Blog

The world’s natural capital—such as water, land, forests, soil, wildlife, and fisheries—safeguards and underpins the health and well-being of billions of people. At the same time, natural resources are facing unprecedented threats in the form of pollution, habitat loss, and extinction. Together, these threats can impact long-term economic growth, livelihood opportunities, and the ecosystem services that support human well-being.

• 05/04/2020
• Stephan Hardeman

The Siete Pecados, or “Seven Sins,” are seven islets in the Philippines named after a legend about seven sisters who drowned after they disobeyed their mother. Siete Pecados Marine Park is a story of a coastal community’s persistence, in partnership with USAID and other partners, to establish a marine protected area with an integrated approach that includes biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and economic growth.

• 04/28/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

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

In the Dominican Republic, USAID works to jointly promote climate adaptation and resilience to address a lack of adequate sanitation and wastewater treatment facilities, which limits the population’s access to clean water and presents a key threat to the country’s coastal biodiversity in the form of untreated sewage. USAID/Dominican Republic originally implemented the Climate Adaptation: Climate Risk Reduction activity using only climate change adaptation funding.

• 04/08/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Integration Case Studies

Ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) is a nature-based method for climate change adaptation that can reduce the vulnerability of people, natural systems and economies to climate stressors. EbA provides flexible and cost-effective approaches that enhance resilience through the improved management and conservation of ecosystems. EbA can be an effective adaptation strategy alone or as an element of broader national, regional and community adaptation plans.

• 04/07/2020
• USAID Biodiversity Conservation Gateway

Over the past 13 years, I have had the opportunity to work with the poorest communities across Zimbabwe. I have seen families struggling to adapt to the changing climate, as their livelihoods mainly depend on limited and dwindling natural resources. However, through asset creation, I have also seen incredible strength, resilience, and community dedication to improving communal resources and food security.

• 03/24/2020
• Erina Machoko

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

The tropical air hangs over the Sierra Leonean coastal village of Gbongboma like a moist towel. Musa Lahai sits in an enclave of thatched huts, surrounded by women and children sitting around two cooking fires. Orange flames lick the sides of several large kettles of fish stew. Each fish was hard to come by. “Before, we were catching good fish. Now, we’re not,” Lahai says. He is deputy chief of the village, where approximately 90 people survive off earth’s bounties, from harvesting oysters, to deep sea fishing, to farming and growing palm fruit.

• 03/12/2020
• David Goodman

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

Since 1991, USAID has been investing in actions that help the Agency in understanding climate change risks and opportunities to reduce vulnerabilities.

• 12/05/2019
• Stephan 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

Climate change poses a significant global threat to food security and nutrition, largely through its impacts on agricultural production.

• 09/24/2019
• Agrilinks Team

Children, along with women and the elderly, are especially vulnerable during natural disasters, according to the Indonesia National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), which estimates that 60 to 70 percent of disaster victims fall in those demographic categories

• 09/18/2019
• Nyoman Prayoga