Climatelinks Photo Gallery

Solar panels installed in the Al Ashroh village in the Jabal Habashy District of Yemen will allow residents to easily access and pump safe drinking water at any time of day.

Mango smallholder farmers in Upper Egypt and the Nile Delta region cover mangoes with white paper from May to June to reflect the sun's rays to ensure the crops are not affected by high temperatures. These farmers employ this and other climate-smart agriculture practices recommended to them by the USAID-funded Feed the Future Egypt Rural Agribusiness Strengthening Project.

With the support of USAID, CARE constructed latrines at Al-Jamhory hospital in Taiz Governorate.

Siopiti and Cándida Sandoval are members of the Chitonahua ethnic group living along the densely forested Peru-Brazil borderlands. The group once lived within the Murunahua Indigenous Reserve, a vast protected area in Peru's Ucayali Department that was home to semi-nomadic tribes living in complete isolation from Peruvian society, but their tribe was violently forced out of isolation by loggers in 1995 and today live as refugees along the remote Yurua River. A majority of the world’s remaining isolated tribes live increasingly imperiled lives along remote watersheds of the Amazon basin, where incursions by illegal loggers, drug smugglers, and oil prospectors threaten their survival.

Genico Ruiz coats his face in achiote, or anatto seed dye, which traditionally signifies one is ready for war. Ruiz and his Asheninka tribespeople living along Peru's remote Peru-Brazil border are facing a sort of war from in this remote region as drug-smugglers invade their territory. Ruiz's Asheninka community of Dulce Gloria serves as an important role in buffering the protected Murunahua Indigenous Reserve. The community of roughly 300 monitors the region for illegal entry from loggers and drug-smugglers. Confronting environmental degradation, the Asheninka here are implementing conservation efforts, which include turtle hatcheries. Their depleted rivers are being restocked with hundreds of "taricaya" turtles each year. 

A view of the Kampankias Mountains and Santiago River, the sacred and ancestral home of the Wampis people, Peru's first Indigenous Amazon group to claim autonomy from the Peruvian state in a bid to to conserve their territory. In recent decades, the Wampis’s 1.3 million hectares of territory have been overrun by timber mafias, wildcat gold miners, and multinational oil companies. Confronting death threats, deadly oil spills, mercury-laced rivers and the steady annihilation of their old-growth forests, the tribe of roughly 15,000 who live along Peru’s lawless northern border with Ecuador, collectively declared their territory to be part of the first Indigenous autonomous government within Peru. Underpinning the Wampis’s territorial and political ambitions is a message of conservation. Their territory, which encompasses over 1.3 million hectares of lowland jungle, absorbs an estimated 57 million tonnes of CO₂ annually, and is recognized by the United Nations as a highly biodiverse Indigenous conservation corridor. 

At the Mekong School in Chiang Khong, Thailand, Kru Tee "Niwat Roykaew's Goldman Environmental Prize awardee" welcomes the USAID team, along with implementing partners. This visit was part of the Mekong Community Empowerment for Northern Thailand Ceremonial Event. Cooperative activities have been initiated between several USG-funded organization, including Mekong Safeguards, Mekong for the Future, SERVIR-Southeast Asia, partner CSOs, and local stakeholders. The main focus is on addressing the impacts of infrastructure overdevelopment on communities along the Mekong River. Community empowerment activities and USG partnership are considered crucial in addressing with these challenges.

To T'boli farmer Cedelia Mozo, the once lush greenery in their watershed now seemed almost barren and the powerful roar of the waterfalls grew fainter each day. The deteriorating state of the watershed, combined with unstable agricultural markets, has dealt a blow to productivity, discouraging farmers from returning to cultivation. 

In 2021, USAID Philippines, through its Safe Water project, recognized the potential of sustainable coffee farming as a viable livelihood opportunity. Collaborating with the US Department of Agriculture and local NGO partner Conrado Ladislawa and Alcantara Foundation, Inc. (CLAFI), they established the Climate-Resilient Coffee Farmers' Field School. Indigenous peoples, including Cedelia, learned essential agricultural practices and processing techniques, vital for meeting the demand for high-quality beans and unlocking potential earnings. 

Their remarkable success inspired neighboring tribes and upland communities to adopt sustainable coffee practices, reforesting degraded areas with coffee trees and forsaking destructive practices. Equipped with USAID's support and knowledge, farmers in other villages achieved recognition and won prizes in coffee quality competitions.

To support waterworks personnel like Rustom and Rowel, USAID Philippines, through its Safe Water Project, stepped in to assist the Aborlan Municipal Government in Palawan. This initiative involves the funding, reconstruction, and redesigning of the water supply systems in Culandanum and Talakaigan, Aborlan, which will benefit more than 2,000 households. The project aims to create climate-resilient water systems that can withstand the impacts of future disasters. By providing robust infrastructure, the water supply system can be better prepared to face climate-related challenges. 

Once the reconstruction is complete, waterworks personnel will no longer have to rely on frequent repair works, which are often challenging inside the watershed. The improved water system will enhance their ability to perform regular operations and maintenance effectively, ensuring consistent and reliable access to clean water for the community.

In the wake of Typhoon Rai (Philippine name: Super Typhoon Odette) devastating the nation in 2021, numerous local governments have earnestly invested in climate-resilient water supply infrastructure. The Rizal local government unit in Palawan, after a year of intensive training and mentorship through USAID Philippines' Safe Water Project, constructed a new intake structure, adhering to climate-resilient design standards and evidence-based water source assessment and development.

In Taytay, Palawan, Philippines, Lake Manguao fosters ecotourism livelihoods and supports income-generating products from freshwater tilapia and non-forest goods. It also serves a vital surface water supply source. However, its vast land area presents a significant challenge for the Taytay Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office (MENRO) forest patrol team including Karl, John, and Veo, constrained by limited human resources. Within the remote forest-covered areas encircling the lake, illegal activities like timber cutting, charcoal making, and slash-and-burn farming are widespread and contribute to emissions that increase climate change. 

USAID Philippines, through its Safe Water Project, collaborates with MENRO and community-based organizations, notably the Lake Manguao Community and Indigenous People Agricultural Cooperative (LMCIPAC). Together, they strive to enhance patrolling efforts using the technology-based Lawin forest and biodiversity protection system. Lawin offers a digital platform to record forest observations, detect threats, and communicate with environmental law enforcement authorities, generating automatic patrol reports. By utilizing mobile phones donated by Globe Telecom, MENRO and LMCIPAC undertake patrols, extending coverage to vulnerable and hotspot areas in Lake Manguao. For the community members, the preservation of forests surrounding the lake is paramount, as it safeguards their livelihoods and ensures a thriving ecosystem and water source.

As the monsoon arrives in mid-June, the 200,000 mangrove seedlings grown in the nursery are prepared to transport to planting sites across five Community Forest areas in Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar. The USAID Responsible Investment and Trade Activity supported the Andaman Blue - Community-Centered Mangrove Restoration Project, which will benefit the local communities with income opportunities immediately and mitigate climate risk with restored mangroves in the long term. 

The Andaman Blue - Community Centered Mangrove Restoration Project is supported by USAID's Responsible Investment and Trade Activity to support the livelihoods of communities and improve climate resilience in Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar. To enhance their survival rate, 9-month-old mangrove seedlings grown in the nursery need to be hardened by cutting off the excessive roots before being delivered to planting sites. 

The Dapaya Women Multi-Purpose Cooperative is a group of (mostly unemployed) women in Jugwol, Biu in Borno State, Nigeria. Due to the high cost and scarcity of kerosene and cooking gas, as well as erratic power supply, most households in rural communities in Biu depend on firewood as a source of cooking energy. 

To improve the economic well-being of the women, the Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity strengthened their Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) methodology and introduced them to an innovative, climate-friendly briquette production business to reduce their dependency on firewood burning and increase their income. 

The Activity partnered with Biu Women Castor and Jatropha Farmers, an agro waste-to-wealth charcoal briquette production company, which trained Dapaya Women on briquette production, supported them with briquette-producing machines and facilitated their business registration. The support has improved the productivity and income of the Dapaya Women Multi-Purpose Cooperative. The group is now producing and distributing briquettes to Biu Women Castor and Jatropha Farmers (offtakers) and households who cook with briquette stoves in their communities.

The Andaman Blue - Community Centered Mangrove Restoration Project is supported by USAID's Responsible Investment and Trade Activity to support the livelihoods of communities and improve climate resilience in Ayeyarwady Delta, Myanmar. Once the mangrove seedlings are hardened in the nursery, they are transported to the planting site. The major mode of transporting seedlings is by boat because the project is located in the Ayeyarwady Delta region in Myanmar. The project partners with five mangrove-focused Community Forest User Groups, and local NGO, mangrove expert, FREDA for implementation.

The Shanda Ugute group is taking a proactive approach to adapting to the challenges posted by climate change by conducting gulley reclamation in Hopley, Harare province in Zimbabwe. GOAL, an international humanitarian response agency, implements Cash for Work activities under USAID's UPLIFT/SIMUDZA project to address the impact of massive rainfall that has caused environmental degradation over the years. The community is taking a proactive approach to adapting to the challenges posed by climate change and building resilience to withstand future environmental risks by restoring and fortifying the degraded gulley.