Category Archives: Op-ed

Op-ed, Blog

Business and corporate communicators – be memorable with words!

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook
06
Jan

Lionel Stanbrook Words are the least understood part of that crowded, undisciplined and noisy group of ill-fitting elements that together make up what we call communications. In fact, words often get in the way of communications, like rider-less horses in a race. Complaining about them is like hooting at stationary cars in a traffic jam. […]

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Op-ed

IN THE YEAR 2030: What happened in the decade following Brexit and the UK-EU trade deal?

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook
03
Jan

1.  England is governed by executive order and decree by the PM or the Privy Council. The Conservative Party became the National Unity Party and has won two more General Elections. Parliamentary powers are limited to LGBTQ issues, animal welfare and English human rights. Parliamentary votes are advisory. National referenda are used for all major […]

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Op-ed

About these laws on mingling, babies, fox-hunting, pub closing times …

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook

The new coronavirus restrictions for England ban people at gatherings from “mingling with any person who is participating in the gathering but is not a member of the same qualifying group as them”. UK home secretary Priti Patel has confirmed that this new crime includes the example of two families stopping to chat to each […]

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Op-ed, Portfolio, Blog

Fears of renewed civil conflict in Cote d’Ivoire

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook
Poverty, trade policy and migration
14
Aug

President Ouattara’s declaration threatens Cote d’Ivoire’s stability There has been civil conflict in Abidjan and outbreaks of violence all around Cote d’Ivoire since the declaration on 7th August of Alassane Ouattara, President of the Republic, to stand as a candidate for an unprecedented (and many say illegal) third time in the forthcoming presidential election on […]

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Op-ed, Portfolio, Blog

Facebook is becoming Hatebook. Should we care?

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook
12
Aug

Those of us who regularly use Facebook should be clear and precise about why we do, because powerful and compelling reasons are emerging to argue why we should not. For many Facebook users the advantages are obvious: we like to keep in touch with our friends and family, often with real time conversations or texts […]

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Op-ed

The beanstalk to economic transformation: African forests, climate action and sustainable development

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook
All forested areas around the world from woods to jungles are critical in global climate action. As deep resources of carbon recycling, they help to mitigate the negative effects of CO2 emissions caused by humans. These emissions are causing warmer temperatures across the world, increases in extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, severe storms etc, which result in damage to local ecosystems, upon which many poorer people depend for their livelihoods. The continent of Africa is the only major region of the world not to have experienced substantial and widespread economic development. As such it is a significant region for the future of sustainable global forestry. African forests have the potential to supply timber and other forest-based products to meet growing demand within domestic markets and abroad, and while some of these resources are being depleted unsustainably, there is still time to convert the potential of the forests into long term and sustainable economic benefits. There is a strong commercial future in Africa available for sustainable commercial forestry, which has the unique ability to catalyse economic, social, and climate-smart transformation. But despite the immense potential of Africa’s huge resource-rich forests, commercial investments in forestry have slowed to almost zero across the continent in the past 20 years as population has shifted to urban areas. The growth in new plantations during this time has been minimal, and there has been a reduction in government-owned forested land. Real and perceived financial barriers such as low returns on investments and high perceived risks have dissuaded investors from fully investigating the potential to develop Africa’s forests to their maximum sustainable capacity and for the equal benefit of rural communities. There are technical and regulatory barriers, mostly different in each African country: high establishment costs; insufficient operational scale; lack of management expertise and industrial processing facilities, among many other challenges. In addition, Africa’s forests are becoming vulnerable to climate change and global warming impacts. But these challenges produce unique opportunities at a unique time if the appropriate policies and institutional frameworks are put in place to recognise the role of the private sector, the limitations of the public sector, and public-private partnership engagements, as well as the incorporation of multilateral environment agreements into national plans and programmes. Trees, forests, people and environment are intricately related through food chains, life support systems, maintenance of the hydrological cycle and provision of other environmental services. Forests are far more significant in how they can work in a sustainable process than in what they are or represent. For example, they protect and maintain sources of genetic materials for plant breeding programmes to improve food crops and produce herbal remedies and generic drugs. Forest biomes support flora and fauna that serve agronomic purposes, such as pollination. Africa needs to invest much more in itself if it wants more foreign investment. International partnerships and understandings have to be the best way forward. But, initially, Africa may lack information more than it lacks money. It urgently needs more information on climate change impacts on African forests and the complex relationships relating to climate change that face African communities across the continent. The challenges of getting the policies and incentives right go beyond getting information on the impacts of climatic factors on forests. They extend also to acquiring knowledge and information on the interaction between the different climate change factors. In most of Africa, there is no reliable or updated information on forest and tree resources because of the lack of permanent sampling plots for monitoring long term changes. This has resulted in Africa suffering gaping holes in the data needed for informed decision making. The African forest sector is the most lucrative investment in the longer term. For now it needs effective monitoring, protection capabilities, and detection activities to face the increasing short term challenges caused by human and climate change impacts. But the forestry sector in many African countries could be growing the beanstalk to economic transformation.
12
Jun

All forested areas around the world from woods to jungles are critical in global climate action. As deep resources of carbon recycling, they help to mitigate the negative effects of CO2 emissions caused by humans. These emissions are causing warmer temperatures across the world, increases in extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, severe storms […]

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Op-ed

Beating the Bounds: England and Africa

Posted on by Lionel Stanbrook
15
May

Long before the boundaries of England’s parishes were definitively mapped, people would walk around the boundaries of their local community every year, a few days before Ascension Day, often on Mayday or Beltane. They would be equipped with sticks, branches or switches and would physically beat the items that marked the boundary, such as large […]

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