“Recent studies – including several by the Chinese Academy of Sciences – have documented a host of serious environmental challenges to the quantity and quality of Tibet’s freshwater reserves, most of them caused by industrial activities. Deforestation has led to large-scale erosion and siltation. Mining, manufacturing, and other human activities are producing record levels of air and water pollution in Tibet. Together, these factors portend future water scarcity that could add to the region’s volatility,” says “China, Tibet, and the strategic power of water,” a new multimedia report by Circle of Blue that includes an interview with ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko on water and environmental peacemaking.

Twenty years after the release of the seminal Brundtland report Our Common Future, ECSP Director Geoff Dabelko says that global security still depends on the health of our environment. In “An Uncommon Peace: Environment, Development, and the Global Security Agenda,” an article in the May/June 2008 issue of Environment, he reviews the successes and failures of efforts over the last two decades to integrate environmental concerns into national and international security agendas. “We must draw lessons from environmental security’s history if we are to address the multiple threats—and opportunities—posed by environment-security links today,” says Dabelko.

The Population Reference Bureau’s new series of regional profiles of population, health, and environment issues in the Philippines aims to provide more detailed information on these important aspects of well-being, which vary widely among the country’s 7,100 islands.

The Financial Times reports that the Chinese government is likely to approve a Ministry of Agriculture proposal to encourage Chinese companies to acquire farmland abroad—particularly in Africa and South America—to improve food security. Other countries, including Libya and Saudi Arabia, are exploring similar arrangements.