By Sabina Zaccaro

In the run-up to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa last December, the World Bank Connect4Climate social media campaign launched a photo and video contest on climate change.

Continue Reading

By Roberto Savio*

The 1992 Earth Summit was one of the great moments of collective optimism. Maurice Strong of Canada, who founded the U.N. Environment Programme, managed to move on three fronts simultaneously. First, the customary one, was to call together the heads of state.

Continue Reading

Analysis by Julio Godoy

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (TerraViva) The cliché that mammoth summits like Rio+20 are “too big to succeed” can also be applied to the megacities of our day such as Rio de Janeiro: they are simply too big to become green and sustainable. Continue Reading

By Julio Godoy

RÍO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20, 2012 (IPS) – Assigning nature a monetary value and incorporating it into gross domestic product (GDP) are key aspects of a global policy of sustainable development, according to legislators and scientists gathered at the first world summit organised by GLOBE international, an association of parliamentarians concerned with environmental policies.

Continue Reading

By Busani Bafana

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 20 (TerraViva) A majority of the 150-member Cooperative for the Conservation of the Environment (COOCEN) in Kigali, Rwanda are empowered women, who must balance raising children, managing homes and providing food. Continue Reading

Dear reader, twenty years after its first edition came out at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, TerraViva – a communication tool produced by the IPS news agency – is once again being published, this time to report on the different aspects of and challenges facing the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, better known as Rio+20.

Continue Reading

Fabíola Ortiz

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (TerraViva) The world’s countries have committed themselves so far to restoring just 18 million hectares of forests by 2020, barely 12 percent of the goal of 150 million hectares agreed by the Bonn Challenge in 2011.

Continue Reading

By Isaiah Esipisu

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (TerraViva) Giving farmers an opportunity to own plots can turn around under-utilised land and make it highly productive, according to a senior agro-forestry expert at the ongoing United Nations’ negotiations on sustainable development. Continue Reading

Clarinha Glock

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (TerraViva) Announced as an innovative way to encourage the participation of Internet users and the public in general in the debates at Rio+20, the proposal for Sustainable Development Dialogues also raised doubts about the impact its recommendations would have.

Continue Reading

By Julio Godoy

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 19 (TerraViva) – Three industrialised countries – the U.S., Canada and Japan – and Russia blocked a substantial advancement in the protection of the oceans at the U.N. conference on sustainable development here, according to environmental activists. Continue Reading