In the arid regions of northern Kenya, groundwater boreholes are providing increased climate resilience and water security. In this picture, local communities access water from solar powered borehole systems funded by USAID.
Climatelinks Photo Gallery
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Welcome to the Climatelinks photo gallery. Here you can find a range of climate change and development photos from our photo contest, our blogs, and USAID’s Flickr sites. Submit your photos to the photo gallery here.
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- Photo Contest Year: 2019 Photo Contest
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The debate and justification in climate change is going on for years but now they are visible on the ground. This is the picture of a village in Humla District, where the community is facing changed patterns of precipitation and adapting to changes by changing the roof type. This community used to have flat mud roofs that are now turned into tin roofs to combat changing precipitation patterns. Picture location: Humla District, Nepal, 2018 USAID supported program: Paani/DAI
Indigenous women farmers in Bataraza, southern Palawan, Philippines, plant upland rice in now-controlled slash-and-burn areas. Bataraza is a municipality nestled in the foothills of Mount Mantaligahan, 140 km south of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan, Phiippines. Within the vast Mount Mantalingahan mountain range lies the Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscape. Covering 120,457 hectares of forest, this protected area serves as the headwater of 33 watersheds and is home to many highly-endangered wildlife species. In terms of farming, slash-and-burn agriculture has been used by the local communities for many generations, but its effect in today’s diminishing state of natural resources has been destructive and unsustainable. The USAID-funded Protect Wildlife Project, in cooperation with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, is helping indigenous people improve upland farming and strengthen local livelihoods so they won't need to expand their slash-and-burn areas or resort to wildlife poaching just to make ends meet. These women farmers have been taught the proper upland farming techniques, such as using a minimum land area for inter-cropping of vegetables and fruit trees. Slash-and-burn agriculture causes deforestation, accidental fires, habitat and species loss, increased air pollution and the release of carbon into the atmosphere, which contributes to global climate change. Photo taken in Palawan, Philippines on June 18, 2019.
Stacks of sustainable charcoal produced at Mampu cooperative site outside of Kinshasa visited as part of a scoping mission looking at alternative local species to integrate into agroforestry woodfuel systems to increase the volume of sustainable charcoal supply for urban areas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, carried out by the U.S. Forest Service International Programs and supported by USAID’s Africa Bureau in July 2018. Charcoal is the main source of cooking fuel in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and an increasing urban demand for it is resulting in forest degradation and deforestation.
A group of artisanal fishermen in Bahía Solano, along Colombia’s Pacific coast, learned how to improve their livelihoods while mitigating overfishing through Emprende Pacífico, an initiative implemented by ACDI/VOCA and the Ministry of Labor, in 2016. They learned sustainable fishing techniques, such as ending the practice of dragging large nets that catch all sorts of marine life and limiting the size of fish they capture. The initiative helped reduce conflict, as fishing communities experienced better livelihoods and fewer incentives to turn to informal work, such as drug trafficking, illegal mining, and other illicit activities that continue the cycle of violence.
Nelia is faced with new challenges in Mozambique, including the cycle of frequent droughts and drenching rains. Through her involvement with the Resilient Agricultural Markets Activity project in the Beira Corridor of Mozambique, she is learning how to increase productivity, profitability and resilience of her farm through the adoption of conservation agricultural practices, like low/no tillage, soil coverage and crop diversification. Key to the success of this work is training of model family farmers - like Nelia - who demonstrate the benefits of conservation agriculture in their own fields.
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 (CO2), one of the main greenhouse gases. The USAID-Oro Legal Activity brought together indigenous and Afro Colombian communities, the private sector, and local and departmental governments to mitigate the environmental impact of uncontrolled mineral exploitation on more than one thousand hectares of degraded ex-mining land. Today 1,133,220 Acacia mangium trees and other native species are greening large tracts of land where just a few years ago only rocks and bare soil could be found.
The USAID-NREL Partnership, in coordination with Clean Power Asia, partnered with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the Lao PDR power sector. The assessment included a review of climate change related risks as well as vulnerabilities related to technological and human-related threats. At the time of the assessment, the Lao PDR was experiencing severe flooding related to greater than normal rainfall and tropical storms. Impacts from these threats include potential fuel supply shortages for transportation and energy generation, physical infrastructure damage, shifts in energy demand, and disruption of electricity supply to the end user. These disruptions adversely affect critical services and facilities such as hospital services, water treatment, and communications networks. Despite significant infrastructure vulnerability to climate threats, the people of the Lao PDR display incredible resilience. Here, residents play and fish in the rising flood waters in Vientiane, Laos. Learn more about planning a resilient power sector at the Resilient Energy Platform website: http://bit.ly/30LeCqV. Learn more about the power sector vulnerability assessment in this webinar: http://bit.ly/2P3Triy. Photo taken by Sherry Stout, NREL, August 2018.
October 2016, Conservation South Africa's (CSA) Nolubabalo Kwayimani teaches volunteers to perform a stream assessment in order to determine changes and improvements in stream health in the uMzimvubu watershed. The uMzimvubu catchment spans over two million hectares of the poorest rural areas of South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. This critical ecosystem provides water to approximately one million people and supports more than 2,000 plant and animal species that are unique to this area. The catchment is presently under threat due to the degradation of land from overgrazing, the loss of land to water-thirsty invasive vegetation, and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Rural communities also face significant challenges: unemployment is higher than the national average, with many people dependent upon social grants and the landscape for their livelihoods. The proportion of households with access to piped water inside the home or yard is as low as 16 percent, and waterborne diseases pose a risk to youth and the elderly. In order for conservation to be effectively implemented, the health needs of the community and the proper management of their livestock need to be addressed. CSA is working in the upper reaches of the uMzimvubu to improve water resources sustainability by applying a “One Health” framework that integrates water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) activities with freshwater conservation, improved livestock farming and restoration efforts. By empowering local communities to manage and benefit from their natural resources, and supporting local governance structures that enable sustainable livelihoods, “One Health” aims secure water futures for all water users. This project draws on work from the USAID-supported Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group—a consortium of seven international conservation NGOs—to develop project implementation guidelines and a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework and indicators to measure the added value of integrated freshwater conservation and WASH programming. CSA’s “One Health” initiative in the uMzimvubu catchment is demonstrating how human well-being, economic growth, and environmental sustainability go hand in hand.
Typhoon Maysak crossed Chuuk and Yap States between March 29 and April 1, 2015, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. As USAID’s implementing partner under the Disaster preparedness for Effective Response project, the International Organization for Migration mobilized to implement USAID’s Typhoon Maysak Reconstruction Project (TMRP). The multi-sectoral initiative was designed to help Maysak-affected communities rebuild following the devastating storm, and to help restore critical public infrastructure and utilities. For both new homes and public infrastructure facilities, IOM worked to design buildings that would be able to withstand another storm and maintain traditional design elements whenever possible. IOM also trained local community members in sustainable construction techniques. In this photo, taken by Ms. Rachel Weinheimer on November 10, 2016 on an outer island of Chuuk, H.E. Robert A. Riley III, the current ambassador of the United States of America to FSM, presents a local beneficiary with a newly reconstructed home.
Students from St. Scholastica Primary School in Nairobi, Kenya, presenting their findings on relating varying weather patterns to malaria occurrences from mosquito habitat mapping within Lake Victoria region in Kenya during SERVIR East and Southern Africa 2019 Space Challenge for Primary and Secondary Schools.
Many farmers in coastal Sierra Leone cultivate rice as their staple food. In doing that, they clear land including mangrove forests to make way for their rice farms. Unfortunately, this has a counterproductive effect as the water during high tides overwhelms the rice farms and destroys these crops. WA BiCC introduced this new approach called "rice-mangrove integration" where mangrove plants are replanted around the rice farms to protect the rice crops from overwhelming amounts of water. These mangrove forests also serve as spawning grounds for fish, oysters, and other aquatic species, increasing food security in these communities, including Bonthe in coastal Sierra Leone.
Subject: Gordon Mumbo Location: Mara River, Kenya Date: July 10, 2018 Gordon Mumbo is team leader for the Sustainable Water Partnership (SWP), USAID’s flagship water program along the Mara River. According to Mumbo, this knowledge-sharing exercise is a two-way street; SWP educates communities on water risk and conservation, while the communities provide invaluable local perspective. It’s not just the atmosphere of transboundary cooperation that sets SWP’s work apart. It’s also the sense of ownership Mumbo and his team are cultivating in the people of the Mara, from community members to government officials to private sector representatives. “The river belongs to the people who live along it,” Mumbo concludes. “They understand the river better than anybody else. They will be able to own it and work with you at sustaining it. If you want to manage the river, you must involve the people.”
Forest Fire. It is a crisis the world is facing at the moment. Amazon is on fire; the forest of Indonesia is burning as well. These forests provide more than 20% of the oxygen of our planet. Forest Fire is an additional risk to the human health and climate change. This photograph depicts the prayer of a tree; it is requesting the humankind not to let it burn intentionally. Taken in Dhaka, Bangladesh on August 2, 2019.
Mangroves are a salt-tolerant species that can grow in warm water, and are frequently planted to help adapt against climate change impacts, such as reducing the impacts of shoreline damage and alleviating seawater intrusion. In Zanzibar, a local NGO called ZACEDY is committed to empowering local citizens to build their adaptive capacity by planting mangroves along the coast. Part of ZACEDY’S mission is also to uplift members of the community by creating local job opportunities. These are some of the women involved in the mangrove planting project. At the national level, the United Republic of Tanzania is engaged in a National Adaptation Planning process to scale up the country’s adaptation efforts—such as building coastal resilience through planting mangroves—focused on improving cross-sectoral coordination, integrating adaptation into development planning, and expanding access to climate finance.
In the arid regions of northern Kenya, groundwater boreholes are providing increased climate resilience and water security. In this picture, nomadic pastoralists and their camels access groundwater.