Biodiversity

World Campaign to Clean Torrents of Plastic Dumped in the Oceans

By Baher Kamal
With 30 countries from Kenya to Indonesia and from Canada to Brazil now involved in the world campaign to beat pollution by countering the torrents of plastic trash that are degrading oceans and endangering the life they sustain, the UN has strengthened its massive efforts to clean up the seas, which are the Earth’s main buffer against climate change.

The Shifting Dynamics of Rhino Horn Trafficking

By Julian Rademeyer
Recent raids in South Africa have uncovered disturbing evidence of the changing dynamics of rhino horn trafficking from Africa to Asia.

Fisheries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific – Immense Opportunities, Critical Challenges

By Viwanou Gnassounou
Fish is big business. The latest figures show that more than 165 million tonnes of fish are either captured or harvested in a year, with each person consuming more than 20kg of fish annually, according to the world average. Roughly US$ 140 billion worth of fish is traded globally per annum, with millions of people relying on jobs in fishing and fish-farming, not to mention the seafood industry which involves processing, transport, retail and restaurants.

Alert: Nature, on the Verge of Bankruptcy

By Baher Kamal
Pressures on global land resources are now greater than ever, as a rapidly increasing population coupled with rising levels of consumption is placing ever-larger demands on the world’s land-based natural capital, warns a new United Nations report.

Europe, New Border of Africa’s ‘Great Desert’ – The Sahara

By Baher Kamal
With the highest temperatures on record and unprecedented heat waves hitting Europe this year, Africa’s ‘Great Desert’, the Sahara, is set continue its relentless march on the Southern European countries until it occupies more than 30 per cent of Spain just three decades from now.

Protecting Africa’s Drylands Key to the Continent’s Future

By Sam Otieno
Africa’s population continues to grow, putting intense pressure on available land for agricultural purposes and life-supporting ecosystem services even as the scenario is compounded by the adverse impacts of climate change.

Building Climate Resilience in Coastal Communities of the Caribbean

By Zadie Neufville
Ceylon Clayton is trying to revive a sea moss growing project he and friends started a few years ago to supplement their dwindling earnings as fishermen.

What Does “Climate-Smart Agriculture” Really Mean? New Tool Breaks It Down

By Desmond Brown
A Trinidadian scientist has developed a mechanism for determining the degree of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) compliance with respect to projects, processes and products.

This Is How Indigenous Peoples Help Curb Gas Emissions, End Hunger

By IPS World Desk
A third of global forests, crucial for curbing gas emissions, are primarily managed by indigenous peoples, families, smallholders and local communities, according to the United Nations.

One Earth: Why the World Needs Indigenous Communities to Steward Their Lands

By Manipadma Jena
“Showing them a picture-book crow, I intone ‘kaak’ in Bengali, the State language. While others repeat in chorus, the tribal Santhali first-graders respond with a blank look. They know the crow only as ‘koyo’. They’ll happily roll out glass marbles to count but ask them how many they counted, they remain silent because in their mother tongue, one is mit, two is bariah - very different sounding from the Bengali ek and du.”

Climate Scientists Use Forecasting Tools to Protect Caribbean Ways of Life

By Zadie Neufville
Since 2013, Jamaica’s Met Office has been using its Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) to forecast ‘below average’ rainfall or drought across the island. The tool has allowed this northern Caribbean island to accurately predict several dry periods and droughts, including its most destructive episode in 2014 when an estimated one billion dollars in agricultural losses were incurred due to crop failures and wild fires caused by the exceptionally dry conditions.

Climate Change Brings Migration from the Dry Corridor to Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast

By José Adán Silva
If the impact of drought and poverty in the municipalities of the so-called Dry Corridor in Nicaragua continues pushing the agricultural frontier towards the Caribbean coast, by the year 2050 this area will have lost all its forests and nature reserves, experts predict.

Tobago Gears Up to Fight Sargassum Invasion

By Jewel Fraser
As Tobago's tourism industry struggles to repel the sargassum invasions that have smothered its beaches with massive layers of seaweed as far as the eye can see - in some places half a metre thick - and left residents retching from the stench, the island's government is working to establish an early warning system that will alert islanders to imminent invasions so they can take defensive action.

Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast Pools Efforts Against Climate Change

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
Jonathan Barrantes walks between the rows of shoots, naming one by one each species in the tree nursery that he manages, in the south of Costa Rica’s Caribbean coastal region. There are fruit trees, ceibas that will take decades to grow to full size. and timber species for forestry plantations.

Communities Step Up to Help Save Jamaica’s Forests

By Desmond Brown
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 31.1 percent or about 337,000 hectares of Jamaica is forested. Of this, 26.1 percent or 88,000 is classified as primary forest, the most biodiverse and carbon-dense form of forest.

Caribbean Seeks to Climate-Proof Tourism Industry

By Desmond Brown
The tourism industry is the key economic driver and largest provider of jobs in the Caribbean after the public sector. Caribbean tourism broke new ground in 2016, surpassing 29 million arrivals for the first time and once again growing faster than the global average.

Latin America’s Rural Exodus Undermines Food Security

By Fabiana Frayssinet
In Latin America and the Caribbean, which account for 12 per cent of the planet’s arable land, and one-third of its fresh water reserves, a number of factors contribute to soil degradation and to a rural exodus that compromises food security in a not-so-unlikely future.

Genetic Engineering Lobbyist’s Trumpian Methods

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
To her credit, Dr Mahaletchumy has pioneered and promoted science journalism in Malaysia. This is indeed commendable in the face of the recent resurgence of obscurantism of various types, both traditional and modern.

Inside UAE’s Quest to Reducing Food Waste

By Rabiya Shabeeh
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is working on taking strides forward on climate change mitigation that are reflected by the establishment of the federal ministry of climate change, it's commitment to develop a national climate change plan, and its ratification to the Paris Agreement in 2015, which pledged not to just keep warming 'well below 2C', but also to 'pursue efforts' to limit warming to 1.5C by 2018.

More Plastic than Fish or How Politicians Help Ocean Destruction

By Baher Kamal
World’s oceans are dangerously exposed to at least three major threats: climate change; the sharp degradation of marine biodiversity, and politicians. These simply encourage the destruction of oceans by subsidising over-fishing and turning a blind eye on illegal captures. See what happens.

The Relentless March of Drought – That ‘Horseman of the Apocalypse’

By Baher Kamal
By 2025 –that’s in less than 8 years from today-- 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world will be living under water-stressed conditions. Now it is feared that advancing drought and deserts, growing water scarcity and decreasing food security may provoke a huge ‘tsunami” of climate refugees and migrants.
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