Environment

US Flails in GM Corn Dispute with Mexico

By Timothy A. Wise
Closing arguments are in in the U.S. trade complaint against Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn, with the three-arbitrator tribunal set to rule on the matter in November. The legitimacy of the trade agreement itself hangs in the balance.

Micro-Dams, a Solution to Water Shortages in Rural Brazil

By Mario Osava
Water shortage is over, springs have emerged or become perennial, small ponds with fish have formed and pastures have become greener and more permanent, all thanks to the ‘barraginhas’, the Portuguese name given in Brazil to micro-dams that retain rainwater and infiltrate it into the soil.

Gender Equality Has Everything To Do with Climate Change

By Joyce Chimbi
After years of reporting on the frontlines of climate change, I have witnessed the devastating impact extreme weather events have on women and girls. In Kenya’s pastoralist communities in far-flung areas of Northern Kenya, West Pokot, Samburu and Narok counties, droughts mean a resurgence in harmful cultural practices such as outlawed female genital mutilation (FGM), beading and child marriages.

Empowering Women for a Green Future: AFPPD Conference Tackles Climate Change and Gender Equality

By Annam Lodhi
Robust data collection, integrated policies, and an accelerated push towards a green economy with a gender focus topped the agenda at a conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, that brought together policymakers, experts, and advocates from across the Asia-Pacific region.

Rizwana Hasan Vows to Ensure Justice for Those Killed During Bangladesh’s Quota Reform Movement

By Rafiqul Islam
Justice for all those who died and suffered injuries during the recent student-led quota reform movement in Bangladesh and reforms to the systems to ensure that this justice takes place are not negotiable, an adviser to the Bangladesh interim government, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, told IPS in an exclusive interview

Empowering Africa’s Informal Market Traders To Deliver Safe Food

By Busani Bafana
Local informal food markets feed millions of urbanites in bustling African cities, but the consequences of tainted food could be illness and death for unsuspecting consumers.

Digital Trade & the Sustainable Development Goals: A Dynamic Agenda

By Witada Anukoonwattaka and Preety Bhogal
The rapid growth of digitalization has fundamentally altered commerce, impacting production and facilitating the movement of goods. The 2023 Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report (APTIR), has pointed out that although digital trade revenues of Asia and the Pacific account for a significant share of global trade, this growth is uneven, with trade concentrated in a few areas, leading to disparities across the region.

Hydrogen from Renewables or Fossil Fuels? The Panamanian Question

By Emilio Godoy
In 2021, the Panama Canal welcomed a French experimental ship on a world tour, the Energy Observer, the first electric vessel powered by a combination of renewable energies and a hydrogen production system based on seawater.

Invest in Research to Protect Crops from Future Flooding

By Esther Ngumbi
Tropical Storm Debby has resulted in record-setting rain and flooding events across several States, including Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and parts of Georgia and left a trail of damage including leaving Florida crops flooded.

Small Farmers Feeling Climate Change Heat Find Little Support From the State

By Zofeen Ebrahim
The over 20 million residents of Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, in Sindh province in particular, have been experiencing brutal heat since May. But they are not the only ones bearing the brunt of high temperatures and humidity. Up to 15,000 cattle died due to scorching heat mixed with high humidity which Shakir Umar Gujjar, president of the Cattle and Dairy Farmers Association, Pakistan, said was “no joke”.

Indigenous Peoples — An Antidote in a World of Crisis

By Jamison Ervin and Anna Giulia Medri
This year’s Equator Prize winners are the antidote we need in a world of crisis. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum released its annual Risk Report. The key findings highlighted the inescapable trend over the past decade that we are facing a global polycrisis, in which problems of biodiversity loss, climate change, inequality, water scarcity and conflict are increasingly indivisible, simultaneous, and systemic.

Pacific Community Photographic Winners Bring Impacts of Climate Change to Life

By IPS Correspondent
The Pacific Community’s photographic competition winners reflect the devastating climate impacts on beautiful and sensitive environments, documenting the most pressing issues the communities who live on the islands face today.

Explainer: Why Kenya is Considered a High Climate Risk for Development Banks

By Joyce Chimbi
Kenya contributes less than 0.1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions every year, yet development banks have flagged the East African nation as a high climate risk. This is due to extreme weather changes that are increasingly threatening the country’s development agenda, widening socio-economic inequalities, and deepening rural poverty and hunger.

Water Stories: The Well Seven Families and 400 Buffaloes Rely On

By Tanka Dhakal
In the rural village of Khardariya in the Dang district of Nepal, access to clean water is a major issue. Villagers depend on one poorly managed well for drinking water, cleaning, and feeding livestock. Anjana Yadav stood near the well while a neighbor walked toward it to fetch a bucket of water.

ECUADOR: ‘We demand that the violation of the rights of nature be recognised and reversed’

By CIVICUS
CIVICUS speaks with Darío Iza Pilaquinga, president of the Kitu Kara People of the Kichwa nationality of Ecuador, about a historic court ruling that applied a constitutional provision recognising the rights of nature.

Pivotal Shift at Seabed Authority: Nations Rally for Deep-Sea Mining Moratorium

By Patricia Roy
The International Seabed Authority (ISA) Assembly meeting concluded last week with no mining authorized, an unprecedented number of States calling for a moratorium or precautionary pause and a new Secretary-General elected.

ECOWAS at 49: Successes in Regional Integration, Despite Emerging Challenges

By Kingsley Ighobor
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was founded in 1975 to promote economic integration in the region. Forty-nine years later, the regional bloc boasts significant successes in integration, peace and security and good governance, but also faces some challenges.

The Demise of Democracy and Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh: International Financial Institutions’ Culpability

By Anis Chowdhury and Khalilur Rahman
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) are complicit in the gross human rights violations and death of democracy in Bangladesh. They continued to supply financial blood line to the regime, well-documented for its corruptions, human rights violations – such as forced disappearances and tortures in custody – and riggings of votes, including politicization of state institutions in its slide into autocracy. This is despite their professed commitment to transparency, accountability and good governance (IMF, World Bank, ADB).

Chilean Fisherwomen Seek Visibility and Escape from Vulnerability

By Orlando Milesi
The number of organisations that bring together fisherwomen who seek to be recognised as workers, make their harsh reality visible and escape the vulnerability in which they live is growing in Chile.

How Women Volunteers Are Shaping India’s Water Future

By Manipadma Jena
“Daily squabbles at the lone water point in Bhubaneswar’s slums, where hundreds of households depended on this single non-potable water source, have now receded into the past,” says Aparna Khuntia, a member of a large cohort of water volunteers who have played an important enabling role in ensuring households in the eastern India city now have their own on-premises potable running tap water available all 24 hours.

Partnering for Progress: Maldives’ Sustainable Ocean Initiatives

By Bradley Busetto and Bjorn Andersson
The ocean is our lifeline, covering 70 percent of the earth’s surface, it is the source of half of the oxygen we breathe, and it absorbs 26 percent of the carbon dioxide we produce. It is home to millions of marine species, contains 97 percent of all of the water on our planet and offers humankind immense resources. 
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