‘It Should be Named Planet Ocean, Not Planet Earth’

Oceans, seas and coasts provide over 200 million jobs globally, while 4.3 billion people get 15 percent of their intake of animal protein from the seas. Travel and tourism, ports and energy production use oceans and seas to create jobs and economic and social benefits for millions of people.

Agroecology Proves Cheap and Efficient on Brazilian Farm*

An agroecological farm outside of Rio de Janeiro is a testing ground for scientists and agronomists in Brazil, who have worked there for two decades to show that it is possible to produce a wide range of natural agricultural products in a cheap, efficient way that harms neither the environment nor human health.

Disasters Hold Climate Change Lessons for Thais

The Kiriwong community in southern Thailand is confident of handling climate change, thanks to lessons learned from a natural disaster that hit its village 25 years ago.

Earth Summits Fail Biodiversity in India

Heads of state and governments are meeting in Rio de Janeiro this week to decide how to renew their pledges made during the first Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992.

RIO+20: Reforestation Pledges Reach Only 12 Percent of Target

The world's countries have committed themselves so far to restoring just 18 million hectares of forests by 2020, barely 12 percent of the goal of 150 million hectares agreed by the Bonn Challenge in 2011.

RIO+20 Doubts over Impact of Sustainable Development Dialogues

Announced as an innovative way to encourage the participation of Internet users and the public in general in the debates at Rio+20, the proposal for Sustainable Development Dialogues also raised doubts about the impact its recommendations would have.

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.

Rio Outcome Bleak With No New Funding*

Amidst recrimination, anger and charges of “strong arm tactics”, negotiators eventually endorsed a global plan of action for sustainable development following marathon sessions lasting over six weary days.

World Bank: Latin America Has the Green Antidote Within Reach

The natural resources of currently buoyant Latin America could be significantly depleted in less than a generation. Combined with the fact that this is the region with the greatest income inequality between the rich and the poor, the outlook might appear disastrous. But the warning, voiced by the World Bank, is not meant as cause for despair.

Q&A: Planting the Seeds for Sustainable Development

By now, the dilemma is well recognised but hardly solved: as the global population grows, resources become increasingly scarce. Indeed, food production will have to increase by a whopping 60 percent by 2050 in order to meet the future demand for food and agricultural products.

UN, People’s Summit Clash over Green Economy

U.N. Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner believes that he and the Rio+20 People’s Summit agree that the global economic model has caused the current environmental destruction. But the discussion on what to replace it with turned into an acrid debate.

New Set of Sustainable Development Goals Looks Beyond 2015*

When world leaders from over 100 countries wind up their three-day Rio+20 summit in Brazil next week, they will leave behind the shattered remains of a slew of proposals that never got off the ground.

RIO+20: Developing Countries Accept Green Economy*

It’s not true that developing countries conditioned the inclusion of the green economy in the final document at Rio+20 on clearly defined provisions for financing, the head of the Venezuelan delegation, Claudia Salerno, told TerraViva.

Green Turns Trendy in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Jun 17 (IPS) 2012 - Studies on carbon emissions conducted in the Bogor Agricultural University (BAU) in West Java confirm that the worst culprits are students with their trendy lifestyles.

Rio+20: Concrete Goals the Only Recipe for Success

Goals drive action, and that's why establishing a set of Sustainable Development Goals is so important to put the world on a sustainable pathway, experts said Saturday under the tropical fig and palm forest that covers much of the ground at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro.

Back to the Future With Local Rice Seeds

By coaxing a bumper 3.2 tonnes of rice out of each acre on his organic farm in this district famed for its ancient Buddhist monasteries, Charitha Wijeratne has convincingly proved that using indigenous seeds does not affect productivity.

Europe and Former Colonies Urge Action at Rio+20

Europe and 79 of its former colonies have sent a strong message to the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil next week that it should use the opportunity to both fulfill past promises and deal with "new and emerging challenges".

People’s Summit Alive With the Sound of Voices

Swallowed up in the crowd in front of the spectacular Guanabara Bay, indigenous leader Apolinario from Brazil’s Amazon rainforest acted as an impromptu guide on the first day of the People's Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Earth’s Future Not for Sale, Activists Say

Just ahead of the start of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), many are worried about the influence that corporations will have on the summit's agenda.

Liberia Looking for a Sustainable Economic Future at Rio+20

Deep in the forest in Gbarpolu County, northwest Liberia, a group of men working a surface gold mine are asked what will happen to the land when they are finished with it.

Activists Aren’t Mourning Obama’s Absence at Rio Summit

When a reluctant George H.W. Bush, Sr., then U.S. president, changed his mind and decided at the eleventh hour to address the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, he sounded defensive in his strong response to charges that the United States was one of the major powers responsible for the some of the world's worst environmental ills - from greenhouse gases to conspicuous consumption.