26 July 2017: According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) data, only 45 countries worldwide were able to assess changes in forest area and characteristics through consecutive systematic national forest inventories in 2010. The ‘Voluntary Guidelines on Forest Monitoring,’ published by FAO, help address this issue and underpin the tracking of national forestry management commitments under diverse global agreements, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
RESEARCH looking at the demand for forage by all grazing animals is underway in a project that could deliver valuable information to rangelands livestock producers about the time when risks of losing feedbase occur.
This unique national study will apply a cross sector and jurisdiction approach to also deliver a solid base of information to natural resource managers.
NSW Department of Primary Industries senior research scientist Dr Cathy Waters, based at Trangie Research Centre, is leading the Meat and Livestock Australia-supported project.
Water use for food production today largely occurs on the expense of ecosystems. About 40 percent of the water used for irrigation are unsustainable withdrawals that violate so-called environmental flows of rivers, a new study shows for the first time. If these volumes were to be re-allocated to the ecosystems, crop yields would drop by at least 10% on half of all irrigated land, especially in Central and South Asia.
Environmental groups have been pressing the government to stop the trade, citing its serious impact on coastal ecosystems and surrounding land
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia has banned all sand exports on environmental grounds, the Ministry of Mines and Energy said on Wednesday, officially ending the sale of sand to Singapore which has for years used it to reclaim land along its coasts.
The Amazon basin faces irreversible environmental disturbance on an enormous scale due to hydroelectric dam development. Hundreds of existing and planned dams in both the Amazonian lowlands and the Andean headwaters are already impacting, and will continue affecting, waterways, floodplains and the estuary by disrupting sediment and nutrient flows.
This is the message of a new study, published in Nature, which quantified the impacts of dams on the hydrology and geography of each of the Amazon’s 19 major sub-basins.
Religious and indigenous leaders appealed on Monday for better protection of tropical forests from the Amazon to the Congo basin, with a Vatican bishop likening current losses to a collective suicide by humanity.
Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist representatives met indigenous peoples in Oslo to explore moral and ethical arguments to shield forests that are under threat from logging and land clearance for farms.
NEW DELHI, Jun 12 2017 (IPS) - In Meghalaya, India’s northeastern biodiversity hotspot, all three major tribes are matrilineal. Children take the mother’s family name, while daughters inherit the family lands.
Because women own land and have always decided what is grown on it and what is conserved, the state not only has a strong climate-resistant food system but also some of the rarest edible and medicinal plants, researchers said.
How do you deal with bureaucratic inefficiencies and weak capacity, to say nothing of endemic impoverishment, corruption, criminal gangs and staggering inequities that undermine property rights worldwide? Is there a way for those in the private and nonprofit sectors to engage with government to fill some of the gaps in the provision of property rights, without making the situation worse? A way to get involved without further complicating matters?
MONROVIA – When Liberia signed a series of contracts with international palm oil producers in the years after its protracted civil war, the news was greeted by some as a welcome sign of national renewal. Despite criticism voiced by local and international advocacy groups that the massive deals amounted to “land grabs,” the prospect of tens of thousands of jobs, tax revenues for a cash-starved government, and repaired roads and ports was too much for Liberian officials to pass on.
San José del Guaviare, Colombia – Flying over the gateway to the Amazon in Colombia’s Chiribiquite National Park, the scene below is a paradise of nature untouched. Rivers snake through dense forest, carving pristine beaches from the banks, while the only breaks in the treeline are from the rocks that soar up over the park.
These innovations did not exist in 2010 when heavy flooding devastated the area, destroying crops, ecosystems and more than 20,000 homes.
The town of El Torno, in Colombia's northern province of Sucre, was seriously affected by flooding, which destroyed crops and homes, but today the community of 600 residents is an example of resilience and sustainable adaptation to climate change.