Healthy planet?

This week’s World Environment Day saw the launch of a $21 million,
four-year project to check the health of the world’s beleaguered ecosystems.
Around 1500 researchers, supported by the UN, will take part in the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, which will provide data required by international treaties
on biodiversity, the spread of deserts and the protection of wetlands. The study
will also help legislators, businesses and non-governmental organisations to
manage threatened forests, grasslands, rivers and oceans, says Adlai Amor of the
World Resources Institute in Washington DC. “They will be able to base their
decisions on the latest scientific data,” he…