Skyrocketing food prices have triggered riots across the developing world and forced the world's largest food aid agency to confront a $500 million deficit. The media are focused on short-term consequences, but there are also concerns about the long-term forecast for global food security, poverty, and hunger.
In many developing countries, forestry policies systematically exclude the poor from the wealth of the forests around them. Senegal provides an interesting example of how even good policies can fail to deliver the benefits they are intended to provide.
These films show how Senegal's Forestry service, forest merchants, and other government agents are blocking local governments from playing their legal role in forest management and use.
The representatives of more than 100 countries attending December's U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, finally focused on the important role tropical forests play in global warming.
Border security is not typically recognized as being tied to environmental changes, but in this recent article by The New York Times, the links are clear. It details how declining fish catches in northwest Africa are fueling immigration to Europe.