Wasted food is a serious problem around the world as to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, ” Each year, 30 percent of global food production is lost after harvest or wasted in shops, households and catering services.” Read more →
The huge global loss of biodiversity is such a big problem that it is seen by specialists as the Sixth Mass Extinction. Lucky for us, the Huffington Post published an article on ten ways citizens can change that. Read more →
These are the staggering figures the WWF published yesterday : ” Wildlife populations worldwide have declined by 52 per cent since 1970 “. Read more →
We have all read news on how our civilization with deforestation, pollutions of all kinds and climate change – and more – is wiping off entire species of animals to the point that we may be on the verge of a great extinction.
But don’t worry, some animals have no problem with global warming temperatures : cockroaches, fire ants, asian tiger mosquitoes jellyfish, ticks… You see, our civilization is endangering biodiversity in another big way.
Yes, you read that right, you just found yet another reason to fight climate change. So we’d better start decreasing our energy consumption NOW !
More good news people ! New Caledonia – and France - are creating a marine protected area (MPA) of huge size : 1.3 million square kilometers : the parc naturel de la mer de Corail.
This park will be amongst the largest MPAs in the world. Thanks to that, 16 percent of the waters under French jurisdiction are now under an MPAs status, compared to just four percent before.
The management and the financing will be done by the local government, while France will care about the security and police of this critical hot spot for biodiversity. Read more →
To TreeHugger and Science Daily, protecting a mere 17 percent of the land surfaces against human exploitation would protect two third of the plant species. However, there is a catch as we have to protect the right places…
So if we have to protect the most of our biodiversity, we have to find a way to help developing nations in protecting these natural areas. Financing these efforts by the global community will have to be done. This has failed recently in Ecuador.
But as Treehugger notes, ” that doesn’t mean the global community can’t and shouldn’t try again. “ Given how biodiversity is crucial to Mankind, it has to be hoped that we will succeed the next times.
According to the WWF : ” In 50 years of conservation, we have never seen wildlife crime on such a scale. Wildlife crime is now the most urgent threat to three of the world’s best-loved species—elephants, rhinos and tigers. “
” The global value of illegal wildlife trade is between $7.8 and $10 billion per year. It is a major illicit transnational activity worldwide—along with arms, drugs and human trafficking. High-level traders and kingpins are rarely (…) punished for their crimes.”
” Even more worrying, these species cannot survive high levels of poaching for long.” Please check out their page for more details on how you can help.
To the Agence France Presse : ” The world’s third-largest paper producer Asia Pulp and Paper said Tuesday it had stopped using logs from Indonesia’s natural forests, after fierce campaigning by green groups against the company.”
” The firm has in recent years lost packaging contracts with big brands such as foodmaker Kraft and Barbie’s Mattel after Greenpeace accused APP of clearing carbon-rich forest, home to endangered Sumatran tigers and orangutans. “
These are truly good news. We have seen time and again that deforestation in Brazil is at its lowest levels in decades and keep on decreasing. Read more →
Here are good news for marine conservation.To the BBC : ” A report to a UN meeting on biodiversity in Hyderabad reports that more than 8.3 million sq km – 2.3% of the global ocean area – is now protected.”
” The percentage is small but the rapid growth in recent times leads to hope that the world will hit its target of 10% protected by 2020. This would have looked most unlikely prospect just a few years ago.”
Ten percent doesn’t seem much, but it is a good start. Let’s hope Marine Protected Areas (MPA) will keep growing until 2020 and decades afterwards.
As CNN reported : ” Announced during the IUCN of Nature’s World Conservation Congress, the list is the culmination of work by 8,000 scientists who identified the animals, plants and fungi that are most in danger of extinction.
” Animals like the Hainan gibbon, pygmy three-toed sloth and Luristan newt are critically endangered but perhaps better placed to survive than many of the less charismatic species on the list, said the report’s authors. “
” There is a fear among some conservationists that many of the plants and fungi listed will not be saved or gain public attention because they don’t benefit humans. ” Read more →
I haven’t brought many good news lately. Likewise, I have blogged little on conservation issues. So please let me present you some good news on conservation, straight from Australia. To the WWF :
” WWF welcomed the new system of marine parks that would now cover more than one third of the Commonwealth waters of Australia – a milestone that WWF has been working towards for more than 15 years.”
” Australia today created the world’s biggest network of marine protected areas, setting an important precedent for ocean protection “
This is the most important news you’ll read this week. Forget about whatever happened in this weekend’s elections in Greece, Egypts or France. Economies may crash but can recover with time. It’s not the case with the environment.
To Nature : ” the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence.”
Both Climate Progress and Grist wrote compelling articles on this new study that should have grabbed everybody’s attention. But well, it didn’t… Read more →
I have been committed since January 2007 to bring you each month a selection of the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change and the world energy sector.
However, I don’t blog as much as I would like to and generally write around 25 posts per month. But many more news are worth reading. This is why I use Twitter to share dozens of news that are worth your time.
I believe it offers a good complement to this website. So if you are on Twitter and like this selection, don’t hesitate to start following me. Read more →
This seems to come straight from a nightmare. According to Grist, the Pacific Garbage Patch has gotten a hundred times bigger in only forty years. This is a huge problem as all this pollution directly harms the local biodiversity.
Turtles and fishes are the first victims but all this could also endanger zooplankton in the near future as to the BBC ” the fragments make it easier for the marine insect Halobates sericeus to lay its eggs out over the ocean.”
If you think about cleaning up Grist notes that ” the microplastic is intensely difficult to clean up, so it’s critical to keep plastic out of the ocean to keep the problem from getting worse. “ Indeed !
I had written about this very topic last month. To the New York Times green blog : ” A new scientific paper suggests that the ocean is acidifying at a rate that is many times faster than at any time in the past 300 million years. “
” The change is occurring so rapidly that it raises “the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change,” said the paper, published this week in the journal Science. “
Evidence keeps on piling up : unless we get really serious on slashing our carbon dioxide emissions as soon as possible, we will be doomed, as well as all life on Earth.
If climate change, rising sea levels and the threats to global peace and food production weren’t enough to you, here is another reason to fight carbon dioxide : ocean acidification. To Mongabay :
” Emissions of carbon over the last two centuries have raised the acidity of the oceans to the highest levels in 21,000 years and likely beyond, according to a new study in Nature Climate Change. “
This could have serious implications for marine biodiversity, notably corrals and mollusks. So, what are we waiting for to act ?
Here are some stunning news. To TreeHugger : ” Scientists have just completed the most accurate tally of the planet’s species yet (though the projection still has a pretty healthy margin of error). The magic number?”
” 8.7 million, according to the study, which was recently published in the journal PLoS Biology. But the amazing thing is, we’ve only actually ‘discovered’ 86% of them – and thousands of them will be extinct before we do. “
Oddly enough, despite oceans are covering over 70 percent of our planet, there are home to less than a third of all species… This can be explained by the huge amounts of insects on land. Read more →
According to Cleantechies : “A new study finds that animal and plant species are responding to the effects of climate change at a rate two to three times faster than previously believed.
Researchers in the Department of Biology at the University of York in the United Kingdom found that in more than 2,000 instances, species are changing their habitats to adapt to warming temperatures.
On average, they found that species are moving toward higher elevations at 12.2 meters (40 feet) per decade and toward the poles at 17.6 kilometers (11 miles) per decade.”
While browsing old articles on Sustainablog, I found one that I particularly liked on successful huge reforestation projects. I learned many cool things and thought that was well worth a post.
” Governments, NGOs, and even for-profit companies recognize the environmental and economic losses caused by deforestation, and are working to restore the health of these important ecosystems.”
This reminds me of an old post I published in 2009 about afforestation projects. Meanwhile, the Billion Tree Campaign is nearing 12 billion planted trees. This is absolutely stunning ! Read more →
To TreeHugger : “ That’s a lot of species. And it’s roughly 9,000 more than were endangered just over ten years ago, in 2000. That’s the finding of the latest report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).”
” There are now roughly 19,000 species that are currently threatened with extinction around the world. So why the jump? The usual suspects – deforestation, poaching, climate change, pollution, and invasive species – are largely to blame. ”
But the situation is not completely dark as to The Economist “The news is best for mammals, whose complete dataset has made evaluation easier. The percentage of endangered species has actually fallen since 2000. “
