Bolivia’s second largest lake has been completely dried out since 2015. This is due to global warming, which is accelerating evaporation – already very high at 4,000 metres altitude – as well as the mining industry, which consumes a significant amount of water. The Uru Murato people are trying to [...]Read the full article
José González was one of the countless migrants who risk crossing into the United States in search of a better life. But after years spent pursuing an American dream that is inaccessible to most, he returned home to the Sierra de Durango in north-west Mexico where he found the good life working [...]Read the full article
“All our field observations show that people’s livelihoods are profoundly affected for many years after they are evicted. So why continue along this path?”Read the full article
Chloé Maurel:“Under the 17 ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) proclaimed by the UN in 2015, goal 6 aims to ensure access to and the sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. But will these declarations remain a dead letter in a world where they have no binding force and the UN has no power to [...]Read the full article
In Brazil, the ecosystem of the Maricá restinga, a nature reserve 60 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, could be disrupted by plans to develop a luxury resort, the environmental impact of which has been denounced by several researchers.Read the full article
“A striking parallel between both stories of the new capital cities is how both projects only reinforce a colonial state, in spite of their promoters claiming the opposite. Both projects dominate and destroy the life spaces and territories of forest communities for economic and political [...]Read the full article
By re-irrigating agricultural land facing drought – due to climate change and Turkey preventing the flow of water – a women’s project in northern Syria is helping to revitalise local communities from the roots upwards.Read the full article
“It is a silent process, for which we have hardly any data, but we can see how investment funds are taking over not only land but also production. This is furthering the industrialisation of agriculture and livestock farming,” damaging ecosystems and overexploiting [...]Read the full article
For over 20 years, states have been trying to reach a new agreement on a treaty to protect the high seas. But finalising the text, called for by NGOs and environmentalists, is proving difficult, given the wealth of resources the deep sea holds for research and [...]Read the full article
Alan McClay:“Success or failure with regards to the future of the world’s land and its ability to sustain life is one determining factor: soil health. The earth beneath our feet is so ubiquitous that it is easy to take it for granted, but it literally provides the building bricks of [...]Read the full article
Juan Antonio Sanz:China has displaced Russia as the dominant power in Central Asia. It has done so thanks to its diplomatic and economic might. Russia’s decline highlights the fragility of relations with Central Asia based on Moscow’s military superiority.Read the full article
Paulo Casaca :Although China did not invent the concept of the ‘debt-trap’, as the world’s most important source of international development finance, China is currently the main international player of this centuries-old debt power game.Read the full article
Fisherfolk in eastern Thailand have taken up the role of citizen scientists to document the long-lasting impacts of what is believed to be the biggest oil spill in the history of the country, and to obtain compensation from those [...]Read the full article
Nazaret Castro:The current debate is about the content of the term ‘sustainability’ and whether the solution to the environmental problems caused by the capitalist market economy is more market mechanisms.Read the full article
In 1982, the United Nations declared 9 August the International Day of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous peoples everywhere, from Asia across to Africa and Latin America, are constantly battling to defend their cultures, their territories and, above all, their [...]Read the full article
The degradation of soil, water and air is accelerating across the globe. Do we have the time, resources and will to stem the tide of plastics and to protect biodiversity, air quality and even the alteration of light and darkness, on which virtually all forms of life are [...]Read the full article
It is the second most used resource after water and, like water, it could soon be in short supply. Sand is essential to the society we live in. But current demand is so high that it is being used faster than it can be replenished.Read the full article
CONNECTAS:The conflict in southern Chile and Argentina, involving political radicalisation and violence, shines a spotlight on an existential problem in Latin America – what is the place of the millions of historically invisibilised Indigenous [...]Read the full article
Worldwide, groundwater, which constitutes almost 99 per cent of all liquid freshwater reserves on earth, provides half of the water extracted for drinking water, agriculture and industry. A very small proportion is utilised on the African [...]Read the full article
According to the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier De Schutter, it’s time for a new agricultural revolution. The key idea, he says, is to use nature as an ally and to work with it, rather than treating it as a sort of animal that needs to be [...]Read the full article
A massive construction project in Barbuda threatens to harm a wetland site that is essential to the lives of locals, both as a means of subsistence and as a natural defence against coastal erosion.Read the full article
Chloé Maurel:Despite the will of the majority of its members to see the global governance body embrace new tools to deal with the challenges of the century, the UN is still stalled on the issue of how to deal with conflicts related to climate [...]Read the full article
Christy Hoffman:The broken global long-term care system can be repaired, and worker power is a fundamental part of the solution. The pandemic has proven this.Read the full article
Described as the worst fishing technique in the world, bottom trawling has been the subject of heated debate for decades. But solutions are at hand to try to limit the impacts of this practice.Read the full article
From going months without payment to enduring harassment and extreme violence from rebel soldiers, the condition of low-income, state plantation workers in the conflict-hit areas of English-speaking Cameroon has been described as “extremely [...]Read the full article
Yasmine Osman:While the Sahel remains plagued by recurrent conflicts, there are nonetheless positive signs of economic and social development in the countries of the region.Read the full article
The threats linked to trade union work in Colombia are so constant that trade unionists have grown accustomed to them. Today, the country’s trade unions are struggling to survive the violence of the present whilst appealing to the transitional justice system to end the impunity surrounding the [...]Read the full article
In response to growing demand for the precious metals needed to fuel energy transition, companies are developing technology for exploring and mining the ocean floor and applying for licenses to do so. But international legislation protecting these ecosystems is still [...]Read the full article
Joseph Baines:Commodity traders wreak havoc on global markets and profit from ecological and social devastation. Can they be stopped?Read the full article
Fiore Longo :On 22 April, the world celebrated Earth Day and the importance of saving biodiversity. Unfortunately, the messages conveyed by many governments and international organisations put very little emphasis on one of the essential aspects of the fight to save the environment: human [...]Read the full article
The issue of the materials used to produce low-carbon technologies is of fundamental importance and has been the subject of widespread discussion. The water consumption needed for the extraction of minerals and the manufacture of these technologies is also essential, yet far less [...]Read the full article
“In Colombia, pursuing the truth, building memory and giving dignity to the lives, history and memories of our loved ones is a dangerous task, but we undertake it with responsibility and courage, with all our affection, in remembrance of [...]Read the full article
Jesús A. Núñez Villaverde:Morocco is continuing to score points in its overt bid to gain total control of Western Sahara, tipping the balance ever more clearly in its favour. The UN and the ‘Group of Friends’ have long since given up on jeopardising their ties with Rabat for the sake of the [...]Read the full article
Torn between its international climate commitments to promote industrial projects that create clean energy sources and its reliance on still dominant polluting industries, Senegal must find a model of transition that is both just and capable of maintaining a balance in its progress towards [...]Read the full article
Argentina’s trade unions are faced with the challenge of putting a just energy transition on the agenda, a transition combining sustainability with the principles of social and environmental justice.Read the full article
In 2019, a French company specialising in blockchain technology invested in a bitcoin mining farm near the Kapshagay Dam in Kazakhstan, attracted by abundant low-cost electricity. But the project comes with real environmental [...]Read the full article
Annick Berger:The international community gave itself ten years to protect biodiversity effectively. In 2020, the situation is catastrophic. The year 2021 must be the turning point in the fight to protect species and to combat climate change, with the adoption of a new global [...]Read the full article
Burning the wires and cables of end-of-life electrical goods and electronics is incredibly toxic and completely unregulated, with workers at Agbogbloshie suffering burns and the dangerous effects of air, soil and water pollution.Read the full article
Senegalese fishermen are hindered by the scarcity of fish resources and competition from foreign boats. Facing a lack of opportunity, many decide to go into exile to Europe.Read the full article
The tragedy of the oceans is the legal uncertainty surrounding them. As our blue waters struggle to survive, being emptied of their living species, the international community is struggling to find solutions to protect the wealth of these vast expanses where illegal fishing is a real [...]Read the full article
The world may never have been as close to a ‘war over water’ as it is now, following the escalation in the dispute straining relations between Egypt and Ethiopia over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which has reached its final [...]Read the full article
The fishing industry is one of the world’s most violent. With demand exploding and owners looking to cut costs, cases of forced labour on fishing vessels are multiplying.Read the full article
We have developed a world that serves the interests of present generations at the expense of future generations and although intergenerational justice is making gradual progress, it is still faced with major obstacles.Read the full article
The lived experience of those most affected by war, and those working hardest to end it, has led to a tangible understanding that without women, there can be no just peace in Yemen.Read the full article
Destined for urbanisation, the salt marshes of Ulcinj in Montenegro, amongst the largest in the Mediterranean, are now protected. The challenge now for local stakeholders lies in restoring the harmony that existed between nature and human activity, before the production of salt came to an [...]Read the full article