Climate Action

Photo: Nairobi National Park is the only national park in the world that shares a fence with a city. It boasts of abundant wildlife, including the “big five” animals – the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo. Credit: Olga Lev-Ari Ercolano

Concerted Campaign to Protect Nairobi National Park

By Dominic Kirui*

This article was originally published on Waging Nonviolence and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

NAIROBI (IDN) – The Nairobi National Park is a rare gem that defines the Kenyan capital and it is the only national park in the world that shares a fence with a city. It boasts of abundant wildlife, including the “big five” animals – the lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo – that can, in places, be viewed against a backdrop of city skyscrapers and planes coming in to land at the local airports.

: Africa & ME Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 28 August 2020

Photo: Iwokrama forest in Guyana. Credit: Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development.

Indigenous Communities of Guyana and Women in Togo Fight Forest Degradation

Viewpoint by P.I. Gomes*

The writer, Dr Patrick I Gomes, was Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States for five years until February 29, 2020. The 79-nation inter-regional body officially became the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) on April 5, 2020. Dr Gomes was previously Ambassador of the Republic of Guyana, to the EU in Brussels.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (IDN) – The discussion on “Income Opportunities for Women" in the Togolese Republic in West Africa, reported in IDN on July 6, provides an opportunity to share some aspects of the experiences by Indigenous women and community loggers in the Iwokrama Forest area in Guyana, where sustainable forest management and income-generating activities are being pursued.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 28 July 2020

Human Nature Is a Central Theme of Philosophy

Viewpoint by John Scales Avery*

COPENHAGEN (IDN) – What is human nature? Are we humans good or evil? To what extent is the character of a person produced by heredity, and to what extent by environment? Is competition more central to our existence than cooperation, or is it the other way around? How can a happy, peaceful and stable society be created? Are humans essentially the same as other animals, or are we fundamentally different? Should humans dominate and control nature, or should we be the custodians of nature?

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 17 July 2020

Photo: Women tend a community nursery created as part of a completed ITTO project to assist forest landscape restoration in Togo. Credit: ODEF

A Landmark Project Aims at Reforestation in Togo

Income Opportunities for Women

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | TOKYO (IDN) – Togo in West Africa is the venue of a milestone project between Soka Gakkai, a global community-based Buddhist organization and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). The two have signed a memorandum to launch a reforestation project offering income opportunities for women's groups in two rural areas of Togo.

The memorandum involving a donation of 10 million yen (US$93,300) for the initial one-year phase of the project was signed on July 1 at the Soka Gakkai (SG) headquarters in Tokyo. The project will kick off on September 1.

: Ramesh Jaura; SUSTAINABILITY; Poverty; 05 July 2020

Collage: Backdrop population and environment image from Kullabs with photo of Malthus from Brittanica.

Malthus Revisited: Close Relationship between Population and Environment

Viewpoint by John Scales Avery*

COPENHAGEN (IDN) – The total human population and economy have imposed excessive weight on the global environment, as discussed in my new book circulated and freely downloadable from http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Malthus-Revisited-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf

Thomas Rpbert Malthus' "Essay on The Principle of Population", the first edition of which was published in 1798, was one of the first systematic studies of the problem of population in relation to resources. Earlier discussions of the problem had been published by Boterro in Italy, Robert Wallace in England, and Benjamin Franklin in America.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 05 July 2020

Image: Small Island States at the forefront. Credit: Simon Sees at Flickr.

Sustainable Tourism and Fisheries Key to Growth in Post-COVID Pacific

Viewpoint by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

The writer, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, is United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – Developing countries of Asia and the Pacific are experiencing unbalanced tolls of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grim milestones in infections and deaths have left countless devastated. Yet, we must look at the economic and social impacts in small island developing States (SIDS), where setbacks are likely to undo years of development gains and push many people back into poverty.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 30 June 2020

Photo: The risks of heavy fuel oil to the Arctic. Credit: HFO-Free Arctic

Concerted Efforts to Offset Damage Caused by Arctic Shipping

By Lowana Veal

REYKJAVIK (IDN) – The polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth is warming at an accelerating rate and as sea ice continues to melt away, Arctic waters are becoming increasingly navigable to vessels carrying heavy fuel oil (HFO). HFO, which is one of the world's dirtiest fuels, is not only virtually impossible to clean up in the event of a spill, but also produces higher levels of air and climate pollutants than other marine fuels.

: Lowana Veal; SUSTAINABILITY; Oceans, seas and marine resources; 27 June 2020

Photo: Agricultural programs seek to achieve the value-chain with communities of small landholders. Source: High Atlas Foundation.

A Framework to Achieve the Model for Development in Morocco

Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Mei *

MARRAKECH (IDN) – There may be irony in Morocco now reconsidering and revamping its development model, which is its national guiding frameworks for social and environmental fulfilment. I have long been and remain a believer in Morocco's existing structures for people's development.

There is, after all, a lot to like. Municipalities are to create development plans made from the participation of all communities and groups. Environmental management is understood to integrate the local people. Agricultural programs seek to achieve the value-chain with communities of small landholders.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 18 June 2020

Walk Miles and Miles to Halt Global Warming

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

Long before the Coronavirus and global warming, the great philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote: "Unhappy men would increase their happiness more by walking 6 miles every day than by any conceivable change in philosophy."

LUND, Sweden (IDN) – Shouldn't we be Panglossian when it comes to the progress now being made to defeat the Coronavirus? Pangloss in his youth was unreasonably optimistic. He was in Voltaire's novel "Candide" Candide's mentor, and coined the phrase, "All this is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

: Jonathan Power; OPINION; 09 June 2020

Image: Extinction Rebellion. Credit: openDemocracy

Out of the Belly of Hell: COVID-19 and the Humanisation of Globalisation – Part 4: Next

Viewpoint by Anthony Barnett*

This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News

LONDON (IDN) – In 1957-58, a flu pandemic killed around million people world-wide. In the UK estimates of the deaths it caused vary from 14,000 to 30,000. Before it arrived from Asia, a British Medical Journal report noted, “The public seems under the impression that nothing can be done to prevent the calamity”, and indeed nothing was done.

In 1968, the Hong Kong or H3N2 flu virus killed over 700,000 people worldwide, around 100,000 in the US. But there were no mass shutdowns of national economies.