Environment | WPN World People News

Although fast and effective for plant growth, chemicals pesticides entail potential risks for human health, animals and the environment. About 45% of food we consume contains pesticide residues with 1.6% exceeding legal limits, according to the European Food Safety Authority. MEPs want to promote the use of more natural pesticides and to simplify and speed up the approval process.

Tiny plastic particles washed off products such as synthetic clothes and car tyres could contribute up to 30% of the ‘plastic soup’ polluting the world’s oceans and – in many developed countries – are a bigger source of marine plastic pollution than plastic waste, according to a new IUCN report.

The Japanese government will soon lift evacuation orders for 6,000 citizens of iitate village in Fukushima prefecture where radiation levels in nearby forests are comparable to the current levels within the Chernobyl 30km exclusion zone – an area that more than 30 years after the accident remains formally closed to habitation. Seventy-five percent of Iitate is contaminated forested mountains.

The Bonn Challenge, launched in 2011 at an event hosted by Germany and IUCN, is a global effort to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. With Cameroon’s commitment, the Challenge has reached over 148 million hectares pledged in total.

Insectary of Bobo-Dioulasso

President Donald Trump signed into law a resolution of disapproval eviscerating the Stream Protection Rule, on February 16, a modest safeguard crafted to protect clean water and the health of communities threatened by coal mining. Republican lawmakers voted to overturn the rule using the Congressional Review Act, a seldom-used law that takes the public out of the process by allowing recently finalized regulations to be rolled back virtually overnight with little debate.

Adult volunteer in Mali receives the experimental malaria vaccine known as PfSPZ Vaccine.

Opponents of the coal export proposal rally outside of Oakland City Hall on June 27, 2016.

Greenpeace Germany activists challenged the Trump Administration’s America First policy on February 16, unveiling a banner that said ‘Planet Earth First’ as they called for joint climate action at the G20 foreign ministers meeting.

Strasbourg/Brussels – Eleven activists kept a sinking statue of lady justice afloat in the icy waters surrounding the European Parliament in Strasbourg, ahead of a crucial vote on a controversial EU-Canada trade and investment protection deal.