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…
Can the growth of cities help to eliminate malaria?
The past century has seen unprecedented growth in cities around the world. Whilst the rise of megacities is a source of concern to some (see Feral cities, BBC Radio 4), according to researchers from the UK and USA, urbanization has been followed by a significant contraction in the extent of malaria throughout endemic countries.
One of our invasive species in the mainstream media
Picture: ©Muséum de Toulouse/Didier Descouens-2013. CC BY-SA 3.0 Some of the species that are included in our open-access Invasive Species Compendium are well known to the general public, for example Japanese Knotweed. Others are more obscure, and I had never heard of the Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, until I edited the datasheet about it earlier…
Water a constraint to hotel development
As featured on this blog by Vera Barbosa on Monday, World Water Week is currently highlighting issues in global water resources. To coincide with Water Week, the International Tourism Partnership (ITP) has published a report on water risk issues in key development areas for the hotel industry – Rio de Janeiro, Beijing and Shanghai, India's…
World Water Week 2013
Water is an important resource, which we cannot live without and yet it is also one which is taken for granted, wasted and polluted freely, even though some parts of the world, usually the poorest regions, have very limited access to clean water. To try to highlight the importance of water as a resource and…
India passes controversial new food bill
On Monday August 26th, India's Lower House of Parliament (the Lok Sabha) approved a Food Security Bill that aims to provide subsidised food to two thirds of its population. Continue reading to find out more.
TV segment: Box tree moth population explodes in Jura
CABI's Dr Marc Kenis talks to television station Canal Alpha about the evolving threat of the box tree moth (Cydalima perspectalis) in the Swiss Jura region. Dr Kenis will hold a conference in Delemont on September 20th to discuss measures to control this threat. "They have been found in Switzerland since 2007, and in Jura…
Beach tourism and development killing turtles: WWF India
India has a coastline of more than 8000 km which is rich in biodiversity. Apart from sustaining fishing grounds, India's coastal waters and beaches provide foraging and nesting sites for a variety of marine species, including sea turtles. Five species of sea turtles are known to inhabit Indian coastal waters and islands. But as detailed…