Reframing Rio

Upo wetlands - a Ramsar site in South Korea preserves natural resources. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

SOUTH KOREA: Preventing Desertification Better Than Cure

By Manipadma Jena
"Humanity is the only desert-making species and we’ve been degrading usable land at one percent per year," says Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

G20 Steps to Boost Economy Welcomed Cautiously

By A. D. McKenzie
Responding to pressure from civil society and members within their own ranks, the Group of 20 industrialised and emerging countries on Saturday said they were committed to reforming the financial sector and were examining innovative methods to fund development.
The Amazon and Cerrado regions face the risk of the extinction of species on a scale never before seen in human history. Credit: Fabíola Ortiz/IPS

Q&A: “The Future of Brazil is the Natural Knowledge Economy”

By Fabíola Ortiz
Brazil could play a leading role in a new global agenda for sustainable development and become an "environmental power", says Carlos Nobre, one of the world’s foremost climate change experts.
Photojournalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand Credit: Tressia Boukhors/IPS

Q&A: Environmental Awareness Through Imagery

By Tressia Boukhors
Through photo and film, French photojournalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand aims to demonstrate the environmental impacts of human activity and to raise public awareness about environmental issues.
Sea levels on the coasts of Côte d

Rising Seas Gnawing at West Africa’s Coastline

By Fulgence Zamblé
Sea levels on the coasts of Côte d'Ivoire and other West African countries have risen again this year, devastating houses and other infrastructure. The search for effective solutions is lagging behind accelerating coastal erosion.

ENVIRONMENT: Youth Share Best Practices at Tunza

By IPS Correspondents
Participants at the ‘Tunza International Children and Youth Conference’ underway in this Indonesian city shared best practices and ideas with fellow delegates on Wednesday, hoping they would get replicated.
Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai campaigned to save the Mabira Forest Reserve. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

Re-Greening Africa in the Footsteps of Wangari Maathai

By Isaiah Esipisu
Africa needs to remain focused and continue following the late Professor Wangari Maathai’s initiatives for environmental sustainability in order to address climate change across the continent, environmentalists say.
"The countries of the North have the responsibility to change the economic model," says Kempf. Credit: Courtesy Hervé Kempf

Q&A: Change the System to Save the Planet

By Marcela Valente
To save the planet from climate change and the loss of biodiversity, we must leave capitalism behind and seek out a less consumerist, more socially just system, insists French environmental journalist Hervé Kempf.

Rwanda Wins Gold for Forest Conservation Blueprint

By Stephen Leahy
Government policies are seldom lauded, yet Rwanda's forest policy has resulted in a 37-percent increase in forest cover on a continent better known for deforestation and desertification.

DEVELOPMENT: France Steps Up Support for Financial Transaction Tax

By A. D. McKenzie
If governments could find trillions of dollars to support banks and the global financial system in 2009, why can't they raise enough money to help eradicate extreme poverty? This is the question that supporters of a financial transaction tax (FTT) are asking in France, as lawmakers debate introducing such a levy to help fund development at home and abroad.

DEVELOPMENT: When Poverty Goals Fail, What Next?

By IPS Correspondents
The United Nations is the only legitimate body to lead a post- 2015 action plan for development, according to civil society ambassadors from around the world.

Citizen Actions Turn Up the Heat for a Warming Planet

By IPS Correspondents
Civil society leaders meeting here for the 2011 CIVICUS World Assembly are looking ahead toward next year's Rio+20 summit – a milestone anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, and a crucial meeting of U.N. member states and non-governmental organisations to work towards a greener future.

‘EU Needs to Tell Itself More About Development’

By Daan Bauwens
There is increasing political will now for a globalised strategy for the European Union to raise awareness about development, experts say. But at the same time, the European budget for education on development issues remains strikingly low.
Michael Renner. Credit: Courtesy of Michael Renner

Q&A: NGOs Must Play Key Role in Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development

By José Domingo Guariglia
As the United Nations readies for a major international conference on sustainable development next June in Brazil, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are preparing to play a key role in the run-up to the summit meeting and are preparing a plan of action to be adopted by world leaders.

CENTRAL AMERICA: ‘Green Economy’ Not a Panacea

By Danilo Valladares
The "green economy" will not solve the problems of poverty and natural disasters in Central America as long as the development model continues to be based on over-consumption and over-production, regional experts say.

Africa Remains Hamstrung in Battle for Water and Sanitation

By Thalif Deen
The statistics coming out of Africa are staggering: 40 percent of Africa’s 1 billion people live in urban areas and 60 percent live in slums, where water supplies and sanitation are "severely inadequate", according to the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

‘Sustainable Development Must Start with People’

By Thalif Deen
When world leaders meet in Brazil next June for a U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, the third since the landmark 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the question lingering in the minds of many is: what really is "sustainable development" in the context of a fast-changing world of growing poverty, hunger, pollution, political repression and social unrest?

LATIN AMERICA: Sustainable Development, Not ‘Green Economy’

By Emilio Godoy
With less than a year to go for the Rio+20 Summit, civil society in Latin America and the Caribbean is mustering its strength to defend the principles of sustainable development, as opposed to the model of a "green economy", which it views as only benefiting the business interests of big companies.

BURKINA FASO: Big Boost for Small Agricultural Producers

By Brahima Ouédraogo
The government of Burkina Faso has responded to long-standing demands of farmers for greater support for small family producers with the launch of "Operation 100,000 Ploughs". Smallholder farmers say this will strengthen the country's food security.
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