The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called upon countries to participate in preparing the next Global Forest Resources Assessment, the most comprehensive data collection on the state of the world’s forests to date.
Calling for a new business approach to African agriculture, the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s (UNECA) Director of Food Security and Sustainable Development, Josue Dione, said in Addis Ababa that climate change would aggravate the continent’s food insecurity and poverty. In a paper presented at the international conference on “Science with Africa,” Dione said Africa would experience a 10 percent decrease in rainfall in Southern Africa and the Horn of Africa by 2050.
The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) announced that World Tourism Day 2008 will focus on Tourism’s response to the challenges of climate change. It will be a yearlong campaign that will focus on increasing awareness of the Davos Declaration Process and encouraging its implementation by all stakeholders at a global level.
The World Council of Churches says it has reached an agreement with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for the two international organizations to work more closely on several global issues, particularly climate change.
A new report released at the FAO Regional Conference for the Near East (1-5 March 2008) in Cairo, Egypt, finds that agriculture in the Near East is likely to suffer losses because of high temperature, droughts, floods and soil degradation threatening the food security of many countries.
