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Who Benefits From REDD+? Lessons From India, Tanzania, and Mexico
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REDD+, a global framework designed to reward governments for preserving forests, has pledged nearly $10 billion to developing countries. But minorities, indigenous people, the poor, and other marginalized groups that live in forest areas often end up paying more than their fair share of the costs of environmental cleanup and conservation while getting less in return. What can be done to change this?
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Roger-Mark De Souza: Focus on Urban Dynamics, Water Scarcity in Latin America and the Caribbean
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For the past four decades, urbanization in Latin American and Caribbean countries has been on the rise. Today it’s one of the most urbanized regions of the world with 79 percent of the population living in towns and cities. By 2050, 9 out of 10 residents are expected to live in cities. This density and movement of people is critical to understanding the region’s water and climate change issues, says ECSP’s Roger Mark De Souza in this week’s podcast. -
Turning the Climate-Security Problem on Its Head: Geoff Dabelko Talks G7 ‘Climate for Peace’ Report
›Conversations around climate change often take place at the “30,000-foot level,” said Ohio University Professor and ECSP Senior Advisor Geoff Dabelko in a recent radio interview with WOUB Public Media, based out of Athens, Ohio. Emission reductions, carbon concentrations, global temperatures. But a certain amount of change is already baked into the system and impacts are playing at in different ways around the world already. -
A World of Extremes: New Thinking Needed to Reconcile Food-Water Choke Points
›Food and water are tied to one another fundamentally. But in addition to their biophysical relationship, human systems intervene, whether through pricing schemes and trade agreements or shifting patterns in consumption and taste.
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Lauri Romanzi on Rethinking Maternal Morbidity Care in a Historical Context
›In May 1855, Dr. James Marion Sims opened the first obstetric fistula hospital in New York City. Just 40 years later, it closed, reflecting a sharp decline in maternal morbidity rates in the United States and other Western countries. The Waldorf Astoria Hotel now stands on the site of the former hospital. “We know that we have eradicated obstetric fistula in high income countries; it happened at the turn of the 20th century,” says Dr. Lauri Romanzi, project director of Fistula Care Plus, in this week’s podcast. -
Keeping Up With Cuba: Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission in the Caribbean
›Fear of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and other infectious diseases has been used as an excuse to deny women health care around the world. Some women living with HIV have even been sterilized without their knowledge. But with proper treatment, the chances of transmission to an unborn child are very low in many cases. The World Health Organization (WHO), in fact, just declared Cuba the first country to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.
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As African Cities Grow, Rural-Urban Divides Widen Too
›In 2007, the world crossed a threshold: for the first time in human history, the majority of people lived in urban areas. Today, Africa and Asia are the only remaining continents where the rural population outnumbers urban, but they are urbanizing at unprecedented rates. This rapid growth is a double-edged sword. While urbanization spurs economic opportunity and often increases access to infrastructure, it is also widening disparities in health and development, according to a new data sheet by the Population Reference Bureau.
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“People Need Nature to Thrive”: Recovering From Conflict Through Conservation in Timor-Leste
›In my tiny, half-an-island country of Timor-Leste, cemeteries smell of jasmine and come to life on All Saints’ Day. Families have picnics and kids roam wild over the tombstones. Here, stepping on somebody else’s family tombstones is not seen as an offense but as the norm; after all, since there isn’t enough land to hold so many graves, not stepping on one is impossible unless you have mastered levitation.
Showing posts from category *Blog Columns.
For the past four decades, urbanization in Latin American and Caribbean countries has been on the rise. Today it’s one of the most urbanized regions of the world with 79 percent of the population living in towns and cities. By 2050, 9 out of 10 residents are 
Conversations around climate change often take place at the “30,000-foot level,” said Ohio University Professor and ECSP Senior Advisor Geoff Dabelko in a recent 
In 
