Biodiversity

Preserving Life in Cuba for When the Climate Changes

By Ivet González
Nature reserves act as a safe deposit box for biodiversity and contribute to adaptation to climate change. But in a country like Cuba, plagued by a chronic economic crisis, efforts to increase the number of protected areas go largely unnoticed.

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.

GM Crop Could Migrate Dangerously

By Ranjit Devraj
Food security activists who secured a moratorium on introducing genetically modified brinjal (aubergine) into India fear that their efforts are being undermined by the release of GM brinjal in neighbouring Bangladesh.

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.

Trinidadian Fishers Choose Jail over “Seismic Bombing”

By Peter Richards
The demonstration took place on land and sea simultaneously. In the end, police had arrested three people, including Gary Aboud, president of the Trinidadian NGO Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS), but protesters were undaunted. They would be back.

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.

Indonesia’s Forest Communities Victims of ‘Legal Land Grabs’

By Stephanie Wildes
Indonesia’s rainforests are facing “legal land grabs”, allege NGOs. Its ancient communities are finding that their ancestral lands are slipping into the hands of foreign companies for oil palm cultivation, as demand for the product grows in Europe, India and China.

Fishing Communities Will Face Warmer, Acid Oceans

By Desmond Brown
Eating fish has been an integral part of the Caribbean's cultural traditions for centuries. Fish is also a major source of food and essential nutrients, especially in rural areas where there are scores of small coastal communities.

In Anti-Poaching Warning, U.S. Destroys Ivory Stockpiles

By Carey L. Biron
The United States has become the first developed country to destroy its stock of seized ivory, a move being widely lauded by conservation groups pushing for an outright ban on domestic ivory sales.

Q&A: Indonesia Still at High Risk for Catastrophic Fires

By Lusha Chen
In June, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia were enveloped in haze as hundreds of forest fires burned across the island of Sumatra, in the worst pollution crisis to hit Southeast Asia in more than a decade.

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.

Mining Takes a Bite Out of Guyana’s Amazon

By Desmond Brown
Guyana is engaged in a balancing act to save its rainforest, regarded as a living treasure, from the destructive activities of miners digging their way to another kind of treasure buried beneath this fragile ecosystem.

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:

This Bird Has Flown – Forever

By IPS Correspondents
The extinction of a single species (a fish off the coast of Cuba, a bird in the Brazilian forest) creates a void that can trigger a whole series of repercussions, from the alteration of ecosystems to increased hunger.

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.

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.

Plantations Winnow Tigers Down to the Hundreds

By Thalif Deen
The tiger population in the rainforests of Sumatra is vanishing at a staggering rate, reducing the number of the endangered species to as few as 400, warns Greenpeace International.

Cuba’s Mangroves Dying of Thirst

By Ivet González
In the 1960s, the Cuban government declared that storage of fresh water for times of drought or hurricanes was a matter of national security, and it began to dam up the country’s rivers. But that policy has claimed an unforeseen victim: mangroves.

Groups Target Food Waste to Eliminate Hunger

By Marina Lalovic
If all food loss and waste around the world could be recovered, half the world's population, or 3.5 billion people, could be fed. Yet people throw away a third of food produced globally, an issue that inspired the theme of these year's World Food Day, sustainable food systems for food security and nutrition.

Washington State Becomes Latest GMO Battleground

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
The northwestern state of Washington could become the first in the U.S. to require labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) on foods and food packages, after a similar measure in California failed last year.
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