Environmental Policy Roundtable
Spring 2000

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Feb 18: Grady Harper and Egor Kraev: Debt Crisis

An overview of the 3rd world debt crisis: how it came about, its mechanics how it is being managed by the IMF and World Bank (professed intentions vs. actual outcomes), and the central role of the debt crisis in global ecological destruction, drug trade, violent conflict...

The purpose of the talk is to provide a first introduction to the debt issue. We hope to show those who did not know it, how central the debt issue is - and learn more about it from those who knew that all along!

Mar 3: osimeiry Portela and Ida Rademacher: Ecological and Economic Causes, Costs, and Consequences of Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia

Massive deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia, the largest continuous region of tropical forest in the world, is known to have profound effects on the forest’s biological diversity, resilience to disturbance, soil and water resources, and on regional and global climate patterns. The economic benefits derived from deforestation of Amazonia come from extractive, productive, and speculative practices that are encouraged by the increasing infrastructure development of the region. Some of the main activities include logging mining, cattle ranching, agriculture, construction of dams, roads, and urban settlements. The pattern of forest exploitation is based on the utilization of resources with very little or no attention paid to the value of protected forests in providing ecological functions such as biodiversity maintenance, carbon storage, nutrients cycling and erosion control. The neglect of these goods and services is not puzzling, since they are primarily non-market goods, which provide little benefit to the profit-maximizing individual. The neglect is distressing, however, especially in the case of vital life support functions such as gas and climate regulation. These ecosystem services have been tremendously affected by the last few decades of clearing.

Friday's presentation will explore the social and economic dynamics that drive both productive and speculative patterns of deforestation, and the effects that these patterns have on the ecological functions and ecosystem services provided by Brazilian Amazonia. These losses will also be presented in terms of the lost economic value of ecosystem services that accompanies massive deforestation.

Apr 7: Taber Hand: Consensus Building for Food Security and Floodplain Management: Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia

An educational computer model of the Tonle Sap's overall economic and ecological structure, including seasonal flood pulse and the ecological processes that support important fish species, agriculture, fuelwood-cropping and eco-tourism potential has been developed. This user-friendly model poses conceptual trade-off scenarios between water management, extent of inundated vegetation types, hectares of rice agriculture, population growth, and fish harvest intensity. Changing these user-controlled parameters provides insights on the possible dynamics of river management to stakeholders and policy-makers at the local, national and international level. Such insights create and support dialogue by providing a holostic, systems view of complex land and water interdependencies.

Extensive use of the model as an educational tool for capacity building is on-going in Cambodia, and further development into a research tool is proposed.

Issues: The fish productivity of Tonle Sap Lake and its seasonally inundated floodplain provides 40-70% of all animal protein consumed by Cambodians. The Lake's significance as a factor for human food security is certain to increase given the growth pressure of a large under-15-year-old population (nearing 50%).

Two key factors to this lake's biological productivity are 1) the extent of forest-and-scrub habitat inundated; this is where fish foodchains (primarily from detritus and bacterial biofilm) create considerable biological activity; and 2) the hydraulic regime; the Lake's hydraulics are dependent on a flood-pulse-and-expansion process that originates from the Mekong River.

However, cumulative effects of the Mekong Rivers use for hydro-power, flood-reduction and irrigation diversions together with unsustainable intensive uses of the Lake's natural resources pose conflicting priorities. Extreme consequences to the fish protein-based food security of the Lower Mekong region (Cambodia and Viet Nam) are likely without an overall framework to understand and manage the entire regime and its ecological economic dependencies. The tool described above can provide an appreciation of these complex issues. Such an understanding is a basic step toward a more sustainable economic resource base.

Apr 21: Michael Mielke: Who Cares About Sustainability?

In real terms the question of sustainable development (SD) is largely ignored. To date, even the efforts of the most ardent policy makers have failed to catalyze the larger culture to move toward real sustainable development. The simple truth is that so much more cultural energy is going in the opposite direction of genuine sustainability - and it is both growing and accelerating - that SD is shoved to the margins of the cultural dialogue.  However, this trend can be reversed - namely, by creating a common context that enables more concrete action. Recent work with businesses and communities supports this by indicating that creating a shared vision is the most effective means to affect the sort of fundamental change required.

Everyone who is interested in, working toward, promoting, and actually living more sustainable and just lives is encouraged to come take part in a presentation and discussion on the personal and professional implications of SD. The purpose of the talk is to consider how bringing people together in a critical "counter culture mass" can enable SD to take root and flourish for the mutual benefit of the entire earth community. Specifically, the goals of the presentation/talk are fivefold:

1. Show that we have a common interest in creating a sustainable tomorrow -- both personally and professionally
2. Come to agreement on SD fundamentals (Mainly, that there is an inescapable biophysical bottom-line.)
3. Illustrate that maintaining the status quo is not enough
4. Explain that we must share a common context in order to affect the sort of fundamental change required by SD
5. Determine if there is sufficient interest to support a sustainability seminar and a personally reinforcing and professionally enhancing SD network

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