Agenda 2030 Graduate School blog

Posted on 12 February 2021 by Soo-hyun Lee (Faculty of Law).

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

This article is the winner in an essay competition held by the 
UNCTAD YSI Summer School on Globalization and Development Strategies. Participants of the school worked with senior scholars to fine-tune their drafts, and the top-5 articles were published here.

UNCTAD is a permanent intergovernmental body established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1964. Its headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices in New York and Addis Ababa. UNCTAD is part of the UN Secretariat, reports to the UN General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, and are also part of the United Nations Development Group.

When it comes to understanding the relationship between investment and sustainability, national and international governance institutions take a facilitative rather than regulatory approach. 

This is largely premised on two assumptions: (1) overreach would result in regulatory chilling that could limit investment and (2) regulating investment inflows would limit their potential economic impact. Though taking place in different forms between portfolio investments and foreign direct investment, a facilitative approach, in principle, shifts the responsibility of defining and understanding the interplay between investment and sustainability to market interactions: between the investor and the recipient. 

Assessing the facilitative approach to investment and sustainability within the microeconomics of sustainable development policy renders some noteworthy observations. Namely, creating a regulatory and governance environment that facilitates the consumer and producer, or in this case the recipient and the investor, shifts responsibility away from the government or prevailing institution from taking a more prescriptive approach: defining, implementing and enforcing a more substantial linkage between investment and sustainability.

A prescriptive role, while more vulnerable to the potential consequences of regulatory chill, may be necessary to administering the nexus between investment and sustainability because sustainability as a motivating factor does not naturally arise from the economic rationality that fuels market interactions. The relationship between investors and the recipients of investment, just as that between producers and consumers, does not function on the logic of advancing sustainability, but rather economic profit maximization. For this reason, should their interaction deviate from this core market-based logic by, for example, running deficits in consumer and/or producer surplus, or being involved in investments where risk supersedes returns, their interaction is jeopardized and likely to be discontinued. For that reason, shifting the responsibility to the consumer to fuse a more molecular bond between investment and sustainability seems destined to meet an inconclusive outcome as it saps away the essential motivation to shoulder that burden both materially in terms of resource allocation and substantively as a determination to form a meaningful investment and sustainability nexus.

Turning to views in sustainable consumption, Mont, et al (2013) identifies a similar paradox in their work for the Nordic Council of Ministers based on interviews with policymakers as a myth of sustainable consumption. They write that shifting the responsibility of sustainable consumption to the consumer limits state involvement to raising awareness rather than taking more proactive interventions against unsustainable consumption. The inherent problem behind shifting responsibility, they write, is that consumer behaviour is based on contextual factors that are “beyond the control of individual actors”, namely prevailing social norms that shape a consumer’s understanding of consumption in connection to sustainability. Presently, this norm is that sustainable consumption is an extraordinary decision that requires justification (Mont, et al, 35-37) as it deviates from market-based reasoning. The consumer requires additional justification for these decisions to justify that divergence: why to choose a product that provides comparatively less consumer surplus by paying a higher price or paying a price to receive less utility arising from consumption?

Lorek and Spangenberg (2013) explains responsibility shifting in sustainable consumption as the lock-in situation, where transitions to sustainability is contingent on more growth and technological innovation. This is reflected through the I = P*A*T equation, which offsets the added cumulative climate impact (I) as the function of the factor of population growth (P) and greater per capita affluence (A) by technological progress (T). With advances in (T), higher unsustainability derived from increasing (P) and (A) values are offset by technologies that enhance the sustainability of consumption. Herein lies one of the causes behind responsibility shifting, which is a “technological optimism” that firms will advance the state of technology if given the means to do so (Lorek and Spangenberg, 35). The central economic tenet behind this technological optimism is economic liberalism, which attributes the agency and primacy of economic optimality to market-based actors, in turn manifesting external intervention by the state or another prevailing authority as obstacles to that optimality. As such, the role of the state or prevailing authority is limited to providing information, shifting responsibility to market-based interactions (Lorek and Spangenberg, 40).

Responding to the situation of lock-in, which strives in the ecosystem of economic neoliberalism, Dalhammer (2019) advances that policy instruments are necessary to form a sustainable choice architecture that features sustainability as the default option. Lock-in prevents microeconomic transitions to strong sustainability, such as adopting ideas of consumptive sufficiency, thus rendering top-down involvement of the government or prevailing authority necessary (Dalhammer, 140). Simultaneously, policy instruments should be mobilized within a “reflexive governance mode”, which Mont (2019) identifies as a standpoint of continuous learning and acknowledgment of intertwining contextual factors that influence consumptive behaviour (Mont, 3). The policy instruments arising from this mode should aim to facilitate the transition from system optimization, which perpetuates the business-as-usual scenario, to system transformation, which seeks to integrate alternative solutions to the policy and governance process that move beyond the primacy of consumer sovereignty (Mont, 9).

Extrapolating these observations from sustainable consumption to the investment and sustainability nexus takes no stretch of the imagination. The engine that drives forward such extrapolation is simple yet powerful: more consumption and investment are better. The economic neoliberalism to which the origins of unsustainable consumption are traced also lays claim to the origin of crucial disconnects between investment and sustainability. This applies to both forms of investment, portfolio and foreign direct, as do many of the ruminations in sustainable consumption thought. This close albeit conceptual cross-disciplinary application warrants closer examination.

Sustainable portfolio investment has been building traction over the last three years with latter half of 2019 alone witnessing billions of USD identified under the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment label. There remain considerable limitations to the concept, the most pronounced amongst them being a lack of shared understanding and standards of ESG metrics and stewardship. The World Bank Group (WBG) and the UN Principles on Responsible Investment have been on the forefront of institutional efforts to address these concerns. Despite the wide involvement of national pension schemes, central banks and government regulation, policy instruments remain within the system optimization mindset that shifts responsibility to the actual sustainability element of ESG to the producer-consumer.

The result of a soft sustainability approach to regulating ESG has exposed it to systematic greenwashing. The mentality in ESG continues to be growth-oriented, investors financing asset managers based on perceptual cues and little understanding of metrics and their shortcomings. With the entry of large names in finance like BlackRock and MSCI or international organizations like the WBG and United Nations through the PRI, portfolio investors are eased into the lethargy of technological optimism. Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing identified promising trends in the sustainable investment epithet, employing a definition of sustainable investing that was not only substantively vacuous but very much aligned to the central economic ideological tenets of growth-oriented market fundamentalism.

Moving outward to foreign direct investment and its governance does little to mitigate these concerns. Despite international investment law being based on a regime of treaties and treaty arbitration, which directly involves governments, investment, less considerations of sustainability in investment, find no prescriptive definition. Investors, which notably include shareholders of companies, are given rights and protections in the state recipient to that investment, such as access to investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS), but the means to determine the substantive qualities of investment remain ad hoc and left the judicial discretion arising from investment arbitration (See, for instance, Mihaly International Corporation v. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, ICSID Case No. ARB/00/2; Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka, A.S. v. The Slovak Republic, ICSID Case No. ARB/97/4; Malaysian Historical Salvors, SDN, BHD v. The Government of Malaysia, ICSID Case No. ARB/05/10).

While there is no single government to adopt and then apply a reflexive governance model to the multilateral regime of international investment law, the United Nations can and should play a larger role in taking more prescriptive, system transformative action to ensure that sustainability is not simply a spillover of investment, rather sustainability leads decisions of whether investment should be admitted.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution. 

Posted on 10 February 2021 by Jesica Murcia López (Centre for Environmental and Climate Science) and Juan Ocampo (Department of Business Administration).

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

In this post Jesica and Juan provide us with some ideas of how modeling techniques are being used in sustainable development, specifically forest cover dynamics and money engineering. But be aware as they write: “models are not just one-to-one reflections of reality (…) so we have to be aware of this when we use them or read about their results”

“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.”

– Wade Davis

Sharing a common background, from Colombia, where social, environmental and economical challenges contrast with the beauty of its mountains, rivers, biodiversity, and culture. Complexity is embedded in the way we, Jesica and Juan, approach our research. Therefore, it is not surprising for us to recognise the differences and nuances that emerge from the systems we study. To navigate and resolve the interplay of sustainable-related problems in real cases, being political displays of power, economic transfers of ownership, or environmental transformations, complex thinking becomes an appropriate state of mind. Our collaboration was triggered by a
popular-science documentary called Tribuga – expediciontribuga.com
inspired by books of Wade Davies (see Magdalena or The River) and resulted in conversations and discussions about ways to study complex problems.

There are different ways of studying complex systems. An example is sustainometrics. This technique aims to describe  and represent the interconnectedness of five domains of human activity, namely environmental, socio-cultural, technological, economics, and public policy, and their interaction with regard to achieving the goals of sustainability^[1]. As sustianometrics, there are plenty of different methods that help us to engage with problems as the ones presented in sustainable development, many of these involved modelling. Modelling – the production and revision of models – has been seen as the essence of the dynamic and non-linear processes involved in the development of scientific knowledge^[2].  And this post is about models!

Models are not one-to-one reflections of reality, however, if constructed with rigour they have the potential to be ‘illuminating’ abstractions^[3], and can be used to explain social, ecological and economic systems. Today we require methods that offer us new perspectives and understandings to tackle the complex problems that hinders sustainable development. Our common interest was to start a first glimpse of the technicalities behind the use of such models, and how other researchers and ourselves are attempting to highlight the benefits and challenges of these approaches in the contribution to scientific debates.  In this line of thought, this post introduces Agent-Based modeling (ABM) and System Dynamics (SD), both of them increasingly being used in environmental, social and economic sciences.

Using Agent-based Models for money engineering

In his research Juan studies the engineering of Money. Specifically, he studies Complementary Currencies (CC) which are the voluntary agreement within a community to: (i) use a standardised unit of account to value their contributions, these being cleaning the streets, taking care of the elderly, or their produced good and services; (ii) accept these units as a mode of payment form other members; and (iii) use this units as a medium of exchange inside the community. In his research he has found it is not unusual to find situations in which stakeholders are not aware of basic socio-technical components of money until problems emerge. Money is a complex topic, it embedded social, ideological and technical components that if they are not openly discussed they might jeopardize the relations and hinder the success of the CC. Therefore, it is important for interested stakeholders to assure there is a proper description on the socio-cultural and spatial context of target communities and a thoughtful analysis on the economic theories, their mathematical formulations, and their influence in the communities’ socio-economic relations.

Agent-Based Models (ABM) are a type of computer-based technique that can represent the behaviours and interactions of human and non-human actors (e.g. animals, institutions) and allow rich and dynamic representations of individuals in a particular ecosystem, and during a specific range of time. In other words, ABM “support a metaphorical representation of complexity by programming actions, decisions and mechanisms in explicit form”^[4]. Increasingly, ABM have been developed to assist the management, governance, and research of different complex scenarios.  For example, the OECD has used this computational tool to analyse systemic financial risks^[5], or economic and environmental systems^[6].

Juan’s project aims to use ABM through a practice called participatory modeling. This way of modeling is a learning process for action that invite the stakeholders to share their implicit and explicit knowledge and create shared models that represent the complex problems^[7] they deal with. In other words, ABM serves as a way for designers of Complementary Currencies to be open about their interests, be aware of each other’sassumptions, and integrate their needs. It would be impossible to model it all, however through a compromise it is possible to program key variables and decision-making behaviours into explicit computational models. By programming different monetary configurations and modelling different human-behaviours it will be possible to simulate different scenarios and reflect on possible challenges and opportunities that Complementary Currencies might offer in search for an equal and inclusive monetary system.

Systems thinking and system dynamic modelling for sustainometrics

Systems thinking is a way to understand the complexity of core dimensions of sustainability, economic, social and ecological systems^[8]. In our current times, sustainable development problems can be evaluated with network analysis. Any complex system is a set of interacting variables that behave according to governing mechanisms^[9] and as the complexity of sustainability-related problems increases, it is more and more difficult to understand the related models.  However, according to Costanza et al^[10]  “(m)odels are analogous to maps… they have many possible purposes and uses, and no one map, or model is right for the entire range of uses”. Additionally, these models are only possible with the current advances in information technology and information theory.

In her research Jesica uses such models of land use change as primary “diagrams” for analysing the causes and consequences of land use changes. The use of system dynamics modeling methodology will serve to compare causal loop diagrams of forest cover dynamics in the Northwest Amazon region of Colombia generated by key actors working to tackle deforestation as a result of extensive cattle ranching activities in the area. Complementary, using supportive geographical information system (GIS) methods and software to assess the impacts of land use change on ecosystems to support land use planning and policy makers, represent a way to translate the complexity involved in these kinds of accurate system dynamic (SD) models. System Dynamics covers a set of qualitative tools for the analysis of dynamic processes, e.g. Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD) and Stock and Flow Diagrams (SFD) simulation and optimisation software. Since the introduction of systems thinking in terms of sustainability attained by Forrester in 1971 on his book World Dynamics^[11], and then Meadows and collaborators (1972) work^[12], a well-known effort concerning the topic, “The Limits to Growth”, focused on the simulation of the issues of sustainability worldwide with a more deep conceptual understanding of the modelled socio-economic and environmental systems as well.

Her study looks at the interactions between pristine forests ecosystems, livestock, and the deforestation rates in protected areas, located in
the northern part of the Chiribiquete National Park – whc.unesco.org.
The study focuses on modelling forest land degradation in the Savannas of Yarí from 2016-2020 and simulates future scenarios up to 2030 using system dynamics modelling. In similar studies, in the Brazilian Amazon^[13] the use of these models provided a first approximation of the loss of ecosystem services that is attributable to deforestation, considering that the patterns and processes of land use—and the economic incentives that drive them—continue unabated. In the Philippines^[14] researchers used group model-building exercises, involving both researchers and community members, and they found that systemic understanding of deforestation can generate more robust reforestation initiatives.

Conclusion

The urgent need to understand human activity, namely environmental, socio-cultural, technological, economics, and public policy and their related sustainability-related problems as mentioned before, requires simultaneous integration of economic, social and ecological knowledge. In this way we can manage to understand sustainable development not in an incompatible way but as human evolution within a constantly changing natural world. Hence, the modelling of sustainability-related complex systems can support us to interpret holistic approaches without leaving key variables or agents of change outside the box. Consequently, aiming to better decisions making towards concrete actions on planetary goals for 2030, there is an urgent need to comprehend the interplay of the pillars for sustainability, through modelling of real-world problems.

However, models are tools constructed by people and we have to be aware of this when we use them or read about their results. In both cases using ABM or SD is not only about the quantitative results and analysis that can be simulated in regards to inequality or sustainable development. If developed in a participatory way ABM and SD become an object to trigger dialogue amongst stakeholders and serve as a tool for learning more about each other’s way of thinking. This way the importance of insights into points of leverage for any system can help us get solutions into action.

^[1] Steward, W. C., & Kuska, S. 2011. Sustainometrics: Measuring sustainability—design, planning, and public administration for sustainable living (p. 144). Norcross, GA: Greenway Communications.

^[2] Justi, R. S. & John K. Gilbert, J. K. 2002. Modelling, teachers’ views on the nature of modelling, and implications for the education of modellers, International. Journal of Science Education, 24:4, 369-387. DOI: 10.1080/09500690110110142

^[3] Fukuyama, F., Epstein, J. M., & Axtell, R. (1997). Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up. Foreign Affairs. https://doi.org/10.2307/20048043

^[4] Zellner, M. L. (2008). Embracing complexity and uncertainty: The potential of agent-based modeling for environmental planning and policy. Planning Theory and Practice.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14649350802481470 pg.443

^[5] OECD (2012), “Social unrest and agent based models”, in Systemic Financial Risk, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264167711-11-en.

^[6] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/agriculture-and-food/economic-and-environmental-sustainability-performance-of-environmental-policies-in-agriculture_3d459f91-en

^[7] Voinov, A., Jenni, K., Gray, S., Kolagani, N., Glynn, P. D., Bommel, P., Prell, C., Zellner, M., Paolisso, M., Jordan, R., Sterling, E., Schmitt Olabisi, L., Giabbanelli, P. J., Sun, Z., Le Page, C., Elsawah, S., BenDor, T. K., Hubacek, K., Laursen, B. K., … Smajgl, A. (2018). Tools and methods in participatory modeling: Selecting the right tool for the job. Environmental Modelling and Software.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.08.028

^[8] Holling, C., S. 2001. Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems. Ecosystems, 4 (5), pp. 390-405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-001-0101-5

^[9] Walker, B & Salt, D. 2006. Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. (first ed.), Island Press, Washington. Consulted online [Accessed on 29 January 2021:
https://books.google.se/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NFqFbXYbjLEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR1&ots=6pIYWDX_J9&sig=xyytGaz3hBRJ_gfrMaItSdAfpow&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false]

^[10] Costanza, R., Wainger, L., Folke, C., and Mäler, K.-G. 1993. Modelling complex ecological economic systems, BioScience, 43(8), 545–555.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1311949

^[11] Forrester, J.W. 1971. World Dynamics, vol. 59, Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge.

^[12] Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L. and J. Randers, W.W. 1972. The Limits to Growth: A Report of the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe Books.

^[13] Portela, R and Rademacher, I. 2001. A dynamic model of patterns of deforestation and their effect on the ability of the Brazilian Amazonia to provide ecosystem services. Ecological Modelling (143): 115–146. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3800(01)00359-3

^[14] Olabisi, L. S. 2010. System Dynamics of Forest Cover in the Developing World: Researcher Versus Community Perspectives. Sustainability (2): 1523-1535. doi:10.3390/su2061523

Posted on 11 November 2020 by Billy Jones (Division of Ethnology)

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

Sorry I didn’t tell you it was a tumour, we’ve been referring to it as a tumour medically, we just hadn’t told you.

In 2019 Polly gave birth. And had a stroke. And epilepsy. Then she didn’t have epilepsy, she was just stressed. Then she had PTSD. Then she had epileptic auras. Then a bit more stress. And finally, back to epilepsy again.

After giving birth, Polly started having epileptic episodes that nearly killed her. For several days, Polly was having episodes on a daily basis and was unable to leave the hospital. We now know that the cause of these attacks is a tumour on her brain. Despite the tumour and epileptic seizures, the consultants that Polly saw postnatally put this down to anxiety. Sadly, this was a sign of things to come. For the next 18 months, Polly suffered from ongoing attacks but was constantly having her diagnosis changed. Despairingly, the medical staff would consistently return to the idea that she was just a first-time mum struggling to cope.

“My dear I have 3 children of my own, I know how challenging it can be as a parent”… right so, my husband is also a first time parent, I don’t see him having seizures!”

@postnatal_equality, 2020

Throughout this period, she has had to fight to be taken seriously and for clinicians to consider the tumour growing on her brain a likely cause of her life-shattering condition. After 18 months of fighting, she has finally been diagnosed with epilepsy and been given a treatment plan that matches her experience.

This article aims to tell Polly’s story and draw attention to the gender biases and structural insufficiencies in UK’s National Healthcare Service (NHS). Drawing on an ethnographic account of Polly’s experience substantiated by contemporary medical research, the article validates that Polly is not alone in her experience; and that there are deeply engrained financial, political and cultural drivers behind her maltreatment.

From Disempowered to Empowering Others

“Women need to hear my story; even if I just help one woman to feel that she is worthy and she is empowered by my story to say to a male professional “no, I don’t think this, I think that”.                                     

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

Polly has now started a campaign to raise awareness for postnatal equality, recreating her story episodically on social media. With the raw, unfiltered reliving of her experience, she aims to bring attention to the structural gender inequalities within the NHS and give a voice to other women who are undoubtedly going through similar experiences and suffering in silence.

“I’ve been trying to find other women to connect with. Any other woman that has a similar story to me postnatally but I just can’t find it. Maybe there aren’t any and my journey is unique – but I don’t think that’s true. I think women are expected to have a baby and just get on with it.”

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

Polly argues that, after giving birth, society expects women to “just get on with it” and not complain. Besides the severe lack of healthcare support for postnatal traumas, the everyday reality that women face behind closed doors is drastically under-represented, in part because women are expected to “selflessly and happily attend to infant tasks” (Reshef & Israelashvili, 2020). This absence disempowers, encouraging women to think, “maybe I am crazy, maybe I should just be quiet”.  Polly’s campaign sets out to fill this void and empower women to not “just get on with it”.

NHS: An inclusive healthcare system?

Polly’s experience exposes three important failings of the UK’s healthcare system that corroborate leading scientific research in the field: a disconnect between patient and doctor; dismissive attitudes towards women and; a lack of resources. Studies consistently show that women across the UK experience poor levels of postnatal care (Beake et al, 2010) and that postnatal services are under-prioritised and under-funded (Thomson & Garrett, 2019). At the intersection of gender inequalities, unexposed biases and funding restraints, postnatal care risks failing female patients at one of the most important moments in their lives. For the NHS to become an inclusive, equitable healthcare system, it needs to take seriously the concerns and experiences of its patients that go under the radar and suffer in silence.

Disconnect: A lack of compassion

“I’m reliving this trauma all the time and I think ‘just read my notes! Treat me as a human, read something about me.’ “

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

The NHS tends to adopt a “biomedical model” which sees illness, in purely biochemical terms, as a deviation from the norm (Strickland & Patrick, 2014). This reductionist model is wont to disregard the psychosocial dynamics of health and see the body as a detached object akin to a car that a mechanic/doctor can fix. Favouring technical evidence and measurable progress, this approach enables clinicians to distance themselves emotionally from patients (Jeffrey, 2016). In 2014, The Francis Report found abundant evidence of a system-wide lack of compassion for patients and called for a culture change across the NHS to see patients as human beings. High profile reports like this and their attendant calls to re-humanise healthcare are far too common. This systematic failure is a result of myriad factors: overemphasis on a biomedical model, a blame culture, insipid power dynamics, commercialisation of healthcare, etc. (Zulueta, 2013). In short, patients are viewed more like broken cars than people with psychological and social needs. In case like Polly’s, this neglect merely exacerbates trauma and intensifies an already unbearable situation.

Attitudes: First-time mum

“As a first time mum, that was the first question I was asked a lot of the time: ‘is this your first baby?’ “

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

Women-predominant conditions are more likely to be underdiagnosed than men-predominant ones (Horsfall, 2001); due, in part, to clinician sexism. Older, predominantly male clinicians diagnosing young women comes with obvious power inequalities that can easily lead to inaccurate diagnoses (Eriksen & Kress, 2011). Being a first-time mother is a notoriously difficult and unsettling time, so it’s not surprising that consultants assume that first-time mothers like Polly are suffering from the burden of motherhood and struggling to cope. However, when this attitude clouds a clinician’s judgement, leading him to overlook scar tissue on an MRI scan and diagnosis his patient with stress, this is an alarming indicator that something is wrong.

“My dear we can only measure what is happening in the hardware of your brain, we can’t measure the software… I know how challenging it can be as a parent.”

@postnatal_equality, 2020

It is crucial for clinicians to be more reflexive of their own pre-conscious prejudices and how they could be potentially altering the livelihoods of patients. In a case like Polly’s, condescension and blatant sexism can be life-threatening.

Structure: Lack of resources for women’s issues

“You go through so much trauma. I think that if it was men it would be completely different. Men wouldn’t be expected to just get on with that trauma.”

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

It’s widely acknowledged that women’s care is underfunded. Less than 3% of the NHS budget goes to maternity care, of which only 8.5% – or £237 per woman – goes to postnatal care. In the most complex cases, this will rise to a woeful £805 (RCM, 2014).

Postnatal care providers in the NHS are unable to adapt their services to the needs of women or take a more holistic approach to care because funding is limited or precarious (Thomson & Garrett, 2019). Budget restraints and high case-loads are stretching clinicians to the point they cannot dedicate sufficient time to patients, sometimes reducing consultations to as little as 10 minutes. For patients like Polly, this is clearly not enough time to establish a care plan:

“You’re so conscious that you’ve only got 10 minutes with this person who is deciding the fate of your life so you’re focusing on that and then when you walk out of the room you think ‘ah, I didn’t mention that, I didn’t ask that…’ “

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

More often than not, healthcare staff and postnatal care units find creative solutions to provide the best quality care they can. But they can only do so much: their efforts are being suffocated by staffing restraints and funding cuts – to the point that 57% of midwives report neglecting tasks and 63% don’t even have time to go to the toilet on a shift (Bourke, 2013). The result of this systemic lack of resources is that women are left alone with their trauma with no choice other than to “just get on with it”.

Time to not just get on with it

“The nurses were unbelievable… [they] treated me as a human, as that person there and then that was suffering… [The problem] is the system. They don’t have enough time. No one has ever had time for me.”

P. Jones, personal communication, September 28, 2020

Despite the almost heroic efforts of staff on the hospital floor, women experiencing postnatal trauma are overwhelmingly neglected and under-prioritised. The noxious combination of gendered bias, lack of resources and societal expectations is severely handicapping postnatal care and putting women’s lives at risk. For Polly, this is not acceptable. She hopes her awareness campaign will inspire women to stop “just getting on with it” and demand care that meets their needs.

Follow Polly’s campaign @postnatal_equality and engage with her on-going conversation on Instagram.

References

Primary Sources

• P. Jones, (September 2020). Personal Communication [Personal Interview].
• Jones, P. [@postnatal_equality]. (September 2020). Posts [Instagram profile]. Retrieved from https://www.instagram.com/postnatal_equality/

Works Cited

• Beake, S., Rose, V., Bick, D., Weavers, A., & Wray, J. (2010). A qualitative study of the experiences and expectations of women receiving in-patient postnatal care in one English maternity unit. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 10(1), 1-9.
• Eriksen, K., & Kress, V. E. (2008). Gender and diagnosis: Struggles and suggestions for counselors. Journal of Counseling & Development, 86(2), 152-162.
• Francis, R. (2013). Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust public inquiry: executive summary (Vol. 947). The Stationery Office.
• Horsfall, J. (2001). Gender and mental illness: An Australian overview. Issues in mental health nursing, 22(4), 421-438.
• Jeffrey, D. (2016). Empathy, sympathy and compassion in healthcare: Is there a problem? Is there a difference? Does it matter?. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 109(12), 446-452.
• Reshef, P., & Israelashvili, M. (2020). Between Selflessness and Differentiation in Postnatal Adjustment: Exploration of a Combined Model. Journal of Adult Development, 1-12.
• Royal College of Midwives. 2014. Postnatal care funding: The case for better resourced maternity care. Retrieved from: https://www.rcm.org.uk/media/2357/pressure-points-postnatal-care-funding.pdf
• Strickland, C. M., & Patrick, C. J. (2014). Biomedical model. The Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology, 1-3.
• Thomson, G., & Garrett, C. (2019). Afterbirth support provision for women following a traumatic/distressing birth: Survey of NHS hospital trusts in England. Midwifery, 71, 63-70.
• Zulueta, P. D. (2013). Compassion in 21st century medicine: Is it sustainable?. Clinical Ethics, 8(4), 119-128.

Posted on 9 November 2020 by Jesica Murcia López, Centre for Environmental and Climate Research (CEC) and invited guest Torsten Krause, Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School or Lund University. The present document is being issued without formal editing.

The Amazon rainforests extend over a large swath of South America and are one of the world’s most important bioregions regarding its biological, social, and cultural diversity and the ecosystem services it providesto people. Many of us associate the Amazon basin as an expanse of primary forests stretching  over an area of 7 million km² making it the largest rainforest on earth spread out over nine countries: Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guyana. But the Amazon basin also, contains floodplains forests, swamps, savannas, and numerous river systems. The Amazon basin is a world of its own which is biologically and culturally mega diverse. It is globally important because the forests store vast amounts of carbon and stabilize the global climate and they are home to the numerous species of flora and fauna, containing one in 10 species known to science. Approximately 40.000 plant species (some of which have huge potential for western medicine), 3.000 species of freshwater fish, 1.200 species of bird, and about 400 species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians have been described so far. Around 30 million people live in the Amazon region and an estimated 9% (2.7 million) belong to 350 different ethnic groups about 240 languages. Regionally, the Amazon forests generate the rains on which for example the agricultural industry in Brazil depends on. And for the thousands of local communities, the forests and rivers of the Amazon region are their supermarket, providing fish, meat, fruit, nuts, fibre, shelter and a large number of important intangible benefits and a source of spiritual value.

Deforestation and degradation of the Amazon’s forests has already transformed a large share of the region, primarily driven by land clearing for agricultural development. While we have data on deforestation from using satellite images, forest degradation (e.g. selective logging) is more difficult to obtain but estimated to be widespread and surpass deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon for instance. The projection and scenarios paint a bleak picture on how the continuous deforestation will affect the global climate and leading to a tipping point in the Amazon region that leads to conditions which will further threaten the remaining forests. More severe dry seasons will increase the risks of fires and eventually transform the forests, particularly in the southern and eastern parts of the Amazon region to a savannah.

Although the destruction of tropical forests has received worldwide attention for several decades already, the Brazilian Amazon region still has the world’s highest absolute rates of deforestation and fragmentation. Soya plantations and cattle ranching for international exports that transformed the Cerrado’s (a vast tropical savanna) and Pantanal (world’s largest tropical wetland and flooded grassland area) in Brazil are increasingly moving into the Amazon region across the nine countries that constitute the Amazon, is threatened. But reliable information on deforestation from other countries, like the Colombian or Venezuelan Amazonia, is often scarce or non-existent. The human pressure on forest land, foremost agriculture as well as mining, oil extraction, illegal crops, and road development, is a threat to the Amazon’s forests everywhere.

To explain how human intervention encroaches into the Amazon’s forests, map (a) shows the number of fire alerts in yellow and red colours and the forest loss areas in pink reported from January 2015 until 03 October 2020. The data set is created by the GLAD (Global Land Analysis & Discovery) lab at the University of Maryland and supported by Global Forest Watch, which is the first Landsat-based alert system for tree cover loss. The Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA in blue colors) in map (b) represent sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity, in terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.  

These maps reveal how areas of high biodiversity value are threatened by human encroachment. In Colombia, this is often also due to land-use conflicts between farmers, indigenous groups and the government, which culminate in large-scale illegal land-grabbing by some powerful farmers who seek to extend their land holdings. Forest degradation and deforestation are inevitable consequence of these land use conflicts. 

The most recent estimate of total accumulated deforestation between pre-1970 and 2018 for example in the Brazilian Amazon (which accounts for 60% of the Amazon basin) is 17%. Concerning the remaining Amazon countries, most recent scientific evidence shows that since 2012 overall rates declined in Peru and Bolivia, stabilized in Ecuador, but increased in Colombia. The latest report from the national Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies IDEAM(March 2020) shows that aproximately 68,3% of deforestation in Colombia is concentrated in the Amazonas. 

In particular, the main direct causes of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon are expansion of the agricultural frontier, illegal extraction of minerals, infrastructure expansion, timber extraction and forest fires. However, it is important to keep in mind that these direct causes of deforestation are driven by social, political, economic, technological, and cultural factors, which influence the decisions of the actors involved in deforestation. Among these underlying causes of deforestation are technological and economic factors (e.g. markets of land, illegal economies, costs of production and consumption and state incentives), political and institutional factors (e.g., sectoral policies, lack of institutional presence), cultural factors (e.g., worldviews, local customs and ancestral practices, and education), and demographic factors (e.g., population growth and migration).

The impact of forest clearance to open pastures range from local (e.g., formation of ‘new’ socio-economic models) to global (carbon emissions). The link between deforestation and cattle ranching is strongest in Latin America and it causes irreversible environmental damages for tropical rainforests (e.g. biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and water pollution).  As an attempt to lessen the curve of deforestation the goal of the current government of president Iván Duque is to plant 180 million of trees in 2022, where about 24,7 million were planted in 2019 and approximately 60 million in 2020 so far. This government still needs to plant 120 million for the next two years. Yet, the question whether this will actually decrease deforestation and effectively reforest former forest lands is up for debate.

Colombia endured five decades of armed conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) until a peace agreement was signed in 2016. Followed by a pattern of deep-rooted unplanned land occupation by thousands of internal displaced people, FARC ex-combatants and national as well as international investors seeking to reap the benefits of the pathway towards peace. The transition towards peace has created many new challenges for Colombia, tackling the deforestation crisis that currently rips through the Amazon region is one of the largest one. The map (c) shows the latest update of deforestation hotspots in Colombia (as per June 2020) identified by the IDEAM.  

The Colombian government has been working for the last eight years on a strategy to halt deforestation and forest degradation, including the participation of communities, international cooperation, academia, labour unions, institutions, and society. The strategy called “Forest territories for Life” (Bosques Territorios de Vida, in Spanish) is a commitment to enhance the social, cultural, and economic value of all forest ecosystems in the country, with special attention to the Amazonas. The design of such strategy has international support and resources for approximately 366 million dollars, mostly contributed by Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom on behalf of the Sustainable Colombia Fund.

Nonetheless, regardless of the international support, land grabbing and land speculation (the contentious issue of large-scale land acquisitions) continues to be the main cause of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon. Yet, the region has been previously affected for many years by activities such as the extraction of minerals (legal and illegal) and cultivation of coca for illicit use, which became important catalysers of the deforestation process already since the 1980s. Most recently when the Colombian government and the FARC signed a peace agreement in 2016, the land grab was followed by a fast opening of pastures for cattle grazing and cattle ranching for domestic meat and milk consumption. The main consequences are deprivation of land of local communities and creation of environmental problems through intensive agriculture (livestock) and increased water demand.

Moreover, there are in total eleven protected areas* in the Colombian Amazon. As defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (UICN) a protected area is a clearly defined geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values. 

Four of these reserves, the natural reserve Nukak, Serranía de La Macarena National Natural Park, Tinigua National Natural Park and the Serranía del Chiribiquete National Park (UNESCO) have been critically affected by deforestation since the post-conflict (when FARC guerrillas retired from the armed conflict in 2016). These protected areas are in the north west of the Colombian Amazon, where the Andes mountain range meets with the Amazon and the Orinoco biomes in the Guiana Shield, a 1.7 billion-year-old Precambrian geological formation in northeast South America. The area is known as the Piedemonte Amazónico (Amazonian foothills, in English). More importantly, 67,4% of the area affected by deforestation processes is concentrated in the Sierra de la Macarena (41,7%) and Tinigua (25,7%). The natural reserve Nukak has high rates of deforestation compromising the territories of some indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation. At the Chiribiquete National Park deforestation is entering from the north-western part of the park. The main drivers of deforestation in this “biological corridor” formed by the four protected areas in this part of the Colombian Amazon, are the extensive cattle ranching with one cow per hectare selective logging, illegal crops, pastures, and land grabbing.

The challenging situation with deforestation followed by degradation in the Colombian Amazon is complex and requires action from different actors of the society. The solutions and pathways to reduce current rates towards the “zero-deforestation” level, are many. Some examples include, communitarian forestry, agroforestry, diet shifts and consumers behaviour, local businesses focusing on local products for food, informed ecotourism, and in some cases enhancement of silvopastoral systems outside the Amazonian territory.

So, is Colombia reaching zero-deforestation goals in 2020? Looking at the numbers, it is obvious that this is impossible. Could be possible to do it by 2030? Maybe.

References citations added as links straight into the text

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