News

The National Park is among the first to be created in the world after the recent launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration The new park offers more room to roam for the critically endangered Balkan lynx

Skopje, North Macedonia, 1 July 2021 – The creation of Shar Mountain National Park in North Macedonia means the final puzzle piece for one of the largest transboundary protected areas in Europe

Over the last 30 years, more and more tea, coffee and cocoa farmers have embraced towards climate-smart and sustainable practices by adopting “certification standards” that help to maintain soil quality, increase productivity and reduce costs. The standards also assure buyers of agricultural commodities that the products in their supply chains are environmentally sustainable.

Today, when students file into the lunchroom at Mundika High School in western Kenya, they are greeted by a spread of nutritious local vegetables with exotic-sounding names, like spider plant. But that wasn’t always the case. Just a few years ago, that fare had largely disappeared from Kenyan plates, replaced by cheaper foreign-derived foods, like cabbage and maize meal.

For Madagascar farmer Edmond, who goes by one name, it was a breakthrough. In 2019 he perfected a complicated technique to grow a rare species of tree known as Dalbergia normandii.

The plants hail from a valuable, and difficult-to-propagate family of trees known as rosewoods, which have been felled near to the point of extinction in many parts of Madagascar.

When you are a small island nation, every inch of space counts. But from rising sea levels to natural disasters and coastal erosion, in the age of climate change many islands are shrinking before their citizens’ very eyes.

In the lead up to International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem on 26 July, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is running a series of stories on mangroves, and their impact on the environment and economies of countries across the world.

 

With reports suggesting COVID-19 could spark food shortages around the world, food systems experts and United Nations officials say countries must increase the resilience of their agricultural systems.

Remote mountainous regions of Nepal are harsh places in which to survive and make a living.

Economic, social and environmental challenges include lack of market access, outmigration, dependency on imports and subsidies, women’s drudgery, malnutrition, unpredictable weather, pests and diseases.

Maintaining healthy ecosystems are important to help protect against the spread of disease. A large mixture of species means that some act as ‘dead end’ hosts, preventing diseases from spreading.

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have pockets of food insecurity. These can appear and develop for many reasons. And in some cases, simple nature-based solutions can make a significant difference to people’s lives.

The world faces huge and unprecedented biodiversity and climate change challenges. One way we can help address these challenges is through the restoration of degraded land.

Did you know that, typically, less than 7 per cent of the price of your chocolate bar goes to cocoa producers?

For Thanh, the six annual tea harvests form the rhythm of family life, having raised her two children among the waist-high tea bushes that carpet the steamy slopes near her home in northern Vietnam’s Yen Bai province.

Today, Thanh is proud of the thick, green leaves her tea bushes produce, stretching in straight rows across her two-hectare plantation. But it wasn’t always this way.

Flowing in shades of green and brown to the horizon from the curves of Kenya’s largest river as it approaches the sea, the Tana Delta is a paradise for wildlife.

Sometimes referred to as ‘the bread basket of Georgia’, Dedoplistskaro’s fertile soils have provided a living for generations of farmers. But today, periods of drought, compounded by strong, dry winds that erode fields and scatter seeds, are hitting local communities hard.

The hills surrounding Ahbohibary Kofay used to be filled with birdsong, says Lydia, who tends a small rice paddy outside the tiny village at the bottom of Bemolanga valley. That was until this area in Western Madagascar was laid to waste by fire in the early 1990s. The fire killed the trees and the birds fell silent.

Walking backwards, Georgina unspools a thick white ribbon in a rectangle about half the size of a soccer pitch, before planting fence posts into the thick grass and stringing up an electric fence in Ecuador’s mountainous Pichincha province.

The fence in place, she ushers her 13 prized cows into the lush, green meadow—a now daily routine for the 46-year-old rancher.

Khatmah thought the hima was lost forever. Decades ago the water in this dry rangeland surrounding her village in north-west Jordan had started to disappear, and it had become little more than a wasteland.

“I thought it was pointless trying to regenerate the hima,” Khatmah says, pouring sweet black tea for her guests.

In the tiny village of Sabue, Georgia, people had been concerned about the activities of a logging company in the woods close to their homes for years, but there was not much they could do—the company had been legally permitted to cut trees in this area.

The Karoo, in South Africa, is a harsh environment in which to make a living out of agriculture—the area is mostly devoid of surface water. Its name is derived from the Khoisan word meaning “land of thirst”.

The shy and elusive neotropical otter is widely distributed in Latin America, but it is hardly spotted. When Manuel Chávez and his team discovered that a specimen was captured by one of their river camera traps in the depths of the Sierra Tarahumara canyons, in northwestern Mexico, they were thrilled.

The theme for the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22 May 2019 is: "Our Biodiversity, Our Food, Our Health".

Wild mushroom picking in Eastern Europe is more than a tradition. It is a social event. Every year, in late summer and early fall, thousands of people roam the woods for the biggest, most perfect specimens. They take their children along to teach them which mushrooms are edible and which are poisonous, which are ripe and which should be left for another week or so, passing on generations-old teachings and care for the woods.

Edmond Prifti, a Project and Investment Specialist based in Kolonja, Albania, has been trying for years to grow specific tree species in his municipality. Although state-owned lands are ready to be used for this, his lack of expertise greatly hampered progress.

When an entrepreneur designs, makes and markets handbags made of donkey skin, and they become hugely popular, that’s good for business and employment, right? But if the donkey leather is sourced from developing countries with weak environmental laws, what is the socio-economic and environmental impact?