The search for intelligent life is looking in the wrong direction. There are billions of stars in our galaxy, some of them older than our sun and with Earth-like planets orbiting around them. Hypothetically, these other solar systems could have started their development of intelligent life billions of years before ours. So, why haven’t we […]
Belize is widely regarded as a global leader in conservation, home to vast rainforests, diverse wildlife and the second-largest barrier reef in the world. The country has implemented protected areas, community-led conservation initiatives and sustainable tourism models, yet its national parks remain under increasing pressure from deforestation, expanding agriculture and unregulated development. The draft National […]
For the Akit tribe of Bengkalis and Pelalawan districts in Riau province, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, land is more than just soil beneath their feet: it is their identity, their lifeblood, and their heritage. As one elder has said, “Adat is like a part of the body, an epitome of blood and heart,” […]
The tropics are celebrated as hotspots of biological diversity and renowned as supply houses for food, fiber and pharmacies. They also harbor linguistic diversity, a proxy for cultural diversity, critical to people’s health, well-being and identity. Embedded in linguistic variation is a library of human knowledge, cosmologies and institutions. The correlation between biological and linguistic/cultural […]
In his first week in office back in 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a historic commitment to conserve 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. Two years later, the world agreed to a similar commitment with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The initiative, commonly known as 30×30, has since become a rallying cry […]
Human rights are not just words on paper. Advocates, social movements and government champions have brought much needed positive changes by pushing for the adoption of international human rights standards and putting rights at the forefront of national laws, policy, and governance decisions. In the world of conservation governance, human rights are the key to […]
Garment factories burning coal is bad, and must stop. The fashion industry has largely aligned on this fact by now, with most high street brands (absent Patagonia, PVH, C&A and some others) having signed the UNFCCC’s Fashion Charter commitment to no onsite burning of coal at factories supplying T1 (final assembly and packing) and T2 […]
In the quiet Swiss town of Davos, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain unfolds as young Hans Castorp’s brief visit to a sanatorium turns into a seven-year exploration of ideas, intrigue, and debates. The story ultimately becomes a metaphor for Europe’s isolation and decline before World War I. Since the novel’s publication in the early 20th […]
Attending the UN climate (COP28) and biodiversity (COP16) conferences during the past two years, it strikes this observer that the UN specialist environmental agreements on climate, biodiversity, pollution, hazardous waste, desertification, and so forth, all tacitly assume a global political context other than the one we are in. This political context is something we as […]
Wikipedia defines a ‘nothing-burger’ as “a situation that receives a lot of attention but which, upon closer examination, reveals to be of little to no real significance.” That unfortunately applies to the Forest Service’s national old-growth amendment (NOGA), which despite President Biden’s executive order directing the agency to conduct an inventory of mature and old-growth […]
Recognition of the need to restore degraded landscapes is accelerating at pace. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (the UN Decade) has triggered a global movement to rally individual action, financial investment, and political backing to prevent, halt and reverse the loss of nature. In October, at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16) conference […]
When considering the vastly unequal realities of the current global order, it is clear that the ongoing impact of the colonization of the Global South is wide ranging and all-encompassing. From legacies of racial subjugation, to the disproportionate impact of climate change, to the rise of populist authoritarianism, the colonial project is strong. But one […]
In recent years, there has been an enormous increase in awareness about the importance of rainforests to global ecosystems and economies. Meanwhile, another biome – one that covers more than half of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and is similarly important to tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation – has been overlooked. Rangelands, despite […]
When most people think about climate change, images of melting ice caps or rising sea levels come to mind. However, the reality is far more intricate and urgent. The effects of climate change, such as fires, droughts, and extreme weather events are not just environmental threats, but crises that directly impact human well-being and wildlife […]
December 2009, Copenhagen, three in the morning. Tired of waiting for any official announcement from the COP15 presidency, a journalist friend and I decided to sleep right there in the convention center. Me on the chair, him on the table! Like us, others were dozing off in the corners of the press room. It was […]
As we’ve watched the biodiversity COP in Colombia and then the climate COP negotiations in recent weeks, the urgency of addressing the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss has never been clearer. The need for bold action is undeniable, and the solutions we implement must be just as transformative. One area that holds […]
Agriculture and nature are closely intertwined, with millions of farmers around the world relying on nature-based activities as their source of livelihoods. Yet the adverse impacts of agriculture on the environment, climate, and biodiversity cannot be understated. From degraded soil and water resources to deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, unsustainable agricultural practices place enormous burdens […]
‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a typical approach to waste and is one of the main reasons why the waste trade persists. The world discovered that toxic waste was being dumped in Africa and other developing countries in the 1980s, and since 1988, more than a quarter of a billion tons of plastic […]
The first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that I worked on was in 2009. I didn’t actually go but rather volunteered for Farhana Yamin representing the Marshall Islands, doing some research. She invited me to come and her delegation would pay half of my ticket and accommodation. She said she would give […]
The evidence is irrefutable: Sweden has spent the last few years trying to frustrate any EU-proposed measures to protect forests. A brief – and far from comprehensive – snapshot of this unhappy record reads as follows: In 2021, a leaked EU Forest Strategy draft revealed European Commission (EC) plans to reduce the clear-cutting that’s ravaged […]
