The 2014 International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) aims to raise the profile of family farming and smallholder farming by focusing world attention on its significant role in eradicating hunger and poverty, providing food security and nutrition, improving livelihoods, managing natural resources, protecting the environment, and achieving sustainable development, in particular in rural areas.   The goal ...

  This past November was the hottest on record, with land and ocean temperatures a toasty 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.78 degrees Celsius) above the average 20th century global temperature of 55.2 degrees Fahrenheit (12.9 degrees Celsius), according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). When only land temperatures are taken into account, this November was the second hott ...

Hunters from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen and Ethiopia have signed a Regional Declaration on Responsible Hunting [1], at a ceremony organised by the BirdLife International and UNDP/GEF Migratory Soaring Birds (MSB) project, in coordination with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL), BirdLife in Lebanon. Under the Patronage of H.E. Mr. Nazem El Khoury, Lebanese Ministe ...

Launching alongside Apple's flagship 5S iPhone will be the 5C, the first mid-range iPhone, with fewer features and a plastic casing instead of aluminium. The 5S will have a carbon footprint of 70kg, the 5C a footprint of 60kg. Of the 5S's 70kg carbon footprint, 81% will be emitted during production and 12% during phone's 'career' (which is how I like to think of it). The new iPhones will be less environment ...

The world wastes 1.3 billion tons of food annually—a third of all the food that’s produced—according to a report published last week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This waste not only results in major economic loss, but also causes significant harm to the natural resources that we rely on for food production. It also has moral implications, given that an estimated 870 million ...

  St Petersburg, 6 September 2013 - Building on the earlier agreement between President Xi Jinping and President Obama at their summit in Sunnyland in June, the US and China agreed today to open formal negotiations on the details of an amendment to phase down the super greenhouse gasses HFCs under the Montreal Protocol. HFCs are the fastest growing greenhouse gas in the US, China, India, and many other ...

Usually we think of demolished concrete walls and floors as environmental contaminants, but in fact this material may turn out to be a valuable resource in nature protection work. This is the conclusion from researchers from University of Southern Denmark after studying the ability of crushed concrete to bind phosphorus. "We have shown that crushed concrete can bind up to 90 per cent of phosphorus, "says Ph ...

It has been said that seabirds are key indicators of the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans. How exactly? In Antarctica, for example, seabirds depend on ice: Seabirds eat fish, which eat krill. The krill eat algae, and the algae grow underneath sea ice. With warming oceans, and less ice, there will major consequences for this food chain. In an effort to quantify and model how seabirds will fare ...

The planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate since the dinosaurs went extinct. But what might be even more troubling for humans, plants and animals is the speed of the change. Stanford climate scientists warn that the likely rate of change over the next century will be at least 10 times quicker than any climate shift in the past 65 million years. If the trend continues at its current rapid ...

Bsharri Municipality will enlist plant microorganisms to gobble up the pollution in the region’s wastewater, leaders from the area announced Sunday afternoon. The Model Plant for Sanitation project in Bsharri will test a new water treatment technology, which uses naturally grown microorganisms to treat the municipality’s wastewater. The project was inaugurated Sunday in the Al-Harim area with the cooperatio ...