On 3–4 May 2016, policymakers from climate change departments of Kenya and Uganda met with scientists from CCAFS and ILRI for discussions on development of regional greenhouse gas inventories. Continue reading
Analysis published in Nature Climate Change estimates that livestock could account for up to half of the mitigation potential of the global agricultural, forestry and land-use sectors, which are the second largest source of emissions globally, after the energy sector. Continue reading
Humans and lions can coexist through the creation of community conservancies—privately protected areas that engage local people in conservation and ecotourism. These conservancies can help stem the unrelenting loss of lions, whose population has been in decline across Africa, and pose a viable solution to an old problem. Continue reading
The following excerpt is the beginning of a candid and thoughtful article by Ian Scoones, of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), at Sussex University, about an international symposium, One Health for the Real World: zoonoses, ecosystems and wellbeing, that took place at the Zoological Society of London last week (17–18 Mar 2016). Continue reading
The CGIAR System Office of the new organization is to be located in Montpellier, France, and will be led by an executive director, who will need to possess a combination of a collaborative, thoughtful leadership style, diplomatic skill, exemplary judgment and a track record of developing consensus through trust and relationship-building. Continue reading
Brad Ridoutt, a principal research scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency and an international leader in the field of life cycle assessment, which he applies to agricultural production, food systems and sustainable healthy diets, has an interesting comment on livestock water ‘hoofprints’ which makes up part of a longer article of his, An update on water footprints, posted on Tara Garnett’s Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) site on 7 Feb 2016. Continue reading
Did you miss this call for a US national food policy by Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and lead food writer; Michael Pollan, leading food, food systems and food science author; Ricardo Salvador, director of food and environment at the Union of Concerned Scientists; and Olivier de Schutter, former UN special rapporteur on the right to food. Continue reading
This was the ‘Year of Meat’, when animal flesh became the poster child for health and environmental ‘bads’. As the role of over-consuming meat in greenhouse gas emissions, obesity and cancer took centre stage, even iron man Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking at the United Nations COP21 climate change conference in Paris this Dec, climbed the bandwagon to advocate eating less meat. Below are summaries of two of the more balanced articles (evidence-based and not unreasonably optimistic about human enterprise and ingenuity) that appeared this year about our love-hate relationship with meat. Continue reading
Use of biogas in the Iringa region of Tanzania is helping to address poverty and reduce dependency of forests in an initiative promoting the biological diversity, ecological functions and sustainable use of natural resources in the Eastern Arc Mountains.
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An interesting and comprehensive paper, Dynamics and resilience of rangelands and pastoral peoples around the globe, was recently published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Vol. 39: 217-242 (Oct 2014), DOI: 10.1146/annurev-environ-020713-163329. The lead author of the paper is Robin Reid, an ecologist and rangelands expert formerly with ILRI, in Nairobi, Kenya, and now director of the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, Colorado. Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 