YEAR 2008

Year 2008 is declared as:

International Year of the Potato
The year 2008 has been declared the International Year of the Potato by the United Nations, noting that the potato is a staple food in the diet of the world’s population, and affirming the need to focus world attention on the role that the potato can play in providing food security and eradicating poverty. Food and Agriculture Organization is invited to facilitate its implementation.

The corresponding resolution adopted on 25 November 2005 by the Food and Agriculture Organization, which is to facilitate the implementation of the year, affirmed "the need to revive public awareness of the relationship that exists between poverty, food security, malnutrition and the potential contribution of the potato to defeating hunger."

International Year of Sanitation
Proper sanitation: It’s a seemingly mundane thing that most people in the developed world take for granted. But at least 2.6 billion people – some 41 percent of the global population - do not have access to latrines or any sort of basic sanitation facilities. As a result millions suffer from a wide range of preventable illnesses, such as diarrhoea, which claim thousands of lives each day, primarily young children. Improving access to sanitation is a good investment because:

• Sanitation is vital for human health
• Sanitation generates economic benefits
• Sanitation contributes to dignity and social development
• Sanitation helps the environment
• Improving sanitation is achievable!

To put the spotlight on this issue the UN General Assembly declared the year 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.

International Year of Planet Earth
The United Nations General Assembly, meeting in New York, has proclaimed the year 2008 to be the United Nations International Year of Planet Earth. The activities will span 2007-2009.
Thrust areas will be

• Reduce risks for society caused by natural and human-induced hazards
• Reduce health problems by improving understanding of the medical aspects of Earth science
• Discover new natural resources and make them available in a sustainable manner
• Build safer structures and expand urban areas, utilizing natural subsurface conditions
• Determine the non-human factor in climatic change
• Enhance understanding of the occurrence of natural resources so as to contribute to efforts to reduce political tension
• Detect deep and poorly accessible groundwater resources
• Improve understanding of the evolution of life
• Increase interest in the Earth sciences in society at large
• Encourage more young people to study Earth science in university

Year of the Frog
This year will also be observed as the Year of the Frog, in order to prevent 500 frog species from being extinct. “Largely our campaign is targeted at the zoo community,” said Kevin Zippel, program director for Amphibian Ark, the international conservation organisation behind this concept.

LONDON - Conservationists from around the world have declared 2008 the Year of the Frog to highlight their new campaign to save threatened amphibians from extinction.

The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) said on Friday that up to half of amphibian species could be wiped out in coming years through habitat loss and climate change - the biggest mass extinction since dinosaurs disappeared.

"It's imperative that the world zoo and aquarium community plays an active role in working to save the planet's critically endangered amphibian species," said WAZA president Karen Sausman following the decision at a meeting in Budapest.

The year of the frog campaign is aiming to raise $60 million to try to save frogs. “We have pretty lofty goals,” said Zippel, adding that the year would be a success even if just one of those 500 species were saved.