By Shreya Dasgupta 8 February 2016 (mongabay.com) – In Where Have All the Animals Gone?: My Travels with Karl Ammann, author and natural historian Dale Peterson recounts his adventures with Karl Ammann, an eccentric award-winning wildlife photographer, as they travel across several countries in Africa and Asia. Peterson’s book is a witty, humorous, and sometimes […]
8 February 2016 (UN) – According to a new United Nations food security and nutrition assessment, the situation in Somalia is alarming and could get worse, especially in parts of Puntland and Somaliland, which have been hard hit by drought exacerbated by El Niño. “We are deeply concerned that the proportion of severely food insecure […]
By John C. Cannon 11 February 2016 (mongabay.com) – The Republic of the Congo announced the allocation of 6 timber concessions on 8 January 2016 covering 2 million hectares (7,722 square miles), an area about the size of Israel. Two of the concessions were awarded ahead of government-established bid deadlines, an apparent breach of protocol, […]
By Damian Carrington 12 February 2016 (Guardian) – At least two-thirds of the global population, over 4 billion people, live with severe water scarcity for at least one month every year, according to a major new analysis. The revelation shows water shortages, one of the most dangerous challenges the world faces, is far worse previously […]
10 February 2016 (UN) – El Niño conditions have caused the lowest recorded rainfall between October and December across many regions of Southern Africa in at least 35 years, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has reported in its latest report. The agency found that short-term forecasts from January to March indicate the high […]
By Sarah Boseley8 February 2016 (Guardian) – A global epidemic far worse than the Ebola outbreak is a real possibility and could kill many millions if the world does not become better prepared to deal with the sudden emergence and transmission of disease, the UN has said in a hard-hitting report. The report has emerged […]
By Andrew Mambondiyani; editing by Megan Rowling8 February 2016 MUTARE, Zimbabwe (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Shylet Mutsago, a 63-year-old who lives near the diamond fields of Marange, cannot hide her anger over how mining in this gem-rich part of eastern Zimbabwe has failed to improve the lives of local people. From a distance she watches […]
By Peter Schwartzstein31 January 2016 (Quartz) – The Amhara Plateau is no one’s idea of a gloomy landscape. Rich fields blossom as far as the eye can see; bountiful rivers zigzag through the region’s rolling hills. It isn’t hard to see why local Orthodox Christians believe the Ark of the Covenant was floated down the […]
By Peter Neill 1 February 2016 (NY Daily News) – The World Economic Forum, which just completed its 2016 meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last year recognized the world water crisis as the most impactful global risk. The situation is no less complicated or critical today, with California reevaluating its water policies and structures as a […]
By Cody Sullivan27 January 2016 (Eos) – Ozone, a common air pollutant and greenhouse gas, harms lungs and plants and has contributed almost as much as methane to global warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Now researchers are reporting new evidence that local-scale slash and burn farming techniques, cooking fires, and wildfires can […]
