Date palm disease threatens livelihoods in Yemen

A disease which kills date palm trees, on which thousands of people depend for a living, has returned to Hadhramaut Governorate in southern Yemen, reports the UN news service IRIN.
Khalid Saleh, 55, could not believe his eyes when he saw his smallholding in Doan District (some 250km north of Mukalla) hit yet again by the [...]

‘Green Nobel’ for rainforest champion

A campaigner who was jailed during his battle to save the rainforest in Gabon has received a top international award., reports the BBC’s Victoria Gill.
Marc Ona Essangui was honoured for his fight to stop what he describes as a destructive mining project in the Ivindo National Park.
He is one of seven people from six continental [...]

UK firm barcodes trees to save the world’s forests

Barcoding every tree in an African rainforest sounds as plausible as counting grains of sand on a beach, but this is exactly what one British company has set out to do, reports Kate Walsh for the Times.
Helveta, a technology firm based in Oxford, is developing a system for tracking timber that will help prevent illegal [...]

UN: World’s forests facing tough tests

World forests face the dual challenge of climate change and the global economic crisis, a key UN report says.
On the BBC News website, environment reporter Mark Kinver said it suggested that although the economic slowdown might reduce deforestation rates in the short term, it was also likely to lead to other problems.
One concern, would be [...]

Forestry can create ‘ten million new jobs’

Ten million new “green jobs” can be created by investing in sustainable forest management, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“As more jobs are lost due to the current economic downturn, sustainable forest management could become a means of creating millions of green jobs, thus helping to reduce poverty and improve the environment,” [...]

Forest fires ‘to add to climate concerns’

The fierce bushfires that scorched Australia’s Victoria State released millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide, a leading scientist has warned.
Forest fires could become a growing source of carbon pollution as the planet warms, he told Reuters news agency.
Mark Adams of the University of Sydney said global warming could trigger a vicious cycle in which forests [...]

Forests and farms ‘can fight climate change’

The problem of global warming from greenhouse gases calls for a stronger involvement of agriculture and farming communities, as well as forestry and forest users in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said.
“Agriculture and deforestation are major contributors to climate change, but by the same token farmers and [...]

REDD debate heats up at UN climate summit

The topic of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degredation (REDD) is shaping up to be one of the most prominent features of this year’s UN climate summit, according to the IUCN.

REDD discussions are not only attracting a lot of attention and interest, they are also progressing rapidly at the UNFCCC’s COP-14, being held in Poznan, [...]

Summit opens Europe’s first Forest Week

The role forests can play in the battle against dangerous climate is one of the topics to be discussed by delegates at a summit to mark the first European Forest Week.
The gathering in Rome, hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will run from 20-24 October.
In a press release, the FAO said Europe’s [...]

Lebanon’s forests fires ‘product of climate change’

Devastating fires caused by climate change are threatening forests in Lebanon, in turn accelerating the pace of global warming, an environmental activist has warned.
“We are witnessing a rise in temperature which leads to the dryness of forest soil and pushes it towards desertification,” Sawsan Bou Fakhreddine, director-general of the Association for Forests, Development and [...]