Combating Desertification and Drought

Indoor Mini-Farms to Beat Climate Change

By Jewel Fraser
Industrial engineer Ancel Bhagwandeen thinks that growing your food indoors is a great way to protect crops from the stresses of climate change. So he developed a hydroponic system that “leverages the nanoclimates in houses so that the house effectively protects the produce the same way it protects us,” he says.

Website Gives Real-Time Snapshot of Deforestation

By Bryant Harris
A new website launched Thursday will allow governments, businesses, civil society and private citizens to monitor near real-time loss and gain in forest cover in every country around the world.

“Blessed” Rains Become a Curse in Antigua

By Desmond Brown
Antigua is one of the most drought-prone countries in the Caribbean. So whenever it rains, the inhabitants generally regard the weather as “showers of blessing”.

U.N.’s Post-2015 Agenda Needs a Triple Play

By Thalif Deen
As the international community fleshes out a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be unveiled next year, civil society activists and U.N. officials agree their success will hinge on policies that address the nexus of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation.

The Carbon Warrior

By Anna Shen
Watching the colossal destruction of Typhoon Haiyan over the past month, Columbia University Professor Graciela Chichilnisky knows one thing for sure: climate change will likely result in more of these massive storms, threatening the very existence of humanity.

In Haiti, Planting Trees Is No Simple Matter

By Correspondents
Reforestation and soil conservation programmes costing many thousands of dollars in this rural community have resulted in hundreds of small ledges built of straw or sacks of earth. In certain areas, the earthworks seem to be lasting, but in others, they are disintegrating.

South Scores 11th-Hour Win on Climate Loss and Damage

By Stephen Leahy
The U.N. climate talks in Warsaw ended in dramatic fashion Saturday evening in what looked like a schoolyard fight with a mob of dark-suited supporters packed around the weary combatants, Todd Stern of the United States and Sai Navoti of Fiji representing G77 nations.

New Hope for Haiti’s Decimated Forests

By Desmond Brown
Small farmers could play an important part in making Haiti – where just two percent of trees are still standing – green again.

U.N. Climate Meet: “It’s About Survival”

By Desmond Brown
For the small island developing states of the Caribbean, there is nothing more important than the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place here at the national stadium of Poland from Nov. 11-22.

OP-ED: A Global Green New Deal for Sustainable Development

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Eight decades ago, during the Great Depression, newly elected U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the New Deal consisting of a number of mutually supporting initiatives of which the most prominent were:

World Headed for a High-Speed Carbon Crash

By Stephen Leahy
If global carbon emissions continue to rise at their current rate, humanity will eventually be left with no other option than a costly, world war-like mobilisation, scientists warned this week.

Jordan’s Farmers Struggle to Weather Climate Change

By Elizabeth Whitman
Abu Waleed isn't quite sure where to begin his litany of grievances. Bugs that chomp their way through the mint he grows, or the dry well that forces him to pump water from a half kilometre away? Or perhaps the 160 dinars he spent on spinach seeds only to see scant growth after planting.

Mongolia’s Wild Asses Cornered From All Sides

By Michelle Tolson
Decades of international and local collaboration have brought the Tahki or Asian Wild Horse back from the brink of extinction and reintroduced herds to Mongolia’s Gobi desert and grasslands. However, the country’s other wild equine - the Mongolian Wild Ass or Khulan - is fast disappearing.

The United States of Drought

By Ramy Srour
As the planet heats up and larger populations demand larger water supplies, the United States will be left high and dry if it fails to address a worsening water shortage.

When Poverty Quietly Morphs into Catastrophe

By Miriam Gathigah and George Gao
Wambui Karunyu, 72, and her seven-year-old grandson are the only surviving members of their immediate family.  Karunyu’s husband and five children all succumbed to the hardships of living in the semi-arid area of lower Mukurweini district in central Kenya.

U.S. Science Reporters Becoming an Endangered Species

By Zofeen Ebrahim
The news for environmental journalism in the United States is grim and getting grimmer.

The Coming Plague

By Stephen Leahy
A climate plague affecting every living thing will likely start in 2020 in southern Indonesia, scientists warned Wednesday in the journal Nature. A few years later the plague will have spread throughout the world's tropical regions.

Small Island Economies Battered by Erratic Weather

By Desmond Brown
Malcolm Wallace always knew on which side his bread would be buttered.

How to Tell the Biggest Stories of Our Times

By Kanya D'Almeida
What does gorilla conservation have in common with the provision of contraceptives to women? How does rural-urban migration contribute to global warming? What does city planning in Kenya have to do with coastal erosion in the Philippines?

OP-ED: Sustainable Development Goals After 2015

By Olivier De Schutter, Jochen Flasbarth, and Dr. Hans R. Herren
Reducing the proportion of undernourished people by half until 2015 was one of the Millennium Development Goals that the international community set in 2000. It will not be reached: At least 870 million people worldwide – and one child in five – still go hungry; this in a world where we already produce enough food today to feed nine billion people in 2050.

Trinidad’s Farmers Outpaced by Climate Change

By Jewel Fraser
Dalchan Singh, a root crop farmer and board member of the Agricultural Society of Trinidad and Tobago, says the past year has seen drastic changes in the weather of this twin-island Caribbean nation.
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