organization:u.n. food and agriculture organization

Négociations à l’ONU pour protéger la haute mer
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2018/08/30/negociations-a-l-onu-pour-proteger-la-haute-mer_5348084_3244.html

https://img.lemde.fr/2018/08/30/786/0/4928/2464/644/322/60/0/f971d66_s2rcd8dGmjY9lYWZXFBs5gqI.jpg

Elle n’appartient – encore – à personne, mais suscite bien des convoitises. La haute mer recouvre près de la moitié de la planète, constitue près des deux tiers de l’océan mondial, qui lui-même produit une bonne partie de notre oxygène et l’essentiel des protéines de populations entières, et recèle des ressources biologiques ignorées. Et pourtant, la haute mer ne bénéficie jusqu’à présent d’aucune protection ou presque.

Voilà dix ans qu’est débattue l’idée de doter d’un cadre juridique les eaux internationales – c’est-à-dire l’immensité située au-delà des zones économiques exclusives (ZEE) régies par les pays côtiers. Ce dossier, très sensible, aurait pu se perdre dans les méandres de l’actualité diplomatique mondiale ; il a pourtant fini par aboutir à l’ouverture officielle de négociations sous l’égide des Nations unies.

Une première session de discussion est programmée du 4 au 17 septembre. L’objectif est de parvenir d’ici à 2020 à établir « un instrument juridiquement contraignant sur la conservation et l’utilisation durables de la biodiversité marine dans les zones situées au-delà des juridictions nationales ». Au ministère des affaires étrangères, on fait remarquer que le seul grand accord international actuellement en gestation à l’ONU a donc trait à l’océan.

Brevets à foison
Une autre façon de présenter la haute mer consiste à rappeler qu’elle représente 95 % de l’espace habité par des formes de vie sur cette planète. Et il serait étonnant que l’homme n’y trouve pas quelques ressources à puiser en plus des richesses halieutiques qu’il y prélève déjà sans ménagement.

suite derrière #paywall

South Sudan close to famine, facing “toughest year” - aid ...
▻http://news.trust.org/item/20180226105540-wcwwf

South Sudan is close to another famine, aid officials said on Monday, after more than four years of civil war and failed ceasefires in the world’s youngest nation.

Almost two-thirds of the population will need food aid this year to stave off starvation and malnutrition as aid groups prepare for the “toughest year on record”, members of a working group including South Sudanese and U.N. officials said.

“The situation is extremely fragile, and we are close to seeing another famine. The projections are stark. If we ignore them, we’ll be faced with a growing tragedy,” said Serge Tissot, from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in South Sudan.

A total of 5.3 million people, 48 percent of the population, are already in “crisis” or “emergency” - stages three and four on a five point scale, according to a survey published by the working group.

#Soudan_du_sud #famine #indifférence

Invasion of fall armyworms ravages maize crops in 20 African countries
▻https://www.ft.com/content/93222f52-2b46-11e7-9ec8-168383da43b7 #Africa #Afrique #agriculture

No known predator, chemicals ineffective, food shortages expected, will spread to Europe.

U.N. to plant 1 million trees to fight deforestation near ...
▻http://news.trust.org/item/20170208173251-5jpw9

A million trees are to be planted in Ethiopia to fight deforestation around camps hosting hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees who rely almost entirely on wood for fuel, a United Nations agency said on Wednesday.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the trees would be planted on 150 hectares of land in Ethiopia’s western Gambella region to meet the growing refugee population’s demand for energy.

Almost 300,000 people, mostly women and children, have found shelter in Ethiopia since conflict erupted in South Sudan in December 2013.

Fires used by the refugees for cooking are fuelled almost entirely by chopped wood, putting considerable pressure on local forests, FAO energy and forestry expert Arturo Gianvenuti said.

“Imagine tens of thousands of people - the population of a small city - who suddenly arrive in a location and start using forest resources,” Gianvenuti told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview. “The impact is visible”.

The depletion of forests risks creating tensions with local communities and disrupting the ecosystem, as trees stabilize the climate, regulate water flows and provide shelter to numerous animal species, according to the FAO.

It also exposes refugee women to the risk of sexual abuse as they have to walk long distances in isolated areas to fetch firewood, Gianvenuti said.

#bois #déforestation #reforestation #forêt #migration #réfugié·e·s #Éthiopie

Farming and forestry can deliver food security, says UN - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36824499

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The report showed that the greatest net loss of forests and net gain in agricultural land between 2000-2010 occurred in low income countries, where rural populations were growing.

It added that large-scale commercial agriculture accounted for about 40% of deforestation; subsistence farming was responsible for 33%; infrastructure 10%; urban expansion 10%; and mining 7%.

But it said that there were large regional variations within those figures. For example, large-scale agriculture accounted for 70% of deforestation in Latin America but just one third in Africa, where small-scale agriculture was the biggest cause of deforestation.

#agriculture #forêt #déforestation #agro-industrie #terres

22 Organizations Working to Restore Soils in 2016 | FoodTank.com
▻http://foodtank.com/news/2016/03/twenty-two-organizations-working-to-restore-soils-in-2016

http://foodtank.com/assets/images/head/SOIL_ORGS.jpg

According to the recent United Nations report, Status of the World’s Soil Resources, the world can ameliorate soil degradation if more sustainable practices are promptly implemented. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines soil degradation as "a change in the soil health status resulting in a diminished capacity of the ecosystem to provide goods and services for its beneficiaries. Degraded soils have a health status, such that they do not provide the normal goods and services of the particular soil in its ecosystem.”

Soils are naturally incredibly diverse. One teaspoon of soil could contain billions of microbes, thousands of species of protozoa and fungi, mites, and nematodes, and a couple of termite species. But a 2003 study, “Soil Diversity and Land Use in the United States,” published by the University of Berkeley, found that 4.5 percent of the soils in the United States are in danger of substantial loss or complete extinction as a result of urbanization and agriculture. In sub-Saharan Africa, soil is under threat as a result of overgrazing and other unsustainable practices.

#sols #restauration_des_sols

VIDEO : Going forward by going back – 15 indigenous crops feeding the world | Food Tank
▻http://foodtank.org/news/2013/11/going-forward-by-going-back-indigenous-crops-importance-feeding-world

Potatoes may seem fairly humble, but there are more than 4,500 species of potato in the world. Likewise, there are at least 1,000 pepper plant varieties, 7,500 tomato species, and 7,500 known apple varieties worldwide.

However, the incredible variety of the planet’s plant life is disappearing. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that approximately 75 percent of the Earth’s plant genetic resources are now extinct. Another third of plant biodiversity is expected to disappear by 2050. This is no small problem—humans eat biological diversity.

Unfortunately, most investment in agriculture is for crops such as wheat, rice, and maize, rather than more nutritious foods—and this focus has had devastating consequences. Global obesity rates have doubled over the last 30 years, increasing the risk of diet-related illnesses including diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease in industrialized and developing countries alike.

But many indigenous crops can be environmentally sustainable, improve food security, help prevent malnutrition, and increase incomes.

#alimentation #agriculture #biodiversité
Un site que je ne connaissais pas mais que super @reka vient de me signaler

FAO Issues Avian Flu Warning
▻http://www.voanews.com/content/fao-bird-flu-17sept13/1751216.html

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Avian flu continues to pose serious health threats to both human and animal health, especially as the flu season approaches. That’s the warning issued Monday by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Listen to De Capua report on avian flu

The FAO is calling on the international community to be vigilant for any signs of H5N1 and the new H7N9 avian flu. The former has been around for years, but H7N9 was first reported in China only last April. About 130 human infections were confirmed. Many of those patients had reported contact with poultry. Most had severe respiratory illness. Forty-four people died.

FAO senior animal health officer Ian Douglas saID timing of the warning is important.

“We’ve had over a decade of experience with H5N1 avian influenza virus and generally speaking we’ve seen this pattern of increase of incidence of the disease with the coming of cooler weather following summer. The experience with H7N9 version of avian influenza virus is much more limited. But whilst the number of human cases of that infection have declined, there is the possibility that it could reemerge and become a more prevalent infection.”

While both strains can jump from poultry to humans, there is a difference between the two.

Douglas said, “The difference perhaps is significant in so far as H7N9 has not been observed to cause much of clinical disease in poultry. And this constitutes a much great challenge because it’s not immediately obvious where the birds are infected and therefore, of course, the root of transmission to humans is somewhat more concealed.”

The lack of clinical signs makes is difficult to detect.

Health officials are very concerned that avian flu viruses might mutate and allow infections between people, not just between people and poultry. But is there any evidence, so far, that human to human transmission has occurred?

“There have been some suggestions,” he said, “of clusters where with very close contact that might have been the case. But of course the possibilities exist for a common exposure to an animal source. Avian influenza viruses can survive for some time outside of the bird or human host and contamination of the environment, at least for a reasonably short period of time, is possible.”

Douglas said that avian influenza viruses have the potential to produce a pandemic of human infection.

“In the case of H5N1, fairly rapidly. Over 60 countries in the world reported some cases occurring either in domestic or wild birds. That number is much reduced. Today, however, the infections remain endemic from Egypt across South and Southeast Asia and somewhat entrenched in those populations.”

He said it’s not clear whether H7N9 would behave the same way, adding there’s much to learn about the virus.

Established control methods involve culling — and vaccinations in the case of the H5N1 virus. But the response must also include tracking where the birds came from and their intended destinations – and ensure that poultry markets adhere to sanitation guidelines.

#H5N1
#H7N9
#U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
#China
#FAO