The targets of the new 2030 Strategy of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) are in alignment with blue transformation, a pillar of FAO’s new Strategic Framework
The GFCM’s ambitious new 2030 Strategy will boost fisheries and aquaculture in the Black Sea and Mediterranean region.
ROME (FAO)* – An ambitious commitment adopted 9 July 2021 by 22 countries plus the European Union aims to secure a sustainable future for fisheries and aquaculture in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Cox’s Bazar (IOM)* – Almost 900,000 Rohingya refugees in congested camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar District desperately need urgent action to secure their future, nearly four years after they were forced to flee Myanmar, a senior International Organization for Migration (IOM) official said.
This post consists of six segments devoted to relations of the West to Iran, centering on whether the United States post-Trump will attempt to reduce tensions with Iran or opt for continuity, and greater policy coordination with Israel’s new post-Netanyahu leadership.
Naphtali Bennett, Israel’s new Prime Minister, has already made clear that he views Iran no differently than Netanyahu, opposes a return to the 2015 Nuclear Program Agreement (JCPOA) and seems to have authorized at unprovoked attack on the Karaj facility on June 23rd that produces centrifuges needed to obtain enriched uranium.
When the U.S. Government withdrew from the hard bargained Obama Era nuclear agreement in 2018 accompanied by a revamping of sanctions against Iran, tensions once again dangerously escalated.
9 July 2021 (UNEP)* — When Elderman Ndubiwa Jabulani was invited to a consultation with a cross-sectoral group of local stakeholders from his native Zimbabwe and neighbouring Botswana, he was ready to talk about the elephant in the room.
UNEP/Stephanie Foote / 09 Jul 2021
Or rather, the elephants in the field. Jabulani, a farmer, says the animals regularly trample his fields and ravage his crops in the Hwange district of Zimbabwe.
To wildlife officials, the elephants seemed to be more important than he and his family were.
WWF and UNEP reportsays the problem is as much a development and humanitarian issue as a conservation concern and risks derailingthe Sustainable Development Goals.
Gland (UNEP)* – Conflict between people and animals, from China’s famed wandering elephants raiding farms for food and water to wolves preying on cattle in Idaho is one of the main threats to the long-term survival of some of the world’s most emblematic species, warns a new report from WWF and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), out 8 July 2021.
(UN News)* — The world’s running out of time to limit global temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius, a matter of life or death for climate vulnerable countries on the front line of the crisis, the UN Secretary General reiterated on 8 July 2021.
Speaking to the first Climate Vulnerable Finance Summit of 48 nations systemically exposed to climate related disasters, António Guterres said they needed reassurance that financial and technical support will be forthcoming.
“To rebuild trust, developed countries must clarify now, how they will effectively deliver $100 billion dollars in climate finance annually to the developing world, as was promised over a decade ago”, he said.
(UN News)* — A new study released on 8 July 2021 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) illustrates the devastating impact of COVID-19 on victims and survivors of human trafficking and highlights the increased targeting and exploitation of children during the course of the pandemic.
UN Costa Rica/Danilo Mora | Lilith, not her real name, was trafficked from Nicaragua as a teenager and now lives in Costa Rica.
The study further assesses how frontline organizations responded to the challenges posed and continued to deliver essential services, despite restrictions across and within national borders.
Meanwhile, traffickers took advantage of the global crisis, capitalizing on peoples’ loss of income and the increased amount of time both adults and children were spending online.
8 July 2021 (WMO)* — The record-breaking heatwave in parts of the US and Canada at the end of June would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to a rapid attribution analysis by an international team of leading climate scientists. Climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions, made the heatwave at least 150 times more likely to happen.
TANGAIL, Bangladesh, Jul 7 2021 (IPS)* – When the Bangladesh Forest Department felled Basanti Rema’s banana orchard, Rema, a Garo indigenous forest-dweller of Madhupur Forest, felt she was living a nightmare.
Indigenous people form a human chain in Tangail district, Bangladesh as they demand legal rights to their ancestral forest land. Credit: Rafiqul Islam/IPS
Rema, from Pegmari village in Madhupur, Tangail district, had cultivated the banana plants on half an acre in the Madhupur Forest. But the Forest Department claimed that the land on which the bananas were cultivated belonged to the department.
7 July 2021 (FAO)* — “Moving from being farmers to agro-entrepreneurs is a complex process and requires new skills. And this is where we needed help,” explained Edgar Somacumbi, a farmer from Kwanza Sul, Angola.
“When I first heard about the Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovations Systems project two years ago, I knew immediately that it was just what our group of farmers was looking for.”
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 