War and biodiversity

Dr Richard Milburn

Right, good evening, everyone, and welcome to this panel on War and Biodiversity. So, just to know that this event will be held on record, and then I’ll just go through quick introduction to all the speakers, and then a few reminders about the Q&A function, both for those that are online, and also those in the room. So we’ve got John Kahekwa, Founder of the Pole Pole Foundation, and also the Earthshot Prize finalist, 2021. We’ve got Larissa Sousa, Associate Director of Communications, Gorongosa National Park, from Mozambique. Adrian Garside, alongside me, Research Fellow, Department of War Studies, King’s College, London. And Doctor Helen Harwatt, Senior Research Fellow on the Environment and Security Programme, here at Chatham House.

Then I’m Doctor Richard Milburn, also War Studies at King’s College, London, in the Chair. So for those that are online, please do submit questions through the Q&A function. I’ve got the laptop just next to me here. Please keep them as succinct as possible. Make sure that they end with a question mark, and then if you don’t wish to be asked to actually speak the questions, please make a note of that as well, and then I can read them out. If not, I’ll ask you to unmute, to ask the questions.

In terms of those of you in the room, when we come to the Q&A piece, please just raise your hand if you’ve got a question, and then I’ll ask you to offer it up to the various speakers. I would say as well, if it’s for a particular speaker, then please direct it to that specific speaker, or if it’s for the whole panel, then please direct it to the whole panel, and then there’s a roving mic boom that will come for you to take the questions. So, without further ado, I think we can get into the main event, so hand over to John Kahekwa.

John Kahekwa

Thank you very much, Dr Rich, my name is John Kahekwa. I’m from the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the Kahuzi Biega National Park. I was born in one of the community – community village in a big, big community, surrounded the park. So, I think the 40 experience of years I spent in the field in the park and in the community, really indicated that slowly but slowly, but we can do something we can face to reduce the human pressure on the national park. Because the time I spent in the bush, with the gorillas, talking to the rest of the gorillas every day, and seeing the good fun from the juveniles and baby gorillas, allowed tourists to give us tea all the time, and going back home very happy, I implemented the T-shirt business, which I sell to tourists until – from 1986 to 1992.

Unfortunately, it’s about the souvenir I had, the same babies was making good fun to us, was always carrying a piece of wire, you know, the one you call snares, which were stretched by people, unknown people from the communities. So, it was very bad to see some injured gorillas, and others died from the snares. But in 1992, from the $6,000 I had already got from many tourists, who visited the park, when I was selling T-shirts, allowed me to implement the Pole Pole Foundation, from 1992 to date. It was not easy, because the war in the region here prevented the tourists to keep coming in the, you know, area as well.

We had such bad experience, to see I from 1992, when the war occurred, my wife, my family, my kids, we all suffered of lack of funds, because we spent the $6,000 to create Pole Pole Foundation, and implementing the activities, for reach, which will benefit the park, and in the communities as well. My wife, Odette, really suffered. I saw her using – pressing a fruit called lemon, in order to use it as a lotion. She did it on the body, it was hurting her skin, but there was no more choice.

What I can say here, the local community side, empty stomachs have no ears at all, okay, and I keep that in my mind since that time, but the communities, we don’t charge them. We don’t curse them because of invading the park, but they are, first of all, they are lacking the education, they are poor, 99%, that’s why they rely on the natural resources inside the park. Such as, if I can innumerate their mineral digging, coal tacit right, gold, although, cutting down the trees for poles, charcoals and timbers as well. So, they did that, but from the simple different activities, we launched in the Pole Pole Foundation, since 1992, such as, you know, planting trees in the communities, creating the education, environmental education, creating schools, creating different activities by women and men, who were mostly arrested inside the park, for X or Y negative activities, Pole Pole Foundation has demonstrated that we can, we can do something.

Now, because Pole Pole Foundation cannot go everywhere in the community, because it’s too vast and there are too many people hungry for – people in need at all, but we did something we could. We discovered that development through conservation, we can be able to develop the communities’ life, to improve it, and diminish and reduce the human pressure. Well, what we would not like is that the international community can help, can play a greater role by which to diminish the human pressure, we can – first of all, they have the – and I mean, among the many roles they could play, is that international community with us, down here in the field, we are able to fight against the destruction. We should prevent not funding the field people, who destroyed the nature by digging the mineral, selling the mineral to overseas, and getting their own benefit.

We are able to prevent this together, field, and people in the field and the international community. With international community we are able to stop the war, and the troubles from different militias, if we put – if we put transient together. If international community can come technically, with their technologies, we can do it together, with the people in the field, although if the international community can keep funding us people on the ground and trusting that we can use the funds properly, I think we can do something, once the war can take over.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, great, thanks very much, John, a really good insight into some of the challenges and particularly the role of community organisations. We’ll come onto a bit in the questions as well about that, what can community-led organisations do in-country, and also, a bit more about what the role for the international community is, so thank you very much for that. So, Larissa, if I can hand over to you now.

Larissa Sousa

Sure. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for having me and us as Gorongosa to talk a bit about what we do and how we have been doing this restoration process in Gorongosa. So, unfortunately, war and conflicts have been something that have become more frequent around our area and in general, in Mozambique, and it’s basically people agree, or disagreeing and not being able to find ways to agree to disagree in a peaceful manner. And so, this has been causing or giving effects on the long-term, that are very, very negative, especially for the environment. Because everything that happens now then, it reflects into the future, because when the war is happening, when the conflict is on the – it’s peak, we don’t consider, we don’t even think about the environment or the biodiversity in that moment, because all we’re considering is the lives of people, the people who are suffering, and how we can help them. And there is no better example than Gorongosa.

We, in the 90s, when the Civil War was happening, Gorongosa lost about 90% of its biodiversity, so fauna and flora, and so, it was difficult for people to consider the environment, and not the people that were dying, or the hungry soldiers that were poaching, killing the animals, not only for the meat, but as well for trade to get more guns. So it’s a whole cycle and it’s about what to do in that moment that we can try and help the environment at the same time.

So, in Gorongosa, what we have been doing, especially now, or at least in 2010 to 15, when we had political instability, which was right in Gorongosa. What we did is we worked with the people, it’s at the end of the day, it’s the people who are disagreeing, it’s the people who are making the war. And so it’s communicating and talking to the right people, and making sure that you are not choosing sides, because all we want is to make sure that biodiversity and environment that is around us, is also protected, at the same time as we are thinking of the lives of the people.

And so, during these late times, it’s good to know that we are now more aware of these things, and we are giving the importance that it needs too, by looking at different factors. So what happens when there’s war and conflicts? And most of the times you have pollution, you have deforestation, you have erosion, you have destruction of habitats, you have invasion of invasive species. For example, we have water yes, since that we’re not regional from the park, and now, they are in the park, we have poaching, we have angry soldiers, as I already mentioned. So if we know that these are the things that happen, then we need to focus on the solutions for these problems or these causes of war and conflict.

And so, I think, us as Gorongosa, have been working towards that, and we have been lucky to be able to stay working and be able to be there, to help biodiversity flourish and try and keep the park going through the political instability and the war that has been going in our area. And I think that one of the causes or one of the good things that we have been doing, is working with the communities. As the park, we have a dual objective, which is to protect biodiversity, alongside the human development of the people that live around the buffer zone of the park. So I think that’s one of the key points that conservation areas need to consider, especially if you are in a warzone or you have conflict around.

And to also raise awareness of people that, if we destroy the nature today, tomorrow we will get cyclones. We have been hit by cyclones more frequent than in ten years, so now people are starting to see tangible examples of how destroying nature and how that is affecting the future. And we need to change and we need to start agreeing to disagreeing, and in peaceful matters, and not thinking only about the people, but we also need to consider what other things we are doing, like extinction of animals, for example, or flora, we are losing things that are supposed to be there.

Nature is a cycle, it’s a thing that if you take one little thing from it, then everything else is affected. So, I think these are the things that we’ve been working with in Gorongosa. And also by having this integrated system, by having different departments, such as conservation, science and communication, so all these pillars working together to make this engine work. Yeah, I think in a nutshell, that’s how we’ve been handling and seeing things from our side. Thank you.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah thanks very much Larissa, again, really interesting insight and interesting to compare that to John’s experience as well. And certainly I think something it draws out is conservation is often seen as about biodiversity, but actually it’s so much about people. You know, nature will often look after itself quite well, but it’s that sort of people angle that really creates the problem. So thank you very much, and then handover to Helen now.

Helen Harwatt

Thank you. Hi, everybody. I’m just going to make a few broad points about the global situation, regarding biodiversity, so quite different from the previous two contributions, but still some overlap in there. And I’ll also look – I’ll talk briefly about potential spill over consequences of well beyond the conflict zone.

So I think the main thing, the first thing to mention is that biodiversity loss is accelerating around the world. The global rate of species extinction today is orders of magnitude, higher than the average rate over the past ten billion years. According to the Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services, natural ecosystems have declined on average by almost 50%, relative to the earliest estimates and around 25% of species are already threatened with extinction in most animal and plant groups studied.

Since 1970, the population sizes of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, and reptiles have all declined by an estimated average of 68%, and the global biomass of wild animals has declined by around 82%. And the current situation is that around only 4% of mammal mass on the planet is actually wild, about 60% of mammals by mass, are actually famed animals, and it’s a similar situation if we look at birds. Only around 29% of mass on the planet is wild and the rest are farmed animals. So the impacts of those local and regional losses of biodiversity, such as some of those described by Larissa, for example, are really being compounded by what is happening at the global level and the post-conflict recoveries therefore, hindered, at least to some extent, by general deterioration, poor connectivity, poor state and fragility of surrounding biodiversity.

And I think it’s worth just briefly covering the importance of biodiversity and well-functioning ecosystems. So, the big one, humanity relies on the Earth’s natural systems to regulate the environment and maintain a habitable planet. Biodiversity, in any given region, creates ecosystems of interactive individual organisms across many species that collectively contribute to and support the planetary processes. So, one example is that terrestrial and marine ecosystems together remove more than half of all carbon emissions from the atmosphere every year, and in doing that, play a crucial role in actually regulating the Earth’s surface temperature.

Ecosystems help to buffer the impacts of adverse weather and provide resilience to climate change, and the Earth’s naturally occurring ecological processes sustain the quality of air, water, and soils that we depend on. And in addition to providing basic life-enabling conditions, ecosystems are a source of many products vital for survival, including food, fuel, fibre, medicines, and shelter. And just to sort of look at some of the climate resilience issues in more detail, the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Working Group II, on Climate Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, as part of its sixth assessment report, made a number of statements regarding biodiversity and the level of confidence in those statements. And they include high confidence that human and ecosystem vulnerability are interdependent. High confidence that a high proportion of species is vulnerable to climate change, very high confidence that vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change, differs substantially among and within regions, and high confidence that this is driven by patterns of intersecting socioeconomic development, unsustainable ocean and land use, marginalisation, historical and ongoing patterns of inequity, such as colonialism and governance. And very high confidence that safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems is fundamental to climate resilience development, in light of the threat to climate change poses to them and their roles in adaptation, and mitigation.

So, clearly, there are a number of important feedbacks and relationships between climate and biodiversity, and if we look from a systemic perspective and today, the main driver of biodiversity loss globally, is land use change. And agriculture is the single largest cause of land use change and habitat destruction, accounting for around 80% of all land use change globally, and agriculture now is around half of all habitable land, and around 80% of that is occupied by animal agriculture. And these pressures on land are expected to continue, with an expansion of agricultural land, up to 2050 at least. And just finally, just to comment on the potential impacts of war on biodiversity loss is part of a global response.

So, for example, if we consider some of the consequences of the ongoing invasion of the Ukraine, by Russia, there are potentially global impacts on food supply, given that combined Ukraine and Russia account for around 10% of global food trade, which is mainly cereals and oil seeds, some of which is supplied, for example, by Russia to Egypt, is their main source of cereals. Some from Ukraine to China, which includes oil seeds for feeding farmed pigs and turkey. And Kazakhstan are also major importers of Russian grain, so there are a range of trade routes and dependencies of food uses that could be impacted quite substantially.

So, if the global response to losing say 10% of global food trade is a rush to increase food production elsewhere to bridge this gap, there could be impacts far beyond the conflict zone, such as, for example, deforestation in the tropics, converting land to agriculture, and in that process, losing rich carbon and biodiversity repositories. So there are potential biodiversity impacts, resulting from the global response to bridging war induced food trade gaps, in addition to those impacts induced by conflict within the territory of those countries, as the other speakers have talked about. So there are a range of important potential feedback loops, such as those related to climate, like further biodiversity loss and potential conflict and not necessarily within the original conflict zone. And I’ll leave it there, thank you.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, thanks very much, Helen, so I think a good global overview, and particularly interesting to see the impact on food, driving biodiversity loss, and then linking back into what John talks about a lot, this notion of empty stomachs have no ears, and how those short-term drivers of fundamentally hunger, actually drive biodiversity loss and how we address that. So I think that will come out in the questions afterwards. But before that, I’ll hand over to Adrian.

Adrian Garside

Thanks, Rich, and thanks very much, very good to be here. I’m now going to take us to the Nile Congo watershed, on the borders of three very troubled nations: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. The Nile-Congo watershed, normally thought of as a political divide, in reality, it’s a very dense forest zone connecting the biomes and of East and Central Africa.

For this particular study, I’m going to go onto Nile watershed, so the Western part of South Sudan, and a rivering system that is critical to the survival of, and the future health of the White Nile and the human and wildlife populations that sustains. And in this landscape, there are dotted across it, game reserves and a national park. Officially designated back in the 1930s and 40s, but which have never been managed in a way that we would recognise as protected area management today.

In terms of the time, I’m going to take us into South Sudan’s recent Civil War, because empirical evidence from working on conservation in the middle of a war, is limited. And having established a wildlife conservation project for Fauna & Flora International, in this area, at South Sudan’s independence in 2011, we then continued that right through the Civil War.

Working with the National Wildlife Service of South Sudan, which in a very typical post-conflict country, the wildlife service comprises former soldiers, militias, former child soldiers, but very much down the lower end of the capacity scale within their national security hierarchy. And also, Community Wildlife Ambassadors, an organisation we established, local people from the forest areas, who themselves have been protecting the communities from the Lord’s Resistance Army up until soon before we arrived.

Within this area, obviously a lot of underdevelopment. Over decades, we weren’t really working with baselines, but as a result of this work, we do now know of populations of forest elephant, Bongo chimpanzee, African golden cats, African wild dog, giant eland, and many more, the list goes on. But this evidence, hard evidence and photographic evidence never previously named from that.

The three main points I want to bring out, about working on wildlife conservation in war. The first one is that biodiversity protection is first and foremost about people, exactly as Larissa said, but it is then about land; everything becomes territorialised. Wildlife habitat, species, river line systems, they all get rolled up into the violent contest over territory. Territory being a more political term for it. So, if biodiversity is about the governance of land, we did find that the GPS maps, camera traps, were actually more effective about governing this land, than the AK47.

Second point is that the practice of war dominates any other practice that may go on in the middle of a war and obviously, that includes wildlife conservation. The direct and indirect effects of that war, be that kinetic effect of munitions, or be that displacement of human populations, food insecurity, these all affect the motivations of people. So it’s very important to understand the war, understand its objectives, how it’s being fought, the methods that are used, the loyalties, the changing loyalties, that occur on a regular basis. And to give an example here, it was very clear that early on, the war would fall along lines of government controlled urban centres and opposition rebels fighting from the bush, and with biodiversity being an activity that occurs in the bush, there will be a necessity to bring people together across this fault line.

And hence, and I illustrate again, a perceptibly with government national wildlife service, and a community with perceptibly with opposition, Community Wildlife Ambassadors, working together right through the Civil War, on these protected areas. And a key point that I want to raise from that, is that it demonstrates that that fundamental principle of wildlife conservation for those communities indigenous to the area, living closest to the protected area, need to be involved in the management and benefits of that wildlife protected area. And that this does exist in war, perhaps even more so during war.

And my third point is about having a long-term strategy. By long-term strategy I’m talking 50 years or more, and in that 50-year strategy, you need to be able to adapt and change your approaches, according to the situation. And by that, I would illustrate with saying at independence, there was a nation of South Sudan and we manage the National Park as a nation, a very proud nation. But within a couple of years, that sense of nation had completely fractured and the National Park had become a territory, with very ethnic politicised loyalties within it, and it had to be managed in a very different way. But as we come out of the war, we must start re-engaging as well, protecting that as a nation.

And also, that with a long-term strategy, this before, during and after conflict, it is very important to understand, particularly in a country like South Sudan, that after the before, during and after, you often go back to before, it’s a cyclical process. And that to stay working on conservation through a war, has put us in so much better position than trying to wait for some illusive entry point, during a post-conflict peace building phase. And on that point, by working through the war, FFI is the only conservation organisation currently working on the ground, in South Sudan, and is expanding its operations greatly. And as part of that long-term strategy, I would simply say that biodiversity specialists need to be getting involved in peace negotiations.

Our diplomatic community very more engaged at diplomacy of the capitals, and we need to have some diplomacy of the bush, since that is where biodiversity exists, and it has – the protection of biodiversity has become such a priority, globally. Thanks, Rich, that’s my points.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, great. Thanks, Adrian, so, again, some really important stuff there. I think particularly picking up that notion of maintaining a presence, this is something that comes out a lot actually, where organisations aren’t on the ground, that ability to monitor, engage, and then sort of, build those trusts and relationships. And then also that long-term strategy, which is something that’s unfortunately, often lacking in the sector.

I’ve allowed everyone to slightly run over, ‘cause I thought actually the points they were making were really interesting there. So we’ll slightly keep this element down to sort of ten/15 minutes, to give opportunities for you to ask questions. So I’ll just ask each speaker one question, in turn, I think. So starting again with John, for you, what would you say is the single biggest challenge that you or the other organisations as well, face, working in a difficult region, in regions of insecurity like Congo? You’ll need to unmute yourself, John.

John Kahekwa

Yeah, what I was saying, maybe there were many elements that could have maybe, from my own experience in the field, I’ve got to say, the war is not good at all, and it affect the nature and the people. For me to say, there are three kind of wars. There is a war with the guns, in here, and with people who lived in the region. And there is another war, which is produced by one guy in a different group of militias, and there is a major, another major war, which is the hunger. The hunger, but of stomachs of course.

I need to emphasise that the war with guns, which occurred in 1996, has – we had 450 elephants, bush elephants, in the highland side of the coast of the National Park, which were eaten, by bush meat, for bush meat, only for one year, they had already eaten 450 bush elephants and they halved the population of the gorillas, from about 254 members in 1996 to 130 in 2000. Nowadays, we have 163 gorilla individuals. So, we don’t count the number of chimpanzees or other wildlife, like the bush hogs and antelopes, who were killed. Remember, these animals, they play a great role, by making their rejuvenation of – from fruits to regrow the new forest as well. So now don’t know what can be the future of this cause of the international park, in the maybe ten, 40, 50 years coming, with some big damage that’s surrounded by the hungry communities.

What we can do is that in term of the flora, today we have about more than 100 hectares washed out, cleared out, for charcoals, timbers, and poles, by the community, assisted by armed people, annoyed people, you know, in the highland sector. So, these are actually major challenges we have ongoing, through the three different wars, as well. War by gun, war by ongoing endless militias, and the war, which is the hunger, empty stomachs say, communities around the park. I think it is – how to cope with this in the long term, is that if we can see somehow we can have partners, of good name, of real names, who are able to come, sign a partnership, long-term partnership, with the local [inaudible – 35:10] who we are, we who know the people, we know the wildlife, what are the protected area, at the same time, both side. So we can go together and see we can go, we can be able to see, well, governmental authorities, provincial authorities, park management, local villages leaders, everywhere we are able to touch from each part and see somehow we could have a solution, because they trust us a lot.

So, from what we can do as a partnership, for the long-term, this can help us to go far away, and meet many different people, because for the [inaudible – 35:58], suddenly one secret remain, is just to invest in the local community, surrounding all governmental people. So, we need to prevent the war, most of time, coming from abroad, or from neighbour countries, or internal wars, so we can be able, as far as we can be going together. And also having equipment, like my colleague who is working in South Sudan, next to Congo, because I’m glad because we are neighbours, he said he faces the same challenges, so we can have equipment, such as GPS and any other camera traps, and, you know, drones, everything together, with the local people, who know the people on the ground, who know the park, I think we do something good, slowly, but slowly, but we can build some good activity and a great number of people in here.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, okay. Yeah, thanks very much, John, I think, yeah, drawing out some key elements about the various resources that are needed to protect. So, that’s really good. want to build on, particularly the point, and this is coming to both Larissa and Helen, I’ll ask you each in turn, but given that we know what the threats to biodiversity are likely to be, and we know those drivers, it’s the empty stomachs at a local level, and also at a global level, that impact of food security. And Larissa, what you talked about as well, that you’re facing increased cyclones and so on, so what do you think are the, sort of, key, or what are the things we need to do to not only necessarily better communicate the value of biodiversity, but actually start turning that into concrete conservation action? So, first of all, to Larissa and then to Helen as well, the same question.

Larissa Sousa

Yeah, so, Richard, the thing is now we, as I said, we have tangible examples, so people are now feeling it on the houses being destroyed, on having water everywhere. And so, it’s much easier to convince people that if you cut down the trees, to go and make charcoal because you need money, because you need food, at the end of the day, then the whole cycle, if you have the whole value chain and you come up with the solution, I think it’s much easier approach, and to communicate the importance of having a healthy environment. And so what we have been doing is we’ve been working with the communities, especially up in the mountain, which is the area that has been mostly deforested, and so we came up with the idea of doing coffee up there. And coffee is one of the biggest commodities around the world and this is something that can be done up in the mountain, and it will also help with reforestation there, as well as giving them a financial benefit, because when they do the coffee, then they’re able to get some extra cash to do any other thing with that money. So – and with that, we’ve been doing intercropping, where they do coffee and other cultures, that they can eat annually, because coffee gives after the third year. And so they are able now to get an alternative livelihood, as well as having an income. So now they’re able to eat, so they’re no longer hungry. They can understand how the benefits of doing reforestation will bring them, and they want, or at least the effects of the different weather disasters that have been happening will be lower or with less intensity.

So, I think having these things and that you can explain and that you can actually show, it’s been something that we’ve been doing, and it’s much easier for people to understand. And we have to remember that these people, the areas that we are working with, are normally very rural and people don’t have basic needs provided for them, and so if we are helping them through this as well, then they can understand that. It’s all in a cycle, that if you do this, then this comes as a consequence. So, if you are able to cover the whole cycle and they can understand, then I think that’s the way to go.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, thanks, Larissa, I think a really good point about that notion of actually, that tangible benefit, so, you know, we talk a lot about the theoretical benefits, but actually how to provide that tangible benefit, which then, I think, links onto Helen. What I’d like to ask you, from that international, or more international perspective, how do we actually convert that knowledge of policy and knowledge of the facts and the statistics on biodiversity loss, into actually getting better biodiversity protection?

Helen Harwatt

Yeah, thanks, Rich. I think, I mean, as you said, looking at the, kind of, global perspective and going back to the leading driver of biodiversity loss and land use change, which is food production, there’s huge scope to actually reduce the overall requirement for land and other resources for food production, which would really go a long way, and I’ll just give a couple of examples. So, rather than increase land for food production, which I suggested could be a potential response to the current Ukraine-Russia war, there’s actually a huge potential instead, to reorganise existing agricultural land.

So, for example, one third of all global calories are currently used to feed farmed animals, so there’s actually a lot of, sort of, waste in the system that could be reorganised. So if we look at cereal use, for example, 48% of the world’s cereals are eaten by humans, 41% are for animal feed, 11% for biofuels. If we look at soy, 19% is for humans, 77% is for animal feed, and we actually lose a lot of energy in that process of feeding those crops to animals, versus feeding them directly to humans. So there’s actually a really big potential to reduce the actual requirement for crops in the first place, if we feed them directly to humans. So that’s one really big point that could massively help.

Secondly, is to reduce the input required for food production, such as vitalisers, by growing more legumes, for example, which fix nitrogen and reduce fertiliser requirements, and also to use precision agricultural techniques to reduce water and fertiliser use overall. Obviously, there the food waste is a massive one as well, and goes back to that first point of reducing the overall requirement for agricultural land, and especially to avoid expanding agricultural land, at the expense of biodiversity. So we currently waste around 30% of all food produced, at various stages of the food system, from production to consumption.

And finally, just a point on the sort of conservation aspects of where we could gain from these moves in the food system. So if we reduce the land needed for agriculture, that actually gives us the potential to restore some of that land back to its native ecosystem and biodiversity. So if we, for example, go back to that first point about reducing the number of farmed animals and the crops for the feed, then we could actually reduce the overall need for land. So pastureland, currently accounts for around 75% of all land use for food, and globally, if we restored that to its native ecosystem cover, so this is kind of systemwide, which isn’t realistic, but just to give you an example of what those numbers look like. So this is from a study we published a couple of years back. So if that was returned to its native ecosystem cover, of either grassland or forest, that could actually contribute massively to climate change goals, removing around half of the emissions we need for the 1.5o goal. Or put another way, it would remove around the equivalent of the past decade of fossil fuel emissions from the atmosphere and of course, create lots of habitat, so lots of potential benefits for biodiversity and not just climate.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, thanks, Helen. Yeah, really good to, sort of, see that, and so much of this is coming back to that food security, both at a local and national level, so really important considerations. So, Adrian, yeah, just the final, sort of, question to round this all off is, what do you think successful conservation looks like, particularly focused on a region of insecurity, as opposed to maybe a more peaceful region?

Adrian Garside

Yeah, very good question and a very difficult one to answer, because it’s about working in this climate of fear, and a very non-permissive environment, where it’s very difficult for people to necessarily get on and do something like conservation. So I’d say there’s a couple of things that I would highlight that with. One, I would say it is about the will of the people, which is a very difficult thing to measure, especially if you’re trying to work to a log frame or something. But the actual will and motivation of people to manage wildlife protected areas, is a huge thing, and a huge indicator, and a sign that actually, maybe the security situation is reducing, or else a sign that actually, they feel that this is a positive thing to do while the situation allows.

Another one I’d say is to see a wildlife service, within such a militarised society, and within a Civil War, to see a wildlife service that actually continues to do wildlife conservation and not get involved in the war.

And the third one, which isn’t straight up example of what went on, is that in the middle of a Civil War, we actually went through a full demarcation process for one of the game reserves and formally had it demarcated, which I think is a huge achievement. And again, a demonstration of governance of the land by fair means, using GPS and maps, rather than, you know, some, as I say, a very territorialised control of territory using arms as part of the war. So, yeah, three potential examples.

Dr Richard Milburn

Great, thanks, and yeah, the, sort of, the role of staying apolitical, and actually, yeah, being really key, so you don’t – it doesn’t get seen as being part of the conflict.

Adrian Garside

I think that if there’s one fundamental thing about it, is to keep wildlife conservation as wildlife conservation, and not allow it to become part of the political conflict, and that is a very complex thing to do and it’s something that’s done at a very personal level, because where that interaction can happen, is not just on diplomatic and negotiations with officials, it’s actually between gun rangers and poachers out on the ground.

Dr Richard Milburn

Great, thanks very much. So, if you’ve got any questions in the room, please do raise your hand. I know John just wanted to come in, and make a point, so John, if you just want to unmute yourself and say what you wanted to say, and then, you know, we’ll come over to you for a question. You need to unmute yourself, John.

John Kahekwa

[Pause] Oh, can you hear me?

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, we can hear you.

John Kahekwa

Yeah, yeah, thanks very much, Dr Richard. What I would like to say that the war is for endless the case of the DRC. It’s in a war from 1990, let met say that in general, but especially in 1996. The war will never give – maybe it’s just going through militias and government, but during the war, conservationists, pioneers like us, on the ground, could not give up and we should never give up working hard, looking for some help to secure the people through the food.

I mean, here, to fight to fill the empty stomachs, say here, it’s a long-term process, but we have been growing, you know, the algaes called specifically spirulina, which is a superfood and we have started with it, 20 children, feeding them since 2018. To date, we have 200 malnourished children, whom we are feeding on this superfood and we see their health is really changing. Who knows if these people, these children, once they grow, very good, in good health, they can’t contribute to become rangers or a conservationist in the coming decades?

So, these algaes, to be a superfood, we need to combine their consumption, consuming, to the agriculture. We need to go through villages, mobilise locals, to launch the agriculture of growing crops and harvesting crops. So when the communities are feeding on crops, they combine with the algaes, which is the superfood, and their health will improve so much, for the peaceful future to love nature and to invent for nature. We have been planting trees of course, it’s known everywhere that we planted over four million trees in the fields, not inside the park, but in the villager’s fields, which they exploit every maturity of each tree for timbers, poles and charcoals as well, instead of destroying the park or…

Dr Richard Milburn

Can I just interrupt you? Yeah, sorry, John, and thanks very much. So, just a note on that, so for the specific details, the Earthshot video about John, actually has quite a lot of this on video form. So just as a point to note, anyone who’s interested in seeing those specifics like the spirulina, I think that’s a good opportunity to go, but thanks for the reminder, John, I think a good example, along with the coffee as well, those sort of specific examples of how to address these issues, so, thank you. Yeah, we had the question, Henry.

Henry

Thanks, do you think that sometimes you European and US Governments put conservation issues in the aid or development box, instead of the global security issue box and does that hinder some of the progress that you’d like to see?

Dr Richard Milburn

Is that for a particular panellist, or…?

Henry

No, just a general question.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, okay, Adrian, do you want to kick off?

Adrian Garside

Sure, yeah, and a good question. I think it – and again, looking at this as conservation biodiversity, conservation during war, in terms of funding, it falls in a gap between development and aid. And I think that the fact that one is working with wildlife services, which are an armed element of a government, with which the US, UK or other European donors may not agree. It actually makes it very difficult, and yeah, I would say one of the biggest problems, you know, we don’t want to just go on about money, there are far greater issues to be addressing. But yeah, funding during war and a lot of that problem is because those at our capital’s level, they aren’t recognising the relationships and nuances and differences that actually occur on the ground. And so, therefore, yeah, we had to turn away millions, literally millions of dollars of funding, that would not have allowed us to continue working with the very people with whom we had such good relationships.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, are you happy – I mean, Larissa, just, sort of, to pass that question onto you, ‘cause I know Mozambique’s had specific relationships with integrating ex-combatants as rangers and so on. So, how do you find that? You know, is that sort of, security finance or issues of benefit or more keeping in the development space?

Larissa Sousa

I think it’s a bit of both. We – as I said, we never try to pick anyone. At the end of the day, we just want to work with people, and if ex-combatants are people who are there and are willing to work and are willing to make peace, then we are there to help, and it’s all about the involvement. How do you then make sure that if it’s specifically between the government and some other priorities, are we talking about political instability, then you will be the person in the middle. So you need to be able to see how to engage both parts, as well as how your funders – for example, we work with different donors, and some might not agree with these things, but we need to set a base that this is what we’re going to do, and at the end of the day, is to work with people.

And if these two sides can then somehow agree on something, which is obviously not having people dying, not having kids not having food at the table, then we are at some point, giving them a reason to try and come together to solve their problems. So, I think, in terms of funding and funding the wars, for example, it’s something bigger than us and we have something that is going on right now, which is terrorism in Capital Legado, and there is a lot of stories on who’s funding and why are they funding, what are the reasons? And the main reasons that most people are talking about is the minerals and the resources that they are there. And there is bigger people funding that, it’s not only, how would I say, locals from that area who are getting guns from, we don’t know where, and are somehow organising this organised crime at the end of the day. So, these things should really be understood in the core and then try to find a solution for it.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, thanks very much. So I’ll just go to a question online, ‘cause this was actually something we talked about as a panel beforehand. So, Helen, I’ll bring you in specifically for this one. So, this is from Emily Harding online, she’s just asked me to read it out. So, “Very interesting discussion from the panel, what can Ukraine learn from biodiversity protection in conflict zones in Africa?” So, if Helen, yeah, if you can come in on that first, please.

Helen Harwatt

Yeah, I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer this one ‘cause I’m not – it’s not something I actually work on directly, I’m more of a kind of global systems person.

Dr Richard Milburn

Oh yeah, okay.

Helen Harwatt

I will defer to the other speakers if anybody wants to pick that one up.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, Adrian.

Adrian Garside

Yeah, hugely complex. To go back to a couple of points I made, I think obviously it’s understand the war and understand these wars may be very different. Every war is different and the war that’s going on in the Ukraine is very different to the war that went on in South Sudan. It’s probably very different to any war. Well, it is very different to any war that’s gone on, on the African Continent.

Is it necessarily something for Ukraine to learn? As I say, it’s about territorialisation, so it’s about designation of land to be protected. And I think in that regard, this is the sort of issue where the international community, whatever that is, you know, needs to come together. And this is where something like the International Law Commission’s work, on protecting the environment in relation to armed conflict, which will in time, lead to a new set or a new convention like international humanitarian law, that will relate to protecting the environment, in relation to war and armed conflict. And that’s the sort of issue where something might become tangible. That said, as we know in war, you know, even international humanitarian law and the responsibility to protect, have been not respected. So, protecting the environment, I don’t think that stands that great a chance either.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the same. I mean, this has been a question that’s being looked at by quite a few people. SEAOBS have produced a lot of material on it as well, but it comes back to that reality, that the speakers have spoken about today, that those short-term needs so often come first. Until they can be addressed, even if people know, that damage to the environment will be harmful, they’re still going to do it, and the limitations of even war crimes, sort of, tribunals and so on, in preventing what Putin’s doing.

So, yeah, I think there was another question in the room? Yeah, and if you want to direct it to a particular speaker, please say.

Member

I think it’s a general question, so I’m just wondering what’s the role of local government in it? ‘Cause you talk about a lot of international community, but I imagine if, like, two countries are at a war, their priority would be, like, winning the war, instead of, you know, biodiversity, conservation, or whatever, so how does the local government involve in it, or it’s just an international effort? Thank you.

Dr Richard Milburn

And yeah, Adrian, do you want to kick off, and then I’ll come to John and Larissa afterwards?

Adrian Garside

Yeah, a really good question, and it comes in hugely. I think in the case of South Sudan, it’s a Civil War, so that within the same country, you know, we are currently in a process of coming out of the war. Where we’re working, it’s in an opposition, designated as an opposition state, opposition province. Local government there is not necessarily in agreement with, you know, the wildlife service, which is with the government body. I think some of this, sort of, also plays to Gorongosa and the province that it is in. So, local government is really key, and it’s all part of the partnership with whom you work.

To go back earlier, it was actually a former Minister for local government who I sat down with and we came up with a Community Wildlife Ambassador concept. Really, really keen man, he is absolutely behind our conservation efforts. So I think the local government is really fundamental in this and it can be an absolute backer for the work that you do on the ground, and in terms of what – how important its role has been for us, in war, far – the local government is far more important than the international community.

Member

How do you engage them?

Adrian Garside

You’ve given talks to them and visit them, and it’s face-to-face, it’s there, that’s what you have to go and do. You have to be – again, all wars are different, and in this case, I can be an impartial person, and you know, it was not my war. So, to go and talk to two different people and the same story, the same is going on, I – the programme, I don’t run the programme anymore, those people who are running the programme and doing a fantastic job expanding it, are all going talking to local government, County Commissioners, State Governors, national, ministry, yeah, absolutely, all conducted, and you’ll be surprised how different players will talk to each other as well.

Dr Richard Milburn

So, we still have a few more minutes, just to – yeah, a couple of more minutes. So, yeah, if we just get same question to John, I think, and then to Larissa as well, that, you know, slightly different governance on the ground, but yeah, what do you think that role of local government in conservation is? Start with John.

John Kahekwa

Yeah, thank you very much once again. I would like to support the opinion of my colleague Adrian, who said, “Each plays its own reality. The case for the Congo, the democratic platform of my country, is specific. I always observe that the local government provide all its strength just to support the wildlife during the peace and during the war. They do all the best they can, but they are limited in many things. Let me say, they are limited maybe in their equipment of arms, guns, sometime you can see a malicious or army people, they have very much equipment better than the governmental one. And also, they are limited in their budget to support the wildlife activities, so that’s why I say I can give the case of my neighbour, the National Park, which is called Virunga. Virunga National Park was created in 1925, but it was also threatened a lot, but now, when an international person went to supervise the Virunga, I saw the whole international European Union by the way, using the whole funds to equip this National Park today, it’s a model one. But everywhere in DRC, where local government is taking over, they have no means at all, financial or good equipment at all.

But all Congolese citizen are really delighted to do something, but they are limited in everything. I mean, locals, NGOs, governmental, they do all the best, but we are limited some way. That’s why I was saying that if people can strengthen, I mean, local government, local citizens, including the international level, so putting all strength together, this will help to do something strong and maybe it can end the war in Congo, and from war and militias, and develop the people, you know, by filling the empty stomachs activities. Thanks.

Dr Richard Milburn

Yeah, thanks, John. Again, you know, that’s sort of where we’re trying to build the capacity of that local government and supporting again, making sure that money goes through, and then, Larissa, I’ll give you the final word on that.

Larissa Sousa

Yeah, not to repeat what the other panellists have just spoke about, I think it’s always good to understand why – what is the cause of this conflict, and specifically, as Adrian was saying, for Gorongosa, it’s something that is political instability. And so, obviously, the local government is the one to take action, and there also needs to be a willingness for them to do something, because we’ve had cases that they were not willing to have sit downs, and to discuss, and so the international community had to interfere. So it always depends on what is the cause, and how it can be approached.

Mozambique is one of the countries in Southern Africa that has really good legislations and laws. However, they’re not really reinforced. But lately, specifically for environment laws, nowadays we are starting to more and more raising awareness and to make use of these laws and try to use the local government on our favour to be able to win some of these battles. And one of them is the tin industry, for example, so we have been working a lot with the environment ministry, and working towards creating other alternatives, specifically for the communities, because when you’re talking about big scale, then it’s much more, but when we’re talking about small communities, making charcoal, so we need to provide an alternative to be able to have some kind of solution for the communities.

So I think it’s very important to do the work, the theoretical work, and then try out in the field. Thank you.

Dr Richard Milburn

Great, thanks, Larissa. So, yeah, just a final thank you to all of our speakers, both online and in the room, thank you to the audience as well, in the room, thanks for coming out, on what is a very, very nice sunny London evening. And to those online as well, thank you for your questions and for listening in. And then finally, also a big thank you to Chatham House for hosting this event and given a really interesting panel the opportunity to talk about some of these issues. So, thank you very much and good evening [applause].