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Sunday, November 8, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Biodiversity
Companies Calculate Their Debt to Planet Earth
As ravenous consumers of natural resources, companies are beginning to recognise that they owe a monetary debt to the planet, and are sharpening their pencils to calculate it.
Saving the Top 100 Threatened Species – a Question of Valuing Life
The Red River Giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is the stuff of legend in Vietnam. The fabled turtle in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake is popularly known by the name Kim Qui or Golden Turtle God, and it made its first historical appearance in 250 BC.
Ivory Ban Fails to Stem Surge in Elephant Poaching
With 2011 marking the deadliest year for poaching-related elephant deaths in Africa since an international ivory ban went into effect in 1989, a new investigative report released here Friday points to the ongoing impact of religious custom as well as the newfound economic might of China.
Salvadoran Bay Breeds Hope for Sea Turtles
El Salvador’s Jiquilisco Bay, a tiny hidden corner of the Pacific Ocean, is becoming a haven for endangered sea turtles.Getting Into the Business of Environment
Regulations that stand in the way of conservation programmes lower their likely success, experts warned at the World Conservation Congress of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Jeju, South Korea.U.S. Points to ‘Gross Negligence’ by BP
The U.S. justice department is blaming BP PLC for the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, describing in new court papers examples of what it calls "gross negligence and willful misconduct".
Small Step to Set Up the Biggest Marine Park
The world’s largest marine park is due to be launched in the Cook Islands located in the Pacific Ocean about 3,000 km from New Zealand. Covering an area of almost a million square kilometres, the park will be three times the size of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and twice as large as the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean that topped the list of marine protected areas (MPAs) for two years.
Study Damns Mekong Dams
Impoverished Laos is unlikely to cancel a Thai project to build a mega dam across the Mekong River at Xayaburi, despite warnings from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that it could devastate the region’s rich biodiversity.
Feed Europe, Feed the World
A huge moment for reform of the industrial farming system in Europe has many stakeholders on edge. Farmers who are feeling the crunch of rising input costs – from fertilisers to fuel – believe they can benefit greatly from a transition to more traditional and sustainable farming methods.
Philippines Floods Prompt Climate Action
This year’s floods, one of the worst in Philippine history, destroyed a staggering 57 million dollars worth of crops, pushing this climate vulnerable country to implement disaster risk reduction measures.
Whose Timber is it Anyway?
With Pakistan’s last major stands of deodar (cedar) threatened by a ‘timber mafia’, the local people in the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are resorting to direct action to stop the denudation of their picturesque alpine homeland.
Beating the Weather With Sustainable Crops
Narrow, cobblestoned lanes separate the rows of mud houses with cool interiors and mud-smoothened patios, some with goats tethered to the wooden posts. This is Tajpura village, deep in this water-stressed, drought-prone region of northern India.
Hydropower Dam to Flood Sacred Amazon Indigenous Site
The Sete Quedas or “seven waterfalls” on the Teles Pires River, which runs through the Amazon rainforest states of Mato Grosso and Pará in central Brazil, are a spiritual oasis venerated by several indigenous groups.
Europe Thinks Again About Food
Present day European farming is based on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was created over six decades ago by countries emerging from severe food shortages that swept the continent during and after the Second World War.
Crocs and Humans Clash in Shrinking Space
Twenty two-year-old Ajay Kallu, hailing from the Bakultala village in northern Andamans, was devoured by an estuarine crocodile when he waded waist deep into a creek to fish on the morning of Aug. 1, marking the fifth fatal crocodile attack in 28 months in the remote Islands that lie at the juncture of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
U.N. Launches New Oceans Compact Following Expo 2012
As the three-month-long international exhibition Expo 2012 came to a close in the South Korean coastal town of Yeosu last week, the United Nations announced the launch of an "Oceans Compact" aimed at the preservation of marine resources worldwide.
Jeju Island Base Divides Korean, International Green Groups
As construction of a hotly contested naval base on South Korea’s Jeju Island advances, there’s a showdown underway.
It’s Either Orangutans Or Cheap Palm Oil
When four men were sentenced to eight months in jail in March for the ‘murder’ of orangutans, it was the first time that people associated with Indonesia’s booming palm oil industry were convicted for killing man’s close relations in the primate family.
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.
Climate-Battered South Asia Looks to Rio+20 Formula
Far-flung South Asian communities, from the high Himalayan slopes to the Indian Ocean coasts, united in the face of extreme and uncertain weather, continue to hold on to the hope that the Rio+20 focus on disaster risk reduction (DRR) will positively influence national policies.
UNESCO Protection Crucial – and Controversial
It took six years for a dedicated team of scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India, wildlife officials from six Indian states and officials from the federal ministry to secure international protection for one of India’s most precious biological reserves.« Previous Page — Next Page »
The world's diverse flora and fauna are facing urgent threats due to pollution, climate change, commercialization of nature and other forms of harmful human intervention. The widespread loss of biodiversity is worrying not simply because of the disappearance of exotic species which deserve saving, but because tampering with nature's equilibrium means that the loss of one form of life is a threat to another. IPS taps into its own diverse network of correspondents around the world to report on continuing and emerging dangers to nature's riches - and the struggle to protect them.
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