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Spielzeug für Kinder sollte sorgfältig geprüft werden, bestenfalls bevor es unter dem Christbaum, und somit sogleich in Kinderhänden, landet. Ein genialer Trick mit einer Klopapierrolle hilft, potenziell gefährliche Geschenke zu entlarven.

Bei einer umstrittenen Radarkontrolle hat die Schweizer Polizei über 200 Grenzgänger geblitzt. An der Zollstation Lucelle gilt Tempo 20, viele Autofahrer kannten die Regel nicht. Die hohen Bussgelder sorgen nun für Empörung.

ENTWURF EINES BERICHTS über den Vorschlag für eine Verordnung des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates zur Einrichtung der Reform- und Wachstumsfazilität für Moldau
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
Haushaltsausschuss
Siegfried Mureşan, Sven Mikser

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2024 - EP

Dans la nuit du mardi au mercredi 11 décembre, l'Assemblée de Belfast a voté le renouvellement pour quatre ans du cadre de Windsor, un compromis qui prévoit que l'Irlande du Nord reste dans le marché commun européen, tout en bénéficiant d'une réduction des procédures de douanes avec la Grande-Bretagne.

Poland aims to promote a broader “equity culture” in the EU by removing various regulatory obstacles.

The post Poland Council presidency to focus on ‘relatively low-hanging fruits’ to deepen capital markets appeared first on Euractiv.

582664 Željka Šulc

11 December 2024, SARAJEVO – The destructive effects of corruption—wasting public resources, deterring foreign investment, and fostering apathy and distrust—are undeniable, agreed participants at a conference held in Sarajevo today.

To mark International Anti-Corruption Day, the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina organized a conference titled “The Role of Citizens in Anti-Corruption Processes,” which brought together more than 60 representatives from institutions across BiH, non-governmental and international organizations, academia, citizens and youth. The conference aimed to empower citizens in the fight against corruption through dialogue, education, and the development of strategies to enhance their engagement.

With this conference, the Mission officially concluded its Anti-Corruption Tour—a series of public events promoting citizen participation in anti-corruption processes held in Banja Luka, Bihać, Brčko District, Mostar, Trebinje, and Tuzla.

“Central to our approach is the belief that citizens are at the heart of change. You – the citizens of BiH – are the ones who can and should identify and report corruption. Institutional reforms alone will not suffice to bring about meaningful change,” said Ambassador Brian Aggeler, Head of the OSCE Mission to BiH. “We need your engagement, your action, and your support to truly make a difference.”

The conference provided a platform for participants to evaluate the current state of anti-corruption efforts in BiH and to discuss the tools, support, and resources needed to keep citizens, media, civil society, and institutions actively engaged. Mechanisms for reporting corruption were also presented, highlighting the critical role of public involvement in combating corruption.

The fight against corruption transcends institutional reforms—it requires a personal commitment. Mevludin Džindo, Assistant Director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight Against Corruption, underscored the obligation of public institutions to create conditions that enable citizen engagement. “Engagement must be proactive, allowing each citizen to report corrupt behaviour on an individual level and, through civic activism, contribute to building a society based on equality, fairness, and non-discrimination,” he stated.

This conference is part of the OSCE Mission to BiH project “Informed Citizens and Efficient Mechanisms to Prevent and Fight Corruption,” supported by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the US Department of State (INL). The project aims to enhance collaboration between authorities and citizens in the fight against corruption.

The authors of this opinion article argue that nature’s economic contributions are often overlooked and business success should include stewardship of nature. Credit: Sergei Karakulov/Unsplash

By Stephen Polasky and Matt Jones
BONN, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)

Sustaining nature is not just an environmental goal—it is an essential component of sustainable business—and requires that we redefine business success to include the wise stewardship of nature.

Nature provides the vital infrastructure that underpins the economy. Nature’s contributions to people, through the economy, include the provision of raw materials necessary to produce everything from our food to components of our mobile phones, and the less immediately obvious but supremely important regulation of environmental conditions, which impact everything from climate and ocean conditions to water supplies and soil fertility.

Nature’s economic contributions, though vital, are often overlooked and undervalued. The rapid expansion of economic activity, without adequate attention to its negative side effects, has taken its toll on nature.

Prof. Stephen Polansky

The 2019 Global Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that nature is declining globally at rates that are unprecedented in human history. This decline has led to a rapid increase in species extinctions, climate change and—directly relevant to businesses—major declines in nature’s capacity to sustain contributions to the economy.

The sustained decline in nature’s contributions has become increasingly apparent as a risk to business and society. Critical changes to Earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, natural resource shortages, and extreme weather events have been consistently rated by the World Economic Forum every year since the Global Assessment was published, among the top risks facing business over the next ten years. These risks were the top four risks of any kind in the most recent ranking.

Continuing with business as usual will only increase these risks and threaten the future success of business and long-term prosperity.

Smart businesses know they are facing a major challenge but often do not have clear plans for how to respond. Knowing what to do to halt and reverse the decline of nature requires solid understanding of the dependencies of business on nature, the ways in which nature supports business and economic activity, as well as the impacts of business on nature, both positive and negative. Most businesses currently lack data and robust tools to evaluate their dependencies and the full scale of their impacts on nature.

This gap has led to a rapid influx of not-for-profit initiatives and a burgeoning industry of private providers, all looking to deliver methods and metrics to help businesses measure their relationships with nature. Many of these efforts have been collaborative. But inevitably—as different approaches tackle different issues for different clients—there has been overlap and duplication alongside gaps and often conflicting advice. Businesses now frequently cite their confusion at the “acronym soup” of initiatives and methods as a major impediment to undertaking effective action.

Matt Jones

An authoritative global process, the IPBES Methodological Assessment of the Impact and Dependence of Business on Biodiversity and Nature’s Contributions to People (the “Business and Biodiversity Assessment”), is currently reviewing the state of knowledge on business dependencies and impacts on nature. This first-of-its-kind assessment, informed by scientific research, Indigenous and local knowledge, and industry insights, will deliver a comprehensive review and provide guidance on the best tools and methods to assess business dependencies and impacts on nature. The assessment is expected to be finalized, and its results made public, in 2025.

Guidance will be tailored to fit different business contexts and scales of decision-making. The data and methods useful at the scale of an individual site, taking account of the details of business operations and ecological context at a specific location, differ from those useful for making decisions about value chains or setting corporate strategy. Financial institutions investing in a diverse portfolio of businesses need yet another set of data and analytic tools.

The Business and Biodiversity Assessment will provide recommendations on the appropriate use of data and methods across sites, value chains, corporate, and portfolio levels, helping businesses and financial institutions understand their dependencies and impacts on nature. Doing so will highlight both risks of further declines in nature and the opportunities for business to improve its relationship with nature.

While information is essential, it is not the only necessary element for successfully transforming the relationship between business and nature. Incentives also matter. Current conditions in which businesses operate do not encourage individual businesses to halt destruction or promote the recovery of nature. It is often more profitable for individual firms to continue harmful activities than it is to invest in environmentally beneficial activities.

Governments and the financial sector have a large role to play in reforming policy and investment strategies to better align business interests with larger societal interests of conserving and restoring nature. The Business and Biodiversity Assessment will also provide guidance on the positive roles that governments, the financial sector, and civil society can play in creating actionable pathways for businesses to be positive agents of change in promoting nature recovery.

Engaging with nature is no longer optional for businesses—it is a necessity. Businesses have a critical role in ensuring that global society moves away from continued destruction of nature and moves towards conservation and recovery of nature, which is essential for sustainable development and long-term prosperity.

Note: Prof. Stephen Polasky is Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological and Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota, specializing in the intersections of biodiversity, economics, and sustainability.

Matt Jones is the Head of Nature Economy at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), where he focuses on integrating biodiversity into economic and business practices globally.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ressembling moon craters, Brazil's micro-dams - barraginhas in Portuguese - have become a successful solution for storing water and preventing soil erosion in rural areas. Credit: Luciano Cordoval

By Mario Osava
SETE LAGOAS, Brazil, Dec 11 2024 (IPS)

They look like attempts to copy the moon’s surface, in some cases, as craters multiply in the grasslands. But they are actually micro-dams, barraginhas in Portuguese, which have spread in Brazil as a successful way to store water and prevent soil erosion in rural areas.

The creator of the project encouraging these holes is Luciano Cordoval, an agronomist who works for the state-owned Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) in Sete Lagoas, a municipality of 227,000 people in the state of Minas Gerais, central Brazil.

He recommends the barraginha should be 16 metres in diameter and deep enough to hold 1.2 metres of water. Its earthen edges rise 80 centimetres above the water level, with a spillway for the excess. In practice, these dimensions vary greatly.

The Barraginhas Project, promoted by Cordoval from Embrapa in Sete Lagoas, which is mostly dedicated to maize and sorghum research as one of the company’s 43 units, was directly involved in the construction of some 300,000 micro-dams, estimates the agronomist.

But the innovator believes that in all they reach two million throughout the country, as many institutions, companies and municipalities have adopted the innovation, recognised as a social technology, and spread it on their own initiative.

Cordoval’s intense training activity contributes to this, calling the disseminators of his barraginhas, who stand out in various regions of Brazil, his “clones”. The agronomist also promotes exchanges among municipalities, in which groups that have already built many micro-dam farms pass on their knowledge.

These micro-dams are suitable for land with a low slope. Embrapa recommends not to build them on slopes steeper than 15%.

For steeper slopes, Cordoval suggests another way of retaining water, which he called “contour lines with cochinhos”, i.e. ditches that follow the contour lines but are interrupted by a succession of water tanks in the form of troughs, which in Brazil are called cochos de agua.

Large landowners and small farmers recognise the benefits of these ways of retaining rainwater. In many cases, water shortages disappeared, springs were revived and with them small watercourses.

Antonio Alvarenga, owner of 400 hectares in Sete Lagoas, is an exemplary case of pioneering. He built his first 28 micro-dams with support from Cordoval in 1995, two years before Embrapa’s Barraginhas Project was formally launched.

He continued to build them and estimates to have added “more than 100” to the initial 28. The farm of degraded and dry land was totally modified. The recovery of the water table has allowed him to have an “artificial” 42,000 square metre lagoon and to quadruple the number of cattle on his property.

The water retained in the micro-dams feeds the water table that makes the lagoons viable and recovers the wells that are the source of drinking water for millions of rural families in Brazil. This is proven by photos that show the water level in the wells rose a little after the construction of the barraginhas.

The success of the micro-dams is especially evident on degraded land, which is estimated to exceed 90 million hectares in Brazil, mainly due to extensive cattle farming.

The aim is to restore moisture in a large part of the country, affected by deforestation, agricultural expansion and other human activities.

Climate change aggravates water scarcity in a wider territory, especially in the Semi-Arid, which covers 100 million hectares in the interior of the Northeast region, and in the Cerrado, Brazil’s savannah-like region, which extends over 200 million hectares.

In addition to micro-dams, contour ditches and other forms of rainwater harvesting reduce the erosion that impoverishes the soil and silts up rivers in Brazil.

A type of barraginhas, generally smaller in size, which also proliferate in Brazil, are built alongside roads as a way of preventing erosion.

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