29 April 2013: Azzam Alwash has been awarded the 2013 Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts to restore the Mesopotamian Marshlands in Southern Iraq, which were extensively drained and damaged by dam construction upstream, resulting in ecological damage and displacement of the Marsh Arab communities.
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23 April 2013: The first issue of the 2013 UN Chronicle has been released with a focus on the theme of water cooperation. Articles in the magazine address water cooperation in the context of cross-cutting issues such as development goals, women and agriculture, integrated water resources management (IWRM), and private sector involvement.
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16 April 2013: Participants at a recent briefing and round table on “Advancing Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Community Empowerment for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” organized by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and hosted by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), discussed ways to integrate environmental sustainability and community-based action into the post-2015 development agenda.
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23 April 2013: At the meeting of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) in Vienna, Yury Fedotov, Executive Director, UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and John Scanlon, Secretary-General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), called on the international community to strengthen its response to wildlife crime through legislation, law enforcement, criminal analysis and international cooperation.
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18 April 2013: The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), a collaborative effort by Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela to promote sustainable development, has been acknowledged at the tenth session of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF10).
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19 April 2013: The fourteenth session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA 14) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) was held from 15-19 April 2013, at FAO headquarters, in Rome, Italy, and marked the Commission's 30th anniversary.
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18 April 2013: Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) members participated in two informal forest dialogues with China, both of which were held in Douala, Cameroon. Since 2007-2008, CBFP members have engaged in informal dialogues with Chinese actors on sustainable forest management (SFM) and issues such as certification, timber traceability and the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan of the European Union. The two recent dialogues aimed to improve forest governance, reduce poverty and more sustainably manage forest resources.
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12 April 2013: The 3rd Meeting of Signatories to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Conservation and Management of the Middle-European Population of the Great Bustard (Otis tarda), held in Szarvas, Hungary, adopted a new Action Plan for the period 2012-2016.
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March 2013: The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) February-March newsletter features an editorial by Bradnee Chambers, the new CMS Executive Secretary, on the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).
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16 April 2013: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced that it has signed a bilateral agreement with the Government of the Russian Federation, covering priority environmental areas including: biodiversity conservation; the environmental aspects of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics; and environmental challenges facing the Arctic.
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