Responsible Consumption and Production
Small and beautiful
World Environment Day is very important for Bhutan. We take advantage of it to further enhance awareness of environmental conservation and to bring together communities from all walks of life to show solidarity towards keeping our environment beautiful and healthy. Our small Himalayan kingdom, while pursuing economic development, has taken strong steps to maintain our environment for this and future generations.
Innovation. A serious game for serious issues
The Aqua Republica game combines game mechanics and hydrological simulations to help people better appreciate the inter-linkages between water resources, social and economic development, and environmental sustainability.
Environmental champion
Some 30 years ago, the celebrated author Annie Proulx was driving through the backroads of Michigan's Upper Peninsula when she came to a highway junction, marked only by an apparently closed laundromat. “Across the road” she told Our Planet “was a large sign, announcing that in that place in the nineteenth century had grown the finest white pine forest in the world. There was not a single white pine in sight”.
UN environment at work. The tricky business of measuring a country’s true wealth
Human well-being and wealth are not only determined by economic activity but also by the services we get from nature. Gross Domestic Product measures economic transactions, regardless of whether they are positive or negative for human well-being or a nation’s wealth. It cannot measure the sustainability of economic activities, and it doesn’t capture the contribution of nature to our welfare.
Protecting Cetaceans In The Yangtze
As part of my work at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan since 1982, I spent twenty years with Qi Qi [pronounced chee-chee], the world’s only captive baiji Yangtze River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer, “the flag-bearer who was left behind”).
En Afrique, la menace s’éloigne pour les gorilles de montagne
Hier encore, les habitants des zones limitrophes du Parc national de la forêt impénétrable de Bwindi et du Parc national des gorilles de Mgahinga, en Ouganda, étaient les pires ennemis des gorilles de montagne. Ils sonnaient le tocsin lorsque ces hôtes des forêts tropicales voisines, perçus comme une menace, pénétraient dans leurs jardins. Avec des conséquences souvent fatales pour cette espèce en péril.
Our Guest: The History Of Europe’s Blacks Has Been Struckby A Partial Amnesia
Les populations autochtones, vigies éclairées de la biodiversité
Les habitants du village karen de Hin Lad Nai, niché au coeur des forêts luxuriantes de la province de Chiang Rai, au nord de la Thaïlande, pratiquent depuis des siècles l’agriculture itinérante par rotation. Cette technique agricole durable de défrichement et de brûlis – un temps critiquée à tort pour sa contribution au changement climatique – est utilisée pour régénérer les terres.
Species Migration: A Silent Revolution
There are changes taking place all over the planet, at all latitudes. Most often, we are unaware of them. And yet they are altering the distribution ranges of the species on which we depend directly. This redistribution of living things is the tangible manifestation of the invisible movement of isotherms – imaginary lines of the same mean temperature that move towards the poles and mountain peaks like waves, driven by global warming.
Zoom: Titicaca : le lac sacré livre ses secrets
Il gisait par six mètres de fond depuis près de cinq siècles. Pourtant, le coffret d’offrande inca trouvé dans le lac Titicaca en 2014 est sorti quasiment intact de l’eau. À l’intérieur de celui-ci se trouvaient un lama miniature et un cylindre d’or, signes de religiosité et de pouvoir dans l’Empire inca.
Zoom: Titicaca: The Sacred Lake Reveals Its Secrets
It has been lying at a depth of six metres for nearly five centuries. Yet the Inca stone offering box found in Lake Titicaca in 2014 emerged almost intact from the water. Inside the box was a miniature shell figurine of a llama, and a rolled cylindrical gold sheet – signs of religiosity and power in the Inca Empire.
Indigenous Peoples: Informed Custodiansof Biodiversity
The Karen inhabitants of the village of Hin Lad Nai, nestled in the lush forests of Chiang Rai province in northern Thailand, have practised rotational shifting cultivation for centuries. This sustainable slash-and-burn cultivation technique – once mistakenly criticized for contributing to climate change – has been used around the world to regenerate the land and support biodiversity.
Au chevet des cétacés du Yangtsé
Dans le cadre des fonctions que j’exerce depuis 1982 à l’Institut d’hydrobiologie de Wuhan, j’ai pendant vingt ans côtoyé Qi Qi [prononcer tchi tchi], le seul dauphin du Yangtsé vivant en captivité dans le monde : Lipotes vexillifer (« le porte-drapeau oublié »), ou baiji en chinois.
Migration des espèces, la révolution silencieuse
Ce sont des changements qui ont lieu partout sur la planète, sous toutes les latitudes. À notre insu le plus souvent. Et pourtant, ils modifient les aires de répartition des espèces dont nous dépendons directement. Cette redistribution du vivant est la manifestation tangible du déplacement invisible des isothermes, ces lignes imaginaires de même température qui se déplacent vers les pôles et les sommets des montagnes, telles des ondes, sous l’impulsion du réchauffement global. La mise en évidence de ces changements dans la répartition du vivant nécessite d’importantes quantités de données, à la fois historiques et récentes.
Africa: Mountain Gorillas Make A Comeback
There was a time, not long ago, when communities around Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park were the mountain gorillas’ worst enemies. When the gorillas crossed their gardens, the inhabitants living close to these dense green rainforests would sound an alarm to confront the animals, who were viewed as a menace. This almost certainly resulted in the deaths of many endangered mountain gorillas.
Notre invitée: « L’histoire des personnes noires en Europe est frappée d’amnésie partielle »
Cities: Widlife Thrives In Concrete Jungles
Parakeets in the parks of Brussels, Amsterdam and London, wild plants thriving on asphalt, industrial buildings invaded by bats or birds of prey – recent studies show the astonishing ability of certain species to acclimatize to the noisy and densely populated environment of a city.
Wide Angle: Restoring Biodiversity, Reviving Life: Pandemics: Humans Are The Culprits
In 1997, I went to Borneo to investigate fires which had been raging uncontrolled for months across a vast area of pristine tropical forest. An intense El Niño event had triggered a deep drought, and a thick yellow haze had settled over much of Indonesia, Malaysia, and beyond.
Australia: After The Bushfires
When you walk into a forest that’s been burnt this badly, the overwhelming thing that hits you is the silence. No bird-song. No rustling of leaves. Silence.” This is how Mike Clarke, professor of zoology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, described Australia’s many forests that were recently decimated by the country’s worst bushfires.
Les îles, fragiles vitrines de la biodiversité
Les îles ont toutes un âge, une situation géographique et un degré d’isolement différents. Ces caractéristiques les rendent uniques et leur permettent d’abriter des écosystèmes présentant des concentrations de flore et de faune qu’on ne trouve nulle part ailleurs, certaines espèces développant des attributs rares comme le gigantisme, le nanisme et l’aptérisme (incapacité à voler).