Les perspectives technologiques de l’apport de la géomatique au suivi de la résilience climatique des terroirs et régions pour la réduction de la pauvreté : Le potentiel de la solution e_Centre d’information et d’échange pour la neutralité en termes de dégradation des terres.
MANGA Sylvestre-José-Tidiane
Abstract: This research presents perspectives on Landscape geomatics in local and regional climate resilience building for poverty eradication with the e_GIS Land Degradation Neutrality Clearing-House Mechanism Solution. The GIS component of the solution allows processing and crossing data on socio-ecological systems to help in decision making for sustainability. The online clearing-house mechanism component of the solution helps conducting an active cooperation between regional landscape stakeholders and managers with the participation of the population for resilience building purposes. The implementation of such an environmental technology solution will be supported by institutional arrangements consisting of a Codex Environmentarius as well as normative arrangements consisting of a paradigm on global moral sovereignty and responsibility of all Nations over natural resources of the planet. Both institutional and normative arrangements have the potential to mobilize green investment to shift the economy in developing countries.
Keywords: Environmental technology, Landscape Geomatics, Socio-ecological Landscapes Climate resilience indicators, Population participation, NTCs and Landscape Management, Sustainable Land Management (SLM), Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN)
Résumé: Cette recherche porte sur les perspectives de la géomatique dans l’étude, le suivi et le renforcement de la résilience des terroirs aux échelles local et régionale avec le recours à la solution environnementale e_Centre d’information et d’échange pour la neutralité en termes de dégradation des terres. La composante SIG de la solution permet de traiter et de croiser des données sur les indicateurs de résilience des terroirs notamment pour ainsi aider à la prise de décision en vue de la neutralité en termes de dégradation des terres et du développement durable. La composante en ligne (e_) centre d’échange et d’information quant à elle permet l’échange d’information entre gestionnaires de terroirs à l’échelle de la région et même au niveau global et ce, avec la participation des populations grâces aux nouvelles technologies de l’information. Il est suggéré que la mise en œuvre d’une telle solution technologique environnementale soit encadrée par un cadre institutionnel, le Codex Environmentarius et par un cadre normatif, souveraineté et responsabilité morales des peuples et Nations sur les ressources naturelles de la planète. Ces arrangements institutionnels et normatifs ont l’avantage de mobiliser de l’investissement pour l’adaptation des économies des pays en développement.
Mots clés: Technologie environnementale, Géomatiques du paysage, Indicateurs de résilience socio-écologique des paysages climatiques, Gestion durable des terres, Neutralité de la dégradation des terres
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INTRODUCTION
The UNFCCC 21st Conference of the Parties (Paris-COP 21) and the Rio+20 Summit are the main last planetary rendezvous of Nations to address global climate resilience challenges and perspectives on green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Among those is environmental technology. If progress has been noticed over the last decades in renewable energy solutions and in mix energy approaches, one can’t say the same in the sector of environmental technology on land resilience. There is especially a need in environmental technology addressing land resilience matters in a synergetic approach such as geomatics. Geomatics can be a real asset at different scales local, regional and even global. The implementing processes of the Paris Agreement on Climate global resilience resulting from the UNFCCC COP 21 and of the Future we want resulting from Rio+20 Summit offer a strategic timetable to profit from such approaches in the developing countries’ endeavoring to build land resilience for poverty eradication. Indeed, the resilience of many socio-ecological systems, landscapes and lands around the planet has been stretched out by unsustainable economic activities. Desertification, soil degradation, climate change, poor soil and food productivity, malnutrition, pandemic and endemic diseases are some of the realities of our lands inability to meet the needs of their habitants. Poverty eradication has in fact become one of the most important concerns in developing countries. Even though research on socio-ecological resilience over the last decades has accumulated enough knowledge in resilience assessment there is still a great need in technology innovation able to enhance the impact of such a scientific knowledge. Geomatics can fill the gap and help implementing in synergy the three Rio environmental Conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification to eradicate poverty. This contribution shows the potential of a solution in geomatics with such characteristics: the e_GIS Land Degradation Neutrality Clearing-House Mechanism (e_GIS LDN CHM Technology Solution). It’s based on GIS technology principles with the possibility of using satellite imagery processing to assess and measure land resilience indicators with an online component allowing populations to participate via NTCs in the sustainable use of the natural and genetic resources of their lands. Its clearing-house mechanism component ensures regional cooperation channels and enhances therefore poverty eradication efforts. We also know in the other hand that successful innovations are those supported by suitable institutional and legal frameworks. This contribution suggests the adoption of suitable institutional arrangements and the conduct of innovative normative activity with a potential to generate green investment. The institutional arrangements will consist of a Codex Environmentarius where landscapes coded by their resilience indicators will be collected for sustainable development and sustainable trade purposes. The normative arrangements will lead to the adoption of a paradigm of global moral ownership and sovereignty of all Nations over natural resources of the planet with a goal of allowing industrialized Nations to assist developing countries adapting their economies on the basis of equal moral responsibility in the global warming threat. The collective stand of industrialized countries to fund developing countries adapting their economies under the Paris Agreement is a positive sign that Nations can agree to share the burden of sustainability and poverty eradication resulting from the global warming threat.
To conduct this study, we plan in a first chapter to present a sober review of current scientific knowledge on resilience. We will here identify the limits of current approaches to address the multifaceted characteristic of the landscape. This will allow us to show in a second chapter, the potential of the geomatics approach with the e_GIS LDN CHM Technology Solution. In a third chapter, we will show that such a solution can be part of a global environmental governance allowing industrialized countries to fund adaptation activities in developing countries.
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ON RESILIENCE AND CURRENT APPROACHES’ LIMITS: TOWARDS THE E_GIS LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY CLEARING-HOUSE MECHANISM SOLUTION
Academic research has covered almost all types of ecological and socio-ecological systems of the planet on issues related to resilience and sustainability. Only a few of those many valuable studies conducted in our universities, colleges and, private companies throughout the world will be mentioned. This is indeed a sober review of literature on resilience and sustainability. Our purpose is mainly to show the complexity of the concept of resilience between ecological and human components and the multifaceted character of resilience. A focus on environmental technology limits in resilience measurement will lead us to present the potential of the geomatics solution e_GIS LDN CHM to help reversing the threat of global warming on resilience issues and poverty eradication.
RESILIENCE: A COMPLEX CONCEPT TO STUDY AND TO MEASEARE
Neubert and Caswell (1997) said resilience is a component of ecological stability assessed as the rate at which perturbations to a stable ecological system decay. The most frequently used estimate of resilience is based on the eigenvalues of the system at its equilibrium (ibid). I most cases, this estimate describes the rate of recovery only asymptotically, as time goes to infinity (ibid) and suggest alternative measurement methods to this linearly approach. Their main results are in terms of calculation from mathematical models but do have implications for empirical studies. According to authors, if a system is stable but reactive, a perturbation experiment may produce a trajectory that moves farther away from the initial state, rather than returning to it. If the transient growth lasts long enough, conclusions about stability and resilience based on the response to the perturbation may be erroneous (ibid). Real ecosystems are seldom if ever subject to single, temporally isolated perturbations (ibid). Reactive systems are more variable than nonreactive systems subject to the same stochastic forcing (ibid). According to Côté and Darling (2010), resilience is usually defined as the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance without shifting to an alternative state and losing function and services. Therefore, the concept encompasses two separate processes namely resistance which is the magnitude of disturbance that causes a change in structure and recovery which the speed of return to the original structure (ibid). Resistance and recovery are fundamentally different but rarely distinguished (ibid). As to Holling (1973; 2002) and Gunderson (2002) resilience is the capacity of a social-ecological system to absorb a spectrum of perturbations and to sustain its fundamental function, structure, identity, and feedbacks as a result of recovery or reorganization in a new context. They give the example that strong feedbacks between soil conditions and plant traits in the boreal forests of Alaska lead to plant communities that are highly resilient to fire disturbance. We are reminded by Brian Walker and al., (1999) that the ecosystem flora is composed of dominant and minor species. Authors said preeminent species dominate under a given set of environmental conditions in serving to maintain ecosystem function under those conditions where minor species will be functionally similar to dominant species, but with different environmental requirements and tolerances. They draw the conclusion that both dominant and minor species maintain resilience in ecosystems by allowing the maintenance of function under changing conditions. They add that in fact, many of the minor species are analogues of the dominants in terms of the ecosystem functions they perform, but differ in terms of their capabilities to respond to environmental stresses and disturbance conferring thereby resilience on the community with respect to ecosystem function. Authors shared that under changing conditions, ecosystem function is maintained when dominants decline or are lost because they are functionally equivalent minor species are able to substitute for them. In this study on heavily grazed and lightly grazed sites in an Australian rangeland, Brian Walker and al. (1999) have shown functional similarities between dominant and minor species, and among minor species which confirm that all species may be equally important in ensuring persistence or resilience of ecosystem function under changing environmental conditions. However, according to Johnstone et al (2010), the loss of resilience in individual stands may foster resilience at the landscape scale, if changes in the landscape configuration of forest cover type’s feedback to stabilize regional patterns of fire behavior and climate conditions. The scientific milieu is also aware of the fact that when species go extinct locally as a result of natural or anthropogenic disturbance, they often do so in a non-random sequence as a consequence of varying body size, trophic position, habitat specialization, physiology, morphology, and life history (Elmqvist, 2003).
There are two main types of resiliencies in the biological perspective namely the ecological resilience and the engineering resilience (Peterson et al, 1998). Ecological resilience concentrates on the ability of a set of mutually reinforcing structures and processes to persist whereas engineering resilience concentrates on conditions near a steady state where transient measurements of rate of return are made following small disturbances (ibid). Engineering resilience focuses upon small portions of a system’s stability landscape, whereas ecological resilience focuses upon its contours (ibid). Engineering resilience does not help assess either the response of a system to large perturbations or when gradual changes in a system’s stability landscape may cause the system to move from one stability domain to another (ibid). Moreover, landscape and ecosystem resilience would have a limited input to global developmental strategies such as green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication if considered only under the ecological framework. Other scientists have done well bringing in a social dimension which has led to more developmental concepts such as social resilience and ecological and social resilience. Adger (2000) said social resilience is an important component of the circumstances under which individuals and social groups adapt to environmental change and ecological and social resilience may be linked through the dependence on ecosystems of communities and their economic activities. There is indeed a social or human dimension in resilience. Transformation of coastal zones into systems that are more resilient and adaptive to a rising incidence of large disturbances is being noticed. Recovering post-natural disaster resilience such as the 2004 Asian tsunami and severe storms and climate change in coastal zones and on small islands are huge achievements (Adger and al, 2005). Social-ecological resilience is an important determinant of both the impacts of the tsunami and of the reorganization by communities after the event (ibid). Severe storms and climate change in coastal zones and on small islands as well as in the case of the Asian tsunami have shown the capacities of individuals and communities to undertake adaptive strategies that involve the mobilization of assets, networks, and social capital both to anticipate and to react to potential disasters (ibid). Ultimately, the scientific community can work together with decisions makers to have systematically causes of vulnerability embedded in the political economy of resource use and the resilience of the ecosystems on which livelihoods depend (ibid). Kareiva (2007) said that scientists will eventually be able to help humanity to domesticate nature more wisely by quantifying the tradeoffs among ecosystem services, such as how increasing the provision of one service may decrease ecosystem resilience and the provision of other services. Increasing the resilience of natural systems may have important implications for human welfare in the face of global climate change (Côté and Darling, 2010). Reusch et al (2005) said climate change is a result of combinations of increasing mean temperature and increasing climate variability such as heat waves, storms, and floods. Contemporary ecology and biodiversity conservation is characterized by adaption strategies adopted by populations and communities to cope with such climatic extremes (ibid). Climatic extremes can have immediate effects on coastal communities, and that genetic diversity may enhance recovery after such perturbations (ibid). Conserving genetic and genotypic diversity in species-poor ecosystems that have no redundancy at the species level may be just as important for strengthening the resilience of dependent communities in the face of global change and increasing climatic extremes (ibid). It is important to maintain genetic and species diversity to enhance ecosystem resilience in a world of increasing uncertainty (ibid). Coastal and marine ecosystems are affected by direct uses of different ecosystems namely recreational and commercial fishing, aquaculture and other forms of recreation, drilling, extraction, and transportation of gas and oil, shipping, conversion of coastal habitats, as well as by upstream or upwind activities such as agriculture, forestry, transportation, manufacturing, energy generation, etc (Levin and Lubchenco, 2008). The functioning of those ecosystems may be disrupted and the delivery of their services compromised as habitats are converted or fragmented, as species are lost, as biogeochemical cycles are altered, as introduced species and disease eliminate native species, as climate changes, and as oceans become more acidic (ibid). Adam et al (2011) suggest that the most commonly discussed resilience-based management strategy for coral reefs focuses largely on limiting exploitation of functionally important species such as herbivorous fishes. Fisheries management will be a critical component of any ecosystem based management strategy (ibid). Appropriate management strategies for coral reefs and nearshore nurseries will require considerations beyond fisheries management, including impacts originating from the terrestrial environment, especially eutrophication and sedimentation (ibid). Recognition of the many linkages that exist across ecosystem boundaries provides a broader perspective of connectivity on coral reefs that will contribute to the development of more effective local management strategies in the face of global climate change (ibid). Nyström et al (2000) said it is possible that the escalating human alteration of the disturbance regime and resilience of coral reefs has triggered research on multiple stable states of reefs. In systems with ample resilience, shifts from one stable state to another are not an issue (ibid). Such systems are becoming increasingly scarce since reef recovery, in terms of percentage cover, species abundance or physical structure after disturbance can no longer be taken for granted in a seascape strongly influenced by human activities (ibid). Human impacts escalated into rapid resource depletion during the market-colonial development period and continued in the two global market periods, 1900-1950 and 1950-2000, in all systems (Lotze et al., 2006). These were the periods of rapid human population growth and increasing demand, commercialization of resource use and development of luxury markets, and industrialization and technological progress toward more efficient but also unselective and destructive gears (ibid). These general trends suggest that rapid degradation was driven by human history rather than natural change and that we may have passed the low point and are on a slow path to recovery at least in developed countries (ibid). However, in developing countries, expected future population growth associated with growing pressures on coastal ecosystems may increase degradation (ibid). Mumby et al. (2004) conducted a research project on how mangroves enhance the biomass of coral reef fish communities in the Caribbean. They concluded that the impact of historical overfishing on modern reef ecosystems has led to the understanding that reductions in herbivory may reduce the resilience19 of coral reefs to algal overgrowth. Taking up the case of S. guacamaia, they went on to say that historical overfishing and mangrove deforestation may have worked synergistically to reduce herbivory and secondary production on many Caribbean coral reefs. They estimate that loss of a single adult S. guacamaia would constitute a 10% reduction in total parrotfish biomass within its territory. The direct and indirect effects of overfishing and pollution from agriculture and land development have been the major drivers of massive and accelerating decreases in abundance of coral reef species, causing widespread changes in reef ecosystems over the past two centuries (Hughes et al, 2003 (ibid). With increased human populations and improved storage and transport systems, the scale of human impacts on reefs has grown exponentially (ibid). According to Lavorel (1999), landscapes of the Mediterranean Basin present a fine-grained pattern owed to the long-term interactions between natural geographic heterogeneity namely topography and soils and human land use. Through traditional agro-sylvo-pastoral management, these mosaics contained a mixture of communities at different successional stages, ranging from cultivated fields to scrublands and forests (ibid). Over the last 50-100 years, rapid decline in agriculture has resulted in a two-tone landscape, where intense agricultural use is restricted to small areas at valley bottoms surrounded by vast expanses of successional scrublands and forest and noted that the discussion so far has insisted on the extent of reliance of recovery from disturbance on the propagules and other materials remaining at a site after disturbance (ibid). Migration of propagules across the landscape is particularly important too, especially for the recolonization of ex-agricultural land by woody species or for the recolonization of large intense fires (ibid). In considering resilience and vulnerability of permafrost to climate change, Jorgenson et al (2010) came to the conclusion that permafrost thaw and ground collapse have numerous biological and physical effects on both natural ecosystems and human infrastructure. In a study on spatial interactions and resilience in arid ecosystems van de Koppel and Rietkerk (2004) indicate that spatial interactions between patches of vegetation affect the resilience of arid ecosystems. Spatial interactions are important for the resilience of arid ecosystems and for a large range of rainfall levels, disturbances lead to loss of cover, as the system adopts the spatial structure that is imposed on it by the disturbance (ibid).
RESILIENCE: A MULTIFACETED REALITY TO BE ADDRESSED BY A MULTIFACETED TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION
So far, we did endeavor to show how resilience components are weakened in many of our lands and in all kinds of socio-ecological systems and landscapes in all continents around the planet. We are now aware that resilience is a multifaceted reality. We will now show the adequacy of geomatics to address such a multifaceted reality. Clark and Dickson (2003) said about multidisciplinary approach on sustainability that sustainability science is not yet an autonomous field or discipline, but rather a vibrant arena that is bringing together scholarship and practice, global and local perspectives from north and south, and disciplines across the natural and social sciences, engineering, and medicine. Cote and Nightingale (2012) said research on resilience on socio-ecological systems would bring together scholars with a common interest to address environmental change considering the importance of multiscale interactions driving change and the unpredictability inherent to socio-environmental change. Resilience thinking has been a crucial middle ground between social and environmental science, but also between science and policy, opening up space for engagement with indigenous and other knowledges that can significantly enhance our understanding of social environmental challenges (ibid). Resilience has important political implications with regard to overlapping descriptive and prescriptive applications of resilience thinking and noted that like other sustainability approaches, the latter is not only a framework advancing scientific knowledge about human environment dynamics, but it also provides tools to orient the governance of socio-ecological systems (ibid). Such an approach can help better addressing issues on resilience with all its dimensions. Taking this reality from a sustainable development angle we can recall paragraphs two and three of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 66/288 where rulers of Nations acknowledge the need to further mainstream sustainable development at all levels, integrating economic, social and environmental aspects and recognizing their interlinkages, so as to achieve sustainable development in all its dimensions (UN A/RES/66/288, 2012). This vision of the Nations can be fulfilled with geomatics. We aim to show in our second chapter that the e_ GIS LDN CHM is a geomatics solution and even more.
MEASURING RESILIENCE INDICATORS: THE E_GIS LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY CLEARING-HOUSE MECHANISM SOLUTION POTENTIAL
Geomatics has a big potential in measuring land resilience indicators throughout the synergetic implementation of the three Rio environmental Conventions. The potential of the e_ GIS LDN CHM solution is an illustration of this very fact.
CONCEPTS AND CONTEXTS GOVERNING THE E_GIS LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY CLEARING-HOUSE MECHANISM SOLUTION
Since the e_GIS Land Degradation Neutrality Clearing-House Mechanism Solution is unknown to many we will present concepts and contexts thereof. The concepts and context of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) will be presented first followed by those of the Clearing-House Mechanism. A third section will be consecrated to the e_GIS LND CHM as a whole.
The concepts of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) which are used to conduct our study are developed under the United Nations Convention to combat desertification (UNCCD) implementation. These offer a suitable conceptual approach to ensure a synergetic implementation of the three Rio environmental Conventions on Biological diversity (CBD), on Climate change (UNFCCC) and on Combating desertification (UNCCD). SLM and LDN are frameworks where progress in sustainability can be measured towards poverty eradication. Land degradation refers to any reduction or loss in the biological or economic productive capacity of the land resource base (UNCCD, 2015). It is generally caused by human activities, exacerbated by natural processes, and often magnified by and closely intertwined with climate change and biodiversity loss (ibid). Measurement is a major component of resilience and sustainability.
The clearing-house mechanism is an institutional arrangement on biodiversity matters developed under the CBD implementation dynamic. The CBD biodiversity clearing-house mechanism (BCHM) mission is to contribute significantly to the implementation of the Convention through effective information services and other appropriate means in order to promote and facilitate scientific and technical cooperation, knowledge sharing and information exchange, and to establish a fully operational network of Parties and partners (CBD, 1992; 2015). CBD–BCHM has inspired the first biodiversity version of the e_GIS CHM which has been presented by the Secretariat of the CBD officials at the First Global Conference of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) held in Japan from 10 -11 March, 2011 by the Government of Japan and the United Nations University Institute of Graduate Studies. Since, many developing Parties are considering the solution to conduct regional projects on biodiversity conservation under the implementing process of the Convention and its Protocols.
The e_GIS LND CHM has three main components for specific missions. The first one is the GIS component which will allow the solution to gather, assess, process, measure, cross and visualize data of all kind on LND resilience collected from socio-ecological landscapes. Data can be socioeconomic information or results from processed satellite imagery. At the end of the crossing and processing steps, information drawn from socio-ecological landscapes can be visualized by thematic maps, photographs, statistics, digital information, histograms, and graphics and, other means of information visualization and communication. Information provided by the GIS component will help stakeholders take right decisions based on accurate and processed data. The second component of the solution is the online environment which will make it a public tool to some extent. The population will be able to contribute to the building up of the solution in reporting changes, events or incidents occurring lively and which can harm the sustainability and resilience of their socio-ecological landscapes. The solution managers and stakeholders can share critical and strategic thoughts and ideas with the population in such an environment for the sake of resilience and sustainability in their socio-ecological landscapes. The last component of the solution is the clearing-house mechanism which allow managers of the solution and decision makers to share their different experiences with other similar socio-ecological systems managers of the same kind in their countries, regions and even worldwide. The clearing-house mechanism is also an efficient channel of scientific collaboration between peers when it suits worldwide. Methodologies, approaches, strategies and even research results such as mathematical models and algorithms can be shared among scientists to better handle resilience and sustainability matters.
WHY E_GIS LDN CHM SOLUTION MATTERS: WHEN DATA COLLECTED FROM SOCIAL, GEO AND BIO SCIENCES ARE CROSSED TO ENHANCE ACCURACY IN RESILIENCE INDICATORS MEASUREMENTS
Building land resilience and poverty eradication can benefit from the e_GIS LDN CHM solution potential. The e_GIS LDN CHM solution matters because it helps crossing demographic and other socioeconomic information with data gathered from geosciences and biological sciences to help stakeholders and other decision makers taking the right move towards land resilience and poverty eradication. It matters because it helps capitalizing on current scientific knowledge on landscape resilience and profiting from efficient green technologies to measure resilience indicators for resilience building purposes and poverty eradication with the population participation. The e_GIS LDN CHM is first of all a geomatics solution. Natural Resources Canada (2016) defines geomatics as the modern discipline which integrates the tasks of gathering, storing, processing modeling, analyzing, and delivering spatially referenced or location information. Geomatics encompasses earth observation disciplines such as surveying, hydrography, mapping, remote sensing and geospatial information technology such as geographic information systems or GIS (ibid).
FOCUS ON THE E_GIS LDN CHM
The e_GIS LDN CHM is meant to integrate demographic and socioeconomic information in the process of landscapes resilience indicators measurement. It helps therefore to better know the needs of the population. This is an important aspect of land resilience since human beings are the center of live on earth. However, this is not always an easy task. Data bases on population and on rural economy are rare in most rural parts of the world. Demographic and socioeconomic accurate indicators are crucial from the beginning to the end of every process of measuring the impacts of population on LDN and socio-ecological systems resilience. When conditions allow it, algorithms and mathematical models should be built to assess, to measure and to simulate demographic and socioeconomic impacts on resilience at the local, regional, continental and global scales. The human socio-economical component of the social-ecological system will be crossed by the e_GIS LDN CHM solution with other data such as those related to the biophysical and geophysical components of landscapes. These can be assessed by empirical and taxonomic methods but the combination of such means with modern technologies such as remote sensing appears to be more than necessary. Remote sensing provides satellite imagery containing a huge amount of strategic information on the land. Information on the vegetation, the habitats and on agricultural and other rural activities but also on soils humidity, temperatures, waters and others can be collected from satellite imagery. According to Natural Resources Canada (2016), remote sensing means observing the earth with sensors from high above its surface … using not only visible light but also other bands of the electromagnetic spectrum such as infrared, radar and ultraviolet. When efficiently processed these satellite images can make the difference. Moreover, this technology can help update such information when needed. There is more and more a variety of remote sensing products to meet different specific needs for almost all decision makers. Indeed, satellite programs offer different spatial resolutions which can also be combined to suit the different needs of decision makers. Remote sensing can provide a live follow-up of the biophysical and geophysical components of the land and help assess measure and monitor resilience indicators thereof. This technology can become a key tool when it comes to landscapes restoration after a natural disaster, for example. This technology will play an important role in resilience indicators measurement and resilience building. However, with all its potential to collect, assess and measure data on landscapes, remote sensing needs to be backed up by other technologies in the context of the e_GIS LDN CHM solution approach. For example, landscapes resilience indicators related to soils biochemistry, industrial and bio-industrial activities need to be measured by more suitable technology solutions. Biochemistry is much needed in this context especially green chemistry which is branch of biochemistry able to reduce the negative impact of chemistry on the environment by preventing pollution at its source. This environmental technology encourages the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances. Green Chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2016). Green Chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture, use, and ultimate disposal. Green chemistry is also known as sustainable chemistry (Ibid). Along with environmental chemistry which is the chemistry of the natural environment, and of pollutant chemicals in nature (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2015), green chemistry can help assess, measure, and monitor resilience indicators of chemical and biochemical processes to help building landscape resilience. The department of Chemistry of the University of Toronto (2015) defines Environmental chemistry as the study of chemical processes occurring in the environment which are impacted by humankind’s activities. These impacts may be felt on a local scale, through the presence of urban air pollutants or toxic substances arising from a chemical waste site, or on a global scale, through depletion of stratospheric ozone or global warming. These biosciences will be much needed to collect accurate data and information to be processed by the e_GIS LDN CHM solution for the sake of sustainability and soils resilience. Data collected by remote sensing technics on landscapes biophysical and geophysical components, by environmental chemistry and green chemistry processes or socioeconomic surveys can be processed and crossed in a coherent, synergetic and scientific manner to help in Landscapes resilience indicators measurement. The processing can consists of satellite imagery processing and/or the use of algorithms, mathematical models. The exploitation of resilience indicators can lead to the adoption of coherent regulations, guidelines, standards, frameworks, norms and policies for the sake of resilience building and poverty eradication. In such a perspective, GIS technology makes the difference. According to the National Geographic (2016), a geographic information system (GIS) is a computer system for capturing, storing, checking, and displaying data related to positions on Earth’s surface. GIS can show many different kinds of data on one map. GIS can help better understand interactions between different components of our landscapes and their dynamics. Where allowed, GIS can also help in the study, the analysis and simulation of such interactions and dynamics. This advantage is needed to measure accurate trends on landscapes strain. The understanding of such trends is essential in decision making on landscapes restoration among many other issues of sustainable development. GIS is indeed an ideal technology to follow up landscapes dynamics and restoration. It offers excellent means to communicate strategic information of all kinds related to the environment for wise decisions to be taken towards LDN, resilience, sustainability and poverty eradication.
THE E_GIS LDN CHM IS MORE THAN A GIS SOLUTION
GIS is the key component of the e_GIS LDN CHM but the solution is more than a GIS. It is an online Clearing-House Mechanism GIS. The online CHM component of the e_GIS LDN CHM is one of the most innovative characteristics of the solution. Habitants of landscapes are part of the managerial mechanism. The population is an active participant in the implementation of the e_GIS LDN CHM solution. Citizens are called to use NTCs devises and other traditional ways and tools to communicate their live observations to managers and rulers of their localities directly as events occur on landscapes. They also can share live information between fellow citizens on the life of their common socio-ecological systems to better help local or regional administrations taking right decisions to preserve the environment and generate green economies in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Moreover these information sharing information mechanisms are meant to lead to a clearing-house mechanism in promoting and facilitating scientific and technical cooperation between projects, countries, regions and even continents through full operational networks of stakeholders and partners for the sake of resilience building and poverty eradication worldwide.
In conclusion to this chapter, we would say that we did endeavor to show the potential and efficiency of the e_ GIS LDN CHM in addressing resilience matters in a synergetic manner to help in decision making for resilience building and sustainability. However, to better benefit from these advantages of the e_ GIS LDN CHM in the perspective of poverty eradication, we would suggest two strategic supportive frameworks to strengthen the implementation of such a solution. These supportive frameworks consist of institutional and normative arrangements with both the potential to boost green investment for resilience building and poverty eradication in developing countries.
ENHANCING THE E_GIS LDN CHM SOLUTION POTENTIAL IN POVERTY ERADICATION WITH SUITABLE INSTITUTIONAL AND NORMATIVE ARRANGEMENTS
The secret of success in innovation resides in existence of efficient and suitable institutional and legal frameworks to organize the development and implementation of novel solutions. Consequently, arrangements of that kind are suggested to help the e_ GIS LDN CHM Solution contributing to success in green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication towards the Future we want. In such a perspective, we can recall paragraphs two and three of Resolution 66/288 stating that poverty eradication is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development (UN, 2012). Nations at Rio+20 Summit committed indeed to eradicate poverty and hunger, integrating economic, social and environmental aspects and recognizing their inter-linkages (ibid). Because of its integrating characteristics, the e_ GIS LDN CHM solution appears to be a suitable and efficient tool to address poverty eradication matters from the multidimensional perspective of sustainable development and the synergetic implementation of the three Rio environmental Conventions.
INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK ENHANCING THE E_ GIS LDN CHM SOLUTION POTENTIAL
The institutional framework is meant to offer an environmental governance context to fully benefit from resilience indicators produced, measured and realized by the e_GIS LDN CHM Solution. To carry out such an environmental governance vision resilience indicators are used to code landscapes. Coded landscapes would be recorded in an international institution consisting of a Codex Environmentarius. Once recorded into the Codex Environmentarius, resilience indicators will serve as binding production limits setting forth guidelines, frameworks, and environmental standards for any exploiting initiative and any economic activity conducted in each landscape according to its own specific coding resilience indicators. The adoption of eligible coding profiles of lands, landscapes or ecosystems into the Codex Environmentarius should be done through multilateralism under a similar process to the one that governs health standards adoption at the Codex Alimentarius. The Codex Alimentarius has been created in 1963 by the World health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). According to the Codex Alimentarius its primary mission is to ensure safe, good food for everyone, everywhere (WHO/FAO, 1963). It is suggested that governments present eligible landscapes coding indicators profiles before the Codex Environmentarius after these being reviewed and approved by a selective panel of experts established by the secretariats of the three Rio environmental sisters Conventions and the administration of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
CODEX ENVIRONMENTARIUS: A TRADE INSTITUTION FOR THE GOODS OF THE TUTURE WE WANT
Beside its potential of contributing to poverty eradication from the sustainability perspective, the Codex Environmentarius has the potential to contribute eradicating poverty from a trade angle. Indeed, goods produced by socio-ecological landscapes recorded in the Codex Environmentarius will potentially be labeled as such. The mention of their production under climate resilient conditions should eventually open access to markets worldwide and help populations enhance their potential of eradicating poverty from an Access Benefit Sharing (ABS) perspective for instance in genetic resources utilization under the CBD. ISO 14000 series on environmental management mechanisms and those of ISO 9000 on quality management as well as Codex Alimentarius standards on food safety can be exploited to this end. The creation of a Codex Environmentarius should become a priority within the current international environmental governance reform within the United Nations. Such an institution can facilitate the development of coherent and efficient partnerships between nations, peoples and the civil society to better canalize the potential of investment on green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.
Concluding this section, we can say that the Codex Environmentarius has an important potential to capitalize on landscapes coding resilience indicators for sustainability and poverty eradication. Likewise the implementation of the e_ GIS LDN CHM Technology Solution will contribute justifying the creation of a Codex Environmentarius. This contribution appears than to be a win-win vision which requires a suitable normative framework to take place. Normative arrangements to this aim should be able to mobilize a substantial green investment to eradicate poverty.
NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK TO ENHANCE GREEN INVESTMENT FOR POVERTY ERADICATION: TOWARDS A PARAGIGM ON GLOBAL MORAL SOVEREIGNTY AND RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL NATIONS OVER NATURAL RESOURCES OF THE PLANET?
Normative arrangements suggested to support implementing the e_ GIS LDN CHM Technology Solution and create a Codex Environmentarius for resilience building and poverty eradication consist of a paradigm of global moral sovereignty and responsibility of all Nations over natural resources of the planet. The main objective of the paradigm is to allow developed industrialized Nations to fully support developing countries adapting their economies under climate and ecological resilient conditions such as those promoted by the Codex Environmentarius. Indeed, developed countries have not been showing enough generosity to solve environmental threats in developing countries under the many capacity building provisions adopted almost in all international treaties negotiated through multilateralism. In other words developing countries have not been very successful in compelling developed countries in this regard until the recent Paris Agreement on Climate change of December 2015 when developed countries have taken a common and binding stand to fund adaptation in developing countries up to 100 billion US dollar per year. Developing countries made this achievement their main point of the negotiation agenda based on their stand that industrialized countries had a bigger responsibility in current climate global warming threat. However, we believe that developed countries agreed to support developing countries on this threat not only because they were compelled on climate justice principles but because they have concerns of their own on the threat of global warming. Therefore, this contribution suggests that the international community may be experiencing the very beginning of an emerging normative paradigm consisting of a global moral sovereignty and responsibility of all Nations over natural resources of the planet. The first fruits of this emerging normative paradigm have a potential to mobilize substantial funds to shift to renewable economy globally and eradicate poverty in developing countries. The common desire of Nations to share the burden of sustainability can be indeed built upon global moral sovereignty but also responsibility of all Nations over natural resources. The adoption of such paradigm is a right move since our planet is an entity where local environmental stresses have global impacts. Implementing such normative arrangements is a call for a global vision on environmental matters which only can become a reality with a common desire of Nations to share the burden of green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Paris Agreement shows that Nations can go for it and make it happen. However, to keep the tracks of the Paris Agreement, both developing and developed countries may have to make strong concessions. Developing countries will have to allow developed countries to exercise a moral ownership and sovereignty over natural resources of their territories and developed countries may continue to be willing to accept a moral responsibility to invest on sustainable activities in developing countries to boost green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.
WHEN DEVEOPING COUNTRIES AND DEVELOPED COUNTRIES ENDORSE MUTUAL CONCESSIONS TO BOOST GREEN INVESTMENT FOR POVERTY ERADICATION
The moral ownership and sovereignty over natural resources of the planet by all peoples and Nations is a global state of mind which does not weaken or loosen in any way countries’ sovereignty over the natural resources of their territories. It is only a moral perspective with a big potential of mobilizing green investment for poverty eradication in developing countries which have the legal and permanent sovereignty on natural resources of their territories as a result of intensive international negotiations throughout decades: United Nations Human Rights Charter – General Assembly Resolution 1803 (XVII) of 1948, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 523 (VI) of 1952, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 626 (VII) of 1952, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1314 (XIII) of 1958, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1515 (XV) of 1960, United Nations General Assembly resolution 1803 (XVII) of 1962. Resolution 1803 (XVII) of 1962 on Permanent sovereignty over natural resources and the United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development of 1992 are summary normative provisions throughout this long normative activity within the United Nations system in this matter. Principle 2 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development affirms that States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (UN, 1992). Many modern environmental instruments recall the sovereign right of countries over their natural resources while adopting at the same time provisions on capacity building and international cooperation. National legislatives activities of transcription of modern environmental treaties are producing national laws and policies more and more attractive to foreign investment (CBD, 1992). In accepting provisions on capacity building and international cooperation for synergetic implementation of modern environmental instruments such as the Rio three sisters Conventions on biodiversity (CBD), on Climate change (UNFCCC) and on desertification (UNCCD), developing countries are showing a political goodwill to allow developed countries bearing the load of sustainability as a common burden on global warming. In such a perspective the international community can expect more green investment from developed countries to adapt economies in developing countries and to eradicate poverty. For this very purpose, developing countries should encourage the adoption of suitable incentive national legislations able to attract green foreign investment. In acting this way developing countries will soften the heavy impact of their current strongly protective appropriation of the right of Nations permanent sovereignty over natural wealth and resources of their territories. Developed countries investors have been more than hesitant partly because of such a strong stand. Also, this hesitation of foreign investors could had been justified by paragraph 7 of the United Nations Human Rights Charter stating that violation of the rights of peoples and nations to sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources is contrary to the spirit and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and hinders the development of international co-operation and the maintenance of peace (UN, Preliminaries of GA Resolution 1803 XVII). This rather intimidating provision was a developing countries negotiation achievement.
Therefore, to fully profit from the potential of this paradigm to mobilize green investment for adaptation and sustainability worldwide developing countries and developed countries should mutually endorse concessions. The 2015 Paris UNFCCC COP-21 achievement in adopting provisions allowing developed industrialized countries to fund developed countries adapting their economies up to US 100 billion/year is a first tangible positive sign that such a paradigm can be adopted to be part of the shifting process of the global economy and sustainability worldwide. It is indeed an eloquent demonstration that rich countries should be comforted under such a paradigm by the collaborative spirit of developing countries allowing developed countries to share the burden of sustainable management. Developing countries and developed countries have an equal moral responsibility towards the sustainable management of natural resources of the planet as a common heritage of humanity. The environmental moral common responsibility of all Nations in global warming and unsustainable exploiting of natural resources opens ways to the most necessary and most needed cooperation between governments and peoples to overcome together the current environmental threat. The international community will benefit from the potential of the e_ GIS LDN CHM Solution to track resilience building for poverty eradication in the current post-Paris COP 21 and Post-Rio+20 implementing processes. The paradigm of moral ownership and sovereignty over natural resources of the planet by all peoples and Nations is much needed to consolidate the encouraging green investment initiative initiated in the Paris-Agreement.
CONCLUSION
Nations have shown throughout the last decades desire to share the responsibility and the financial burden of sustainable development and poverty eradication. Provisions in international cooperation and capacity building have been adopted in several modern environmental instruments to express such a desire. Rather shy in the beginning, this common desire is becoming more and more constructive. The implementation of many modern environmental treaties such as the Rio three sisters Conventions have shown some tangible multilateral success. These results are partly the expression of a convergent vision towards a moral responsibility and ownership of natural resources as a common heritage of humanity by all nations and peoples. The consensus among developed countries in the Paris Agreement on global Climate resilience to fund adaptation activities up to 100 billion in US money per year in developing countries is a positive sign towards a more active moral convergent move of both developing countries and developed countries towards a shared responsibility and a shared burden on sustainability and poverty eradication matters. Such a common move should become a motivating step to the adoption in developing countries of national and regional regulations able to attract foreign green investment in the economic sectors of sustainable natural resources management. This paper has shown that it is possible to encourage such environmental governance trends at the very beginning of the process in developing and using innovative technology solutions such as the e_ GIS LDN CHM to measure land resilience indicators coding landscapes. Coded landscapes can be registered in a Codex Environmentarius where there resilience indicators will serve as guidelines, norms, environmental standards and production limits for the sake of sustainability. We endeavored to build up confidence and hope around efficient technology innovation, institutional and normative arrangements to boost green investment towards green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication on the road to the Future we want. In total, this contribution has shown that it is possible to conduct a global green funding strategy to ensure sustainability, global resilience and poverty eradication with environmentally sound technology solutions under suitable managerial institutions and consensual norms and paradigms.
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To cite this article
Electronic reference
Sylvestre-José-Tidiane MANGA, 2016. « Perspectives on Landscape Geomatics Technology in building Climate Resilience for Poverty eradication: The Potential of the E_GIS Land Degradation Neutrality Clearing-House Mechanism Solution». Canadian journal of tropical geography/Revue canadienne de géographie tropicale [Online], Vol. (3) 1. Online in May 5, 2015, pp. 1-12. URL: http://laurentian.ca/cjtg
Author
MANGA Sylvestre-José-Tidiane, Ph.D., LL.D.
International consultant to the UN CBD Parties, Montreal (Canada); Research Fellow
McGill University affiliated Centre of International Sustainable Developmental Law, Montreal
Email: Sylvestre.Manga@malix.univ-paris1.fr
