Biodiversity

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.

Re-Connect with Nature Now… Before It Is Too Late!

By Baher Kamal
Now that president Donald Trump has announced the withdrawal of the world’s largest polluter in history—the United States, from the Paris Accord, perhaps one of the most specific warnings is what a United Nations independent expert on rights and the environment has just said: “We should be fully aware that we cannot enjoy our basic human rights without a healthy environment.”

Asia: 260 Million Indigenous Peoples Marginalised, Discriminated

By Baher Kamal
Asia is home to the largest number of indigenous peoples on Earth, with an estimated 260 million of a total of 370 million original inhabitants worldwide. In spite of their huge number-equaling half of the combined population of Europe-- they are often victims of discrimination and denial of their rights.

Climate Change Has Changed the Geography of Honduras’ Caribbean Coast

By Thelma Mejía
In Balfate, a rural municipality that includes fishing villages and small farms along Honduras’ Caribbean coast, the effects of climate change are already felt on its famous scenery and beaches. The sea is relentlessly approaching the houses, while the ecosystem is deteriorating.

The Very Survival of Africa’s Indigenous Peoples ‘Seriously Threatened’

By Baher Kamal
The cultures and very survival of indigenous peoples in Africa are seriously threatened. They are ignored, neglected and fall victims of land grabbing and land dispossession caused by extractive industries, agribusiness and other forms of business operations.

Caribbean Rolls Out Plans to Reduce Climate Change Hazards

By Desmond Brown
Climate change remains inextricably linked to the challenges of disaster risk reduction (DRR). And according to the head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), Robert Glasser, the reduction of greenhouse gases is “the single most urgent global disaster risk treatment”.

Caribbean Scientists Work to Limit Climate Impact on Marine Environment

By Zadie Neufville
Caribbean scientists say fishermen are already seeing the effects of climate change, so for a dozen or so years they’ve been designing systems and strategies to reduce the impacts on the industry.

New Generation Rallies to Climate Cause in Trinidad

By Jewel Fraser
As two environmental activist groups in Trinidad and Tobago powered by young volunteers prepare to ramp up their climate change and sustainability activism, they are also contemplating their own sustainability and how they can become viable over the long-term.
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