Trafficking of illegal wildlife goods is quickly becoming one of the most lucrative illicit businesses in the world. With growing demand in Asia, an industry that was once fed by isolated, small-scale poaching incidents is now run by well-organized, transnational criminal networks, similar to narcotics and guns. The Obama administration labeled wildlife trafficking as a national priority in 2013 and released a National Strategy for Combatting Wildlife Trafficking in 2014. A detailed implementation plan for the strategy followed this year, identifying key steps and implementing agencies to help end trafficking in the United States and abroad.

Natural resources rarely feature during peacebuilding efforts, but there is growing evidence that’s a mistake. Unresolved natural resource management issues can make peace more fragile, while addressing them can act as a bridge toward cooperation.

Accessing maternal health care is already a challenge in many countries, and when conflict erupts or a disaster strikes, it can get even worse, leaving millions of women on their own while at their most vulnerable, said Ugochi Daniels, chief of humanitarian response for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Women and girls also become more vulnerable to violence during times of crisis, she said, by virtue of nothing but their gender. [Video Below]

It’s been 14 years since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 acknowledging women as important agents of change in recovery from conflict and peacebuilding generally. But between 1992 and 2011, only four percent of signatories in 31 major peace processes around the world were women, and only 12 out of 585 peace agreements referred to or made provisions for women’s needs in the reconstruction process.

Nearly 1 billion people lack reliable access to clean drinking water today. A report by the Water Resources Group projects that by 2030 annual global freshwater needs will reach 6.9 trillion cubic meters – 64 percent more than the existing accessible, reliable, and sustainable supply. This forecast, while alarming, likely understates the magnitude of tomorrow’s water challenge, as it does not account for the impacts of climate change.

When she finished her dissertation on migration as a response to climate change in 2003, it was one of only a handful of scholarly papers published on the topic that year, said Susana Adamo, an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network. But in the decade since, interest in climate migration has exploded – in 2012, more than 10 times as many papers were published. [Video Below]

Last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) celebrated 150 years of their mission to “protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence.” Though this mission hasn’t changed in the past century-and-a-half, the nature of conflict and crisis response has. [Video Below]