Millions face starvation in Afghanistan, threats of a Russian incursion into Ukraine are driving up wheat and corn prices, and Ethiopia is reeling under its worst drought in decades and civil war.
Climate Home News found that a UK-based crypto firm was selling non-fungible tokens based on false claims of securing government tree-planting contracts.
In Ecuador, a court ruling gave Indigenous groups “a far stronger say” in extractive projects on their lands.The second part of the UN’s COP15 Biodiversity Summit scheduled to occur in April/May this year in Kunming, China, might be further delayed, reports said at the time of publishing Cropped.
War worries “have already…sent wheat futures to two-month highs”, it reported, noting that Ukraine counts “economically battered, war-torn or otherwise fragile states in the Middle East and Africa” among its biggest importers.
Unicef is appealing for £23.7m for essential supplies, with more than 6.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, without which “ce sera la catastrophe .” According to its estimates, almost 850,000 children will be severely malnourished this year “due to a combination of drought, conflict and economic downturn”, the paper explained.
In another story in Mongabay, Indigenous communities in Nicaragua’s north are struggling with malnutrition as increasing “land invasions” by those hoping to profit from gold mining and cattle ranching are making it “harder for locals to access traditional foods”.
Tokens generated were based on false claims of having contracts with the governments of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives – the last two being island nations where land to plant trees is scarce.
Additionally, it said tying NFTs to populations of endangered animals could “take it into a very dark place”, whereby “the value of a particular animal-linked NFT could, in theory, rise if the species becomes extinct”.
OFFSET INTEGRITY: A report by NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch found that some of the biggest household and agribusiness firms in the world – such as Carrefour, Nestlé, JBS and Unilever – were using “very low-integrity” offsets against their climate and net-zero pledges.
The deal – ostensibly set to protect 2m hectares of jungle in Malaysia’s Sabah state – was signed by state officials and the shell company Hoch Standard “in absolute secrecy” in October last year, granting Hoch a 30% cut of Sabah’s carbon credit sales.
‘REAL BLESSING’: A 215-hectare swathe of California’s redwood forest has been returned to a collection of Native American tribal nations with the aim of “protect their traditional coastal forest”, Mongabay reported.
CONSERVE AND PROTECT: Together, the league and the council developed a 30-year conservation plan that will protect the endangered species that call the forest home, including the northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet, Mongabay reported.
STRONGER SAY: Indigenous communities also scored a victory in Ecuador last week when the country’s highest court ruled that these communities “must have a far stronger say over oil, mining and other extractive projects that affect their lands”, the New York Times reported.
EurActiv noted that the resulting plan is aligned with the “key priorities” that the EU has set, including its flagship soil strategy, “which has outlined plans for a soil health law by 2023 to bring soil on the same legal footing as air and water”.
CUBAN WATERS: Cuba announced a new marine protected area off its northwestern coast, boosting its MPA coverage to nearly 30% of its shallow off-shore waters, Mongabay reported.
Only 11% of South Africa’s wetlands are protected, but those ecosystems “play a role” in sustaining two-thirds of the country’s economic activity, 70% of its irrigated agriculture and 90% of urban water users.
Groups including GRAIN, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and the Landworkers Alliance wrote an open letter to the FAO director, asking the organisation to explain its “statistically confusing” and contradictory positions that make it seem like agribusiness, and not “peasants”, contributes more to global food security.
BUDGET BLUES: India’s first national budget after the historic farm-laws protest pushed drones as a means to cut down fertiliser and pesticide use and announced a “natural farming” drive in key election states, Mint reported.
Scientists used annual data of deforestation across the country and paired it with data on “explanatory variables”, such as the presence of guerilla groups, population density and coca and poppy cultivation.
They found that placing either 30% or 50% of land area under “strict conservation” would lead to decreased consumption of fruits and vegetables, but also decreased consumption of red meat.
Using “multiple large ensemble simulations of high-emissions scenarios” in 10 global regions over the northern-hemisphere summer, the researchers project that the probability of compound droughts increases by 40-60% by the middle to late part of this century, with the greatest risk in North America and the Amazon.