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Pakistan: Record rains ease Islamabad’s water shortage
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on March 21st, 2013
AlertNet: Islamabad is enjoying abundant water supplies for the first time in a dozen years after record winter rainfall. But experts warn that reforestation and better water management are needed in the long term for the Pakistani capital's growing population.
Musarat Aftab is exhilarated that after years of water shortages she will no longer have to do without a piped water supply, now that the dam that supplies Islamabad is filling.
The 40-year-old beautician lives in a two-story house in Islamabad's...
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Erosion eats away land along 22 percent of Thai coastline
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on March 20th, 2013
AlertNet: Thailand has lost 22 percent of its 2,600-km coastline - more than 12,600 hectares of land - over the past 30 years as a result of climate change and upstream dams, The Nation newspaper reported.
The damage was caused by stronger and bigger waves triggered by climate change, as well as upstream dams that deposit less sediment at river-mouth areas, Thanawat Jarupongsakul, head of the Chulalongkorn University's unit for disaster and land information studies, told the newspaper.
The Chao Phraya...
China’s new leadership faces growing environmental pressures
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on March 6th, 2013
AlertNet: As the Chinese government prepares to make a leadership transition this week, the country faces conflicting pressures as it strives toward economic growth while wanting to reduce emissions.
While the country's new leaders have declared "ecological progress' will be a priority, analysts at a World Resources Institute-led press teleconference said China must deal with series of inter-linked challenges-- economic prosperity, energy security, mitigating climate change and social unrest -- to make...
Nepali farmers abandon rice as monsoon shifts
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on February 19th, 2013
AlertNet: For most of his adult life, Bidur Basnet has planted paddy rice each monsoon season on his five hectares of mountain land. But in the last five years, as monsoon rains have grown increasingly unreliable, he has had to abandon the country's staple crop.
Now he grows easier-to-water vegetables on half his land, leaving the other half fallow.
"How can we prepare our paddy fields when we do not know which month in any year the monsoon rains will drench our fields?' grumbles Basnet, 43, who gave...
Torrential rain, lack of preparedness batter Tanzania
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on February 11th, 2013
AlertNet: When the heavy rainfall came last month, floodwaters poured into Magdalena Lweno's house and washed away her hard-won belongings: her mattresses, couches, television set, clothing and her daughter's school books.
Worst of all, it took the cooking utensils the mother of three uses to run her business as a food vendor, leaving her without an income.
"I can't work right now because my working tools have been swept away,' the 39-year-old resident of low-lying Jangwani suburb complained, from the...
Guyana investing too little in climate adaptation – experts
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on January 15th, 2013
AlertNet: Guyana is pushing forward on protecting its rich inland forests as a source of income but is investing too little money in helping its low-lying coastal regions prepare for and adapt to climate change, national and international experts say.
A study published last year by researchers from the University of Western Ontario in Canada says that massive adaptation investment is needed if the South American nation is to stave off flooding and salt contamination of agricultural land as a result of rising...
A 4°c Warmer World ‘Will Be Catastrophic’ for Forest Biodiversity – Expert
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on January 15th, 2013
AlertNet: Global temperatures may be climbing at a rate too fast for our forests and its biodiversity to adapt, a scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) warned after the World Bank predicted a 4°C warming of the planet if policymakers continue to be apathetic about greenhouse gas emissions. "The long-term effects will undoubtedly be catastrophic," said Terry Sunderland, CIFOR principal scientist specialising in biodiversity. "Everything will become unbalanced and whole ecosystems...
‘Virtual’ Crops Could Lead to Climate-Sustainable Food
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on October 31st, 2012
AlertNet: We've heard it many times: business as usual in farming and food production cannot sustainably feed the 9 billion people projected to populate the world by 2050. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, food production must increase by as much as 70 percent in the first half of the 21st century to meet these needs, especially in developing countries. Climate change poses particularly daunting challenges to future food production. Crops and livestock are already susceptible to a variety...
Time to Tackle ‘Last Taboo’ of Contraception and Climate – Experts
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on February 29th, 2012
AlertNet: Finding a way to put the environmental impact of population and women's reproductive health more prominently on the climate change agenda is increasingly urgent, experts said in Washington this week. Suggesting a strong connection between family planning and the environment often risks an explosion in the highly charged political landscape of climate talks, meaning the word "population" is rarely heard, observed speakers on a panel assembled by the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security...
Salt-tolerant plants may help Pakistan reclaim ruined farms
Posted by AlertNet: None Given on June 20th, 2011
AlertNet: Fatima Bibi, 36, looks back at the time when she was an affluent farmer.
"I along with my husband and two daughters used to grow rice, sunflower and vegetables. ... We would earn a hefty amount at the time of harvest,' she says.
But those days are gone. Bibi now earns her living selling biscuits from a stall at a bus stop in Badin, a town 200 km (125 miles) east of Karachi.
Her lifestyle was turned upside down when her 6 hectares (14 acres) of fertile land became saline, leading to a sharp...