At the start of the 21st century 900 million people – around one seventh of the world population – lack access to clean potable water. Some 2.5 billion are without basic sanitation facilities. Water scarcity and poor water quality are among the chief causes of poverty, disease and environmental degradation. In the face of world population growth, increasing urbanisation and industrialisation and emerging climate change, it is becoming increasingly difficult to provide and maintain adequate water supplies. One of the targets of the seventh Millennium Development Goal (Ensure environmental sustainability) is to "halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". more

Drylands, where in some years at least all precipitation simply evaporates, account for more than one third of the Earth's total land mass. They are home to a large percentage of the world's population, who try to eke out an existence there. More than two billion people live in these areas, and of them some 70 per cent live in rural areas, where they depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their survival. Developing countries in particular suffer most from the degradation of land and natural resources. The world's fifty least developed countries are particularly threatened by desertification. That threat is especially great in Africa, where 65 per cent of the arable land, 31 per cent of grazing land and 19 per cent of forests are considered to be damaged. more

Over the last 20 years or so, the term "biodiversity" has become firmly established in scientific and political debate as shorthand for the wealth of living natural resources on our planet: biodiversity encompasses the diversity of animal and plant species, the diversity of ecosystems and also genetic diversity. We, as human beings, are also part of that diversity. The diversity of life on Earth is one of the natural resources on which our very existence depends. It provides the vast wealth of plant and animal species that surrounds us. What is more, the food we eat, the materials we build with, the sources of energy we use and the world's many different natural habitats all form part of that biodiversity. more

For many people in the developing world, forests provide the very basis of their livelihoods – here they find not only food, but also medicinal plants, oils, resins and other resources. While energy derived from fuelwood only accounts for 7 percent of total energy production worldwide, in developing countries the proportion is 70 per cent. In addition to their function as a natural resource, forests also stabilise the climate. They supply drinking water and prevent flooding, because they can retain large amounts of water. Forests will only be preserved over the long term if their management is economically viable. The German federal government therefore views forest conservation as a key tool in poverty reduction. more

Agricultural applications of genetic engineering have raised considerable hopes about the prospects of feeding the world's population and developing new medicines. At the same time, the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can have far-reaching ecological, socio-economic and socio-cultural consequences. To avoid such adverse effects, the potential risks need to be assessed before GMOs are put into circulation. more