Sustainable development and biodiversity

Das Tondokument ist die Rede von Vandana Shiva / Indien, die sie am 22.5.2008 im Giesshaus der Universität Kassel zum Thema Biodiversität und Nachhaltigkeit im Kontext urbaner Gärten gehalten hat. Diese Veranstaltung war ein Teil der "Tagung Gärten als Alltagskultur im internationalen Vergleich", veranstaltet von Doris Gstach, Heidrun Hubenthal und Maria Spitthöver. Das Tondokument wurde von Klaus Schaake aufgezeichnet und erstmals veröffentlicht am 23.5.2008 bei der Onlinezeitung www.kassel-zeitung.de

A Modeling Analysis of Changing Global Land Use as affected by Changing Demands for Wood Products

The 21st century has brought new challenges for forest management at a time when globalization in world trade is increasing and global climate change is becoming increasingly apparent. In addition to various goods and services like food, feed, timber or biofuels being provided to humans, forest ecosystems are a large store of terrestrial carbon and account for a major part of the carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface. Depending on the stage of the ecosystems and/or management regimes, forests can be either sinks, or sources of carbon. At the global scale, rapid economic development and a growing world population have raised much concern over the use of natural resources, especially forest resources. The challenging question is how can the global demands for forest commodities be satisfied in an increasingly globalised economy, and where could they potentially be produced? For this purpose, wood demand estimates need to be integrated in a framework, which is able to adequately handle the competition for land between major land-use options such as residential land or agricultural land. This thesis is organised in accordance with the requirements to integrate the simulation of forest changes based on wood extraction in an existing framework for global land-use modelling called LandSHIFT. Accordingly, the following neuralgic points for research have been identified: (1) a review of existing global-scale economic forest sector models (2) simulation of global wood production under selected scenarios (3) simulation of global vegetation carbon yields and (4) the implementation of a land-use allocation procedure to simulate the impact of wood extraction on forest land-cover. Modelling the spatial dynamics of forests on the global scale requires two important inputs: (1) simulated long-term wood demand data to determine future roundwood harvests in each country and (2) the changes in the spatial distribution of woody biomass stocks to determine how much of the resource is available to satisfy the simulated wood demands. First, three global timber market models are reviewed and compared in order to select a suitable economic model to generate wood demand scenario data for the forest sector in LandSHIFT. The comparison indicates that the ‘Global Forest Products Model’ (GFPM) is most suitable for obtaining projections on future roundwood harvests for further study with the LandSHIFT forest sector. Accordingly, the GFPM is adapted and applied to simulate wood demands for the global forestry sector conditional on selected scenarios from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Global Environmental Outlook until 2050. Secondly, the Lund-Potsdam-Jena (LPJ) dynamic global vegetation model is utilized to simulate the change in potential vegetation carbon stocks for the forested locations in LandSHIFT. The LPJ data is used in collaboration with spatially explicit forest inventory data on aboveground biomass to allocate the demands for raw forest products and identify locations of deforestation. Using the previous results as an input, a methodology to simulate the spatial dynamics of forests based on wood extraction is developed within the LandSHIFT framework. The land-use allocation procedure specified in the module translates the country level demands for forest products into woody biomass requirements for forest areas, and allocates these on a five arc minute grid. In a first version, the model assumes only actual conditions through the entire study period and does not explicitly address forest age structure. Although the module is in a very preliminary stage of development, it already captures the effects of important drivers of land-use change like cropland and urban expansion. As a first plausibility test, the module performance is tested under three forest management scenarios. The module succeeds in responding to changing inputs in an expected and consistent manner. The entire methodology is applied in an exemplary scenario analysis for India. A couple of future research priorities need to be addressed, particularly the incorporation of plantation establishments; issue of age structure dynamics; as well as the implementation of a new technology change factor in the GFPM which can allow the specification of substituting raw wood products (especially fuelwood) by other non-wood products.

Modeling the interplay between land use, bioenergy production and climate change

Land use has become a force of global importance, considering that 34% of the Earth’s ice-free surface was covered by croplands or pastures in 2000. The expected increase in global human population together with eminent climate change and associated search for energy sources other than fossil fuels can, through land-use and land-cover changes (LUCC), increase the pressure on nature’s resources, further degrade ecosystem services, and disrupt other planetary systems of key importance to humanity. This thesis presents four modeling studies on the interplay between LUCC, increased production of biofuels and climate change in four selected world regions. In the first study case two new crop types (sugarcane and jatropha) are parameterized in the LPJ for managed Lands dynamic global vegetation model for calculation of their potential productivity. Country-wide spatial variation in the yields of sugarcane and jatropha incurs into substantially different land requirements to meet the biofuel production targets for 2015 in Brazil and India, depending on the location of plantations. Particularly the average land requirements for jatropha in India are considerably higher than previously estimated. These findings indicate that crop zoning is important to avoid excessive LUCC. In the second study case the LandSHIFT model of land-use and land-cover changes is combined with life cycle assessments to investigate the occurrence and extent of biofuel-driven indirect land-use changes (ILUC) in Brazil by 2020. The results show that Brazilian biofuels can indeed cause considerable ILUC, especially by pushing the rangeland frontier into the Amazonian forests. The carbon debt caused by such ILUC would result in no carbon savings (from using plant-based ethanol and biodiesel instead of fossil fuels) before 44 years for sugarcane ethanol and 246 years for soybean biodiesel. The intensification of livestock grazing could avoid such ILUC. We argue that such an intensification of livestock should be supported by the Brazilian biofuel sector, based on the sector’s own interest in minimizing carbon emissions. In the third study there is the development of a new method for crop allocation in LandSHIFT, as influenced by the occurrence and capacity of specific infrastructure units. The method is exemplarily applied in a first assessment of the potential availability of land for biogas production in Germany. The results indicate that Germany has enough land to fulfill virtually all (90 to 98%) its current biogas plant capacity with only cultivated feedstocks. Biogas plants located in South and Southwestern (North and Northeastern) Germany might face more (less) difficulties to fulfill their capacities with cultivated feedstocks, considering that feedstock transport distance to plants is a crucial issue for biogas production. In the fourth study an adapted version of LandSHIFT is used to assess the impacts of contrasting scenarios of climate change and conservation targets on land use in the Brazilian Amazon. Model results show that severe climate change in some regions by 2050 can shift the deforestation frontier to areas that would experience low levels of human intervention under mild climate change (such as the western Amazon forests or parts of the Cerrado savannas). Halting deforestation of the Amazon and of the Brazilian Cerrado would require either a reduction in the production of meat or an intensification of livestock grazing in the region. Such findings point out the need for an integrated/multicisciplinary plan for adaptation to climate change in the Amazon. The overall conclusions of this thesis are that (i) biofuels must be analyzed and planned carefully in order to effectively reduce carbon emissions; (ii) climate change can have considerable impacts on the location and extent of LUCC; and (iii) intensification of grazing livestock represents a promising venue for minimizing the impacts of future land-use and land-cover changes in Brazil.

The Food Crisis: Implications for Labor

Food prices have gone up to prohibitive levels for many of the world’s poor. The vast majority of those who are hungry in the world today are working in agriculture, either as small landholders or as waged agricultural workers. The majority of the food producers have not benefited from rising prices. Apparently, the bargaining power of many producers, just as that of the end consumers, has been weakened vis-à-vis the buyers and retailers of agricultural produce. This powerlessness is also in the face of governments that fail to provide an appropriate infrastructure for smallholders and social protection. The first part of the book provides an introduction to the immediate and structural causes of the food crisis. The second part contains contributions that not only highlight the plight of rural labour but also develop tools for measuring the decent work deficit. The last part emphasizes income security as a major precondition for food security. It looks at the experiences of Brazil and India with the extension of social protection for the poor.

Reforming Cooperative Credit Structure in India for Financial Inclusion

In the drive for financial inclusion in India, cooperative banks assume prime importance as they are much more accessible to the rural poor than commercial banks. While more accessible, cooperative banks' financial health is rather poor and, therefore, might not be able to serve the needy in a sustained manner. A committee led by Prof. Vaidyanathan has outlined a revival package for cooperatives. Besides suggesting an infusion of funds, it called for the adherence to certain stringent norms to ensure the financial viability. The recommendations provided in the committee’s report are under various stages of implementation in India. The book examines the progress of this reform drive in Bihar, a state in Eastern India. It discusses the background for appointing the committee and its recommendations and also presents the findings of a field study conducted in this regard. The findings inform further policy suggestions which are of general interest to the drive for financial inclusion also in other countries.

Ἐμπόρια

Die Arbeit mit dem Titel "Ἐμπόρια- Eine wirtschafts- und kulturhistorische Studie zu den Handelsbeziehungen zwischen dem Imperium Romanum und Indien (1. - 3. Jh. n. Chr.)" ist in die antike Wirtschaftsgeschichte einzuordnen, beinhaltet aber auch kulturhistorische Aspekte. Der Fokus der untersuchten Austauschbeziehungen liegt auf der maritimen Route zwischen den Häfen des Roten Meeres und der Westküste Indiens. Vom ägyptischen Alexandria aus, wo die Waren aus dem gesamten Imperium Romanum verhandelt wurden, verschifften die Kaufleute ihre Exportprodukte über den Nil in das mittelägyptische Koptos. Von dort aus transportierten Lasttiere (Esel und Kamele) die Waren auf verschiedenen Routen an die Häfen des Roten Meeres (Myos Hormos und Berenike). Mit dem Monsun im Juli stachen die Schiffe in See und fuhren über offenes Gewässer zu den Handelsplätzen Indiens. Die Bedeutendsten von ihnen befanden sich an der Indusmündung, an der Mündung des Narmada und an der Malabarküste. Alternativ befuhren die Kaufleute die Route entlang der arabischen Küste, nach Indien. Wie die Europäer der neuzeitlichen europäischen Expansion, waren die Römer vor allem an Rohstoffen interessiert: Verschiedene Gewürze Asiens, Perlen und Edelsteine, sowie Baumwoll- und Seidenstoffe. Im Gegenzug brachten die Kaufleute aus dem Westen Rohstoffe und Fertigwaren auf den Subkontinent, vor allem: Glaswaren, bunte Kleidung und Stoffe, Metalle, Edelsteine, Pigmente und römische Münzen. In dieser Arbeit wird das Zahlenmaterial zum römischen Indienhandel, in Form Quantitativer Studien, nach Vorbild R. Duncan-Jones (The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies, Cambridge 1974), gesammelt und ausgewertet. Dieses Zahlenmaterial ermöglicht eine Einschätzung der ökonomischen Größenordnung des antiken Indienhandels. Im Anschluss daran werden die Handelswaren aus Indien, unter dem Aspekt des römischen Luxusdiskurses, untersucht. Dazu wurden die überlieferten Senatssitzungen, die sich mit dem Thema luxuria beschäftigen, thematisiert. Abschließend werden die indischen Handelsplätze anhand des Port of Trade Modells, wie es Karl Polanyi entwickelte, ausgewertet. Die dazu verwendeten Merkmale orientieren sich an Astrid Möllers Untersuchung zum ägyptischen Handelsplatz Naukratis.