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11 September 2013, Rome - The waste of a staggering 1.3 billion tonnes of food per year is not only causing major economic losses but also wreaking significant harm on the natural resources that humanity relies upon to feed itself, says a new FAO report. Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources is the first study to analyze the impacts of global food wastage from an…

FAO's new report is the first study to focus on the environmental impacts of food wastage. 1) The global volume of food wastage is estimated at 1.6 billion tonnes of "primary product equivalents." Total food wastage for the edible part of this amounts to 1.3 billion tonnes. 2) Food wastage's carbon footprint is estimated at 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent of GHG released…

Desertification/land degradation is rarely accounted for as an economic issue, and drought barely accounted for as a disaster. Because desertification, land degradation and drought are slow and silent phenomena, they have a way of creeping up on us and thereby leading us to underestimate their socio-economic impacts.

Gender equity is a matter of fundamental human rights and social justice, as well as a pre-condition for sustainable development. The empowerment of women and gender equity has been recognized as a significant driver of development, enhancing the effectiveness of programs, projects, and initiatives.

Dry forests play an important role in preventing land degradation and desertification, conserving biodiversity and providing ecosystem goods and services and mitigating and adapting to climate change and the impacts of drought. To make use of the promising potential of forests and agroforestry schemes in arid areas they need to be fully included in the REDD+ mechanism with a special focus…

The issue of desertification became particularly acute due to the severe drought conditions in the Sudano-Sahelian regions which had reached catastrophic proportions in 1973. At its twentyeighth session, in 1973, the General Assembly, by resolution 3054(XXVIII) of 17 October and resolution 3153 (XXVIII) of 28 November, noted with concern the great and disquieting magnitude of the effects of the…