Grey literature | 2024
The Fundão disaster in 2015 was one of the biggest environmental disasters in Brazil’s history. The collapse of the dam near the city of Mariana released around 39 million m3 of tailings, which travelled 670 km to reach the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way, the tailings resulted in 19 deaths,…
Publication | 2022
The environmental impacts of a major mine tailings spill on coastal and marine environments
Based on the volume of tailings releases and the distance they travelled, the Fundão Dam failure in southeast Brazil (Mariana, Minas Gerais state) was the largest ever environmental disaster in Brazil’s mining industry, and one of the world’s most serious. As they dispersed downriver, the…
Story | 09 Mar, 2022
UNEA Resolution - ‘End Plastic Pollution’ - and IUCN role in implementation of the Treaty
The new UNEA Resolution, ‘End Plastic Pollution: Towards a legally binding instrument’, establishes an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee that will develop the specific content of the new plastic pollution treaty with the aim of completing its work by the end…
Story | 27 Oct, 2021
The black jaguar and the guardian of the forest
CEESP News: By Maycon Melo, PhD, and Barbara Arisi, PhD *
In Brazil, a group of hunters killed a black jaguar. Not satisfied with the crime of killing an endangered animal, they made a video where one of them shows the magnificent animal between his arms while threatening the Guardians…
Publication | 2021
From restoration to responsive governance
The Rio Doce watershed and its adjacent coastal and marine areas have been affected by centuries of extractive activities and unsustainable agricultural practices. When the Fundão tailings dam collapsed on 5 November 2015, a wave of mud swept down the river to the sea, causing 19 deaths,…
Publication | 2021
Source-to-sea and landscape approaches
The report contextualises the current status of water quality and biodiversity in the Rio Doce watershed, providing selected data and information on the physical, chemical and biological quality of the water and an overview of the terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity since the dam…
Press release | 02 Dec, 2020
Climate change now top threat to natural World Heritage – IUCN report
Gland, Switzerland, 2 December 2020 (IUCN) – Climate change is now the biggest threat to natural World Heritage, according to a report published today by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). A third (33%) of natural World Heritage sites are threatened by…
Story | 04 Aug, 2020
Guidelines target plastic pollution hotspots
From promoting innovative eco-design to banning the use of single-use plastic straws, efforts to curb plastic pollution are as ubiquitous as plastic itself. However, the problem is not going away. It is time to adopt a new strategy.
Story | 15 Jul, 2020
IUCN’s Marine Plastics and Coastal Communities (MARPLASTICCs) initiative rolled out a series of national workshops in Thailand, Viet Nam, South Africa, Kenya, and Mozambique from December 2019 to March 2020. The workshops kicked-off the pilot testing of IUCN-UNEP National Guidance for Plastic…
Story | 03 Jun, 2020
COVID-19 and a new form of conservation
CEESP News - Blog post by Robert Fletcher, Bram Büscher & Kate Massarella, Wageningen University, the Netherlands