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From Gaza to the Euphrates, Alarm Bells for Mideast Water Resources
›The board of the United Nations’ lead organization on trade and development, called UNCTAD, released an assessment of Gaza’s development challenges during their annual meeting in Geneva this month and the news is not good. In 2012, the UN warned that a “herculean” development effort would be to keep pace with Gaza’s rapid population growth. Since then, more fighting with Israel has made things worse, particularly with regard to water and food security. Ninety-five percent of the water from Gaza’s coastal aquifer is unsafe for drinking without treatment, the report says. Contamination and over-extraction may even render it unusable by next year and damage may be irreversible if not addressed in the next five years.
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Examining Women’s Inclusion in Peace and Conservation Efforts
›Some of the world’s most crucial ecosystems can also be found in the most conflicted areas. The most progressive peace agreements in these circumstances sometimes include conservation protections, but fewer still include women – and that’s a an article in Peace Review by Conservation International’s Brittany Ajroud, Kame Westerman, and Janet Edmond.
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Red Cross: Water Continues to Be Used as Weapon of War in Syria
›Water is being used as a weapon of war on one of Syria’s deadliest battlegrounds, says the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and its local affiliate, the Syrian Arab Crescent, in a new video.
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Angola’s Oil-Soaked Kleptocracy Is an Empire Built on Inequality
›August 26, 2015 // By Josh FengIsabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos and the richest woman in Africa, owes her wealth to the oil industry. Delfina Fernandes, a woman living in abject poverty in the village of Kibanga, uses gasoline as an anesthetic to dull the sheering pain of her rotting teeth.
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Conservation in Conflict Zones: Protecting Peace and Biodiversity in Colombia
›With a new peace process underway between the Colombian government and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Cuba, the spotlight is back on this long-troubled South American country. But decades of civil conflict have overshadowed an incredible fact: Colombia is among the four most biologically diverse countries on Earth.
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Violence Over Land in Darfur Demands We Look Again at Links Between Natural Resources and Conflict
›Given that there have been three major peace processes in Sudan’s troubled western province of Darfur, the current escalation of violence indicates that perhaps something about existing approaches is failing to hit the mark. Identifying what is missing is vital – not just for Darfur, but for other areas with similar challenges of state fragility, poverty, and competition over natural resources.
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Crossing Borders and Defying Policing, Abuses of Thailand’s Fishing Industry Challenge International System
›August 18, 2015 // By Linnea BennettSomewhere off the coast of Thailand, “ghost ships” bump and crash along the choppy waves scrapping the sea floor with nets that spare nothing. Pulling up these illegal hauls in shifts that sometimes last 20 hours are thousands of migrant fishermen, many of whom have been forced into indentured servitude or kidnapped. Far from shore on unregistered boats, they have little hope of escape and face daily abuse and squalid conditions. More recently, some captains have turned to trafficking Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar, pressing some into service, extorting others, and taking sex slaves.
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Lessons From Katrina: Can Media-Citizen Collaboration Help Cities Adapt to Climate Risks?
›Ten years ago this month one of the United States’ deadliest and most costly storms, Hurricane Katrina, struck the Gulf Coast. In Louisiana, the storied city of New Orleans was dealt a particularly devastating blow. Hundreds died and the city suffered extensive damage as 80 percent of its neighborhoods flooded, prompting an exodus it is still recovering from.
Showing posts from category environmental security.