IPS – Swamps, marshes and other wetlands are beginning to be recognised as a country’s ‘green jewels’, even in a tropical paradise like Mahé Island here in the Seychelles, with its stunning beaches and dramatic granite outcrops.

“Wetlands are one of the world’s richest ecosystems on the planet,” said Joel Morgan, minister for environment, natural resources and transport, Republic of Seychelles.

“We islanders live closer to nature than many others and we have long understood the importance of wetlands and environmental services and resources they provide us with,” Morgan said at the first-ever World Wetlands Week.

Normally, World Wetlands Day is Feb. 2, but this year the Ramsar Convention, an intergovernmental treaty on conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources, is celebrating wetlands around the world throughout the entire week.

The Seychelles were chosen for the global launch of World Wetlands Week because they exemplified the Ramsar principle of wise use successfully balancing tourism, development, food security and biodiversity, said Anada Tiega, secretary general of the Ramsar Convention.

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50233

IRI – Madagascar’s transitional government is allowing the export of illegally harvested precious hardwoods as a source of revenue to keep itself afloat. Conservationists say the cost is incalculable, and the huge Indian Ocean Island stands to lose its status as one of the world’s biological hotspots.

Groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Conservation International (CI) say illegal logging in Madagascar exploded in the aftermath of a political crisis that replaced President Marc Ravalomanana with Andre Rajoelina, current leader of the Transitional Authority, in March 2009. 

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87978

IPS – It is a public-private partnership intended to reduce Uganda’s dependence on imported vegetable oil while creating sustainable jobs and income for several thousand people. Its critics say it’s destroying forests with no regard for environmental regulations.

The Ugandan government entered into an agreement with BIDCO, the largest manufacturer of vegetable oil in Uganda, and Malaysian palm oil giants Wilmar to set up a plantation and refinery in the Kalangala islands in Lake Victoria. Transnational agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland owns shares in both companies.

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49113

UNDP – With the help of UNDP, in collaboration with the government, Nigeria is making great strides ahead in becoming green, thanks to a USD 13 million project that will phase out chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) from household equipment like refrigerators and air conditioners.

Nigeria has few firms that produce refrigerators, but the country  is a booming  market for second-hand air conditioners and refrigerators scrapped from Europe. These cooling equipments, which have become a necessity for the majority of Nigerians, use gases that eat away at the ozone layer which protects the Earth from the harmful rays of the sun. 

Managed by UNDP’s Ozone Programme and Management Implementation Unit (OPIAMU), the project will get both refrigerator manufacturers and the various associations  of second hand fridges and air conditioner traders to switch from CFCs to more ozone-friendly substances.

Read more – http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2009/october/in-nigeria-cfcs-will-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past.en

Nairobi - Momentum towards the establishment of a new international body to address the loss and degradation of the world’s multi trillion dollar nature-based assets gathered pace at a meeting of close to 100 governments.

There was strong support that an intergovernmental panel, similar to the one that has catalyzed political action on the issue of climate change, is now needed to galvanize a step change in respect to the management of biodiversity and ecosystems.

Governments agreed that there was now an urgency to strengthen the link between science and policy so that the knowledge being generated by researchers across the globe gets turned into action by governments on the ground.

Delegates, who were meeting at the headquarters of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), agreed that a final meeting would be held in 2010 on whether to establish an Intergovernmental Panel or Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

2010 marks the International Year of Biodiversity when governments in 2002 agreed to reverse the rate of loss of biodiversity at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said:” The deadline date for this decision on IPBES is significant. This is the year when the world had hoped to have turned the tide on the loss of biodiversity. This however is unlikely to be achieved which does not undermine the goal but speaks volumes of the need for an effective mechanism which IPBES could represent”.

Read more – http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=599&ArticleID=6340&l=en&t=long

The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group approved on Wednesday, 7 October 2009 in Tunis, a loan of Euro 53.33 million, equivalent to 48.56 million Units of Account (UA) to finance the Gabal El Asfar Waste-water Treatment Plant (GAWWTP) Project in Cairo, Egypt.

The project objective is to improve the quality of waste-water discharged into the drainage system in Cairo East, thereby contributing to improved sanitation and a clean environment for nearly 8 million people living in the area.

This phase will provide an additional waste-water treatment capacity of 500,000 cubic meters per day. The waste-water will undergo full treatment, including preliminary, primary and secondary treatment. Provisions are also made to chlorinate the effluent when all the waste-water reaching the drains is adequately treated. The proposed extension will bring the total treatment capacity at the Gabal El Asfar plant to 2.5 million cubic meters per day.

Read more – http://www.afdb.org/en/news-events/article/egypt-afdb-approves-eur-53-million-loan-to-finance-waste-water-treatment-project-5160/