Natural Sciences (Videos)

If you sailed the whole of Africa's 18, 950 mile coastline, you would visit 33 countries. Because the ocean has no boundaries, nothing can be done without consequences for the whole. The ocean can seem like a useful bin for the huge amount of waste produced by humankind, but this is not true. Pollution is building up, as oil, plastic and sewage are dumped from boats, cities and factories. On our blue planet, it can seem as though the bounty of the oceans is endless, but over-fishing and by-catch are also threatening marine resources.

The challenges of urban living include getting enough clean water, fresh food and sustainable energy whilst finding safe and efficient ways to deal with the waste produced by millions of people

Featured videos:

- Urban Living: Introduction

- Recycling Rubbish: A short video about recycling and the production of fuel briquettes from charcoal dust

- Urban Greening: deals with green solutions and agriculture

- Recycling Plastic: short movie about weaving plastic bags

- Ecosan Toilets: deals with ecological sanitation for cities

- Recycling Paper: a video about recycling and papier mache

Soil works hard for us every year, growing our food, but are we giving it what it needs to survive? Without shelter, harsh sunlight bakes the soil, and torrential rains wash it away. Without food - new inputs of organic matter - soil loses its nutrients. We must feed it well for it to feed us well. Fortunately, there are many things people can do to help soil restore and keep its fertility

Featured videos:

- Soils: Introduction

- Compost and Mulch: a video about this method

- Natural Pest Control: controlling pest by natural means

- Conservation Tilling,

- Green Manure: Showing how the method works

- Agroforestry: a short video about nitrogen fixing trees and improved fallows

- Permaculture: organic composting, growing vegs and mulching

More than 15 million people across Africa depend on forests for their livelihoods, chopping them down for fuel, or to sell as timber. These short videos show how people in Africa are managing trees and forests for the future, whether for food, income or the environment

Featured videos:

- Forests: Introduction

- Trees and Business: a story told by Mhanda Mabula from Tanzania

- Trees and Farming: Anthony and Agnes Katakwa, also from Tanzania tell us how they go about them

- Land Regeneration: a forest re-establishment: Shinyanga

- Micro credit and Alternative Tree Products: a short story about micro credit, fruit harvesting from wild sources and oil extracting

- Good Woods: the Good Woods Project, Kenya

Currently, over sixty percent of households in Africa burn biomass fuels, like wood, crop residue, charcoal and dung every day. Of all the biomass fuels, wood is the most sought-after. As the number of trees dwindles rapidly, people have to travel greater distances to collect wood. Women often provide much of the human energy in families and when trees are few and far between, they have to carry heavy loads of fuel wood long distances every day

Featured videos:

- Energy: Introduction

-Wate Energy: about Pico hydro power

- Solar Energy: a video about solar power cookers

- Biogas,

- Fuel Efficient Stoves: about practical solutions including Upesi stoves

- Smoke Hoods

If you sailed the whole of Africa's 18, 950 mile coastline, you would visit 33 countries. Because the ocean has no boundaries, nothing can be done without consequences for the whole. The ocean can seem like a useful bin for the huge amount of waste produced by humankind, but this is not true. Pollution is building up, as oil, plastic and sewage are dumped from boats, cities and factories. On our blue planet, it can seem as though the bounty of the oceans is endless, but over-fishing and by-catch are also threatening marine resources.

The challenges of urban living include getting enough clean water, fresh food and sustainable energy whilst finding safe and efficient ways to deal with the waste produced by millions of people

Featured videos:

- Urban Living: Introduction

- Recycling Rubbish: A short video about recycling and the production of fuel briquettes from charcoal dust

- Urban Greening: deals with green solutions and agriculture

- Recycling Plastic: short movie about weaving plastic bags

- Ecosan Toilets: deals with ecological sanitation for cities

- Recycling Paper: a video about recycling and papier mache

SUBTITLE: "Conservation through ethnobotanical training"

This video shows some of the practical outcomes of the global People and Plants Initiative for field conservation, starting with botanical inventory as one of the most basic, yet most necessary, steps for conservation and resource management. It then illustrates the types of approaches taken in combining training and research on solutions to field conservation problems.

It covers People and Plants projects in Africa, Asia and the. South Pacific where applied ethnobotanical work takes places in key sites representing eight of the Global 200 priority eco-regions, five of which are critically endangered.

Because the link between people and plants is so fundamental to the conservation of both biological and cultural diversity, it concentrates on the core of our capacity building: training in applied ethnobotany, providing people with inter-disciplinary skills highly relevant to conservation action.

The video ends with an answer to the question: what happens when the People and Plants Initiative ends?

The use of low-cost, small-scale technologies in developing countries was promoted in the 1960s by Dr E. F. Schumacher, who published "Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered" in 1973. "Small is Beautiful" has been widely translated and has been described as one of the 100 most influential books of the last fifty years.

The publication of the "Small is Working: Technology for Poverty Reduction" video and associated booklet, thirty years after "Small Is Beautiful", is intended to present, review, revitalize and promote the contribution of smaller-scale and intermediate technology to poverty reduction and sustainable development.

The video is produced in three versions

a 30 minutes TV broadcast version *** (above)

a 'conference opener' version of 10 minutes and

a "video news release" version of 6 minutes

The booklet, of 60 pages, is designed to provide further information to support the video as a stand-alone document. UNESCO is fully committed to promoting the "knowledge society" at all levels, including the grass roots, and looks forward to further addressing the vitally important challenge of promoting the application of technology for poverty reduction.

This video shows some of the practical outcomes of the global People and Plants Initiative for field conservation, starting with botanical inventory as one of the most basic, yet most necessary, steps for conservation and resource management. It then illustrates the types of approaches taken in combining training and research on solutions to field conservation problems.

It covers People and Plants projects in Africa, Asia and the. South Pacific where applied ethnobotanical work takes places in key sites representing eight of the Global 200 priority eco-regions, five of which are critically endangered.

Because the link between people and plants is so fundamental to the conservation of both biological and cultural diversity, it concentrates on the core of our capacity building: training in applied ethnobotany, providing people with inter-disciplinary skills highly relevant to conservation action.

The video ends with an answer to the question: what happens when the People and Plants Initiative ends?