As nations around the world scramble to combat the deadly COVID-19 virus, it is important to remember that old diseases continue to remain a threat to many. Recently, the bubonic plague, once considered an ancient disease, triggered a health warning in China and Mongolia as fresh cases were reported, whereas ASEAN member state Malaysia reported its first polio case in 27 years late last year.
2020 is supposed to be a vibrant democratic year for a number of regions in Indonesia. It has been scheduled that on 23 September this year voters in approximately nine provinces, 24 regencies, and 37 cities throughout the archipelago will go to polling stations and decide their next local leaders.
The COVID-19 crisis has brought economies around the world to a standstill. Huge swaths of manufacturing have been idled, and sectors such as aviation and tourism are largely shuttered. Amid all the economic ruin, some have pointed to a supposed silver lining: cleaner air.
The blame game has begun. The number of COVID-19 victims is still unknown, but there is a stream of hate and misinformation pervading timelines. The damage of disinformation and the virus itself to families and communities is equal to our failure to ensure that science, not rhetoric, shapes policy.Studies show that it is more common for viruses to be transmitted from animals to humans. Some erroneously say this is due to innocuous human errors.
Diseases such as the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe could become more common as human activity destroys habitats and forces disease-carrying wild animals into ever-closer proximity with us, a major study showed on Wednesday.Illegal poaching, mechanised farming and increasingly urbanised lifestyles have all led to mass biodiversity loss in recent decades, devastating populations of wild animals and increasing the abundance of domesticated livestock.Around 70 percent of human pathogens ar
Yesterday, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) released the 'Asia and the Pacific SDG Progress Report 2020'.
Today, the world celebrates World Wildlife Day with the theme of “Sustaining all life on Earth”. According to the United Nations (UN), ‘All life on earth’ encompasses all wild animal and plant species as a component of biodiversity, as well as the livelihoods of people, especially those who live closest to nature.
The elephant is a cultural symbol in Lao probably due to the fact that at one period in time, the country was known to have a large number of these mighty mammals roaming its lands free.
In April 2017, the European Parliament passed a resolution restricting the import of uncertified palm oil.
Southeast Asia is known for its vast rainforests which constitute about almost 20 percent of forest cover with the richest biodiversity in the world. What the region is also known for is its alarming rate of deforestation. Southeast Asia has the highest rate of deforestation of any major tropical region followed by Latin America and Africa.
The recent announcement that 10 of the world’s largest palm oil producers and buyers are supporting the development of a “new, publicly available radar-based forest monitoring system” may be nothing more than a publicity stunt.After all, technology is not the answer to solving one of Southeast Asia’s most pressing environmental problems – the effective implementation and enforcement of policies is.The slash-and-burn method is the cheapest and fastest way to clear land for farming, and over th
Illegal hunting poses a greater threat to ASEAN’s wildlife than earlier thought according to a study published in the Communications Biology journal last week.
