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Vanilla. It’s one of the world’s great flavors and scents, coveted for centuries for use in everything from baked goods to soaps. And it is also helping expand tree cover in Indonesia. Indonesia’s islands have been inhabited for millennia. Dramatic increases in population over the last few decades and more recent expansions of unsustainable industrial agriculture have shifted what had been a system in balance.

• 07/21/2020
• Christine Chumbler

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have provided clear guidance on the most critical measure we can all take to protect human health and reduce the spread of COVID-19: “Hands should be washed with soap and water.” While clear and simple, this directive is far from attainable for the 3 billion people around the world who lack access to soap and safe water at home.

• 07/17/2020
• Evan Thomas, Doris Kaberia

In 2015, India set an ambitious goal of creating a sink of as much as 3 billion tons of carbon by 2030. To do that, the country will need to increase tree cover by 10 million hectares and enhance forest stocks on a further 10 million hectares—about one-quarter the total area of California—which is a huge task.

• 07/15/2020
• Christine Chumbler

Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is a region in Southeast Bangladesh historically impacted by porous borders, instability and armed conflict. More than two decades of fighting formally came to a close in 1997 with the signing of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord but social, economic and political integration is a work in progress.

• 07/14/2020
• Agrilinks

We are in a race against time to improve the resilience of the world’s infrastructure. Demand for infrastructure investment is increasing worldwide. From 2015 to 2030, $90 trillion in new infrastructure investments will be needed—an amount equivalent to the world’s total existing stock.

• 07/09/2020
• Doug Mason