Main photo: A man crosses a canal on a fallen tree following Cyclone Yaas in Digha, Purba Medinipur district in the eastern state of West Bengal, India, May 27, 2021. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

More than 96,000 hectares (237,221 acres) of agricultural land has been inundated in parts of an eastern Indian state hit by a powerful storm this week, officials said on Friday, a year after the coastal region was ravaged by a super cyclone.

A cyclone, known as Jobo, made landfall near Dar es Salaam in late April. By this point it had weakened to a tropical depression and impacts were, thankfully, minimal.

Land-falling tropical cyclones are rare in Tanzania so past events are outside the memory of most. It had even been suggested that Cyclone Kenneth, which occurred in 2019, was the first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Tanzania. The largest impacts of cyclone Kenneth were felt further south where at least 38 lives were lost and almost 35,000 homes were damaged or destroyed.

Current estimates of land-use change may be capturing only one-quarter of its true extent across the world, new research shows.

Early this year the world commemorated the International Day of Forests, with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) joining Uganda to reiterate their commitment to restoring forests and degraded lands, as well as calling for action to reduce deforestation.

Background
The call for forest restoration and better management of the ecosystem was made during a high level national dialogue organised jointly by FAO, the European Union, Sweden and the Ministry of Water and Environment.

On social media, global indigenous leadership addresses South African magnate Elon Musk, who has launched a global award for carbon sequestration projects. Up-to-date technological solution is the same it has always been: ancestral wisdom

 

MESSAGE FROM AN INDIGENOUS LEADER AT THE BIDEN CLIMATE SUMMIT

 

The Congo Basin’s forests and peatlands are a major component of Earth’s life-support systems, and it is a key supplier of vital minerals needed to build a low carbon economy. The case for the people of the Congo to benefit from not exploiting these resources is irrefutable.

Few people, if asked to name the most strategic countries in the world, would place the Democratic Republic of Congo at the top of the list. But the natural resources of the DRC will be critical to the existential battle to save the planet.

Dzuds, a weather phenomenon characterized by extreme cold, used to be unusual. Now, they’re becoming the new normal.

DALANZADGAD, UMNUGOVI PROVINCE, MONGOLIA — Clouds gather in the moody winter sky, and the wind picks up. As the temperature plummets, sheep and goats turn from the pasture where they were grazing to huddle in the shelter of a shed.

Improving tenure of forests by Indigenous and Tribal Peoples can lower deforestation rates and biodiversity loss, avoiding C02 emissions, but more investment is urgently needed to address rising threats.

LAND-at-scale is a land governance support programme for developing countries. A large part of the world’s population depends on having secure access to land for their incomes. LAND-at-scale aims to contribute to fair and sustainable tenure security, access to land and natural resources for all. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) is seeking (an) organization(s) to implement the LAND-at-scale intervention in Mali.

A tree planting ceremony was held along a stretch of road leading to Badas Dam as part of the Badas Tree Planting 2021 project yesterday.

It is a collaborative research project between Universiti Brunei Darussalam’s (UBD) Institute for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (IBER) and Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) aimed at supporting Brunei Darussalam National Climate Change Policy (BNCCP) particularly in increasing forest cover.

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.