AS A young girl, Jane Goodall set off for Africa on a ship, without realising that her journey to Tanzania would forever change the way humankind viewed its primate cousins.She was first to discover that chimpanzees, just like people, not only used tools but also fashioned them, manipulating twigs and grass blades to poke into termite mounds for food.

In Singapore yesterday, the extraordinary doctor greeted her audience of 500 corporate and non-profit leaders at a conference here on voluntarism and philanthropy with the hooting cry of a chimpanzee — before setting out to enchant them, in her quietly charismatic way.

Recounting her experiences and programmes in Africa and around the world, Dr Goodall’s message for people here was that they, too, could make a personal difference, in this daunting era of global warming, social inequity, terrorism and vanishing forests.

For instance, there was that 8-year-old boy from “the poorest public school in the United States” she said, who was so inspired by her talk that he chastised cereal company Kellogg’s for the way a monkey was portrayed on its packaging.

When she returned to the school the following year, she said, the little boy “stood up very tall” and reminded her: “You told us that when monkeys bare their teeth they’re not smiling, they’re fearful; and I saw that face on a packet of cereal. You also said monkeys shouldn’t wear clothes because it’s undignified.

“So, I took action.”

He had written to the company — unbeknown to him, other people were doing so, too — and to his surprise, Kellogg’s took the packaging off the market. “That kind of thing doesn’t happen often, but makes a difference in that child’s life,” said Dr Goodall.

Alluding to mankind’s destruction of the planet, she told her audience: “I’ve seen so many young people who have lost hope. They are apathetic, bitter, angry and even violent, because they feel we have taken their future away from them. And we have.”

But through the Roots and Shoots community youth programme that she started in 1991, Dr Goodall hopes to convince youths around the world that they can take charge and make a difference.

Roots and Shoots societies are in almost 100 countries, including Singapore, and draws children from pre-school to university level. Youngsters are encouraged to tackle problems facing their communities, be it through community service, environmental activism or animal welfare.

On Friday, Dr Goodall will meet with members of the 11 societies here, some of them in institutions such as the American School and Hwa Chong Institution. They will take part in the first Wildlife Stampede at the Botanic Gardens, organised by the newly-registered Singapore arm of the Jane Goodall Institute, which supports local Roots and Shoots groups as well as promotes education and conservation activities.

Dr Goodall hopes that, by nurturing a new generation who will be better stewards of the planet, solutions will be found for today’s pressing climate and social issues.

“If we see a brick wall as all these problems that we’ve inflicted on the planet … hundreds and thousands of young people around the world, like roots and shoots, can break through,” she declared.

Dr Goodall earned her doctorate in ethology, the scientific study of animal behaviour, from the University of Cambridge in 1964.

Aged 73 today, she is still on the road 300 days a year giving talks and raising funds for her organisation. She still glows with a youthful vitality.

Asked her secret to ageing gracefully, the elegant Dr Goodall laughed quietly and said: “I just don’t look in the mirror!”

Save the planet? It’s now or never, warns landmark UN report
by Jean-Marc Mojon
Yahoo News 25 Oct 07

Humanity is changing Earth’s climate so fast and devouring resources so voraciously that it is poised to bequeath a ravaged planet to future generations, the UN warned Thursday in its most comprehensive survey of the environment.

The fourth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4), published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data garnered over two decades.

The 570-page report — which caps a year that saw climate change dominate the news — says world leaders must propel the environment “to the core of decision-making” to tackle a daily worsening crisis

“The need couldn’t be more urgent and the time couldn’t be more opportune, with our enhanced understanding of the challenges we face, to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations,” GEO-4 said.

The UNEP report offers the broadest and most detailed tableau of environmental change since the Brundtland Report, “Our Common Future,” was issued in 1987 and put the environment on the world political map.

“There have been enough wake-up calls since Brundtland. I sincerely hope GEO-4 is the final one,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged — and where the bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay,” he added.

Earth has experienced five mass extinctions in 450 million years, the latest of which occurred 65 million years ago, says GEO-4.

“A sixth major extinction is under way, this time caused by human behaviour,” it says.

Over the past two decades, growing prosperity has tremendously strengthened the capacity to understand and confront the environmental challenges ahead.

Despite this, the global response has been “woefully inadequate,” the report said.

The report listed environmental issues by continent and by sector, offering dizzying and often ominous statistics about the future.

Climate is changing faster than at any time in the past 500,000 years.

Global average temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.33 Fahrenheit) over the past century and are forecast to rise by 1.8 to four C (3.24-7.2 F) by 2100, it said, citing estimates issued this year by the 2007 Nobel Peace co-laureates, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

With more than six billion humans, Earth’s population is now so big that “the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available,” the report warned, adding that the global population is expected to peak at between eight and 9.7 billion by 2050.

“In Africa, land degradation and even desertification are threats; per capita food production has declined by 12 percent since 1981,” it said.

The GEO-4 report went on to enumerate other strains on the planet’s resources and biodiversity.

Fish consumption has more than tripled over the past 40 years but catches have stagnated or declined for 20 years, it said.

“Of the major vertebrate groups that have been assessed comprehensively, over 30 percent of amphibians, 23 percent of mammals and 12 percent of birds are threatened,” it added.

Stressing it was not seeking to present a “dark and gloomy scenario”, UNEP took heart in the successes from efforts to combat ozone loss and chemical air pollution.

But it also stressed that failure to address persistent problems could undo years of hard grind.

And it noted: “Some of the progress achieved in reducing pollution in developed countries has been at the expense of the developing world, where industrial production and its impacts are now being exported.”

GEO-4 — the fourth in a series dating back to 1997 — also looks at how the current trends may unfold and outlines four scenarios to the year 2050: “Markets First”, “Policy First”, “Security First”, “Sustainability First”.

After a year that saw the UN General Assembly devote unprecedented attention to climate change and the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC and former US vice president Al Gore for raising awareness on the same issue, the report’s authors called for radical change.

“For some of the persistent problems, the damage may already be irreversible,” they warned.

“The only way to address these harder problems requires moving the environment from the periphery to the core of decision-making: environment for development, not development to the detriment of environment.”

UN agency urges tackling climate change
By Frank Griffiths, Associated Press Writer
Yahoo News 25 Oct 07

The international community must respond more quickly to climate change, species extinction, dwindling supplies of fresh water and other threats to the planet, the U.N. Environment Program warned Thursday.

The U.N. agency said in a report that nations still fail to recognize the seriousness of environmental threats to the planet.

Prepared by 390 experts over five years, the report reviews progress made since a similar one in 1987.

The global response in the two decades since “has in some cases been courageous and inspiring,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said before the report’s release in London.

“But all too often it has been slow and at a pace and scale that fails to respond to or recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet.”

Climate change is a global priority that demands political leadership, but there has been “a remarkable lack of urgency” in the response, which the report characterized as “woefully inadequate.”

The report outlined other global problems, including declining fish stocks and the loss of fertile land through degradation.

Human activity has reached an unsustainable level, outstripping available resources, the report said.

But it also found progress in some areas since the 1987 report.

“Over the past 20 years, the international community has cut, by 95 percent, the production of ozone-layer damaging chemicals,” Steiner said. There has also been the creation of “a greenhouse-gas emission reduction treaty along with innovative carbon trading and carbon offset markets.”

The British branch of environmental group Friends of the Earth welcomed the report, calling it an “important call for global political leadership in a fast degrading world.”

The group’s campaign director, Mark Childs, said “it is now clearer than ever that we need concerted international political action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt the loss of wildlife and ecosystems.”

Links to more
Planet’s Tougher Problems Persist, UN Report Warns on the UNEP Website 25 Oct 07
Global Environment Outlook: environment for development (GEO-4) on the UNEP website

63% of top execs concerned about climate change

By Alvin Foo

MORE than half of business leaders in Singapore regard climate change as a risk for the long-term future of their companies.

And most feel the government should take the lead in addressing the problem.

Those were the key results of a survey on business and climate change carried out by ACCA Singapore in June, and which were released yesterday.

The online survey was aimed at highlighting the attitudes of key business professionals towards environmental issues, in particular climate change and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

It featured more than 500 responses from a cross section of the business community.

ACCA Singapore country head Penelope Phoon said: ‘Although respondents understood that climate change and CSR are important issues, a majority still do not have in place a system to address the impact that their companies have on the environment and on society.’

Although 63 per cent view climate change as a business issue, 76 per cent of all respondents were either not aware of any formal strategy or policy within their companies to address the problem, or did not have any such strategy or policy.

A total of 83 per cent felt that the Government should take the lead in dealing with climate change, with 71 per cent stating that regulation would motivate them to implement policies within their companies to address the issue.

About 60 per cent of all firms do not produce reports assessing the impact their companies might have on the environment and society.

Around 40 per cent of respondents said the biggest constraint was the lack of resources and guidance in preparing such reports.

However, 82 per cent stated that their companies would be inclined to start producing such reports in the future.

And 72 per cent felt that government legislation and incentives would be the spur for them to get cracking on addressing the issue.

Ms Phoon added: ‘Most companies equate good CSR with only being environmentally friendly and don’t realise that good CSR is a holistic concept, which extends beyond the environment and includes issues like equality in the workplace, service to the community, good governance and ethical dealings.’