Ecology & Sustainability

The coming set of Sustainable Development Goals will seek to protect ecosystems, conserve resources, and, as with the Millennium Development Goals, lift millions of people out of poverty. Now that solid legal ground must be developed further.

Oceans have always played a key role for life on earth. In his lecture, marine conservation biologist and author Callum Roberts (University of York, England), describes the distressing dimension that the relatively short human rule of the seas has reached throughout the past decade.

Lili Fuhr and Niclas Hällström sharply criticize climate-change goals that are based on risky or underdeveloped technologies.

The monetizing of nature is considered to be a promising tool stressing the economic relevance of environmental protection, however such an approach can pose social, cultural and ecological threats.

Afghanistan’s new mining law has serious weaknesses, warns Global Witness, as President Hamid Karzai signed the bill onto the statute books. The gaps in the law increase the risk that the country’s mineral wealth will fuel conflict and corruption instead of development, the campaigning group adds.

Only 90 companies worldwide are responsible for 63 percent of carbon emissions in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. These climate offenders must be held accountable for their role in global warming, according to the "Carbon Majors Funding Loss and Damage" report, published today by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Climate Justice Programme.

Global visions for responsible resource use and changes necessary - Read the statements of the international participants of the Berlin conference.

How far can a value be placed on the “services” of nature? Thomas Fatheuer provides a readily under-standable introduction to the subject and illuminates the concepts and instruments that fol-low from the idea of monetarizing nature. In his first chapter he explains the context of the debate.

Days before the presidential elections in Afghanistan much is discussed amongst the candidates: foreign policies, economic development and reconstruction of the country. No or little attention is being paid to environmental protection, neither from the candidates nor from the people.

The country’s natural resources, especially its abundance of water, could bring great benefits to the Afghans – but only if the right conditions can be achieved. A summary of "Afghanistan's Transition in the Making?"