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Is soil health restricted to agricultural activities?

Soil is considered a viable living ecosystem in itself as it performs numerous functionalities that not only serve as a foundation of agricultural activities but also act as a key focal point for the growth and developmental activities of a nation.

Declaring key ocean habitats off-limits to human activities protects biodiversity and guards against climate change

Ocean life is increasingly threatened: offshore drilling has polluted ocean waters while overfishing has stripped fish populations of their abundance, pushing stocks to the point of collapse.

Climate Change Tracker: Why 2021 is a crucial year to stop global warming

2021 is already shaping up as an important year for climate change mitigation. As scientist and author Michael E. Mann wrote in Newsweek a few days ago, this year could well mark the tipping point for climate action. This is in no small degree a result of the US rejoining the 2015 Paris Agreemen ...

Retroviruses are re-writing the koala genome and causing cancer

The koala retrovirus (KoRV) is a virus which, like other retroviruses such as HIV, inserts itself into the DNA of an infected cell. At some point in the past 50,000 years, KoRV has infected the egg or sperm cells of koalas, leading to offspring that carry the retrovirus in every cell in their body.

Mauritius - a Fisherman's Life Amid Covid-19 and an Oil-Polluted Ocean

"From where we live, we could see that the MV Wakashio had run aground on the reefs," - 39-year-old Bimsen Beeharry.Life was going well for 39-year-old Mauritian fisherman Bimsen Beeharry when COVID-19 hit in early 2020, prompting authorities to impose a lockdown and suspend fishing. The COVID-1 ...

Possible irreversible changes to sub-systems prior to reaching climate change tipping points

Recently a pair of researchers with the University of Copenhagen published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describing their work looking into the possibility of changes to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the circumstances that could lead ...

Ms. Anna Mazmanyan

CBD Primary NFP, SBSTTA NFP, ABS NFP, Cartagena Protocol Primary NFP, Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP
a.mazmanyan@env.am

Adaptation Can Compound Climate Change Impacts on Energy and Water

In 2014, as California was in the midst of one of the worst droughts in its recorded history, Julia Szinai was working for an electric utility. The worst years of the drought were still ahead, but the impacts of the dry spell on California’s energy system were already clear to Szinai. As water l ...

Ambition to action – could 2021 be a turning point for climate change and localism?

The lead clean growth researcher at Localis, Grace Newcombe, writes on why 2021 could be the ‘environmental super year’ that campaigners have longed for. Initially forecast to be a green ‘super year’, and despite Boris’ pledge for a ‘defining year of climate action’, 2020 did not go as anticipated.

Biodiversity is its own catalyst – to a point

For decades, scientists have wrestled with rival theories to explain how interactions between species, like competition, influence biodiversity. Tracking microbial life across the planet, researchers from McGill University show that biodiversity does in fact foster further diversity in microbiom ...

These are the ‘positive’ tipping points that could slow global warming

There may be light at the end of the tunnel in the battle to reduce carbon emissions. Governments and institutions could help halt carbon emissions with just a few carefully selected policy measures, according to a new paper, which looked at the experience of the energy industry and changing tre ...

Climate change: what would 4°C of global warming feel like?

Another year, another climate record broken. Globally, 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year ever recorded. This was all the more remarkable given that cool conditions in the Pacific Ocean – known as La Niña – began to emerge in the second half of the year. The Earth’s mean surface temperature ...

Mr. Josphat N. Muchiri

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP
jmuchiri@biosafetykenya.go.ke

Dr. Anil Jasinghe

CBD Primary NFP, CHM NFP, SBSTTA NFP, ABS NFP, Cartagena Protocol Primary NFP, Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP, Marine and Coastal Biodiversity NFP, GSPC NFP
sec@env.gov.lk

Positive ‘tipping points’ offer hope for climate crisis

A tipping point is a moment when a small change triggers a large, often irreversible response, researchers have previously warned that the world is dangerously close to several tipping points that could accelerate climate change.

Biodiversity Loss: Alarm Bell Tolls – Analysis

Biodiversity loss is one of the most pressing challenges humanity faces today. All the recently published reports on biodiversity – the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems, the Living Planet Report, the Global Forest Resources Assessment Report and the Global Biodiversity Out ...

Review of the coordinates of the National Focal Points for the Global Taxonomy Initiative

Reference: SCBD/SSSF/AS/JSH/VA/KM/89336 (2021-002)
To: CBD National Focal Points; Cartagena Protocol Focal Points; ABS Focal Points; SBSTTA Focal Points; GTI Focal Points; Consortium of Scientific Partners on Biodiversity; indigenous peoples and local communities and relevant organizations

English 

Transformative Adaptation to Climate Change in Southeast Asian Coastal Cities: Entry Points for Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City, December 2020

This study is part of the UNRISD project “Transformative Adaptation to Climate Change in Southeast Asian Coastal Cities” which explores adaptation decisionmaking processes and barriers to transformative solutions in order to inform more progressive policy making in the context of Southeast Asian ...

Weak policy oversight could be pushing Brazilian forests closer to a tipping point

Home to more than 60% of the Amazon rainforest, the largest tropical forest in the world, Brazil is beyond rich in biodiversity and life. The country is also rife with deforestation, and violations of environmental laws and Indigenous people’s rights.

Mr. Hans Moons

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP
hans.moons@ec.europa.eu

Electric cars and vegan diets: Are 'good' climate tipping points at hand?

Not all climate tipping points are bad - and some good ones may be just on the horizon. Scientist Tim Lenton explains the shifts in behavior and technology that could soon spur large-scale climate action

Mass lake drainage in Alaskan tundra another sign of climate change: researchers

Scientists say a year in which almost 200 tundra lakes drained away could point to what’s in store for Canada’s North. Between 2017 and 2018, 192 lakes in northwest Alaska lost at least a quarter of their area as the permafrost that held them melted.

New Map Developed To Show Distribution Of Bee Species, Populations Around The World

In an effort to understand where the bee population reside the most as well as to record different bee species and conserve them, researchers have created a global map that shows where bees live around the world. The map is supposed to act as a jump-off point for future bee-related research.

Only A Balanced Approach To Ocean & Inland Aquaculture Will Nourish The World, Research In Nature Communications Asserts

New research evaluates claims that ocean aquaculture is the next sustainable and equitable food frontier, points to a balanced approach that includes land-based aquaculture as essential to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Megaprojects risk pushing forests past tipping point – report

Infrastructure megaprojects risk pushing the world’s remaining forests past a “dangerous tipping point” and making climate targets unachievable, a report says.

Ms. Birgül Güner

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
birgul.guner@tarimorman.gov.tr

Mr. Nasser M. Al-Mansoori

CBD Primary NFP, CHM NFP, SBSTTA NFP, Cartagena Protocol Primary NFP, Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP
NMAL-Mansoori@mme.gov.qa

M. Komi Anthe

Cartagena Protocol Primary NFP, Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
direfaune@yahoo.fr

Nature survives in the tiniest corners': the City of London's wild heart

There was literally a frog orgy in that one. There is no other way to describe it,” says Jules Waite, from the London Wildlife Trust, pointing at a pond in the Barbican wildlife garden, one of the few areas of London’s Square Mile whose inhabitants are not in lockdown.

COVID-19 pandemic, an ‘unprecedented wake-up call’ for all inhabitants of Mother Earth

Recognizing the “immediate and dreadful” impact of the coronavirus, the UN chief urged everyone to “work together to save lives, ease suffering and lessen the shattering economic and social consequence”. At the same time, he observed that climate disruption is approaching “a point of no return” ...

Ms. Damira Ashyralieva

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
ashyr14@mail.ru

Photographers join forces against wildlife crime

The ongoing spread of Covid-19, which is thought to have originated from a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is focusing increased attention on human interactions with wildlife. scientists pointed to pangolins as a possible source of the virus, although new research has now questioned thi ...

How the Heavy Rains of Hurricane Maria Shattered the Forests of Puerto Rico

Wind may have been pointed as the main culprit for the knocked down trees in all the attacks of hurricanes. However, a new survey was recently released of the damage in the Puerto Rican forests following the back-to-back hurricanes back in 2017. This particular survey highlighted the power of a ...

Yes, this is a forest

‘We understand the value of forests beyond the price tag of timber. We recognise that our forests are crucial for wildlife to survive.‘ Tesni Clare made some interesting points in the article ‘This is not a forest’, recently published in The Ecologist, not least about the importance of healthy f ...

The World’s Best Natural Defense Against Climate Change May Soon Make Things Worse

As extreme weather rocks the Southern Ocean, a tumultuous mix of carbon dioxide, winds and warming waters could reach an environmental tipping point

Saving Mozambique’s seagrass

Creating the conditions for sustainable seagrass restoration in Maputo and Inhambane bays “People can’t think of Inhaca without thinking about seagrass,” says Salamao Bandeira of Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University, knee-deep in the shallow waters on the seaward side of Maputo Bay, as he points ...

Mr. Aye Min

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
ayespecial@gmail.com

As Planet Burns, One Million Species in World’s Eco-System in Danger of Extinction

When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addressed the 193-member General Assembly last December, he focused on the smoldering climate crisis– pointing out that the last five years have been the hottest ever recorded.

What four years at sea taught me about our relationship to the ocean

It was on day 11, I think, that I stopped getting out of bed at all. I had already let my hygiene standards slip to the point that a large knot was starting to form in my hair. Later my mother would have to cut it out with scissors. She didn’t mind. We were all in the same boat.

Panamanian field expeditions examine how species persevere in face of climate change

Last month, two graduate students from the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University traveled to one of the most species-rich landscapes in the world: a remote strip of tropical rainforest at the narrowest point in the Central American country of Panama.

The Paris Agreement set an unrealistic target for global warming. Now what?

It's been a rallying cry for activists and a key talking point for diplomats. For decades now, 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming has been viewed as a "do not cross" line in climate policy, a temperature at which cataclysmic and potentially permanent damage to the plane ...

Mr. Jeff Gerges

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
j.gerges@moe.gov.lb

M. Bruno Maurice Goro Ousfa

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
cyrgoro@yahoo.fr

M. Ousseynou Kassé

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
ouzin12@gmail.com

2020 marks a turning point for nature’s role in climate solutions

Global biodiversity talks in China this year will highlight nature-based solutions that could meet one-third of Paris Agreement climate goal by 2030.

Mr. Ebrima Njie

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point
ebrimanjie@hotmail.com

M. Charles Bourgeois

Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP
charles.bourgeois@developpement-durable.gouv.fr

Mr. Khalif Hassan Dalmar

Cartagena Protocol Primary NFP, Cartagena Protocol emergency contact point, BCH NFP
kh.dalmar@environment.gov.so

How the 'Venice of Africa' is losing its battle against the rising ocean

A meth Diagne points to a single tree submerged in the ocean. It is barely visible from the patch of land where he is standing, 50 metres away. The few branches emerging from the water mark the place where he proposed to his wife 35 years earlier.

Humans are good at thinking their way out of problems, but climate change is outfoxing us

There is growing evidence that Earth's systems are heading towards climate "tipping points" beyond which change becomes abrupt and unstoppable. But another tipping point is already being crossed—humanity's capacity to adapt to a warmer world.