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Biodiversity Increasing

Huge increase in funding and political will for biodiversity programs will improve global biodiversity.

UN 14. (United Nations. “UN convention agrees to double biodiversity funding, accelerate preservation measures,” UN News Centre. 17 October 2014. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=49104#.VZ15UEvrsds)//CB

17 October 2014 – A United Nations conference in Republic of Korea wrapped up today with governments agreeing to double biodiversity-related international financial aid to developing countries, including small islands and transition economics, by 2015 and through the next five years.

The decision was made at the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP-12) in Pyeongchang.

Delegations attending the meeting, which opened 6 October in Republic of Korea’s key mountain and forest region, agreed on the so-called “Pyeongchang Road Map,” and “Gangwon Declaration”, both of which outline conservation initiatives and global sustainable development goals and initiatives.

“Parties have listened to the evidence, and have responded by committing,” said UN Assistant-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the CBD, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias.

The funding decision was originally made at the last CBD meeting in Hyderabad, India, in 2012, but there had been disagreement on how to implement it.

This time, the participants decided to use average annual biodiversity funding for the years 2006-2010 as a baseline. The targets, in particular, are the least developed countries and the small island developing States, as well as countries with economies in transition.

Key decisions taken in Pyongchang, including those on resource mobilization, capacity building, scientific and technical cooperation linking biodiversity and poverty eradication, and on monitoring of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, form the Roadmap and will, according to the CBD, strengthen capacity and increase support for countries and stakeholders to implement their national biodiversity strategies and action plans.

The decisions were bolstered by the call in the Gangwon Declaration, the result of two days of ministerial-level talks, to link the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda to other relevant processes such as the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) process and the national biodiversity strategies and action plans.

Governments also agreed to increase domestic financing for biodiversity and boost funding from other resources.

“Their commitments show the world that biodiversity is a solution to the challenges of sustainable development and will be a central part of any discussions for the post-2015 development agenda and its sustainable development goals,” Mr. Dias noted in reference to the agenda succeeding the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Deforestation Decreasing

Deforestation is decreasing—new tech, more legal restrictions, and increased awareness.

Howard 14. (Brian Clark, writer, editor and producer for National Geographic’s award-winning website. Internally quotes Toby McGrath, a senior scientist at Earth Innovation Institute. “Brazil Leads World in Reducing Carbon Emissions by Slashing Deforestation,” National Geographic. JUNE 05, 2014. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140605-brazil-deforestation-carbon-emissions-environment/)//CB

Brazil's success in slowing rain forest destruction has resulted in enormous reductions in carbon emissions and shows that it's possible to zealously promote sustainability while still growing the economy, suggests a new study out Thursday.

A second study out this week also underscores Brazil's success and shows that deforestation has also slowed in several other tropical countries.

Since 2004, farmers and ranchers in Brazil have saved over 33,000 square miles (86,000 square kilometers) of rain forest from clear-cutting, the rough equivalent of 14.3 million soccer fields, a team of scientists and economists from the U.S. and South America report in Science. At the same time, production of beef and soy from Brazil's Amazon region rose.

The country has reduced deforestation by 70 percent and kept 3.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, because forests use carbon as they grow and release it when they are removed, often through burning. That makes Brazil's the biggest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the world; the cut is more than three times bigger than the effect of taking all the cars in the U.S. off the road for a year.

"Brazil is known as a leading favorite to win the World Cup, but they also lead the world in mitigating climate change," the Science study's lead author, Daniel Nepstad of the Earth Innovation Institute in San Francisco, said in a statement.

Brazil's success in saving about 80 percent of the original Amazon serves as a model for other countries around the world and represents a "completely different trajectory for forest areas over the last few centuries," says Toby McGrath, a senior scientist at the institute and another of the study's co-authors. (See "Photos: The Last of the Amazon.")

"For the first time in history, we are stopping the process of forest loss on a frontier before it gets seriously depleted, while continuing to develop economies that still have substantial forest cover," says McGrath.

Globally, deforestation is responsible for about 10 percent of all climate emissions, says a study released Wednesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists. That's down from 17 percent of emissions in the 1990s, thanks to falling rates of deforestation.

"Brazil is most notably lauded for their deforestation reductions, but the report found numerous example of successfully saving forests in unexpected locations," study author Doug Boucher, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Tropical Forest and Climate Initiative, said in a statement. Mexico, El Salvador, and six countries in Central Africa, in particular, have shown decreased rates of deforestation.

Measure of Success

For the Science study, scientists and economists analyzed how Brazil was able to reverse decades of high rates of deforestation in the Amazon, starting in 2005, when then-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the ambitious goal of slashing the rate by 80 percent over the previous year. After that, things turned around due to a number of factors coming together, says McGrath.

One important element was the advancement of remote sensing technology. Although Brazil first passed a forest code requiring landowners in the Amazon to protect at least 50 percent of native forest in 1965, enforcement was spotty. "Officials didn't have good information on where deforestation was occurring and who was on the ground," says McGrath.

Over the past few years, satellites have given officials a more precise picture of the forest, often in real time.

Another boost to deforestation efforts: The forest code was updated in 2012 and now requires landowners to preserve 80 percent of the Amazon's virgin forest, as well as protect watersheds. Those that have violated the rules have increasingly received fines and even jail time in extreme cases.

Nonprofit groups, meanwhile, have helped publicize data on rule breakers and have built support for enforcing the law. Campaigns by Greenpeace, Conservation International, and others put pressure on companies that buy products from the Amazon, especially beef and soy, shaming those that have been found to contribute to deforestation. Market agreements signed by companies took that a step further, prohibiting practices that lead to deforestation.

"In Brazil, there was rising awareness of the value of nature and how essential it is to our society," says Fabio Rubio Scarano, the vice president of Conservation International's Americas Division, who is based in Rio de Janeiro.

Malnutrition Decreasing

Malnutrition is dramatically decreasing—increased economic growth.

The Nation 6/6/2015 (The Nation, major Sri Lankan newspaper. Internally quoting FAO Director General, José Graziano da Silva. “Global hunger declining gradually.” http://nation.lk/online/2015/06/06/global-hunger-declining-gradually/)//CB

Global hunger has continued to decline gradually to an estimated 795 million undernourished people, or a reduction of 167 million hungry people over the last ten years according to the latest edition of the annual UN hunger report, The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2015 (SOFI) published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program (WFP). This decline has been most pronounced in developing countries, despite significant population growth.

The year 2015 is a milestone, marking the end of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) monitoring period. For the developing regions as a whole, the target to reduce the proportion of the world’s hungry by 50 percent by 2015 was missed by a small margin.

“The near-achievement of the MDG hunger targets shows us that we can indeed eliminate the scourge of hunger in our lifetime. We must be the Zero Hunger generation. That goal should be mainstreamed into all policy interventions and at the heart of the new sustainable development agenda to be established this year,” said FAO Director General, José Graziano da Silva.

During the past quarter century, of all regions in the world, the Asia and the Pacific region has achieved the fastest rate of economic growth, leading to a dramatic reduction in extreme poverty below US$ 1.25/person/day and meeting, in early 2010, the Millennium Development Goal of reducing the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half. The region also achieved the largest reduction in the number of undernourished people in the world, and the region as a whole achieved the MDG 1c target of reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half by 2015.

While Sri Lanka has made progress, it has, however, yet to achieve the MDG 1c target. The proportion of undernourished in Sri Lanka stands at 22.0% in 2014-16, down from 30.6% in 1990-92. “The report is proof that we can win the fight against hunger and should be inspiring to move forward. We are motivated to see the credible findings of the report on the decline of hunger levels in Sri Lanka and also globally,” said Ismail Omer, Representative, WFP Sri Lanka, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World report shows that hunger has been decreasing in Sri Lanka, but there is more to be done to address hunger—including malnutrition—so as to ensure food and nutrition security are sustained for the most vulnerable.”

The challenge of ensuring food security can only be met if all stakeholders work together, with a multi-sectoral outlook. Economic growth is a key success factor for reducing undernourishment, but it has to be inclusive and provide opportunities for improving the livelihoods of the poor.

World hunger is steeply declining—more government goals.

Binnie 14. (Isla, Reuters correspondent in Rome. “World Hunger Decreasing, But 1 In 9 People Still Undernourished,” HuffPo. 09/16/2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/world-hunger-decreasing-_n_5829026.html)//CB

ROME, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The number of hungry people in the world has fallen sharply over the past decade but 805 million, or one in nine of the global population, still do not have enough to eat, three U.N. food and agriculture agencies said on Tuesday.

The number of chronically undernourished people dropped by more than 100 million, equivalent to a country the size of the Philippines, according to a report by the United Nations food agency (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Program (WFP).

Government drives to improve nutrition have helped the developing world move towards a U.N. goal of halving the number of people suffering from hunger between 1990 and 2015, said the report entitled "The State of Food Insecurity in the World".

Mass Incarceration Decreasing

Mass incarceration and crime are trending downwards.

Lane 14. (Charles, Post editorial writer, specializing in economic policy, federal fiscal issues and business, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog. “America gets out of jail,” Washington Post. February 21, 2014. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/02/21/america-gets-out-of-jail/)//CB

The strangest thing about Holder’s protest, and others like it, is that it came at a time when U.S. prison populations are shrinking, and have been for several years. In fact, the inmate population of state and federal prisons decreased by 1.7 percent in 2012, to an estimated 1,571,013 from 1,598,783 in 2011, according to Justice Department statistics. This was the third straight annual decrease.

What’s more, the downward trend is almost certain to continue. The rate of new prison admissions has been declining for the last nine years, and now stands at roughly the level of two decades ago, according to data compiled by Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychiatrist who studies criminal justice issues.

The root cause of these welcome trends is another welcome trend: the plunging crime rate of the last two decades. Less crime leads to declining incarceration in two ways. First, and most obvious, there are fewer law-breakers to lock up. Second, safer streets reduce the public’s demand for tough “law and order” policies – like the stiff mandatory minimum sentences that helped drive the U.S. rate of incarceration up in the 80s and 90s.

Yes, declining incarceration also reflects sentencing reforms and other policy changes at the state and local level. But those changes would not be occurring unless lower crime had eased fears about public safety to the point where it was politically possible to discuss them in the first place.

According to data from the General Social Survey compiled by Professor Mark Ramirez of Arizona State University, the percentage of Americans who believe criminals are not punished “harshly enough” declined from 85 percent in 1994 to 62 percent by 2012.

As Holder noted, the federal prison population continues to grow. Yet even federal incarceration may be leveling off; the inmate population grew by 0.7 percent during 2012, compared to an average annual increase of 3.2 percent over the past 10 years. Notably, drug trafficking offenses, which account for half of the 219,000 current federal inmate population, represent a declining percentage of new admissions, according to a 2013 Congressional Research Service report. The big drivers of additional federal incarceration in the last decade were immigration and weapons offenses.

Contrary to much propaganda about a relentless “drug war,” a 2012 Urban Institute study found that the feds shifted enforcement resources from drug trafficking to weapons and immigration offenses between 1998 and 2010, resulting in a prison population that was still growing, but not as much as it would have been if federal law enforcement priorities and practices had remained as drug-focused they were in 1998.