High-level event co-hosted by FAO, Costa Rica, Spain and the Vatican
Women at work in an Amazonian food system.
ROME (FAO)* — Indigenous peoples and afro-descendants’ knowledge, innovations and resilience capacities are essential for the transformation to a more sustainable and climate-friendly world and should be included in the policy-making processes, agreed the High-Level Seminar convened on 27 May 2021 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the governments of Costa Rica, Spain and the Vatican.
HYDERABAD, India (IPS)* – As the sun sets over the canopy of Albizia amara trees, a thin blanket of fog begins to descend over the forests of the Malai Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, which lies roughly 150 km south of the Indian city of Bangalore.
28 May 2021 (UNEP)* — Nitrogen is a double-edged sword. The element is a key component in fertilizers and helps fuel the growth of essential crops like wheat and maize. But too much nitrogen can pollute the air, decimate soils and create lifeless “dead zones” in the ocean.
Reuters/Fayaz Aziz / 27 May 2021
To counter those threats, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is coordinating a global drive to manage nitrogen more sustainably.
Ahead of the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration on 5 June, UNEP is hosting a webinar to explore how nitrogen management can help revive natural spaces while combating hunger, improving human health and tackling climate change.
Geneva (UNEP)* – A total investment in nature of USD 8.1 trillion is required between now and 2050 – while annual investment should reach USD 536 billion annually by 2050 – in order to successfully tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises, according to the State of Finance for Nature report released on 27 May 2021.
The report finds that annual investments in nature-based solutions will have to triple by 2030 and increase four-fold by 2050 from the current investments into nature-based solutions of USD 133 billion (using 2020 as base year).
27 May 2021 (UNEP)* — The ongoing loss of natural spaces, including forests, has become a systemic risk for the global economy, warns a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and several partners.
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REUTERS/Aly Song / 27 May 2021
Over the past decade, 26 per cent of global tree cover loss was caused by the production of just seven agricultural commodities – cattle, oil palm, soy, cocoa, rubber, coffee and wood fibre – said the State of Financing for Naturereport.
Barring major changes, the toll on forests and other wild spaces will continue to mount, ultimately imperiling industries that rely on natural resources.
(UN News)* — UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Thursday [27 May 2021] for a “genuine and inclusive peace process” to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and a repeat of recent deadly clashes that have been marked by possible war crimes by Israeli security forces.
In comments to the Human Rights Council in Geneva – which stopped short of supporting a call for an international probe into the escalation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel – Ms. Bachelet condemned indiscriminate rocket attacks by Gaza’s de facto authority Hamas, which claimed 10 lives in Israel, and strikes inside the enclave by Israeli Security Forces that left 242 dead.
(UN News)* — Only a political solution will end the “senseless and costly cycles of violence” between Israelis and Palestinians, UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said in a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday [27 May 2021].
UNRWA/Mohamed Hinnawi | A building damaged by an Israeli air strike amid a flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence in Gaza City.
Ambassadors met in person in New York as a fragile cessation of hostilities continues to hold, following 11 days of deadly conflict this month which engulfed the Occupied Palestinian Territory and several cities across Israel.
“These recent events have made clear once again the costs of perpetual conflict and lost hope”, said Mr Wennesland, officially the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.
With 250,000 Iraqis still living in camps after fleeing ISIS, sudden closure of 14 sites in late 2020 forced many to return to destroyed homes and villages lacking basic services.
27 May 2021 (UNHCR)* — When 68-year-old famer Dahi finally returned to his village after spending more than three years in a camp south of Mosul for Iraqis who fled ISIS militants, his homecoming was far from the joyous occasion he had long imagined
Deep sea mining companies are currently out in the Pacific carrying out tests in an attempt to prove their industry is safe for the environment. A few weeks ago, one of those companies, GSR, lost control of a 25-tonne robot at the bottom of the ocean. Bearing witness to this and confronting this industry at sea is Victor Pickering, a Fijian activist onboard Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship..
Nairobi (UNEP)* – A new atlas published on 26 May 2021 shows that 54 per cent of the world’s land surface consists of vast tracts of land covered by grass, shrubs or sparse, hardy vegetation that support millions of pastoralists, hunter-gatherers, ranchers and large populations of wildlife–and store large amounts of carbon.
Yet while most climate plans focus on forests, much less importance is given to rangelands, leaving these massive planetary ecosystems supporting people and nature exposed to a wide variety of threats.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 