(World Bank) – The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for 215 economies over the period 1996–2013, for six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability Political Stability and Absence of Violence Government Effectiveness Regulatory Quality Rule of Law Control of Corruption These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large […]
By Jonathan Amos18 December 2014 (BBC News) – NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) has returned its first global maps of the greenhouse gas CO2. The satellite was sent up in July to help pinpoint the key locations on the Earth’s surface where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed. This should help scientists better understand […]
(FAO) – The latest estimates indicate that 805 million people – about one in nine of the world’s population – were chronically undernourished in 2012–14, with insufficient food for an active and healthy life. This number represents a decline of more than 100 million people over the last decade and of 209 million since 1990–92. […]
By Louise Dewast3 December 2014 LONDON (ABC News) — Giraffe numbers are dwindling across Africa because of poaching and habitat loss caused by human population growth, according to wildlife experts, and it’s happening largely unnoticed. “It’s a silent extinction,” Dr. Julian Fennessy, Executive Director of the Namibian-based Giraffe Conservation Research group and a leading wildlife […]
(UNDP) – Since 1990 the Human Development Index (HDI) has been an important measure of progress—a composite index of life expectancy, years of schooling and income. This year’s Report presents HDI values for 187 countries. The global HDI is now 0.702, and most developing countries are continuing to advance, though the pace of progress remains […]
By William G. Gilroy5 November 2014 (Notre Dame News) – Norway is the best prepared country for climate change, and has been so for almost 20 years, according to data released Wednesday (Nov. 5) by the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN). ND-GAIN is the world’s leading annual index that ranks more than […]
By John Vidal15 November 2014 (The Observer) – When Botswana’s president, Ian Khama, opened a giant $4.9bn diamond mine in the heart of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in September, there were some notable absentees among the invited guests: the 700 bushmen whose hunter-gatherer families had been the traditional inhabitants of the desert, but who […]
By Pat Dickens 5 November 2014 (Wild News) – Since 1976, the Ebola virus has caused some lethal human epidemics in Central Africa. Unfounded fears that the pandemic is spread across the entire continent of Africa is having a disastrous effect on its wildlife. Safari tourism has all but crashed. Camps are standing empty and […]
By Jeremy Hance20 October 2014 (mongabay.com) – Rhino conservation suffered another tragic setback this weekend with the sudden death of Suni, a male northern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Suni’s passing means there are only six northern white rhinos left in the world, and only one breeding male. […]
By Amelia Urry13 October 2014 (Grist) – Perhaps you have heard about Ebola, otherwise known as The Most Terrifying Disease Of Our Modern Times (Sorry, MERs; panic is a fickle friend). But you might not have heard that Ebola’s origin story also features a favorite environmental arch-villain? And by “favorite,” I mean “actually the worst”: […]
