14 February 2018 (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research) – Tropical forests around the world play a key role in the global carbon cycle and harbour more than half of the species worldwide. However, increases in land use during the past decades caused unprecedented losses of tropical forest. Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research […]
14 February 2018 (UN News) – “This is an urgent signal for action, and the report recommends the directions to follow,” Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Executive Director of UN Women, said on the launch of the new report, Turning promises into action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.Speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters […]
By Margot Kiser 11 February 18 NAIROBI, Kenya (The Daily Beast) – Esmond Bradley Martin was found dead on 4 February 2018, a stab wound in his neck and the floor of his home covered with blood. The famous white-haired American wildlife activist and expert on the illegal ivory trade had been murdered within the […]
By Sandra Laville 12 February 2018 (The Guardian) – Microplastics have been found in some of the most remote and uncharted regions of the oceans raising more concerns over the global scale of plastic pollution. Samples taken from the middle of the South Indian Ocean – at latitude 45.5 degrees south – show microplastic particles […]
By Jonathan Watts 2 February 2018 (The Guardian) – The slaughter of people defending their land or environment continued unabated in 2017, with new research showing almost four people a week were killed worldwide in struggles against mines, plantations, poachers and infrastructure projects.The toll of 197 in 2017 – which has risen fourfold since it […]
By Bram Janssen 5 February 2018 CAPE TOWN, South Africa (Associated Press) – Cape Town has pushed back “Day Zero” — the date when it might have to turn off most taps because of a long drought — by nearly a month to 11 May 2018.Cape Town authorities said Monday that the reprieve is due […]
5 February 2018 (BBC News) – One of the world’s leading investigators into the illegal trade in ivory and rhino horn has been killed in Kenya. Esmond Bradley Martin, 75, was found with a stab wound to his neck at home in the capital Nairobi on Sunday. The former UN special envoy for rhino conservation […]
25 January 2017 (The Economist) – America, which has long defined itself as a standard-bearer of democracy for the world, has become a “flawed democracy” according to the taxonomy used in the annual Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister company. Although its score did not fall by much—from 8.05 in 2015 to […]
By Paul P. Murphy and Judson Jones 31 January 2018 (CNN) – New satellite images show just how far Cape Town’s biggest water reservoir has shrunk as the city nears the day when it completely runs out of water.Drought, population growth, and climate change are helping fuel Cape Town’s water crisis. Officials believe taps will […]
By Simon Calder 26 January 2018 (The Independent) – The executive mayor of Cape Town has warned citizens and prospective visitors that the city is “very likely” to run out of water in April. After two years of drought which saw rain at about one-third of normal levels, reservoirs supplying the city are running dry. […]
