Desertification has long been recognised as a major environmental, economic and social problem for countries the world over. But despite major efforts, which started with the United Nations Conference on Desertification (UNOCD) in 1977, the process of land degradation is intensifying.

The week-long session of the working group under the Kyoto Protocol ended on Friday 6 August with the issuance of a new 50-page draft proposal by the Chair of the group, and a closing plenary in which developing countries strongly criticised developed countries for their so far abysmal plans to cut emissions and the apparent refusal of many of them to commit to a second commitment period of the Protocol.

Another round of negotiations towards a global treaty on climate change concluded in Bonn, with activists calling on parties to rediscover a spirit of compromise and make offers rather than demands.

Developed countries were urged at the climate talks in Bonn not to repeat history in continuing to over-consume the remaining atmospheric space (TWN Bonn Update Nº5)

They unanimously called for a resumption of discussions to make progress on the further commitments of Annex I Parties on their emission reduction targets, with an aim of reaching an agreed outcome at Cancun by year end, at the opening of the 13th session of AWG-KP in Bonn on 2 August.

Several rounds of climate talks are now taking place in an effort to reach an agreement at the upcoming Climate Change Conference that will take place in Cancun, Mexico by the end of the year. However, up to now the main results of those negotiations could allow polluting countries not only escape any reduction obligation but also increase their emissions without having to account for them.

"The rainforest is not for sale," was one of the most-repeated choruses in the marches across Peru commemorating the first anniversary of the Bagua massacre. A year later, no one has been found guilty of the tragedy but the peruvian parliament approved the Consultation Law, which dictates that locals must be consulted before any projects to exploit community resources are approved.

Developing countries expressed deep dismay and sharp criticisms over a new draft text of a global climate deal presented on the final day of the Bonn climate talks by the Chair of the working group following up on the Bali Action Plan of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Twenty-five years after an industrial gas leak from the factory of a U.S. multinational firm in this ancient Indian city killed thousands and impaired nearly half a million, victims are still crying for justice.

Public agricultural research on genetically modified crops in Asia is becoming less about the needs of ordinary people and small farmers and more about scientific control and corporate interests. For Asia’s small farmers is there really any difference between a national GM crop and a transnational one?