UK’s ancient woodland being lost ‘faster than Amazon’
Ancient woodland in Britain is being felled at a rate even faster than the Amazon rainforest, according to new research. It shows that almost half of all woods in the UK that are more than 400 years old have been lost in the past 80 years and more than 600 ancient woods are now threatened [...]
UK fish species endangered through overfishing
The Marine Conservation Society says severe overfishing is the biggest environmental threat facing Britain and is having a profound effect on marine ecosystems. The warning comes in Silent Seas, a report released as the government prepares its marine bill for parliament.
The report said the rate of loss of fish in British seas was accelerating, with [...]
WWF says reckless consumption threatens the planet
The Earth’s natural resources are being depleted so quickly that “two planets” would be required to sustain current lifestyles within a generation, the conservation group WWF said on Wednesday.
The Swiss-based WWF, also known as the World Wildlife Fund, said in its latest Living Planet Report that more than three quarters of the world’s population lives [...]
Jersey population growth “unsustainable”
JERSEY’S ever-increasing population growth is unsustainable, according to an environmental campaign group.
Concern has warned that debating the next Island Plan ahead of a sustainable population policy will result in ‘environmental death’. They also warn that building more in town is not the ‘magic solution’ as it would not resolve the issue of increased demand for [...]
Climate change threatens Britain’s coast, global peatlands
Almost 200 miles of some of the most precious stretches of south-west England’s coastline are threatened by rising sea levels, it is claimed today. Fabulous beaches and cliffs, harbours and buildings are in danger. At least 142 scheduled ancient monuments, 111 listed buildings and one historic garden lie within a “risk zone”. More than [...]
Sex education failing young people around the world
Most sex and HIV education programmes for young people focus on the risks of unsafe sex, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with their sexuality and unable to lead sexually fulfilling lives, experts have said.
“Teaching about the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is necessary, but it must go hand-in-hand with teaching about healthy [...]
Arctic air temperatures reach record highs
Autumn air temperatures have climbed to record levels in the Arctic due to major losses of sea ice as the region suffers more effects from a warming trend dating back decades, according to a new report.
The annual report issued by researchers at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other experts is the latest [...]
Compulsory relationship lessons from age 5
Lessons about personal, social and health matters including sex and relationships will be compulsory in all England’s schools from ages five to 16. But the government is setting up a review of how best to achieve this, saying there are “complicated issues”.
Reviews of education about sex and relationships and about drugs and alcohol were [...]
Resource shortages already causing increased conflict, migration
The world’s poor and uprooted people are increasingly at risk as the world struggles with a combination of adverse economic, social and political trends that threaten to trigger even greater displacement in the future, the top United Nations refugee official warned.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) António Guterres told the opening session of his agency’s [...]
UK Scouts to get sexual health advice
The Scout Association is to start offering its members sexual health and relationships advice.
New guidance, geared mainly to 14 to 18-year-olds, advises leaders to discuss contraception and encourage resisting of peer pressure to have sex. Scout groups can also organise trips to sexual health clinics and give details of other helpful agencies. The guidance says [...]
Economic loss of deforestation
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water [...]
UK migrant numbers ‘must be reduced’ says Woolas
The number of migrants allowed into the UK under the points system may have to be reduced because of the economic crisis, an immigration minister says. Phil Woolas told the Times immigration became an “extremely thorny” subject when people were losing their jobs. “It’s been too easy to get into this country in [...]
Extend UK right to abortion to Northern Ireland
Women in Northern Ireland do not have the same rights to abortion as women in the rest of the UK. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology (HFE) Bill will be debated in parliament on 22 October. It is our last chance to secure equal rights to abortion for women in Northern Ireland.
Family Planning Association
Overfishing puts world’s largest food fishery on brink of collapse
Stocks of Alaska pollock, a staple of the U.S. fast food industry, have shrunk 50 percent from last year to record low levels and put the world’s largest food fishery on the brink of collapse, environmental group Greenpeace said on Friday.
Taina Honkalehto, a research fishery biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, said pollock [...]
Climate change could cause mass migration, species loss
Environmental damage such as desertification or flooding caused by climate change could force millions of peoples from their homes in the next few decades, experts said on Wednesday.
“All indicators show we are dealing with a major emerging global problem,” said Janos Bogardi, director of the U.N. University’s Institute on the Environment and Human Security in [...]
One billion go hungry on World Food Day
“Rich countries are directing their attention to high fuel prices and turmoil in the financial sector, but the number of malnourished people in the world rose by 44 million in 2008,” Oxfam said. “Nearly one billion people are now going hungry. When you consider the speed of the world’s response to the credit crisis, the [...]
Fish farming may struggle to meet demand
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today expressed concerns that the aquaculture industry may struggle to meet future world demand for fish as a rising global population consumes more and more fish and small farmers in poor countries face difficulties in exporting their produce.
The aquaculture sector – otherwise known as fish farming – [...]
UK faces future food, fuel pressures
A food crisis is highly likely in the UK, with price and availability becoming issues that swing the outcome of future elections, according to a report from the thinktank Chatham House.
The UK’s food system is unable to cope with rapid changes in supply driven by climate change, rising energy prices and population growth, the report [...]
One in four mammals risks extinction
A quarter of the world’s mammals are threatened with extinction, an international survey showed on Monday, and the destruction of habitats and hunting are the major causes.
The report, the most comprehensive to date by 1,700 researchers, showed populations of half of all 5,487 species of mammals were in decline. Mammals range in size from blue [...]
US government forbids cooperation with UK family planning group
06/10/2008
The State Department and USAID said they have notified six African governments to stop providing U.S.-funded contraceptives donated to the British family planning organization Marie Stopes International.
USAID made a determination that the organization has partnered with a United Nations program in China that the Bush administration claims promotes coerced abortions and involuntary sterilization.
The U.S. does [...]
Ground-level ozone pollution to increase
Ground-level ozone pollution is contributing to hundreds of deaths a year in the UK - and climate change could help make the situation worse, a report from the Royal Society warned today.
The study said that background ozone levels had been growing by 6 per cent a decade since the 1980s, and were now at a [...]
UK rivers to run dry, sea turns acid, sanitation need grows
Britain’s rivers could nearly run dry because long hot summers caused by climate change will not be sufficiently compensated by wetter winters, researchers predict. It is a scenario that would endanger wildlife and send household water bills soaring.
Flows in the Mersey and Severn are likely to be reduced in summer by up to 80 per [...]
More funding needed for condoms in fight against HIV, UN agency warns
Despite a growing need for contraceptives and condoms for HIV prevention, funding has virtually stagnated since 2001 when it peaked at $224 million, according to a new analysis by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).Donor contributions amounted to $223 million in 2007, a mere 5 per cent increase over the 2006 total of $212 [...]
“2.8 billion will face water stress” say UN
Warning that a world without water will be very unstable, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called for a three-pronged strategy to ensure that the poorest inhabitants of the developing world have access to clean water and basic sanitation within seven years.
“Current trends are disturbing,” he said. “To meet the sanitation target by the year 2015, about [...]
Met Office warns of need for drastic cuts in greenhouse gases from 2010
The world will have to take drastic action within two years to reduce greenhouse gas pollution if it is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a new study warns.
Weeks before world leaders meet to discuss the next big international treaty on cutting emissions, the scale of risk posed by failing to act rapidly [...]
World Habitat Day 2008 sees one billion dwelling in slums
The UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing noted that the growth of slums in the last 15 years has been “unprecedented” with one out of every three city dwellers today – approximately 998 million people – living in a slum.
“Living in slums means being deprived of access to adequate sanitation, education and health care [...]
“40% of UK children in relative poverty”
Millions of children are being “failed by the system” and living in or on the brink of poverty, it has been claimed.
Research by the Campaign to End Child Poverty found that in 174 of the 646 parliamentary constituencies across the UK, more than half the children live in poverty or are in families struggling on [...]
New UK government minister may cap immigration
The new immigration minister has hinted that Labour may take the political risk of adopting a “balanced migration” policy to restrict population growth in Britain.
In his first interview since being given the job yesterday, Phil Woolas vowed to toughen the current legislation, claiming that it was vital to “provide confidence to the indigenous population that [...]
Europe should spend now to avoid climate catastrophes
Europe is warming faster than the world average, creating conditions that are making the Mediterranean region dryer and the north wetter, according to a report studying the impact of global warming on Europe.
The report, called Impacts of Europe’s changing climate, adds that governments need to invest now to adapt to this changing climate to prevent [...]
‘Big rise’ in London population
London’s population has soared by more than half a million in a decade, figures have shown. The City of London has Britain’s fastest growth rate at 40%, according to Halifax, which analysed figures from the Office for National Statistics.
The biggest factor contributing to the population growth was people moving to the UK from abroad, Halifax [...]
Global warming pollution increases 3 percent
The world pumped up its pollution of the chief man-made global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leading scientists’ projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said Thursday.
The new numbers, called “scary” by some, were a surprise because scientists thought an economic downturn would slow energy use. Instead, carbon dioxide output jumped [...]
Half of Europe’s frogs face extinction
The latest assessment of frogs, toads, salamanders and newts suggests many will be severely threatened in the coming decades, especially in southern Europe where the climate is expected to become significantly warmer and drier.
But even familiar British amphibians such as the common frog and toad are highly vulnerable, said Trent Garner, of the Zoological Society [...]