Archive for May, 2021

25/05/2021

Seagrass – One of the Ocean’s Most Important Plants – Is Losing Its Habitat 7% Each Year, the Equivalent of a Football Field Every 30 Minutes

Human Wrongs Watch

Projects to restore seagrass are gathering pace.

25 May 2021 (UNEP)* — From the Gazi Bay, in Kenya, to Maputo Bay, in Mozambique, all the way to Dale Bay in Wales, projects to restore seagrass are gathering pace.

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25/05/2021

The Magic of Mangroves

25 May 2021 (FAO)* — “We go to look for oysters in the mangroves to feed our families and for business. This is how I make a living. If I work for two to three days, I can earn money to cover my expenses,” says Fatou Sarr, President of the Women Transformers Group of Diamniadio, a cooperative and producers’ organization that supports small-scale oyster producers.
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With backing from FAO and the Coastal Fisheries Initiatives, communities are on a mission to save natural habitats like mangroves to safeguard their local environments. ©FAO/Yacine Cissé

25/05/2021

Lack of Clean Water ‘Far Deadlier’ than Violence in War-Torn Countries – UNICEF

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Attacks on water and sanitation facilities in conflict zones around the world are putting the lives of millions of children around the world in danger, and are a much greater threat than violence itself, warns the UN Children’s agency, UNICEF, in a report released on 25 May 2021.

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© UNICEF/Khaled Akacha | A young girl collects water from a tanker truck in an IDP camp in northwest Syria.
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Water Under Fire Volume 3, highlights that children’s access to water has been threatened in nearly every conflict-related emergency where UNICEF is responding.

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24/05/2021

“Vesak”, the Day of the Full Moon in May, Is the Most Sacred Day to Millions of Buddhists around the World

Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha.

Siddhartha Gautama, the Lord Buddha, was born in 623 B.C. in the famous gardens of Lumbini, which soon became a place of pilgrimage. PHOTO:UN/Pengfei Mi
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24 May 2021 (United Nations)* — “Vesak”, the Day of the Full Moon in the month of May, is the most sacred day to millions of Buddhists around the world. It was on the Day of Vesak two and a half millennia ago, in the year 623 B.C., that the Buddha was born.
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It was also on the Day of Vesak that the Buddha attained enlightenment, and it was on the Day of Vesak that the Buddha in his eightieth year passed away.
23/05/2021

Arctic Assessment Report Shows Faster Rate of Warming

23/05/2021

Seed Biodiversity: The Life Insurance of Our Food Production

Human Wrongs Watch

22 May 2021 (FAO)* — Humans rely on a shockingly low number of plants for the majority of our daily calories. In fact, of the thousands of fruit and vegetable species cultivated for food, fewer than 200 make up a substantial part of food produced globally.


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Thousands of plant species and varieties that fed our ancestors are already extinct, and we are losing more every day. Diversity is our food’s life insurance. ©FAO/Luis Tato

But what if climate change, invasive species, pollution, city sprawl or overuse of land cause these species to weaken, lowering their ability to produce or survive into the future?

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23/05/2021

‘Humanity Is “Waging a War on Nature”, Threatening Biodiversity Loss, Climate Disruption and Escalating Pollution…’

Human Wrongs Watch

Everyone will lose unless humanity makes ‘peace with the planet’ – UN Chief.

UN News/Elizabeth Scaffidi | The sun sets in Acadia National Park, Maine, United States.

(UN News)* — Humanity is “waging a war on nature”, threatening biodiversity loss, climate disruption and escalating pollution, the UN chief on 21 May 2021 said.

“We will all be losers if we don’t achieve peace with the planet”, Secretary-General António Guterres told a webinar ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity, commemorated annually on 22 May. “We should all be advocates for nature”, he said.

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23/05/2021

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22 May 2021 (United Nations)* — As the global community is called to re-examine our relationship to the natural world, one thing is certain: despite all our technological advances we are completely dependent on healthy and vibrant ecosystems for our water, food, medicines, clothes, fuel, shelter and energy, just to name a few.
23/05/2021

How to Address the Emergence and Spread of Zoonotic Diseases

Human Wrongs Watch

New international expert panel to address the emergence and spread of zoonotic diseases

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Geneva/Paris/Rome/Nairobi, 20 May 2021 (UNEP)* – International organizations have come together to launch a new One Health High-Level Expert Panel to improve understanding of how diseases with the potential to trigger pandemics, emerge and spread.

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23/05/2021

Bees, Bans and Broad-Spectrum Pesticides

(UNEP)*Bees and other pollinators are increasingly under threat from human activities. To raise awareness of the importance of pollinators and their contribution to sustainable development, the UN marks May 20 as World Bee Day.

black and brown bee lot

This year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) examines how a decades-old legacy of DDT use has imperilled Tajikistan’s bees and the actions being taken to reverse this trend.

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