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Humanity has altered the planet in many detrimental ways, from the warming of our climate to the ever-diminishing wildernesses on land and in the sea. But in such a complex system as the Earth, science must always keep searching – for both solutions to problems already identified and new threats coming our way. UNEP’s Frontiers Report does this by identifying and exploring areas of emerging or ongoing environmental concern. The 2022 edition delves into three issues: noise pollution in cities, the growing threat of wildfires and shifts in seasonal events – such as flowering, migration and hibernation, an area of study known as phenology.

People of four generations ago lived at the turn of the 20th Century, before the invention and widespread use in agriculture and industry of thousands of synthetic chemicals. Those of us living in the early 21st Century inhabit a world where some of these substances – which were introduced as far back as the 1920s and employed more and more in the 1940s and '50s – have been around for decades. Now they are everywhere . . . including in the tissues of every human being on Earth.

The Pacific region is unique,not because its geographical, biological, sociological and economic characteristics are found exclusively here, but because of the combination of these characteristics within the region. This region is characterized by small-land masses dispersed over 5.8 per cent of the Earth's surface; a high degree of ecosystem and species diversity; an extraordinary level of endemicity; a high degree of economic and cultural dependence on the natural environment; vulnerability to a wide range of natural and environmental disasters and a diversity of cultures and languages, traditional practices and customs focused on the marine and coastal environment.