On World Wetlands Day EPA alarms over severe environmental threats

The Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Nathaniel Blama, has said that encroachments and pollution of wetlands in the city of Monrovia and its environs presents a severe environmental threat.

According to Mr. Blama, this unfortunate situation may lead the city down a path of disaster with huge consequences if nothing is done to halt the encroachments on the wetlands.

China’s leadership of global biodiversity talks has seen greater emphasis on tackling environmental crises using natural solutions

Nature-Based Solutions, or NBS, are actions to protect and sustainably manage natural ecosystems, a crucial element in rising to numerous social and environmental challenges, especially the climate crisis.

Abundant downpours during the rainy season bring deadly floods every year but officials are increasingly worried about another trend: diminishing water reserves

FREETOWN, Aug 19 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Half the year, Iyatunde Kamara worries torrential rains will wash her house off its hillside and into the rivers of waste that flow through Sierra Leone's capital Freetown.

The other half, she rarely has enough water to fill a pot.

The Caracol Industrial Park forced 4,000 Haitians from their land using earthquake reconstruction money. Nine years after the earthquake, farmers organised and negotiated a package of land and jobs.

The ninth anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake in 2010 holds new meaning for the nearly 4,000 people forced from their land to make way for the Caracol Industrial Park.

Viet Nam News HÀ NỘI — Promoting the rapid and sustainable development of ethnic minority groups and mountainous areas is the consistent policy of the Party, State and Government of Việt Nam in the cause of socio-economic development.

That was the message from Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hòa Bình at the national workshop on Thursday on the current plans for ethnic minority group policies in the period of 2021-30.

BOVEN DIGOEL, Indonesia — It’s a hot and humid morning, and birds and insects are chirping deep in a lush rainforest in the eastern Indonesian province of Papua.

All of a sudden, the sounds are drowned out by tribal chanting and the thunder of dozens of people marching, echoing through the forest like a mild earthquake. Brandishing bows and arrows, they sing and dance their way toward the village of Uni in Boven Digoel district.

The findings, published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), also show that people in low- and middle-income countries are seven times more likely to die from natural disasters than those in developed nations.

“This puts a big emphasis on the need to…make sure that we curb greenhouse gas emissions,” said Ricardo Mena, UNISDR chief, in charge of implementing the Sendai Framework.

Up to 800 families have been evicted from their homes to make way for a hydroelectric dam since 2010

BOGOTA - A landslide at Colombia's biggest dam that forced the evacuation of about 26,000 people highlights the risks to communities who have lived in the area for generations, according to campaigners who have protested for years over the massive project.

As the tiny island destroyed by a hurricane tries to rebuild, the PM of neighboring Antigua aims to revoke centuries-old rights

Nearly four months after Hurricane Irma devastated the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda, residents fear the central government on neighbouring Antigua is poised to revoke a centuries-old system of communal land rights in what activists have described as “disaster capitalism” at work.

As land becomes less productive and people are forced to migrate to cities or abroad, there is greater likelihood of conflict over dwindling resources

ROME, Sept 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 1.3 billion people live on agricultural land that is deteriorating, putting them at risk of worsening hunger, water shortages and poverty, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) said on Tuesday.

Deforestation, alongside unplanned and unregulated construction transformed a natural hazard into a flooding and mudslide disaster

YAOUNDE, Sept 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Experience gained taming West Africa's Ebola outbreak is helping Sierra Leone deal with its recent mudslide disaster, but urgent action is needed to prevent future catastrophes, experts say.