“The exploitation of the mining and trade of conflict minerals in the eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] has contributed to instability, violence, displacement of people, and severe human rights abuses,” says the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its annual report, Conflict Minerals: Actions Needed to Assess Progress Addressing Armed Groups’ Exploitation of Minerals. The report examines a sample of filings from 1,083 companies that submitted conflict mineral disclosures required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019.

By the end of 2020, Turkey’s long awaited Ilisu dam project will be complete. Turkey argues this new dam will bring power independence and shore up economic stability. As an added bonus, it ensures water resiliency in a water-scarce region. Meanwhile, environmentalists bemoan habitat destruction, and Iraqis worry about water shortages they will experience down river. For the Kurds, the Ilisu dam project wipes out thousands of years of culture. For them, it’s the latest in a methodical cultural extermination which has been their plight since the founding of the Republic of Turkey.

The dry season returned to Brazil’s Amazon region in late July—and with it, forest fires, largely human-made. After making substantial progress in reducing deforestation in the 2000s and early 2010s, Brazil has reversed course and deforestation is rising. In the Amazon, this season has been the worst in more than a decade in number of fires, and second worst in terms of total deforestation, according to satellite data from Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research (INPE), which monitors the situation.

On August 11, 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro dismissed the raging fires in the Amazon, calling their existence a “lie.” However, his own government has reported more than 10,000 fires currently burning in the Amazon, a 17 percent increase from the same time last year, when the number of wildfires reached a nine-year high. The international community has condemned the Brazilian government’s response to the raging Amazon fires. Bolsonaro’s denial about these fires blocks effective domestic, international, government, and non-governmental responses. And it risks exacerbating the conditions contributing to global climate change.

The port city of Tianjin is in desperate need of water. The surface and groundwater supplies of this sprawling northeast Chinese metropolis have shrunk to dangerously low levels due to decades of reduced rainfall and overexploitation of the Hai River that flows through the city. According to the Tianjin Environmental Protection Bureau, the city’s per capita water resources are one-twentieth of China’s national average, far below the UN benchmark for a water-stressed region. Despite promoting water conservation and metering among residential and industrial users, Tianjin still faces shortages that drive its reliance on large-scale water-supply infrastructure like the South-North Water Transfer Project and seawater desalination. 

“As we face a global pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 800,000 people as of right now around the world, we certainly have to recognize the particular impacts that that has had on women and girls and their lives,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), at a recent event hosted by CARE and UNFPA about the global impact of COVID-19 on women and girls. While women make up 70-80 percent of frontline healthcare workers globally, they have also been disproportionately affected during the pandemic by increased rates of gender-based violence, lack of access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, and economic and food insecurity.

As Beijing prepares to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, China’s environmental activities are once again on center stage. The Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum took the top spot this month with Karen Mancl and Richard Liu’s coverage of the new program report, “Closing the Loop on China’s Water Pollution,” which details what China can learn from New York, Washington, D.C., and Singapore, to advance its wastewater and carbon reduction targets.

“Achieving true progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights requires a comprehensive approach and a commitment to tackling deeply entrenched inequities and injustices of which marginalized communities continue to bear the brunt,” said Dr. Herminia Palacio, President and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute. She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event where speakers analyzed findings from the Guttmacher Institute on the state of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally.