FAO leader stresses role of healthy oceans as drivers of prosperity at African ministerial conference

1 September 2016, Rome -- With fisheries and aquaculture emerging as transformational forces for African economies, more needs to be done to mitigate the impacts of climate change and illegal fishing on oceans and coastal communities. This was the key message FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva delivered to leaders at the African Ministerial Conference on Ocean Economies and Climate Change in Mauritius today. The conference will identify opportunities to enhance Africa's ability to build climate-resilient ocean economies. "Healthy and productive oceans are critical for combatting rural poverty, ensuring food security, improving nutrition and achieving Zero Hunger," he said.

International Plant Protection Convention grapples with challenges of globalized trade

Oil spills garner much public attention and anguish, but "biological spills" represent a greater long-term threat and do not have the same high public profile.It was an exotic fungus that wiped out billions of American chestnut trees in the early 20th century, dramatically altering the landscape and ecosystem, while today the emerald ash borer - another pest that hitch-hiked along global trade routes to new habitats - threatens to do the same with a valuable tree long used by humans to make tool handles, guitars and office furniture.

Today the European Research Council (ERC) announces its 2017 grant competitions with a total budget of around €1.8 billion, the highest ever since the ERC's inception in 2007. It is also the record ERC annual funding reserved for young researchers with two to seven years of post-PhD experience (Starting grants).

The first report based on the new "EU International Cooperation and Development Results Framework" provides a selection of results achieved in about 100 partner countries across the globe with the support of EU-funded projects and programmes.

FAO and WHO offer road map to deal with Highly Hazardous Pesticides

FAO and WHO have released new guidelines aimed at reducing the damage done by pesticides that pose especially high toxic risks to human health and the environment.

The High Representative and the European Commission set out an integrated response to the challenges of the Arctic.

Il progetto promosso dall’Università di Milano-Bicocca, dall’Università di Roma Tor Vergata, dall’Istituto comprensivo Copernico e dal Parco Nord di Milano consente di esplorare alcuni ambienti naturali in modo interattivo seguendo percorsi di apprendimento ricchi di contenuti multimediali. La presentazione è oggi al Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano.

Milano, 22 aprile 2016 – La natura a portata di touch: grazie ai diorami digitali oggi è possibile conoscere in modo approfondito e “toccare con mano” anche gli ecosistemi geograficamente più lontani mediante computer, tablet, LIM e altri strumenti digitali.

Long-necked sauropod dinosaurs include the largest animals ever to walk on land, but they hatched from eggs no bigger than a soccer ball.

A lack of young sauropod fossils, however, has left the earliest lives of these giants shrouded in mystery. Did they require parental care after hatching like some other dinosaurs, or were they self-reliant?

The European Commission today announced the introduction of 20 new measures in the Sahel region and Lake Chad Basin, worth over EUR 280 million in total.

The European Commission today announced the adoption of 20 new measures to assist the Sahel region and the Lake Chad Basin under the 'Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa'.

The European Commission is today releasing €10 million for research on the Zika virus, currently affecting large parts of Latin America.

The most affected country is Brazil, where the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared that the recent cluster of severe brain malformations in new-borns may be linked to the virus. While the risk of transmission of the Zika virus in the EU is low, there is currently no treatment or vaccine against the virus, and diagnostic tests for infections are not widely available.