topic: Water Scarcity

topic: Water Scarcity

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An ancient Indigenous lagoon system brings water back to a dry town in Ecuador
- The town of Catacocha, located in the south of Ecuador, is in a province known for being almost a desert: dry forest, barren soil and rains that only appear two months in the year.
- A historian discovered the water collection system long ago used by Palta Indigenous people and persuaded locals in Catacocha to apply it.
- By building 250 artificial lagoons, the inhabitants of this region have succeeded in managing rainwater.
- The change that has happened in nine years is visible: They sowed 12,000 plant,s and UNESCO has included the area in its list of ecohydrology demonstration sites.

Indigenous communities along Argentina’s Río Chubut mobilize to conserve waterway
- A caravan of Indigenous Mapuche activists recently concluded an 847-km (526-mi) trek down Argentina’s Chubut River, meeting with communities along the way to raise awareness of the issues they face along the shared waterway.
- From each trawün, or gathering, they determined that Indigenous access to land and water is diminishing, that large-scale projects on their lands are going ahead without their prior informed consent, and that Mapuche communities need a unified stance toward state decisions.
- Huge swaths of land along the river have been bought up by private interests, including foreign millionaires, cutting off access for the Mapuche to the Chubut that they consider not just a physical resource but a spiritual entity.
- The Mapuche are also concerned about policy changes under Argentina’s new libertarian administration, which has already kicked off a massive deregulation spree and could lift a ban on open-pit mining in the region.

What’s at stake for the environment in Panama’s upcoming election?
- Panama holds elections Sunday, May 5 for president, vice president and all 71 seats in its national assembly.
- Several presidential candidates have a chance to win, including José Raúl Mulino, Romulo Roux, Ricardo Lombana and Martín Torrijos.
- They will have to address the country’s recent closure of a controversial mine, water shortages and an out-of-date waste management system that has led to pollution and public health concerns.

Indigenous community fights to save its lands on Indonesia’s historic tin island
- The Lanun Indigenous community of Indonesia’s Belitung Island have responded to increasing environmental damage by building their capacity in skills such as advocacy and mediation.
- At issue is the growth in illegal mining and forest clearing by the plantation industry on land that the Lanun consider to have long been theirs.
- In 2021, UNESCO announced this area of Indonesia would become an international geopark, which required joint applications by government and local communities to conserve a landscape of global significance.

Rainwater reserves a tenuous lifeline for Sumatran community amid punishing dry season
- Kuala Selat village lies on the coast of Indragiri Hilir district on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- In the first half of the year, residents of the village arrange buckets and drums to collect rainwater to meet their daily needs.
- They will then stockpile water to last through the dry months from June-September, but a longer dry spell has led to an acute shortage of water.
- Residents say they believe the water crisis in the village was linked to bouts of diarrhea, and that many fled the village during an outbreak.

Critics fear catastrophic energy crisis as AI is outsourced to Latin America
- AI use is surging astronomically around the globe, requiring vastly more energy to make AI-friendly semiconductor chips and causing a gigantic explosion in data center construction. So large and rapid is this expansion that Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, has warned that AI is driving humanity toward a “catastrophic energy crisis.”
- Altman’s solution is an audacious plan to spend up to $7 trillion to produce energy from nuclear fusion. But even if this investment, the biggest in all of history, occurred, its impact wouldn’t be felt until mid-century, and do little to end the energy and water crises triggered by AI manufacture and use, while having huge mining and toxic waste impacts.
- Data centers are mushrooming worldwide to meet AI demand, but particularly in Latin America, seen as strategically located by Big Tech. One of the largest data center hubs is in Querétaro, a Mexican state with high risk of intensifying climate change-induced drought. Farmers are already protesting their risk of losing water access.
- As Latin American protests rise over the environmental and social harm done by AI, activists and academics are calling for a halt to government rubber-stamping of approvals for new data centers, for a full assessment of AI life-cycle impacts, and for new regulations to curb the growing social harm caused by AI.

Java rice farmers suffer crop failure as copper mine pollutes local irrigation
- Rice farmers in Cokrokembang village, East Java province, suspect contamination from a nearby copper mine operated by PT Gemilang Limpah Internusa is to blame for recent crop failures.
- Water pollution from the mine is visible in the Kedung Pinihan River, while tests conducted by the local government reveal levels of copper compounds far exceeding environmental standards.
- Despite attempts to address the issue, including government involvement and remedial measures by the company, farmers like Parno continue to suffer declining yields, prompting calls for compensation for affected farmers.

Harsh dry season sours harvest prospects for Java coffee farmers
- Indonesia is the world’s fourth-largest producer of coffee, after Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia, but the archipelago’s farmers are less productive than their competitors.
- In East Java province, farmers have seen yields plummet as a protracted water deficit shrinks fruit and introduces pests.
- Total output is expected to drop by more than 20% this season, while increasingly frequent extreme weather may pose challenges to the viability of some smallholders in lowland areas of Indonesia.

Locals at the mouth of the Amazon River get a salty taste of climate change
- Ocean rise and changes in the Amazon River are ruining the way of life in an archipelago close to where the Amazon River runs into the Atlantic.
- In Bailique, locals are experiencing longer periods of salty water, a natural phenomenon that is becoming more usual due to climate change.
- Açaí berries, the prime economic drive of the community, are becoming saltier, and palm trees are being eaten by the erosion caused by changes in the Amazon River’s flow.
- Part of the population has already left the region, as others struggle to adapt to the new landscape.

Controversy brews over proposed dam on Kathmandu’s Bagmati River
- A proposed dam on Kathmandu’s Bagmati River aims to collect rainwater during the wet season and release it in the dry season to rejuvenate the river, but skeptics question its viability and safety.
- Concerns include environmental impact, potential destruction of trees, pollution and the risk of dam failure in earthquake-prone Nepal.
- Political, ecological and community-related questions remain unanswered, with some advocating for alternatives and further analysis before proceeding.

Andes community-led conservation curbs more páramo loss than state-protected area: Study
- In the central highlands of Ecuador, land managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities is associated with improved outcomes for drought adaptation and páramo conservation, according to a new study.
- The study finds that páramo areas managed by communities in this region are better protected than those under the care of the state.
- Due to the advance of the agricultural frontier in the highlands, approximately 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of páramo are lost every day, which threatens the water supply of the entire region.
- Community-led land management that incorporates inclusive participation, traditional knowledge and the cultural values of those who inhabit the areas, coined by reseachers as “social technology,” can aid in the conservation of the páramo.

Maluku farmers sweat El Niño drought as Indonesia rice prices surge
- Rice prices surged across Indonesia during the second half of 2023 as the effects of El Niño led to widespread crop failures.
- In December, President Joko Widodo ordered military personnel to help farmers plant rice in a bid to boost domestic production, and curb food price inflation.
- On Buru Island, Mongabay Indonesia spoke with farmers who described risks of conflict as water scarcity forced farmers to queue for access to water.

Java’s crumbling coastline and rising tide swamp jasmine flower trade
- Growers of jasmine flowers in lowland areas of Indonesia’s Central Java province are vulnerable to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.
- Research published in 2022 showed Central Java’s Semarang was among the fastest-sinking major cities in the world.
- Jasmine grower Sobirin has altered his home on three occasions since 2010, raising the floor to adapt to increasing tidal surges.

In Mexico, Xalapa’s chronic water scarcity reflects a deepening national crisis
- Residents of Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, Mexico, have been struggling with a worsening water shortage that often leaves people without daily access to household water for washing.
- The problem is nationwide, in 30 of 32 states, forcing residents to purchase and recycle water and postpone bathing.
- Experts have blamed climate change and extreme heat for the country’s water shortages; others also blame corruption that allows companies to pay for unlimited water use.
- Deforestation for development, an increase in construction and building and population increases are also factors.

A Mekong island too tiny for industrial farming now points to Vietnam’s future
- In the decades following the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Vietnamese government championed intensive farming methods that boosted rice harvests and turned the country into an export powerhouse.
- While much of the Mekong Delta was reshaped to support intensive farming, the coastal island of Con Chim was deemed too small to be worth installing the necessary dikes and sluice gates, leaving farmers there to continue traditional patterns of wet and dry season agriculture and fishing.
- Now, in an era dominated by climate concerns, Vietnam plans to scale back rice farming and shift to more nature-based agricultural practices. Once a forgotten backwater, Con Chim now stands as a rare guidepost to a more sustainable agricultural future.
- This story was produced in partnership with the Global Reporting Program at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, Writing, and Media.

Extreme drought in western Pará pushes family farmers into agroforestry
- Lost crops, reduced fish numbers, low water levels in rivers and difficult access to potable water have all led to a state of disaster declared in many municipalities in the state of Pará.
- Severe drought, the result of increasing climate changes and El Niño, is resulting in a more flammable Amazon rainforest. Farmers and technicians are seeking out more sustainable alternatives to the traditional slash-and-burn system.
- Agroforestry systems (AFS) and native honeybee apiculture cooperatives are increasing in the region.

With half its surface water area lost, an Amazonian state runs dry
- Water bodies across the Brazilian state of Roraima have shrunk in area by half over the past 20 years, according to research from the mapping collective MapBiomas.
- Today, locals are facing even drier times amid a severe drought in the Amazon, which has led to record-low levels of water in the rainforest’s main rivers.
- Since 1985, Roraima’s agricultural area has grown by more than 1,100%, with experts pointing to crops as one of the state’s main drivers of water loss.

Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- With an economy largely underpinned by irrigated crops like rice, water is a crucial resource in Thailand. But as climate change exacerbates floods and droughts in the country, sustainable water management is an increasing challenge.
- Nature-based solutions that incorporate the natural processes of the country’s abundant rivers, floodplains and watershed forests are beginning to be trialed via various projects at large and small scales.
- A new report assesses the efficacy of two nature-based approaches to water management in Thailand, which represent a step away from the country’s typically top-down, hard-engineering approach and present several benefits to the environment and communities.
- However, environmental and societal tradeoffs, complex policy frameworks, and the need for greater understanding and expertise around the concept, design and implementation of nature-based approaches are barriers to their widespread implementation.

Salty wells and lost land: Climate and erosion take their toll in Sulawesi
- Coastal erosion on the west coast of Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island is so advanced that seawater has penetrated the groundwater supply that tens of thousands use for drinking water.
- The communities have yet to be served by utility water provision, so families are resorting to costly supplies of water from private distributors.
- Research shows that rising seas and more frequent and powerful storms will accelerate coastal abrasion, raising burdens shouldered by the world’s coastal communities.

Colombian wind farm end-of-life raises circularity and Indigenous questions
- Jepírachi, Colombia’s first wind farm, is waiting to be dismantled after reaching its end of life, but the process itself and the project’s legacy remain uncertain.
- Across the world, first-generation wind projects are becoming obsolete, and disposing of the equipment, especially of the wind blades, is challenging circularity goals; currently, most blades are used in cement factories.
- Three Wayuu communities depend on the desalination plant created by the wind farm company for their clean water, but now the communities question the future of their water security.

The Cloud vs. drought: Water hog data centers threaten Latin America, critics say
- Droughts in Uruguay and Chile have led residents to question the wisdom of their governments allowing transnational internet technology companies to build water-hungry mega-data centers there.
- As servers process data, they need lot of water to keep them cool. But if demand grows as expected, the world will need 10-20 times more data centers by 2035, and they’ll be using far more water. Many will likely be built in economically and water-challenged nations already facing climate change-intensified droughts.
- Latin American communities fear that this “data colonialism” will consume water they desperately need for drinking and agriculture, and are critical of their governments for giving priority treatment to transnational tech giants like Google and Microsoft, while putting people’s access to a basic human necessity at risk.
- Surging digital data use by 2030 may cause each of us in the developed world to have a “digital doppelganger,” with our internet use consuming as much water as our physical bodies. But much of the stored data is “junk.” Critics urge that nations insist on tougher regulations for transnational companies, easing the crisis.

More action needed to protect freshwater ecosystems, report says
- A recent report from the international conservation NGO WWF argues that freshwater ecosystems are too valuable to go overlooked as new conservation policies are created.
- Freshwater underpins global food security, the economy and public health, putting the total value of water in 2021 at around $58 trillion, or 60% of the global GDP, the report estimates.
- WWF urged governments to revitalize efforts to conserve 30% of rivers, lakes and wetlands by 2030 and for the private sector to develop better risk assessments that eliminate pollution from their supply chains and consider how they contribute to water scarcity.

A tale of two biomes as deforestation surges in Cerrado but wanes in Amazon
- Brazil has managed to bring down spiraling rates of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest in the first half of this year, but the neighboring Cerrado savanna has seen a wave of environmental destruction during the same period.
- The country’s second largest biome, the Cerrado is seeing its highest deforestation figure since 2018; satellite data show 3,281 hectares (8,107 acres) per day have been cleared since the start of the year through Aug. 4.
- The leading causes of the rising deforestation rates in the Cerrado are a disparity in conservation efforts across Brazil’s biomes, an unsustainable economic model that prioritizes monocultures, and escalating levels of illegal native vegetation clearing.
- Given the importance of the Cerrado to replenish watersheds across the continent, its destruction would affect not just Brazil but South America too, experts warn, adding that the region’s water, food and energy security are at stake.

Vietnamese rice farmers go high-tech to anticipate a low-water future
- Since the 1970s, Vietnam’s “rice-first” policy facilitated the construction of an elaborate series of dikes and dams that allowed farmers in the Mekong Delta to flood their fields to allow for multiple harvests per year.
- Now, in the face of climate change impacts, seawater intrusion, upstream dams and new government policies that mandate water conservation, farmers in the delta need to find ways to reduce their water consumption.
- In one pilot project, university researchers have teamed up with local farmers to implement a technique called alternate wetting and drying (AWD), supported by a smartphone application that allows farmers to save water and reduce emissions.

Projects in Brazil’s Caatinga biome combine conservation and climate adaptation
- The Serra das Almas reserve in northeastern Brazil has benefited from sustained conservation measures that have turned cropland and pasture back into native Caatinga vegetation and allowed the return of wildlife.
- More than 800 animal and plant species are known to occur in the reserve, including the rare three-banded armadillo, a species that, until its sighting here last year, hadn’t been seen in Ceará state since 2008.
- The Caatinga Association, which owns and manages the Serra das Almas reserve, has encouraged the creation of more protected areas throughout the biome, providing support for 26 private reserves and three public conservation units, covering a combined 103,600 hectares (256,000 acres).
- Maintaining the Caatinga’s vegetation is crucial for securing water supplies for neighboring communities, and the association is supplementing that role in the face of a changing climate by providing water storage solutions to communities.

Chile government faces backlash after U-turn on copper mine
- In April 2023, Chile’s government approved the extension of Los Bronces, a major copper mine near the capital, Santiago, after having rejected it last year over environmental concerns.
- As part of the approved plan, Anglo American, the majority owner of Los Bronces, has committed to replacing 70,000 wood-burning stoves used in households across Santiago with electric burners — but critics say this is unrealistic.
- The mine extension project faces a backlash from environmental activists and local and regional authorities, who say they plan to take the matter to court.
- They cite potential impacts to air quality, as well as dust pollution that would darken glaciers in the region and speed up their melting, thus threatening a key water supply for Santiago residents.

Award-winning community group in Sumatra cleans up lake
- A group of locals have since 2013 tried to clean up the trash pooling in Lake Sipin in the Sumatran province of Jambi.
- Their efforts have received national attention, with their leader, Leni Haini, awarded the country’s highest environmental award in 2022 by the government.
- Indonesia has announced a plan to restore 15 lakes (Sipin isn’t included) across the country by 2024, citing their high degree of degradation, chiefly sedimentation, which has resulted in their rapid shrinking and a decline in the biodiversity they host.
- These lakes are crucial in supporting the livelihoods of millions of Indonesians, serving as a source of freshwater, a form of flood control, and a site for fish-farming and tourism.

Dhaka faces manifold problems as water bodies diminish
- A study by the Bangladesh Institute of Planners, or BIP, says the capital has lost 36% of its water bodies since 2010.
- Dhaka city has experienced water scarcity during dry months, which puts a strain on firefighters as they battle large fire; during monsoon months, the city experiences regular waterlogging as water retention points fill up.
- The disappearance of water bodies has created multifaceted problems like rising water levels, airborne disease, and mosquito-related diseases.
- In 2000, the government passed the Natural Water Reservoir Conservation Act, which mandates that natural water bodies be kept intact.

‘It gives life’: Philippine tribe fights to save a sacred river from a dam
- Each year, members of the Dumagat-Remontado tribe gather at the Tinipak River to observe an Indigenous ritual to honor their supreme being and pray for healing and protection.
- This year, the rite had an additional intention: to ward off an impending dam project they fear will inundate the site of the ritual.
- The Kaliwa Dam, part of a program aimed at securing a clean water supply for the Manila metropolitan region, is already under construction and scheduled to go online in 2027.
- The project has faced resistance from civil society groups as well as many of the Dumagat-Remontado, who say they fear it will cause both environmental and cultural damage.

A Guatemalan town fights to bar gold mining and save its waters
- Over the last 25 years, local community members have repeatedly rejected a gold mining project on the border of Guatemala and El Salvador for lack of environmental compliance.
- The government of Guatemala has approved the extension of the Cerro Blanco project, which, under new ownership is planned to switch from underground to open-pit mining.
- Worried that mining is contaminating waters and affecting biodiversity, the community of Asunción Mita held a referendum last September, voting to reject the project, but it hasn’t yet obtained recognition from the state.
- While mining is on hold, awaiting a final verdict on the referendum, natural ecosystems and watercourses are bouncing back with life.

Colombian farmers turn deforested land into sustainable Amazonian farms
- More than 450 families from seven towns in the south of Caquetá, Colombia, have transformed their farms into spaces for soil, forest and water conservation while pursuing agricultural production projects that give them food sovereignty.
- Most of the people living in the Amazonian foothills of Caquetá were displaced by the armed conflict and colonized the region through the extensive livestock projects promoted by the government.
- Amazonian Farms (Finca Amazónica) was created 17 years ago to provide sustainable production alternatives, and many of the program’s trainers are farmers from the region who understand the importance of living in harmony with the forest.

Drying wetlands and drought threaten water supplies in Kenya’s Kiambu County
- Prolonged drought in Kenya has caused a water crisis, threatening local livelihoods and biodiversity; one of the badly affected areas is Kiambu County, a region normally known for its high agricultural productivity.
- Human activities such as dumping, encroachment and overgrazing coupled with dire effects of climate change exacerbate the degradation of wetlands, worsening the water crisis.
- Scientists say that conservation efforts must center around local communities to ensure the restoration of natural resources and combat the impacts of climate change.

Chile communities defy the desert by capturing increasingly scarce water
- The inhabitants of a rural community on the expanding frontier of Chile’s Atacama Desert are able to harvest around 500,000 liters (132,000 gallons) of water per year, thanks to fog nets installed 17 years ago.
- This water has allowed them to revive their mountain region’s vegetation and launch new businesses to improve their quality of life and adapt to drought.
- Other initiatives in the region, aimed at making the most use of the less frequent rains, help retain water for livestock and prevent soil erosion and mudslides.
- But these initiatives are pilot projects, with no funding or political support to sustain them over the long term, which the community says are what are needed the most.

At the U.N. Water Conference, food security needs to take center stage (commentary)
- This week at the United Nations Water Conference, the growing level of global food insecurity from a lack of water should be addressed.
- “We urgently need a worldwide evaluation of water-related food risks that offers immediate and practical solutions,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

‘During droughts, pivot to agroecology’: Q&A with soil expert at the World Agroforestry Centre
- As the unabating drought in Kenya persists, pastoralists in the region are struggling as millions of their livestock perish and vast swaths of crops die. About 4.4 million people in the country are food insecure.
- International food agencies are calling it a dire humanitarian situation and highlight the vital need to build communities’ resilience to adapt and cope with drought.
- Mongabay speaks with David Leilei, a Kenyan soil biologist at the World Agroforestry Centre, on the agroecological techniques and strategies pastoralists and the government can use to restore healthy soils to promote productive farming.
- Mary Njenga, a research scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre who works with 1,200 households in northern Kenya, also speaks with Mongabay on climate-resilient strategies.

Herders turn to fishing in the desert amid severe drought, putting pressure on fish population
- As Northern Kenya’s unabating drought continues, a growing wave of pastoralists are finding it challenging to keep their livestock alive and are switching to fishing in Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake.
- However, environmentalists, fishing authorities, and some fishers worry that potential overfishing and increased pressures on fish populations will cause a collapse in fish stocks and the lake’s ecosystem.
- Authorities are also concerned about the rampant use of illegal fishing gear, such as thin mesh nets that catch undersized fish in shallow breeding zones, and an illegal tilapia smuggling network draining the lake by the tons.
- Though no studies have yet been done to assess fish populations, some environmentalists and fishers are calling for better enforcement of regulations to keep livelihoods afloat.

Reciprocal Water Agreements protect millions of hectares of Bolivian forest
- In return for committing to protect their water producing forests, farming families living in upper watersheds receive incentives to help them develop sustainable production initiatives and to connect their homes to drinking water.
- These incentives are mainly funded by the municipality and from water service providers via a monthly payment made by service users.
- The model has expanded rapidly in Bolivia and is beginning to be replicated in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico.

Locals fight to save ‘a piece of the sea’ in Venezuela’s Andes
- Urao is the only brackish continental lagoon in Latin America, significant for its minerals and the livelihoods it supports, but threatened by encroaching development in the Venezuelan state of Mérida.
- Fundalaguna, an Indigenous- and community-led NGO, has since 2016 worked to restore the shrinking lagoon by getting it designated as a Ramsar wetland, which would bring some measure of international protection.
- As part of its advocacy, the NGO holds eco talks at local schools to educate young people about the importance of saving the lagoon.
- At the same time, reforestation efforts and two very rainy years have saved the lagoon for the moment and brought back fish and migratory birds, but advocates say further hydrological works are needed to bring Urao back to its original state.

Threatened cloud forests key to billions of dollars worth of hydropower: Report
- Payments for the provision of water by cloud forests for hydropower could produce income for countries and bolster the case for the forests’ protection, a new report reveals.
- These fog-laden forests occur on tropical mountains, with about 90% found in just 25 countries.
- Cloud forests are threatened by climate change, agricultural expansion, logging and charcoal production, and studies have shown that the quality and quantity of water that these forests generate is tied to keeping them healthy.

Five pressing questions for the future of lithium mining in Bolivia
- As the Bolivian government negotiates business dealings with foreign lithium companies, questions remain about the future of local desert ecosystems and the Indigenous communities that steward them.
- Lithium extraction, often used for lithium-ion batteries, has been known to deplete and contaminate freshwater, impacting wildlife populations and the livelihoods of residents who rely on tourism and salt mining.
- While many community leaders in Bolivia are hopeful they can avoid similar pitfalls in the early stages of development, others are worried that foreign interests will once again exploit the country’s natural resources, leaving many residents in poverty.

Blue jeans: An iconic fashion item that’s costing the planet dearly
- The production of blue jeans, one of the most popular apparel items ever, has for decades left behind a trail of heavy consumption, diminishing Earth’s water and energy resources, causing pollution, and contributing to climate change. The harm done by the fashion industry has intensified, not diminished, in recent years.
- The making of jeans is water intensive, yet much of the world’s cotton crop is grown in semiarid regions requiring irrigation and pesticide use. As climate change intensifies, irrigation-dependent cotton cultivation and ecological catastrophe are on a collision course, with the Aral Sea’s ecological death a prime example and warning.
- While some major fashion companies have made sustainability pledges, and taken some steps to produce greener blue jeans, the industry has yet to make significant strides toward sustainability, with organic cotton, for example, still only 1% of the business.
- A few fashion companies are changing their operations to be more sustainable and investing in technology to reduce the socioenvironmental impacts of jeans production. But much more remains to be done.

Sulawesi nickel plant coats nearby homes in toxic dust
- The Bantaeng Industrial Estate is a 3,000-hectare ore processing zone in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province.
- President Joko Widodo has banned exports of raw mineral ores to compel companies to construct smelters to produce value-added nickel.
- But South Sulawesi communities living alongside the smelters report health impacts from pollution generated on site. Relocation plans have yet to be enacted.

Avocado farming is threatening Colombia’s natural water factory
- To satisfy the world’s ever-increasing appetite for the popular fruit, Colombia is risking the páramo, one of its key ecosystems.
- These rare environments provide fresh water to tens of millions of people — the majority of the Colombian population.
- The country is now second to Mexico as the world’s top avocado producer, with a significant uptick in production in the last year, resulting in socioeconomic and environmental impacts for communities downstream.

“Largest of its kind” dam in Cameroon faces backlash from unimpressed fishmongers
- Cameroon is constructing a new 420-megawatt capacity hydroelectric dam in Batchenga, aiming to reduce the country’s significant energy deficit by 30%.
- The massive dam project is impacting several villages where fishing is an essential part of the local economy. Several professional bodies, including fishmongers, fishermen and restaurant owners, have lost their livelihoods due to the dam’s construction.
- Fishmongers in one nearby village, Ndji, are becoming increasingly desperate for proper compensation as the amounts paid by the Nachtigal Hydro Power Company is not enough to make ends meet, they say.
- Civil society organizations are also accusing Nachtigal of seriously violating environmental standards during dam construction, despite the company continuously receiving environmental compliance certificates by the government.

Putting a price on water: Can commodification resolve a world water crisis?
- In 2018, a trader listed water on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and then in 2020 introduced a futures market so consumers can factor the cost of water into their investment plans. After a slow start, traders expect the market to grow more strongly in 2023.
- Some analysts see this as a positive step, allowing market adjustments to provide consumers with the cheapest and most efficient way of buying water. Others disagree, saying that water, like air, should not be commodified as it is a fundamental human right and must be available to all.
- Critics fear that creating a water market is a first step toward a future in which just a few companies will be able to charge market rents for what should be a free natural resource. Huge questions remain over water allocations for industry, agribusiness and smallholders, cities, and traditional and Indigenous peoples.
- The clash between these economic and socioenvironmental worldviews isn’t just occurring internationally. The conflict over water regulation is evident in many nations, including Brazil, which lays claim to the world’s biggest supply of freshwater, and Chile, currently suffering from its most severe drought ever.

Haiti: An island nation whose environmental troubles only begin with water
- As Haiti plunges into the worst social unrest the nation has seen in years, shortages abound. One of these is water. But in Haiti, water scarcity has deeper roots, that connect to virtually every other aspect of the environment. Haiti’s ecosystems today, say some, are under stress due to regional and global transgressions of the nine planetary boundaries.
- The planetary boundary framework originated in 2009 to define required limits on human activities to prevent collapse of vital Earth operating systems. They include biodiversity loss, freshwater, air pollution, climate change, high phosphorus and nitrogen levels, ocean acidity, land use changes, ozone layer decay, and contamination by human-made chemicals.
- Scientists defining the global freshwater boundary warn that tampering with the water cycle can affect the other boundaries. Haiti, as a small isolated island nation, suggests a laboratory case-study of these many interconnections, and offers a graphic example of the grim results for humanity and wildlife when freshwater systems are deeply compromised.
- Haiti today is plagued by an extreme socioeconomic and environmental crisis. As it fights climate change, freshwater problems, deforestation and pollution, it may also be viewed as a bleak bellwether for other nations as our planetary crisis deepens. But scientists warn that research on applying planetary boundary criteria on a regional level remains limited.

Latest water-sharing deal between Bangladesh, India is ‘drop in the ocean’
- Bangladesh and India share 54 rivers that flow down from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, chief among them the Ganges and the Brahmaputra.
- Managing the flow of water both upstream and down is crucial for agriculture, navigation, inland fisheries, and keeping saltwater intrusion at bay in Bangladesh, but is undermined by a lack of water-sharing agreements.
- The Bangladeshi and Indian prime ministers recently signed an agreement on sharing water from the Kushiara River for irrigation, but experts say this is nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
- They’ve called on the governments of both countries to push for securing long-term treaties on water sharing from major rivers like the Ganges and the Teesta, which in the latter case has been hobbled by local politics in India.

Climate change hits northern Mexico, as officials look to solve water crisis
- Water scarcity in northern Mexico has gotten worse over the last several years, especially in the state of Nuevo León and its capital city of Monterrey.
- The crisis is a result of a combination of declining rainfall, increasing deforestation of natural aquifers and government mismanagement of climate change readiness policies.
- Officials are investing in new dams and aquifers to address the problem through 2050. They’ve also “bombed” the sky to make it rain and implemented temporary water cutoffs for residents in urban areas.

Java communities rally as clock ticks on cleanup of ‘world’s dirtiest river’
- A national program to transform Java’s Citarum River into a source of drinking water expires in 2025.
- A reforestation program in uplands near the source of the river is drawing on community volunteers.
- West Java Governor Ridwan Kamil tells Mongabay that residents will see improved water quality by 2025 and that there is political will to tackle the crisis.

Drought-beset South African city taps aquifer, shirks long-term solutions: Critics
- A major coastal city located in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province is facing a total water cutoff for about 500,000 residents, almost half its population, following a prolonged drought.
- Disaster relief hydrologists have begun drilling boreholes to access groundwater so that hospitals and schools can stay open during the emergency in Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.
- But critics say the city administration has failed to develop a long-term plan to support water harvesting from intermittent rains and construction of desalination plants.
- They also point out that overreliance on boreholes drilled near the sea could lead to saline water intrusion into the aquifer, contaminating groundwater and rendering borehole water undrinkable.

Water-stressed Bangladesh looks to recharge its fast-depleting aquifers
- Water management authorities in Bangladesh have drawn up a plan to recharge, or refill, the aquifers serving Dhaka and other areas, which are being depleted by one of the highest groundwater extraction rates in the world.
- The plan calls for injecting storm water, reclaimed water, desalinated water and potable water into the aquifers, which, in the case of Dhaka, is falling by up to 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) a year.
- The country withdraws an estimated 32 cubic kilometers (7.7 cubic miles) of groundwater annually, 90% of which is used for irrigation and the rest for domestic and industrial purposes.
- Even though four of South Asia’s largest rivers run through Bangladesh, the country struggles to provide sufficient drinking water for its inhabitants, in large part because of pollution.

Podcast: ‘Water always wins,’ so why are we fighting it?
- On this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we examine humanity’s approach to harnessing water, and how the current “us-first” mindset is actually exacerbating our water access problems.
- Journalist and author Erica Gies joins us to discuss the concept of ‘slow’ solutions to water shortages presented in her new book “Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge,” and how communities can work with water rather than against it.
- Gies discusses how hydrologists, engineers, and urban planners are creating ‘slow’ water projects with traditional hydrological knowledge, which are less invasive ways of harnessing water, in places such as Chennai, India.

Beyond boundaries: Earth’s water cycle is being bent to breaking point
- The hydrological cycle is a fundamental natural process for keeping Earth’s operating system intact. Humanity and civilization are intimately dependent on the water cycle, but we have manipulated it vastly and destructively, to suit our needs.
- We don’t yet know the full global implications of human modifications to the water cycle. We do know such changes could lead to huge shifts in Earth systems, threatening life as it exists. Researchers are asking where and how they can measure change to determine if the water cycle is being pushed to the breaking point.
- Recent research has indicated that modifications to aspects of the water cycle are now causing Earth system destabilization at a scale that modern civilization might not have ever faced. That is already playing out in extreme weather events and long-term slow-onset climate alterations, with repercussions we don’t yet understand.
- There are no easy or simple solutions. To increase our chances of remaining in a “safe living space,” we need to reverse damage to the global hydrological cycle with large-scale interventions, including reductions in water use, and reversals of deforestation, land degradation, soil erosion, air pollution and climate change.

Indigenous agroforestry dying of thirst amid a sea of avocados in Mexico
- A rich tradition of cultivating and collecting medicinal plants in Mexico’s Michoacán state is at risk, as the Indigenous community behind it loses access to water.
- Avocado farms–mostly supplying the U.S. market–dominate water resources in the town of Angahuan, forcing Indigenous P’urhépecha healers to buy clean water by the gallon from shops to keep their medicinal plants alive.
- These healers, known as curanderas, have for generations grown a wide variety of such plants in agroforestry gardens that also combine fruits and vegetables, timber trees, and flowers.
- The P’urhépecha healers are resisting the impacts of avocado farms by planting trees in the hills to build up water resources while launching a natural pharmacy business in town, efforts for which the collective has already won an award from the state government.

‘Water grab’: Big farm deals leave small farmers out to dry, study shows
- Large agricultural investment projects are often promoted as a way to increase food production and food security, but a recent analysis indicates that such projects often threaten water resources that local farmers and Indigenous populations depend on.
- While such investments can increase crop yields through the expansion of irrigation, the majority of the 160 projects studied were found to be likely to intensify water shortages through both the adoption of water-intensive crops and the expansion of irrigated cultivation.
- In effect, the researchers say, such deals can amount to “water grabs,” creating a crisis for local farmers who now find themselves competing with big investors for limited water resources.

In Bangladesh, a community comes together to save a life-giving forest
- Several tribal settlements are spread across Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region, each with its own communally managed forest that residents can use.
- But the unchecked exploitation of the once-rich forests, a consequence of population growth, has led to local water holes drying up, forcing many residents to leave the villages.
- In one village, however, residents started an initiative with various programs aimed at conserving their forest and providing funding for alternative livelihoods to reduce members’ reliance on forest resources.
- The initiative in the village of Kamalchhori, which includes prohibitions on hunting and slash-and-burn farming, has seen local water sources restored and vegetation conserved.

Podcast: Vandana Shiva on the agroecology solution for the climate, biodiversity crisis and hunger
- On this episode we talk about agroecology, which applies ecological principles to agricultural systems and is considered an important strategy for both mitigating and adapting to global climate change as well as a solution to a number of the other ecological crises we’re facing.
- Dr. Maywa Montenegro, an assistant professor in the department of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to discuss agroecology as a science, a practice, and a movement.
- We also speak with Dr. Vandana Shiva, whose brand new book synthesizes decades of agroecology research and implementation.
- Dr. Shiva shares how agroecology is an effective solution not just to climate change but also to a host of other ecological crises humanity faces, such as water scarcity, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.

Better deep-bore wells aim to stop Indonesia’s groundwater waste
- Farmers in Pasuruan have long dug deep wells for irrigation, relying on the region’s volcanic aquifer to keep supplying plentiful water.
- But the wells are crude structures that lack a shutoff valve, meaning they discharge water nonstop.
- Researchers have developed an improved well system that can be shut off when not needed, but its cost is a potential downside for local farmers.

Freshwater planetary boundary “considerably” transgressed: New research
- Earth’s operating systems have stayed in relative balance for thousands of years, allowing the flourishing of civilization. However, humanity’s actions have resulted in the transgressing of multiple planetary boundaries, resulting in destabilization of those vital operating systems.
- This week scientists announced that humanity has transgressed the freshwater planetary boundary. Other boundaries already crossed are climate change, biosphere integrity, biogeochemical cycles (nitrogen and phosphorous pollution), land-system change, and novel entities (pollution by synthetic substances).
- In the past, the freshwater boundary was defined only by “blue water” — a measure of humanity’s use of lakes, rivers and groundwater. But scientists have now extended that definition to include “green water” — rainfall, evaporation and soil moisture.
- Scientists say soil moisture conditions are changing from boreal forests to the tropics, with abnormally dry and wet soils now common, risking biome changes. The Amazon, for example, is becoming far dryer, which could result in it reaching a rainforest-to-savanna tipping point, releasing large amounts of stored carbon.

Protecting water by conserving forests puts communities in Mexico to the test
- Almost 15 years ago, the inhabitants of eight towns in southern Mexico’s Costa Chica decided to conserve an area that provides them with water by setting aside five square kilometers of their land to create an ecological reserve.
- Previously, sewage from the largest municipality in the area was discharged into the rivers that communities used for washing, bathing and drinking.
- Conflicts initially broke out between communities over sharing water and contributions to the protection of the reserve, though the project has sensitized people to conservation and increased the amount of water in the spring.
- However, according to forestry experts, Mexico’s protected natural areas have exceeded the institution’s capacity and available resources, meaning the communities that manage the conservation of the reserve receive little institutional support.

As climate-driven drought slams farms in U.S. West, water solutions loom
- Drought in the U.S. West has been deepening for two decades, with no end in sight. Unfortunately for farmers, water use policies established in the early 20th century (a time of more plentiful rainfall), have left regulators struggling with their hands tied as they confront climate change challenges — especially intensifying drought.
- However, there is hope, as officials, communities and farmers strive to find innovative ways to save and more fairly share water. In Kansas and California, for example, new legislation has been passed to stave off dangerous groundwater declines threatening these states’ vital agricultural economies.
- Experts say that while an overhaul of the water allocation system in the West is needed, along with a coherent national water policy, extreme measures could be disruptive. But there are opportunities to realize incremental solutions now. Key among them is bridging a gap between federal water programs and farmers.
- A major concern is the trend toward single crop industrial agribusiness in semi-arid regions and the growing of water-intensive crops for export, such as corn and rice, which severely depletes groundwater. Ultimately, 20th century U.S. farm policies will need to yield to flexible 21st century policies that deal with unfolding climate change.

From flood to drought, Brazil’s Acre state swings between weather extremes
- Extreme weather conditions, from massive flooding to severe water shortages, have rocked cities and small communities alike in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon this year, a trend experts attribute to climate change and human actions.
- The Acre River, which crosses the state of same name in the western Brazilian Amazon, is experiencing its second-worst drought in recorded history, with water levels close to record lows.
- The water shortage comes just months after the same region experienced widespread flooding as the Acre River overflowed its banks and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
- Brazil as a whole is facing its worst dry spell in nearly a century, which is affecting water supplies for people, agriculture and electricity generation, and is part of a global pattern of increased water stress.

As populations grow, how will thirsty cities survive their drier futures?
- The world’s rapidly expanding cities are on a collision course with climate change, presenting unprecedented challenges to municipal and national governments as they work to continue providing residents with access to safe and sufficient water.
- Increasingly, calls are made to rethink the way we develop urban watersheds and the way we live in them — with water sourcing, transport, use and reuse planning key to the process. One approach, water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) entails a complete reimagining of the role and use of water in urban areas.
- WSUD embraces the water cycle, and considers the entire watershed where cities are located. It uses green infrastructure such as permeable pavements, green roofs and rain gardens, to greatly reduce stormwater runoff. Conscious design allows water to be recycled and reused repeatedly for various purposes. Waste is greatly reduced.
- Some cities are already changing their development pathways to be more resilient to inevitable future climate extremes, with Singapore and Cape Town leading the way. Future water stress can be overcome, but work needs to start now before extreme weather events, including mega droughts and floods, hit.

A world of hurt: 2021 climate disasters raise alarm over food security
- Human-driven climate change is fueling weather extremes — from record drought to massive floods — that are hammering key agricultural regions around the world.
- From the grain heartland of Argentina to the tomato belt of California to the pork hub of China, extreme weather events have driven down output and driven up global commodity prices.
- Shortages of water and food have, in turn, prompted political and social strife in 2021, including food protests in Iran and hunger in Madagascar, and threaten to bring escalating misery, civil unrest and war in coming years.
- Experts warn the problem will only intensify, even in regions currently unaffected by, or thriving from the high prices caused by scarcity. Global transformational change is urgently needed in agricultural production and consumption patterns, say experts.

Cerrado desertification: Savanna could collapse within 30 years, says study
- Deforestation is amplifying climate change effects in the Brazilian Cerrado savanna biome, making it much hotter and drier. Researchers observed monthly increases of 2.24°C (4.03°F) in average maximum temperatures between 1961 and 2019. If this trend persists, temperature could be 6°C (10.8°F) higher in 2050 than in 1961.
- Cerrado air moisture is decreasing partly due to the removal of trees, which bring water up from as much as 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) underground to carry on photosynthesis during the dry season. Replacement of native vegetation by crops also reduces the absorption of sunlight by wild plants and leads to an increase in temperature.
- Even dew, the only source of water for smaller plants and many insects during the dry season, is being reduced due to deforestation and deepening drought. The demise of pollinators that rely on dew may prompt a cascading effect adversely impacting the biome’s biodiversity, which could collapse in the next 30 years.
- The Cerrado is often called Brazil’s “water tank,” as it is the source of eight of 12 Brazilian river basins. Its looming biome collapse and deepening drought mean less water for rural and urban populations and for agriculture. Low flows in rivers will also affect hydropower, likely causing energy shortages.

Study puts 2050 deadline on tipping point for Mekong Delta salinity
- The increasing salinity in Mekong Delta is currently being driven by the building of dams upstream and sand mining downstream, but climate change will likely be the predominant factor by 2050, a new study shows.
- The Mekong Delta is a key farming region, and already more frequent and extensive saltwater intrusion is killing off large swaths of crops with greater frequency.
- The study’s authors say regional stakeholders need to address the anthropogenic drivers of saltwater intrusion in the delta now, before climate change makes it a global problem.
- The study also has implications for other delta systems across Asia, which face similar pressures, both anthropogenic and climate change-driven.

Amazon and Cerrado deforestation, warming spark record drought in urban Brazil
- Southern and central Brazil are in the midst of the worst drought in nearly 100 years, with agribusiness exports of coffee and sugar, and the production of hydroelectric power, at grave risk.
- According to researchers, the drought, now in its second year, likely has two main causes: climate change, which tends to make continental interiors both hotter and drier, and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna biomes.
- Deforestation has caused the loss of almost half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation, which helps hold vast amounts of water underground, maintaining aquifers that supply the nation’s rivers with water. In the Amazon, rainforest loss is preventing billions of tons of water vapor from reaching the atmosphere.
- President Jair Bolsonaro acknowledges neither climate change nor deforestation as sources of the drought, but attributes it instead to the country and himself being “unlucky.” The administration’s drought response so far is to reactivate fossil-fuel power plants, which pollute heavily and are costly to operate.

Humanity’s challenge of the century: Conserving Earth’s freshwater systems
- Many dryland cities like Los Angeles, Cairo and Tehran have already outstripped natural water recharge, but are expected to continue growing, resulting in a deepening arid urban water crisis.
- According to NASA’s GRACE mission, 19 key freshwater basins, including several in the U.S., are being unsustainably depleted, with some near collapse; much of the water is used indiscriminately by industrial agribusiness.
- Many desert cities, including Tripoli, Phoenix and Los Angeles, are sustained by water brought from other basins by hydro megaprojects that are aging and susceptible to collapse, while the desalination plants that water Persian Gulf cities come at a high economic cost with serious salt pollution.
- Experts say that thinking about the problem as one of supply disguises the real issue, given that what’s really missing to heading off a global freshwater crisis is the organization, capital, governance and political will to address the problems that come with regulating use of a renewable, but finite, resource.

Sri Lanka to ban palm oil imports, raze plantations over environmental concerns
- Sri Lanka has imposed a ban on palm oil imports and ordered oil palm plantations in the country to be replaced with rubber trees and other crops over the next decade, citing adverse environmental and social impacts.
- The decision is based on recommendations from a 2018 report by a panel of environmental experts, who linked oil palm plantations to soil erosion and the drying up of water sources.
- Unlike in other countries where the crop is grown, oil palms aren’t a driver of deforestation in Sri Lanka; instead, they’ve replaced rubber plantations, which host a higher level of biodiversity and provide more jobs for locals.
- Another concern is that oil palm is becoming an invasive species, occurring in the wild in a forest reserve, with as-yet-unknown impacts on native flora and fauna.

Water crisis in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara linked to mining, observers say
- Many parts of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province have experienced a shortage of clean water shortage since last year.
- Environmental activists attribute the problem to environmental degradation in forested water catchment areas, including by mining companies.
- Women and children in several areas have to walk up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) to get water from privately run tanker trucks.
- Even in the provincial capital, Kupang, 36% of households reportedly lack access to clean water.

Ecuadoran water fund transforms consumers into conservationists
- The Regional Water Fund of Southern Ecuador (FORAGUA) operates in 14 municipalities, serving 500,000 residents, and has restored 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of land and put an additional 337,000 hectares (833,000 acres) under conservation.
- By 2030, the fund aims to work in 39 municipalities, serving 1 million people and conserving 600,000 hectares (1.48 million acres) of land.
- A pilot project to incentivize landowners to rewild their properties and take up alternative livelihoods shows that where landowners could earn 50 times more per hectare cultivating guanabana, a local fruit, than raising cattle.
- Municipal residents pay on average $1 per month to FORAGUA for their water consumption, with 90% of funds raised going to conservation projects.

Scientists warn of looming water crisis with millions of wells at risk
- A recent study in Science has found that up to a fifth of wells worldwide are at risk of running dry.
- The researchers analyzed data about 39 million wells and estimated that between 6 and 20% of the wells were at risk of drying if the water table dipped a few meters.
- Digging deeper is not always feasible because water quality may be poorer and deeper wells are more expensive to build.
- As groundwater reserves diminish, wealthier sections of societies would be better positioned to access them, leading to deepening inequalities, a related commentary in the journal said.

Reforested areas rival mature forests in securing water, study finds
- New research from Madagascar shows that young scrubby forests can in some ways be better at retaining water than older mature forests.
- They provide similar benefits in preventing runoff but use up lesser water, according to a recently published paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
- However, some hydrologists say the effects of evapotranspiration, water released back into the atmosphere by trees, on rainfall in areas farther afield must not be ignored.
- If scrubby forests are as efficient as older ones in retaining water, it means reforestation boosts water resources available to communities who take part in reforestation drives.

Indigenous leaders killed in Philippines were ‘red-tagged’ over dam opposition
- The killing of nine Indigenous leaders by police during an operation in the central Philippines on Dec. 30, 2020, has drawn widespread condemnation from environmental and human rights groups, politicians, lawyers, and Catholic bishops.
- Police allege that those killed, and another 16 arrested, were supporters of the NPA, the armed wing of the banned communist party.
- But supporters of the Indigenous Tumandok community on Panay Island say they were targeted for their opposition to two dam projects in their ancestral domain.
- One of the projects, on the Jalaur River, is largely funded through a $208 million loan from the South Korean government.

Dusty winds exacerbate looming famine in Madagascar’s deep south
- At least 1.27 million people need humanitarian assistance in Madagascar’s drought-hit deep south, according to a Jan. 18 request by the U.N. and the Malagasy government for $75.9 million in international aid to cope with the crisis.
- The area is also experiencing dust and sand storms, a natural phenomenon known as a tiomena that is exacerbating the crisis by smothering crops, forests, buildings and roads.
- Tiomenas may be increasingly common as southern Madagascar undergoes a long-term drying trend.
- Experts say upgrading the area’s water supply system is an urgent priority and recommend massive tree planting to provide wind breaks, protect soils from erosion and create more humidity.

For global wetlands, intensifying droughts pose a ‘diabolical’ threat
- Covering almost one-tenth of the land area of Earth, places with wet soils provide an estimated $27 trillion in benefits to humanity per year, but, according to a newly published review paper, researchers still have much to learn about the effects of drought on wet soils.
- The review, which draws upon more than 200 published studies, says “drought poses a significant threat to wet soils, a threat which can be difficult to determine before an event but which poses a catastrophic risk to some sites.”
- Among the “most pressing” findings of the review are that published information on the effects of drought on wet soils is absent for most parts of the world outside Europe, North America and Australia, and that there’s very little research that can be applied to water management.
- The review also discusses the ramifications of droughts to climate change: As wet soils dry, increased oxygen content in the soil speeds up decomposition, releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

World Bank-backed attempt to commercialize Madagascar’s beef industry falters
- In 2018, the IFC, the arm of the World Bank that invests in the private sector, approved a $7 million investment in a company that wanted to buy zebu cattle from farmers in Madagascar and export the beef mainly to rich Middle Eastern countries.
- The BoViMA project hit a major roadblock when Malagasy President Andry Rajoelina banned the export of zebus last year, and has failed to recover.
- Despite being aimed at reducing poverty, the project has invited scrutiny for its potential impacts on food security, especially the sourcing of human-edible crops for cattle feed in one of the poorest and most water-scarce regions in the world.
- When fully operational, the slaughterhouse and feedlot would require 120,000 tons of feed and 150 million liters of water a year.

In the Ecuadoran Andes, protectors of the páramos guard their water source
- Climate change and human intervention, including mining, are a big threat to water security in the region.
- Through its water fund, Fonag, Ecuador is facing these challenges in an innovative way.
- The secret to the fund’s success is that it is inclusive, engaging a wide spectrum of stakeholders to ensure the continued protection of the páramos.

A watery onslaught from sea, sky and land in the world’s fastest-sinking city
- The Indonesian capital has 300 days of rain a year and 13 rivers running through it, so it doesn’t lack freshwater; but rampant development has left much of its area paved over, preventing this water from replenishing the aquifers.
- Instead, the water it gets — from rain and from rivers — often leads to flooding because it can’t be absorbed into the ground and can’t run out to sea.
- City authorities and planning experts agree that the extraction of water from the aquifers must end, but to do so will require providing universal access to clean water.
- Efforts are underway to clean up waterways, educate the public to not dump waste in rivers, and build infiltration wells that will allow the earth to once again capture rainwater.

US economy will take biggest hit if we continue with business as usual: report
- New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally.
- Researchers found that if we simply continue under the status quo, the global economy will lose at least $479 billion a year, adding up to nearly $10 trillion in losses by 2050, as compared to the “baseline” scenario in which there is no change in ecosystem services over the next 30 years.
- Of the 140 countries included in the study, the United States stands to take the biggest economic hit, losing $83 billion per year by 2050 under this “business as usual” scenario that includes intense consumption of energy and raw materials, widespread land-use change, ongoing rises in greenhouse gas emissions, and continued loss of biodiversity.

Mining could topple community-managed forests in Mexico: New film
- Community residents in the state of Puebla in southeastern Mexico are concerned about the exploration for gold currently underway in their region.
- Mining concessions currently cover around 30% of the state.
- Opponents of the project say it will sap vital water sources and destroy the local economy, which is currently based on sustainable management of forests for timber, farming and ecotourism.

A Philippine tribe that defeated a dam prepares to fight its reincarnation
- The Dumagat-Remontado indigenous group has ancestral domain claims in an area where the Philippine government plans to build a dam to supply water to Metro Manila and nearby urban areas.
- The Kaliwa Dam is part of the New Centennial Water Source (NCWS), a project for which President Rodrigo Duterte has secured with a $235.9 million loan deal from China.
- The indigenous community defeated a previous iteration of this project, when a much larger dam was proposed in 2009, but the project has since been revised to call for nine smaller dams — an approach that observers say will undermine the resistance to the project.
- Five out of six community clusters voted to reject the Kaliwa Dam project, but the environment department still issued an environmental compliance certificate to the contractors; Duterte has also warned of the use of “extraordinary powers” to push the project through, raising the prospect of another show of mass resistance.

Controversial dam gets green light to flood a Philippine protected area
- The environment department has issued an environmental compliance certificate that allows the contested Kaliwa Dam project in the Sierra Madre mountain range to go ahead, part of a wider push to secure water supplies for Manila and surrounding areas.
- The certificate is one of the last sets of documents required by the developers for the project being funded by a $238.3 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.
- Yet its issuance comes despite a government-conducted environmental impact assessment showing that the dam’s reservoir alone will endanger endemic wildlife and plants, drive massive species migration, and pose risks to lowland agricultural and fishing communities with a history of flash flooding.
- The site of the planned dam falls within the Kaliwa watershed forest reserve, which has been designated a natural wildlife park sanctuary and game refuge, and an IUCN Category V Protected Landscape/Seascape.

Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Deforestation in the village of Cibulao on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, left it prone to droughts in the dry season and landslides in the rainy season.
- That changed in the early 2000s when a local tea plantation worker named Kiryono began replanting the slopes with seeds foraged from the nearby forest.
- Among those seeds were coffee seeds taken from wild coffee trees, and with training and the help of his family, Kiryono today produces some of the most prized coffee in Indonesia.
- The village is also greener now, thanks to Kiryono’s replanting efforts, and the local farmers’ cooperative hopes to expand on that work by applying for the right to manage a larger area of land.

Climate adaptation begins with how we manage water (commentary)
- Some 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is used for agriculture, but cities and other sectors have growing demands on the same water resources. To adapt to climate change without undermining food security and farmers’ livelihoods, we will have to fundamentally rethink agricultural water usage, our food systems, and our diets.
- A major new report from the Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA) makes this case loud and clear. The report urges us to face the fact that climate change will require ‘massive’ adaptation. It urges us to meet this challenge with urgency and resolve.
- The GCA report paints a sobering picture of our water and food security futures. We can and must adapt more quickly and effectively. Adaptive water management is an important place to start.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

For Indonesia’s Kendari Bay, silting is a death sentence
- Researchers say the Kendari Bay, on the island of Sulawesi, is rapidly disappearing.
- The main culprit is land clearing for development projects around the bay and the rivers the feed it. The land clearing releases sediment into the water that eventually settles on the bottom of the bay.
- The bay may be decades from filling up completely, but studies suggest hope of saving its plant and animal life may already be lost.

As climate chaos escalates in Indian Country, feds abandon tribes
- South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Oglalla Sioux Indian Reservation is one of the most impoverished places in the U.S. But in 2018 and 2019, the reservation was struck by two horrific storms — with economic harm to their homes and livelihoods that the community’s low income residents have found it extraordinarily difficult to absorb.
- High Plains weather has been getting more variable, erratic and destructive: in 2011 came severe drought and wildfires, followed in 2012 by severe flooding. Sometimes these oscillations take the form of high-powered storms, with a rash of tornadoes in 2016, a destructive ice storm in 2018, and a bomb cyclone in 2019.
- According to the National Climate Assessment issued at the end of 2018, “Climate change is expected to exacerbate these [extreme weather] challenges.” But starting with Bill Clinton and continuing under Donald Trump, the federal government has severely slashed federal aid to Indian reservations and their low income residents.
- As a result, Pine Ridge is increasingly forced to rely on its own resources and on creative solutions, including crowdfunded local and national volunteer teams who have risen to the challenge and helped the communities repair storm damage. But as extreme weather intensifies on the High Plains, surviving there will get tougher.

Deforestation diminishes access to clean water, study finds
- A recent study compared deforestation data and information on household access to clean water in Malawi.
- The scientists found that the country lost 14 percent of its forest between 2000 and 2010, which had the same effect on access to safe drinking water as a 9 percent decrease in rainfall.
- With higher rainfall variability expected in today’s changing climate, the authors suggest that a larger area of forest in countries like Malawi could be a buffer against the impacts of climate change.

Environmental issues among top priorities of urban Indian voters: Report
- With India just a few weeks away from the general elections, a new survey has found that clean drinking water and agriculture-related governance issues feature prominently in the Indian voters’ list of priorities.
- High levels of water and air pollution, which have been plaguing Indian cities over the past few years, were not a top priority nationally but were of importance to the urban voters.
- Some other environment-related concerns that found a place in the overall list of the voters’ priorities include sand and stone quarrying, traffic congestion, river and lake pollution, and noise pollution.

Days of darkness: Venezuelan national emergency is also environmental crisis
- Venezuela, once a shining star of economic prosperity in Latin America, continues its plummet into chaos — a cauldron of human suffering in which the environment is also a victim.
- This month’s nationwide blackout, according to eyewitness accounts, saw courageous Venezuelans coming together to help each other as their government failed to respond effectively. It was the nation’s most recent crisis, though likely not its last.
- News reports from inside the country remain sketchy. But with the lights back on, his Internet connection restored, Venezuelan contributor Jeanfreddy Gutiérrez Torres offers Mongabay readers an exclusive firsthand account of Venezuela’s days of darkness.

Tiny subterranean Texas salamanders could be extinct in 100 years
- A recent study has revealed the existence of three previously undescribed species living underground within an aquifer system in Central Texas.
- The authors say one of these species is critically endangered due to human over-use of the aquifer. In all, they say that this unsustainable use could mean the extinction of all aquifer salamanders in the next century.
- The researchers urge the creation of policies that would regulate groundwater usage, as well as greater protection of particularly at-risk species through the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Colombia: Dying of thirst, Wayuu blame mine, dam, drought for water woes
- The struggle for access to safe and sufficient water for drinking and irrigation defines life for the indigenous Wayuu of La Guajira, Colombia’s northernmost department.
- Activists have described the Wayuu as being in the throes of a humanitarian crisis, with Wayuu children suffering high rates of malnutrition and death as a result of water and food scarcity.
- The Wayuu blame their thirst mainly on the Cerrejón coal mine, which they say drains water from the local river and groundwater and pollutes what’s left. A dam built by the government to provide water in times of drought has only made matters worse, they say.
- However, Cerrejón disputes the notion that it is seriously affecting the tribe, while the government defends decisions that have compromised the Wayuu’s water access.

New climate change report highlights grave dangers for Vietnam
- Vietnam is among the most vulnerable nations to climate change impacts according to a recent International Panel on Climate Change report.
- The country’s diverse geography means it is hit by typhoons, landslides, flooding and droughts, weather events expected to worsen in coming years.
- Research has found that Vietnam is also home to abundant renewable energy potential, which could help alleviate some of these threats.

Stay or go? Understanding a partial seasonal elephant migration
- Elephants in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park wearing GPS tracking tags shared a general dry-season home range but followed three different wet-season migration strategies: residency, short-distance migration, and long-distance migration.
- Despite similar dry-season conditions that kept all the tagged elephants near provisioned waterholes, the migrating elephants began their seasonal movements at the onset of the first rains.
- Scientists urge collaboration among stakeholders and countries to maintain the long-distance, cross-border migrations some animals need to survive.

Pay more attention to forests to avert global water crisis, researchers urge
- According to a new report, the growing human population and climate change are exacerbating a looming global water crisis that has already hit home in places like Australia’s Murray Darling basin — but the crisis could potentially be averted if humans paid more attention to the links between forests and water.
- Despite the links between the global climate, forests, people, and water, international bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have tended to view carbon sequestration as the chief role of forests and trees.
- Report co-editor Meine van Noordwijk, chief scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Indonesia and a professor of agroforestry at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, warns that we ignore the importance of water in the climate debate at our own peril.

A wish list for an environmentally friendly NAFTA
- The renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been progressing along a very rocky path, with the U.S., Canada and Mexico all threatening at one point or another to exit the pact. But slow progress is being made toward a new agreement.
- However, experts warn that the resulting trade treaty is unlikely to benefit the environment and the general public, unless major changes are made. These proposed NAFTA alterations, as outlined in this story, could also provide a template for future enviro-friendly international trade agreements.
- Among the changes needed: remove NAFTA Chapter 11 or reform the ISDS, remove any reference to water as a common commodity, remove the energy proportionality rule, include the Paris Climate Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals, and protect supply management and sustainable agriculture.
- Also, axe regulatory cooperation and harmonization, fully fund the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) and give it some teeth, Acknowledge indigenous and native rights (not free trade incentives), and most importantly: make a place at the bargaining table for the people and the planet.

Gaza City residents’ water problems continue to compound
- Locked between increasingly-polluted seascape and the borders of one of the most tightly-controlled enclaves in the world, Gaza City residents say the water has become so polluted they can no longer go swimming.
- Situated at the borders of Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea, Gaza’s 2 million residents fear that an ongoing electricity crisis has pushed their maritime ecosystem past the brink.
- 80 percent of Gaza’s Mediterranean Sea coastline is thought to be polluted and families who used to rely on it for livelihoods and leisure now fear its waters.

Mexico City dwellers shoulder future of their urban ‘Water Forest’
- The territory, which conservationists and area residents are working to preserve, includes a large swath of southern Mexico City.
- The term “urban forest” typically describes public parkland or a collection of shade trees, but Mexico City’s Water Forest is an actual forest.
- The Water Forest also hosts endangered volcano rabbits (Romerolagus diazi) and Sierra Madre Sparrows (Xenospiza baileyi) as well as pumas, bobcats, white-tailed deer, and at least 10 percent of the bird species known in Mexico.

So long, UNESCO! What does U.S. withdrawal mean for the environment?
- Since 2011, the U.S. has refused to pay its agreed to share to UNESCO as a Member Nation who has participated in and benefited from the organization’s scientific, environmental and sustainability programs. Now, President Trump has announced U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO, effective at the end of 2018.
- Experts say the pullout won’t in fact do any major damage to the organization, with most of the harm done to UNESCO when the U.S. went into arrears starting in 2011, with unpaid dues now totaling roughly $550 million. However, America’s failure to participate could hurt millions of Americans.
- UNESCO science initiatives are international and deal multilaterally with a variety of environmental issues ranging from basic earth science, climate change, freshwater, oceans, mining, and international interrelationships between indigenous, rural and urban communities.
- Among the most famous of UNESCO science programs are the Man and the Biosphere Programme and the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, now including 669 sites in 120 countries, including the United States.

Trump’s global resorts put profit first, environment last, critics say
- Donald Trump’s negative environmental record in Scotland and elsewhere has conservationists concerned in Bali, where Trump firms are developing a major resort and golf facility known as Trump International Hotel & Tower Bali.
- Another resort under development, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Lido, a 700-hectare facility including a six-star luxury resort, theme park, country club, spa, villas, condos and 18-hole golf course threatens the nearby Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, one of Java’s last virgin tropical forests.
- Mongabay looked into Trump’s claims that he is an environmentalist, winning “many, many environmental awards.” We were able to locate just two — one a local New York award, and another granted by a golf business association. The Trump Organization did not respond to requests to list Mr. Trump’s awards.
- Trump’s environmental record as president, and as a businessman, is abysmal, say critics. His attempt to defund the U.S. Energy Star program, they say, is typical of a compulsion to protect his self interest: Energy Star has given poor ratings to nearly all Trump’s hotels, which experts note has possibly impacted his bottom line.

Trump budget threatens Zimbabwe climate change resilience programs
- President Trump has threatened to cut U.S. aid to developing nations by a third. This could impact Zimbabwe which receives $150 million annually to decrease food insecurity for 2.1 million people.
- Aid to Zimbabwe is important to rural farmers, victims of escalating drought due to climate change. USAID finances dams and irrigation projects, making agriculture sustainable.
- The 2018 budget isn’t due to be finalized by Congress until October 1, 2017, leaving Zimbabwe’s people in uncertainty as to the direly needed aid.
- What seems certain is that the climate resilience program will not be expanded to meet the needs of yet to be served Zimbabwean communities.

Extinction in the wild looms for two California fish (commentary)
- The delta smelt is a three-to-four-inch long, silvery-blue fish that has long been at the center of California’s contentious water wars.
- The species lives only in the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and its numbers have been declining for decades as enormous quantities of freshwater are diverted through the state’s vast network of aqueducts and canals.
- The freshwater river flow also replenished Chinook salmon spawning grounds and freshened habitats (reducing salinity) in San Francisco Bay for waterfowl, Dungeness crab, and countless other aquatic flora and fauna in an immense system of sloughs, mudflats, and marshes. Now, however, most of that water is diverted to California’s thirsty farms and clamoring, growing cities.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

An indigenous group reforests its corner of coastal New Guinea
- Residents of Yepem on the Indonesian half of New Guinea island are undertaking a reforestation project with the local government.
- Respect for nature is a fundamental part of the worldview of the local Asmat people.
- Locals’ biggest problem is a lack of clean water.

Pressure over water in Brazil puts pulp industry in the spotlight
- Brazil is the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus-derived pulp and the state of Espírito Santo is one of its biggest production centers.
- More than a third of the state, which was once rich in Atlantic Forest, is at risk of becoming desert.
- The region faces one of the worst droughts in its history, which is causing billions in losses.

The cousins from Indonesia who revived an ancient spring
- A major reforestation effort is underway in the eastern part of Indonesia’s Flores island.
- It began when residents Markus Hayon and Damianus Pelada set out to restore an area around an ancestral spring that had all but dried up after an earthquake in the 1980s.
- The cousins proceeded to plant thousands of trees — though not without some challenges along the way.

NASA scientists find connection between fires and droughts in sub-Saharan Africa
- The Northern Sub-Saharan African region accounts for 20 to 25 percent of global carbon emissions from biomass burning.
- Just like overgrazing, fires set by herders and farmers to clear the land dries out the soil and disrupts the local hydrological system, including rainfall patterns.
- A team of researchers led by scientists at NASA used satellite records from 2001 to 2014 to analyze what impact fires had on soil moisture, precipitation, evapotranspiration, and other water cycle indicators.

Battling India’s Sand Barons
- Tamil Nadu’s sand is in high demand for the construction industry, causing great damage to the Indian state’s extensive network of rivers. Profits and corruption are high, illegal mining is rampant, and attacks on those opposed to the industry are commonplace, according to S. Mugilan.
- Mugilan has been taking on polluters across Tamil Nadu for more than two decades, and has been attacked, arrested, and jailed for his work.
- He is currently in the hospital, fasting to protest the police preventing him from handing out voter pamphlets opposing two prominent political candidates.

Two-thirds of the world’s population doesn’t have reliable access to fresh water
- Researchers say two-thirds of the global population — some four billion people, half of them in India or China — live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month out of the year.
- As many as half a billion people face severe water scarcity all year.
- The majority of water usage is for food, researchers say, so water scarcity primarily means decreasing or failing crop yields.

Raja Ampat fires destroy livelihoods; Sumatrans suffer from drought amid haze
- Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla called on all Muslims to pray for rain on Wednesday and to ask God for “forgiveness, guidance and mercy.”
- An aide to Kalla said companies could announce force majeur if the government declared a national disaster.
- Malaysia continues to push Indonesia to adopt tube wells in its peatlands in Kalimantan and Riau.

Lima to restore pre-Incan aqueducts to alleviate its water crisis

Andean community leaders show hydrologists and project developers from Lima damaged amunas. These pre-Incan canals collect excess river water in the wet season so it can recharge pools and groundwater supplies for use in the dry season. Credit: Gena Gammie. To tackle a looming water crisis, the city of Lima, Peru, is planning a series […]
Kaiduan dam in Borneo meets fierce opposition

Mt. Kinabalu, in the Crocker Range of Sabah, Malaysia, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Part of the Crocker Range would be flooded if the Kaiduan dam is built. Credit: Shankar S. Activists are calling on the government of Sabah, Malaysia, to reconsider the proposed Kaiduan dam, saying the Infrastructure Development Ministry (IDM) has not considered other […]
U.S. Central Plains and Southwest will likely face apocalyptic drought

Researchers find 80 percent chance of megadrought in American West due to climate change this century Dust storm in Texas during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. New research finds that the American West is set to face a megadrought, worst than the Dust Bowl, in the next century due to climate change. Photo by: […]
Apocalypse now? Climate change already damaging agriculture, acidifying seas, and worsening extreme weather

It’s not just melting glaciers and bizarrely-early Springs anymore; climate change is impacting every facet of human civilization from our ability to grow enough crops to our ability to get along with each other, according to a new 2,300-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The massive report, from the Nobel Prize-winning […]
The price of gold: winners and losers in Latin America’s mining industry

On a Friday afternoon in June, the Plaza de Armas in Cajamarca is pulsing with life. It’s winter here, and although thick white clouds hover low in the distance, the sun in this northern Peruvian city is warm. Couples sit on benches facing one another. Kids run in the grass between flowerbeds. Men in suits […]
Is Brazil’s epic drought a taste of the future?

With more than 140 cities implementing water rationing, analysts warning of collapsing soy and coffee exports, and reservoirs and rivers running precipitously low, talk about the World Cup in some parts of Brazil has been sidelined by concerns about an epic drought affecting the country’s agricultural heartland. With its rise as an agricultural superpower over […]
Bangladesh plans massive coal plant in world’s biggest mangrove forest

This is an expanded version of an article that ran on Yale e360 on October 29th, 2013: A Key Mangrove Forest Faces Major Threat from a Coal Plant. Bengal tiger in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. Photo by: Steve Winter/National Geographic and Panthera. On October 22nd Bangladeshi and Indian officials were supposed to hold a ceremony […]
Fracking sucks up all the water from Texas town

Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where […]
Water crisis widening: 4.5 billion people live near ‘impaired water sources’

The majority of the 9 billion people on Earth will live with severe pressure on fresh water within the space of two generations as climate change, pollution and over-use of resources take their toll, 500 scientists have warned. The world’s water systems would soon reach a tipping point that “could trigger irreversible change with potentially […]
What if companies actually had to compensate society for environmental destruction?

The environment is a public good. We all share and depend on clean water, a stable atmosphere, and abundant biodiversity for survival, not to mention health and societal well-being. But under our current global economy, industries can often destroy and pollute the environment—degrading public health and communities—without paying adequate compensation to the public good. Economists […]
Up for grabs: how foreign investments are redistributing land and water across the globe

In 2007, the increased human population, increased prices in fuel and transportation costs, and an increased demand for a diversity of food products prompted a Global Food Crisis. Agricultural producers and government leaders world-wide struggled to procure stable food sources for their countries. But the crisis had impacts beyond 2007: it was also the impetus […]
Iraqi who is bringing back the Garden of Eden wins top environment award

The vast Mesoptomian marshes in southern Iraq were said to be the site of the original Garden of Eden. On their fringes have risen and fallen 12,000 years of Sumerian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian and Arab civilizations. Organized farming is thought to have begun here, as did the first cities and writing. In legend, Gilgamesh fell […]
WWF and National Geographic ask: ‘How much stuff do you need?’

Seven billion people inhabit the planet and all require food and water, but less than one percent of the water found on the planet is fresh and accessible and 70 percent of that goes to growing crops. Meanwhile temperatures are rising worldwide due to the overuse of fossil fuel energy. Given these issues, a new […]
Over $8 billion invested in watersheds in 2011

How a sample payment for ecosystem services project works. Click to enlarge. Unlike cars, hamburgers, and computers, clean drinking water is a requirement for human survival. In a bid to safeguard this essential resource, more and more nations are moving toward protecting ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, and streams. In fact, according to a new […]
Forests in Kenya worth much more intact says government report

Loita hills forest in Kenya. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Kenya’s forests provide greater services and wealth to the nation when they are left standing. A landmark report by The Kenyan Government and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) addresses the importance of forests to the well-being of the nation, putting Kenya among a pioneering […]
Climate change melting glaciers in the Andes

Pastoruri Glacier. Photo by: Edubucher/Wikimedia Commons. Glaciers are melting faster than ever in the tropical Andes, warns a new study published in The Cryosphere, which puts the blame for vanishing glaciers squarely on climate change. The study — the most comprehensive to date — found that since the 1970s glacier melt in the region has […]
Improving food and water efficiency a must for the next generation

Mwamanongu Village water source in Tanzania.. Photo by: Bob Metcalf. This summer, while climate change silence reigned in the U.S. presidential race, the Stockholm International Water Institute’s conference for World Water Week focused on the global initiatives required in order to live with its effects. The report, titled “Feeding a Thirsty World,” garnered the most […]
Mekong dam spree could create regional food crisis

A fisherman on the Mekong River in Laos. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Fish are a hugely important protein source for many people around the world. This is no more evident than along the lower Mekong River delta where an estimated 48 million people depend directly on the river for food and livelihoods. But now […]
Drought pits farmers against frackers

Drought has created a standoff over water supplies in the U.S. Midwest between energy producers and farmers, reports Bloomberg. Natural gas and oil producers have been forced to seek new water sources as they mull calls from farmers and activists to recycle their water, a practice that would make ‘fracking’ more expensive. Already hugely controversial, […]
Charting a new environmental course in China

An interview with the Nature Conservancy’s China Program. TNC staff and volunteers repairing signage at Meili Snow Mountain National Park in northwest Yunnan. Community benefits and ecotourism are at the heart of TNC’s program to establish national parks in China. Photo by: Tang Ling. Founded in 1951, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) works in more than […]
Consumption, population, and declining Earth: wake-up call for Rio+20

Suburban sprawl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The average American’s ecological footprint is the fifth highest in the world. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Human society is consuming natural resources as if there were one-and-a-half Earths, and not just a single blue planet, according to the most recent Living Planet Report released today. If governments and societies […]
Featured video: climate, water, and desperation in Texas
As a part of PBS’ new series Coping with Climate Change reporters visit several towns in Texas which has suffered unprecedented drought beginning in 2010. The drought, which climatologists say is consistent with climate change predictions, has led to forest fires, vast tree mortalities, agricultural and livestock losses, and water shortages. A government report in […]
Turkey’s rich biodiversity at risk

Turkey’s stunning landscapes and wildlife are under threat due to government ambivalence. Here, the sun sets outside Igdir, Turkey. Photo by: Cagan Sekercioglu. Turkey: the splendor of the Hagia Sophia, the ruins of Ephesus, and the bizarre caves of the Cappadocia. For foreign travelers, Turkey is a nation of cultural, religious, and historic wonders: a […]
United Nations meets clean water goal

Access to clean water is most difficult in Africa. Here a woman in Tanzania gathers water from a hole in a riverbed. Photo by: Bob Metcalf. Over the past two decades (1990-2010) over two billion people have received access to improved drinking water, bringing the current number of people worldwide who have access to better […]
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2011

Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested for civil disobedience against the Keystone XL Pipeline in the U.S. In all, 1,252 people were arrested in the two week long action. Photo by: […]
11 challenges facing 7 billion super-consumers

The Turkana tribe of northern Kenya are buffeted by constant drought and food insecurity, which recent research says may be worsening due to climate change. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about Halloween this year is not the ghouls and goblins taking to the streets, but a baby born somewhere in […]
New organization seeks to make biofuels sustainable, but is it possible?
Not too long ago policy-makers, scientists, and environmentalists saw biofuels as a significant tool to provide sustainable energy to the world. However, as it became clear that biofuels were not only connected to deforestation, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions (sometimes exceeding fossil fuels), but also competed with the global food supply and water sources, biofuels […]
Want water? save forests

The UN-backed Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) is urging nations to conserve their forests in a bid to mitigate rising water scarcity problems. “[Forests] reduce the effects of floods, prevent soil erosion, regulate the water table and assure a high-quality water supply for people, industry and agriculture,” said the Forestry Department Assistant Director General, Eduardo […]

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