Can Land Rights and Education Save an Ancient Indian Tribe?

MALKANGIRI, India, Aug 19 2014 (IPS) – Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India’s eastern Odisha...

Traditional Farming Holds All the Aces

KORAPUT, India, Feb 1 2013 (IPS) – Last monsoon season, 65-year-old Sunadhar Ramaparia, a member of the Bhumia tribe in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, mixed indigenous crops like ‘para’ paddy, foxtail millet...

Tribal Farmers Fall Back on Ancient Wisdom

KORAPUT, India, Jan 29 2013 (IPS) – While tens of thousands of Indian farmers succumb to the pressures of debt, hunger and poverty by taking their own lives, members of the Bhumia tribe are...

Q&A: ‘Mismatch Between Commitments and Action on Biodiversity’

Manipadma Jena interviews BRAULIO FERREIRA DE SOUZA DIAS, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity BHUBANESWAR, India, Oct 4 2012 (IPS) – The eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the...

‘Urban Planning Must Factor in Biodiversity’

HYDERABAD, India, Oct 19 2012 (IPS) –  “With more than 60 percent of the world projected to be urban by 2030 why not prepare for it and build cities that include biodiversity preservation into...

China Puts Up a Green Shield Against Sandstorms

CHIFENG, Inner Mongolia, China, Sep 11 2012 (IPS) – The setting sun is still streaming in through the poplars along the shelter belts, but Horquin Lianjun is done with farm work for the day....

Can ‘Blue Forests’ Mitigate Climate Change?

YEOSU, South Korea, May 21 2012 (IPS) – Fifty-five percent of global atmospheric carbon captured by living organisms happens in the ocean. Between 50-71 percent of this is captured by the ocean’s vegetated “blue...

Q&A: A Green Economy Without a Pricetag on Nature?

Manipadma Jena interviews ACHIM STEINER, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) YEOSU, South Korea, May 26 2012 (IPS) – As thousands gear up for the 2012 Earth Summit, Rio+20, scheduled to...

SOUTH KOREA: Preventing Desertification Better Than Cure

CHANGWON, Oct 16 2011 (IPS) – “Humanity is the only desert-making species and we’ve been degrading usable land at one percent per year,” says Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of United Nations Convention to Combat...

Q&A: ‘Soil is Key to Global Warming, Food Security’

CHANGWON, Oct 21 2011 (IPS) – Luc Gnacadja, in his second three-year term as executive secretary, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is widely seen as delivering on his commitment to manage the...