By Laurie Goering11 Feb 2011 15:47 LONDON (AlertNet) – Increasing drought and aridity around the world, linked to climate change and land degradation, are becoming a major threat to food security and poverty reduction efforts, according to the United Nations’ anti-desertification chief. Stepping up investment in restoring degraded land and curbing desertification could work toward […]
The proportion of stocks estimated to be underexploited or moderately exploited declined from 40 percent in the mid-1970s to 15 percent in 2008. In contrast, the proportion of overexploited, depleted or recovering stocks increased from 10 percent in 1974 to 32 percent in 2008. The proportion of fully exploited stocks has remained relatively stable at […]
3 February 2011, Rome – World food prices surged to a new historic peak in January, for the seventh consecutive month, according to the updated FAO Food Price Index, a commodity basket that regularly tracks monthly changes in global food prices. The Index averaged 231 points in January and was up 3.4 percent from December […]
By Staff WritersFeb 3, 2011 Nairobi (AFP) Feb 3, 2011 – Drought in Somalia is threatening two million people, the vast majority living in zones controlled by radical Islamist insurgents where it is impossible to send aid, a UN official said Thursday. “Somalia hosts one of the largest populations of displaced people in the world,” […]
31 January 2011, Rome – The contribution of fish to global diets has reached a record of almost 17 kg per person on average, supplying over three billion people with at least 15 percent of their average animal protein intake. This increase is due mainly to the ever-growing production of aquaculture which is set to […]
NEW YORK, 24 Jan 2011 (AFP) – International accords on saving vulnerable forests are having little impact because they do not attack the core causes such as growing demand for biofuels and food crops, a new report said. With Africa and South American alone losing 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) of forest a year, […]
December 19, 2010, UNITED NATIONS (APP): Even as people displaced by the devastating floods in Pakistan continue streaming back to their destroyed homes, the UN and its partners warned on Friday that humanitarian needs remain enormous amid dwindling resources. “Under-funding remains a challenge,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in […]
By Alister Doyle and Timothy Gardner; editing by Philip BarbaraThu Dec 2, 2010 1:02pm EST CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) – This year is on course to be among the top three warmest since records began in 1850, and the past decade was the warmest, in a new sign of man-made climate change, the United Nations said […]
By Staff WritersNov 26, 2010 Nairobi (AFP) – Most African countries will fail to attain the United Nation’s Millennium Goals on access to water and sanitation, the world body’s environment agency said on Friday. “Only eight countries in Africa are expected to attain the MDG target of reducing by half the proportion of the population […]
Met Office Press Office26 November 2010 Ahead of the latest UN talks on climate change in Mexico, the Met Office analyses long- and short-term trends in climate and reveals that the evidence for man-made warming has grown even stronger in the last year. There is overwhelming evidence of warming in a wide range of climate […]
