Online International NN: Federal Secretary of the Ministry of Climate Change, Syed Muhammad Ali Gardezi has said that providing and sustaining water for the needs of the surging population people has become a daunting challenge of the present time and achieving sustainable development in both the developed and developing countries and Pakistan is not exception

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CGIAR: Almost 40 years ago, Revelle and Lakshminarayana (1975) coined the term “Ganges Water Machine” trying to find a solution to the fundamental problem of land and water development in the Ganges, where 80% of the monsoon-driven river flow occurs during 4 months from July to October. The dry-season flow of the Ganges in the

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Buenos AH: The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is the last surviving paradise on Earth. This legendary Shangri-La, now a member of the United Nations, is home to over 700,000 people. Until 1958, it was practically closed to visitors. When Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister, visited Bhutan during that year he rode in on a

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D+C: The impacts of climate change make the poorest people on earth suffer more than others. This is evident in Mustang, a northern district of Nepal. Entire villages are thinking of relocating because water scarcity is getting worse. Swiss researchers assessed the options. Mustang is a tough place to live because of desert-like drought, freezing

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Science Alert: Ocean warming has already affected global fisheries in the past four decades, a new international study has found, driving up the proportion of warm-water fish being caught and posing a threat to food security worldwide. The new study, conducted by researchers from the University of Tasmania’s specialist Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

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BBC: Nandi Lal Paswan, 59, is a farmer in Sripur, East Terai in Nepal. He is married and takes responsibility for the six other family members living in his house. Nandi Lal is content with his life, but he has worked hard to get where he is today. Thirty years ago he began farming a

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CNN: As temperatures climb in parts of northern Europe, some bird species, unable to find other ways of adapting to the warmer conditions, are simply not migrating as they once did. Most birds are acutely sensitive to changes in temperature. Scientists now say that changes in climate and warmer temperatures in parts of Europe have

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Indian Himalayan basins are earmarked for widespread dam building, but aggregate effects of these dams on terrestrial ecosystems are unknown. We mapped distribution of 292 dams (under construction and proposed) and projected effects of these dams on terrestrial ecosystems under different scenarios of land-cover loss. We analyzed land-cover data of the Himalayan valleys, where dams

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I thought that it would be time to stop writing about the environment, specifically about climate change, that my previous articles had  lambasted and even backed up with actions to mitigate,enhance,restore and rehabilitate our natural resources. However, today’s extreme heat prompted me back to writing. The day’s temperature was over 37-degrees  Centigrade. Frankly, without exaggeration,it

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BBC: More than half of common plant species and a third of animals could see a serious decline in their habitat range because of climate change. New research suggests that biodiversity around the globe will be significantly impacted if temperatures rise more than 2C. But the scientists say that the losses can be reduced if

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Shalini Dhyani: Writes about hill agriculture, agro-forest and such ecosystem practices from Indian Himalayan region. She emphasizes on improving the socio-economic condition of mountain people by adopting a range of animal husbandry, agro-forestry and traditional agriculture practices through better scientific and technical inputs. Entire Himalayan ecosystem is undergoing rapid land-use and climatic changes in last

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Reuters: A newly established global panel on biodiversity faces being sidetracked by niche interests and northern agendas if it does not tread carefully, a meeting has heard. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was formed in April 2012, with a mandate to assess the state of the planet’s biodiversity and ecosystems, and provide accessible scientific

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Huffingtonpost: The habitats of many common plants and animals will shrink dramatically this century unless governments act quickly to cut rising greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Sunday after studying 50,000 species around the world. The scientists from Britain, Australia and Colombia said plants, amphibians and reptiles were most vulnerable as global temperatures rise and

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Business Standard: Climate change is likely to bring down the production of key foodgrain crops like wheat and rice in the country by up to 18% in 2020, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said today. “Climate change is projected to reduce timely sown irrigated wheat production by about 6% in 2020. In case of late sown

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World Bank: Climate Change Cutting Crop Production in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by over 25 Percent unless Action Is Taken Now. In parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, climate change is poised to hamper food production and curb rural incomes over the next decades unless farmers get the help they need through improved

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EU Climate Adaptation Platform: The preparation of these guidelines has benefited from useful inputs from a range of stakeholders, who had the opportunity to comment on a preliminary draft. Those include representatives from the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, KPMG, Network Rail, the European Institute for Environmental Policy, and KfW.

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Aljazeera: Government attempts a new insurance scheme to protect farmers from floods and other worsening weather problems. After five consecutive dry winters, Abdul Qadeer was jubilant at the prospect of a plentiful harvest of wheat after December rains soaked his farmland. But the 39-year-old farmer’s hopes were destroyed last month by torrential spring rains and

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CNN: Environmentally-friendly biofuel may have come a step closer with the news that scientists in the UK think they have found how a genetically-modified bacterium can produce diesel oil – on a very small scale so far.  British scientists may have found a new way to pump high quality diesel into the tractors, trucks and

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CNN: Climate change is responsible for more than half the changes detected in the world’s vegetation, researchers say, and human activities for only about a third. The amount of vegetation in the world, and the way it is spread across the planet, has changed significantly in the last three decades, researchers say. They attribute more

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IIED: The poorest communities (and poorest countries) are leading the world in learning about and practising adaptation to climate change. The rich would do well to learn from them. The flood plain of the Ganges river in southern Bangladesh is only around two metres higher than sea level. Rising floodwaters can wipe out crops and

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Guardian: World is unprepared for changes that will see parts of Africa turned into disaster areas, say food experts. Millions of people could become destitute in Africa and Asia as staple foods more than double in price by 2050 as a result of extreme temperatures, floods and droughts that will transform the way the world

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ABC Net: The small, landlocked country of Bhutan is aiming to increase its national happiness by becoming the first country in the world to completely shift to organic farming. About 80 per cent of Bhutan’s 800,000 residents depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The country plans to use the organic status, which it hopes to

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In a world where it’s commonly believed that one person can’t make a difference, one Indian man is proving that argument to be false. Jadav Molai Payeng is a modern-day hero to those who fight to protect natural habitats around the world. He’s not a traditional activist, but a man who was motivated 30 years

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The Better India: Puja Devi, 30, watches with satisfaction as her young son gulps down his glass of milk and then reaches for his satchel, ready to go to school. For some months now, the happy mother has been able to provide milk for her son every day, a far cry from earlier times when

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MP: A project to improve food security among vulnerable rural groups coordinated by Mountain Partnership member the International Potato Centre (CIP) is underway in four Latin American countries. In the Andes, the potato is one of the most important crops in the agricultural sector. However, in areas where the tuber is produced, chronic malnutrition in

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NYTimes: Glacial ice in the Peruvian Andes that took at least 1,600 years to form has melted in just 25 years, scientists reported Thursday, the latest indication that the recent spike in global temperatures has thrown the natural world out of balance. The evidence comes from a remarkable find at the margins of the Quelccaya

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BioOne: Recent studies of future food production in South Asia generally agree that the conditions for production will radically change in the years to come, in particular due to climate change and market variations. However, because we do not know how conditions will be modified and what adaptations will be required by farmers, the article

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‘Adaptation Ideas’ is a new series of Climate Himalaya. Here we will be showcasing a number of simple, practical and innovative ideas those could be adopted by individuals, communities and organizations for various environment friendly adaptive practices at home, offices and in public places. The purpose of this ongoing series is to disseminate and communicate

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Alertnet: In Nambeyo village in Kenya’s semi-arid Isiolo County, former pastoralist Joseph Elila and his wife Pauline are busy threshing sorghum to remove the grain from the stalks. The couple has been converted into smallholder dry-land farmers after they lost their entire animal stock to cattle rustlers two years ago. The area is well known

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Barreau & Charbonnet came up with a framework that has three pivoted container holders positioned within. Into these are placed plastic window boxes, each containing a layer of clay balls and another of loam, and then topped by mesh that the plants will grow through for harvesting. Barreau & Charbonnet told that “gravity and the

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IIED: Countries need new tools to check whether climate change adaptation is keeping development on-track, and whether costs and benefits are fairly distributed. IIED and partners are developing a framework that does this by assessing risk management and resilience at many levels. As countries increasingly focus on adapting to climate change, and more ‘climate finance’

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TERI: Recently the need for a greater understanding on linkages between biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation and the livelihoods of the local communities has increased the attention of the world leaders. The threat of climate change, which cuts across national and international boundaries, has further catalyzed the importance of the issues and facilitated

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The Hindu: Polluted skies, dead rivers, disappearing forests and displacement of peasants and tribal are what we see around us 40 years after the Chipko movement started On the 27th of March 1973 — exactly 40 years ago — a group of peasants in a remote Himalayan village stopped a group of loggers from felling

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The first Swiss development experts arrived in Peru half a century ago, beginning a fruitful and multifaceted partnership. In late 2011, SDC brought traditional bilateral cooperation to a close and transferred on-going projects to its local partners. In the future, Peru will actively participate in a number of SDC global programmes, particularly in the area

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Winner of the Asia Society’s Bernard Schwartz 2012 Book Award The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow may be over water. Nowhere is that danger greater than in water-distressed Asia. Water stress is set to become Asia’s defining crisis of the twenty-first century,

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This book provides a great overview of practical and early examples of actual adaptive actions already taking place across Europe. It provides detailed information on each identified measure: to which sector it belongs, (i.e. water safety, agriculture, cities), specific climate effects adapted to, length of the project and costs and benefits, including the proportion of

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ETH Zurich: The expansion of a given land use may affect deforestation directly if forests are cleared to free land for this use, or indirectly, via the displacement of other land-use activities from non-forest areas towards the forest frontier. Unlike direct land conversion, indirect land-use changes affecting deforestation are not immediately observable. They require the

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Researchers have come up with a neat solution to the problem of producing some forms of biofuel waste – add it to cement, and make concrete nearly a third stronger than other versions. LONDON, 23 March – Engineers are working on yet another way to deliver more energy and cut carbon dioxide emissions. The latest

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WWF-India recognizes organizations contributing towards addressing climate change with Climate Solver Awards. While political will to tackle climate change is still weak, the will of creative and energetic entrepreneurs working in the field of climate innovation is on the increase. WWF is encouraging small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are developing innovative technologies and processes

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CS Monitor: Almost half of the world gets its water from the Himalayas and other high mountains, but little is known about how global warming will affect these sources. A team of scientists ventured to the roof of the world to investigate. The distribution of water in Asia’s highest mountains and driest deserts tells an

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WWF: Coordination Group of the Summit for a Living Himalayas (SLH) comprising of delegates from four countries (India, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh) met again on 23 February 2013. For the WWF LHGI, decisions taken by this Group in this meeting are a big step towards large scale regional action in the Eastern Himalayas. For the

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‘Adaptation Ideas’ is a new series of Climate Himalaya. Here we will be showcasing a number of simple, practical and innovative ideas those could be adopted by individuals, communities and organizations for various environment friendly adaptive practices at home, offices and in public places.  The purpose of this ongoing series is to disseminate and communicate

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UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark today launched UNDP’s 2013 Human Development Report, which charts the unprecedented rise of developing countries to create a new “global middle class.” “The development landscape is very different today from when the first Human Development Report was launched 23 years ago,” Helen Clark said, releasing UNDP’s 22nd flagship

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Dr. Madhav Karki discusses about sustainable mountain development- SMD agenda that was adopted during 1992 Rio Earth summit, and how the socio-economic and environmental issues were taken by countries in the Hindu Kush Himalayan- HKH region during last 20 years in terms of achieving the goals as envisioned in SMD document. He argues that mountain

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Scidev.net: Disease may challenge the ability of fish farming to feed the growing human population even as wild fish stocks decline and climate change hampers food production from other sources, a study shows. Aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector in the world, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, with 90 per cent

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SciDev.net: Deep inside insects’ guts may lie the key to one of the biofuel industry’s great challenges: how to cost-effectively turn tough plant waste into profit-making fuel. About 50 million tonnes of lignin are produced every year worldwide, mostly as waste after the sugar, or cellulose, in a plant has been converted into ethanol. Finding

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PR Web: University of Massachusetts Boston professor and leading conservation biologist Kamal Bawa and conservation photographer Sandesh Kadur announce the release of their book Himalaya: Mountains of Life. Five years in the making, the book focuses on the Eastern Himalaya—the first time the region’s threatened biodiversity and cultures have been documented together by a preeminent

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CCN: Scientists think they have found some good news for the Amazon and other tropical forests. They say they appear more able to withstand the effects of climate change than previous studies had suggested. The research team, including climate scientists and tropical ecologists from the UK, USA, Australia and Brazil, concluded that the forests are

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DW: The rush around the world to plant crops used to produce biofuel has not only sparked a global food vs. fuel debate, but it’s also putting biodiversity at risk. Last fall, a group of more than 200 American scientists banded together to protest a government decision allowing two potentially invasive species of grass to

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UPI: Growing seasons in Earth’s northern latitudes are shifting and vegetation increasingly resembles lusher latitudes to the south, scientists say. With climate change, temperatures and vegetation in northern latitudes resemble those found 4 degrees to 6 degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 1982, they said. NASA scientists along with U.S. and international researchers

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Triple Pundit: The tiny nation of Bhutan attracted worldwide attention recently when it announced that it intends to convert its agriculture to 100 percent organic farming in the coming years.  For many, its claim is no surprise; the Kingdom of Bhutan has been incorporating sustainable growing methods into many of its agricultural practices for years.

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Nature: Tropical forests are unlikely to die off as a result of the predicted rise in atmospheric greenhouse gases this century, a new study finds. The analysis refutes previous work that predicted the catastrophic loss of the Amazon rainforest as one of the more startling potential outcomes of climate change. In the most extensive study

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MARCC: Results from a landmark climate study for the Mekong region will be released at a press conference here Mar. 29, forecasting dramatic changes in growing conditions and yields for major crops like rice, maize, coffee, and rubber, and impacting fisheries and livestock productivity. “Our study is producing very shocking results. We’ve found that this

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The Association ‘Mountain territories of Dagestan’, Mountain Partnership member from Russian Federation, has organized the drawing competition ‘Mountains through children’s eyes’, under the support of Mountain Partnership Secretariat, within its celebration acivities of the International Mountain Day 2012. More than 300 drawings were received from the children and the best ones were selected for the

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AKF: At independence, Tajikistan faced a variety of rural development challenges precipitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing civil war from 1992 to 1997. The mountainous regions of the country were especially affected, as both events left these areas cut-off from previous supply routes and desperately short of food. The dependency

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PHYS.Org: Monitoring communities of climate sensitive species, such as insects, could enable scientists to develop indicators for climate change effects on biodiversity and help devise policies to protect it. With climate change, flora and fauna shift their seasonal inner clock. For example, fruit tree blossom earlier than previous years. But many species may not be

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Yahoo (Ca): Jadav Payeng, known as “Mulai” to his friends and neighbours, has spent the last 30 years single-handedly planting and caring for a huge 550-hectare forest on a sandbar in the middle of the Brahmaputra River in Assam, India. In 1980, Assam’s Jorhat district’s social forestry division launched a tree-planting initiative on 200 hectares

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Alertnet: Barely a month after heavy rains pounded Kenya, many seasonal rivers in the country’s semi-arid east are already drying up, and residents are preparing for the months-long dry season. But some, like Paul Masila and other members of  the Woni Wa Mbee self-help group, are not worried about the looming dry spell. Instead, they

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Science Daily: Climate change could see dozens of lizard species becoming extinct within the next 50 years, according to new research published today. The often one-directional evolutionary adaptation of certain lizard species’ reproductive modes could see multiple extinctions as the global temperature increases. Globally it has been observed that lizards with viviparous reproduction (retention of

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Dr. Madhav Karki writes about the commitments made by the member countries during Rio+20 summit on various sustainable development goals (SDGs) on low carbon green economy principles and good governance practices, in socio-economic and environmental perspectives. He argues that post Rio+20 actions should be more cohesive, participatory, multi-disciplinary and simple in approach, so that they

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