The Great Green Wall is a symbol of hope in the face of one of the biggest challenges of our time – desertification. Launched in 2007 by the African Union, this game-changing African-led initiative aims to restore Africa’s degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives in one of the world’s poorest regions, the Sahel. Once complete, the Wall will be the largest living structure on the planet – an 8,000 km natural wonder of the world stretching across the entire width of the continent.

Keeping tabs on the quantity of carbon stored in forests is a vital part of global efforts to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Protecting and sustainably managing forests could contribute up to 30 percent of the goal established by the U.N. Paris Agreement on climate change, which aims to prevent mean annual temperatures from rising more than 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

In a new report launched on World Wildlife Day, WWF and TRAFFIC highlight mainland France’s and French overseas’ role in the trade of CITES1 species. With millions of wildlife specimens in trade to/from France each year, France is a significant trader in the EU. Accordingly, France also has a key role to play in preventing the over-exploitation of wildlife, by continuing to ensure the effective implementation of CITES and combating wildlife trafficking.

This letter was sent to President of the European Commission von der Leyen, Executive Vice-President Timmermans, Commissioner Simson, Commissioner Sinkevičus , Minister Matos Fernandes, MEP Guteland and other Members of the European Parliament, and Members of Coreper II.

Read: Position of European Partners on SIGIF 2 in Cameroon; Only few days left to register for the webinars "The Role of Forest Certification in the EUTR"; ATIBT technical data sheet : quality of plantation species for timber use; "Choosing tropical woods to fight climate change" says Timber Trade Federation...

March 2021 Highlights: Rescued 1 Black-bellied pangolin; Released 1 Black-bellied pangolin back into the wild; Released 19 African grey parrots into the wild; Finished maintenance of Gorilla group 1 night den; Completed phase 1 of the Gorilla re-enrichment project…

Read: FLEGT ‘Fitness Check’: Abandoning FLEGT licenses would harm forest governance and the legal timber trade; EU Law on deforestation: Key land rights risk being ignored in DG Environment’s proposal; Could the palm oil arrangement between Indonesia and Switzerland offer lessons for EU and Indonesia free trade agreement negotiations?

Reference is made to Notification 2020-050 issued on 14 July 2020, by which the Secretariat had informed Parties and observers of revised dates (17 to 30 May 2021) for the Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and the Fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization.

The lead up to the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, China, provides the global community with further opportunities to galvanize efforts at all levels to build a better future in harmony with nature.

Read: A webinar series organized by the World Bank's Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) to celebrate a decade of collective work on carbon pricing; Regional Working Group Calls…

The undeniable connection between nature, human health, and economic well-being has become more evident than ever during this time of crisis. Resilience is in our nature: IUCN and its Members are working to ensure a nature-based recovery that can deliver sustainable solutions, providing a foundation for a healthier relationship between humanity and the planet.

Read: Wildlife: The pangolin has never been a particularly eye-catching species, unlike others such as elephants, gorillas or whales, or even a well-known one…. Discover the Biodiversity of the DSPA: The main characteristic that this mammal possesses is that it is covered in big scales over the majority of its body… Community Development…

The International Renewable Energy (IRENA) has published a preview of its publication, ‘World Energy Transitions Outlook.’ The report reviews technology choices, investment needs, and socio-economic contexts necessary to set the world on a trajectory towards a sustainable, resilient and inclusive energy future.

Pushed off their customary lands and severed from their traditional way of life, Indigenous communities living on roadsides in the tropical forests of Central Africa face perilous conditions. The livelihoods of about 10,000 Baka Pygmies in southeastern Cameroon are in jeopardy, according to a new study in Scientific Reports led by scientists with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), which shows their available hunting area is at risk.

Three years on, the NDC Partnership’s hard work is bearing fruit. Together, we are producing country led plans that offer a pathway to achieving the low-carbon, climate-resilient societies envisaged by the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Across the world, our country members and institutional partners collaborate to cut economy-wide emissions, build sustainable communities, mobilize financial and technical support, and engage civil society.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has joined forces with Pegasus Capital Advisors and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in an innovative bundling of public-private financing to plug a funding gap for sub-national climate initiatives.

RFUK has long understood that women have a central role to play in protecting and managing the world’s rainforests. They are the main providers of food, water and medicine to their families, who depend greatly on rainforests for their livelihoods. They hold vast traditional knowledge of their forests and their biodiversity. This understanding informs our work and that of our partner organisations in Africa and Peru. We look to help women to defend their rights and to play a greater role in deciding how their traditional forests are managed.

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February saw the 13th session of our Advisory Board meeting, held in Brazzaville, where our workplan and budget for 2021 were finalised and approved. This year will see a whole host of developments from the park - from new construction, including schools, markets and clean-water pumps, to new projects, such as the Makao community pharmacy, due to be launched in March 2021. We here at the park look forward to getting stuck into these challenges.

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message for the International Day of Forests, observed on 21 March: Humanity’s well-being is inextricably linked to the health of our planet.  Forests play a crucial role.

Elon Musk tweeted earlier this year that he would be "donating $100 million towards a prize for best carbon capture technology”. Out of 600 thousand likes and retweets, twenty thousand corresponded to a brilliant solution: “A tree”. The Tesla boss responded that trees were, indeed, part of the solution, but that we may require something that is “ultra-large-scale industrial in 10 to 20 years”. The sense of acting ‘urgently’ and at ‘scale’ are clearly central to the concepts of innovations announced in his offer.

In the upcoming Trilogue negotiations on the European Climate Law, there is a crucial choice to be made about the balance between emission reductions in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and Effort Sharing Regulation sectors, and carbon removals in the Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) sector. Near-term emission reductions with only minimum reliance on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are hugely important to avoid both intolerable risks of overshooting 1.5°C rise, and of aggravating the social risks of large-scale CDR.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and its partners have signed implementation agreements for two new climate finance projects only hours after they were approved by the GCF Board.

The ATIBT and the Malaysian Timber Council (MTC) have recently held several online meetings to clarify their common issues for the development of a responsible tropical timber sector. These meetings have been preceded in recent years by annual meetings.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is heeding calls to help developing countries bolster their defences against the increasingly damaging effects of climate change, while overcoming COVID-19 fiscal constraints.

The Children and Youth Major Group to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) organized a virtual Youth Environment Assembly to coordinate, mobilize, and build capacity ahead of the fifth UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5). Participation was open to any youth and youth organizations to discuss and identify their broader priorities for environmental action.

The 2021 Desertification and Drought Day to be held on 17 June will focus on turning degraded land into healthy land. Restoring degraded land brings economic resilience, creates jobs, raises incomes and increases food security. It helps biodiversity to recover. It locks away the atmospheric carbon warming the Earth, slowing climate change. It can also lessen the impacts of climate change and underpin a green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cambridge, UK: 16th February 2020 - With governments meeting this week to discuss targets and indicators for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, TRAFFIC urges Parties to strengthen global efforts to ensure trade and use of species is legal, at sustainable levels and safe, and effectively measure progress on the implementation of these efforts.