Blog

The Congo Basin of Central Africa hosts the second largest tropical forest in the world. The forests of the Congo Basin provide a range of environmental services to local forest-dependent communities, the surrounding region, and globally through climate regulation and carbon sequestration. Fostering the sustainable use of this vast, critical resource is imperative and requires a better understanding of existing forest resources, including changes in forest and land cover.

• 04/22/2020
• Eva McNamara, Olivia Freeman

The USAID Vietnam Forests and Deltas program (VFD), implemented by Winrock International, is supporting the Government of Vietnam’s efforts to better manage natural resources through an innovative Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) program, which pays forest owners for conservation. By preventing deforestation and forest degradation, PFES reduces emissions from land use and conserves forest ecosystems that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

• 04/16/2020
• Winrock International

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

Illegal alluvial gold mining in Colombia is a complex phenomenon that not only sweeps away vegetation but alters the balance of ecosystems through aggressive mechanical extraction methods that create deserts. In Antioquia, Colombia, this has degraded over 45 thousand hectares of land, stripping away valuable trees that can absorb carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases.

• 04/09/2020
• Climatelinks

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

Since 2012, the USAID Vietnam Forests and Deltas program (VFD) has been helping the Government of Vietnam develop and operationalize a national Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) program that has already directed over USD $500 million to forest owners as financial compensation for maintaining forest cover. For example, Vietnam’s hydroelectric power plants now reward upstream forest owners whose trees keep soil in place, avoiding the sediment buildup that drives up operating costs.

• 03/19/2020
• Lauren Keller

The wheels are spinning, but the vehicle is going nowhere. It’s rainy season in Vietnam, and dirt roads have become rivers of mud. It’s not uncommon for a vehicle to become mired in the muck. But in this case, the vehicle holds much-needed funds that won’t be delivered to community-based forest owners unless a team of determined forest fund staff rescues it. It’s a sticky situation — but one that may not happen much longer.

• 03/13/2020
• Jennifer Norfolk

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

In Southern Malawi, the United in Building and Advancing Life Expectations (UBALE) project, completed in 2019, helped over 240,000 families in three districts produce more abundant harvests, increase income from agriculture, and learn important skills to help cope with changing climate patterns. The project linked agriculture with nutrition interventions to maximize the impact the program had on family nutrition.

• 03/02/2020
• Dooshima Tsee

The Rainforest Alliance is implementing the USAID-supported Alliance for Sustainable Landscapes and Markets project in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo, Mexico. This alliance involves groups of producers, nonprofit organizations, public institutions, enterprises, and consumers in taking actions towards a better future where people and nature thrive in harmony.

• 02/26/2020
• Graciela Zavala

The recent forest fires in Brazil and Bolivia showed once more that traditional approaches to sustainable development and nature conservation are not sufficient to reduce carbon emissions from land use and stop the ongoing destruction of natural resources.

• 01/07/2020
• Ruben Coppus

During 2019, the Climatelinks community contributed over 100 resources on a wide range of topics, from clean cook stoves to sustainable forest management.

• 12/12/2019
• Stephan Hardeman

The Climatelinks photo contest received an impressive total of 170 submissions from the Climatelinks community, representing more than 40 countries.

• 12/03/2019
• Steve Hardeman

South America may be sitting, unaware, on a pile of climate gold, ammunition in efforts to forestall global warming. New maps of tropical and subtropical peatlands suggest these carbon-rich wetlands are more widespread in South America than on any other continent, with significant deposits in the Andean mountains.

• 11/25/2019
• CIFOR

In Ghana, a changing climate is affecting the production of cocoa, one of the country’s major cash crops and its second leading foreign exchange earner.

• 10/29/2019
• Alexandre Grais, Lara Murray