Victoria Falls is one the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. The wildlife and biodiversity of Zambezi River, feeding this spectacular waterfall, are unique in many aspects, i.e. unlike the other most famous waterfalls around the world.

However, what is the perception of a local fisherman, after being fishing for 69 years in the river, of wildlife and what does water and rain mean for the population and the animals in this enormous eco-system and life-factory.

Our understanding of the natural resources and life in rural Africa, and the habits, culture and needs of the local inhabitants is crucial for shaping future sustainability policies and for integrating rural regions with the increasing trends of urbanization in Africa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RKFqqwhtGs&feature=youtu.be

The increasing consumption of, and competition on, natural resources, in particular Water-Energy resources “WE-resources” is introducing new long-term and large-scale impacts on the sustainability of natural eco-systems and quality of life with major feedbacks socio-economic developments. Without credible environmental, social impact assessments and early-warning instruments, environmental compliance systems, rehabilitation measures and solid management policies can not be established whenever necessary. Impacts of large-scale manipulations of major river systems, as in this case, have rather slowly and unpredicted impacts on the environment and ecosystems. In addition, there are different regional consequence on re-location of population, water hydrology, farming and forests. Since the industrial revolution, and because of the ongoing globalization, there had been an accelerating consumption of energy and water resources. Currently, there are major threats, in some critical regions, resulting from transformations in energy policies, global warming, pollution and waste from industrial sectors as well as increasing consumption of natural resources.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/aug/10/china-india-water-grab-dams-himalayas-danger

Many countries in the developing countries, in particular Africa, were unfortunate by being left in a state of political chaos after their independence. The independence of Uganda in 1963 brought the country, with the help of the British officers, in the hands of Idi Amin, an uneducated illiterate commander. The U.K. was the first country to recognize Idi Amin’s regime after the shift of power from Milton Obote, Uganda’s socialist political leader. The U.K. Prime Minister Edward Heath, during the days of the cold war, welcomed the change from “communist government”. The people of Uganda though it is a new addition of social and political life as Idi Amin promised Uganda’s population to return to democracy after his overnight coup in 1971. Since that time Uganda sank in a very unpredictable history full of state corruption, nation-wide killing and mass execution by weapons, guns and airplanes brought from the U.K. to surprise Idi Amin’s enemies. Uganda’s middle class who built Uganda’s services, economy and businesses, i.e. the Asians and Indians previously brought by the British colonialism to build railways, were asked by Idi Amin to leave Uganda within one week. This was done in a move to further humiliate the British, to hand over the wealth of Asians and Indians, about 50 000 people, and to run the country affairs by Idi Amin’s supporters. This brought Uganda in enormous economic collapse as a result of destruction of Uganda’s infrastructure of services, entrepreneurs, commercial people, bankers, also the doctors were suddenly expelled out of the country. Those who started to run the country didn’t know how to run it with severe shortage of services. The collapse of Uganda’s services and economy followed a chain of public executions by Idi Amin of the critics and opposition of regime and further state corruption through black-market trade with coffee and alcohol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyaTWKv44Hs&feature=youtu.be

The keywords in all outstanding civilizations and democracies are knowledge and literacy. These are magic keywords for mitigating the risks for further increase in unemployment and hunger as natural consequences of the expansion of population, accelerating pressures on natural resources and the associated increase in consumption, waste and pollution. In no other era of human history, knowledge and literacy are becoming more and more inevitable, and even imperative, as instruments for any socio-economic developments. In particular, what regards sustainable management and use of natural resources by being our capital and reserve for a sustainable life. With the evolution of science and technology and the associated enormous transformation to knowledge-based societies, the only solution for erasing poverty is education in sustainable forms. It is education and research that have to be adapted to the society and not the contrary. Knowledge, through education and research, is an instrument and not a goal in itself. Throughout history, from ancient Egypt to modern civilizations, humans demonstrated how to use knowledge to turn the impossible to possible, i.e. through home-made inventions appropriate for there environments, people and for trade with other societies and cultures as well. In situations where humans were not always successful to manage conflicts, science and technology were/are being used for mass-destruction, control and abuse of natural resources.  Even without traditional schools, universities and research institutes, by our current standards and detailed management systems, ancient Egyptians succeeded to engage people to run and manage one of the very top civilizations in human history. What were possible thousands of years ago is still possible the only difference is how to shape knowledge to solve our needs, no more no less.

http://www.sgiquarterly.org/feature2003Jan-6.html?goback=%2Egmp_4399281#%21

The journey of science, to understand the very secret of the universe and the natural evolution of life, and the behavior of humans and the feedback impacts of technology on the fundamental drivers of life and its quality, never stops. A journey that fuels itself to complete Darwin’s “Unfinished Business”, and to search about a new vision of nature, a “Metanoia rather than Affluenza”. A journey directed by science and technology for sustainability and preservation of life, rather than for consumption and collapse of life, would help nature to resume rather than to relapse from the natural path of evolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff1Z8nGGebs&feature=youtu.be

A new BLOG about applied global sustainability is available now. We will be gradually working with developing, interacting and promoting all issues relevant to applied global sustainabilty. With the NEW YEAR of 2014, you are kindly invited to visit, share and contribute in this BLOG.

ABOUT Sustain-Earth.com

ABOUT Sustain-Earth.com

Scientific discoveries and production of new knowledge involve a long chain of systematic steps where publication of science work in top-tier journals is becoming an essential step. Randy Schekman, a US biologist and Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine 2013, is warning the scientific community about the role of leading academic journals in distorting the scientific process. There have been long-standing debates about assessment of scientific publication especially in terms of originality, quality and credit. Scientific journals have grown in number dramatically in the past decades. However, only few journals, e.g. Nature, Cell and Science, have kept very high reputation through their restricted referee and publication policies, in particular the number of papers they accept. This, however, has promoted high “impact factor” for these well-established journals. “Impact factor” is very widespread for judging the quality, originality and credit of scientific publications, also, in the process of judging the quality/standard of scientific applications for funding. Randy Schekman, and many others, are very critical about the existing rules for judging science as the “impact factor”, which is used for marketing top-tier journals and for ranking scientific applications for funding, can not be regarded as an absolute indicators and a fair instrument in these aspects.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/09/nobel-winner-boycott-science-journals

At the onset of the ancient Egyptian civilization the world population was somewhat more than 15 million people, i.e. the current population of the Netherlands only or fifth of the current of population of Egypt today. Ancient Egyptians had therefore enough natural resources to create a civilization on their own and within their boundaries. So, peak population had passed very long time ago!
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/history/world-population-growth.htm

When the waste on our planet keeps piling up, in air, water and land, the only choice left is to breath it, drink it and eat it up. We can’t run away from it! http://m.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/09/worst-polluted-playgrounds-world/3395/

Everywhere on our planet, waste management is of major concern. Life quality is very much related to successful waste-management policies. Reducing, Collecting, Sorting, Processing and Re-cycling of human and industrial waste is becoming a major industry. But do we have proper scientific and technology approaches for such vital and important industry. Waste problems have costed humanity decades, if not centuries, to understand the enormous threats of waste and pollutions that have degraded all forms of life qualities of earth.
http://theferkel.co.uk/2012/05/30/worst-examples-of-pollution/chinese-migrant-workers-sort-through-industrial-and-household-waste-at-a-recycling-centre-in-beijing-china/

Water conservation is of global concern and water issues are not only about water scarcity. Quality is essential and without public awareness and the consumer’s responsibility one would expect many new additional threats for the environment, the ecosphere and for humans.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/eau-water/default.asp?lang=en&n=344B115B-1#why

Ghana, the gate to Africa and a model of success! Unbelievable fast progress within many sectors of activities, energy, education, health, ICT, agriculture, tourism, … . An amazing safe and peaceful society with a high-level of democratization brought about by international trade, cultural exchange and expansion of small and medium enterprises.

http://www.theafricareport.com/component/option,com_videoflow/id,72/sl,play/task,play/

Holistic assessment approaches for developing and implementing sustainability strategies for shaping strategic policies are needed on all levels of different public and private sectors. Such approaches would require Key Performance Indicators for quality assessment analysis of the three main pillars of sustainability, i.e. social, environmental and economic. How would such approaches and indicators look like?

See, this example on a partial approach

http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/measuring_sustainable_change/

To transform the whole planet with its seven billion people to a sustainable path needs your help. What would you be able to do?

You may have felt poor up-dating of the Blog “farideldaoushy.wordpress.com” and major interruptions in the activities. The wide-range of interests within the Blog “farideldaoushy.wordpress.com” made it necessary to up-date the layout and construction of the Blog. Also, to have own domain with representative name that reflects the content and extent. The new “Sustain-Earth.com” will also allow us to fulfill our wish to improve the communication with the visitors and readers and to provide new services. It will, also, provide platform for professionals and expertise within society sectors to share knowledge and contribute in topic discussions.

This Blog “farideldaoushy.wordpress.com” will get a new address “sustain-earth.com”.
The change to the new address will take place within one week.

We have a new layout and construction of the Blog to make it easier to follow the Posts and the content much easier as well as to contribute in discussions as well.

The new construction will involve a number of new interactive functions where guest Bloggers, expertise and professional will contribute as well as interacts with the media to discuss and answer their questions. The Categories of the Blog are kept wide enough to deliver solutions and approaches in all society sectors.

Even if we can ignore the reality, we can never ignore its consequences. Economic models and scientific discoveries have promoted an ever accelerating consumption of the earth’s natural resources with little consideration to population growth and the associated damage of all forms of life on the Earth. Depletion of important resources, the increasing waste and pollution combined with an accelerating population have caused poverty, disease, malnutrion and above all the definite fact of an approaching total annihilation of life on the whole planet. Survival of humans and newcomers has continuously forced impoverised people to destroy their environment. It is the very nature of humans, no one can go hungry without commiting a “crime” to fill the stomach!

But what is Sustainability and can we really achieve it, when we are regularly presented with a range of the so-called “sustainable” products and “green or organic” cleaning supplies to carbon offsets. With micro-economic markets keep supplying us with so much labeled as sustainable, the term has grown to become essentially a “bubble of sustainability”, at best indicating a practice or product slightly less damaging than the conventional alternative.

Sustainability can not be achieved by un-sustainable policies that are left over to the market without having appropriate instruments on all levels and sectors to strictly define, measure and control how sustainable is sustainable. How else can we can we achieve a goal that is not well-defined and regulated!

The MENA region is facing major challenges to meet the growing pressures on its WE “Water and Energy” resources. This would require major transformation for shaping new policies to meet the accelerating demands not only on energy but also on water. Other drivers what regards energy are high insolation rates, young and empowered workforce. Among other drivers for achieving sustainable WE-policies are increasing awareness of cost, quality, market diversity and public services.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/research/report/mena-solar-market-outlook-2013-2017