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Brewing Justice: Fair Trade, Sustainability, and Survival - by Daniel Jaffee

Article  in  Natural resources forum · November 2007

DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-8947.2007.00159_2.x

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Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Landslides Processes, Prediction, and
Land Use
Water Resources Monograph 18
Roy C. Sidle and Hirotaka Ochiai
American Geophysical Union, Washington
DC, USA, 2006, 312 pages.
In 1985, Sidle, Pearce and O’Loughlin
published Hillslope Stability and Land
Use as American Geophysical Union’s
Water Resources Monograph 11.
Although it was a relatively thin book
with only 140 pages, it had all the
relevant information on understanding
and management of landslides for
specialists, students, and generalists.
Many of the field examples and data
were drawn from the Circum-Pacific
region. This text was very popular as
it made it possible to appreciate
workings of the hillslopes and soil
mass movements and the complex
interactions of hillslope materials,
water, vegetation, and seismicity.
Since the appearance of Sidle et al.
(1985), the last three decades have
brought significant advances to the
science and art of landslide hazard
mapping and determination of risks.
In 2007, we are in the midst of an
explosive period of landslide research.
There is a much deeper understanding
of landslide processes and management
of associated hazards and risk. This
understanding has largely been made
possible through the application of
GIS, digital technology, remote sensing,
and the use of Light Detection and
Ranging LIDAR to study hill slope
instability. Landslides are now regarded
as an important physical process that
shapes landforms which contributed
significantly to landscape changes in
the Holocene and to those changes
related to global climate change.
Although it is a challenge to capture
all the happenings in the field of
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 United Nations.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA.
Natural Resources Forum 31 (2007) 322–326
Book Reviews
landslides during 1985–2006, Sidle
and Ochiai’s Landslides Processes,
Prediction, and Land Use successfully
brings together landslide studies covering
all geographic regions in a comprehensive
text. As such, it is a welcome addition
to the literature on the subject.
Sidle and Ochiai have approached
landslide phenomena from a very
broad perspective. Because terminology
is systematically introduced throughout
the text, the reader doesn’t need prior
in-depth knowledge of landslides to be
able to appreciate it. The book begins
with a clear discussion of landslide
problems and consequent environmental
and economic costs in Chapter 1.
Although short, this discussion is
stimulating. Characteristics of landslides
are followed by natural slope instability
factors influencing landslides in chapters
2 and 3. This is introduced in a logical
and easily understandable manner
for all levels of readership. Readers
in tropical countries will especially
appreciate this section. Landslide
triggering mechanisms, including
rainfall, seismicity and volcanic activity,
are covered in detail and exemplified
thus emphasizing how landslides are
triggered by a wide variety of hazardous
processes. Chapter 4 covers landslide
analysis linking triggering mechanisms
to landslide causes. The reader is
introduced to precise observations on
geotechnical aspects of slope move-
ments. In Chapter 5 “Hazard Assessment
and Prediction methods”, Sidle and
Ochiai take the reader through the
techniques of terrain mapping and
preparation of landslide hazard maps
using GIS applications.
In Chapter 6 the authors focus on
land use and global change in rela-
tion to landslides. A very detailed
discussion on the occurrence and
management of landslides along road
networks is included in this chapter.
Issues related to landslides and land
use changes to accommodate timber
harvesting, conversion of forest
lands to agriculture, urban, residential,
and industrial development, mining,
and tourism are also highlighted and
discussed. The significance of landslides
in watershed management and sediment
generation received an adequate treat-
ment as well. Post-1990s advances in
landslide hazard management are
effectively surveyed and included in
the discussions. For this reviewer, this
new information and the subsequent
stimulating discussion were perhaps
the most interesting parts of the book.
The book ends, in Chapter 7, with a
summary of the current understanding
of landslide processes and research,
and the status of funding to sustain
landslide studies which includes related
challenges.
The clarity and scale of some of the
photographs in Landslides Processes,
Prediction, and Land Use could have
been improved. However, this would
probably have made the book expensive
and thereby beyond the reach of a
large number of readers. For future
editions, this reviewer recommends
the inclusion of a discussion on
landslide dams.
Using worldwide examples and case
studies, Sidle and Ochiai have provided
a clear understanding of slope
workings and have demonstrated that
landslide processes are a part of our
living environment that is amenable to
avoidance and/or correction through
appropriate land management practices.
The text is useful to a wide variety of
interest groups including students,
academia, geotechnical engineers, land
use planners, environmental economists
as well as natural disaster managers.
Landslides Processes, Prediction, and
 Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 31 (2007) 322–326
Land Use maintains the right balance
between theory and practice. The text
has benefited from the authors’ long-
term research and studies of landslides
in all the geographic regions of the
world. It is a stimulating introduction
to landslide hazard risk reduction which
alters our perception of slope instability.
Rafi Ahmad
Director, Unit for Disaster Studies
Lecturer in Geology
Department of Geography and
Geology
Fellow Mona Geoinformatics Institute
The University of the West Indies
at Mona Kingston, Jamaica
Brewing Justice: Fair Trade,
Sustainability, and Survival
Daniel Jaffee
University of California Press, Berkeley,
CA, USA, 2007, 331 pages.
Brewing Justice is an inspired and
accessible look at the characters, conflicts,
and contradictions at the heart of fair
trade coffee production and the larger
fair trade movement in general. Originally
conceived as a project to help peasant
farmers better understand and navigate
alternative markets, the book carefully
dissects the multiple dimensions of
fair trade coffee with impressive clarity
while systematically comparing the
economic well-being, food security,
access to education, and environmental
impact of fair trade coffee growers to
conventional growers. The result is
both engaging and enlightening, taking
the reader from the steep coffee farms
of rural Mexico — home to the highest
concentration of fair trade farmers
in the world — to the boardrooms of
international fair trade certifiers.
After living and working in two remote
Mexican communities for extended
periods between 2001 and 2003, Jaffee
concludes that fair trade farmers are
indeed better off than conventional
coffee growers, but only marginally.
Despite relative economic gains — both
in terms of direct impacts on family
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 United Nations.
income and associated ripple effects in
the broader community — fair trade
coffee farmers remain overwhelmingly
poor, desperately dependent on govern-
ment and/or community support
programs, and dangerously vulnerable
to international commodity prices.
What emerges from the case study,
therefore, is less a declaration of fair
trade’s promise than a warning of
how much progressive reforms to the
current economic order have left to
achieve. Fair trade, it would seem, is
not fair enough.
Overall, the study is ambitious in
both methodology and scale. Where
others tend to focus on either case-
based accounts of the benefits of fair
trade coffee (Murray, Reynolds and
Taylor, 2003) or the larger political
economic narratives that frame the
movement (Fridell, 2007), Jaffee’s
combination of ethnographic and survey
research techniques, supplemented by
insightful interviews of local community
members and international experts and
activists, provides a comprehensive —
and refreshingly transparent (thanks
to the author’s inclusion of a detailed
outline and defence of his research
framework as an appendix) — inves-
tigative approach. Deftly interweaving
the local experience of peasant and
smallholder coffee farmers with broader
discourses of international trade,
social justice, and sustainability, Jaffee
achieves a healthy balance between in-
depth storytelling and academic analysis.
Conceptually, the book is divided
into three strands of inquiry. Chapters
one and two introduce the philosophical
and political arguments at the heart of
fair trade activism and lay out the
severe effect of the long-term decline
of coffee prices on the international
market. The next four chapters present,
in both qualitative and quantitative form,
the tangible economic, environmental,
and social impacts of fair trade production
as observed in two Oaxaca province
villages, Teotlasco and Yagavila, where
an independent, indigenous fair trade
cooperative (Michiza) has been operating
in competition with conventional interm-
ediaries in the coffee production chain
since the mid-1980s.
323
Chapter five, which goes beyond basic
economic analysis to examine the
ecological ramifications of fair trade
farming practices, is particularly
noteworthy in the context of the
sustainable development discourse. The
chapter hints at the potential interrela-
tionship between fair trade production
and sustainable development in countries
dependent on agricultural trade, but
does not explicitly make the connection.
A fuller account of the ecological benefits
of fair trade coffee — such as enhanced
erosion control and protection against
biodiversity loss through the promotion
of organic ‘polyculture’ farming
methods — as they relate to associated
literature on sustainable agriculture for
rural development would have been
useful.
That said, Jaffee does well to point
out that fair trade certifiers — based
largely in Europe or the United States —
must strengthen their relationships
with partner communities in the global
South to adapt organic farming and
fair trade standards to local environmental
conditions. Considering that most
farmlands in Mexico, for example,
can be classified as passively organic
because many farmers lack access to
advanced agricultural technologies and
chemicals, Jaffe rightly argues that no
foreign standards should be imposed
on Southern smallholder producers
without sound justification and,
more importantly, without financial
compensation in the form of direct
subsidies to help pay for the lengthy
and costly conversion to organic
crops.
Yet the idea of a North–South transfer
of resources for the promotion of
fair trade production appears unlikely
considering the complex array of
power relations — between international
certifiers and transnational coffee
corporations, activist- and profit-
oriented fair trade retailers, and myriad
Northern and Southern interest groups
which either converge or conflict on
issues of pricing standards, certification
costs, and membership criteria — involved
in fair trade certification. Though this
reality is implicitly acknowledged
throughout, the book maintains an
324 Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 31 (2007) 322–326
optimistic, almost romantic tone, at
times going so far as to suggest that
solutions could naturally emerge from
“deep reflection” on fair trade’s
ideological roots (p. 262). But what
guarantee do Southern farmers have
that they will not be further disen-
franchised by these reflective exercises?
Indigenous and native groups, who
make up the majority of smallholder
farmers worldwide, still have little
voice within international fair trade
governance structures.
The third and final section of the
book attempts to address such concerns,
outlining a variety of recommendations
to strengthen both the economic and
philosophical frameworks at the core
of the fair trade system. Beyond
technical reforms, including adjustments
to minimum coffee prices and context-
specific farming standards, Jaffee is
adamant that the balance of power
must be shifted into the hands of small
producer groups. Strict limitations on
corporate participation in certification
processes must be set, for “if fair
traders are going to dance with the
devil, they must first recognize that
[the corporation] is a devil” (p. 253,
author’s emphasis).
Currently, to be certified as a fair
trade partner, a retailer is required to
purchase just 3% of its coffee from
fair trade growers — or even less in the
case of Starbucks, which has separate
agreements with international certifiers.
Consequently, Jaffee supports the creation
of a new fair trade ‘gold’ standard — in
effect, a distinct, easily understandable
consumer label — to differentiate between
producers who sell 100% fair trade
products and those who are less
committed to the cause.
Jaffee’s recommendations are per-
suasive and well argued, but ultimately,
he neglects to directly address one of
the book’s principal questions: “can
fair trade become a means to make all
trade fair?” (xv, author’s emphasis).
The reader is left to assume that the
power dynamics at play are simply too
complicated and the international
intricacies too convoluted to envision
a complete answer as yet. For now,
at least, Jaffee’s research clearly
demonstrates that fair trade is indeed
a constructive means to improve the
lives of disadvantaged farmers in
developing countries and a meaningful
contribution toward achieving the
goals of sustainable development. For
these reasons, Brewing Justice is a
testament to the merit of public-interest
scholarly research and warrants a full
recommendation to academics, activists,
and policymakers alike.
Gabriel Eidelman
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Political Science and
Centre for Environment
University of Toronto, Canada
References
Fridell, G., 2007. Fair Trade Coffee: The Prospects
and Pitfalls of Market-Driven Social Justice.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Murray, D., Reynolds, L.T., and Taylor, P.L.,
2003. One cup at a time: Poverty alleviation
and fair trade coffee in Latin America.
Report prepared by the Fair Trade Research
Group, Colorado State University. See also:
Center for Fair and Alternative Trade Studies,
Colorado State University, http://www.
colostate.edu / Depts/Sociology/cfats/
index.html.
International Environmental Law
Fairness, Effectiveness, and World
Order
Elli Louka
Cambridge University Press, New
York, USA, 2006, 518 pages.
International Environmental Law;
Fairness, Effectiveness, and World Order
provides an in-depth overview of a
field that has emerged while pressure
on natural resources is becoming
increasingly tangible. Industrialization,
the development of science and
technology and the unprecedented
growth of the world population to over
6.5 billion people are posing both
challenges as well as opportunities for
mankind. Dr. Louka analyzes the
field of international environmental law,
carefully highlighting the obstacles and
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 United Nations.
achievements in reconciling seemingly
diverging interests.
The author explains vividly in the
first two chapters how environmental
law is addressing these challenges guided
by the principles of equity, responsibility
and the establishment of minimum
order, as well as the effectiveness of
lawmaking. In these two chapters, key
concepts, including sustainable deve-
lopment, sovereignty over national
resources, the polluter pays principle
and the precautionary principle,
environmental externalities and common
but differentiated responsibilities are
explored in the context from which
they emerged. In the third chapter,
compliance and governance mechanisms
of international environmental law-
making are scrutinized and instruments
for monitoring, involving stakeholders
and providing information for actors
in policy making processes are
introduced.
This thorough introduction enables
the author to successfully engage the
reader in the following seven chapters,
in which the book provides a synthesis
of developments and trends in the fields
of marine environment; water resources;
fisheries resources; biodiversity; air
pollution; trade and environment; as
well as hazardous and radioactive
waste. An overview of each the subjects
in these chapters is complemented
with case studies, which introduce legal
instruments developed to establish a
framework for interaction among
different stakeholders. One of the
many strong points of the book is
the succinct analysis it provides, while
pointing to a wide range of reference
and details for further study.
Dr. Louka engages the reader in the
multifaceted subject matter of envir-
onmental law, providing a sound
scrutiny of different actors’ motivations
to pursue their agendas in international
fora. One example is the chapter on
shared water resources, that offers a
concise assessment of the challenges
in managing common pooled resources.
Issues of equity, historic user rights
and efforts in the conservation of
water resources are explored in the
regional contexts of Africa, Asia, the
 Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 31 (2007) 322–326
Middle East, Europe and the American
region.
The chapter on air pollution is divided
into three parts: ozone depletion,
climate change and transfrontier air
pollution. One may argue that more
weight could have been given to each
of these topics, given their importance
to the development of international
environmental law. The aim of the book
however, is to provide an in-depth
overview of the breadth of issues in
the field while illustrating the process
of environmental lawmaking. It is
particularly well demonstrated in this
chapter where the practicality and
viability of the core principles of
environmental lawmaking to manage
common pool resources are investigated.
Thus, rather than advocating for a
particular route of action in a specific
subject area, the analysis of obstacles
and achievements provides an under-
standing of how the process has
evolved and consequently a basis for
achieving progress.
The final chapter Liability and State
Responsibility scrutinizes the meaning
and implications of the polluter pays
principle. Providing a good example
of different interpretations of core
principles, it expresses that some have
gone as far as considering the society
at large in oil-importing countries partly
responsible for externalities generated
by the transport of oil. Dr. Louka
rightly indicates that such a broad
definition of the principle is at odds
with the historical definition of the
concept, which aims to require industries
to cover the costs of the pollution they
have produced.
In conclusion, International Envir-
onmental Law; Fairness, Effectiveness,
and World Order puts the key concepts
of environmental law into action and
shows, as Reisman summarizes in the
foreword to the book, (page xi) that it
“[ ... ] is most usefully conceived as a
process of clarifying and implementing
the common interest of politically
relevant actors”. The book presents
practitioners in the field, as well as
scholars from related disciplines, with
an invaluable resource for clarifying
concepts and providing orientation in
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 United Nations.
the complex and constantly evolving
field of international environmental
law.
Frederik Pischke
Associate Expert
UN-DESA
Division for Sustainable Development
New York, USA
Reality Check: The Nature and
Performance of Voluntary Environ-
mental Programs in the United States,
Europe and Japan
Richard D. Morgenstern and William
A. Pizer (editors)
Resources for the Future, Washington
DC, USA, 2007, 189 pages.
Reality Check assesses the effectiveness
of voluntary programmes by industry
to reduce the environmental impacts
of industrial activities. It includes
seven detailed case studies by different
experts, together with an introduction
and overall assessment by the editors.
It is a detailed and technical study,
providing interested professionals with
a careful and critical review of some
major examples from the United
States, Europe and Japan.
Assessing the effectiveness of
efforts to reduce industrial environmental
impacts is difficult for a number of
reasons, most importantly because
production technology is generally
improving, with increases in energy
and resource efficiency and reductions
in waste and pollution, even without
incentives or regulations. The real
impact of a programme, therefore, is
the environmental improvement beyond
such “business as usual” (BAU)
trends. The analyses in this book show
that precise determination of changes
due to a voluntary programme is
generally impossible because determin-
ing the hypothetical BAU impact is
impossible. Nonetheless, some useful
assessment is possible.
For the USEPA-sponsored “33/50”
voluntary programme to reduce
hazardous chemical releases, assessment
325
is relatively simple because the 17
priority chemicals covered by the
programme were among the chemicals
already covered by mandatory reporting
under the Toxic Release Inventory
(TRI). TRI data indicate that, from the
initiation of the 33/50 Program in 1991
until its end in 1995, participating
companies reduced their releases of
the 17 chemicals by 55%, while
non-participating companies reduced
their releases by 36%, suggesting that
19% of the participating companies’
reduction was due to the programme.
However, the data also show that
participating companies had much
higher releases than non-participating
companies, so non-participating
companies may not be a good
comparison for the participating
companies. Another complication was
that two of the 17 chemicals became
subject to mandatory reductions as
ozone-depleting substances during the
course of the 33/50 programme and
were reduced by about 80%, so some
of the reductions were not voluntary.
Despite such uncertainties, the
assessment concludes that 33/50 had a
modest impact in reducing releases of
toxic chemicals beyond BAU.
In a truly voluntary programme, the
book argues, companies will use their
knowledge of their production pro-
cesses, technologies and investment
plans to calculate what the emission
reductions will be under their normal
business practices. They will then
announce a commitment to those
business-as-usual reductions and
claim public relations credit for being
good citizens. For the German Global
Warming Prevention (GGWP)
voluntary declaration, the researchers
were able to get historical energy
spending data for the cement industry
as an indicator of CO2 emissions. The
GGWP voluntary reduction commitment
for 2010 was right on the trend line of
BAU reductions from 1975 to 2000,
suggesting that the commitment could
be met without any extra effort on the
part of industry.
Other case studies consider
programmes that are only partly
voluntary. In Britain, in 2001, the
 326 Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 31 (2007) 322–326
government negotiated Climate Change
Agreements (CCAs) with 48 industry
associations, calling for CO2 emissions
reductions beyond estimated BAU
reductions by 2010. The government
required detailed monitoring and
reporting of emissions and offered
energy tax rebates if the targets were
met. The analysis concludes that the
CCA emission reduction targets were
only a modest improvement on BAU
emission trends. This conclusion is
supported by the fact that, as of 2004,
most companies had achieved reductions
substantially greater than the 2004
interim targets. This further suggests
that while reductions under the CCA
programme were greater than BAU,
they probably would have been still
greater had industry not been given the
tax break, which reduced the incentive
to cut emissions. Another case study
examines a similar programme of
negotiated agreements in Denmark,
with carbon tax rebates for companies
agreeing to undertake cost-effective
energy-saving investments identified
by energy audits. This assessment is
more positive, concluding that companies
reduced emissions by somewhat more
than they would have based on the full
tax alone.
Japan provides a different situation,
in which large industries, grouped in
the Keidanren business association,
negotiated a voluntary agreement with
the government in 1997 to reduce
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greenhouse gas emissions below the
1990 level by 2010. Because industrial
policies are normally negotiated by
the government with the Keidanren,
participation in the Keidanren, and in
the agreement, is practically compulsory
for large industry, although legally
voluntary. There was also an implicit
threat of mandatory regulation if the
voluntary agreement was not successful.
A 2005 review indicated that the
programme was on target, with 2004
CO2 emissions by Keidanren participants
0.5% below the 1990 level. Energy
efficiency improvements of 9% were
offset by production volume increases
of 8.5%. The fact that emissions
increased from 1990 to 1997, then
declined following negotiation of the
agreement indicates that the reductions
were beyond BAU. However, since the
agreed reduction was less than the 6%
required of Japan under the Kyoto
Protocol, and considering that the
agreement did not cover the growing
emissions of the transportation,
household and commercial sectors, the
agreed targets fall well short of
meeting Japan’s Kyoto commitments.
Two other case studies examine the
US Climate Wise programme and
California electric utility demand
management programmes.
The final chapter, the editors’ review
of the seven case studies, arrives at a
number of conclusions. First, purely
voluntary agreements are not likely to
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 United Nations.
achieve much beyond BAU. Second,
negotiated agreements, with incentives
or regulatory threats to promote real
commitments, can produce greater
impacts, but because businesses know
what is technologically and financially
feasible while outsiders do not, the
agreed commitments will not
substantially exceed BAU. Nonetheless,
in the early stages of addressing a
problem such as climate change,
negotiated agreements can stimulate
industry to find energy savings that
can be achieved at little or no net cost.
Third, when regulation is excluded for
political reasons, as in the United
States recently with respect to climate
change, voluntary agreements may
achieve some improvements and raise
awareness of issues. Fourth, voluntary
or negotiated agreements with good
monitoring and reporting components
can provide valuable information that
can be used later to plan effective
regulatory measures. Finally, the
editors conclude that after baselines
are established and easy remedies
implemented, voluntary programmes
will be less effective, and mandatory
regulation of all enterprises will be
necessary for real environmental
protection.
Ralph Chipman
Sustainable Development Consultant
New York, NY, USA