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...

Q&A: “Grabbing of Drylands is a Serious Concern”

NEW DELHI, Nov 13 2011 (IPS) – Designated Drylands Ambassador, United Nations Convention for Combating Desertification (UNCCD), at its 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) in South Korea in October, Dennis Garrity is mandated...

INDIA: ‘Seed-Mothers’ Confront Climate Insecurity

BHUBANESWAR, India, Jul 1 2011 (IPS) – In eastern Orissa state’s tribal hinterlands about 200 ‘seed-mothers’ are on mission mode – identifying, collecting and conserving traditional seed varieties and motivating farming families to use...

NOT A SINGLE DROP TO DRINK

The ‘war’ over water between India and Pakistan can jeopardize joint efforts to conserve the precious resource, writes Manipadma Jena In recent months, Pakistan’s politicians have been ratcheting up the rhetoric on water scarcity...

ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Creeping Deserts and Crouching Hunger

ANANTAPUR, Andhra Pradesh, India, Jan 5 2010 (IPS) – It is just the beginning of the year, but M. Manju Laxmi already feels anxious. In four months or so, she will be back to...

INDIA: Climate Change Fuels Rural Out-Migration, Rising Farm Debt

BHUBANESWAR, India, Nov 30 2009 (IPS) – Under a shed made of bamboo and corrugated sheet metal, Purusottam Sur feeds his two bullocks and a cow with a bundle each of dry paddy plant....