Features

Opinion pieces ~ interviews ~ article reviews

COP27: the line was held, but little more

Overall Conclusions: COP27 was more about holding the bar set in Glasgow, rather than making any further strides forward. This is of course disappointing, but sadly not surprising in the face of significant pressure from countries where political will is still wedded to fossil fuel based economies. Even where ambition was successfully maintained, commitment on…

Charcoal: Dirty and damaging, yet plays a vital role?

Charcoal production and use is demonised for driving deforestation, generating greenhouse gas emissions, and damaging human health. While all this cannot be denied, charcoal also plays highly important social functions as a livelihood coping strategy, and its pervasiveness is driven by a complex set of supply and demand side factors. In this post I discuss…

Healthy soils, healthy crops, healthy people: getting agriculture back on track

As one of the most fundamental relationship between people and nature and between people and people, agricultural systems are where tensions in these relationships are most starkly exposed. All human societies rely on agriculture either directly or indirectly, and the dynamics of these relationships differ both over time and between different places and cultures. It…