Carolyn Lebel

It is a city to be explored on an appetite. A buttery crepe at the foot of the Eiffel tower. A picnic on the Pont des Arts, or along the banks of the Canal Saint-Martin. A grizzly winter’s afternoon whiled away on the crowded terrace of a left bank café. Against a backdrop of iconic monuments and museums, it is for the promise of good wine, crusty baguettes, warm croissants, sunday food markets and other epicurean delights that millions are lured to Paris every year. For Doisneau may have made the kiss an icon of the city’s pull. But food lovers would argue that his collection of photographs of life at the former Les Halles food market are more quintessentially Paris.

In the wake of President Sarkozy's crackdown on the Roma people, an Ecologist investigation uncovers how poverty and discrimination are forcing persecuted communities to scratch a living recycling France's growing mountain of e-waste - potentially threatening health and raising questions over the effectiveness of waste policies

As the new nuclear renaissance grows, so too does uranium extraction. In Niger, which boasts some of the world's richest deposits, NGOs say that the poor are being exploited for the West's 'clean energy'

Water in France's 'breadbasket' - where much of the wheat used to make the iconic baguette is grown - is under threat from industrial agriculture, with excessive consumption and contamination by pesticides and nitrates

A couple of years ago, fishermen along the Somali and Kenyan coasts couldn’t find any fish. With no functioning government in Somalia, foreigners were buying false licences from warlords and emptying the sea.

We live on a rock.

Well, not exactly. We are 7 billion to have settled the Earth and made it a place of our own, gathering in cities and vacationing along the seaside. On the neatly stocked shelves of our supermarkets, we find foods sourced from around the world. And we have commodities markets, drive-throughs, prescription drugs and strawberries year round. But for all the sophistication of our modern world, there is still the wild, teeming with exotic life. In lush tropics or barren tundra, millions of species find their homes. But were it not for the thin crust of dirt that coats the surface of our mother rock, there would be none of this.

This article was featured as part of a wider investigation by journalist Jim Wickens on the impact of shrimp farming in Indonesia.

Nearly 50% of the EU budget goes into European agriculture. But climate change, soil erosion and other environmental pressures call for radical changes in farming practices

Species have always competed in the wild for food, water, territory and other resources. Now they must now compete on a wholly different footing – for conservation funding.

This article is an excerpt of an investigation originally published in Resurgence-The Ecologist Magazine about the state of soil in France and implications on food security.

Poverty among persecuted Roma communities in France are forcing them to scavenge for dangerous e-waste, potentially threatening health and questioning the country's recycling policies.

Robert Fowler and Louis Guay, two respected Canadian diplomats, along with their driver, were reported missing in Niger on Sunday, when their vehicle was found abandoned on the outskirts of the country's capital, Niamey. So far, scant details are known about the disappearances. But the incident is likely connected to the ongoing Tuareg rebellion in the uranium-rich northern part of Niger -- a conflict that Mr. Fowler, as UN special envoy to the country, was trying to resolve.