Climate change is “unfolding as we speak,” said John Agard, professor of Tropical Island Ecology at the University of the West Indies (UWI) at a recent public forum on island nations hosted in Trinidad by UWI’s Institute of International Relations. The “close coupling of terrestrial, coastal, and marine systems” in islands “results in fast-spreading impacts across systems,” said Roger-Mark De Souza¹, formerly the director of population, environmental security, and resilience for the Wilson Center, which partnered with UWI and American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies to organize the event.

“The same criminals that are trafficking in drugs, guns, and people, traffic in wildlife,” said Christine Dawson, the director of the Office of Conservation and Water at the U.S. Department of State, at a recent event in the Wilson Center’s “Managing Our Planet” series. Experts from Vulcan Productions and Brookings Institution joined Dawson to discuss the links between national security and wildlife trafficking, which is now the fourth largest transnational crime in the world, and to mark recent legislative successes and innovative tools.

This One Goes to 11.

Eleven years ago this week, the New Security Beat began covering population, environment, and conflict connections. Today, our goal remains the same as in 2007: to provide insight on today’s new security threats and to share overlooked opportunities for cooperation. As we wrote then, “countries in crises often share the problems of rapid population growth and deteriorating environmental resources”: and unfortunately, the same trends continue undermine peace and deepen poverty. But we’ve also analyzed notable global efforts, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the growing resilience agenda, that offer hope for progress.

Sewage—refuse liquids or waste matter usually carried off by sewers—is at the front lines of a global movement for clean energy. Innovative U.S. cities are digging into their dirtiest depths to create new sources of power that optimize economic benefits, generate clean energy, and control pollution. This wastewater-to-power movement is just beginning to catch on in China. But with some of the largest and most densely populated cities in the world, the country could be poised to lead a sludge-to-energy revolution.

Since 1987, the number of women dying during pregnancy and delivery has dropped by 43 percent, saving hundreds of thousands of women’s lives—and changing the lives of their families—around the world. “Our achievement in making maternal mortality an injustice that needs to be recognized by health ministers, by heads of state, by heads of agencies, has been, I think, the single greatest achievement of the Safe Motherhood Initiative” since it began 30 years ago, said Ann Starrs, President and CEO of Guttmacher Institute, at a Wilson Center event marking the anniversary of this important effort.

The new year promises some big changes for the field of environmental security—and some big moves for the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP). As we say hello to 2018, we wave goodbye to Roger-Mark De Souza, and welcome him to our team of advisors and fellows. And I’m excited (if a bit daunted) to step into his shoes as our Acting Director and tackle the challenges to come.