Johannesburg: Chief land claims commissioner Blessing Mphela’s announcement last week that the government had run out of money to pay for land restitution claims came as a bitter blow to Alpheus Matlou. Many community leaders, commercial farmers and lodge operators throughout SA are expecting to conclude joint venture partnerships for redistributing land to blacks denied ownership under apartheid without destroying its productive capacity... Read more...
Greening agriculture key to fighting climate change and boosting food security
28 July 2009, source: UNEP URL: http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/26645
Environmentally-friendly farming practices hold the key to combating climate change and poverty, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said today, stressing that ‘green’ agriculture holds the key to dealing with the world’s rapidly growing population.
One-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming, are attributable to agriculture, deforestation and other forms of land use... Read more...
Nairobi: One of the hottest places in the world is set to become the site of Africa's most ambitious venture in the battle against global warming. Some 365 giant wind turbines are to be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya – used as a backdrop for the film The Constant Gardener – creating the biggest windfarm on the continent... Read more...
Want an extra US$250 a year? Adopt fuel-efficient stoves
28 July 2009, source: The East African URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200907271409.html
Nairobi: The carbon credit trade -- a by-product of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change -- is gaining credibility in the developing world, by using the double-pronged approach of making money for rural communities while at the same time conserving the environment. For instance, Carbon Manna Africa, a Kenyan-registered company is working on reducing greenhouse gases by promoting the use of fuel-efficient stoves that use less firewood, thereby reducing the amount of trees felled by rural communities... Read more...
Nile nations discuss sharing their river
28 July 2009, source: Fresnobee.com URL: http://www.fresnobee.com/world/story/1561032.html
Cairo: Ministers from the 10 African countries on the Nile river began crucial discussions Monday over drafting a new water sharing agreement, which is hampered by Egypt's refusal to reduce its share of world's longest river. In an opening address to the Nile Basin Initiative, held in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, Egypt's Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif urged for a "return of the cooperation and harmony" among the group's members, describing the ongoing dispute as a "misunderstanding... Read more...
Help fight deforestation, FG tells states
28 July 2009, source: ThisDay URL: http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=149846
Abuja: The Federal Government has urged states to collaborate with it in its effort to arrest the growing impact of desertification, land degradation and effects of climate change.
Minister of Environment, Mr. John Odey, said this in Dutse, Jigawa State, weekend, at the ceremony to commemorate the 2009 World Desertification Day (WDD)... Read more...
How energy efficiency mitigates greenhouse emissions
28 July 2009, source: ThisDay URL: http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=149924
Lagos: The country office of the United Nations Development Programme recently hosted its regional energy technical adviser, Mr. Benoit Lebot in Nigeria. The occasion provided a forum for the formulation process for the Global Environment Facility energy efficiency project in the country. Interested stakeholder were part of the discussions on how best to mitigate the impact of global warming on Nigeria:
Human activities that bring about global warming with its negative impact on the environment come in divergent ways... Read more...
Abuja: Worried by continuous threats to soil by desertification, land degradation and the effects of climate change, the federal government has said that it will cultivate 16 000 hectares of land annually by planting various economic trees as part of measures to curtail these menace. The federal minister of environment, housing and urban development, Mr... Read more...
Poor nations meet in Bangladesh to seek common climate strategy
28 July 2009, source: Monsters and Critics URL: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/news/article_1492062.php/Poor_nations_meet_in_Bangladesh_to_seek_common_climate_strategy_
Dhaka: Environmentalists and civil society activists from 21 Asia-Pacific and African countries vulnerable to global warming met Monday to devise a common strategy in the run-up to a United Nations climate change conference in December. Delegates at the three-day meeting in Dhaka are to try to adopt a declaration containing non-negotiable demands from these nations aimed at a fair climate-change deal at the UN summit in Copenhagen, its organizers said... Read more...
London: Teachers and students want to do good things for the environment, but sometimes they can't see the wood for the trees. Zac Goldsmith sets out five things all schools can do:
It's a worrying fact that around 400,000 British children are on behavioural drugs such as Ritalin. Some, no doubt, need the treatment, but the sheer number of children taking these drugs suggests that in our society, childhood itself has come to be seen as a disease... Read more...
Tackling transfer of �green� technology
27 July 2009, source: Inter Press Service URL: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47780
New Delhi: As Indian and United States negotiators wrangled this week over contributions to mitigating climate change, it became clear that the main hitch remains technology flow in a highly competitive trade environment.U.S. negotiators led by Todd Stern have continued talks with Indian officials even after U... Read more...
Brussels: Rich countries should immediately mobilize billions of dollars in development aid to the poorest nations to win their trust in the run-up to global climate talks in Copenhagen, a draft European Union report said.
Nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development should also fulfill their existing commitments on overseas aid, which would more than double those aid flows to poor nations to around $280 billion annually by 2015, it added... Read more...
AMMA: The African monsoon, global climate change and our concerns, by scientists
27 July 2009, source: The Guardian URL: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/homes_property/article01/indexn2_html?pdate=270709&ptitle;=The%20African%20monsoon,%20global%20climate%20change%20and%20our%20concerns,%20by%20scientists
Ougadougou: If current thinking within the global science community is anything to go by, the most pressing threat to human existence in coming years may not come, as many have feared, from the global proliferation of nuclear arsenal, which both the United States of America and Russia have now pledged to halt... Read more...
Clinton/Geithner: A new strategic and economic dialogue with China
27 July 2009, source: Wall Street Journal
New York: When the United States and China established diplomatic relations 30 years ago, it was far from clear what the future would hold. In 1979, China was still emerging from the ruins of the Cultural Revolution and its gross domestic product stood at a mere $176 billion, a fraction of the U... Read more...
Over 25 per cent of Mau grabbed, report says
27 July 2009, source: The Standard URL: http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144020154&cid;=4
Nairobi: The taskforce that investigated human settlement on the expansive Mau Forest Complex says 107,000 hectares were illegally acquired. This represents 25 per cent of the key forest, and the excision took place in 15 years of violation of Kenyan laws and international conventions.
Their report says the "encroachment" is mainly in the complex's southern and northern blocks... Read more...
