Members of the Bougainville Physical Planning (BPP) Board, under the Department for Lands, Physical Planning, Environment and Conservation, were sworn in on Wednesday, January 27th.

The Board consists of nine new members who pledged their oath and are currently undergoing an induction workshop about the roles and responsibilities of board members.

ABG Minister for Lands, Physical Planning, Environment and Conservation, Robert Hamal Sawa, congratulatedthe new members of the BPP Board but also cautioned them to work within the confines of the BPP Act 2013.

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The European Investment Bank (EIB) has pledged to address gaps in the implementation of a power project in Nepal, handing a rare victory to indigenous groups and local communities who had raised concerns about being uprooted from their land.

A complaint by Nepali civil society groups had pointed to inadequate analysis of environmental and social impacts of the Marsyangdi Corridor Transmission Line project, and a failure to consult with local communities and obtain their consent.

UNDP-supported project to benefit close to one million vulnerable people in a nation where climate change is threatening natural resources and fragile ecosystems  

Main photo: A herder collects snow to be melted down into drinking water.

The dzud is a peculiar weather phenomenon unique to Mongolia in which every few years a summer drought combines with a harsh winter. Nomadic herders can only despair as piles of dead, frozen sheep and goats stack up across the steppes, dead from either starvation or the cold. It is not uncommon to see a frozen animal dead on its feet.

Local people evicted and livelihoods at risk in Barguna district, as civil society group warns plant will damage important hilsa fish populations.

A Chinese-backed coal power plant is being built in Bangladesh allegedly by evicting locals from their land and grabbing a riverbed.

Patches of forest cleared and tended by Indigenous communities but lost to time still show more food bounty for humans and animals than surrounding forests.

Information and communications technology (ICT) has been taken as a key driving force in transforming the traditional Nepali society into a knowledge-based society. Successive governments in Nepal have envisaged that the goal of prosperity will also be achieved through the optimum utilization of advanced technologies. 

Rafoat Hoshimova and her family moved out of their house in the northern Tajik city of Khujand six years ago after it was announced their neighborhood would be demolished.