Recently the Government of Ecuador and the United Nations signed a landmark legally binding deal to preserve the country’s oil rich Yasuni National Park. As part of the pact, economically rich nations ...

A famous anecdote describes a scheme the British Colonial Government implemented in India in an attempt to control the population of venomous cobras that were plaguing the citizens of Delhi that ...

“For Justice, Security and the Restoration of Our Territory” — that’s the slogan emblazoned on the uniform of the people in charge of security in Cherán, one of the main indigenous communities in the ...

Coconuts offer a wide array of uses from agriculture, energy, construction to medicine. Though research on the fruit is still in its infancy, the versatile palm has been sustaining communities for ...

To build greater understanding and awareness of traditional knowledge and inform action by indigenous peoples, local communities and policymakers, the United Nations University Institute for the ...

May 2023 — With the launch of the new United Nations University (UNU) global website platform, Our World has been integrated into the UNU website and will shift to become a curated collection of UNU's ...

Almost every day we hear news about catastrophic flooding or drought somewhere in the world. And many nations and regions are on track for even more extreme water problems within a generation, the ...

The potato has long been an Australian favourite, and in Tasmania these days the tuber is even in the sights of seed specialists. “Society has moved away from potato diversity,” says Leonie White, ...

The bean counters at the World Wildlife Fund found that it takes more than 200 litres of water just to produce one cup of latte coffee (see video below). Water wastage is only one aspect of the total ...

Fuelled by a growing international appetite for leather, the industry represents a sizeable chunk of Bangladesh’s yearly export revenues — $284 million in 2007-08. There are about 200 leather ...

With the topic of peak global oil production moving more into the mainstream, you have perhaps heard of the Canadian oil sands. There, huge tracts of remote forested land are strip-mined to obtain a ...

Lake Chad has literally gone from being an oasis in the desert, to being just desert. Spanning the countries of Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon and bordering the Sahara desert, Lake Chad has ...