It’s that time of year again! March means International Women’s Day and the annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. It’s not surprising, after COP26 in Glasgow, that this year’s CSW66 links gender equality with climate change. The official theme is ‘achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes.’
Secure tenure and effective governance are central to the future of natural resources and agriculture. Although important on their own, tenure and governance are also embedded in the solutions to key global challenges: climate change; environmental management; poverty; gender equity and women’s empowerment; and nutrition and health.
Abraço ao Cemitério do Povo Negro escravizado, em Santa Luzia, MG. Foto: Alenice Baeta
Curating land information is part of our daily work in the Land Portal. It includes selecting, categorizing, and enriching information with analysis and/or additional data, graphic visualizations, etc. In times with so much information available to choose from, people are increasingly seeking sources that offer selections of high-quality knowledge and provide analysis that make sense of it. Understanding how partners in the land community are meeting this demand is a great source for us to improve our work of curating, and providing meaning to land data.
When the US housing bubble burst in late 2008, it dragged major banks into liquidation and destabilised financial systems worldwide. A long, era-defining recession ensued, ushering bank bailouts, currency crises and austerity measures. Meanwhile, China’s skyrocketing industrial production was shifting global economic power.
Prindex Co-Director Anna Locke and Researcher Lizzy Tan break down the summit’s final text after their time on the ground at COP26.
The mood is mixed coming out of Glasgow. There’s relief that the world didn’t step back from the 1.5°C goal and that rich countries will provide more climate finance. There’s delight that the check-ins on progress will now happen every year. There’s resigned acceptance that the coal phase out was phrased down to make it into the final text.
But there’s real frustration and fear as well.
In conversation with Heidi Mendoza
The Filipino government can generate new momentum and resources for its longstanding community-based forest management programme, by placing it more centrally in its climate policies. This could benefit forest-dependent communities, but only if mistakes from the past are not repeated, argues Heidi Mendoza. It requires a better understanding of the conditions and constraints for community forestry.
Land is a big deal when it comes to the world’s environmental goals. How we use it not only causes a third of global emissions, it has pushed a million species close to extinction and has degraded around a quarter of all land on Earth.
Private financial flows that are tracked against certain Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria reached record highs in 2020. But this boom may not be having a material impact, especially in low-income countries (LICs) which are most in need of it. Identifying and managing unknown financial risks can help re-balance the risk-reward ratio for sustainable investors.
Submission Deadline: All manuscripts should be submitted for consideration by December 31, 2021.
The global environmental crisis is intertwined with the crisis of social and economic inequality. From coal plants to palm oil plantations, economic activities that threaten the planet are concentrated in communities with less power and wealth. “You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones,” writes Hop Hopkins, “and you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people.”1
Submission Deadline: All manuscripts should be submitted for consideration by December 31, 2021.
The global environmental crisis is intertwined with the crisis of social and economic inequality. From coal plants to palm oil plantations, economic activities that threaten the planet are concentrated in communities with less power and wealth. “You can’t have climate change without sacrifice zones,” writes Hop Hopkins, “and you can’t have sacrifice zones without disposable people.”1
No one asked them. No one even informed them. The first indicator the villagers had that something was happening in the Ar Yel Mountains was the arrival of men in construction hats.
At the beginning the disturbance was minimal; it was only one or two companies undertaking site explorations and tests. But by 2014, eight companies were “tearing the mountains apart” in their quest for manganese dioxide. That, said the villagers, was when the problems really began.