July 2021 – Daire Houlihan

July 20, 2021July 20, 2021

Commodity-driven Deforestation in Cambodia – The sorry decimation of its unique biodiversity

The exploitation of our planet’s natural landscapes has continued unabated for decades. Deforestation threatens to wipe out countless species of plant and animal life across the world, with short-term economic gains trumping pragmatic conservation efforts. The clearing of mass swathes of forests to make room for palm oil, rubber, and cashew plantations is a major concern in Cambodia. This blog post will look at the threat this small South-East Asian country – already on its knees after a half century of political turmoil and genocidal horror – faces from illegal logging operations.

Video – Sean Gallagher, an independent environmental photographer documented the scale of the issue beautifully in their short documentary ‘Cambodia Burning’. This can be seen below.

July 20, 2021July 20, 2021

The importance of listening to the most vulnerable – Leaving No One Behind

Underpinning the ethos of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to 2030 is the idea of ‘leaving no one behind’¹. This is an idea that transcends the 17 SDG goals, melding equitability, and climate justice, with the overall aim being to limit global warming to below 2C without doing so at the expense of vulnerable populations. Achieving climate justice will only be possible by facilitating the empowerment of the most marginalized people. Often, indigenous voices are forgotten amid the mire of modern political ideologies. These are the people who have lived on, and off of, the local landscapes for centuries. They have an intimate knowledge of the environment and understand the importance of natural cycles in maintaining sustainability. We must give greater sonority to their voices if the most catastrophic climate change scenarios are to be avoided, and climate justice delivered.

Photo – https://www.jointsdgfund.org/article/leave-no-one-behind

July 5, 2021July 7, 2021

Wheat Rust – How innovative technologies can mitigate the threat it poses in Ethiopia

The following blog post focuses on innovative and impactful uses of mobile technology to help mitigate the devastating impacts of wheat rust on crop yields in Ethiopia. This post owes to the work of Dr. Dave Hodson, and Dr. Diane Saunders and their various global partners, and relies on the references posted at the end of the page for its content. Any replication of their material is complimentary in its intention, and should only serve to highlight my own interest in the work carried out.

Part One: Wheat Rust – An Early Warning System

The world’s cereal and horticultural crops have always been threatened by the fungal disease rust (wheat yellow rust, stem rust, and leaf rust), a pathogen that can wreak havoc on croplands. Estimated global annual wheat losses due to rust are roughly 5.47 million tonnes (1). One country particularly vulnerable to wheat rust is Ethiopia, where the pathogen is considered the ‘key biological constraint to wheat production’ (Meyer et al. 2021). Wheat rusts have move quickly over land, carried vast distances by the wind, meaning epidemics take root quickly with devastating effects. These reduced yields pressurize the agricultural economy of Ethiopia, leading to annual wheat import costs of around $600 million, this in spite of them being the Sub-Saharan Africa region’s largest wheat producer.