Blog for People, Food and Nature

Tomorrow marks World Oceans Day, the idea for which was originally conceived 20 years ago at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. With the UNCSD Rio+20 just weeks away, the issue is of particular importance in the context of building a 'Green Economy,' as well as for food and nutrition security. While the Landscape…

Land tenure has been increasingly implicated in the preservation of natural capital and local rural livelihoods. A new report by the Rights and Resources Institute examines the current state of land tenure and resource rights, and what progress has been made in the twenty years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Jan…

At the end of May, African ministers and heads of state representing ten countries came together in Gaborone, Botswana to discuss strategies for sustainable development on the continent. From this Summit on Sustainability in Africa emerged the Gaborone Declaration, a document intended to feed into discussions at UNCSD …

By Dr. Emmanuel Torquebiau French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and Centre for Environmental Studies, University of Pretoria, South Africa The Usuthu Gorge area, to the North West of the KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, is part of the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity …

On May 22, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) held their third annual Malthus Lecture in Washington, DC. Addressing the theory put forward by Thomas Malthus in the 19th century that eventually population is checked by famine and disease, this event strive…

Climate-smart agriculture addresses the impacts of a changing climate on agriculture and presents solutions to both mitigate the contribution of agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions and to feed an ever-increasing global population. Particular practices, such as incorporating trees into farms, water capture technolog…