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The number of people facing hunger rose to 193 million last year as conflict, climate change and economic crises ravaged people’s livelihoods, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday. While experts have warned that Russia’s war in Ukraine could cause famine, the FAO said in an annual report that nearly 40 million more people were pushed into “acute food insecurity” in 2021. Among 53 countries facing the problem, the most affected include the […]
by Daniel Lawler Agence France Presse Climate change will drive animals towards cooler areas where their first encounters with other species will vastly increase the risk of new viruses infecting humans, raising the threat of another pandemic, researchers warned Thursday. There are currently at least 10,000 viruses that have the capacity to cross over into humans “circulating silently” among wild mammals, mostly in the depths of tropical forests, according to a study published in […]
by Ismail Bellaouali Agence France-Presse RABAT, Morocco (AFP) – As Morocco withers under its worst drought in 40 years, experts warn that a combination of climate change and bad resource management could trigger severe drinking water shortages. “The country hasn’t seen a situation like this since the start of the 1980s,” said water policy expert Abderrahim Hendouf. While it was usually farmers who bore the brunt of repeated droughts in the North African kingdom, today […]
RABAT, Morocco (AFP) – Morocco said Wednesday it will launch a nearly $1 billion aid programme to help its agriculture industry, which has been hit hard by a particularly acute drought in recent years. The emergency plan “aims to mitigate the effects of delay in rainfall, to alleviate the impact on agricultural activity and to provide assistance to the farmers and livestock breeders affected”, the royal palace said in a statement. The plan will cost […]
by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – The megadrought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday. Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell’s intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. “The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic […]
by Levi FERNANDES Agence France-Presse PAMPILHOSA DA SERRA, Portugal (AFP) – In central Portugal, a sustained drought has revealed the ruins of a village that was totally submerged underwater when a large reservoir was created nearly 70 years ago. “I have never seen that!” says Carlos Perdigao, 76, as he gazes at the ruined stone houses of Vilar which were swallowed up by the Zezere river when a dam was opened in 1954. Vilar stands […]
by Raphael AMBASU, with Hillary ORINDE in Nairobi Agence France-Presse MARSABIT, Kenya (AFP) – Dabaso Galgalo is now used to the smell and grisly spectacle of rotting flesh festering in the scorching heat as Kenya reels from a spate of climate disasters. Surrounded by barren scrubland littered with withered carcasses of sheep and goats, the 56-year-old pastoralist is struggling to keep his beloved animals, and himself, alive. What was left of his herd after a months-long […]
BARILOCHE, Argentina (AFP) – With temperatures climbing upwards, firefighters were deployed ahead of the weekend to forest fires in nine of Argentina’s 23 provinces, including one blaze that has been active for more than a month. Nearly 100 firefighters and support staff, reinforced by planes and helicopters, were fighting the largest of the fires in the Nahuel Huapi National Park, the fire management service (SNMF) said. The park is located near the tourist city of […]
by Kaouthar Oudrhiri SAIDIA, Morocco (AFP) — Moroccan environmentalist Mohamed Benata stood taking photos of what should be the mouth of the Moulouya river — but after years of drought and over-pumping, it comes to a halt just short of the sea. One of the longest rivers in the North African kingdom and a vital lifeline for farmers in the area near the Algerian border, the final few paces of the 500-kilometre (310-mile) waterway are […]
by Martín SILVA Agence France-Presse Santo Corazón, Bolivia (AFP) – The road through San Matias, Bolivia, is a no man’s land. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of once lush forest are now a wasteland of twisted, carbonized tree stumps. It is a protected area, but San Matias — which also hosts subsistence farmers, cattle ranches and quartz mines — burns every year as land is cleared for the next planting season. The practice is legal […]
21 October 2021 More than one million people in southern Madagascar are struggling to get enough to eat, due to what could become the first famine caused by climate change, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The region has been hit hard by successive years of severe drought, forcing families in rural communities to resort to desperate measures just to survive. Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, has a unique ecosystem which includes animals and plants found […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) – Iran’s capital is suffering its worst drought in half a century, a water resources official said Tuesday, citing a 97 percent drop in monthly rainfall compared with last year. Tehran has had 0.4 millimetres of rain since September 23, compared with 14.3 mm over the same period in 2020, said Mohammad Shahriari, deputy director of the company that supplies the region. “Groundwater and surface water are at a critical state and […]
