Blog

This blog series features interviews with the winners of the 2020 Climatelinks Photo Contest. This photo, submitted on behalf of Guatemala’s USAID Biodiversity Project, is available on the Climatelinks Photo Gallery.

• 03/10/2021
• Climatelinks

BiodiversityLinks, USAID’s newly refreshed and relaunched knowledge portal for biodiversity conservation, features key USAID tools and resources, as well as new evidence and learning.

• 03/09/2021
• Climatelinks

As one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, Peru has an abundance of natural resources that have represented natural wealth throughout the nation’s history. However, this richness is not often fully understood and has been unsustainably managed as a result. Over the past decade, an increasing turn toward a green economy has helped shift the way that Peru’s natural resources are viewed.

• 04/24/2020
• Paloma Vásquez

Half of the world’s total mangrove deforestation since 2000 has been in Indonesia, where the main driver has been conversion for shrimp ponds. A new cost-benefit analysis by the USAID-funded Climate Economic Analysis Development, Investment, and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity sheds light on the financial and economic value of mangrove conservation. Income losses from mangrove-supported activities eventually outweigh shrimp revenues in the converted areas.

• 04/15/2020
• Gordon Smith, Eric Hyman

USAID/Peru’s Amazonia Verde project aims to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services in priority areas of the Peruvian Amazon and to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and land use change. To achieve these goals, an inter-office design team at the USAID/Peru Mission spent two years designing an integrated project that supports biodiversity conservation, combats illegal logging and deforestation, addresses negative impacts of extractive industries, strengthens Indigenous people’s rights and resources, and supports Peru’s international commitment to reduce GHG emissions

• 04/14/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

Indonesia is considered a “mega-diverse” country and is home to unique ecosystems and species, including orangutans, tigers, rhinoceros, elephants, and birds of paradise. The country has a high rate of endemism and contains important terrestrial ecosystems, such as mangroves, lowland forests, peatland, swamp forests, and montane forests.

• 04/03/2020
•  James Halperin,  Reed Merrill

Southwest Bangladesh is a watery world. Houses perch on steep river banks. Storms pummel fragile coastlines. It’s hard not to see this starkly beautiful place as engaged in a battle between water and land — with the water winning. But the land has a new ally, a living hem of mangrove forests made possible by Winrock International’s Climate Resilient Ecosystems and Livelihoods (CREL) project, funded by USAID.

• 03/05/2020
• Winrock International

Rivers are the world’s main source of clean drinking water, and their economic and environmental value are fundamental to the health of people and ecosystems. However, river basins face interrelated challenges — population growth, industrialization, urbanization, land use changes (including deforestation and land degradation), and changes in water quantity and quality.

• 07/17/2019
• Owen Scott, Fernanda Zermoglio

According to the United Nations, close to 1.7 billion people – almost 25% of the world’s population - rely on forests for shelter, livelihoods, water, food, and fuel security. Forests renew our air supply, as they take in large amounts of carbon dioxide and release oxygen.

• 05/22/2019
• SERVIR Global

Considered a hotspot for biodiversity, the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru is an exceptionally fertile landscape. Standing at the edge of the Amazon basin, Madre de Dios has a rich concentration of endemic species—plants and animals that are found nowhere else in the world. But their habitats are being threatened by human activity.

• 05/14/2019
• SERVIR Global

Finding ways to adapt to the effects of climate change is no longer optional for most communities - it is necessary. The question is, what are the range of strategies for adaptation? Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is a nature-based and people-centered approach that emphasizes ecosystem integrity as crucial for human resilience to climate change.

• 04/30/2019
• Anila Jacob, Jennifer Kane, Christine Chumbler

A new land cover tool originally developed for southeast Asia is now being expanded globally. “Land cover mapping in the Lower Mekong has been challenging in the past, based primarily on outdated maps using different criteria,” said Dr. David Saah, Professor at the University of San Francisco and Managing Principal of the Spatial Informatics Group (SIG).

• 04/10/2019
• Devrin Weiss, Leah Kucera

Gordon Mumbo grew up in the small village of Kamuga, in Kenya’s Kisumu County. Year after year, he watched as frequent floods from one of Kenya’s major rivers, the Nyando, disturbed the peaceful flow of village life.

• 03/28/2019
• Global Waters

Since the 1970s, the Sahel region of northern Africa has been experiencing ongoing drought. The ecological, economic and social impacts are far-reaching, and coastal and estuarine ecosystems have
not been spared.

• 03/14/2019
• CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry

Ecosystems are fundamental to life on earth and provide goods and services that are essential to human well-being. This includes their role in helping human populations mitigate and adapt to climate change.

• 03/08/2019
• Mark Higgins