Editor’s choice
SEI researchers Charlotte Wagner and Jonathan Green write that the 2024 High-Level Political Forum, taking place July 2024 with the mission of reviewing select Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), overlooks a key barrier to eradicating hunger: the pollution that plagues small-scale fisheries and harms human health and livelihoods.
The High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is the primary venue in which the UN reviews the 2030 Agenda and related SDGs. This year, the 12th such session assesses global progress toward five of the 17 SDGs, one of which is “zero hunger”.
Writing for the SDG Knowledge Hub, Wagner and Green argue that an impactful way to address hunger is to tackle the pollution that harms the small-scale fisheries around the world on which a half-billion people depend for income and nutrition.
From plastics to chemical pollutants, this widespread contamination threatens keystone species, deteriorates marine ecosystems and lands back in humans’ bodies through the seafood they consume.
By cleaning our oceans, we can support small-scale fisheries and ease food and economic insecurity, as well as the persistent human health issues that pollution causes, the authors write.
Perspective / Sixty years after Silent Spring launched the environmental movement, the world should heed the call to stop the proliferation of harmful chemicals.
Feature / Marine plastic pollution from excessive production and poor land management is one of the most critical environmental pollution issues of our time.
Feature / The key to protecting our oceans is to support decision-making by putting research and innovation at the heart of policy.
Design and development by Soapbox.
