Climatelinks Photo Gallery

This farmer and his wife enjoy growing their own vegetables for themselves. It is pumpkin season and prior to the lockdown in Nepal following the COVID outbreak, they would also sell some in the nearby market. But a lot of things have changed after the pandemic. In Nepal, Catholic Relief Services is providing cash assistance to over 900 households and 75 small businesses to keep them afloat during the COVID-19 lockdown. Catholic Relief Services is committed to reaching the most vulnerable households, and cash assistance allows each household to address their unique needs while stimulating local economies.

Catholic Relief Services-F2F Nepal organized "Small Farmers’ Conference: Transforming and Sustaining Small Farms" on Friday, June 24, 2022, in collaboration and partnership with the Government of Nepal, stakeholders, universities, research organizations, the Federation of Small Farmers' Cooperatives, the National Federation of Farmers' Groups, financial institutions, USAID’s implementing partners, and private sector and community-based organizations. During the conference, farmers, researchers, and experts shared successes in small farms and innovative ideas for research, extension, and education to strengthen collaboration and partnerships between public, private, and cooperatives sectors that work to ensure that small farmers advance and sustain their farms in rapidly evolving socioeconomic and environmental contexts. The conference also served as a forum to discuss the research from the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) and Agriculture and Forestry Universities. 15 F2F hosts had an agricultural exhibition showcasing their products and services as a side event. More than 100 participants from diverse sectors and stakeholders, including producers, farmer's organizations, development partners, universities, researchers, USAID, and private sectors attended this conference.

A farmer and his wife plant PepsiCo potato seeds in Narayanpur, West Bengal, India. Though women participate in all farming tasks, they often face barriers to accessing land, productive resources, and knowledge of climate-smart agricultural practices. They are seen as on-farm helpers for their husbands rather than farmers in their own right. The USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program is working with private sector partner PepsiCo to change this perception through women’s empowerment in potato supply chains in West Bengal. The program has trained over 1,000 women in sustainable and regenerative farming practices like composting, reducing crop residue burning, soil testing, and responsible pest control. These practices maintain soil carbon levels, reduce CO2 pollution, and reduce pesticide runoff and water contamination. The program finds that women are more likely than men to share these learnings with their husbands, family members, and day laborers on their farms, increasing the adoption of improved agricultural practices in their communities. These efforts help demonstrate that empowering women in agricultural supply chains is an important avenue for advancing both USAID and PepsiCo’s global climate change mitigation and adaptation commitments.

The people of Inle Lake, Myanmar plant vegetables on a floating lake embarkment built on sediment layers, over time creating an artificial floating bank to plant vegetables for personal consumption and to sell at the market. The artificial land bank is a non-solid surface that people cannot stand on, so they tend the vegetables from their boats. People also build makeshift huts on stilts to rest on during breaks.

Boulder and cement bags are placed along the shore of the Bay of Bengal to protect against high tides. A tourist walks along the beach in the meantime.

Bangladesh is one of the top plastic-polluted countries in the world. This country generates approximately 3000 tonnes of plastic waste per day. Most of it ends up in landfills and water bodies, causing serious threats to the environment. Environmentalists say that plastic can exist in soil and water for years since it is not biodegradable, and it may turn into leachate, get mixed with the food chain, and enter the human body. A World Bank report published in September 2018 showed that in 2015, around 234,000 people died in Bangladesh due to environmental pollution and pollution-related health hazards like plastic pollution.

Two of the planet’s main environmental problems are climate change and air pollution. Although they may seem to be two very different issues, these problems are closely interlinked. Air pollution is one of the vital reasons behind climate change. Emissions of carbon and other pollutants into the air can result in air pollution. One of the largest sources of carbon dioxide emissions from human activities in Bangladesh is brick kilns. Production of bricks results in environmental degradation due to the emission of significant quantities of carbon dioxide and particulate pollutants. All the brick kiln operations, from the digging of the earth to the unloading of fired bricks from the kiln, are accompanied by the generation of dust which leaves the workplace and nearby areas dusty. If the toxic fume of brick kilns is not reduced, our health and environment will be endangered.

Bangladesh is hit harder than almost any other country in the world by climate change despite emitting limited greenhouse gases. Currently, it is the 7th most impacted country in the world. Dhaka, the capital and only megacity of Bangladesh, is exposed to multiple types of climate-induced threats, including variations in temperature, excessive and erratic rainfall, water logging, flooding, cyclones, and heat and cold waves. These hazards negatively affect city life and livelihoods and may worsen as they become coupled with non-climatic factors such as population density, poverty, rural-urban migration, illiteracy, unplanned urbanization, and the lack of public utilities and services. Immediate measures addressing climate-induced vulnerabilities are necessary for the long-term sustainability of Dhaka.

The Bay of Bengal is rich in marine resources and produces  6 million tons of fish that correspond to nearly 4 percent of the total global catch. It is an important source of animal protein for nearly 400 million people in this region. But the Bay is heavily littered with plastics, and huge amounts of waste are found on the shorelines, seabed, and suspended in the water column. The corals of St. Martin Island are almost dead, littered with marine debris, plastic packages, and food wrap discarded by hundreds of tourists daily. The Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea are the new plastic hotspots in Asia. Every year about 200,000 tons of plastics enter the Bay of Bengal from Bangladesh. According to the Earth Day Network of the USA, Bangladesh is the 10th most plastic-polluting country in the world. Population pressure, poor waste management practices, and shipbreaking are primarily responsible for this issue. Every year, 60-65 ships are broken in Chattogram and Khulna.

I understand the use of less-mechanized agriculture as a way to minimize the rapid wear and tear of soil and maintain the life of organisms under the ground that are of great relevance to plants. The negative impact of man's action on the soil through the poor management of solid waste, for example, is seen in the harvest when part of the solid waste directly interferes with plant growth. This photo was taken between June and July 2022 in an urban agriculture project named Annalinde in Leipzig, Germany. It involves people from various parts of the world in actions that stimulate the practice of organic agriculture and the consumption of increasingly fresh food produced using less environmentally aggressive techniques.

I understand the use of less-mechanized agriculture as a way to minimize the rapid wear and tear of soil and maintain the life of organisms under the ground that are of great relevance to plants. The negative impact of man's action on the soil through the poor management of solid waste, for example, is seen in the harvest when part of the solid waste directly interferes with plant growth. This photo was taken between June and July 2022 in an urban agriculture project named Annalinde in Leipzig, Germany. It involves people from various parts of the world in actions that stimulate the practice of organic agriculture and the consumption of increasingly fresh food produced using less environmentally aggressive techniques.

I understand the use of less-mechanized agriculture as a way to minimize the rapid wear and tear of soil and maintain the life of organisms under the ground that are of great relevance to plants. The negative impact of man's action on the soil through the poor management of solid waste, for example, is seen in the harvest when part of the solid waste directly interferes with plant growth. This photo was taken between June and July 2022 in an urban agriculture project named Annalinde in Leipzig, Germany. It involves people from various parts of the world in actions that stimulate the practice of organic agriculture and the consumption of increasingly fresh food produced using less environmentally aggressive techniques.

I understand the use of less-mechanized agriculture as a way to minimize the rapid wear and tear of soil and maintain the life of organisms under the ground that are of great relevance to plants. The negative impact of man's action on the soil through the poor management of solid waste, for example, is seen in the harvest when part of the solid waste directly interferes with plant growth. This photo was taken between June and July 2022 in an urban agriculture project named Annalinde in Leipzig, Germany. It involves people from various parts of the world in actions that stimulate the practice of organic agriculture and the consumption of increasingly fresh food produced using less environmentally aggressive techniques.

I understand the use of less-mechanized agriculture as a way to minimize the rapid wear and tear of soil and maintain the life of organisms under the ground that are of great relevance to plants. The negative impact of man's action on the soil through the poor management of solid waste, for example, is seen in the harvest when part of the solid waste directly interferes with plant growth. This photo was taken between June and July 2022 in an urban agriculture project named Annalinde in Leipzig, Germany. It involves people from various parts of the world in actions that stimulate the practice of organic agriculture and the consumption of increasingly fresh food produced using less environmentally aggressive techniques.

This photo was taken in Kpanshegu, in the northern region of Ghana, on June 29, 2022.

Shea trees grow naturally on 63 million hectares of parkland in traditional farming systems in Africa. Traditional agroforests are ancient farming systems where trees are integrated with crops on smallholder farms, creating an agroforestry landscape that supports shea farming communities. This style of farming brings value to the farm and benefits the environment. Beekeeping introduces biodiversity through plant pollination, and the trees and crop diversification improve soil health, leading to less drought and floods and increasing yields. The waste produced from shea butter production and the leaves from shea and other trees are used as fertilizer. The success of this ecosystem comes from the interdependence of these three components, resulting in climate change resistance, reduced use of chemically-produced and costly farm inputs, and the provision of habitats for bees and other insects and wildlife. Shea is sold during the farming lean season, which makes it particularly valuable to bridge the gap until the main harvest is collected. But these shea-producing regions are more and more affected by climate change, with the parklands and communities experiencing higher temperatures, lower rainfall, and more droughts, which reduces farmlands, crop yields, and income. Shea tree populations have also been declining due to tree removal, particularly for charcoal use, lack of new planting, long gestation periods, reduced fallow periods, and poor parkland management practices. The Global Shea Alliance is working to encourage the reintroduction of the agroforestry farm model to capitalize on the climate change potential that shea trees have in the agroforestry parkland ecosystems.

A sting ray hovers over seagrass in the reefs near Caye Caulker, Belize.