UNEP

The conservation status of the toothed whales has worsened dramatically since 2001. Since then, more species have been listed in the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable and Nearly Threatended, while the Baiji river dolphin, which used to live in the Yangtze River, is now probably extinct. One major threat to toothed whales world wide is entanglement in fishing gear. This alone claimed an unsustainably high death toll and for 86% of all toothed whale species, entanglement and death in gillnets, traps, weirs, purse seines, longlines and trawls poses a major risk.

The report analyses the different ways for quantifying and accounting for water flows and productivity within the economy (including environmental needs). Based on the data, the report is said to provide the current state of knowledge of the different indicators and tools for quantifying water productivity and highlights why this is important for developing robust allocation and management systems that preserve the natural capital.

This report, which inaugurates a new policy series by UNEP on the environmental dimensions of disasters and conflicts, aims to summarize the latest knowledge and field experience on the linkages between environment, conflict and peacebuilding, and to demonstrate the need for those linkages to be addressed in a more coherent and systematic way by the UN, Member States and other stakeholders.

This report inventories and analyses the range of international laws that protect the environment during armed conflict. With a view to identifying the current gaps and weaknesses in this system, the authors examine the relevant provisions within four bodies of international law – international humanitarian law (IHL), international criminal law (ICL), international environmental law (IEL), and international human rights law (HRL). The report concludes with twelve concrete recommendations on ways to strengthen this legal framework and its enforcement.

This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how peacekeeping operations affect and are affected by natural resources and environmental conditions. The report is divided into two main parts. Part 1 reviews the environmental management of peacekeeping operations and showcases good practices, technologies and behaviours that have already been adopted.

This document discusses the need to balance short-term water productivity gains – in particular in agriculture - with the long-term role that water flows provide for maintaining sustainable landscape ecosystem services (ESS), and serving multiple benefits to human well-being. The document provides a summary of concepts around the nexus of water productivity, water flows in landscapes and ecosystem services. It gives examples (through case studies) on the trade-offs and opportunities between water productivity improvements and the water-related services provided by other ecosystems.

The 2012 UNEP Year Book spotlights two emerging issues that underline the challenges but also the choices nations need to consider to deliver a sustainable 21st century— urgently improved management of the world’s soils and the decommissioning of nuclear reactors.