Tag Archive for: Deforestation

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The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation: Alleviating Poverty in Cambodia

Poverty in CambodiaDespite the agricultural potential and beauties of Cambodia, the country’s people face hardships. Almost 18% of the population lived in extreme poverty in Cambodia in the year 2019. Furthermore, out of the total population, 45% are living moderately to severely food insecure.  Organizations are taking action to improve living conditions for Cambodia’s most impoverished.

The Maddox Jolie-Pitt (MJP) Foundation

The Maddox Jolie-Pitt (MJP) Foundation is an organization founded by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in 2003 that provides support to communities living in extreme poverty in Cambodia to improve living conditions and works to protect the environment. The foundation is named after Jolie’s first adopted son, Maddox Jolie-Pitt, whom she adopted from Cambodia in 2002. Angelina Jolie was in Cambodia filming the movie Tomb Raider when she had the idea for the foundation after being inspired by the resilience of the country’s people. The organization’s team consists of Cambodian people, most of whom live in the local villages and have an understanding of the issues of extreme poverty in Cambodia plaguing communities. The foundation has divided its poverty alleviation goal into six main focal areas.

Conservation

In Cambodia, deforestation is a pressing issue. The MJP Foundation identifies lack of resources as the main reason that illegal logging and poaching continues- and the project aims to educate and encourage locals to preserve the natural habitat. The foundation’s website highlights that “In partnership with the Battambang Forestry Administration and local authorities, MJP has established 11 Community Forestry schemes in 4 communes in Samlout District.” This includes four community-run nurseries. In 2017, the foundation planted “more than 10,000 new trees using the seedlings grown in the community nurseries,” the website says.

Agriculture

The foundation’s work also centers on strengthening agriculture in Cambodia. Due to the level of extreme poverty in Cambodia, access to nutritious food is an issue. The MJP Foundation provides practical training for farmers in order to ensure that they are able to make the best use of their land and livestock. This is extremely important due to the fact that 80% of the entire Cambodian population works in agriculture. By increasing yields and productivity, the MJP Foundation helps people to raise their incomes and feed their families.

Education

A huge focus of the MJP project is providing access to trained educators, facilities, and libraries. Gradually, the literacy rate in Cambodia has improved. According to the World Bank, the adult literacy rate (15 and older) rose from 67% in 1998 to 81% in 2015 and then 84% in 2022.

The foundation works with 82 Cambodian school teachers and 10 schools in hopes of substantial improvement. The project provides books for the community and has organized literacy classes and after-school programs to support literacy in Cambodia. It has also provided support for local school sports teams including uniforms and training for coaches. The project also created the Shiloh scholarship, which provides support for children in extreme need.

Women’s Empowerment

The MJP works to increase female involvement in sports, health care and education. Out of 16 MJP health care workers, seven are female, along with 38 females out of 85 educators. MJP founded the Women’s Prosperity Center. The purpose of the center is to organize women-led empowerment activities. The MJP gender coordinator works with more than 30 women in surrounding villages to promote ideas about women’s rights.

Economic Growth

MJP supports economic growth by providing financial assistance to fight against extreme poverty in Cambodia. The organization aims to encourage locals to manage their finances and learn to save.

Health

The MJP health project works to provide sanitation in schools and works with mothers and children on healthy habits, advice, and support. MJP runs two health care clinics out of Cambodia that assist an average of 11,000 people yearly. As part of their approach, the MJP Foundation built two pump wells in schools and incorporated water filters in seven. The MJP also spreads awareness in schools on the importance of proper hygiene.

A Look Ahead

The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation aims to alleviate extreme poverty in Cambodia through a six-program approach. Through numerous partnerships in local communities and attention to the environment as well as availability of resources, the Jolie-Pitt foundation has provided relief for communities across Cambodia.

– Aubrey Acord
Photo: Flickr

How Guyana’s Forests Promote Economic Growth  

Guyana’s ForestsGuyana’s forests cover over 85% of its territory. Although most of its population lives in the unforested coastal region, the South American country’s extensive landscape hosts a variety of indigenous communities that have lived there for millennia. With a population of around 800,000, Guyana relies on mining and large-scale agriculture operations to support its citizens. With the rising price of gold in recent years, the mining industry is thriving. However, these ventures destroy the lush ecosystem and release chemicals into the water. The mining industry in the area accounts for more than 80% of deforestation efforts in the region. By finding alternatives, Guyana could protect its natural resources.

Impoverished citizens suffer from the impact of deforestation and emissions. Workers relying on the mines for income and communities who cannot move away from the sites face exposure to substances such as mercury. To avoid further destruction in the mining industry, the Guyanese government is working with the United Nations (U.N.) to reduce contamination by 2025.

Protecting Guyana’s Forests

An initiative under the Paris Climate Agreement, Reduce Emissions Caused by Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD+, aims to lessen the emissions caused within developing countries. Certain nations are eligible to receive financial incentives for protecting their trees. This protects their environment and increases funding for essential services they may need.

Under the REDD+ guidelines, a 2009 agreement between Guyana and Norway promised up to $250 million from the European nation. The Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF) worked to create employment opportunities that do not rely on the destruction of the country’s landscape. This instead created jobs that helped monitor and catalog the region by working with the forests’ inhabitants.

GRIF allocated nearly $5 million toward small businesses that reduced carbon emissions. It approved 224 loans and 591 grants that helped to create 2,000 new jobs. Additionally, almost 4,500 people acquired free training for different important topics, including management skills, record keeping, agricultural stability and sustainable mining techniques.

Beyond this, it awarded 34 more Green Business Technology Grants to increase the development of sustainable businesses. Furthermore, 684 business owners underwent further training in viable mining and forestry methods. GRIF also financed 165 secondary school students through Guyana’s In-School Entrepreneurship Program, which aims to prepare children for different career paths to boost the nation’s economy further. Students who receive the money complete employment plans while learning about important activities regarding economics, architecture and food production.

Organizations Helping the Economy and Forests in Guyana

In conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, the Guyanese government works with various indigenous communities to monitor the woodlands. Provided with updated technology, the government assesses the land and shares data with authorities. The technology also allows for several groups to receive aid. The government addresses the inaccessibility of water and food shortages in the southwest Rupununi region. These community monitors assist the economy and forests in Guyana, helping with environmental concerns and citizen issues. Several places are now receiving aid to support local schools and easier access to both food and water. This project also led to additional research grants for the University of Guyana’s Center for the Study of Biological Diversity.

In recent years, the nation has received money from offshore oil rigs run by ExxonMobil, gaining several billion dollars worth of taxes and products. The money generated by this deal between the oil company and Guyana improved the country’s economy significantly, with no adverse effects on its forests. In August 2023, ExxonMobil confirmed another deal with the South American nation, with a project that cost nearly $13 billion.

Looking Ahead

Since 2009, Guyana’s poverty level has decreased from 6% to under 2% of its total population in 2022. This consistent improvement provides economic prosperity to the nation. Although job creation continues to be an issue in Guyana, where the unemployment rate is now 12.4%, other problems, such as poverty and hunger, have decreased. Continuing efforts to protect Guyana’s forests show the potential to also protect the country’s economy.

– Abigail Dudley
Photo: Flickr

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Deforestation Threatens the Amazon’s River People

the Amazon's River PeopleDeforestation is regularly spoken of on a global scale. Most people understand that deforestation, the removal of trees and plants, may seem beneficial to the global economy, but the positive effects disappear in the long term. Climate change is a looming negative externality. It also impacts our health directly. Deforestation correlates with an increase in disease and a decrease in immunity as natural remedies become scarce. One study found that around 30% of disease outbreaks were caused by deforestation of the surrounding areas. The impact of deforestation on a global scale may be hard to calculate. However, the effects of deforestation on the ribereño, the Amazon’s river people, puts deforestation in perspective.

Who Are the Ribereños?

The ribereños, also known as the river people or riverine peasants, live along the riverbanks of the Amazon. Their communities live apart from the rest of civilization in the forests of Peru and Brazil. The Amazon’s river people are self-dependent; they operate their own education, health, food supply and water supply systems. The ribereños are rather adaptable to the behaviors of the Amazon river and forest. Over the years, they have learned how to use their resources sustainably.

The Effects of Deforestation on Ribereños

Unfortunately, deforestation has increased hunger among the Amazon’s river people. These riverine communities rely primarily on fishing during lower tides and hunting during high-water seasons. Both of these resources have decreased over the last decade due to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. The removal of the trees decreases natural resources, so hunting and food gathering have become less and less effective in supporting these populations. Furthermore, there is a link between deforestation and more frequent runoffs, baseflow reductions, erosion and pesticide-contaminated water.

Additionally, developers use forest fires for deforestation in Brazil. As a result, the air quality has worsened, putting the Amazon’s river people at higher risk of respiratory disease. In the time of COVID-19, this could be detrimental to the ribereños. Their only way to receive medical treatment is to travel by boat, for hours or even days. Therefore, any new disease or increase in illness has the potential to end in mass deaths.

Fighting Deforestation in Amazonia

The effects of deforestation of the Amazon have changed drastically in recent years. According to Professor Bratman, the author of Governing the Rainforest: Sustainable Development in the Brazilian Amazon, the ribereño population has been rather vocal about their struggles. “Deforestation went hand in hand with threats to their land and livelihood. Ranchers and loggers were moving onto the land on which the ribereños have lived on for generations, claiming that they actually have the right to take it,” explains Bratman. She saw how the Amazon’s river people united against deforestation and caused a spike in media attention. They are not helpless, but they do need the help of others. Bratman stated it is important to help the ribereños “keep the issue in the news. Support the organizations on the ground doing the work. It is important to be environmentally aware because it’s all of our future at stake.”

Thankfully, several organizations are working to help the riverside communities of Amazonia. The main actors are the WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature), Environmental Defense Fund and Green Peace. These organizations focus on generally fighting deforestation and on helping the ribereños survive their changing environment.

The Amazon’s river people are staying vocal and so are the organizations helping them. Brazilian deforestation has headlined numerous international newspapers, putting pressure on the Brazilian government. The main way to help the riverside communities of Amazonia is to continue the discussion.

– Anna Synakh
Photo: flicker

Mud Stoves to Help Fight Deforestation in Uganda

Deforestation-in-Uganda
With only 10% of the rural population of Uganda having access to electricity, it is no surprise that the rest of the population is forced to rely on other sources for food and energy. Unfortunately, this means that many people cut down trees leading to one of the highest global deforestation rates. Each year, nearly 3% of Uganda’s forests are cut down for fuel, agriculture and to make room for an increasing population. At the current rate of deforestation in Uganda, the country is likely to lose all of its forests in the next 25 years.

The repercussions of these actions are clear to see. Besides the landscape almost being completely devoid of trees, the dry season has become longer and filled with more droughts. The loose soil has caused heavy rainfall to turn into deadly floods, while crops are producing less and less yield. The wood from cut trees is mostly used to fuel stoves for cooking. But this has caused a separate issue where the smoke collects inside homes and causes respiratory issues for family members who stay at home and cook.

How Mud Stoves Can Help Reduce Deforestation

Badru Kyewalyanga, a local man frustrated by the minimal action from the government on the matter, developed a solution to this issue: mud stoves. The stoves are made of mud, water and straw, and require little time to be constructed. Balls of mud are thrown into the ground to remove air bubbles and prevent cracks. The mud is then molded around the trunk of a banana-like plant called the matooke tree. The stove is cut and arranged to form a combustion chamber, a chimney and several ventilation shafts. After two weeks, the mud hardens and can be removed from the tree and is ready for use.

The stoves are incredibly efficient as they require only half the amount of wood for fuel compared to a traditional stove and oven. In addition, the placement of the chimney when attached to a wall of the house means that the wood smoke can escape without being trapped inside. Kyewalyanga, along with local and international volunteers has worked together to build over 100 stoves helping villagers to breathe cleaner air, while also reducing the rate of deforestation in Uganda.

Use of Mud Stoves in South Sudan

The stoves have now begun to spread their usefulness to other groups of people in Africa as well. Refugees from South Sudan are often forced to venture into the forests for firewood or charcoal to prepare meals, which is risky due to the prevalent violence in the region. Unfortunately, they are left with little choice if they are to survive. However, they were introduced to a newer and more efficient method of cooking by the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

ADRA’s mission was to provide necessary supplies to the refugees escaping South Sudan. One of the items provided to the refugees was the mud stove developed in Uganda. Because the stove emits a smaller amount of smoke than a conventional stove and minimizes the number of trees to be cut down to collect fuel, they became incredibly popular. Members of ADRA were able to give demonstrations and trained women and children on its usage. These projects have shown that mud stoves are a useful and efficient way to provide a cheap way to cook food as well as fight deforestation in Uganda and other parts of Africa.

– Aditya Daita
Photo: Pixabay

The Economic Benefits of Planting Trees

Economic benefits of planting trees

Forest sustainability programs are vastly underrated environmental boosters of today despite the clear economic benefits of planting trees. Their influence has been overlooked in favor of expensive experimental air cleansing tactics while forests are being destroyed around the world. Though most of their impact is found in cost reduction in areas like air purification and pollution initiatives, they also provide millions of jobs worldwide.

Natural Air Purification

Not only are trees cost-effective but they are also reliable air purifiers. One of the many benefits of planting trees is that they take in CO2 from the air and turn out oxygen. At the same time, they act as filters for particulates. As the particulate laden air moves through the trees, dust particles are caught on leaves and then are subsequently washed away with the rain. It was estimated that trees cleared 17.4 million tonnes of air pollution annually in the U.S. alone. The benefits on human health were valued at $6.8 billion.

Providing a cleaner atmosphere lowers the risk of airborne illnesses and at a much lower cost. Trees can provide relief for acute respiratory symptoms and asthma for almost one million people. Cities could save millions in healthcare costs and create a visually appealing cityscape by planting trees. Beautiful landscapes also boost mental health and civic morale.

Planting Trees Creates Jobs

Trees bring industry. Trees require a different amount of care in cities than they do in a national forest. Cities require people in order to water and prune the trees. Furthermore, specialists are needed to plan and optimize tree placement. Different cities and various parts of a city will require different numbers and types of trees. This creates jobs for urban planners, ecologists and arborists. These jobs are sustainable and essential to the success of an urban forest’s impact on pollution reduction and health promotion.

Through conscious management, a balance can be struck between conservation of forests and the industry they can provide (i.e., lumber). The lumber industry provides work for 13.2 million people worldwide. However, many of those jobs are primarily in deforestation. By bringing trees into the urbanscape, cities create more job opportunities and economic growth.

Lumber is an industry that will continue to grow as we see countries develop and urbanize. However, at the moment, the industry is causing harm by stripping the world of forests. We are sadly seeing our rainforests dwindle. Through enhancing forest management practices, investing in fire and pest management and developing intense monitoring systems, the economic benefits of planting trees can be brought to its full potential. An industry can be built, giving as much as it takes and ending the destruction of habitats, species and the climate.

Current Environmental Efforts

Slowly, countries are taking advantage of the clear economic benefits of planting trees. In fact, we are beginning to see forest and lumber sustainability programs developing in some parts of the world. The EU initiated the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument, Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (ENPI-FLEG) in seven eastern European countries. The program helped these countries improve forest management and sustainability.

Mexico has developed multiple community forestry enterprises that work to renew what it takes from its forests. The National Reforestation Program and Commercial Plantations Program are working to plant trees throughout the country. Even in America, we see states like Georgia striking a balance between taking from and giving back to its forests through their forest management programs.

Lumber is an essential global industry. However, reforestation, conscious conservation and land management are necessary to keep this precious resource from being lost. Hopefully, more countries and cities will begin to understand the benefits of planting trees and to step up to support the world’s forests and protect their futures.

– Emma Hodge
Photo: Flickr

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The Maya Nut: Wild Food Consumption

Wild Foods Consumption
People considerably underlook wild food consumption when addressing the poor health epidemic. Lack of biodiversity in modern diets, especially the diets available to those living in poverty, is the main reason people have too few micronutrients and other key nutrients in their diet, which leads to an unnecessary number of preventable diseases and death.

The Maya nut is one of the lesser-known wild forest foods. Found in Ramón trees native to the rainforests of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Maya nut is extremely versatile in its uses and benefits. The Maya nut receives praise for its nutritional value, but people also stigmatize the wild food due to it once having been a staple food in severe times of poverty. Regardless of the association, what is important to note is that the Maya nut is a wild superfood with massive nutritional and health benefits for all people regardless their class status.

Versatility and Sustainability

Some of the micronutrients that one can find in the Maya nut in abundance include calcium, fiber, potassium, iron and zinc; these are all crucial and critically nutrients lacking in most diets across the globe. A nutrient-dense diet is even less accessible to those living in poverty: a propeller of the cycle of poverty when considering that a poor diet is the leading cause of future health issues.

People can consume the Maya nut in a variety of ways, such as fresh, dried or even roasted. The entire plant is useful in that the sap is medicinal, people can eat the seed or pit or they can mill it into flour (similar to the avocado). Individuals can also chop the branches into firewood. Unfortunately, less than 5 percent of the modern diet of local communities includes the Maya nut because communities do not support it.

Wild Foods and Forest Conservation

Research shows that an increase in the consumption of these types of wild forest foods could be a mutually beneficial enterprise with respect to forest conservation and the people that inhabit those communities suffering from deforestation. Satellite evidence shows that communities that are cultivating the threatened plant species are experiencing lower deforestation rates than areas that are not accessing and consuming the versatile Maya nut. The leading cause of deforestation in the world is food production and the practices by which humans manufacture food, so this is a great place to start when analyzing the world’s environmental crisis. Environmental benefits of the consumption of the Maya nut include the planting of trees, as opposed to their removal.

How to classify the Maya nut in terms of its wildness is controversial since it is notably a wild food but growers have since started to grow it intentionally. Wild edible species are technically plant groups that people do not cultivate willfully. While some grow it deliberately (the Maya Nut Institute is responsible for much of this), the Maya nut does continue to grow without human intervention in certain rainforest areas; just not enough to keep it from being on the verge of extinction.

Looking to the Future

One Ramón tree has the ability to produce up to 200 kg of food per year. Living for more than 100 years, this plant has the potential to outturn upwards of 20,000 kg of food in its lifetime. And not only that, but the Maya nut can last up to five years (if dried and stored properly) and will maintain its nutrient properties in full value. In terms of world hunger, wild foods can only help improve current circumstances. Wild food consumption could be a part of the solution to help reduce global poverty, hunger and deforestation all at once.

The protection of wild foods, wild foods consumption and overall accessibility to wild foods in poor communities is a global issue that people must address. Emphasis placed on education, awareness and accessibility could help increase wild food consumption. Others should make the indigenous people in areas where the Ramon trees flourish and provide ample food for the community aware of the plant and its benefits.

– Helen Schwie
Photo: Flickr

 

Search Engine Ecosia Uses Revenue to Reforest

Ecosia
As of 2015, less than one-third of our planet’s surface contains forests, and that percentage continues to decrease. According to the World Wildlife Fund, approximately 18.7 million acres of forest are destroyed annually. But a search engine called Ecosia is on a mission to help.

The Problem With Deforestation

Deforestation rates have slowed down somewhat since peak levels in the 1990s. Nevertheless, the Earth continues to lose this ecosystem at an alarming rate. Forests are home to an estimated 80 percent of the world’s non-aquatic species. The Amazon rainforest alone shelters an estimated 2,000 animal species and 40,000 plant species. As the world’s forests are gradually destroyed, millions of plants and animals lose their habitats. It is possible that, due to deforestation, countless species have gone extinct before they were ever discovered by humans.

In addition, forests play a number of roles in maintaining a safe and habitable environment. Forests are carbon sinks, meaning that they absorb large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, thereby helping to maintain a balanced and habitable climate. The loss of forests is responsible for at least 15 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to rising temperatures, extreme weather conditions and an increasing number of dangerous storms. These changes have the potential to make human life more difficult and dangerous, and people in impoverished countries often face the greatest risks.

What is Ecosia?

Ecosia is a web search engine founded in 2009 and based in Berlin, Germany. The brainchild of Christian Kroll, Ecosia was created as a “social business” with the primary objective of helping the world. For most businesses, profit comes first and service projects second. Ecosia has turned this order on its head.

Like other search engines, Ecosia makes money off of ads in internet searches. But unlike other engines, 80 percent of Ecosia’s revenue is used to plant trees in countries suffering from heavy deforestation and to fund reforestation projects. The search page also comes with a tree counter, allowing users to see how many trees their searches have planted so far.

As of 2018, Ecosia is contributing to reforestation efforts in 15 countries across Asia, Europe, and South America. Its projects target biodiversity hotspots containing a high number of plants and animals without alternative habitats. Many of these areas are at risk of disappearing. By reforesting these areas, Ecosia’s efforts are preventing countless species from going extinct.

Agricultural Benefits of Reforestation

Forests are vital to the health and safety of agriculture. Apart from maintaining a healthy climate and biodiversity, trees prevent erosion by holding soil. Without this protection from erosion, good soil is lost, and agriculture becomes significantly more difficult.

Trees also shield smaller crops from violent storms and channel nutrients to surrounding plants. They provide habitats for bees and other pollinators, facilitating natural fertilization of crops and plants. Perhaps most importantly, trees aid in precipitation. By drawing groundwater through their roots and evaporating it through their leaves, the water can return as rain. Not long after the reforestation project in Burkina Faso commenced, rainfall became more frequent in the semi-desertic area.

By setting the groundwork to create better and more sustainable conditions for agriculture, Ecosia is helping rural communities around the world improve their livelihoods.

Community Benefits of Reforestation

While reforestation efforts are inherently beneficial to the environment, Ecosia also ensures that local communities benefit from their projects. Many of the company’s efforts focus on planting trees that are useful to local farmers. One example is Ecosia’s project in Ghana, where more than 900,000 trees were planted along the Daka River. Most of these trees were fruit or nut trees. These trees not only helped restore and maintain the water level of the river but provided local people with food. Through the harvesting and selling of shea nuts, the plants also created new economic opportunities.

Finally, Ecosia projects bring communities out of poverty by employing locals to plant trees. The company provides a stable source of income for people in areas where jobs and money are scarce.

How to Help

Ecosia can be downloaded for free as an extension for browsers including Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome. It is also offered as an app on iOS or Android. So far, nearly 6 million people have begun using Ecosia, leading to the planting of more than 40 million trees. By 2020, the company hopes to have planted at least 1 billion, reviving broken habitats and contributing to a sustainable future.

–Keira Charles
Photo: Flickr

Efforts to Combat Deforestation in Uganda

Deforestation in UgandaDeforestation is the second highest cause of carbon emissions from human activity next to burning fossil fuels. According to the World Wildlife Foundation, on average between “46 and 58 thousand square miles of forest are lost each year—equivalent to 48 football fields every minute.” When trees are cut down, the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere decreases drastically. Efforts to curb deforestation practices in developing countries through stipends to farmers has proven to be both a cost-effective way to address climate change and provide people in rural areas an additional form of income.

From 2010 to 2013, the Innovation for Poverty Action (IPA) conducted a study surrounding deforestation in Uganda, a country with extremely high rates of such, to test the usefulness of paying farmers annually for their active conservation of forested land. According to the IPA, from 2000 to 2010 Uganda lost forest at a rate of 2.6 percent annually, the third highest rate in the world. This not only contributes to rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere but endangers animals such as chimpanzees and reduces protection from rain-forest flooding.

Taking place in areas of western Uganda, a predominantly rural zone, the IPA program targeted land owners of forested areas who decide whether or not to cut down trees to plant crops. The program entitled payments for ecosystem services (PES) “offered owners of forested land a contract under which they could receive annual payments of 70,000 Ugandan shillings (equivalent to $28) per hectare for conserving forested land,” according to the report. Owners could also receive additional payment for planting new trees on already deforested areas.

Despite the low number of landowners who agreed to the contract–only 32 percent–they earned on average an additional $113 for avoiding deforestation and planting new seeds. The program’s results found owners more actively engaged in patrolling their land as well as had a significant decrease in deforestation in Uganda. Compared to an average loss of 9.1 percent of forests in villages where the program was not enacted, villages that participated in the program lost on average 4.2 percent of their forest, a significant decrease.

The findings of the study equated to “delaying 3,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per village from being released into the atmosphere” through curbing deforestation in Uganda. The PES program proved successful and cost-effective, having both a positive impact on reduced carbon emissions and land-owning households.

According to the World Wildlife Foundation, “1.6 billion people rely on benefits forests offer, including food, fresh water, clothing, traditional medicine and shelter.” Efforts to curb deforestation in countries like Uganda are vital for the survival of the world’s forests.

– Riley Bunch

Photo: Google

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Five Ways to Help Stop Desertification of the World

5 Ways on How to Stop Desertification
Drought, deforestation and climate change. All of these contribute to the extreme global issue known as desertification. According to the environmental campaign Clean Up the World, desertification is the degradation of land in drylands, which affects all continents except Antarctica. Approximately half of the people worldwide who live below the poverty line live in affected areas.

The result of desertification is barren land that cannot be used for crop and food production or other agricultural purposes. Prevention methods have been introduced and tend to be more successful than attempts to restore already damaged regions, which can be costly and yield limited results.

  1. Land and water management: Sustainable land use can fix issues such as overgrazing, overexploitation of plants, trampling of soils and irrigation practices that cause and worsen desertification.
  2. Protection of vegetative cover: Protecting soil from wind and water erosion helps to prevent the loss of ecosystem services during droughts.
  3. Alternative Farming and Industrial Techniques: Alternative livelihoods that are less demanding on local land and natural resource use, such as dryland aquaculture for production of fish, crustaceans and industrial compounds, limit desertification.
  4. Establish economic opportunities outside drylands: Unpacking new possibilities for people to earn a living, such as urban growth and infrastructure, could relieve and shift pressures underlying the desertification processes.
  5. Great Green Wall: Eleven countries in Sahel-Sahara Africa — Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Senegal — have focused efforts to fight against land degradation and revive native plant life to the landscape. The initiative, managed in part by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), plants a line of trees as a sustainable way of regenerating the parkland and serves as an example for other problematic locations.

Such large-scale environmental complications may seem troubling to deal with, but the outlined methods and many more make all the difference, giving individuals an idea of how to stop desertification.

– Mikaela Frigillana

Photo: Flickr

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Six Surprising Causes of Hunger

hungerOne in eight people go hungry each day, but the world produces enough food to feed the entire population and more. Why haven’t countries eradicated hunger? Can’t governments simply reorganize food distribution to feed everybody? The answer is much more complicated.

Here are six causes of hunger that are not often considered:

  1. Poor infrastructure and vehicles – Many developing countries lack the resources to build sufficient roads, which impedes food transportation. In some countries, motor vehicles are also in short supply, so the majority of transportation is on foot, bicycle or on the backs of livestock. With these methods of transportation, fresh food would spoil quickly. Rural areas must rely on the natural resources around them, and if those resources aren’t enough, the inhabitants may go hungry.
  1. Deforestation – Forests act as a safety net during times of food shortage: communities can rely on nuts, edible plants and forest animals until crops are ready for harvest, or food is imported. Deforestation robs people of these resources. In fact, one out of six people rely directly on forests for food. Furthermore, deforestation can lead to overworked soil, which in turn leads to soil erosion. If soil becomes unfit for crops, farmers and surrounding settlements become at risk for famine.
  1. War – In times of national and international strife, one popular tactic towards achieving victory is destroying the enemy’s food supply. Soldiers will steal animals, demolish food markets and set fields on fire to force the other side into submission. While an effective ploy, it leaves citizens with a major food crisis that may take decades to resolve. Refugees of war often face hunger complications as they struggle to scrape together a living or find a home. The world is seeing this problem right now, as hungry Syrians scatter across the globe in search of shelter and nourishment.
  1. Foreign trade – When a food crisis occurs at a local level, it can also have far-reaching effects. Countries that rely on the export of goods from that area suddenly can’t receive necessary supplies. “Overall, in the last two decades there has been an increase in the number of trade-dependent countries that reach sufficiency through their reliance on trade,” Paolo D’Odorico—who conducted a study on climate change and crop production—told Natural World News.
  1. Discrimination – In every country, groups of people are poorer than their neighbors due to religious, racial or gender-based discrimination. If groups are not well-received by their community, it becomes very difficult for them to ward off hunger. They may be banned from restaurants and food markets, unable to find employment, unlawfully incarcerated and overlooked by government welfare programs.
  1. Cheap food – Sometimes, the hunger problem is a matter of quality, not quantity. If people purchase and consume cheap, unhealthy food, they will reach their proper calorie intake, but still suffer severe nutrient deficiencies. This situation is known as “hidden hunger.” Unborn babies and toddlers are especially vulnerable because they need specific nutrients to develop and become resilient to disease.

– Sarah Prellwitz

Sources: Bread.org, Global Issues, Nature World News, WFP
Photo: Lifted Hands Foundation