Biodiversity is essential for people through its provision of nutritious food, clean water, medicines, and protection from extreme events.
UNEP
All you need to know about air pollution
Some 330,000 premature deaths in the Americas are caused each year by pollution from open landfill dumpsites where waste is usually burned. In Latin America and the Caribbean there are thousands of dumpsites which are health hazards and which also contribute to climate change.
Late last year, flights were diverted from Delhi, thousands of schools were closed and people in the Indian capital were advised to stay indoors or wear masks. Now, India is gearing up for another surge in toxic air. In autumn, farmers across the northern part of the country will burn their fields to make way for a new crop. During the blazes, air pollution in Delhi can be 14 times greater than what the World Health Organization considers safe, with much of the country blanketed in a haze so thick, it can be seen from space.
While national and local interventions are largely focused on protecting lives and economies during COVID-19, management of hazardous waste is also essential to minimize long-term risks to human and environmental health. A new publication - Waste Management during the COVID-19 Pandemic: from response to recovery - reviews current practices for managing waste from healthcare facilities, households and quarantine locations accommodating people with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19.
2020 marks the third anniversary and is a milestone year for The .
has created immersive digital experiences for its campaign. These four ecosystem-based journeys show the magic of interconnected natural systems and inspire people to take action to protect these distinct ecosystems. The first is . This aquatic adventure informs and inspires people to conserve coral reef, seagrass and mangrove ecosystems. The campaign aims at reversing trends such as two-thirds of oceans being significantly and negatively altered by human activity.
For ten years, Dixon Parmuya has guided tourists on bush walks around Amboseli National Park in Southern Kenya. But since COVID-19 swept through Kenya in mid-March, the countrys tourism industry has dwindled, leaving many locals without jobs and animals without protection. Most of Kenyas programmes to protect wildlife are funded directly by tourist dollars and with visitor numbers down, money for conservation is drying up, say experts. In Africa, is working closely with governments and partners to encourage where local communities are central to protecting the wildlife areas they inhabit, for mutual benefit of both.
Join s virtual, immersive journey through three unique but connected marine ecosystems mangroves, seagrass and coral reefs that are threatened by human activity.
Vanishing Treasures, the partnership with the Bhutan Tiger Center aims at understanding the impact of climate change on tigers, local communities and human-tiger conflicts.
New programme aims to save threatened Indonesian forests
The low retail cost of industrialized food can obscure its very high environmental price tag. Here are 10 things to know about industrial farming.
Food systems are essential to economic activity because they provide the energy that we need to live and work. 51勛圖 agencies like , collectively, suggest rebuilding of economies after the COVID-19 crisis while transforming the global food system and make it resilient to future shocks, ensuring environmentally sustainable and healthy nutrition for all. Cracks in the global food systems facade have long been apparent, resulting in 2020 as a year of reckoning.
Ebola, SARS, Zika, HIV/AIDS, West Nile fever and now COVID-19 some of the highest-profile diseases to emerge in the last several decades. And while they emerged in different parts of the world, their common thread is that they jumped between animals and humans. They are what scientists call zoonotic diseases. Now, a led by finds that unless countries take dramatic steps to curb zoonotic contagions, global outbreaks like COVID-19 will become more common.
Habitat loss and fragmentation is a major threat to sloths. In Panama, a biodiverse country, a partner has rescued sloths for more than a decade.