News stories by Stella Paul

YEREVAN & GEGHARKUNIK PROVINCE, Armenia, November 2 (IPS) - The midday sun shines brightly over Lake Sevan. In the still waters, a flock of cormorants drifts silently, their black feathers glistening in the autumn light.

YEREVAN, Armenia, October 30 (IPS) - The second week of COP17 was dominated by discussions on biodiversity finance, with new pledges announced and donor outreach intensifying. Yet as the summit approached its close, the financing gap for implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) remains largely unchanged.

YEREVAN, Armenia, October 29 (IPS) - At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17, the presence of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) is impossible to miss. Indigenous representatives speak at side events, participate in contact groups, advise negotiators and engage across multiple forums shaping the future of global biodiversity policy.

YEREVAN and SHIKAHOGH STATE RESERVE, Armenia, October 26 (IPS) - Less than 100 metres from military positions facing each other across the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, the forest suddenly disappears.

KUNMING, China, September 17 (IPS) - The world may have enough money to protect nature. The bigger problem, according to the head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is that too much of it is still being spent on activities that destroy it.

NAIROBI, August 18 (IPS) - Despite record participation in global biodiversity reporting and planning processes, countries remain off track to meet the world’s 2030 biodiversity goals, according to discussions that concluded this month at two key meetings under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

DUMBOORNAGAR, India and SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, June 24 (IPS) - At dawn, when the waters of Dumboor Lake lie still under a pale grey sky, Santo Chakma, 63, nudges his narrow wooden boat into a reservoir that swallowed his childhood.

SAMARKAND, June 4 (IPS) - In a significant policy shift symbolising rising environmental ambition, Uzbekistan on Thursday announced that it will become a donor of international environmental funding to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), as the Eighth GEF Assembly opened in the historic city of Samarkand.

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, June 4 (IPS) - For three decades, Iffat Rachid Edriss walked Lebanon’s coastline with a clear purpose: protecting the sea she loves.

SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, June 3 (IPS) - As the Global Environment Facility (GEF) steps into the starting blocks of its next financial cycle, the Interim CEO Claude Gascon reflects on what he termed a “moment of transition and delivery”.