CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

What do tourists want and how can DMOs deliver? Q&A with author Alfonso Vargas-Sanchez

We spoke to CABI author and professor, Alfonso Vargas-Sanchez, about the disruptive power of technology and its impact on the management of tourism today. Here's what he said about how Destination Management Organizations can adapt for the most sustainable growth and development.

 

Emerging contaminants – a growing concern?

[Image credit: minthu]

Over the last 200 years, the global population has been growing at an exponential rate and according to the UN, is predicted to reach 8.5 billion by 2030. The population increase to date, has been supported by the development of agricultural, industrial and health care resources, which has led to the rise in the production and use of a variety of different chemicals.  In recent years, many of the substances, either used in or created by these industries have been named as “emerging contaminants” (EC’s).  Until very recently, the main focus of the impacts that chemicals cause in the environment was mainly attributed to heavy metals, active ingredients traditionally used in pesticides and persistent organic pollutants.  However, concern has been growing over the environmental and health risks of EC’s. Many EC’s are considered to be water pollutants, yet they remain largely unregulated by current water-quality standards.  So what are these chemicals and why are they a problem?

CABI board member pens Economist blog on US$80bn agricultural investment shortfall

CABI board member Dr Prem Warrior says we must plug a US$80bn global shortfall in agricultural innovation if the world is to be 'smart' to the demands of feeding 10 billion people by 2050 and meet the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

Dr Warrior writes in The Economist Intelligence Unit blog that the challenge is not so much a lack of technology but investing in understanding how we can bring technology to smallholder farmers in developing countries and focus our efforts there.

Read the full blog here.

Global health security, collaborating to stop epidemics

Just three little words, “global health security”, but they represent such depths of meaning. A hundred years of modern scientific enquiry into infectious diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, and now zika. The wake up call of SARS and swine flu, where viruses with dramatic results leapt the species barrier. The galvanising effect of West Africa’s Ebola epidemic on the WHO, the international NGO and donor community and on governments. The concern over emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, so many of them zoonotic in origin.