Small organic food stores have long had the image of selling overpriced dried-up carrots to Birkenstock-wearing hippy customers carrying canvas shopping bags.

As soon as we left the plane in Guatemala, the terrain stretched out like the open arms of a good friend. The country, which means “land of trees,” appeared as a canopy of forest until the foliage gave way to flat farmland.

For many Japanese, satoyama represents the ideal of coexistence between humans and nature. It is commonly described as secondary woodlands and grasslands adjunct to small villages, and is the scene of rich biological diversity.

The G8 Summit is over. In his statement on 9 July 2008, the Chair of the Summit, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, highlighted the agreement between the world’s leaders on the “need to address… issues of elevated oil and food prices and global inflationary pressures…”

Our World 2.0 is a webzine and video brief series from the United Nations University. We focus on global affairs—beginning with climate, oil, food and biodiversity—at a time when we are witnessing a convergence of these issues.

Africa has been dealing with the impacts of climate change since the 1970s. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described the African continent as the one that will be most affected.

The World Bank recently warned that food prices are increasing at a dramatic pace, having already doubled over the last three years. They predict that 100 million people in low-income countries are now at risk of being pushed deeper into poverty.