'Unseen' News and Views
20 March 2019 (UN Environment)* — When Ali Tewa started fishing after leaving school in 1990, the waters around Lamu County in southern Kenya were teeming with fish.
Water is also required to meet personal and household needs, for energy and industrial production, and to maintain important water-dependent ecosystems and ecosystem services.
With demand and competition for water on the rise, however, the planet’s water resources are under increasing stress due to climate change, poor management and pollution.
A student carries her seedling to where it will be planted. Hundreds of students took part in planting trees in one of Haiti’s last forests – the Pine Forest. Located nearly 4 hr drive from Port au Prince, the once great forest has been depleted to make room for farm land and to make charcoal for fuel. Photo MINUSTAH/Logan Abassi
Forests are the most biologically-diverse ecosystems on land, home to more than 80% of the terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects.
Yet despite all of these priceless ecological, economic, social and health benefits, global deforestation continues at an alarming rate – 13 million hectares of forest are destroyed annually.
When countries of the Global South forged an historic technical cooperation deal among themselves 40 years ago, digital technology was a thing of the future, but developing nations have come a long way since then.*
Safe water and access to proper sanitation are essential to eradicate poverty, build peaceful societies and ensure that no one is left behind on the path towards sustainable development, according to the 2019 UN World Water Development Report, launched on Tuesday [19 March 2019] in Geneva.*
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 