Goal 7 specifies the international commitment to ensuring environmental sustainability, by targeting the reversing of loss of environmental resources, halving the proportion of people without sanitation and sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015, and achieving significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. Progress towards this goal is measured by factors such as the proportion of land area covered by forests, extent of protected areas for maintaining biological diversity, energy efficiency (in terms of GDP per unit of energy use), per capita carbon dioxide emissions, and also the proportion of the population with access to improved drinking water, sanitation, and secure tenure.
19-11-2009Nepal's rural poor will get to manage hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest land with financial assistance from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). This will not only help tackle the rapid deforestation but will also generate income for the poor.
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Image: Putting Nepal's forests in the hands of community people/ Photo credit: Community Forestry Workshop
11-11-2009Afghanistan appears to be getting drier. Many traditional irrigation sources such as springs, streams, rivers and man-made subterranean aqueducts have been drying up in the southern provinces.
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Image: There will be a likely increase in the attractiveness of more drought-hardy crops, such as opium poppy/ Photo credit: IRIN
31-10-2009Prakash Thosre, an Indian Forest Service officer in Maharashtra, was roped in to spearhead the National Green Corps project that has come to occupy a place among the top three states in terms of impact and value additions. In an exclusive interview with OneWorld South Asia, he talks of the project’s achievements.
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18-11-2009Developed nations are putting pressure on India to agree to cut its carbon emissions at the next month's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. In the country’s most industrialised state, Gujarat, people are at it to prove that the answer to low-carbon growth lies in homegrown solutions.
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Image: Cow dung is a key part of the Gujarat project/ Photo credit: BBC
Indian villagers tap traditional ways of water storage 07-08-2009Rural communities in two Indian states have turned to ancient models of drought mitigation and water conservation. NGOs, have helped them form watershed associations and repair old tanks and other irrigation systems to cope with changing climate.
Submerged lives in downtown Manila 12-11-2009On November 1 tropical storm, Typhoon Mirinae, ravaged Manila and the nearby northern provinces in the Philippines, leaving at least 20 people dead and thousands displaced, including women and children. It’s a region that still remains flooded from three earlier back-to-back storms.
06-10-2009An information hub set up by an NGO in south India is aiding fishing communities with alert messages on maritime changes, availability and trade of fish. Integrating community radio to the public announcement system has enabled the rural villagers to address health and socio-economic related concerns.
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Image: Photo credit: Coastal region in India/ Google
17-11-2009State of Environment Report India 2009 presents an overview of the environmental scenario of the country. It provides an insight on various priority issues related to the current status of environment and assesses the government’s current and proposed policy initiatives to check and monitor further degradation.
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Image: Cover page of the report/ Photo credit: MoEF
