This edition focuses on the linkages between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and our common environment. Regions of the world facing the most serious decline in the services provided by ecosystems are the same areas showing the slowest progress in achieving the MDGs. In sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia and parts of Latin America, the burden of poverty, hunger and disease coincides with acute deterioration of natural services such as the provision of fresh water, the formation of soils to grow corps and the availiability of natural resources such as fish, fuel-wood and medicine derived from plants. We believe that certain things in life cannot be mentioned enough, and a paper shedding light on the linkages between our environment and the MDGs still stands out as highly relevant. Even though the world has made signifi cant progress in achieving many of the goals, progress has been far from uniform across the worldor across the Goals. There are huge disparities across and within countries. One can ask if the goals merely are targets set but never met? The environment might just be the pillar upon which all the goals anf hence a more sustainable development may well fall or stand. And the environment is not a luxury only affordable when all other issues have been resolved. It is, as stated, the red ribbon running around.

See the Environment and Poverty Times #4: MDG issue web-site for full details.