Climatelinks Photo Gallery

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.

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

A beneficiary from the Community of El Pato, Zaragoza, Antioquia. Caucasia, Antioquia, November 9, 2017. USAID-Oro Legal Activity. Partners: Beekeeping Associations, Mineros SA Foundation, Oleoductos of Colombia Foundation, Hacienda La Leyenda.

Photo Credit: Jorge Eliecer Martínez, USAID-Oro Legal Project.

One hundred and fifty single, women heads of household make up more than half of the beneficiaries of USAID's Legal Gold beekeeping activity in Antioquia, Colombia. Why is beekeeping in a gold mining project? Despite the commonly held view that everybody who is involved in gold mining is a millionaire, artisanal gold mining sustains tens of thousands of marginal families in Colombia. However, as the price of gold rises and mining activities become more intensive, miners at the lower echelons of the value chain, particularly women, find it ever harder to eke out a living; there is just not enough gold left for them to find. These same people lack another vital resource, land, and for that reason beekeeping provides an attractive economic alternative that allows women to undertake their multiple roles in the home and still make a decent living. They work tirelessly “like bees in a beehive” to make their apiaries a mainstay of the family economy. This initiative has been developed in five mining municipalities, providing almost 11,000 beehives for 300 families and producing 350 tons of honey a year; a number that will increase national honey production by 25%. Bees are dying off in record numbers throughout the world; Colombia is no exception. The project supports over 326 million bees roaming the region for nectar, pollinating plants and transforming the landscape. As an added bonus, the apiaries are installed on more than one thousand hectares of rehabilitated ex-mining land.

This common sighting in the rivers of the Peruvian Amazon portrays a "buoyer," a person whose job consists of untying the logs that have floated to the bank of the river-like buoys from the forest concessions, a journey that usually takes over 24 hours. Nearly 40% of the Amazonian population in Peru rely economically on the timber value chain-including over 250,000 families, mostly of indigenous descent- which presents a unique opportunity to draw increased attention to the challenges and opportunities the forest sector faces nationwide. The Pro-Bosques Activity aims to capitalize on timber harvesting by promoting sustainable forest management in Peru, strengthening forest governance with innovative forest control and monitoring tools, while promoting private sector engagement and indigenous participation in forest value chains.

Jean Bruno, nursery agent, and his wife on April 12, 2019. Sahambavy, Fianarantsoa, Centra Madagascar on their tree nursery.

The ASOTRY project, implemented by ADRA and funded by USAID/FFP, restores forests through reforestation activity. It contributes to mitigating global warming by soaking up greenhouse gas emission. In Madagascar where bush fire and slash hand-burn agriculture are a common practice, reforestation is crucial.

In March 2019 in Son La Province, Vietnam the USAID/Vietnam Vietnam Forests and Deltas Project joined with Son La Province for a ceremonial tree planting commemorating Vietnam’s commitment to sustainable development. In Son La Province, the Vietnam Forests and Deltas project supports Vietnam’s Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) mechanism. The project supports the transition from cash-based payments to electronic payments to improve transparency and accountability, and works with provincial authorities to better monitor and evaluate the impact PFES has on Vietnam’s forests. The Vietnam Forests and Deltas project is implemented by Winrock International in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam.

John O. Niles (right) speaks to participants in a workshop held in May 2018 by the U.S. Forest Service and The Carbon Institute and supported by USAID’S Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment. Participants learned about calculating greenhouse gas emissions from land-use change. The U.S. Forest Service has partnered with the Carbon Institute, as well as government agencies, universities, and NGOs in the region to build regional capacity in carbon accounting to help countries better estimate greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect and preserve their rainforests. Accurate carbon accounting not only allows countries to identify threatened areas and causes of deforestation, but also allows them to apply for international funding to set up programs to protect these forests.

Climate change is imposing stress on water availability in mountain localities in Nepal. Marginalized households with limited land holding are getting more vulnerable due to climate change and its impact on water availability. So men are migrating in search of alternative livelihood options while women are also coming upfront in professions that were previously considered only for men. This is helping then to earn bread from their family and to be empowered in a sense while adapting to change.
Activity Depicted : Woman involved in gravel extraction
Picture Location: Humla District Nepal, 2018
USAID supported program: Paani/DAI

Encouraged by leaders of a new, farmer-focused enterprise called Sesame Farmers Development Association in Magway Township in Myanmar's Central Dry Zone, producers in July and August 2019 began experimenting with new methods of dealing with erratic and extreme weather aimed at preventing crop losses. The Association teamed up with USAID's Value Chains for Rural Development project and the local Land Use Department to brainstorm ways they could better conserve water and control erosion in their sesame fields. By using small, easy-to-build, earthen "check dams" in shallow trenches around their fields, farmers developed new ability to prevent their fields from being inundated during periods of torrential rain. They also began planting wild almond saplings as windbreaks around their sesame fields to stem erosion and provide a second source of income (the trees produce sterculia gum that can be exported to Korea.) The new practices are working, farmers say, and sesame plants are healthier than in previous seasons, with "extra" stems flowering beautifully in advance of the coming harvest.

Limón Province, Costa Rica, November 2014. Pineapples are by definition unsustainable, requiring high use of agrochemicals and replacing large swaths of land with a single, spiny crop. However, pineapples are also extremely popular, so in spite of their inherent unsustainability, they’re not going anywhere. To meet increasing global demand for sustainably produced crops, companies in Costa Rica are investing in improved agricultural practices, certifications, and better conditions for laborers.

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.

Employees of the Central African Satellite Forest Observatory (OSFAC), a regional remote sensing NGO, complete exercises during a training on analyzing LIDAR data to estimate biomass carbon in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in October 2017. This training, held in Kinshasa, hosted by the U.S. Forest Service International Programs, and supported by USAID’S Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment, is part of a larger effort to support governments, universities, and non-governmental organizations in Central African countries to develop and implement sustainable forest management approaches. The Democratic Republic of the Congo covers over 900,000 square miles and contains 60 percent of the Congo Basin’s forests, the second-largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon. While there are many initiatives being put in place to sustainably manage these forests, the ability of national and regional actors to map and monitor them is an essential step in identifying critically threatened areas and developing effective resource management solutions to combat climate change.

This photo was taken on May 10, 2019 in Leyden, a small village in the Waterberg district in Limpopo province, South Africa. Rainfall is scare in this village and the rest of the province is faced with water scarcity. Hence small scale vegetable cultivation is rarely practiced in this village. This all changed through a smart agriculture initiative implemented by a national NGO, Humana People to People in South Africa (HPPSA). With funding received from Global Water Challenge, HPPSA mobilized community members in Leyden and trained them on how to manage water and grow vegetables on dry land through mulching. The results were so amazing so much so that more than 375 family members in the community to day benefit from vegetables harvested from their backyard gardens irrespective of the water scarcity in the community. This as they employ smart agricultural practices.

Gokwe North, Zimbabwe, June 12, 2019.

A meeting of the Kushinga Village Savings and Loan Association group at which the participants (all women) participate in group sharing activities, giving small loans to each other for economic improvement, and support each other with social needs, all of which contribute to group and individual resilience. VSLA groups such as this one are encouraged to invest in activities and resources that are adapted to the changing climate, including drought-resistant agriculture items, animals and agricultural and husbandry techniques. This also crates a type of social cohesion and resiliency that helps the participants adapt as their surroundings change.

Relevant Program: Gokwe North Food Security and Agricultural Response (Go-FAR) Project
Partner Organizations: ADRA, as well as District Government staff and extension officers
Photo Credit: Debra Olson, ADRA

In Mananjary District, Madagascar, residents in the village of Tsaravinary Ambohimiarina tend to seedlings in May of 2019 in one of the 20 nurseries set up by Catholic Relief Services through the SPICES project. Through this project, CRS is working to both reduce deforestation by providing local access to a range of tree seedlings, and bolster livelihoods through training and access to valuable cash crops like vanilla, pepper, cinnamon and turmeric. The goal of the SPICES project is to improve local management of forested and agricultural landscapes, strengthen adaptive capacity and reduce exposure to the risks of climate change.