The Creeping Desert (IPS)
IPS Inter Press Service The Creeping Desert Feed Summary
Desertification could force some 60 million to migrate from sub-Saharan Africa to Northern Africa and Europe by 2020. More than 250 million people worldwide directly suffer the effects of desertification, and another 1.2 billion in 110 countries are threatened by this degradation of otherwise arable and habitable land — caused by climate change and by unsustainable land-use practices like overgrazing, deforestation and burning. IPS offers insights into a phenomenon that is undermining development in Africa and around the world, and which requires the immediate attention of the international community and local peoples alike.
IPS Inter Press Service The Creeping Desert (1 - 25 of about 241) (xml) (Feedlist)
Naimul Haq (22.05.2013 18:32h): Fresh Water “More Precious Than Gold” in Bangladesh
Women collecting water from a deep tube well in Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Credit: A.S.M. Shafiqur Rahman/IPSFahima Begum rises each morning at dawn and walks two kilometres to a small pond, the nearest source of fresh water. On her way she passes the rusty old hand-pumped tube well that used to supply water to her village in Bangladesh’s arid Barind region until the water table here dropped out of reach. Using a ragtag array of pots, she carries back as much as her frail body will allow, knowing that it will have to last her family all day. “When I came here ... [Link] [Cache]
Stephen Leahy (21.05.2013 21:46h): Stressed Ecosystems Leaving Humanity High and Dry
A man hauls water at the Chico Mendes landless peasant camp in Pernambuco, Brazil. Credit: Alejandro Arigón/IPSEveryone knows water is life. Far too few understand the role of trees, plants and other living things in ensuring we have clean, fresh water. This dangerous ignorance results in destruction of wetlands that once cleaned water and prevented destructive and costly flooding, scientists and activists warn."We have accelerated major processes like erosion, applied massive quantities of nitrogen that leaks from soil to ground and surface waters and, sometimes, literally siphoned all water from rivers." -- GWSP's Anik Bhaduri Around the world, politicians and ... [Link] [Cache]
Desmond Brown (21.05.2013 17:27h): Caribbean Farming Gets Its Roots Wet
CFBC Professor Dr. Leighton Naraine in the plant research facility at the college. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPSAs Caribbean communities grapple with the entwined challenges of climate change and food security, modern technologies offer hope that the region’s stagnating agricultural sector can be made more profitable. For the past six years, the University of Central Florida UCF has teamed up with the St. Kitts-based Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College CFBC to implement a climate change education project for sustainable development in the region. The institutions are reporting “tremendous success” using hydroponics, organoponics and hybrid-ponics, techniques that they insist are far more cost-effective. “Climate ... [Link] [Cache]
Silvia Romanelli (17.05.2013 15:36h): Migratory “Flyways” Decimated by Human Expansion
The spoon-billed sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmeus , seen here in Phetchaburi, Thailand, could be extinct within a decade. Credit: J.J. Harrison/cc by 3.0Migratory birds, which play an important role in the complex web of life known as ecosystem services, are under threat as never before, with some species facing extinction within the next decade. Ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22, focused this year on water resources, experts are calling for greater international cooperation to find sustainable and cost-effective solutions to the problem of species loss and environmental degradation."Half of the world’s wetlands - natural water storage ... [Link] [Cache]
Ousseini Issa (15.05.2013 07:49h): Protecting Niger’s Desert Salt Pans
The Ténéré desert in northern Niger is fast encroaching on the salt pans in Bilma, a community that has been reliant on mining the mineral for centuries. Credit: Photomatt28/CC BY 2.0The Bilma community has mined the salt pans in the massive Ténéré desert region in northern Niger for centuries. But the threat of the ever-encroaching desert has become a real concern as locals here struggle to cope with a decline in salt prices. “If we don’t protect this site, salt mining will disappear under the sand,” Abdoulaye Soumana, Bilma’s departmental director for the environment, told IPS as he contemplated the ... [Link] [Cache]
Katelyn Fossett (07.05.2013 15:41h): Critics Slam California â
Cutting trees in Nicaragua. Deforestation is inherent to the predatory economy, whether for the exploitation of the timber itself, the soil beneath the trees, or resources in the subsoil. Credit: Germán Miranda/IPSMore than two dozen environmental organisations are urging California Governor Jerry Brown to disregard recommendations from a United Nations task force to include so-called forest “offsets” in the state’s new emissions-trading scheme. The offsets would serve as a mechanism by which emissions-producing companies in California could continue to pollute if they compensate foreign governments for the protection of their own forests."The carbon market is just proving to be extremely ... [Link] [Cache]
Stephen Leahy (07.05.2013 00:44h): Rich Countries Drag Feet at Climate Talks
Floods devastated the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis, on Mar. 30 but locals can expect the island to be affected by more floods, landslides and cyclones in the coming years because of climate change. Credit: Nasseem Ackbarally/IPSAnother week of international climate negotiations ended in Bonn, Germany last Friday, but there was little mid-level bureaucrats could do when world leaders remain in thrall to the fossil fuel industry, say environmentalists. “The main barrier to confronting the climate crisis isn’t lack of knowledge about the problem, nor is it the lack of cost-effective solutions,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of ... [Link] [Cache]
Michelle Tolson (06.05.2013 12:01h): Building an Agricultural Empire
A camel outside a traditional Mongolian felt tent yurt . Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPSGenghis Khan knew about hard times. The founder of the Mongol Empire, which spanned most of Eurasia until roughly 1227, Genghis and his clan had to survive on their wits and natural surroundings, often resorting to meals of “green leafy things” when food was scarce. Today that history seems to have been lost, with most Mongolians dismissing fruits, vegetables and cultivation as “unmanly”, according to Marissa Markowitz, a food security consultant with the ministry of industry and agriculture MoIA . Less than one percent of the country’s land ... [Link] [Cache]
Michelle Tolson (05.05.2013 11:08h): From Herders to Cultivators
When the food-strapped Democratic People’s Republic of Korea DPRK appealed to the Mongolian government for food last month, it signaled a major turning point in the public image of this Central Asian country, which has long struggled to feed its own population of three million. Transformed from a nation of nomads into an industrial agricultural exporter during its time as a Soviet satellite state between 1921 and 1990, the country’s food production systems suffered a sudden crash after the fall of the Soviet Union. Families went back to subsistence agriculture, but herding under a privatised market economy created unsustainable livestock ... [Link] [Cache]
Neena Bhandari (30.04.2013 08:07h): The Clock Is Ticking on Koala Conservation
Koalas at the Wild Life Sydney Zoo in Darling Harbour. Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPSAustralia’s iconic marsupial is under threat. Formerly hunted almost to extinction for their woolly coats, koalas are now struggling to survive as habitat destruction caused by droughts and bushfires, land clearing for agriculture and logging, and mining and urban development conspire against this cuddly creature. In the past 20 years, the koala population has significantly declined, dropping by 40 percent in the state of Queensland and by a third in New South Wales NSW . The Australian Koala Foundation AKF estimates that there are between 45,000 and 90,000 ... [Link] [Cache]
OP-ED (12.04.2013 15:33h): Letting Nature Take Its Course?
Stanzin Dolma of Choglamsar-Leh in India breaks down while showing the ruins of her home, wrecked by the August 2010 floods and landslides. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPSIs sustainability still possible? Yes. Is it still probable? No. With bold action today, tomorrow, and in years to come, we could succeed in creating a sustainable and prosperous society. But what does bold action actually mean? First and foremost, we have to start living within Earth’s boundaries: stop changing the climate, wiping out biodiversity, disrupting the phosphorous and nitrogen cycles, and so on. And to do that we’ll need to live a one-planet lifestyle. ... [Link] [Cache]
Thalif Deen (09.04.2013 17:55h): U.N. Chief Singles Out Monaco for Raising Climate Awareness
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon left meets with Prince Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco, at the Prince’s Palace in Monaco-Ville on Apr. 3, 2013. Credit: UN Photo/Rick BajornasWhen Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Kiribati in 2011, he had “an unexpected insight” into the fear that stalks the Pacific Island nation. Along with toiletries, the hotel room “had an additional item that is not your typical amenity: a life jacket,” he said. The room was equipped with a personal flotation device, obviously for dramatic effect – just in case the island, along with the hotel, sank into the ocean while the secretary-general was ... [Link] [Cache]
Stephen Leahy (28.03.2013 20:34h): Canada Pulls Out of U.N. Body to Fight Desertification
Canada is pulling out of the United Nations convention that fights droughts in Africa next year, making it the only country in the world not participating in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification UNCCD . Recurring droughts have destroyed most harvests in the Sahel. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS Canada’s Stephen Harper government made the decision behind closed doors without consultation. This follows another unexpected decision late last week to fold Canada’s aid agency CIDA into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The CIDA decision was widely criticised by Canada’s development community for directly linking aid to trade. Desertification ... [Link] [Cache]
Stephen Leahy (22.03.2013 13:02h): Water Crisis Hitting Food, Energy â
How much water does it take to turn on a light? It took 10,000 litres to make your jeans. Another three big bathtubs of water was needed for your two-eggs-toast-coffee breakfast this morning. Piped water has made life easier for this Laotian boy, who no longer has to help his parents fetch water from afar. Up to 1.7 billion people face scarcity. Credit: Vannaphone Sitthirath/IPS We are surrounded by an unseen world of water: furniture, houses, cars, roads, buildings – practically everything we use and make needs water. “There is no way to generate energy without water,” said Zafar Adeel, ... [Link] [Cache]
Thalif Deen (19.03.2013 20:11h): Water and Sanitation Seek Rightful Place in Post-2015 Agenda
Residents of Clara Town, a low-income neighbourhood of Monrovia, Liberia, face sanitation challenges with the onset of the rainy season. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPSWhen the General Assembly unanimously adopted the Millennium Development Goals MDGs back in 2000, water and sanitation were reduced to a subtext – never a stand-alone goal compared with poverty and hunger alleviation. Now, as the United Nations begins the process of formulating a new set of Sustainable Development Goals SDGs for its post-2015 agenda, there is a campaign to underscore the importance of water and sanitation, so that the world body will get it right the second ... [Link] [Cache]
Mauro Teodori (16.03.2013 01:30h): Food Policies Failing the World’s Hungry
The world’s food security remains “vulnerable”, new data suggests, with some 870 million people experiencing sustained hunger and two billion suffering from micronutrient deficiencies. The International Food Policy Research Institute IFPRI , a Washington think tank, says such numbers are “unacceptably high”, and warns that anti-hunger programmes have been “piecemeal”. In an influential annual report on the state of the world’s food policy, released Thursday, the organisation said there were some positive achievements made last year, but that a number of policy changes are still required. Growing jobs The report identifies agricultural development as an important potential job creator, particularly ... [Link] [Cache]
Isolda Agazzi (15.03.2013 07:42h): Transparency Could Tighten Drought Policy
Scientists gathered in Geneva for the first High-level Meeting on National Drought Policy HMNDP in over 30 years have identified data collection and sharing as some of the main challenges to effective prevention of drought. Clear goals and strong political will are vital to building policies at the national level, they say. Jointly organised by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification UNCC , the Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO and the World Meteorological Organisation WMO , the meeting from Mar. 11-15 is an attempt to open an international dialogue on national policies. Despite obvious differences, particularly between the North ... [Link] [Cache]
Q&A (13.03.2013 15:43h): Water Disputes Get Resolved While Other Conflicts Rage
What has education, science and culture to do with one of the world’s most scarce and finite resources? Plenty, says the United Nations, which has designated the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation UNESCO as the lead agency to promote the 2013International Year of Water Cooperation IYWC . Asked if water is more an area for potential conflicts or an area for mutual cooperation, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova told IPS, “Water acts as a unifier.” She said the historical record shows that water disputes do get resolved, even among bitter enemies, and even as conflicts drag out over other ... [Link] [Cache]
Mauro Teodori (13.03.2013 11:41h): Drought Hits Policies
Drought has dramatically increased as a consequence of climate change. Most countries react to it only after it has occurred, but don’t have national policies to prevent it. The high-level meeting on national drought policies in Geneva this week is trying to match scientific knowledge with political awareness. “Drought is a natural phenomenon, but over the last decades, as a consequence of climate change, it has been escalating in frequency and intensity, affecting millions of people across the world,” Loc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification UNCC , said at the meeting. The meeting, jointly organised ... [Link] [Cache]
Carey L. Biron (07.03.2013 23:11h): U.S. Abstains on Controversial World Bank Mongolia Mine Project
The United States has refused to vote for involvement by the World Bank Group in a massive but controversial mining project in Mongolia. In abstaining, the U.S. representative cited concerns over the potential environmental consequences and an inadequate impact study of the mine plan. The Oyu Tolgoi mine, a 12-billion-dollar project, is looking to massively expand copper-and-gold extraction in the South Gobi Desert. Its parent company, the London-based Rio Tinto, is currently fielding funding proposals from multiple international investors, including the World Bank Group. If the four-billion-dollar expansion goes forward, income from the mine could make up a third of ... [Link] [Cache]
Kim-Jenna Jurriaans (27.02.2013 01:59h): Killer Heat Waves and Floods Linked to Climate Change
Killer heat waves, floods and storms are increasingly caused by climate change, new research reveals. Scientists in Germany say they have found how greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are helping to trap the jet stream, resulting in extraordinary weather such as the 2010 Pakistan flood and the 2011 heat wave in the United States. Human-driven climate change repeatedly disturbs the flow of atmospheric waves around the globe’s Northern hemisphere, said lead author Vladimir Petoukhov of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK in Germany. Giant atmospheric waves called Rossby waves are meanders in the strong, high-altitude winds known ... [Link] [Cache]
Joe Hitchon (23.02.2013 00:18h): Biofuels Converting U.S. Prairielands at Dust Bowl Rates
The rush for biofuels in the United States has seen farmers converting the United States’ prairie lands to farms at rates comparable with deforestation levels in Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia – rates not seen here since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. A new study finds that, between 2006 and 2011, U.S. farmers converted more than 1.3 million acres of grassland into corn and soybean fields. Driven by high crop prices, biofuel subsidies and a confluence of other factors, states like Iowa and South Dakota have been turning some five percent of prairie into cropland each year, according to the ... [Link] [Cache]
Kitty Stapp (20.02.2013 19:38h): In Conservatives’ Canada, It’s Not Easy Being Green
Canada’s police and security agencies think citizens concerned about the environment are threats to national security, and some are under surveillance, documents reveal. The RCMP, the national police force, and Canada’s spy agency CSIS are increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organise petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan, a researcher with the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Protests and opposition to Canada’s resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said. This conclusion is based on official security ... [Link] [Cache]
Mauro Teodori (14.02.2013 20:58h): Sahel Region Learning to Reap the Benefits of Shade
In Africa’s Sahel region, agroforestry techniques using traditional plantings known as “fertiliser trees” to increase soil fertility, as well as harvesting and grazing regulations, are offering new solutions to both food and human security. Such approaches were nearly lost in recent decades following devastating droughts in the Sahel. Now they are making a belated but welcome comeback. According to a 2012 U.S. Geological Survey, “regeneration agroforestry” in the Sahel stands at over 5 million hectares of agricultural fields newly covered by trees – and growing. Recurring droughts destroyed many harvests in the Sahel. Credit:Kristin Palitza/IPS “Agroforestry is the future of ... [Link] [Cache]
Mauro Teodori (14.02.2013 16:22h): Thawing Permafrost May Be “Huge Factor” in Global Warming
Thawing permafrost is emitting more climate-heating carbon faster than previously realised. Scientists have now learned that when the ancient carbon locked in the ice thaws and is exposed to sunlight, it turns into carbon dioxide 40 percent faster. “This really changes the trajectory of the debate” over when and how much carbon will be released as permafrost thaws due to ever warmer temperatures in the Arctic, says researcher Rose Cory of the University of North Carolina. There are 13 million square kilometres of permafrost in Alaska, Canada, Siberia and parts of Europe. As previously reported by IPS, a 2011 study ... [Link] [Cache]
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Tags: climate change, deforestation, desertification, drought, overgrazing, Water, water crisis, wildfires