Archive for September 26th, 2014

26/09/2014

If We Had to Pay the Bill to Nature, What Would Food Waste Cost Us?

Human Wrongs Watch

The full economic, environmental and social costs of food waste amount to approximately 2.6 trillion US dollars annually, according to UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

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Each year, 30 percent of global food production is lost after harvest or wasted in shops, households and catering services. This represents 750 billion USD in terms of producer or farm gate prices, going up to almost a trillion US dollars of trade value of food every year – half the GDP of Italy! *

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26/09/2014

To Combat Hunger, UN Launches Initiative for Sustainable Use of World’s Oceans

Human Wrongs Watch

The future of global food security hinges on the better management and sustainable development of the planet’s oceans and fisheries, a top United Nations official on 25 September 2014 stressed, adding that the world could not wait any longer to act on saving Earth’s marine environments.

Healthy oceans have a central role to play in solving one of the biggest problems of the 21st century – how to feed 9 billion people by 2050. Photo: FAO

Healthy oceans have a central role to play in solving one of the biggest problems of the 21st century – how to feed 9 billion people by 2050. Photo: FAO

Speaking at an event on the side-lines of the General Assembly in New York, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva urged faster action in implementing sustainable practices to protect the world’s “blue economy.”*

“We have the know-how, we have the opportunity,” emphasized Graziano da Silva. “Now is the time to act.”

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26/09/2014

UN Treaty Regulating Global Arms Trade Set to Enter into Force

Human Wrongs Watch

Less than two years after its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly, the Arms Trade Treaty has now received the 50 ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force, the world body announced on 25 September 2014.

UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

The threshold of 50 ratifications was reached earlier today at a joint ceremony held as part of the 2014 Treaty Event – an annual undertaking on the margins of the Assembly’s high-level debate that seeks to promote wider participation in the multilateral treaty framework.

Eight States – Argentina, Bahamas, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Senegal and Uruguay – deposited their instruments of ratification today, while Georgia and Namibia signed the Treaty.

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