Tropical forests are home to more than half of the world’s species and play an important role in offsetting global warming, but they are under threat due to global demand for land, energy, food and other resources. The scale of that threat can now be better understood through the findings of…

Have a look at some articles: You have full text access to this OnlineOpen article Experimental and statistical study of saturated hydraulic conductivity and relations with other soil properties of a desert soil (pages 256–264) Persistent carbon loss from the humus layer of tilled boreal forest soil…

Soil erosion costs European countries €1.25 billion in annual agricultural productivity loss and €155 million in the gross domestic product (GDP) loss, according to a JRC new study. Soil erosion is the biggest threat to soil fertility and productivity, but the consequences do not stop there. A…

A study just published by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Nature Climate Change shows that soils can be a net sink of greenhouse gases through increased storage of organic carbon.

Species’ responses to climate change are contingent on the complexity and fragmentation of their habitats. Ecological niche modelling is used to reconstruct past range shifts and identify future vulnerable areas and potential refugia of the King penguin in the Southern Ocean under climate change

The Green Climate Fund has approved US$1,093.5 million in funding for mitigation and adaptation projects in its first board meeting of 2018. A major global insurance company has committed to divest €2 billion from coal and invest €3.5 billion in the green economy. Several renewable energy and energy…

Twenty-seven policy briefs were authored for the Global Preparatory Meeting for Review of SDG 7. IRENA released two reports, on renewable energy market analysis for Southeast Asia and prospects for the EU. A joint report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and Facebook looks at options for bridging the…

Rural women - a quarter of the world’s population - work as farmers, wage earners and entrepreneurs. They represent an important share of the agriculture workforce and their contribution to the rural economy is widely underestimated. They are concentrated in the informal economy in low-skilled, low…

Erratic rains and rising cereals prices intensify hunger risks around Eastern Africa

Help countries to compile better data and increase transparency – Google partnership

In a recent review, FAO identified that 41 out of 54 countries in Africa included at least one policy or measure on more sustainable use of bioenergy in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). Considering the critical role of sustainable bioenergy in sub-Saharan Africa, FAO’s…

League of Arab States, World Meteorological Organization, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and UN Environment organized the Regional Training Workshop on Sand and Dust Storms in the Arab Region in Cairo, Egypt from 10 to 12 February 2018. The workshop was hosted by the…

Sampling and analysis or visual examination of soil to assess its status and use potential is widely practiced from plot to national scales. However, the choice of relevant soil attributes and interpretation of measurements are not straightforward, because of the complexity and site-specificity of…

Over the past 16 years, Excellent Development has been working with partners across Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sudan, Chad, Swaziland and India. Our main focus has been to enable the building of sand dams in these arid and semi-arid lands to provide access to clean water and all its…

The resurgence of violent conflict in recent years has caused immense human suffering, at enormous social and economic cost. Violent conflicts today have become complex and protracted, involving more non-state groups and regional and international actors, often linked to global challenges from…

Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are the most commonly known, used, and globally widespread, environmental planning and management tools, with Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) also gaining increasing momentum over the last decade. The objective of these tools is to make sure that…

As extreme weather events increase in intensity and frequency, building up the resilience of the poorest communities – often the most exposed to climate change – is critical. And financial services have a role to play. For poor families the impact of extreme weather, such as floods and droughts…

Long-term field experiments at Rothamsted Research, dating back as far as 1843, prove that modern carbon emissions cannot be locked in the ground to halt global warming

Everything FAO does aims at ensuring a better future. Sure, we need to tackle the huge food and environmental challenges we face today. But we always keep an eye on what that means for tomorrow. More than just quick fixes, we look for sustainable solutions that will benefit generations to come. The…

Former UN climate change chief Christiana Figueres brings new urgency to the global climate conversation with a campaign to ensure greenhouse gas emissions begin rapidly declining by 2020.

Pathways to increase access to land for the realization of development, peace and human rights

Promoting inclusive and sustainable economic and social development whilst simultaneously adapting to climate change impacts and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions – Climate Compatible Development (CCD) – requires coherent policy approaches that span multiple sectors. This paper develops and…

Ecosystems are essential to human life, livelihoods and wellbeing. Many national policies and international agreements include goals to protect ecosystem services. A new guide – commissioned by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme and written by Professor James Bullock of…

Even though ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is recognised to hold considerable potential to strengthen climate adaption, it is still yet to be fully mainstreamed into development policy and practice. Valuation can provide convincing – and usually much-needed – evidence of the benefits of investing…

Access, in reference to Ecosystem services (ES), is defined as the capacity to gain benefits from the environment. There has been a global shift in natural resource governance, particularly increased co-management of protected areas (PAs). Yet there has been little research on how this change may be…