How to Break the Stalemate on Global Sustainability

The current growth model is not sustainable. Neither the green economy nor alternative sources of energy can prevent global warming. Solutions will come from concerted actions at the local and national levels, from the adoption of instruments and practices borrowed from other disciplines like peacebuilding, and from the move to a “no-waste economy”, according to experts here.

“Eco-Reconstruction” Still an Impossible Dream for Chilean Village

The reconstruction of the fishing village of Boyeruca, destroyed by the tsunami that swept over central-south Chile on Feb. 27, 2010, was meant to serve as a model of ecological and sustainable reconstruction.

Most Inhumane of Weapons

I believe that most of the world’s citizens would agree that nuclear weapons should be considered inhumane. It is encouraging to see that there is now a growing, if still nascent, movement to outlaw nuclear weapons based on this premise.

New Plans to Protect Nature

At the close of the ten-day World Conservation Congress that ran from Sept. 6-15 on the South Korean island of Jeju, members of the convening International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) agreed on an ambitious four-year action plan for protecting global natural resources.

Rio Summit’s Legacy Still a Question Mark

Academics gathered in Washington on Wednesday suggested that the mixed experience at the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in June, has increased the importance of citizen engagement and consumer accountability in issues of environment, renewable energy and sustainability.

Farming Among the Waste in Cameroon

Cameroonian urban famer Juliana Numfor has six plots of land where she grows maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and leafy vegetables, including cabbages, wild okra and greens.

Riding Towards Sustainable Development, on Bamboo

In Ghana, a country burgeoning with traffic congestion, increasing economic growth, and a stark urban-rural divide, making frames of bicycles out of bamboo could be the key to promoting sustainable development. It also makes stronger, longer-lasting bikes.

Q&A: Sustainability Now a Matter of Life and Death

Humanity is living beyond its means with the growing demand for food, medicines and other nature-based products, making sustainable consumption and conservation a matter of life and death. This is according to the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network, the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Trash Collectors Become Zimbabwe’s Unlikely Climate Change Ambassadors

Tomson Chikowero was ashamed of his job. He did not want anyone finding out what he did to earn a living, so he used to wake up early every morning and leave his home in Hatfield, a residential suburb in Zimbabwe’s capital city Harare, under the cover of darkness.

Q&A: Sustainable Development Key to Reducing Drug Use

"Drugs and crime threaten one of our most important goals - to ensure sustainable development around the world," United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated on Jun. 26, during a General Assembly debate on drugs and crime  as a threat to development.

Eco-Villages Breathe New Life Into Rural Senegal

Eighty-odd kilometres outside Dakar, the Senegalese capital, solar power and an irrigation scheme are transforming a traditional village into what the government hopes will be a model for the future of the countryside.

Market Gardens Key to Autonomy for Niger Women

Four figures bend intently over their work in one corner of the large vegetable garden near the western Niger village of Dioga. Months after the village's main harvest has been brought in – and eaten up – the irrigated green of the garden is welcome relief in a part of the country where hunger never seems far away.

Get Ready for a World of Nine Billion

As the global population threatens to explode - from the current seven billion to over nine billion by mid-century - the sharp increase in humans not only means overcrowded cities but also increasing demands on food, water, energy and shelter, foreshadowing devastating implications for a sustainable future.

Rio’s Roadmap Falls Flat, Civil Society Groups Say

"Very disappointing." That was the term business and non-governmental organisations used to describe the formal intergovernmental negotiations at the Rio+20 Earth Summit as of Tuesday.