Environment

High-Tech to the Rescue of Southern Africa’s Smallholder Farmers

By Kwame Buist
Agriculture is the major employer and a backbone of the economies of Southern Africa.

Lip-Service But Little Action on U.N. Business and Human Rights Principles in Latin America

By Emilio Godoy
“I would tell institutions and companies that are aware of the enormous damage they do to the soil, plants and the environment, to respect the decisions of the people. They are attacking life and health,” complained Taurino Rincón, an indigenous Mexican.

Opinion: Sustainable Development Goals Could Be a Game-Changer for Water

By Betsy Otto and Kitty van der Heijden
Suppose money was being deposited and withdrawn from your bank account, but you didn’t know how much. And suppose you knew you had bills coming due, but you didn’t know when or what amount would be required to cover them.

Women in the Philippines at the Forefront of the Health Food Movement

By Diana Mendoza
When Tinay Alterado’s team from ARUGAAN, an organisation of women healthcare advocates, visited Eastern Visayas, a region of the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, they noticed that the relief and rescue sites were flooded with donated milk formula, which nursing mothers were feeding to their babies in vast quantities.

UNDP Unveils Blueprint for Swift, Unified Crisis Response

By Ramesh Jaura
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has announced a new 10-year global plan to support country efforts to reduce the risk of disasters that kill people and destroy livelihoods. The plan was unveiled at the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction which ended on Mar. 18.

Why Investors Should Think Twice before Investing in Coal in India – Part 2

By Chaitanya Kumar
In November last year, India’s power minister Piyush Goyal announced that he plans to double coal production in India by the end of this decade and, in an effort to enhance production, the Indian government has started a process of auctioning coal blocks.

In Thrall to the Mall Crawl and Urban Sprawl

By Kitty Stapp
There's little argument about the basic facts: It's ugly (think strip malls and big box stores). It's not very convenient (hours spent behind the wheel to get to work). And it wreaks havoc on the natural environment (lost farmland and compromised watersheds).

Key to Preventing Disasters Lies in Understanding Them

By Ramesh Jaura
The Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction concluded on Wednesday after a long drawn-out round of final negotiations, with representatives of 187 U.N. member states finally agreeing on what is being described as a far-reaching new framework for the next 15 years: 2015-2030.

Middle Income Nations Home to Half the World’s Hungry

By Thalif Deen
Nearly half of the world’s hungry, amounting to about 363 million people, live in some of the rising middle income countries, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Why Investors Should Think Twice before Investing in Coal in India – Part 1

By Chaitanya Kumar
India’s Government under Narendra Modi is in overdrive mode to please businesses and investments in the country. The much aggrandised ‘Make in India’ campaign launched in September 2014 is a clarion call for spurring investments into manufacturing and services in India and all eyes have turned to the power sector which is expected to undergo dramatic shifts.

Women Turn Drought into a Lesson on Sustainability

By Zofeen Ebrahim
When a group of women in the remote village of Sadhuraks in Pakistan’s Thar Desert, some 800 km from the port city of Karachi, were asked if they would want to be born a woman in their next life, the answer from each was a resounding ‘no’.

Caribbean Community Climate-Smarting Fisheries, But Slowly

By Zadie Neufville
Caribbean nations have begun work on a plan to ‘climate smart’ the region's fisheries as part of overall efforts to secure food supplies.

Socioenvironmental Catastrophe Emerges from the Ashes of Patagonia’s Forests

By Fabiana Frayssinet
In the wake of the fire that destroyed more than 34,000 hectares of forests, some of them ancient, in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region, the authorities will have to put out flames that are no less serious: the new socio-environmental catastrophe that will emerge from the ashes.

Indonesia’s Palm Oil Industry in Need of a Makeover

By Amantha Perera
Over the past three decades, 50 percent of the 544,150 square kilometres that comprise Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, has been taken over by the palm oil industry.

Opinion: Climate Change Continues, Impervious to Official Declarations

By Roberto Savio
It is now clear that we are not going to reach the goal of controlling climate change.

Cyclone Pam Prompts Action for Vanuatu at Sendai Conference

By Jamshed Baruah
Cyclone Pam has not only caused unprecedented damages to the Pacific island of Vanuatu but also lent urgency to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s plea that disaster risk reduction is in “everybody’s interest”.

Canada’s Waste Still Rotting in a Philippine Port

By Diana Mendoza
Filipino Catholic priest and activist Reverend Father Robert Reyes, dubbed by media as the “running priest”, joined a protest of environmental and public health activists last week by running along the streets of the Makati Business District, the Philippines’ financial capital, to urge the government to immediately re-export the 50 Canadian containers filled with hazardous wastes that have been in the Port of Manila for 600 days now.

Anger Seethes in Gabon after Wood Company Sacks Protesting Workers

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
There is rising anger among trade unionists, environmentalists and civil society groups in Gabon after a wood company, Rain Forest Management (RFM), sacked 38 fixed-term workers last month in Mbomao, Ogooué-Ivindo province.

Sendai Conference to Move From Managing Disasters to Risk Prevention

By Jamshed Baruah and Katsuhiro Asagiri
As the world inched towards a crucial United Nations Conference in Sendai, Japan, Margareta Wahlström, head of the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), assured that there was “general agreement” on the need to “move from managing disasters to managing disaster risk”. 

Feeding a Warmer, Riskier World

By José Graziano da Silva
Artificial meat. Indoor aquaculture. Vertical farms. Irrigation drones. Once the realm of science fiction, these things are now fact. Food production is going high tech – at least, in some places.

Safeguarding Africa’s Wetlands a Daunting Task

By Tonderayi Mukeredzi
African wetlands are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the continent, covering more than 131 million hectares, according to the Senegalese-based Wetlands International Africa (WIA).
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*