Picture yourself as an early-career ocean researcher. You have the opportunity to be at sea in addition to learning on campus. Through cutting-edge technology and immersive facilities, you experience the most realistic ocean exploration scenarios, including braving extreme cold and harsh environments. That’s the experience at the Launch, a 'living lab' at the Marine Institute of Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the east coast of Canada. It’s an experience meant to prepare you for the real-world complexities of the type of ocean research needed to tackle urgent global issues like climate change.
Honeybees quickly react with a sharp and loud buzz sound as beekeeper Tanyaradzwa Kanangira opens one of the wooden horizontal Kenyan top bar hives near a stream in a thick forest in Chimanimani, 412 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
The 26-year-old puffs some smoke, a safety measure, as he holds and inspects a honeycomb built from hexagons by the honey bees.
Mexico has taken important steps to protect native corn, even standing up to its largest trading partner, the United States, to do so. But the lack of a comprehensive legal framework in its policy towards genetically modified crops allows authorizations for other transgenic crops.
The Sixth United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA-6) ended with delegates calling for firm actions to address the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss, and pollution.
The assembly also reaffirmed its call for “environmental multilateralism” in seeking solutions to the threats, noting that time was running out fast before the threats could besiege the planet and make life a bigger nightmare, especially for the underprivileged.
At the tenth session of the IPBES Plenary, held in Bonn, Germany from 28 August - 2 September 2023, the IPBES Thematic Assessment of Invasive Alien Species and their Control was accepted and its summary for policymakers was approved. The Report is the result of four years of work by 86 experts from 49 countries, and synthesizes information from over 13,000 references into a comprehensive scientific assessment and concise summary document for policy makers.
Growing up on a small farming station in Holetta (Ethiopia), Yvonne Pinto would accompany her agriculturist father to the farm, where she would spend her time cross-fertilizing plants. Her tiny fingers making the task easier, as she would marvel at the end product of a prospective new and higher yielding variety. These formative years laid the foundation for her career in agricultural science.
Bali's Island's ancient canine guardians, the proud descendants of lineages tracing back tens of thousands of years, stand on the brink of extinction. Culling triggered by rabies outbreaks and interbreeding is pushing these living cultural treasures towards a tragic end.
Tsunza Peninsula is a natural wonder that sits just inside the many inlets of Mombasa Island on the border between Mombasa and Kwale Counties—a little-known spectacle of lagoons, islands, and thick mangroves in Kinango Sub-County, Kwale County, on Kenya’s coastal region.
Dr Ismahane Elouafi has her work cut out. As the new executive managing director of CGIAR, a global network of agricultural research centers, her mandate, simply put, is to tackle the world’s most severe hunger crisis in modern history.
And it is in Africa that the former Chief Scientist of FAO with a PhD in durum wheat genetics faces her greatest challenges, both in terms of developing science-based innovations and technologies and lobbying governments to adopt responsible policies.
A groundbreaking State of the World’s Migratory Species report is calling for accelerated global conservation measures to counter the threat of extinction faced by 1 in 5 of all migratory species.
Claver Ntoyinkima wakes up early in the morning, at least three times a week, and goes into the Nyungwe rainforest to record bird vocalizations.
Ntoyinkima is one of several community members in a remote village in rural southwestern Rwanda who volunteer with a group of scientists to help boost wildlife conservation.
Half the world eats rice. In Bangladesh, everyone eats it. The small, densely-populated nation is the
third-highest rice-producing country in the world.
As hunger and food insecurity deepen, Africa is confronting an unprecedented food crisis. Estimates show that nearly 282 million people on the continent, or 20 percent of the population, are undernourished. Numerous challenges across the African continent threaten the race to achieve food security; research and innovative strategies are urgently needed to transform current systems as they are inadequate to address the food crisis.
Find the answer in this interview with Frédéric Castell, Senior Natural Resources Officer at FAO
The year 2023 has brought so much tragedy, with incomprehensible loss of lives, whether from wars or devastating ‘natural’ disasters, while our planet has seen yet more records broken as our climate catastrophe worsens.
And so as the clock ticks towards the (mostly western) New Year, readers are traditionally subjected by media outlets like ours to the 'yearender'—usually a roundup of main events over the previous 12 months, one horror often overshadowed by the next.
Buoyed by USD 800 million in pledges to the Loss and Damage Fund and an unprecedented agreement to transition away from fossil fuels, but grounded in the reality of the work ahead to meet key climate targets, the Caribbean will need to maintain its focus on sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, and climate resilience.
It was an extraordinary COP Summit in a year characterized by record-breaking temperatures combined with El Niño, producing a climatic carnage in Africa—deaths from fatal floods in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and Libya, where floods wiped out a quarter of a city.
Deadly cyclones in Malawi, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe; a severe drought in Kenya, Niger, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mauritania, and Djibouti; and a months-long winter heatwave in southern African countries—the need for COP28 to deliver the highest ambition on all items.
There is an irreparable connection between culture and the seas: loss of land due to rising sea levels and loss of livelihood due to changing fish migration patterns are having a massive impact on coastal communities.
African scientists and researchers are concerned that the data shows that the continent is being cornered by the spiraling effects of climate change, that the real impact of climate devastation is yet to unfold, and that the region is on the cusp of more severe and catastrophic consequences.
Dr Jasdev Singh Rai, an accomplished ENT doctor who hails from London, is not just attending COP 28; he is representing an organization that brings a unique perspective to the global stage.
In the absence of sufficient urgency to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it is becoming too hot to farm in Africa. Confronted by extreme, intense, and frequent climate events such as record-breaking prolonged dry spells, current agriculture and farming systems are ill equipped to adapt to or alleviate climate change.