Climatelinks Photo Gallery

This photo shows lionfish dangling on a divers line. The fish, an invasive species, are spear hunted by local divers to protect sea life and fill plates on land.

Whale sharks pass through the waters by Placencia, Belize on an annual basis. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, sightings have stopped. But in February 2022, our boat rocked with excitement from the locals and traveling divers as they set eyes on the first whale shark to pass through in two years (according to locals).

Whale sharks pass through the waters by Placencia, Belize on an annual basis. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020, sightings have stopped. But in February 2022, our boat rocked with excitement from the locals and traveling divers as they set eyes on the first whale shark to pass through in two years (according to locals).

Nurse sharks accompany divers on the coast of Belize, awaiting a lionfish snack from spear hunters.

Mozambique faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis of internally displaced people (IDPs) due to terrorist attacks in the north of the country. The elderly are among the most severely affected people.

This photo was taken in Ancuabe District, Cabo Delgado province.

Mozambique faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis of internally displaced people (IDPs) due to terrorist attacks in the north of the country. Children are among the most severely affected people.

This photo was taken in Ancuabe District, Cabo Delgado province.

Mothers in Mozambique are fighting to improve children's food and nutrition security.

As Malawi’s deforestation crisis looms, the government has squarely placed the charcoal question in the center of the national debate. In 2017, the government leveraged USAID support and launched the National Charcoal Strategy—a framework to address charcoal related issues with short, mid, and long-term actions. The strategy aligns with national policies, ranging from the National Forestry Policy to the National Energy Policy. With a proper roadmap, in 2020, the Charcoal Regulations and the amended Forestry Policy tightened regulations around the production of charcoal. Central to the strategy is the promotion of sustainably produced charcoal from trees grown on plantations as well as the promotion of alternative cooking fuels like electricity, liquified natural gas, and biogas.

“In the beginning, there were people who wanted to avoid the subject of charcoal altogether, that since people have to cook, it would be impossible to change. We know it is a slow movement, but charcoal must also be part of the solution,” explains Dr. Clement Chilima Department of Forestry. “And it must be regulated with licenses.”

For the first time in Malawi’s history, the government has shifted its policy of seeing charcoal production as a necessary evil to acknowledging it as a part of the solution that must be incorporated into policies. In addition to licensing the production of legal charcoal, Malawi’s strategy prioritizes the promotion of efficient cookstoves, the enhancement rural livelihoods for those who rely on charcoal burning, and nationwide awareness campaigns.

“We cannot simply deprive people of charcoal without looking at how they will cook and survive without it. Thanks to donor funded programs like MCHF, the people living in the cities now have options. We need to see more people using legal charcoal and cooking with LPG gas, and it needs to start with everybody working in government,” says Kamoto, Department of Forestry Deputy Director Kamoto.

Big Thinking in the Charcoal Business

Even before the charcoal strategy was an official policy, the government was testing charcoal licensing. In 2015, Kawandama Hills Plantation applied for and obtained the Government’s first charcoal production license. KHP’s 6,500-hectare parcel of land is located in the Viphya Plantation in Northern Malawi. KHP cultivates the Corymbia citriodora tree and uses the leaves to distill an essential oil which it exports. With the wood product waste, they produce wood charcoal.

KHP produces and supplies approximately 1,000 bags of legal, licensed charcoal every week. KHP two points of sales in Lilongwe and also markets charcoal through a network of distributors. KHP and its distributors consistently undercut the illegal charcoal market prices by 20-30 percent.

With a grant from the MCHF Clean Cooking Fund, Kawandama Hills Plantation will scale up the production of sustainably produced legal, licensed charcoal. KHP is a pioneer in sustainable charcoal and obtained a license in 2015. KHP’s 6,500-hectare parcel of land, located in the Viphya Plantation in Northern Malawi, will increase annual production from 300 MT to 1,000 MT of legal charcoal. Currently, KHP produces and supplies approximately 1,000 bags of legal, licensed charcoal every week through its two points of sales in Lilongwe and markets charcoal through a network of distributors. KHP and its distributors consistently undercut the illegal charcoal market prices by 20-30 percent. In Malawi, wood fuels—charcoal and firewood—are the primary source of cooking energy for the vast majority of the population. Three of four urban households use illegal and unsustainably produced charcoal as their primary source of cooking energy. This paradigm, triggered by the lack of a reliable energy source and widespread poverty, has resulted in massive deforestation across Malawi and exacerbates issues related to food security, economic growth, and health.

Lawin Patrollers in the Philippines serve in more functions than just forest patrols. They documents violations, prepare reports, participate in apprehensions, and help educate communities where illegal forest activities are rampant. USAID and the Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources have developed an innovative system to aid the forest patrollers in doing their job. Lawin Patrollers are determined to fulfill their duties in order to contribute to forest protection. 

For a lot of the women in the Puros Village, Kaokoland, Kunene Region, Namibia, collecting firewood is a daily task. This is a task for survival in a harsh desert climate where the search for firewood is more and more wide-ranging as this commodity becomes scarcer. This means having to walk further and further from the village week by week. 

June 2021, Lokokoi, Karamoja, Uganda.

Stephen Lomugemoi, 30, in his maize field. Stephen provides for his five children through farming, an increasingly difficult task in an agricultural area with increasingly inconsistent rainfall. He says his harvests are vulnerable to dry spells and severe flooding, which can both destroy crops, and he struggles with food shortages for 2-3 months of every year.



Two years ago, Stephen and his neighbors participated in a Mercy Corps training to learn about drought-resistant crops and improved agricultural techniques, then started a farmer group to maintain a plot of maize together. The practices they’ve implemented have greatly improved the productivity of the land, and Stephen was motivated to diversify his personal farming to include beans, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes, which has benefitted his family. He says that before, he didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but with the knowledge he received from Mercy Corps, he feels confident that his family will be food secure in the future.

To mitigate the impacts of climate change and resource depletion in the Imiría Regional Conservation Area, located in the Peruvian Amazon, artisanal fishermen from four neighboring Indigenous communities, local and regional authorities, and experts in the field are joining efforts to assess the Imiría lagoon’s fisheries’ resources. With technical assistance from the USAID Pro-Bosques Activity, a comprehensive fisheries evaluation is taking place and will serve as key input in the design of a Fisheries Management Plan, which will contribute to the sustainable management and governance of natural resources in this regional conservation area. 

Ruth Tercero used to sow corn and beans for family consumption and no return of investment. As years went by, climate change challenges increased and she faced long periods of drought and low access to water, which affected or caused the complete loss of her crops. Working with the project, Ruth diversified her crops to amaranth and found an alternative to increase her income and overcome climate change challenges. In addition to using amaranth in several meals a day, Ruth could also buy from local markets corn, beans, and other food like animal protein, fruits and vegetables, that allowed her family to consume a more diverse diet.

 

Making the irrigation system more climate-resilient includes securing land titles for water users and paying upstream communities for conserving the forests that provide water to the irrigation system. Unseasonable droughts and unpredictable rainfall are no longer a worry. We are able to reliably grow rice and other crops because the canal provides sufficient water.

This is what the shores of Lake Victoria look like from Luzira Port Bell in Kampala, Uganda. Local industries dump chemicals, while fishermen, residents and tourists dump plastic bottles and old fishing nets. The water hyacinth has also invaded the lake, making it difficult for even motor boats to travel across the lake.

Lake Victoria is the world’s largest tropical lake and supports the largest fresh water fishery in the world, producing about 1 million tons of fish every year. Fish cannot continue to survive in this water much longer. While global climate dialogue and policies are great, we need leadership that can take action today to save this precious resource.