'Unseen' News and Views
05 September 2024 (WMO)* — A vicious cycle of climate change, wildfires and air pollution is having a spiralling negative impact on human health, ecosystems and agriculture, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
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The WMO Air Quality and Climate Bulletin includes a special focus on wildfires. It also looks at global and regional concentrations of particulate matter pollution and its harmful effects on crops in 2023.
Iceland´s glaciers are retreating so rapidly that future generations may wonder how the ancient island nation got its name. No surprise then that the land of the Vikings was chosen to house the world’s first global glacier graveyard which was unveiled at a ceremony last month, close to the capital Reykjavik.
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(UN News)* — Recent “catastrophic and massive floods” in Bangladesh have affected millions of people across the country, including those in Cox’s Bazar where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar live alongside host communities, spokesperson William Spindler told journalists in Geneva on Friday [].
On 14 August [2024], Indigenous Peoples and rights activists came to find out that the Tanzanian government decided to exclude people from 11 wards composed of 25 villages and 96 sub-villages in Ngorongoro from voter registration, effectively denying more than 100,000 Maasai from their guaranteed democratic right to civic participation.
Between 2001 and 2022, the Mau Forest’s deforestation resulted in the loss of about 533 square kilometers of tree cover. Now, a group of women, under the aegis of the Paran Women Group, are preparing to plant 100,000 saplings this rainy season in an effort to restore the forest.
Paran Women Group’s executive director, Naiyan Kiplagat, is working in the forest. The group are passionate guardians of the environment and promoters of gender equality. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
– The Great Rift Valley is part of an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south.
– A New Zealand bill that would roll back Indigenous rights is unlikely to pass – but it’s emblematic of a growing climate of hostility from governing politicians. A recent survey shows that almost half of New Zealanders believe racial tensions have worsened under the right-wing government in power since December 2023.
Credit: Dave Lintott / AFP via Getty Images
The Treaty Principles Bill reinterprets the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. New Zealand’s founding text, this agreement between the British government and Indigenous Māori chiefs established British governorship over the islands in return for recognition of Māori ownership of land and other property.
(UN News)* — The number of people experiencing catastrophic hunger has surged more than twofold in 2024, due largely to the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Sudan, according to new figures released by the UN on Thursday [].
Nairobi, 28 August 2024 – In half the world’s countries one or more types of freshwater ecosystems are degraded, including rivers, lakes and aquifers. River flow has significantly decreased, surface water bodies are shrinking or being lost, ambient water is growing more polluted, and water management is off-track.
()* — The level of the sea globally is rising faster and higher than ever before, creating what the United Nations has described as an “urgent and escalating threat” to people around the world.
© UNICEF/Lasse Bak Mejlvang | Children in the Pacific Ocean island of Tuvalu play at a coastal area protected by sandbags.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has been visiting the Pacific Ocean nations, Tonga and Samoa, where sea level rise has been one of the key issues he has been discussing with the communities he has met.
On 25 September, global leaders and experts will gather at the UN to discuss how best to address the threat.
Here’s what you need to know about sea level rise:
(UN News)* — Over 18 million people in Bangladesh have been affected by severe monsoon conditions, with more than 1.2 million families trapped as flash floods submerge vast areas of the country’s east and southeast.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 