There are major issues at stake in the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development to be held on 20-22 June. Yet governments of developing countries have not given adequate importance to the run-up to the conference. As has happened in the climate change negotiations, the outcome draft now under negotiation shows a concerted move to rewrite the terms of global environmental governance. There is an attempt to push through the decidedly...

-The Guardian  Governments spend years negotiating environmental agreements, but then willfully ignore them – it's a dismal record It's global agreement time again. In two weeks, 120 world leaders and 190-odd countries will go to the Rio+20 Earth summit and – unless the talks collapse – sign up to new international goals, pledges, targets, protocols and treaties, and promise to commit to sustainable development, protect the earth and use resources more wisely....

-The Times of India Asia and the Pacific is consuming more resources than its Ecosystems can sustain, threatening the future of the region's beleaguered forests, rivers, and oceans as well as the livelihoods of those who depend on them, says a new joint report by the Asian Development Bank ( ADB) and WWF. The joint ADB-WWF study, Ecological Footprint and Investment in Natural Capital in Asia and the Pacific, focuses on ways...

-FAO On the path to Rio+20, FAO calls for a future with both healthier people and healthier Ecosystems Sustainable development cannot be realized unless hunger and malnutrition are eradicated, FAO said in a policy document prepared for the Rio+20 Summit to be held in June in Rio de Janeiro. "We cannot call development sustainable while this situation persists, while nearly one out of every seven men, women and children are left behind, victims...

Veteran agricultural scientist and alumnus of Harvard and Berkeley Universities, Dr Peter Kenmore was in Mumbai for NABARD’s 30th anniversary lecture on ‘Future of Global Agriculture: Challenges and Opportunities for India.’ This United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization India representative spoke to Yogesh Pawar on the current scenario in agriculture. Some excerpts: There’s a lot of churn over GM technology in India. At a time when the country is grappling with...