20 April 2018: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the Spanish daily newspaper EL PAÍS have collaborated on a book series to raise awareness on the challenges that the international community is tackling through the SDGs. The books focus on challenges such as hunger and nutrition, water scarcity, climate change, and the state of the world’s forests and oceans.

‘The State of the Planet’ series is based on the latest findings by FAO and other UN agencies in each thematic area. The series aims to make global complex challenges understandable to all. FAO and EL PAÍS will release one book each Sunday, from 29 April through 1 July as a supplement to EL PAÍS. The series titles include:

1. Los grandes desafíos (big challenges) will assess the state of the planet and introduce the 2030 Agenda;
2. El cambio climático (climate change) introduces climate change and explains how it will affect the planet, with a focus on agriculture;
3. Biodiversidad (biodiversity) highlights the importance of biodiversity conservation from the perspective of food security and nutrition;
4. El agua (water) analyzes the challenges of ensuring sufficient water in the context of demographic pressures, urbanization and inefficient water management;
5. La nutrición (nutrition) explores overweight and obesity challenges;
6. Los bosques (forests) focuses on forests and their conservation;
7. Los océanos (oceans) analyzes ocean-related challenges, including maritime pollution and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing;
8. Población, ciudades y migración (population, cities and migration) reviews global demographic trends and migration;
9. Hambre cero (zero hunger) reflects on the scale of world hunger, including increases in chronic malnutrition as a result of conflicts and climate change;
10. La nueva revolución agrícola (new agricultural revolution) considers how the world can feed 10 billion people in 2015;
11. Los retos del futuro en el siglo XXI. ¿Qué puedes hacer tú? (future challenges in the 21st century – what can you do?) asks readers to reflect on everyday actions that citizens can take to contribute to a more sustainable and better world.

FAO’s Director of Communications, Enrique Yeves, underscored the “indispensable” role of the media in the fight again hunger and malnutrition. He said FAO’s collaboration with EL PAÍS is an example of how working together can help to increase awareness of global objectives like the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. EL PAÍS editor Antonio Caño explained that newspapers concerned with the state of things are “concerned with the state of the planet.” He pledged to increase his publication’s coverage of the state of the planet, stressing that the media will fail if it does not “flag that the planet is deteriorating.”

Since 2016, FAO and EL PAÍS have collaborated on improving public knowledge about agriculture, food systems and hunger. [FAO Press Release] [Publication: El Estado del Planeta] [EL PAÍS Planeta Futuro Webpage]