18,19 More recent ES improvements are illustrated by

agroecological research on biological control of insect pests. In New Zealand and Australia, strips of flowering buck-wheat Fagopyrum esculentum (Moench) between vine rows provide nectar and other nutrients in an otherwise virtual monoculture, and thereby improve the ecological fitness and efficacy of parasitoid wasps that attack grape-feeding caterpillars (see box). This in turn leads to the pest population being brought below the economic threshold. An investment of USD$3 per hectare per year in buckwheat seed and minimal sowing costs have been shown to lead to savings in variable costs of USD$200 per hectare per year, fewer pesticide residues,20 and

can aid the conservation of endemic butterfly species.21 Such protocols have been taken up by grape growers in New Zealand, as in the above case.20 However, for rapid adoption and uptake, further research is required to understand the full costs and benefits of such protocols for different farming systems.8,9,10

There are other examples of pro-tocols not requiring a major farming system change. With biological con-trol of weeds in Australia, returns on investment of up to 300:1 have been achieved following the introduction of appropriately selective biodiversity in the form of insects for weed biological control.22 In Africa, the development of ‘push-pull’ eco-technologies, whereby plant and insect chemistry is used to deter pests (‘push’) and attract pests’ natural enemies (‘pull’), has improved yields to such an extent that milk production has increased and benefits have been community-wide.23 Fungicide use in vines can also be avoided if such eco-technologies are deployed. The life cycle of botrytis (Botrytis cinerea) disease on grapes can be disrupted by the appropriate use of mulches below vines. The resulting enhanced ES in this case can save USD$570 per hectare per year in fungi-cide and associated costs.24

Vineyard management practices, such as growing strips of flowering buckwheat between vine rows, decrease the mean number of leafroller (Epiphyas postvittana) caterpillars in grape bunches in New Zealand. These practices help to keep the caterpillars below the economic threshold for managing them with pesticides. The strips of flowering buckwheat provide nectar for parasitoid wasps that attack grape-feeding caterpillars, which in turn leads to the pest population being brought below the economic threshold. A service providing unit (SPU; see text) has been developed for easy uptake of this protocol.

Jean-Luc Dufour, Accolade Wines Vineyard with flowering buckwheat between vine rows at a winery in New Zealand.


Scalability of Future FarmingAlthough the eco-technologies now exist to improve farming sustainabil-ity when the negative consequences of a continued reliance of oil-based inputs are well recognized,17,25 farmers are commonly risk-averse.26 In indus-trialized countries, they have tended to reject the notion that noncrop biodiversity on their land can improve production and/or minimize costs. However, farmers in many developing countries tend to agree and utilize this farm biodiversity.9 The challenge now for agroecologists and policymakers is to use a range of market-based instru-ments or incentives, government interventions, and enhanced social learning among growers to accelerate the deployment of sound, biodiversity-based ES-enhancement protocols for farmers.26 These protocols need to be framed in the form of service-provid-ing units,11 which precisely explain the necessary ES-enhancement procedures and should ideally include cost–ben-efit analyses. Such a requirement invites the design of new systems of primary production that are species-diverse, have low inputs, and provide a diverse suite of ES including a positive net carbon sequestration.

A comparison of the economic values of ES associated with farming in organic, conventional, and a com-bined food and energy system indicate that well-designed agricultural systems have the potential to produce multiple ES in addition to food and fodder (see Figure 1).7,15 Any potential loss in farm income under these sys-tems can be compensated with sound market mechanisms, such as payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes and tax deductions.23 In this approach, those that benefit from the provision of ES make payments to those that supply them, thereby maintaining ES. Examples of informal functioning PES schemes in different areas of the world are summarized in Table 1. The current focus of these schemes is on water, carbon, and biodiversity in

addressing environmental problems through positive incentives to land managers.25 Such schemes not only help to improve the environment and human well-being but also ensure food security and long-term farm sustainability.2 For example, beetle banks on arable land in the European Union deliver vertebrate conserva-tion ES, which builds on the original pest management intention of these banks.27

The Way ForwardThe extensive Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) of global eco-systems provided a framework for analyzing socio-ecological processes and suggested that agriculture may be the “largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function of any single human activity.”28 The MEA raised awareness of ecosystems and their services, but the global environment continues to degrade because of a lack

Harpinder Sandhu Figure 1. Proportion of four different categories of ecosystem services provided by organic fields, con-ventional fields, and combined food and energy systems (CFE).7,15 Food and fodder production is included in provisioning services. Organic and conventional fields produce comparable provisioning services at the expense of regulating services and cultural services. However, CFE systems are able to balance food production and bio-energy production with minimizing impacts on regulating services and cultural services. Supporting services, such as nutrient cycling, pollination, and biological control of insect pests, which are necessary for the production of provisioning services, are also higher in CFE systems.


of any coherent plan of action. Recently, the United Nations established the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to translate ecosystem science into action and to track the drivers and consequences of ecosystem change worldwide.29 This action plan is focused on strengthening assessment, relevant policy, and associated science at spatial and temporal scales. The United Nations has recently set up the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to increase food produc-tion and to achieve food security and poverty alleviation by 2030, among other development goals.30 However, growing sufficient and nutritious food for nine billion plus people worldwide

by 2050 will need greater coherence in global efforts, partnerships with developed and developing countries, and careful planning and implementa-tion of the required programs with science and policy collaboration. It also requires assessment and valuation of ES in agriculture to understand inter-dependencies and trade-offs between production and the environ-ment, as advocated by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food, a project of the United Nations Environment Program.31 Achievement of human well-being as agreed by the SDGs is not possible without clear pathways for the design of future agroecosystems and new agricultural policies. Efforts

to intensify agriculture since the 1960s partly succeeded due to technology transfer to farmers and support of and financial investments in agricultural research, extension networks, and governments at regional and national levels. Here, we provide some recom-mendations to the agricultural science, farming, and policy communities, which might be useful in shaping global agricultural goals by utilizing biodiversity and ES to increase produc-tivity, protect the environment, and contribute to human well-being:

• Global agriculture needs to embrace and implement the value of biodiversity and ES into farming. This requires designing farming

Hanne Lipczak Jakobsen, Copenhagen UniversityA CFE system showing shelterbelts.


systems that can use ES through sustainable intensification, reduce or eliminate fossil fuel-based inputs to increase productivity, and enhance efficiencies of other inputs, such as water and nutrients.

• Agroecology has potential to enhance productivity and farm sustainability through adoption of ES. Agricultural research should focus more on developing and refining agroecological techniques to enhance farmland ES, such as natural pest control, managing habitat for wild pollinators, increasing soil organic matter, and improving nutrient cycling, so that they can be integrated into the current farming systems. These techniques can also help improve vital natural capital in agriculture.

• Social capital in agriculture that includes contributions from farmers and farming families should be acknowledged and rewarded by recognizing their value in achieving the SDGs. This can help future-proof farming and the livelihoods of millions of farmers.

• The livelihood of farming communities should be protected by agricultural policy while developing long-term strategies for sustainable intensification.

• Country level and global studies are required to estimate the value of all environmental benefits and costs of current and alternative agricultural systems. This economic valuation will provide policy makers with a tool that can guide policy development to incentivize ES-enhancing agricultural practices and to penalize detrimental practices.

• Current agricultural systems can be diverted toward sustainable intensification by governments developing and adopting appropriate policy responses at regional and national levels, matched by financial investments.

• Various UN efforts in tackling climate change and protecting biodiversity and ES should focus on the agriculture sector for positive spin-offs for the environment, economy, and society.32

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Conference on Sustainable Development [online]

(2012) http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/.

2. Schutter, O.D. Right to food. Report submitted by

the special rapporteur, United Nations, New York

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issues/food/docs/A-HRC-16–49.pdf.

3. Ecosystem Services in Agricultural and Urban

Landscapes (eds Wratten, S., H. Sandhu, R. Cullen,

and R. Costanza) (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2013).

4. Fenichel, E.P. et al. Measuring the value of

groundwater and other forms of natural capital.

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(2016): 2382–2387.

5. World Bank. Agriculture: value added (% of GDP)

[online] (2015) http://data.worldbank.org.

6. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations. FAOSTAT online database [online] (2016)

http://faostat.fao.org/site/377/default.aspx#ancor.

7. Sandhu, H.S., S.D. Wratten, R. Cullen, and B. Case.

The future of farming: the value of ecosystem

services in conventional and organic arable land.

An experimental approach. Ecological Economics 64

(2008): 835–848.

8. Sandhu, H. et al. Significance and value of non-traded

ecosystem services on farmland. PeerJ 3, e762 (2015).

9. Pretty, J., C. Toulmin, and S. Williams. Sustainable

intensification in African agriculture. International

Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 9 (2011): 5–24.

10. Pretty, J. and Z.P. Bharucha. Sustainable

intensification in agricultural systems. Annals of

Botany 114 (2014): 1571–96.

11. Luck, G.W., G.C. Daily, and P.R. Ehrlich. Population

diversity and ecosystem services. Trends in Ecology

and Evolution 18 (2003): 331.

12. Foley, J.A. et al. Global consequences of land use.

Science 309 (2005): 570–4.

13. Costanza, R. et al. The value of the world’s

ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387

(1997): 253–60.

14. Lampkin, N. Organic Farming (Farming Press,

Ipswich UK, 1991).

15. Porter, J., R. Costanza, H. Sandhu, L. Sigsgaard, and S.

Wratten. The value of producing food, energy and

ecosystem services within an agro-ecosystem. Ambio

38 (2009): 186–93.

16. Kubiszewski, I. et al. Beyond GDP: Measuring

and achieving global genuine progress, Ecological

Economics 93 (2013): 57–68.

17. Gurr, G.M., S.D. Wratten, and M.A. Altieri (eds).

Ecological Engineering for Pest Management: Habitat

Manipulation for Arthropods (CSIRO Publishing,

Australia, 2004).

18. Sandhu, H., V.V.S.R. Gupta, and S. Wratten. Ch.11 in

Soil Microbiology & Sustainable Crop Production (eds

Dixon, G.R. and E. Tilston) (Springer, Dordrecht,

2010).

19. Herridge, D.F., M.B. Peoples, and R.M. Boddey. Global

inputs of biological nitrogen fixation in agricultural

systems. Plant Soil 311 (2008): 1–18.

20. The Bio-Protection Research Centre, Sustainable

bioprotection [online] (2009) www.bioprotection.

org.nz.

21. Gillespie, M., S.D. Wratten, R. Cruickshank, B.H.

Wiseman, and G.W. Gibbs. Incongruence between

morphological and molecular markers in the

butterfly genus Zizina (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)

in New Zealand. Systematic Entomology 38 (2013):

151–63.

22. Economic impact assessment of Australian weed

biological control [online] (2009) http://www.weeds.

crc.org.au/index_noflash.html.

23. International Association for the Plant Protection

Sciences. ICIPE develops safe new methods for

controlling stem borers, termites and striga. Crop

Protection 20 (2001): 269–72.

24. Jacometti, M.A., S.D. Wratten, and M. Walter.

Understorey management increases grape quality,

yield and resistance to Botrytis cinerea. Agriculture

Ecosystems & Environment 122 (2007): 349–56.

25. Food and Agriculture Organization. The State of Food

and Agriculture: Paying Farmers for Environmental

Services (FAO, Rome, 2007).

26. Warner, K.D. Extending agroecology: Grower

participation in partnerships is key to social

learning. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 21

(2006): 84–94.

27. MacLeod, A., S.D. Wratten, N.W. Sotherton, and M.B.

Thomas. ‘Beetle banks’ as refuges for beneficial

arthropods in farmland: long-term changes in

predator communities and habitat. Agricultural and

Forest Entomology 6 (2004): 147–54.

Achievement of human well-being as agreed by the SDGs is not possible without clear pathways for the design of future agroecosystems and new agricultural policies.


28. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Millennium

Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report (Island Press,

Washington, 2005).

29. Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and

Ecosystem Services (IPBES). United Nations [online]

(2010) http://www.ipbes.net/.

30. Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations

[online] (2015) https://sustainabledevelopment.

un.org.

31. TEEB for agriculture & food: an interim report.

United Nations Environment Programme [online]

(2015) http://img.teebweb.org/wpcontent/

uploads/2015/12/TEEBAgFood_Interim_

Report_2015_web.pdf.

32. UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Conference of the Parties 21, Paris [online] (2015)

http://www.cop21paris.org/.

33. Costa Rica–National Payment for Environmental

Services (PES) programme. International Institute

for Environment and Development [online] (2012)

http://www.watershedmarkets.org/casestudies/

Costa_Rica_National_PES_eng.html.

34. Rewarding poor rural people for nurturing the

land. Rural Poverty Portal, International Fund for

Agricultural Development [online] (2012) http://

www.ruralpovertyportal.org/country/voice/tags/

china/rupes.

35. China–Sloping Lands Conversion Programme

(SLCP). International Institute for Environment

and Development [online] (2012) http://www.

watershedmarkets.org/casestudies/China_SLCP_

eng.html.

36. Environmental Planning and Coordination

Organization (EPCO) [online] http://www.epco.in/.

37. Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in

Africa 2008–2011. PRESA [online] (2011) http://

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38. Agri-environment measures. European Commission

[online] (2015) http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/

envir/measures/index_en.htm.

39. Conservation Reserve Program. United States

Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency

[online] (2016) https://www.fsa.usda.gov/

programs-and-services/conservation-programs/

index.

Harpinder Sandhu A conventional wheat field.


PES Scheme Location Ecosystem Services Provided

National PES Program33 Costa Rica Functioning watersheds, carbon sequestration, aesthetics in the form of landscape attractiveness

Rewarding the Upland Poor for the Environmental Services (RUPES)34

The Philippines, Indonesia, and Nepal

Functioning watersheds

The Chinese Sloping Lands Conversion Program (SLCP)35

Yangtze and Yellow Rivers regions, China

Reduced flood risk

Madhya Pradesh Lake Conservation Authority36

India Water quality improvement, organic agriculture support

Pro-Poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa (PRESA)37

Kenya and Tanzania

Watershed function, carbon capture, water quality improvement

Agri-Environmental Measures38 European Union Environmentally favorable extensions of farming, management of low-intensity pasture systems, integrated farm management and organic agriculture, preservation of landscape and historical features, conservation of high-value habitats and their associated biodiversity, beetle banks

The US Conservation Reserve Program39

USA Soil erosion reduction, water quality improvement, wildlife habitat enhancement

CFEES15 Denmark Biological control of pests, nitrogen regulation, soil formation, carbon accumulation, hydrological flow, pollination, aesthetics

Table 1. Summary of key “payment for ecosystem services” (PES) schemes associated with agroecosystems. In these schemes, those that benefit from the provision of ES, such as consumers, make payments to those that supply the services, such as farmers, to improve the environment and human well-being. Such PES schemes not only help to improve the environment and human well-being but also ensure food security and long-term farm sustainability.


Feature

Landscape Features to Improve Pest Control in Agriculture

by Philippe Jeanneret, Graham Begg, Marie Gosme, Oscar Alomar, Bert Reubens,

Jacques Baudry, Olivier Guerin, Clemens Flamm, and Felix Wäckers

In BriefDespite wide acceptance of the importance of integrated pest management, pest control in most cropping systems depends on the extensive use of pesticides, with detrimental effects on environmental and human health. These effects have led to many pesticides being removed from use, increasing demands for the rapid development of alternative solutions. Biological pest control aims for control through natural enemies, which significantly reduces and even eliminates pesticide use in crops. The role of noncultivated areas in agricultural landscapes in supporting biodiversity functions, such as the biological control by providing natural enemies with food and refuge, is only partially understood.

Efficient implementation of biological pest control requires a wide range of knowledge and skills, not least those of farmers. Here we suggest the promotion of so called operational groups composed of farmers, scientists (agronomists and ecologists), extension service advisors, agribusiness representatives, and consumer associations to create objectives, strategies, and procedures to be realized at the local, regional, or national level. In this context, it is proposed that farmers will play a crucial role in providing solutions, as well as implementing, and disseminating practical knowledge and the concrete implementation of solutions.

Jeanneret, P. et al. (2016). Landscape Features to Improve Pest Control in Agriculture. Solutions 7(2): 48–57.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/landscape-features-to-improve-pest-control-in-agriculture/

Matthias Tschumi, Agroscope, 2013 Included in fields, strips sown with wild flower mixtures provide excellent resources for natural enemies of pests.


Despite the annual use of approximately three million tons of pesticides,1

pests destroy more than 40 percent of potential global food production.2 In some countries, programs to control the exposure of farm workers to pes-ticides are limited or nonexistent. As a consequence, it has been estimated that as many as 25 million agricultural workers worldwide experience unintentional pesticide poisoning each year. The major types of chronic health effects of pesticides include cancer, neurological, respiratory, and reproductive effects. Furthermore, there is evidence that pesticides can cause sensory disturbances as well as cognitive effects such as memory loss, language problems, and learning impairment.3

Pesticides enter air, water, and soil with multifaceted, direct, and indirect detrimental effects.4 Pesticides can harm other plants and animals ranging from soil microorganisms and invertebrates to fish, birds, and other wildlife. For example, investigations in the US show that more than 90 percent of water and fish samples from all streams contained at least one, but more often several pesticides.5 Pesticides have also been directly linked to fish mortality.6 Even when within permissible levels, environ-mental contamination can have harmful effects. Köck-Schulmeyer and colleagues found that pesticides presented an ecotoxicological risk for aquatic organisms, especially algae and macro-invertebrates in the Llobregat River basin of Spain, even though levels were within the European Union Environmental Quality Standards.7 Heavy treatment of soil with pesticides also causes the biomass and diversity of beneficial soil microorganisms to decline. Biochemical reactions and enzymatic activity are altered by pesticide use, leading to disturbance of the soil ecosystem and loss of soil fertility.8

Bird mortality can result from exposure via pathways such as direct ingestion of pesticide granules and treated seeds, treated crops, direct exposure to sprays, contaminated water, or feeding on contaminated prey, and bait. In the US, nearly 50 pesticides are known to be directly responsible for killing song birds, game birds, seabirds, shorebirds, and raptors.4

Pesticide application to control pests may also adversely affect the pest’s natural enemies as well. However, Pimentel and Burgess have estimated that at least 50 percent of pest control is through natural enemies, with pesticides contributing only 10 percent and the remaining 40 percent a consequence of host–plant

resistance.3 For example, the negative impact of neonicotinoids on honey bees and wild bees is one of the hottest topics around pesticide use. Neonicotinoids have known lethal and sublethal effects on domestic and wild insect pollinators even at extremely low concentrations, often reported in the parts per trillion range.9 The rate at which honey bee colonies have been declining in the UK may be associated with the application of the neonicoti-noid imidacloprid.10

The use of pesticides is thus a globally significant environmental and human health issue for which solutions are urgently needed.

Basis for a SolutionIncreasing agricultural biodiversity and rebalancing basic ecosystem func-tioning is part of a solution in which seminatural, noncultivated habitats play a major role. Noncultivated/seminatural habitats such as field margins, fallows, hedgerows, and wood lots are relatively undisturbed, temporary, or permanent areas that hold a substantial proportion of the biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. They reportedly act as biodiversity reservoirs, and so landscapes with a higher proportion of them support higher biodiversity than simplified landscapes like those composed of mainly arable fields.11

In addition to improving biodiver-sity, seminatural habitats contribute ecological services in all four cat-egories defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: provisioning, regulating, habitat, and cultural services.12,13 Seminatural habitats are used by beneficial organisms for over-wintering,14,15 as source of alternative prey or hosts for natural enemies,16 for offering food sources for herbivores and decomposers,17 for providing floral resources to pollinators,18 and as refuges at times of disturbance. Their critical importance can be seen through exponential declines in pollinator species richness and

Key Concepts

• Modern agriculture is suffering worldwide from damage by numerous pests. A significant alternative to the use of pesticides is the conservation and promotion of natural enemies, usually as part of integrated pest management programs.

• Noncultivated habitats including hedgerows, grassy margins of fields, and wildflower strips provide essen-tial resources for natural enemies and insect pollinators.

• “Conservation Biological Control” consists of managing noncultivated habitats in agricultural landscapes in such a way that they boost natural enemy populations and thus reduce pests.

• Appropriate management of non-cultivated habitats and inclusion of targeted measures have the potential to avoid mass pesticide use. This will not only benefit the environment as well as human health but could also provide economic returns.

• Agronomic and ecological expertise is required for innovation, involv-ing groups consisting of farmers, scientists, extension service advi-sors, agribusiness representatives, consumer associations, and others.


flower visitation rates with distance from seminatural habitats,19 while the density and diversity of natural enemies increases where there are more seminatural habitats.20,21

Conservation Biological Control: Available EvidenceManagement of pest control through noncultivated elements in agricultural landscapes through boosting natural enemies is called “Conservation Biological Control,” or CBC. Recent research shows that the sustained effectiveness of seminatural habitats strongly depends on their botanical composition. A wide range of pest-controlling predators and parasitoids depend on specific flowering plants for survival and reproduction.22–24 In commercial crops, natural enemies are severely food deprived and have very low energy reserves that can be effec-tively replenished by increasing these flowering plants.25,26 For example, tar-geted measures, like sowing selected plant mixtures directly adjacent to or inside the crop, can effectively provide nectar and pollen resources for preda-tors and parasitoids.26–28 Furthermore, recent and ongoing studies using flower margins with selected flower-ing plants in the UK and Switzerland are showing the following:

• Increased numbers of predators and parasitoids in the flower margins,

• Enhanced populations of natural enemies spilling over into the adjacent cropland,

• Effective suppression of pests, and• 10 to 30 percent yield increases in

arable (wheat) and horticultural (carrots and peas) crops.

Seminatural habitats can also provide supplementary resources for natural enemies by supporting populations of alternative prey or hosts. These are a valuable resource in promoting fitness and allowing populations to persist in the absence of pest species.29,30 Although likely to

be of greatest significance to generalist predators, there are examples of para-sitoid populations being maintained by an alternate host population, which is itself maintained by the introduc-tion of their preferred host plants.31 In addition to food resources and support for vegetation, such as grass and herbaceous margins and hedgerows, they provide a habitat for overwinter survival of ground-dwelling arthro-pods that may otherwise suffer from substantial disturbance in annual arable cropping systems. Their biodi-versity is also important: species-rich assemblages are more likely to control crop pests than poorer ones, as pest control can be strengthened when natural enemies complement each other.32

Enhancing landscape complex-ity through the re-introduction of seminatural habitats may act to conserve natural enemies via the same mechanisms described above of enhancing resource availability. Spatial processes are also important in the conservation of natural enemies at the landscape scale. For example, habitat fragmentation accompanying land-use intensification has the poten-tial to lead to local extinctions through patch isolation.33,34 Modelling studies confirm that their populations may be sensitive to habitat fragmentation and connectivity,35–37 though empirical studies have produced conflicting results on the importance of the spa-tial configuration of a habitat area.38,39

New Practical Solutions Need to be Explored by FarmersAgri-environment schemes are government programs set up to help farmers manage their land in an environmentally friendly way. They are important for the conservation of farmed environments of high nature value, improved genetic diversity, and protection of agroecosystems, and they offer the potential to improve CBC by including noncultivated elements on farms. The introduction

of less intensively managed and beneficial habitats are an impor-tant and growing response to the environmental challenges posed by modern agriculture. For example, the introduction of Ecological Focus Areas (EFA) into European agriculture is now enshrined in legislation as part of the EU Common Agriculture Policy. However, to be successful, such schemes must be translated into effec-tive practical measures. Farmers with expertise and first-hand knowledge of the land are best placed to develop effective ways of using and adequately managing EFAs on farms. At the same time, they are sometimes unaware of existing solutions that reduce pesticide inputs and are consequently underused. Adapting farming practices and systems to work with EFAs could provide new solutions incorporating crop rotations, minimal or no-tillage crops, sown understory, and others and should thus be explored. The explora-tion of habitat management practices for biological pest control should target service delivery by including the following:

• Management of existing permanent noncultivated habitats to promote the supply of alternative hosts and prey, sources of pollen and

Four Categories of Ecosystem ServicesProvisioning services are the goods and products obtained from ecosystems such as food, water, timber, or medicines.

Regulating services are the benefits obtained from an ecosystem’s control of natural processes, for instance pollination or pest control by natural enemies.

Cultural services are the nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystems such as recreation in forests.

Habitat services support the provision of other services by providing habitat.


nectar, and provide shelter and overwintering areas. Elements such as hedgerows or grassy strips need to be managed so that they do not become dominated by a few, potentially unsuitable plant species.

• Sowing of annual within-field and margin elements containing suitable plant mixtures to provide appropriate food and shelter. These should be adapted to the crop–pest systems and not inadvertently increase pest or pathogen populations nor enhance weed pressure. Criteria to select the species include (but are not restricted to) adaptation

to local pedoclimatic conditions, adaptation to soil type, quantity, attractiveness, and accessibility of resources provided (e.g., pollen and nectar in accessible flowers, extra-floral nectar), nutritional value of resources, time and duration of resource provision, and plant phenology and morphology (e.g., the ability to provide shelter against harsh weather conditions and hiding places from predators).

• Increasing temporary within-field and permanent habitats. Permanent elements should provide beneficial long-term conditions by increasing species pools and support populations of

natural enemies. Within-field strips and field margins complement this by contributing resources close to the crop, thus attracting and supporting natural enemies that provide immediate and annual control of pests.

• Some systems allow permanent features to be introduced within fields. Examples include perennial (fruit) crops and silvo-arable agroforestry. In the latter case, trees are aligned inside the field, providing a perennial habitat directly in contact with the crop. The uncultivated line along the tree row further offers the possibility to sow beneficial plant mixtures.

Agroscope, Switzerland, 2007 Hedgerows in agricultural landscapes are an important source of natural enemies of pests, but need proper management to be effective in delivering pest control ecosystem services.


The management of crops and fields also has a vital role to play in conservation biocontrol, such as the following:

• minimal or no-tillage option,• decreased nitrogen input and

pesticide use,• varying sowing and harvesting date

and plant density,• intercropping and sown

understory, and• innovative crop rotation, including

cover crops and the use of resistant varieties that favor natural enemies as well as directly affecting pest populations.

The success of conservation bio-control is likely to lie in the combined effects of some or all of these measures and so relies on concerted actions involving farmers, scientists, and relevant stakeholders such as nature conservation organizations, national and local authorities, etc.

Knowledge Required to Fill the GapResearch focusing on agroecology is poorly funded, comprising only 15 percent of the total USDA Research, Extension, and Economics budget.40 The measures described here offer innovative solutions to pest control and pesticide use reduction, but a number of uncertainties remain in our understanding of the ecological processes and reliable and effec-tive management in delivering biological pest control. The relation-ships between crop, managed, and unmanaged noncultivated habitats are complex and possibly antagonistic. Successful service provision also requires the presence of suitable flowering plant species, a sufficient proportion of unmanaged nonculti-vated habitats, spatial configurations at both farm and landscape scales, and appropriate crop management.

The suitability of plants as floral resources for certain natural

enemies is determined by a number of characteristics including phenol-ogy, morphology, and biochemistry. Selecting appropriate plant species can yield clear benefits in support-ing natural enemy populations. Further investigation is needed to determine which species, mixtures, and proportions of both will benefit the appropriate natural enemies. Two important aspects of this choice are seasonal complementarity between species and the provision of food resources and habitats during the overwintering period, as this is a bottleneck in natural enemy popula-tion dynamics. Particular plant species may be required for parasitoids that need their resources at a given time in the year, while others may be more effective in delivering habitats for generalist predators like spiders and carabid beetles. However, most studies on agroecosystems have been carried out during the active growing season, and scientific knowledge on their ecological requirements during overwintering needs to improve. Knowledge is also required around

the suitability of plant mixtures for specific soil conditions and technical characteristics for sowing.

Comparative contributions between within-field elements and permanent habitats in CBC is not fully known, although permanent EFAs do play a crucial role for sheltering and sustaining arthropod biodiversity at the landscape scale and also act as a source for recolonization of agricul-tural fields after disturbances. This reservoir role is of utmost importance for preserving future functional biodiversity, especially under a changed climate, and in allowing natural enemies to move within the landscape. In particular, synergies and synchronization should be studied: the understanding of the influence of local and regional (landscape) population dynamics on the conservation of natu-ral enemies (and pests), and the role of within-field elements and permanent habitats on these. The importance of within-field elements in modifying the behavior of natural enemies should also be considered; can behavioral cues be used to “capture” specific natural

M. Waldburger, Agroscope, 2010 Ladybirds are important predators of aphid pests and need landscape features for food when conditions in fields are unfavorable. A single ladybird may consume as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime.


enemies from the regional species pool, redirecting them to deliver biocontrol within the crop? Similarly, the syner-gistic effects of noncultivated elements together with particular farming practices should be investigated.

Although the positive role of targeted landscape management in conserving natural enemies has been shown in several studies,30,43 less is known about how it translates into pest control and subsequent yield improvements.44,45 Evidence that habitat diversification leads to effec-tive biological pest control is limited, so before CBC can be established as an alternative to excessive pesticide use, we must be sure to understand how and when reliable pest control can be delivered by it.

Studies have typically focused on single aspects of biological control-based pest management, but integrated pest management strategies demand complementarity of differ-ent techniques to meet three main objectives as highlighted by Rusch and colleagues: (i) a production purpose (crop performance, yield stability and long term supply, and quality of prod-ucts), (ii) socio-economic imperatives (farm organization, farm income), and (iii) environmental objectives (limitation of pesticide and nitrogen discharge into the environment, minimization of water, and energy use).30 Integrative research is required to consider synergies and trade-offs between the three objectives; it is particularly important to conduct economic assessments of the value of

biological control and the return on investment of landscape features, as this will largely influence the adop-tion of CBC by farmers. Although CBC provides one of the highest returns on investment available through IPM, its economic value is rarely estimated.46

“Operational Groups” to Devise SolutionsSocial networks are key factors in development, extension learning, and the adoption of innovations. In developing and implementing CBC, “Operational Groups” should create networking and collaboration among farmers and other actors. This concept is driven by a new EU initiative that aims to bring people together at local, regional, and national levels to

build practical solutions to specific problems, encouraged by a Rural Development policy. Operational groups consisting of several partners with a common interest in a certain project will have an important role to play in applying CBC strategies. Those involved should be from a diverse combination of practical and scientific backgrounds, including farmers, scientists, extension service advisors, agribusiness representatives, NGOs, and others. As each group should combine their skills and expertise to reach the project objectives, the type of people involved can vary depending on the project’s theme and objective. In the case of pest control, operational groups should involve farmers, advi-sors, policy makers, and scientists, as well as industry partners like pesticide

manufacturers and providers of seed mixtures. As the most successful agro-ecological partnerships emerge from prior social networks,47 these groups could build from existing local groups, such as CIVAM or GIEE in France and LEAF or the Permaculture Association in the UK. Operational groups interested in promoting and using CBC techniques will need to develop innovative solutions to tackle relevant knowledge gaps and other implemen-tation barriers. Innovation topics for operational groups involving farmers, advisors, policy makers, scientists, and industry partners include:

• Improved identification, development, and selection of plant mixtures and habitat characteristics that promote natural enemies

• Development of deployment strategies that benefit the conservation of natural enemies at the regional/landscape scale

• Development of measures to ensure delivery of biocontrol and yield enhancement

• Development of scouting techniques for farmers, screening for presence of pests as well as natural enemy populations in different crops, and taking the result into account for decisions on spraying management

• Identification of integrated farming practices that decrease pest pressure and enhance natural enemy populations, including which species function as intermediate host for pests in field crops and should be avoided in non-cultivated habitats

• Development of management techniques for within-field, buffer strips, and landscape features in order to control weeds

• Identification of farming practices that provide synergies between pest control and other environmental challenges (biodiversity, soil, and water conservation)

Seminatural habitats contribute ecological services in all four categories defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: provisioning, regulating, habitat, and cultural services.


• Monitoring in fields with control situation (with no within-field or buffer strips) in order to quantify the economic result of advised implementations

• Development of intervention threshold based on pest/predator ratios

• Discussion groups involving farmers, retailers, grocers, consumer associations, etc. to debate on the level of food product damage acceptance, and to develop new pathways for selling “second quality” consumable products showing damages from pests but labelled no (or less) pesticide (including organic)

Improving Farmer Acceptance and AdoptionDespite growing literature on the principles behind CBC and ways to achieve success, acceptance and adoption remain small.47 Some of the failure to adopt similar environmental schemes in the past have been as a result of the perception of farmers that innovative management options might present a risk, and the fact that prescriptive policies rob the farmers of inclusion in the process and therefore return little symbolic capital to them.48 More importantly, the chasm between farmers’ profes-sional knowledge and scientific knowledge has been shown to hamper adoption of environmental schemes,49 in particular those pertaining to biodiversity conservation. Persistent barriers to adopting of new farming practices also include limited avail-ability of and access to information and limited knowledge of alternative practices.50,51 For example, in England, a review of the Environmental Stewardship scheme found low uptake of habitats for which there was the strongest evidence of a benefit to biocontrol,52 despite the apparent awareness among farmers of their value.53 Primary explanations given by farmers for not adopting the scheme

were its inflexibility, the volume of paperwork and amount of information to assimilate the application process, costs of the plan and its implementa-tion not being covered by payments, and costs of capital works not being met due to rising labor and material costs. Farmers were also unwilling to adopt the scheme if habitats had to be newly planted on their farm, such as hedgerows.

To address these problems, train-ing and advisory systems should first raise awareness and stimulate interest in alternative methods of pest management, then provide farm-ers access to the necessary tools to implement the appropriate measures. Educational programs are of par-ticular value in addressing complex issues such as pest regulation, where there are uncertainties regarding the efficacy or environmental effects of alternative crop protection methods and when solutions rely on the integration of multiple approaches. Another knowledge exchange could be free of subsidized advisors to pro-vide advice complementary to IPM. Moreover, advisory services should support the implementation of farm-ers’ groups that are able to share the costs and to coordinate management at landscape scale. Additionally, demonstration farms are often highly appreciated by farmers’ communities and considered to be very valuable for both knowledge exchange between research, advisors, and farm-ers and for efficient dissemination to other farmers.

The potential of CBC should be communicated in multiple ways in order to reach the widest possible range of farmers. These could include fact sheets (digital and print), on-station/farm demonstration, and participatory research. Since the effect of biocontrol is less dramatic than the effect of pesticides, tools to help farm-ers visualize the presence of natural enemies or even monitor the level of

service they provide would improve awareness. Such tools might be as simple as pitfall traps with simplified identification keys for the most abun-dant ground-dwelling natural enemy species in the region, or they could be more elaborate, like predation cards where prey bait are exposed to potential predation with a subsequent evaluation of the numbers eaten.

Participatory development in new technologies is also important. Farmers are more likely to adopt if they are involved in the development of the technology and practice and if benefits are clear, uncertainty is reduced, the need for exploration and testing is low, risk is limited, and a financial return can be realized rela-tively quickly.47

There is evidence that CBC can be economically viable, but it does require the implementation of new technologies and farm practices that have investment and operational costs. Cost–benefit analyses of potential projects should be designed to show the difference between increased economic costs of implementation (e.g., loss of productive area or more

Training and advisory systems should first raise awareness and stimulate interest in alternative methods of pest management, then provide farmers access to the necessary tools to implement the appropriate measures.


expensive technologies) and the benefits from reduced pesticide use and added value for new or enhanced products with CBC. The latter could be strongly reinforced with labels and certifications. Understanding the financial impact of going beyond existing labels for products made under IPM (e.g., IP-Suisse system in Switzerland) and potentials in increased pricing for sustainably produced agricultural goods should also be included. Finally, in assessing the decision making process associ-ated with CBC adoption it is necessary to account for farmer’s attitudes, their perception of risk, and all benefits, including nonmonetary aspects of cultural ecosystem services such as aesthetic, recreational, and tourism values.

Moving ForwardThe last 20 years of researching and implementing environmentally friendly practices in agriculture have essentially only been targeting general biodiversity, and have only partly succeeded in achieving these goals. At the same time, various means to ensure and increase production have been applied, mostly by intensifying management and pesticide use. While some systemic approaches like IPM have been implemented, pests and pesticides continue to be a problem for reducing crop production and harm-ing human and environmental health, respectively.

CBC seeks to rebalance the part of the agricultural ecosystem that supports natural enemies, while increasing resources that natural enemies depend on, yet have been lost through agricultural intensifica-tion. Though we are learning how to conserve certain natural enemy types, managing ecological processes through CBC is a challenge with many aspects still to be understood before reliable methods to achieve pest control and yield improvement are established.

To be effective, CBC must provide system-level solutions, account for interactions between organisms and scales, and produce positive environmental, social, and economic outcomes. This challenge requires collective expertise from a wide range of actors including science, industry, governments, and farmers. Drawing together such diverse yet relevant actors is an important element of operational groups, which are now being pursued as a practical, sustain-able, and environmentally friendly way forward to address key problems regarding pests and pesticides.

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Agroscope, 2002 Landscape features such as wild flower strips support natural enemies of pests in agricultural landscapes.


Feature

Environmental Disclosure in China

by Tracy Cai, Robert G. Eccles, Allegra Fonda-Bonardi,

and Peiyuan Guo

The first step to achieving environmental accountability in China is to open up about

just how much impact the country’s rapid growth is having. That means full environmental information disclosure from Chinese industries on the country’s physical environment and natural systems. This information disclosure is sometimes mandated by law, statute, policy, convention, or, in the absence of other guidelines, “best practice.”

Important steps are already being taken in establishing country-wide standard operating procedures that began with the country’s emergent non-governmental organization (NGO) community. International NGOs such as the Sustainability

Accounting Standards Board (SASB) have proposed standards for each industry, along with performance.

However, transparency and disclosure do not have long traditions in China, as many still believe the old adage that “silence is golden.” Historically, most Chinese companies chose not to disclose environmental information proactively, although that is changing as Chinese companies become more like their Western counterparts and start to disclose more environmental information and com-municate with external stakeholders.

An important piece of evidence for such change is the increase in the number of corporate sustainability reports that have been published in China since the late 1990s.

In BriefTransparency drives sustainability. The world’s general perception is that China is one of the world’s biggest culprits in greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants, and also one of the least transpar-ent in disclosures about them. China is taking important steps in this direction. In fact, with suf-ficient support from the corporate, financial, and government sec-tors, China could lead the world in improving environmental disclosures and contributing to environmental sustainability on a scale commensurate with its global economic impact.

Cai, T., R.G. Eccles, A. Fonda-Bonardi, and P. Guo. (2016). Environmental Disclosure in China. Solutions 7(2): 58–62.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/environmental-disclosure-in-china/

Jens Schott Knudsen A factory looms in the distance in Beijing.


The earliest corporate sustain-ability report identified in China was published in 1999 by Shell China, and describes the company’s operations and environmental impacts in China. By the early 2000s, the number of cor-porate sustainability reports in China increased steadily from one to over 20, although most reporters at that time were foreign companies.

However, the last decade has seen State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and private Chinese companies join the trend. As these companies were mostly industrial leaders in their own sectors, sustainability reporting practices were widely recognized and spread, which drove up the number of reports. There are currently over 2,000 companies publishing corporate sustainability reports.

Approximately 30 percent of reports follow international reporting protocols such as GRI Guidelines and the UN Global Compact principles. These reports contain more useful data and information than reports that do not follow these guidelines. SynTao’s Message Queue Interface database captures material and quantitative indicators disclosed by corporate sustainability reports in China, and the statistics indicate that around 27 percent of the reports contained materiality and quantitative indicators as of 2014. Though this number is still low, it is rapidly improving.

The biggest driver for this change is regulation promoting corporate sustainability reporting. For example, as of December 2008, the Shanghai Stock Exchange requires three types of companies to release a corporate social responsibility (CSR) report: Corporate Governance Index constituent companies, dual-listed companies (listed in overseas markets), and financial companies. On the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), as early as 2006, the market had already started promoting CSR reports by issuing a set of CSR guidelines for listed companies under

Article 5 of China’s 2006 Company Law.1 In its 2008 annual report, the SZSE required the sample companies in the SZSE 100 Index to release a CSR reports.

Environmental authorities in China also work hard to promote better disclosure of corporate environmental information. In 2007, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA, now known as the Ministry of

Environmental Protection, or MEP) issued the “Measures on Open Environmental Information (for Trial Implementation).”2 According to this document, the government encouraged companies to disclose on a voluntary basis. For polluting companies whose pollutants surpass national or regional discharge standards or whose total pollutant dis-charge surpasses the standard of local governments, mandatory disclosure is required.

Despite encouraging companies to report without the threat of regulatory action, voluntary disclosure does not guarantee compliance or even quality of information reported. Under a voluntary disclosure system, the regu-latory grey area creates the possibility of corruption and draws attention to companies who are early-adopters while leaving the rest of the market to continue with “business as usual.” Since early-adopters may receive more scrutiny from the media and regula-tors, companies that fear regulatory action due to low environmental performance would not report.

After making strides in disclosure transparency, China now needs to encourage more reporting. To decrease the possibility of corruption and establish clear precedent, we propose that listed companies be required to report on a “comply-or-explain” basis. Companies would either need to issue an integrated report along regulator-stipulated guidelines (“comply”), or submit a statement explaining why they could not issue a report for that given period (“explain”).

Without the mandatory require-ment from the government for companies to produce a CSR report, the information disclosed by Chinese listed companies lacks sufficient sta-tistics to allow the market to evaluate the environmental values and risks of companies. It also weakens the ability of markets to build a comprehensive green finance framework and develop environmental products such as indexes and ratings.

These issues of transparency were partly addressed by 2015’s Environmental Act, which encouraged public participation. The Act clearly says that the public has the right to access to environmental information and to participate in environmental protection. This is important because it empowers civil society organiza-tions (i.e. NGOs) and media to call for corporate transparency. In fact, NGOs play an important role in pushing

Key Concepts

• China’s leadership of the G20 in 2016 offers the world’s largest polluter the opportunity to transform its reputation for disregarding the environment.

• The government’s first step must be to push for greater transparency in its reporting on pollution.

• Corporate environmental information disclosure is a key element to estab-lishing a green financial system in China. This establishes transpar-ency and market competitiveness by more accurately reflecting the true environmental costs and values of a corporation’s strategy, and it affords corporations the opportunity to more effectively integrate environmental, social, and governance strategies.

• Chinese regulators should require listed companies and State-Owned Enterprises to offer full environmental disclosure on the pollution they gen-erate as a first step towards steering industry towards a greener future.


corporate environmental disclosure, as they are very eager to access more environmental information so that they can press companies to reduce environmental impacts.

But, there is still much to be done. NGOs and media that consolidate environmental disclosure data need to play a more significant role in communication. Two exemplary disclosers are the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE), a non-profit organization based in Beijing, and Securities Times, which is the official newspaper authorized by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to release news on Chinese listed companies.

IPE aims to promote widespread public participation in environ-mental governance by disclosing corporate environmental information

and hazards in the surrounding environment. In 2006, IPE developed a pollution database covering 31 provinces and approximately 300 cities in China, and disclosed live corporate pollution informa-tion every hour. This includes statistical information from various governmental departments, such as environmental protection, water resources, oceanography, agricultural land resources, and fishing. Based on the environmental information col-lected in the database, IPE launched the China Water Pollution Map and the Air Pollution Map, which have collected 110,000 and 50,000 corpo-rate pollution records, respectively, as of February 2015.

IPE’s Pollution Map application, called “Blue Sky,” has been down-loaded by more than three million

smartphone users.3 The first of its kind in China, this map regularly publishes fine-grained environmental pollution data for cities and major watersheds, all collected by scientists and trained volunteers. Much of the environmental data published before Blue Sky was presented in aggregate (without geospatial locations) and in paper-copy only. For the first time, a new internet-accessible data source existed to verify—and in many cases contest—previous pollution findings. The creator of this map and other initiatives, Ma Jun, has won numerous international awards for his work on environmental transparency and disclosure in China.

Despite its landmark contributions toward environmental data transpar-ency in China, Blue Sky is far from complete. In order to improve the

SynTao Research, 2015 The number of corporate sustainability reports in China (2001–2014).

20140

600

1,200

1,800

2,400

3,000

20132012201120102009200820072006

2,005

1,7371,715

1,018

751

628

15710226

20052004200320022001

94431


quantity and quality of data coverage, we would need a larger volume of sensors within Blue Sky, more regular data updates, and map overlays that geo-locate corporate environmental performance data with areas of densest corporate activity. In addition to the existing data in Blue Sky and govern-ment-collected data from the MEP, corporate environmental reports—produced on a comply-or-explain basis—would provide this third type of data with which to approximate the overall environmental performance of each location.

In January 2015, Securities Times launched the Sewage Standing of Chinese Listed Companies on a weekly basis.4 This project compares the pol-lution information of approximately 2,500 listed companies in A-share

markets and evaluates the environ-mental risk of these companies based on the information. Some high-risk companies in the Standing have been criticized and penalized by the government because of their poor environmental performance. These disciplinary actions represent some of China’s first regulatory attempts to include environmental disclosure and thus environmental performance in its heretofore exclusively GDP-driven performance metrics.

On November 11, 2015, China’s Green Finance Task Force of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, a commission established by the Chinese government and of which the World Resources Institute’s president Andrew Steer is a co-chair, released a

new report on how green reform can spur the country’s transformation to a clean economy. The first of its kind produced by such a high-profile international organization, this report calls for “mandatory environmental disclosure requirements for listed companies.”5

This blueprint nicely lays the groundwork for “The Green Finance Task Force” in the 2016 G20 initiative, where China is taking the lead in developing a set of recommendations for consistent, comparable, reliable, clear, and efficient climate-related disclosures, as set out in the FSB’s pro-posal in November 2015.6 Ultimately, this global approach aims to ensure that clear standards are enforced—not just in China, but elsewhere. The Green Finance Task force will

Stefen Chow / Fortune Global Forum At a Fortune Global Forum held in Chengdu, China in 2013, the CEOs of Ecolab and Broad Group discussed with the Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission the growing pressures on corporations to operate more sustainably.


create an ‘apples for apples’ global system of environmental information disclosure.

The “Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) Framework for reporting environmental information and natu-ral capital” and the climate-related disclosures in the sector-specific standards available on the SASB’s “Standards Navigator” can form the basis for these standards. These standards allow accounting firms to provide audit opinions on these disclo-sures that are completed as rigorously as those for financial disclosures.

Here is where China has a great opportunity to exercise leadership. We suggest that the appropriate government authorities—the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), in coordination with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and other institutions—issue regulations on a “comply-or-explain” basis that all listed Chinese companies should use the work of the CDSB and SASB in their environmental disclosures. Regulations would need to be paired with coordinated enforcement provided by the CSRC and the various stock exchanges.

That is a first step. We further suggest that these disclosures be included with the company’s financial disclosures in an effort towards inte-grated reporting. An up-and-coming form of corporate reporting, Integrated Reporting concisely communicates how an organization’s strategy, gov-ernance, performance, and prospects, in the context of its external environ-ment, lead to the creation of value in the short, medium, and long term.7 Given its emphasis on balancing short-term and long-term corporate performance based on measurable standards, Integrated Reporting pro-vides a coherent and flexible platform for Chinese companies to report, in a comparable way, to companies in

other global markets while maintain-ing the flexibility to adapt as these markets change.

China’s window of opportunity to lead in corporate environmental disclosure is as sizeable as the impact of its business on their surroundings. The potential for China to lead will depend on the courage of economi-cally self-interested institutions to step up to their own challenge and turn a window of opportunity into a field of innovation.

References1. Lin, Li-Wen. Corporate Social Responsibility in

China: Window Dressing or Structural Change.

Berkeley Journal of International Law 28(1) [online]

(2010) http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/

viewcontent.cgi?article=1377&context=bjil.

2. Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Measures on Open Environmental Information

(Trial) [online] (2007) (Chinese): http://www.gov.cn/

ziliao/flfg/2007- (English translation): http://www.

cecc.gov/resources/legal-provisions/measures-on-

open-environmental-information-trial-cecc-full-

translation.

3. Qin, Liu. ‘Blue Sky’ app to get China’s public

thinking about solutions to pollution crisis. China

Dialogue [online] (April 28, 2015) https://www.

chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/7870--

Blue-Sky-app-to-get-China-s-public-thinking-about-

solutions-to-pollution-crisis.

4. Sewage Standing of Chinese Listed Companies.

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www.cnstock.com/.

5. Zhu, Shouqing. By Taking 5 Steps, China Can Start

Leading the Green Finance Revolution. World

Resources Institute [online] (November 11, 2015)

http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/11/taking-5-steps-

china-can-start-leading-green-finance-revolution.

6. Perry, J. FSB proposes creation of disclosure task

force on climate-related risks. Financial Stability

Board [online] (November 9, 2015) http://www.fsb.

org/2015/11/fsb-proposes-creation-of-disclosure-

task-force-on-climate-related-risks-2/.

7. International <IR> Framework. International

Integrated Reporting Council. [online] (2015)

www.integratedreporting.org.

OECD / Chinese Government Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development meets with Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiei on March 26, 2016 at the G20 finance ministers meeting in Shanghai, China.


ReviewsBook Review

Cooperstein, B. (2016). Techno-Dystopia. Solutions 7(2): 63–67.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/techno-dystopia-or-techno-utopia/

“Those jobs are going, and they ain’t coming back,” from My Hometown by Bruce Springsteen.

A recent Upshot piece in The New York Times entitled “The

Geography of Trumpism” compared hundreds of demographic and eco-nomic variables culled from census data in an effort to understand the source of “The Donald’s” political support. The analysis found that the counties most likely to support the real estate mogul “are places where white identity mixes with long-simmering economic dysfunctions.” While his voters come from North and South, liberal, conservative, rural, and urban communities, “[w]hat they have in common is that they largely missed the generation-long transition of the United States from manufacturing and into a diverse, information-driven economy deeply intertwined with the rest of the world.” But, that only goes so far in explaining Trump’s support given that upheavals in labor markets have been built into the industrial evolution since the beginning.

In recurrent cycles, each inau-gurated by the introduction of new technologies and products, there has been a concomitant fear that pro-ductivity-enhancing methods would make significant numbers of workers redundant, resulting in widespread

unemployment on the one hand, and a decline in average wages for those fortunate enough to have a job on the other. And periodically, there have been voices calling attention to these possibilities.

For example, in his 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, John Maynard Keyes warned about “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” warned about the prospect of widespread techno-logical unemployment “due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.”

In August 1949, Norbert Wiener, a distinguished professor of mathematics at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and a pioneer in the field of cybernetics wrote a letter to Walter Reuther, the president of the United Autoworkers Union (UAW), to warn him that the application of modern computing machines, then only in their infancy, to the assembly line, would result in disastrous unemploy-ment within a decade or two. Wiener argued that this was inevitable and he sounded this alarm so that the UAW could help its members prepare for this eventuality. Wiener even proposed a solution: the UAW should take owner-ship of the technology for robots and thereby benefit from the very means that would displace its members.

Less than two decades later, in March 1964, a group of intellectuals and activists, which included the economists Robert Theobald, Robert Heilbroner, and eventual Nobel laureate Gunnar Myrdal, as well as Nobel chemist Linus Pauling and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, sent a memorandum, The Triple Revolution, to President Lyndon Johnson. Along with revolutions in weaponry and human rights, the statement identified a “cybernetics” revolution as a threat to the stability of modern economies. More specifically, they warned that automatic machines would result in a “system of almost unlimited industrial capacity” and, correspondingly, would drastically reduce the labor needs of the economy resulting in a significant increase in structural unemployment.

Though US manufacturing employ-ment as a percentage of the labor force peaked in 1943 and in absolute numbers in 1979, and has been declin-ing ever since, neither Keynes nor Wiener’s fears or those of the Ad Hoc

Techno-Dystopia or Techno-Utopia?by Bruce CoopersteinRise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Futureby Martin Ford

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologiesby Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

Basic Books


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Committee materialized, at least in the time frame imagined. The combina-tion of government intervention through fiscal and monetary policy, as well as the growth of the service economy, led to an increase, rather than a decrease, in employment.

The possibility that the world and national economies cannot create suf-ficient employment in large enough numbers to support all those who must work has not drawn sustained attention since the 1960s – until lately.

It is fear of unemployment that drives politicians in the OECD nations, as well as emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil, to enact polices to stimulate material growth as an alternative to distributing the benefits of technology more equitably. We also see the consequences in demo-cratic societies when the economy does not deliver on the expectations of its members in the rise of ‘Trumpism’ in the US. In parallel with these fears, a diverse set of academics is making the

case that this time, we really should be worried about the impact of technol-ogy on our employment prospects.

One such author is Martin Ford, a computer engineer, entrepreneur, and author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. Ford foresees an explosion in the applica-tion of robots in the economy with dire consequences for employment, “driven by the relentless acceleration in computer technology.” This will result in “a fundamental shift in the

Steve Jurvetson / Rodney Brooks Domo, an experimental robot designed by MIT in 2012 to interact with humans.


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relationship between workers and machines” and “challenge one of our most basic assumptions about technology: that machines are tools that increase the productivity of workers. Instead, machines themselves are turn-ing into workers, and the line between the capability of labor and capital is blurring as never before.”

Anticipating the inevitable response that we have been here before and the economy was more than capable of absorbing displaced workers in new industries, Ford argues that the past century was an economic “Goldilocks” period that has now come to an end. In support of this, he cites the fact that in the first decade of the 21st century the US economy created zero net new jobs, something that had not happened since the Great Depression of the 1930s and that con-trasts strongly with every other decade since the end of World War II in which job growth exceeded 20 percent.

He also challenges the assumption that the dislocation will be limited to workers with little education and lower-skill levels. As he puts it: “While lower-skill occupations will no doubt continue to be affected, a great many college-educated, white-collar occupations are going to discover that their jobs, too, are squarely in the sights as software automation and predictive algorithms advance rapidly in capability.” He concludes that the usual response to such disruption, the acquisition of more education and skills “will not necessarily offer effec-tive protection against job automation in the future.”

As an example, he cites radiologists, “medical doctors who specialize in the interpretation of medical images.” With advances in the ability of com-puters to analyze images, it is entirely possible to envision that radiology

in the near future will be performed by machines. In separate chapters, he details the kinds and extent of disruption that will transform higher education on the one hand, and health care on the other.

In further support of his claim that “this time is different,” Ford cites seven trends: stagnant wages; a decline in the percent of the economy going to labor with a corresponding great return to corporations; a decline in the labor force participation rate; soar-ing inequality; polarization and the increase in part-time jobs; and, declin-ing incomes and underemployment of college graduates.

The last chapter of his book is entitled “Toward a New Economic Paradigm,” but it is not especially new. It is informed by an insight that goes back to John Maynard Keynes: if most people must have a job in order to earn income and they are replaced by machines, then there will not be enough demand for the products made by those machines. This will result in a decrease in production, more unemployment, even less demand in the economy, and a vicious circle is created.

Keynes’ magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, was written to deal with this eventuality. Its underlying idea was for government to get money into the hands of people by just about any means possible. One such way is to build public works, but so is hiring people to put bank notes in bottles and burying them and then having other people dig them up.

Ford’s preferred way to put money into people’s hands is via expansion of social insurance in the form of a basic income guarantee. This is an idea that can be traced back to the libertarian economist Friedrich Hayek, proposed in

his three-volume work Law, Legislation and Liberty, published between 1973 and 1979. There, Hayek wrote:

The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appear not only to be a wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a neces-sary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born.

Even though Hayek is an icon of the right wing there would be fierce resistance to any proposal for a basic income guarantee; Ford nonetheless says that “the conservative argument for a basic income centers on the fact that it provides a safety net coupled with individual freedom of choice. Rather than having government intrude into personal economic decisions, or get into the business of directly providing products and services, the idea is to give everyone the means to go out and participate in the market.”

Ford is particular about the way in which a basic income guarantee should be enacted. As he puts it, “The most important factor in designing a workable guaranteed income scheme is getting the incentives right. The objective should be to provide a universal safety net as well as a supple-ment to low incomes—but, without creating a disincentive to work and to be as productive as possible. The income provided should be relatively minimal: enough to get by, but not enough to be especially comfortable.” He discusses but does not come down


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on either side between the alternative of an unconditional basic income paid to all adults on the one hand and a means tested guaranteed minimum income such as a negative income tax paid only to those at the bottom of the income distribution, on the other. Ford would also support and encour-age education, if only because “we all benefit when the people around us are more educated, but also because a better educated population will be positioned to more constructively use their leisure time.”

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee are professors at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, co-directors of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and co-authors of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. They have a very similar prospective on the implications for work and employment to Ford’s, but offer a more comprehensive set of responses. In particular, they are more sensitive to the role that work plays in people’s lives. It is encapsulated in this quote from Voltaire: “Work saves a man from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.” As they put it, “It’s tremendously important for people to work, not just because that’s how they get their money, but also because it’s one of the principal ways they get many other important things: self-worth, community engagement, healthy values, structure, and dignity, to name just a few.”

Like Ford, Brynjolfsson and McAfee advocate revisiting the idea of a basic income guarantee. They come down squarely on the side of a negative income tax because it “combines a guaranteed minimum income with an incentive to work” a concept also sup-ported by the conservative economist Milton Friedman. They also propose

measures on taxation, reducing or eliminating taxes on labor (income and payroll taxes), which make the cost of labor more expensive, to be replaced by taxes on pollution as well as a value added tax.

Where they really diverge from Ford is in the advocacy of some “wild ideas,” for example, the creation of a national mutual fund which would distribute capital widely and provide a dividend to all citizens, pay people in non-profits to do socially beneficial work, and several others. As a last resort, it would appear they would have government hire workers to build infrastructure and other public goods.

However, while both of these books do a service by raising the issue of wide scale unemployment in the US (and other advanced economies) they neglect the developing world. New technology will ultimately displace workers in the developing world (manufacturing employment in China is already declining). The consequences for the people of these economies is much more dire since they do not have the accumulated capital, wealth, and income-generating capacity to guarantee citizens a basic income. Also, there is little discussion of whether the planet can really support the increased material production and consumption that is implied by the productivity explosion made possible by digitaliza-tion, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Underlying this is an implicit assump-tion that exponential progress will soon come to energy production and storage, paving a painless way to a renewable and sustainable future.

Finally, neither book reveals any skepticism about the “market,” whether it delivers what people really want and need, and if it operates at a physi-cal scale consistent with the limited

capacity of the planet to absorb wastes (pollution). The authors are, instead, so transfixed by what is coming out of labs in Silicon Valley and other tech-nology hubs that they fail to see the ways that people might be employed to help others (and at the same time, themselves) as well as restoring the environment. If, indeed, the future envisioned such as is depicted in these books comes to pass, it is not clear if we would be arriving at Utopia—or its polar opposite.

If we are to avoid an unemploy-ment crisis such as has never been experienced before, then we are going to have to accept that government has a large role to play in directing people to jobs (vocations might be a better word) that improve society as a whole. These may include caring for an aging population, public transit, after school programs for youth, artists and writers in residence programs—the list is endless. Unlike the robots, we are only limited by our imaginations.

W. W. Norton & Company


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What Tomorrow Brings Documents the Progress of Afghan Girls’ Educationby N’dea Yancey-Bragg

Even nearly 15 years after the fall of the Taliban, issues of safety, a lack of female teachers, and cultural pressures combine to prevent girls from getting an education.

“The status of girls’ education in Afghanistan right now, if I could sum it up in one word, is precarious,” says Beth Murphy, a filmmaker who has been working in the region for nearly a decade.

Murphy’s latest documentary, What Tomorrow Brings, sheds light on one community’s efforts to combat this unfortunate reality. The film follows the growth of the Zabuli Education Center, a K-12 school built by Razia Jan in a small village outside Kabul that now educates over 480 girls.

Upon returning to Afghanistan after the war, Jan saw the blow dealt to women’s education by the Taliban. Despite facing resistance from men in her community, Jan has successfully grown the school since its inception in 2008.

Murphy, founder of Principle Pictures, recently partnered with The Ground Truth Project to continue documenting the school’s progress. She praised Jan’s “holistic approach” to change, one which effectively earned the support of the community.

“The change has been really dra-matic, the change in perception, the change in mindset. I think we would say it’s incredible if it happened in a generation, and here it’s happened in eight years.” Murphy says.

Thanks to this support, seven girls celebrated becoming the school’s first graduating class in November 2015. Jan ensured they would continue

their education by launching a crowdfunding campaign, which raised over USD$120,000 to build the first women’s community college in rural Afghanistan.

All the graduates are enrolled in the midwifery program at the Razia Jan Institute. The health clinic at the school will function as a teaching hospital while also providing much needed healthcare services to the community.

What Tomorrow Brings is set to be released in early 2016. Murphy is launching a pilot program with Facing

History and Ourselves to bring the film into classroom and community settings.

“I’ll try to keep people talking about it and caring about it,” she says.

Though schools are still at risk of attack, current estimates place the number of girls enrolled in schools at 2.5 million, a vast improvement from the enrollment under the Taliban. Murphy said she’s seen the situation improve dramatically over the past eight years and hopes Jan’s model can be replicated in other communities.

Graham Crouch / World Bank Students study in the library at the Female Experimental High School in Herat, Afghanistan.


Solutions in History

Dorothy’s “emerald city” might have been in the Land of Oz, but

drive into any U.S. suburb and you will be greeted by an equally verdant land-scape, one dominated by the American lawn. However, despite their ubiquity, there was once a time when grassy lawns were not so popular. Their rise reflects the aesthetics of suburbia and the evolving values of American consumers. But such preferences come at a price: as well as being a colossal waste of space, lawns also promote the

large-scale indiscriminate use of harm-ful chemicals.

“Lawn,” from 16th-century Old English “launde,” is defined as an open space or glade. Popularized by British aristocracies who maintained low-cut grass through hired labor, the lawn soon became a status symbol. But it was not until the late 19th century that turf began to take root in the United States. In his book The Art of Beautifying Suburban Home Grounds, published in 1870, landscape architect Frank Scott

wrote that a “closely-shaven surface of grass is by far the most essential element of beauty on the grounds of a suburban home.”1

Despite the germination of lawn aesthetics in the late 19th century, rela-tively few Americans had the wealth and spare time to cultivate a lawn. Before the induction of the 40-hour workweek, most people worked six days a week and observed the Sabbath on Sundays. Moreover, much of the working-class depended on their land as a food source and often grew veg-etables and raised livestock on their “lawns.”1

Meanwhile goats, pigs, cows, and horses were common in major metropolises as recently as the late 19th century. In fact, pigs were an essential component of the urban landscape; they roamed in large herds, fed on garbage and waste, and later ended up on family dinner tables. Additionally, the city and countryside formed a more holistic ecological relationship as nearby farm-ers trucked meat and produce into the city, while cities shipped out waste for fertilizer. Natural cycles were integrated into everyday life and many valued the efficiency of such a system. While the lack of a proper sewage system and the presence of animals posed a public health concern, many were nonetheless outraged when New York City authori-ties banned swine from the streets; farmers complained about the loss of good fertilizer, and the urban poor lamented the loss of a free food source.2

It wasn’t until World War II that mowed turf began to gain in popularity among American homeowners. While the war offered a brief reprieve from unabated growth of suburban sprawl and automobile use, green lawns

The Four-Legged Lawn Mowerby Mary Loomis

Loomis, M. (2016). The Four-Legged Lawn Mower. Solutions 7(2): 68–72.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/the-four-legged-lawn-mower/

Wind Ranch Goats are an eco-friendly and traditional alternative to gas-powered lawnmowers.



nonetheless prevailed as a symbol of patriotism. Lawn seed companies such as O.M. Scott & Sons printed advertise-ments that tapped into national pathos: “Your lawn is the symbol of peace at home and its proper maintenance a vital factor in keeping up morale” stated one, while others directed their war-like aggression toward weeds. As one author of an article on lawn care wrote, “It’s time to take up arms against the weeds. From now on, when man and nature meet on the lawn, it’s dog eat dog.”1

By linking lawn care with patrio-tism, lawn companies helped to create an insatiable desire among suburban Americans for the perfect lawn—a feat near impossible to achieve. Yet, it isn’t for lack of effort. In response to California’s four year drought and ensuing water regulations, lawn spray-painting businesses have been cropping up in order to preserve the appearance of lush lawns, despite the parched reality.3 Companies such as Xtreme Green Grass of West Sacramento, California offer home-owners the service of spray-painting lawns green in order to turn dead grass into a seemingly flourishing lawn.4

As lawns became increasingly ubiquitous, the image of the perfect lawn was celebrated as a vital and pleas-ant adjunct to middle-class American culture. Picnics, croquet, 4th of July bar-becues, and a “big backyard for the kids” are all synonymous with the American dream. But our emerald green fairy tale may have caught up with us.

From Idyllic Green to Environmental HazardToday, the lawn is the largest single crop in the nation, occupying approxi-mately two percent of the surface of the continental U.S.5 Millions of Americans feel the perfectly mani-cured lawn is an integral part of their suburban home, but few are aware of its environmental impact.

Kentucky bluegrass, the most common lawn grass, is a native of north-ern Europe and is ill adapted to much of the United States’ considerably drier climate.1 Scenario models suggest that 695 to 900 liters of water per person per day is required to meet the collective domestic and commercial consumptive water use for lawn management.6

Additionally, run-off from fertilizer inputs contribute to harmful algal blooms that can alter marine ecosys-tems, kill marine life, contaminate drinking water, and cause human disease and even death.7 This issue is widespread, occurring from Vermont’s Lake Champlain to the Gulf of Mexico. Maryland, for example, has an estimated 1.3 million acres of planted turf, requiring 86 million pounds of fertilizer each year. The runoff from this application of chemicals is severe enough to play a part in threatening the health of many bodies of water, including the Chesapeake Bay.8

Perhaps most surprising, though, are the negative impacts of the lawn-mower and other gas-powered lawn equipment. Honda, Toro, Cub Cadet, and John Deere may be household names, but the candied green and red lawnmowers marketed at town hardware stores are guilty of emitting a significant percentage of the United States’ annual pollutants.

A study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), found that, as of 2011, the number of units of gasoline-powered lawn and garden equipment (GLGE) in the U.S. was estimated at 120,978,220. These GLGE non-road emissions contribute five percent of the country’s annual air pollution. Ultimately, the EPA found that GLGE is a major source of toxic carcinogenic emissions, which can lead to negative health impacts including cardiovascu-lar disease, stroke, respiratory disease, cancer, neurological conditions,

Jennifer Morrow Goats graze on Google property in Palo Alto, California in 2010.



premature death, and effects on fertil-ity and prenatal development.9

Beyond air pollution, GLME are a prominent source of noise pollution. The average lawnmower produces 85 to 90 decibels for the operator and can be heard over a quarter-mile away.10 The EPA warns that noise levels at 85 decibels or above can be harmful to hearing. Such noise can cause loss of hearing, increased blood pressure, insomnia, increased heart rate, cardio-vascular diseases, and changes in brain chemistry to those exposed to it for long periods of time.11

The Four-Legged MowerDespite these environmental and health concerns, Americans continue to be devoted to their lawns. However, a counterculture movement reflective of the 19th century is slowly emerging in suburbia. Clotheslines are creeping back into neighborhoods, and the local food movement is trending. Most surprisingly, livestock is making a comeback in urban areas, with goats in particular emerging as a partial solu-tion to lawn care and invasive species control. Companies such as Eco-goats and Rent-a-Goat, for example, offer

goat rental services as a means to clear land of unwanted vegetation, reduce fire danger, mow lawns, and remove invasive species.12

Domesticated from the wild goat (Capra aegagrus) 10,000 years ago at the edge of the Fertile Crescent, humans have benefited from goats’ wool, milk, and meat.13 However, in more recent history, goats have earned a bad name. Introduced to countries and islands worldwide, feral goats have wrought ecological havoc on native flora and fauna. In fact, many goat eradication efforts have taken place, including on the islands of Lana’I (Hawaii), San Clementine (California), Pinta (Galapagos), and Raoul (New Zealand).14

And yet the very traits that have made them an environmental disaster make them a viable replacement for the lawnmower. Their success as a feral animal has been made possible by their physiological traits, including low metabolism, efficient digestion system, low water requirements, high reproductive rate, and general diet.14 These make them ideal as lawn and garden-care animals.

Advertised as “eco-friendly,” goats munch on weeds, invasive plants, and grasses without emitting the same noxious fumes as lawn power tools.12 One study confirmed goats’ effectiveness in invasive species control by examining their impact on the multiflora rose plant. Researchers found that goats grazing in a pad-dock depleted the biovolume of the multiflora rose plant by 38.7 percent in 68 days. In contrast, the control paddock had a 56.7 percent increase in biovolume.15

In addition to limiting harmful emissions, goat-waste deposits naturally fertilize lawns, allowing homeowners who rent goats to forgo harmful chemical fertilizers. Meanwhile, their munching habits

Beth Jusino Goats seen grazing under an overpass in Seattle, Washington in 2013.



and occasional bleats don’t add to motor noise pollution that plague urban areas.12

However, goats’ most beneficial impact on a landscape may not be ecological so much as cultural. Eric MacDonald, associate professor of environmental design history at the University of Georgia, is the project coordinator of the Tanyard Creek Chew Crew, a student-led initiative that utilizes prescribed grazing for landscape management on campus. From an ecological perspective, the project has been quite successful; the goats, which graze for five to six weeks every fall and spring, have done good work controlling the kudzu and paper mulberry in the riparian zone MacDonald’s team has targeted. Nonetheless, it is the social consequence that has captured MacDonald’s attention. “Some of the areas that are most heavily degraded by invasive species are generally areas that people have no strong connection to,” he explains. “The idea that was interesting to me about using goats was not just about whether it was ecologically effective, but whether we could build culture and sense of place around these particular landscapes.”16

As it turns out, they could. “Goats are pleasing, an attractive addition to the landscape and bringing a sense of culture…to a location people would otherwise just walk by,” says MacDonald. So for now, the goats will stay on Georgia’s campus, munching away at the woody vegetation between the dormitories and the outskirts of town.16

Nonetheless, the benefits of goats are not endless. When probed about the drawbacks of goats, Brian Knox, founder of Eco-Goats, says that they are not a “magic bullet.” “[Goats] don’t make things go away magically and they’re not picky so they can and will

eat desirable vegetation…you can do a lot of damage with goats if they’re in the wrong spot,” says Knox. Not to mention that fact that goats are also not cheap. “Goats are always more fun, but they’re not more economical,” says Knox. “If you can run a machine on the land, then it’s infinitely cheaper than using goats.”17

That isn’t to say Knox hasn’t been milking goats for all that they’re worth. In 2013 his own herd wandered around the headstones at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington D.C. where they took on poison ivy and English ivy—two plants that are jeopardizing the health of the cemetery’s trees and the integ-rity of the tombstones.18

Legally, regulations are often set in place that prohibit “diseased or unfit animals,” or animals that are “likely to cause delay in traffic” in cities. Nonetheless, the goats were cleared to roam within set cemetery boundaries due to Knox’s background as a certified forester and after collabo-ration with the Department of Public Health.18 The experiment was deemed a success, and goats were welcomed back to the Congressional Cemetery in August 2015.

Ultimately, Knox thinks goats are a “wonderful tool in the toolbox” when used correctly. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re cute to boot. When he does jobs in residential areas, Knox says most of the time everyone is “just tickled to see the goats.”17

So while goats may be just a fringe lawn-tool, they are growing in popularity and have been employed by numerous landowners, from residential homeowners to Google and Yahoo.19 The sight of goats browsing front yards and corporate gardens will spur conversation and at least get people thinking about other possible ways of managing and using urban green space.

A Possible FutureAmerica’s relationship with the natu-ral world has changed and evolved throughout history. Indeed, it was not too long ago that Thomas Jefferson pictured a quiet agrarian society. But instead of vegetables and livestock, the United States has long since farmed a different kind of crop: the American lawn.

Companies capitalizing on America’s consumer culture and patriotic values have responded to political and economic realities by selling the “perfect lawn” as a symbol of status, peace, and patriotism. However, a closer look at history shows that landowners’ values are subject to change. History tells us that productivity once trumped aesthetics. Home gardens used to produce food. City menageries had feral pigs that served as both a waste disposal service and a valuable food source. And horses were used for transportation while their manure was shipped out to nearby farms. In short, history tells us that the lawn, as a manifestation of American values, is subject to change.

In his influential essay The Trouble with Wilderness, William Cronon argues that Americans have fetishized wilderness, in the process devaluing other landscapes. Instead, we should learn to treat all corners of the Earth with equal care—from the “seem-ingly tame fields and woodlots of Massachusetts,” to the “cracks of a Manhattan sidewalk.”20

Goats just may prove to be the hook that gets American homeowners to rethink their environmental ethic within the midst of spray painted lawns. By reintroducing livestock back into our urban environments, whether it be backyard chickens or rented goat lawnmowers, we can begin to remem-ber a more ecologically sustainable way of living.



References1. Steinberg, T. American Green: The Obsessive Quest for

the Perfect Lawn (W.W. Norton, New York, 2006).

2. Steinberg, T. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American

History (Oxford University Press, New York, 2002).

3. Cheng, L, M. Hoerling, and A. AghaKouchak.

How has human-induced climate change affected

California drought risk? Journal of Climate 29(1),

111–120 (2016).

4. Xtreme Green. Xtreme Green Grass [online] (2015)

http://www.xtremegreengrass.com/.

5. Milesia, C et al. A strategy for mapping and

modeling the ecological effects of lawns. The

International Society for Photogrammetry and

Remote Sensing [online] (2015) http://www.isprs.

org/proceedings/XXXVI/8-W27/milesi.pdf.

6. A Strategy for Mapping and Modeling the

Ecological Effects of US Lawns. The International

Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

[online] (2015) https://www.isprs.org/proceedings/

XXXVI/8-W27/milesi.pdf.

7. National Ocean Service. Harmful algal blooms.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[online] (January 20, 2016) http://oceanservice.noaa.

gov/hazards/hab/.

8. Urban fertilizers & the Chesapeake Bay: an

opportunity for major pollution reduction.

Environment Maryland Research and Policy

Center [online] (March 28, 2011) http://www.

environmentmaryland.org/reports/mde/urban-

fertilizers-chesapeake-bay.

9. Banks, J. and R. McConnell. National emissions

from lawn and garden equipment. Environmental

Protection Agency [online] (2011) http://www3.epa.

gov/ttn/chief/conference/ei21/session10/banks.pdf.

10. Chepesiuk, R. Decibel hell: the effects of living in a

noisy world. Environmental Health Perspectives 113(1),

A34–A41 (2005).

11. Noise Pollution Clearinghouse. Quiet lawns:

creating the “perfect” landscape without polluting

the soundscape. NPC [online] (2015) http://www.

nonoise.org/library/qz7/QuietLawns05.pdf.

12. Rent a Goat. Benefits [online] (2015) http://rentagoat.

com/benefits/.

13. Roots, C. Domestication (Greenwood, Westport, CT,

2007).

14. Campbell, K. and J. Donlan. Feral goat eradications

on islands. Conservation Biology 19(5), 1362–1374

(2005).

15. Kleppel, G., S. Caggiano, A. O’Conner, and E.

McGowan. Conservation goat grazing for invasive

species in the Hudson Valley [online] (2010) https://

www.glynwood.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/

Conservation-Goat-Grazing-Report.pdf.

16. MacDonald, E. Tanyard Creek Chew Crew (personal

communication, 2016).

17. Knox, B. Eco-Goats (personal communication,

2016).

18. Kramer, M. The kids are alright: goats that double as

lawnmowers. National Geographic [online] (2013) http://

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/08/130808-

goats-lawnmowers-environment-cemetery-

congressional-washington-dc/.

19. McCarthy, C. Things to make you happy: Google

employs goats. CNET [online] (2009) http://www.

cnet.com/news/things-to-make-you-happy-google-

employs-goats/.

20. Cronon, W. in The Great New Wilderness Debate (eds

Callicott, J & Nelson, M) (University of Georgia

Press, Athens GA, 1998): 89.

Travis Wise Goats graze on Google property in Palo Alto, California in 2010.


On The Ground

Rand, K. (2016). Finding the Invisible: A New Way to Look for Invasive Species Using eDNA. Solutions 7(2): 73–79.

https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/finding-the-invisible-a-new-way-to-look-for-invasive-species-using-edna/

On a dock that leads from the pine-bordered shoreline of Flathead

Lake, I lean over, and look into the clear green water as hundreds of native Northern pike minnow swim through the gaps in the timber structure of the dock. In the warming water of spring, the fish are spawning. I have watched them since my childhood, carrying out the same cycle year to year, by play-fully swirling around each other.

Flathead Lake is one of the largest freshwater lakes in the American West. It lies just south of Glacier National Park in Montana and remains a particularly clean water source, despite human pressures of excess nutrients, pollutant runoff, and ero-sion from agriculture and cities. For now, talk of mining has all but dried up since the upper watershed received protection in 2014.1

But, all is not as it seems. Aquatic invasive species are now making slow and steady progress toward not just Flathead Lake, but other rivers and lakes in Montana.

The invaders include aquatic plants, fish, amphibians, pathogens, and invertebrates like mollusks and snails. They arrive in new places every day. They can alter ecosystems by taking over large areas, disrupting

Finding the Invisible: A New Way to Look for Invasive Species Using eDNAby Ken Rand

Ken Rand As students look on, members of Gordon Luikart’s lab, Steve Amish and Jenna Schabacker, collect filtered water sediment samples with a tow net for eDNA testing at the boat launch on Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park in June 2015.


On The Ground

nutrient cycles, and causing negative economic effects for hydroelectric dams, water, and places that rely on recreation and tourism.

Scientists are hoping that a new technology will help protect these waters by providing early detection and monitoring of invasive species without having to spot them visually.

In fact, all that is needed is one biological cell.

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, is a way of collecting genetic material without having to find or capture a rare or hard-to-find species. Scientists are now using DNA tests that capture water samples and look for unique markers to each species.

DNA contains the genetic instruc-tions to make a living thing. Each species of organism has a unique set of genes, and each cell from that organ-ism carries a complete set of those genes. When a plant or animal sheds some of those cells—from a fish’s scale, a leaf or plant tendril, or from blood, sperm, scat, urine, or pollen—it enters the “environment.”

To find out how scientists are chasing down eDNA, I spent a summer afternoon at Glacier National Park. Snow-capped Stanton Mountain waits in a raincloud at the opposite end of glacier-fed Lake McDonald, as I stand and watch the first sampling of eDNA that I have seen.

Standing at the shore, Gordon Luikart watches the mountains to track if rain or lightning will interrupt his experiment. Luikart is a conservation geneticist at the Flathead Lake Biological Station, a part of the University of Montana. A transplant from Iowa, he traces his first interests in biology and conservation to his love of fishing and being outdoors.

Today, he is speaking to his summer class of conservation biology students while holding a fine-meshed net called a plankton net, usually used to collect small aquatic creatures. “So, you can detect a single cell of anything that has touched the water, defecated from above, or swam through the water,” says Luikart.

Ken Rand At Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park, students from Gordon Luikart’s summer conservation ecology course hold a tube of sediment collected by a tow net that could potentially hold the DNA of many species that have touched or live in the lake.


On The Ground

A bright flash of lightning strikes at the other end of the lake and a brief echo of thunder rolls across the lake. “Whoa, lightning. Who wants to hold the net?” says Luikart jokingly. No one takes it.

On the floating dock, Steve Amish, a genetic researcher at the University of Montana, drags a long, fine mesh net through the water along the dock to capture drifting detritus.

On the first try, the net catches mostly cottonwood tree fluff, but on a second pass in deeper water, the sample

shows up cleaner. Amish raises the net up in the air to drain most of the water. Jenna Schabacker, a young researcher who works with eDNA in his lab, rinses the remaining debris with ethanol and places it into small vials.

The samples they collect don’t look like much, with tiny bits of material sometimes visible in the bottom, but in each of the samples hide the signa-tures of potentially every species that has touched the lake.

Suddenly the students shout in excitement as they look into the vial,

holding it up to the clouds. A small pair of eyes peer out. It’s a fish larva.

“So, we will probably detect that one with an eDNA test. But what spe-cies is it?” Luikart says, “You can’t tell without a DNA test.”

Amish and Schabacker take these samples back to the Montana Conservation Genetics Lab in Missoula, where they work. They will look for DNA from invasive species that are not supposed to be in the lake, as well as others that they already know are there, like the non-native lake and rainbow trout, as proof of principle. Their real enemies are the animals and plants they hope they will never find, like zebra and quagga mussels. They will also look for the mussels with eDNA in the environment.

To do this, Luikart and his team have to improve the methods of sampling waterborne genetic material. Using eDNA on a large scale in the open environment remains largely unproven. In Flathead Lake, one of the gems of Montana, no one else has undertaken such a task.

To that end, the lab will start testing with a small, unmanned submarine that will take water quality and eDNA samples and process them in real-time inside the vehicle while beaming the results back to shore. Luikart also just received funding to start design on another sampler that will sit in place at heavily used sites to take samples over time and monitor for invasive species.

Flathead Lake is hardly pristine, despite its visual beauty. Humans have changed and manipulated the lake to fit their needs, starting with the introduction of lake trout in 1905, now the most visible invasive species in the lake today, and other fish to aid sport fishing. This was followed by the introduction of mysis shrimp that fed the lake trout expansion.2

Ken Rand Zebra (top) and quagga (bottom) mussels pose an immediate threat to the waters they are introduced into, often causing widespread ecosystem changes by degrading habitats of native species without viable solutions for eradicating them.


On The Ground

But now, new invasive species are coming on their own.

There are many aquatic invasive species already in Montana, includ-ing Eurasian watermilfoil, curlyleaf pondweed, flowering rush, and New Zealand mudsnails. And there are two mussels that are not here yet, but must be kept out: zebra and quagga mussels.

To look at an invasion that has already happened, I drive south from Glacier National Park back to Flathead Lake. At the Ducharme Fishing Access, a few miles east of Polson, a dirt road ends at a small constructed strip of land flanked by cottonwood trees. The shallow water is choked with plants forming dark brown patches in a thick mat. Some are native, but one plant in particular is most dominant; flowering rush, a native of Eurasia, has closed in on the boat ramp in dense drifting swaths.

Parts of the flowering rush break loose and float away. Each floating piece, called a rhizome, is a potential rooting plant that may drift to a new location and take root. With a repro-ductive strategy like this, it is easy to see why a plant or animal might be considered invasive.

Virgil Dupuis pulls a stalk with its identifying triangular-sectioned stem, and then tosses it back into the water. “I hate this stuff,” he says with a laugh.

Dupuis is Extension Director at the Salish Kootenai College and a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes who has worked on the problem of flowering rush for much of his career.

He spent his childhood swimming in the lake. Since then, flowering rush has moved from where it was origi-nally found near Lakeside, Montana, around the lake and down into the Flathead, Clark Fork, and Columbia Rivers. It is now creeping toward Glacier National Park.

Dupuis notes how the presence of the invasive plant has a cascading effect on other species. “This kind of a habitat favors invasive fish like bass and perch,” says Dupuis. These fish are not native to the lake, but they thrive by breeding in the flowering rush. They out-compete native fish like endangered bull trout and declining westslope cutthroat trout, Dupuis explains.

With Peter Rice at the University of Montana, Dupuis is now trying to develop a method to eradicate the plant in small plots by applying herbi-cide during lower water in the spring.

“Aquatics are a weird area, because whose responsibility is it? You know, the landowner doesn’t own it,” he says.

“This place here is, to be honest, kind of a lost cause,” says Dupuis, but he still holds out hope that the plant can be controlled by yearly chemi-cal treatments, or at least that such

treatments will keep the plant from thriving.

How, then, to keep flowering rush from taking over other parts of Montana? And, what about the other rapacious plants and mussels that have fouled other parts of the nation’s waterways?

Boat check stations dot the major entryways into Montana’s lakes and streams. There are gaps in coverage, though. eDNA might be the tool that can overcome these limitations.

Scientists have used eDNA suc-cessfully to detect rare species such as salamanders in Idaho and fish popula-tions, like the Chinook Salmon in Washington,3,4 at a fraction of the cost of traditional field sampling methods that require capturing multiple individuals.

However, one drawback to this process is the inability to pinpoint the exact location of the species since the

Ken Rand Virgil Dupuis, Extension Director at Salish Kootenai College, looks at an invasive flowering rush plant that forms dense mats in parts of Flathead Lake.


On The Ground

eDNA it sheds is constantly drifting in the water. There is also the potential for false positives with eDNA, as in the detection of Asian carp in the Great Lakes in 2010 that caused a brief panic.5

Luikart is frank about eDNA’s uphill climb as an environmental sleuth. “We developed our own test from DNA sequences on zebra and quagga [mussels] and just started applying it,” says Luikart, “so far, the test is sensitive enough to detect invasive species in controlled environ-ments. Outside the laboratory there are many barriers that make accurate tests much more difficult.”

DNA can move in many ways and find its way into a place where it is not expected to be. People move plants and animals around all the time; in fact,

we surround ourselves with plants and animals that could be considered invasive species. Most do not pose a great danger. But, some invasive spe-cies have a real potential to change the places we think of as pristine. One of those is the mussel.

“Zebra [and quagga] mussels will take food away from other organisms like young fish, and they will also excrete nutrients and will likely cause fisheries to collapse,” says Luikart. After introduction, the high concen-tration of nutrients at the surface of the water and at the shorelines can lead to algal blooms that feed on nutri-ents and cause die-offs of fish.

It is no surprise that these mussels come to be at the top of each ecosys-tem wherever they find a new home.

Each female mussel has the ability to produce up to a million offspring in a lifetime of several years. The tiny larvae are no larger than a fingernail. No place is safe as mussels slowly creep their way to new waterways in the bilge of a boat and clinging to hulls.

Every year, boats from the Southwest and Great Lakes, with mussels attached to them, come through Montana boat check stations. Currently, the only way they will be stopped is if someone actually sees them or if a trained dog sniffs them out.6 State employees and other agen-cies collect water samples and send them to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Aquatic Invasive Species Lab in Helena. At the lab, workers visually

Ken Rand By late summer, flowering rush has entirely overtaken the boat launch on the south shore of Flathead Lake near Polson, Montana.


On The Ground

examine the samples for evidence of invasive mussels, plants, and snails under a microscope. DNA tests are used only to verify visual findings.

“We certainly see a possibility for implementing eDNA, but for now the money’s better spent elsewhere,” says Stacy Schmidt, the manager of the Aquatic Invasive Species Lab, “We do support the research being done.”

So far, the lab has not found any mussels in a Montana lake or river, except the many that are stopped in trailered boats on their way in to the state.

Luikart argues that it is too easy to miss an invasive species using just visual inspections.

A detection process like eDNA can be seen as too sensitive, but that may

also be one of its strengths. You need a large piece of an adult or a larva to see under a microscope. With eDNA, a single cell or even molecule could be picked up in extracted DNA.

With his collaborators, Luikart would like to start regular eDNA mon-itoring on Flathead Lake. The Flathead Lake Biological Station estimates that monitoring would cost them USD$40,000 each year, with testing done multiple times every summer in strategic points around high-risk areas such as boat launches and marinas.

“Flathead Lake is by far the most likely location of invasion,” says Luikart, who wants to see the preven-tion and monitoring work done by the state and other agencies to be enhanced by these new quick detection tools.

Invasive aquatic plants do not get as much attention as some invasive species, but their potential for damage to rivers and lakes is great, although subtle when compared to mussels, pathogens, or fish, like the lake trout.

Another aquatic plant that found its way to Montana is Eurasian water-milfoil, which can turn a lake or river into a dense, light-blocked waterway.

On an early morning, I make my way up a twisting, pine-forested back road above Whitefish Lake to the only known site of Eurasian watermilfoil in the Flathead River Basin-Beaver Lake. On this day there is only one other boat on the lake, as a pair of loons call and an osprey circles over head.

By chance in 2007, a state employee training at the lake recognized patches

Ken Rand Beaver Lake, an isolated lake northwest of Whitefish, Montana. In 2007, invasive Eurasian watermilfoil was discovered in the lake. Since then, it has been treated yearly to eliminate infested areas, and the unwanted plant is thought to be nearly eradicated.


On The Ground

of dense Eurasian milfoil not far from the boat launch.

Paddling on the lake, I encounter a native Northern milfoil in a small underwater patch at the edge of a marsh. The small lake teems in spots with this native version of the invasive Eurasian species. The wispier Eurasian watermilfoil is scarce on the lake, at least to my novice eyes peering into the water, but still here. To differentiate the two kinds of milfoil, one must count each strand on a branch, or perform a genetic test in the lab. The invasive version has feathery leaves with a red-dish stalk, but it is nearly impossible to tell apart from the native, apart from its rapacious growth. To make matters worse, the native milfoil hybridizes with the invasive, making it harder to discern between the two.

In my hand the delicate strands of a milfoil break apart, each with the potential to become another plant. I watch the strands drift away and start to realize just how easy it is to move a little strand of life to another place.

The non-native milfoil can poten-tially choke an entire waterway if left unchecked, and can stretch up to 30 feet from the floor of a lake to the surface.

Further down the Flathead River and on to the Clark Fork and Columbia Rivers, Eurasian Watermilfoil has taken over large swaths of the shoreline and shallow backwaters. At Noxon Reservoir where the river runs wide behind a dam, the waterway is unnavigable by boat, with dense chains of milfoil creating

light-blocking mats that change the ecosystem. Flowering rush is there too, as it moved down the river from Flathead Lake.

Luikart quotes his colleague, Adam Sepulveda at the United States Geological Survey in Bozeman, who has been working to set up a similar eDNA invasive species detection system around Yellowstone National Park: “If you detect a cancer early,” in this case an invasive species, “like an invasion or tumor, you can excise it early from the body or ecosystem.”7

eDNA can help to do just that.

Acknowledgments:This article was produced as part of the Crown Reporting Fellowship at the University of Montana, School of Journalism, with the guidance of mentor Christopher Joyce at NPR to generate environmental stories about the Crown of the Continent.

References1. Scott, T. Bipartisan Collaboration Preserves the

North Fork. Flathead Beacon [online] (2015) http://

flatheadbeacon.com/2015/08/26/bipartisan-

collaboration-preserves-the-north-fork/.

2. Ellis, B et al. Long-term effects of a trophic cascade

in a large lake ecosystem. PNAS 108 (3) 1070-1075

(2011).

3. Goldberg, C., D. Pilliod, R. Arkle, and L. Waits.

Molecular Detection of Vertebrates in Stream Water:

A Demonstration Using Rocky Mountain Tailed

Frogs and Idaho Giant Salamanders. PLoS ONE 6(7)

(2011).

4. Laramie, M.,D. Pilliod, and C. Goldberg.

Characterizing the distribution of an endangered

salmonid using environmental DNA analysis.

Biological Conservation 183, 29–37 (2015).

5. Wines, M. Bracing for Carp in Great Lakes, but

Debating Their Presence. The New York Times

[online] (January 2014) http://www.nytimes.

com/2014/01/05/us/bracing-for-carp-in-great-lakes-

but-debating-their-presence.html.

6. Robbins, J. A Western Showdown with Mussels. The

New York Times [online] (September 2015) http://

www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/science/a-western-

showdown-with-mussels.html.

7. Sepulveda, A. et al. Aquatic Invasive Species:

Lessons from Cancer Research. American Scientist

100, 234 (2012).

Ken Rand The author inspecting Eurasian watermilfoil near Thompson Falls, Montana in the summer of 2015.

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