News stories by Amantha Perera, page 11

JEJU, South Korea, Sep 18 (IPS) - At the close of the ten-day World Conservation Congress that ran from Sept. 6-15 on the South Korean island of Jeju, members of the convening International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) agreed on an ambitious four-year action plan for protecting global natural resources.

JEJU, South Korea, Sep 17 (IPS) - As ravenous consumers of natural resources, companies are beginning to recognise that they owe a monetary debt to the planet, and are sharpening their pencils to calculate it.

JEJU, South Korea, Sep 15 (IPS) - The Red River Giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) is the stuff of legend in Vietnam. The fabled turtle in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake is popularly known by the name Kim Qui or Golden Turtle God, and it made its first historical appearance in 250 BC.

JEJU, South Korea, Sep 12 (IPS) - The outcome of the June Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development was the undisputed inability of governments to come to an agreement on moving ahead to protect the planet. Three months later, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is proposing what can be done as a collective.

JEJU, South Korea, Sep 08 (IPS) - Regulations that stand in the way of conservation programmes lower their likely success, experts warned at the World Conservation Congress of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Jeju, South Korea.

JEJU, South Korea, Sep 07 (IPS) - Before business could get under way, the controversy had to be dealt with. That appeared to be the strategy of the South Korean government just before the opening of the high profile International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress here on Thursday.

PUTTALAM, Sri Lanka, Aug 29 (IPS) - It is a time of extreme heat and anxiety in Sri Lanka. Even the rains last week felt like a sudden burst of cold water on the smouldering asbestos sheets on most Sri Lankan household roofs, creating a blast of cold air before the heat returns once the rains end.

COLOMBO, Aug 21 (IPS) - A new report links the high prevalence of chronic kidney disease in Sri Lanka’s main agricultural production regions with the presence of heavy metals in the water, caused by fertiliser and pesticide use.

COLOMBO, Aug 20 (IPS) - The simple sentences six-year-old Minadi writes on paper should delight her mother. Instead, Vilasini Wakwella despairs over their content.

COLOMBO, Jul 30 (IPS) - It was the ghostly silence that struck him hardest as he walked through the Colombo suburb of Kirulapone the day after the lifeless body of a six-year-old girl had been discovered floating in a filthy canal, Kumar de Silva, a well-known local media personality, told IPS.