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Sunday, October 4, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Biodiversity
New Ocean Report Warns of Rising Seas, Ocean Heat and Acidification
Fatuma Makame learned to farm seaweed in the shallow water where her parents worked. These days, she grows it farther from shore.
What Faith Can Teach Agriculture
Years ago, standing in a small farmer's field in Haiti, I began to suspect that we had agriculture backward. The development world saw a man in need of rescue. I saw a farmer who might help rescue the rest of us.
Overshoot of Paris Agreement and the Looming Super El Niño Drive Urgent Calls for Global Climate Action at UNGA 81
The United Nations 2026 Climate Summit addressed critical strategies to mitigate the compounding impacts of the climate crisis and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
BRAZIL: ‘Resistance Is Intergenerational, and Art Is How Energy Gets Renewed’
CIVICUS discusses the role of art in climate and rights struggles in the Brazilian Amazon with Tom Wheeler, executive director and co-founder of Treesistance. Treesistance is a platform operated by the Netherlands-based Sinchi Foundation that partners with Indigenous communities across four Brazilian states on cultural preservation and forest protection.
AI-Driven Climate Change Pushes Frontline Communities Further Into Environmental Degradation and Poverty
On September 21, Frontline Resource Institute (FRI) hosted its Climate Justice Hub at Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York City under the theme “Building a Stronger Climate Coalition.”
The BBNJ Agreement: From Paper to Protection – The Real Test for Global Ocean Governance
After decades in which the high seas were too often treated as a distant frontier—vast, ownerless and beyond meaningful protection—the High Seas Treaty entered into force on 17 January 2026.
What Isn’t Named Isn’t Protected and being Named Isn’t Enough
Rightsholders came to Ulaanbaatar from across the world, carrying declarations, demands and years of experience defending the lands on which their communities depend. Indigenous Peoples, local communities, Afro-descendant Peoples, women and youth were equally clear about what they needed from COP17. But being in the room is not the same as having power in the room.
Ahead of COP17, UN Biodiversity Chief Urges Urgent Realignment of Finance with Nature Goals
The world may have enough money to protect nature. The bigger problem, according to the head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is that too much of it is still being spent on activities that destroy it.
Killing of Environmental Defenders Reflects Power Struggle Over World’s Resources
At least 124 land and environmental defenders were killed around the world in 2025 while protecting forests, rivers, farmland and Indigenous territories, according to a new report by Global Witness that warns violence against activists remains widespread even as recorded killings have declined from previous years.
Investment in Irrigation Systems Is Vital in Preparing for the Next Climate Shock
When the African continent experiences erratic rains, crops fail, leaving millions of people facing hunger.
How Saving Cattle in Zimbabwe is Saving Its Lions
A 12-year-old male lion slipped out of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park one winter morning and killed a 7-year-old boy in a village it wandered into.
What 1.5°C Overshoot Means for Small Islands
The world is now expected to breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit that small island states have spent years defending as a threshold for survival.
Between the Reef and the Stars
A reflection on humanity’s twin longings.
There is an older wisdom, quieter than the noise of our times, that whispers a simple truth: we are not the architects of nature, only its guests. Long before there were nations, economies, or even language, there was the pulse of the tide, the patience of coral, the breath of forests exchanging air with the sky. Into that ancient conversation we arrived — late, curious, and forgetful — mistaking our cleverness for sovereignty and our tools for wings.
The Drylands Dividend: The Smart Investment for Powering a Water-Scarce World
Open a can of something fizzy and the reason the sugar doesn’t separate immediately is gum arabic, tapped by hand from acacia trees across the Sahel. Spray on perfume and the reason the scent is still there at dinner is frankincense, a resin cut from Boswellia trees on the dry escarpments of the Horn of Africa. The fat that gives a chocolate bar its snap may well be shea, gathered and pressed by women in the parkland belt of West Africa. The cashmere jumper came from goats that can only be raised on cold, dry rangelands.
Africa’s Pastoralists Need More Than COP17’s $1.2 billion Rangelands Pledge
When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.
The Indian Ocean Is Sounding the Alarm and Its Islands Are Among the First to Hear It
Across this vast ocean, the latest monitoring by Mercator Ocean International shows marine heatwave conditions ranging from moderate to severe. At the same time, the World Meteorological Organization expects a strong El Niño to intensify through August to October, with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole also likely to develop. These are not distant scientific signals. They are an urgent warning that the ocean system on which millions depend is under mounting stress.
Beyond the Horizon: Raising a Generation to Protect the Blue Pacific
For generations, Pacific children have grown up with the ocean as part of everyday life. It is where families fish, where stories are passed down, where livelihoods begin and where cultures are rooted.
Grand Planetary Challenges Need a Grand Coalition to Solve Them
Several coalitions exist today to defend the territories in which people live and work. Global leaders have long understood the importance of shared responsibility for collective security and have invested significant time in establishing networks, partnerships and alliances. In 2025, global spending on defense reached a record $2.9 trillion.
GEF Proposes $140 Million Program to Strengthen Drought Resilience
For pastoralists in Arvaikheer — a village in Mongolia’s dry central plains — rain can determine whether there is enough grass for cattle to roam, whether waterholes are replenished and whether families make it through another dry season. But as climate change makes rainfall increasingly unpredictable, even a wet season may no longer provide water and pasture needed to sustain people and livestock.
Indigenous Peoples Call for Meaningful Influence in Climate Discussions — Nia Tero
Indigenous communities have long advocated for the environment through the lens of their traditional knowledge systems and cultures. But much more work needs to be done to translate their presence into influence.
Nairobi Biodiversity Talks Set the Stage for Key COP17 Decisions
Despite record participation in global biodiversity reporting and planning processes, countries remain off track to meet the world's 2030 biodiversity goals, according to discussions that concluded this month at two key meetings under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).Next Page »
The world's diverse flora and fauna are facing urgent threats due to pollution, climate change, commercialization of nature and other forms of harmful human intervention. The widespread loss of biodiversity is worrying not simply because of the disappearance of exotic species which deserve saving, but because tampering with nature's equilibrium means that the loss of one form of life is a threat to another. IPS taps into its own diverse network of correspondents around the world to report on continuing and emerging dangers to nature's riches - and the struggle to protect them.
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