Forest fires do not only destroy the forests, it endangers public health, disrupt socio-economic activities, and contribute to greenhouse gas emission but do more harm than good to the ecosystem. A greater percent of forest fires occurring in the world, especially developing countries have been identified to have human causes. Land use was identified as number one cause while others like conflicts and human errors follow as reasons for which people burn the forest. Governments and cooperate bodies have invested much in solutions that largely control these fires rather than preventing them. This approach has yielded results that do not match the investments. It is in view of this worrying situation that this review was carried out to reassess the prospects of Community Based Fire Management (CBFiM) system as a critical component for achieving an effective integrated forest fire management. The work is structured into four sections, section one introduces forest fires and discusses general causes, and prevailing management tactics, section two discusses CBFiM and its potentials, section three follows up with case-studies from USA, Vietnam, and Ghana, the fourth section concludes with ways of enhancing the CBFiM system to make it more effective.

Effective management of household food waste (HFW) is essential for sustainability and aligning with Ireland’s waste reduction goals. This study evaluates the environmental and economic impacts of four HFW management scenarios—incineration, anaerobic digestion (AD) with digestate composting, AD with digestate incineration, and AD with digestate gasification—using life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) analyses. The functional unit is 1000 tons of daily HFW treatment. The results show that AD scenarios offer significant environmental advantages over incineration, with AD combined with digestate composting identified as the most sustainable option. This scenario achieves the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and enhances nutrient recovery. Economically, while AD involves higher capital investments (€677,000–€2,033,000), its long-term cost effectiveness is demonstrated through LCCs ranging from €1,016,000 to €3,386,000, partially offset by revenues of €339,000–€677,000. The sensitivity analysis highlights opportunities for improvement, such as optimizing water use and reducing emissions from biogas engines. The findings provide actionable insights for policymakers, emphasizing the environmental and economic benefits of integrating AD with composting as a preferred strategy for HFW management.

Cocoabeans damage by storage pest is a major challenge in postharvest handling and also a contributor to food waste and loss. Attempts to use synthetic chemicals to control this have generated other health and environmental problems.Meanwhile, the improper disposal of cocoapod waste has also led to phytophthora disease infection on cocoa farms. This study therefore aimed to investigate the potential of using pyrolysed cocoa pod husk as biopesticide (liquid Smoke (LS)) to protect cocoa beans against storage pests. The study was set up in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with five treatments (10%; 20%; 50%; 100 % concentrations of LS and 0 %as control). These were applied to the outer surface of mini jute sacks containing cocoa beans. A GCMS analysis of the LS detected 20 compounds. A repellence test of LS showed very strong repellence effect, repelling almost 90% of insect population. The feeding deterrence index also caused a reduction in bean damage from 22% in control to 7.65% for 100% LS-treated beans. Weight loss reduced from 2.13% in control to 0.11 % in 100% LS. LS treatment did not cause any significant change in the FFA and pH content of the beans. From the organoleptic test, LS treatment did not cause any significant change in the flavour and overall taste, and aroma acceptance. The liquid smoke, therefore, has the potential to be used for protecting cocoa beans by spraying on the outer part of jute sacks containing beans.

Background: The Republic of Ireland (ROI) currently reports the second highest prevalence of adult obesity in Europe, with >25% of the adult population classified as obese. Concurrently, a concomitant increase has been reported for the risk of cardiovascular diseases and several cancers. While there has been extensive research on the health impacts of excess food intake, of the resulting food waste, also known as metabolic food waste (MFW) and its associated environmental impact has received little attention. Accordingly, the current study sought to estimate quantities of MFW from excess food intake among the Irish adult population and resulting global warming potential. Body weight and diet information were collected in a survey of 920 people across ROI. The excess fat of overweight (OW) and obese (OB) individuals was calculated and converted to excess calories using the Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID 2021). The energy content (calories) of the food items was used to estimate the quantities (kg) of food consumed to gain the excess fat. Having derived the kg of food/MFW, the associated Global Warming Potential (GWP) was calculated. Results: Calculated MFW were 50.84 kg/cap/yr and 122.2 kg/cap/yr for the OW and OB populations, respectively. Dairy produce accounted for the highest annual MFW in both groups (12.0 kg/cap (OW), 28.6 kg/cap (OB)), followed by cereals/grains (9.0 kg/cap, 21.5 kg/cap) and potatoes (7.1 kg/cap, 17.0 kg/cap). Calculated annual GWP of food items highlight dairy produce as having the highest GWP v (66.8 CO2 eq/kg for OW and 160.5 CO2 eq/kg for OB), followed by red meat (36.2 CO2 eq/kg for OW and 87.1 CO2 eq/kg for OB) and white meat (24.1 CO2 eq/kg for OW and 57.8 CO2 eq/kg for OB). Conclusions: The Irish adult diet is characterized by high consumption of cereals/grains and dairy produce, with the annual volume of MFW generated by obese individuals more than twice the annual volume of food (52kg/cap) disposed of by individuals at home Key messages: • Managing the consumption of dairy and meat products could accomplish two important goals: the promotion of environmental sustainability and the enhancement of public health. • In addition, managing obesity from the dietary stand point will encourage sustainable consumption and food security.