The vulnerability of agriculture to the entry of exotic pests has significantly increased accordingly with the displacements of people and goods worldwide. Under these circumstances, there is a risk of losing 30% of crops worldwide and affecting more than 85 million hectares. Therefore, it is vital to control and eradicate any pest and plague that is evidenced to ensure healthy crops and food security of any country.
We are a few weeks away from Russia 2018 and we do not want to miss the most important match: the game against deforestation. In Guatemala, 115,000 hectares of forest are lost each year, equivalent to 450 soccer fields every day. Terrible, is not it? Although it is a country that still conserves 34% of its forests, with this rate of deforestation, in a period of 30 years it will have lost every single one of them.
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is the developing region with the highest rate of urbanization on the planet. In fact, the urban population in LAC represents more than 82% of its total and it will reach 90% by the end of 2050 (IDB, 2015). The urban population in 2016 alone, demanded around 846 million tons of food (FAO, 2016), a number that will continue to increase.
Last week, the United Nations climate change negotiations took place in Bonn, Germany to define the rules to implement the Paris Agreement and discuss ways to increase global action on climate change. While these talks are essential for building progress, the world stands a scant chance of solving climate change unless the private sector steps up too. The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme climatic events show us that time to secure a safe climate is rapidly evaporating.
The waters of the Gulf of Montijo in Panama are warming up, effectively driving fish and the fishermen depending on them further out where temperatures are cooler. At the same time, the coast line is eroding, pushing tourists to opt for other beaches. This is why artisanal fishermen and micro tourism entrepreneurs in coastal communities, who are suffering the consequences of climate change, are trying to find solutions that will allow them to tackle the climate impacts on their livelihoods and adapt to the new reality of their environment.
On September 19th, 2013 Acapulco was underwater. The second most important beach town in Mexico was hit hard by Hurricane Manuel. In “El Sur”, a newspaper, statements about hundreds of communities completely isolated, “with deaths not yet accounted for and with losses that were still impossible to quantify" were not uncommon.
(Photo credit https://bestpicko.com/) The combination of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with the drone industry has created new opportunities that, due to cost and technical limitations, would have never been possible in the past. Drones have put aerial views at the disposal of experts in a variety of areas, dramatically enhancing their perspective.
Driven by declining global investment yields – to which Latin America has been no exception – institutional investors have been and will likely continue to increase their allocation to real assets - especially infrastructure. At the same time, investors are also increasingly looking for sustainable assets.
I have been talking about the IEEM Platform for quite a while now. However, there have been significant developments from the previous post. The IEEM Platform is transforming the use of natural capital accounts within countries and international institutions across the globe.
Climate change is a key driver of agricultural productivity and growth, and its importance will increase in the coming years and decades. In Latin America and the Caribbean, climate variability, higher temperatures and alterations in precipitation will directly affect harvest yields and rural communities’ living conditions. By 2020, yield losses of 21% to 34% have been estimated for maize production in Honduras, Guatemala and Panama, and of more than 50% in oilseed crops in Brazil, Colombia, Central America, and the Caribbean.