On June 29^th, a group of leading tropical universities, led by James Cook University in Australia, released the State of the Tropics 2014 Report. This report tries to answer the question “Is life in the Tropics getting better?” using a broad range of environmental, social and economic indicators. It shows that, in many ways, life in the tropics really is improving (e.g. health, literacy, economic growth), although the region still does worse than the rest of the world in some key areas (e.g. life expectancy, governance, land degradation, biodiversity loss). The report also includes five essays on key topics, including one on ‘The impacts of Climate Change in the Tropics’ by Professor Richard Corlett from XTBG. The report will be updated at five-year intervals.

The State of the Tropics 2014 Report can be downloaded from  http://stateofthetropics.org/the-report