Blog

A wetland is an area of land where water is at or near the soil surface for at least part of the year. Wetlands are a natural source of water and habitats for wildlife.

• 06/02/2023
• USAID Resilient Waters

In Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, thousands of people hit the nightclubs to party, dance, and eat braai, but Helbert Thondoya is not there to dance.

• 11/29/2022
• Nicholas J. Parkinson

There is growing momentum in the international community to ramp up climate finance for mitigation and adaptation actions. Undoubtedly, a focus on climate change adaptation in the developing world must be a priority for the financing.

• 09/08/2021
• Mohamed Bakarr

Inside the protected area of Menabe Antimena is Madagascar's largest dry forest--45% of which has disappeared in only the last 10 years due to massive deforestation, fires, migration, illegal maize cultivation, corruption and unscrupulous private interests. Menabe Antimena is one of the many critical ecosystems that the USAID Hay Tao project is working to protect.

• 08/26/2021
• Mihary Randrianarivelo

3 ways USAID helps El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change

• 08/03/2021
• USAID

Climate mitigation is essential for helping communities prepare for the impacts of climate change and prevent worst-case climate scenarios. USAID helps countries achieve more ambitious climate targets under the Paris Agreement and provides the foundations for sustainable growth through renewable energy and natural climate solutions.

• 05/20/2021
• Isabela Barriga

Climate adaptation can take many forms, ranging from disaster risk reduction to natural resources management, according to the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

• 04/14/2021
• Steve Hardeman

This is the final of three blogs examining the lessons and implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for sustainable landscape programs.

• 02/12/2021
• Eric Haxthausen

Complex relationships between the climate, population growth, land cover change, and other interactions make decisions on land use planning, water permitting, and donor investments in natural resources management challenging. Decision-making on how and where to make investments is improving in Tanzania due to development partners becoming more proficient in using sophisticated environmental analysis tools such as composite index mapping.

• 10/08/2020
• Leif Kindberg, John Whiting

Perú es el cuarto país con el mayor volumen de turba tropical, cuya mayor parte se encuentra relativamente menos degradada en comparación con otras regiones del mundo. Sin embargo, esto podría cambiar. La creciente presión del desarrollo y la carencia de políticas específicas de protección ponen en riesgo a las turberas de Perú y sus reservas de carbono.

• 10/06/2020
• Isabela Barriga

Peru stands as the country with the fourth-highest volume of tropical peat, most of which is relatively less degraded than in other regions of the world. However, this could change. Increasing development pressure and lack of peatland-specific protection policies puts Peru's peatlands— and its carbon reserves—at risk. 

• 10/01/2020
• Isabela Barriga

Although half of global mangrove deforestation since 2000 has been in Indonesia, Bintuni Bay and Mimika District have some of the largest intact areas of mangroves in the world. These two areas are also home to many indigenous groups and have special autonomous governance status and exceptional biodiversity.

• 09/24/2020
• Dr. Eric Hyman

The ways we use land—for instance, agriculture, forestry, urban development, or ecosystem protection—has long-term impacts on global climate change. Approximately one quarter of net global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come directly from land use (like agriculture) and land use change (like deforestation).

• 09/22/2020
• Noel Gurwick, Isabela Barriga, Julia Bradley-Cook

Tanzania’s Rufiji River Delta hosts the largest mangrove forest in Eastern Africa, a critical coastal ecosystem that provides habitat for migratory birds and diverse marine life, stabilizes the shoreline, and traps sediment and nutrients washing downstream in the Rufiji River. Unfortunately, overexploitation and degradation of these mangrove forests present a persistent challenge.

• 09/10/2020
• Olivia Freeman, Dr. Mwita Mangora

Forests cover 69 million hectares in Peru, representing nearly 60 percent of the country (MINAM 2014). Loreto and Ucayali are the two largest Amazon regions in Peru and are traditionally occupied and protected by Indigenous Peoples. These communities have ancestral ties to Amazon forests in Peru and are important allies in supporting sustainable forest management.

• 09/09/2020
• Isabela Barriga