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Collaboration helps reforestation take root

Almost three years after its adoption, the New York Declaration on Forests remains a landmark moment in the global fight to eliminate deforestation.

Study maps out reptiles’ ranges, completing the ‘atlas of life’

Across the swath of vertebrate lifeforms that inhabit Earth, scientists have a pretty good idea about where most of the known land mammals, birds and amphibians live. That makes identifying areas for protection where a lot of these animals live relatively straightforward, even if the details of ...

Uganda: Are GMOs the Silver Bullet to End Hunger in Uganda?

Last week, Parliament passed the Biosafety and Biotechnology Bill into law. The law had been on the shelves of Parliament for nearly five years partly because of a tug-of-war between the voices in support and those opposed to it.

Women's role stressed in addressing climate change

Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Austrialia's Minister for International and the Pacific Concetta Fierravanti stressed on Wednesday the importance of the role played by women in addressing climate change problems.

World hunger is increasing thanks to wars and climate change

Around the globe, about 815 million people – 11 percent of the world's population – went hungry in 2016, according to the latest data from the United Nations. This was the first increase in more than 15 years.

World needs to adapt and build for climate change, says Figueres

The key to dealing with climate change is to decarbonize the world economy by 2050 and that requires building differently, said a leading expert on climate change.

CliFi – A new way to talk about climate change

Cli-Fi refers to “climate fiction;” it is a term coined by journalist Dan Bloom. These are fictional books that somehow or someway bring real climate change science to the reader. What is really interesting is that Cli-Fi books often present real science in a credible way.

Study reshapes understanding of climate change’s impact on early societies

The team of researchers examined the hydroclimatic and societal impacts in Egypt of a sequence of tropical and high-latitude volcanic eruptions spanning the past 2,500 years, as known from modern ice-core records. The team focused on the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt (305-30 B.C.E.)—a state ...

Fiji to sell world's first climate-change "green" bonds

Fiji will issue a $50 million "green" bond in coming weeks to help combat the effects of global climate change, the first developing country to do so, its prime minister said on Wednesday.

Xi Jinping to China: “Any harm we inflict on nature will eventually return to haunt us”

In 2012, in a key party leadership speech, China vowed to work with international society to “actively respond” to climate change. Five years on, president Xi Jinping just told China that it is in the “driving seat” when it comes to preserving the planet for future generations.

The Arctic doomsday vault just got thousands of nearly extinct ‘hurricane-resistant’ seeds

The Arctic doomsday seed vault, designed to securely store over 2 billion seeds from natural or man-made calamities has just received a new shipment of thousands of more seed samples. The doomsday vault’s new samples include a nearly-extinct and rare “hurricane-resistant’ wild bean, which evolve ...

Bees in the city: Designing green roofs for pollinators

A key factor that affects bees is increasing urban development as people flock to cities. As cities develop, they sprawl into their surroundings, fragmenting animal habitats and replacing vegetation with hard surfaces such as concrete and asphalt. Insects, including a multitude of native bees, r ...

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2017

17 October 2017, New York, United States of America

International Day of Rural Women

17 October 2017, New York, United States of America

Acidifying oceans a bad trip for marine ecosystems

A more acidic ocean under climate change threatens to reconfigure entire ecosystems by advantaging some fish species to the detriment of others, a new study has found. The research is one of only a few that go beyond the lab to study how species interactions are changing in nature under more ext ...

Ancient Sea Creature Looked Like a Wine Glass, Died Alone

A solitary fossil unearthed in Utah's Antimony Canyon reveals a long-extinct marine creature previously unknown to science.Resembling a dainty tulip bloom or an elegant white-wine glass, the 500-million-year-old bottom-feeder called Siphusauctum lloydguntheri looked uniquely ready for a romantic ...

Rabobank and UN Environment announce new billion dollar partnership to kickstart climate smart agriculture

Rabobank and UN Environment announced today the creation of a new 1 billion dollar facility to finance sustainable agriculture using a combination of public and private funding. Together they also invite other interested financial institutions to sign up and work actively with global food compan ...

Land management could be key in climate change battle

To combat climate change, every country on Earth could stop the burning of oil completely. Or they could simply pay attention to the way they manage their land.

Habitat loss is the top threat to Australia's species

Earlier this month, Australia's outgoing Threatened Species Commissioner Gregory Andrews told ABC radio that land clearing is not the biggest threat to Australia's wildlife. His claim caused a stir among Australia's biodiversity scientists and conservation professionals, who have plenty of evide ...

Tragedy of the Common

White-rumped vultures were one of the most common large birds on the planet. There were an estimated 40 million of them in India alone. One famous bird sanctuary, Keoladeo National Park, had 30 vulture nests per square mile. Even in Delhi, India's capital city and the second-largest urban agglom ...

Tough species of corals can go mobile and lay the foundations for new reefs in otherwise inhospitable areas, a stud

Tough species of corals can go mobile and lay the foundations for new reefs in otherwise inhospitable areas, a study shows.Scientists have discovered that the rolling and resilient corals can act as a base upon which other corals attach and build reefs by creating their own stable habitats.

Mohammed warns about extreme weather crisis, climate change

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed on Tuesday warned that extreme weather crisis will continue to happen if actions are not taken to meet climate change challenges.

Climate change will impact Philippines’ ability to feed its people

Farmers and their families bear the greatest brunt of food insecurity and malnutrition in the country as prolonged droughts and extreme precipitation affect their crop yields.

Spider-web 'labyrinths' may help reduce noise pollution

Researchers have demonstrated that the geometry of a natural spider web can be used to design new structures that address one of the biggest challenges in sound control: reducing low-frequency noise, which is the second most widespread environmental problem in Europe after air pollution.

'Hiding in plain sight'—Discovery raises questions over scale of overlooked biodiversity

Scientists have used cutting-edge DNA technology and museum samples collected over the past two centuries to reveal a new species of diving beetle living in streams around the Mediterranean.

10 Keys To Slashing Deforestation In Just Two Years

Donuts, deodorant, buns and burgers. They’re killing us – and not just because of what they do to our bodies. No, the real problem is what the beef, soy, and palm oil that they’re made of – as well as the pulp & paper they’re packaged in – do to our forests and, by extension, our climate.

World Food Day: Migration crisis requires investments in food security

Although the factors driving migration are diverse, we should not ignore food insecurity. On World Food Day we argue that one solution to the migration crisis is a sustained effort to strengthen the resilience of agriculture against a back-drop of rising temperatures and increasing water scarcity.

Giant lizards are thriving on Borneo’s oil palm plantations

Oil palm trees plague the once untouched and wild island of Borneo. Towering rainforests have been chopped down and the land turned into a monotonous monoculture of plantations, the principle source of palm oil. In the Malaysian region of Sabah, in the north of the island, these trees now cover ...

People are on the move. Political instability, extreme weather events and other factors have forced more people to flee their homes than at any time since the Second World War.

Message of the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Dr. Cristiana Paşca Palmer, on the occasion of World Food Day 16 October 2017

Microbial life in gutters could help clean cities: study

Street gutters are oases of microscopic life - such as microalgae and fungi - that may help clean rainwater and urban waste by decomposing solid debris and pollutants, according to a study in France.

What The Hell Is Agrobiodiversity And Why Do We Need To Care

Recently, experts gave us a fresh spark of climate change-related terror. The suggestion was made that the plant species that we turn into chips, coffee and chocolate (i.e. potatoes, coffee cherries and cocoa beans) are in danger of extinction, as a result of the globe's raising temperatures.

Research finds a dramatic increase in feral predators as fires make some native Australian animals even more vulnerable

Warily, the fox creeps up to sniff at a cluster of three metal tea strainers suspended from a pole in her territory. They smell of nuts, golden syrup and rolled oats. They are also at exactly the right distance for an infra-red camera triggered by her movement to catch her in the act.

Ocean atmosphere rife with microbes

Microbes are dispersed widely over the oceans with islands acting as stepping-stones to help transport of land-based organisms.Microbes in the atmosphere and the role of the oceans in their movement have been largely overlooked by researchers.

Ocean Critters Contribute to Global Warming with High Amounts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions

A recent study discovered a new element which contributes to climate change, and to the release of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The culprits are ocean critters, such as worms and clams, which release a high amount of gases as methane and different types of nitrous oxides.

Organisms exhibiting the features of both plants and animals

Life is so complex. We think of all beings as animals or plants and this means a lot when you are vegetarian and determined not to hurt. What characterises a being as one or another.

More sightings of an endangered species don't always mean it's recovering

If more sightings of an endangered species are recorded, does that mean its numbers are increasing? Australia's native forest logging industry is arguing yes.

Farming and forest loss: study exposes malaria’s best friends

A new study exposes the role of deforestation in amplifying malaria transmission, finding that forest loss and malaria is linked worldwide and not just a local phenomenon. The research, published in Environmental Science, builds on prior evidence that has linked deforestation to an increase in h ...

University is UN's academic backbone in pursuit of climate change goals

The little-known UN University is an institution that delivers scientific information in a manner diplomats can digest and will continue to offer its support ahead of the Cop23 conference next month

Bangladesh: fighting climate change with potatoes and pumpkins

In many people’s minds, Bangladesh is synonymous with natural disasters: from cyclones to flooding, river erosion, droughts or earthquakes, the country is regularly battered by a wide range of hazards – and with climate change, these are set to increase in both frequency and intensity. These eve ...

Nigeria to Adopt African Position in Bonn Climate Change Negotiations

With climate negotiators set to gather in Bonn four weeks time for international consideration of the guidelines to implement the Paris agreement across a wide range of issues, the Federal Government has began preparatory activities to acquaint delegates with agenda of the summit and national po ...

Climate change blamed as EU's forest fires more than double

Exclusive: The number of forest fires in the EU has more than doubled so far this year, according to figures obtained by Euronews, affecting an area twice the size of Luxembourg. There have been 1,671 blazes so far in 2017 – a huge increase on the 639 the bloc saw annually on average over the pr ...

World Food Day 2017

16 October 2017, Rome, Italy

Regional Bio-Bridge Initiative Round Table for Asia and the Pacific

16 - 19 October 2017, Incheon, Republic of Korea

How far do invasive species travel?

Around the globe, an increasing number of plant and animal species are introduced into new regions through human activity. However, the global patterns of their distribution are only poorly understood to date. Researchers at the Senckenberg and at the universities of Oldenburg and Vienna have no ...

REMINDER NOTIFICATION: DEADLINE 1 NOVEMBER 2017: Submission of the Interim National Report on the Implementation of the Nagoya Protocol

Reference: SCBD/SPS/DC/VN/KG/jh/86322 (2017-102)
To: ABS National Focal Points and CBD National Focal Points (where ABS focal points have not yet been designated)

Pre-SBSTTA 21 Capacity-building Workshops on the Sixth National Report, Saturday, 9 December 2017 and Sunday, 10 December 2017 - Palais des Congrès, Montreal

Reference: SCBD/OES/CPP/RH/MC/86708 (2017-101)
To: CBD National Focal Points, SBSTTA National Focal Points, Article 8j National Focal Points

Trinidad and Tobago

National Action Plan for the Programme of Work on Protected Areas

With the Democratic Republic of the Congo depositing its instrument of accession on 4 October 2017, the Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety needs only one more instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession to enter into force.

Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Biosafety Protocol edges closer to entering into force

12 October 2017 – With the Democratic Republic of the Congo depositing its instrument of accession on 4 October 2017, the Nagoya-Kuala Lumpur Supplementary Protocol on Liability and Redress to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety needs only one more instrument of ratification, acceptance, approva ...