Conflict over environmental resources endangers rural people’s livelihoods and can increase the risk of broader social conflict. Yet joint action to sustain shared resources can also be a powerful means for community building. The Strengthening Aquatic Resource Governance (STARGO) project demonstrated this in three ecoregions: Lake Victoria, with a focus on Uganda; Lake Kariba, with a focus on Zambia; and Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. The results of the project were released at an event in Berlin in early July 2014.

China faces a dilemma. It is home to 20 percent of the world’s population but only seven percent of the world’s water resources and nine percent of the world’s arable land. At the same time, a rising middle class is demanding more food. Over the last 30 years, China’s meat demand has quadrupled.

The United Nations and the streets of Manhattan are going into global warming saturation mode, from Sunday’s People’s Climate March through the Tuesday climate change summit convened by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and on through an annual green-energy event called Climate Week.

From Ukraine and the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, the world is engulfed in a series of significant international crises. But despite such urgent issues, it would be a grave mistake to forget about the structural foreign policy challenges – such as access to water – that could become the crises of the future.

The effects of climate change “are here now” and pose a “serious challenge” for the United States, said Alice Hill, White House senior advisor for preparedness and resilience, at the Wilson Center on July 29. [Video Below]

A new report from the International Institute for Environment and Development seeks to understand why Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park continues to be exploited despite park officials’ implementation of “integrated conservation and development” (ICD) efforts. The study finds that local people’s perceptions of the benefits of the integrated conservation and development vary depending on five primary factors: age, level of education, homestead distance to the national park, quality of life, and wealth.

Island communities, particularly those from small island developing states, are often reported in policy documents, academic papers and mainstream media as being “most vulnerable” to climate change and disasters. While such a classification might serve to raise awareness of their plight, or be used as impetus for global action, this approach can also result in unintended (and damaging) attitudes and consequences. This is well-illustrated by recent off-the-record discussions with several donors and policy-makers who have inappropriately implied it is “too late” to “save the islands,” given their vulnerability to current and impending climate change impacts.