Balancing cash with environmental concerns

Date: 22/06/06

The EU's attempts to combine development aid and concern for the environment are fraught with difficulties.

Natural resources make up a far larger percentage of national wealth in developing countries than in wealthy areas, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Poor people are also more vulnerable to the effects of environmental degradation than their rich neighbours, since most depend on nature-based jobs such as forestry to eke out a living.

For many observers, these statistics mean that aid money from western countries will not work if it pays for projects that damage the environment. Development funds must protect local biodiversity, runs this argument, or in the long run they will harm the local people.

On the other hand, say opponents, most people in poor countries depend on natural resources for their livelihood only because they have no choice. Should not development money be targeted at offering them more choices than fishing, farming and forestry?

For many environmental groups, the EU's failure to conserve, for example, its own fish stocks at healthy levels shows that developing countries should be prevented from making western mistakes.

Sally Nicholson of WWF, the conservation group, says Europe is making all the right noises about the importance of green growth in development policies but the noises have not been backed up with sufficient action.

The European Commission's latest external relations budget, she points out, allocated EUR 1 million to protecting the environment and natural resources in development policies. "The instrument is quite innovative but the scope is inadequate. We estimate EUR 450m is needed," she says.

Timing remains a problem. Environment campaigners are frustrated by the difficulty in showing the benefits of environmental policies in poor countries. Critics say that too much concern with wildlife has already backfired on the poor.

Kendra Okonski of International Policy Network, a free-market think-tank, is particularly critical of trade restrictions.

Okonski points to the international ban on ivory trade, which is supported by the EU. A legitimate trade in ivory, she says, would not only provide money to developing countries but could also benefit elephants, by putting an end to indiscriminate poaching. "If elephants are given an economic value, rather then just being something to look at, local people have an incentive to conserve them."

It would seem that environment policies are kinder to fish than to elephants. The EU has to work out what that means for people.

Green goals

• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); The Kyoto Protocol on climate change allows wealthy nations to offset their own CO2 emissions by funding clean energy projects in developing countries. Debate still rages about the effectiveness and the ethics of transposing emission reductions in this way.
• Anti-malaria drug DTT; The classic example for anti-environmentalists, this first modern pesticide was invented during the Second World War and used to wipe out malaria-spreading mosquitoes in the West. Research from environmental pioneer Rachel Carson in the 1960s linked DDT with biodiversity loss, leading to a total ban in developed countries. Poor countries today can lose international funding by using DDT.
• Turtle-excluding devices; The US in 1996 banned imports of shrimp from Asia fearing that Asian fishing practices were killing turtles. Asia lost an appeal at the World Trade Organization in 1998 and says it cannot afford to fit the turtle-excluding devices demanded by America to its ships.
• Amazon fisheries; Green groups cite many examples of environmental development benefiting the poor, including conservation projects in parts of Brazil's flooded Amazon which saw production of saleable fish rise 60% in three years.
• Namibian tourism; Across the Atlantic in Namibia, wildlife conservation projects for tourism created about 550 full time and 3,250 part-time jobs in 2004.

Author suggests that the EU's attempts to combine development aid and concern for the environment are fraught with difficulties.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'EU development policy'.