The urgent need for evidence based policy in invasive species management
Hundreds of invasive species experts gathered last week, 23-27 October, in Qingdao China at the 2nd International Congress on Biological Invasions. High on the agenda was how policy makers can respond to the accelerating risk posed by invasive species as international trade increases and climate change opens up new opportunities for invasion. In a session…
Climate change and extreme weather
Image from BBC News images As we have read in the news this morning, the weather system named St Jude's storm swept in from the Atlantic and hit the Southern part of the UK today, with winds gusting up to 99 mph (The Guardian online) and causing a lot of damage, including widespread travel disruption…
Helping the Crowd Fight Malaria
On Tuesday 15th October, I attended the International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases: Integrated Disease Surveillance & Vector Control annual conference in London. While there were many interesting presentations on epidemiology and surveillance techniques, innovations in vector control and the various impacts of resistance, I was most intrigued by the concept of crowd-sourcing for malaria…
World Food Day 2013
How can we feed an increasing population with healthy, nutritional, sustainably-produced food? Each year on the 16 October, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN celebrates World Food Day. This year’s theme, “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition”, aims to raise awareness of problems and solutions in the drive to end…
Managing disasters, saving lives…
October 13th is International Disaster Reduction Day, which is aimed at celebrating how people and communities are reducing their risk to disasters and raising awareness about the importance of disaster reduction. While some disasters are man-made and avoidable to some extent, many natural disasters are inevitable. In an Annual Disaster Review of 2012, 357 natural…
Ocean warming could raise mercury levels in fish, says new report
According to researchers from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, rising sea surface temperatures may increase the ability of the fish to accumulate mercury in their tissue. This could present a risk to the health of consumers of seafood due to the bioaccumulation of methylmercury and transfer between marine food webs. The paper is published in the…
Warming in the climate system is unequivocal – IPCC Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change
The much anticipated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report on Climate Change was released today. In fact, what was released is the summary report for policymakers, which was produced by the IPCC’s Working Group I, and aimed to present the findings as clearly as possible. The full report will be released in…
World Tourism Day highlights need to safeguard water resources
Today (September 27th) is World Tourism Day. To link with the 2013 UN International Year of Water Cooperation, the theme chosen to celebrate the tourism industry this year is Tourism & Water: Protecting our Common Future. The aim is to spotlight the value of water as a resource not just for direct use by tourists…
Food waste is damaging the environment says new FAO report
According to the report, global food wastage is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after China and the USA. On September 11th the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) released its report titled Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources, which it claims is the first assessment of global food wastage from an environmental perspective,…
New urban invasives report launched with CABI contributions
Highly invasive Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) growing in High Wycombe, UK Contributed by Esther Gerber, CABI Switzerland Last week in Gland, Switzerland, a meeting was held on the threat of urban ecosystems titled ‘Invasive Alien species: the Urban Dimension.” During the meeting, a representative of the European Commission announced a series of upcoming…