Local Action Against Climate Change a Beacon of Hope

In Maputo, a port city on the Indian Ocean in Mozambique, 44 percent of the 1.2 million inhabitants live in poverty, making them even more vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise, floods and cyclones. But despite their severe poverty, their day-to-day experience gives them practical knowledge on how to deal with climate change effects.

Murders, ‘Protection Payments’ Mark Elections in Honduras

The capital of Honduras, one of the world’s most violent countries, has turned into a huge cage, where people lock themselves into their homes behind barred windows and iron doors along the steep winding, narrow streets of the city.

Flying Above the Impoverished in the Name of Mao

In Nepal, where a quarter of the population is steeped in poverty, a man who once led a 10-year Maoist insurgency before joining the political mainstream has been splurging on helicopters for his election campaign.

Cleopatra Drives in Haiyan’s Climate Change Message

Cleopatra is the name chosen for the younger sister of Haiyan, the cyclone that wreaked havoc in the Philippines last week. This latest storm caused massive floods and left 16 dead and hundreds displaced in Sardinia, Italy.

Oil Palm Changes Rural Culture in Brazilian Amazon

Thousands of small farming families in Pará, in the Amazon jungle in northeast Brazil, have turned to the African oil palm as a new source of income, through contracts with biofuel companies. Strange bedfellows, which poses cultural and economic challenges.

Malawi’s Failed Subsidy Programme Left Millions to Starve

Gogo Munthali, from Rumphi, a village over 400 km north of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, dissolves into tears every morning as she worries about what to feed her five orphaned grandchildren, the youngest of whom has full blown AIDS.

Widening Inequality Shatters Mirage of Social Mobility

Growing income inequality will pose a major threat to social stability in countries around the globe, according to a new report by the World Economic Forum.

Grappling to Give Uganda’s Fistula Patients Dignity

Ever since giving birth to a stillborn baby 15 years ago, Mary*, a peasant farmer from Mubende District in central Uganda, has continuously leaked urine.

Demarcation of Native Territories Essential for Venezuela’s Amazon Region

“All of the countries of the Amazon basin say they want to protect the environment, but they all have agreements with transnational corporations for the construction of roads or for mining and exploitation of forests,” Curripaco indigenous leader Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, from the south of Venezuela, told Tierramérica.*

Poor Paths Lead to Madrassas

Mustafa Khan, who sells cigarettes by the roadside in a Pakistani village, has a simple reason for sending two of his sons to a madrassa, an Islamic seminary, and not to a proper school. “We cannot afford it,” he says.

More Chileans Want the Benefits of Living in Latin America’s ‘Tiger’

Hugo Hurtado, 47, is a chef. Anyone would say that in his country, Chile, the Latin American “tiger”, his profession would be synonymous with success and even fame. But unfortunately that’s not true.

Déjà Vu All Over Again for Indebted Caribbean

On May 23, shortly after wrapping up negotiations on the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) 958- million-dollar loan - its second in three years - to keep Jamaica out of default, the fund’s mission chief in the country, Jan Kees Martijn, set out to visit Croydon, a former plantation settlement in the mountainous northwest of the island.

New Hope for Haiti’s Decimated Forests

Small farmers could play an important part in making Haiti – where just two percent of trees are still standing – green again.

Driving Home the Link Between Gender and Climate Change

Tuesday was Gender Day at the COP19 climate summit in Warsaw, and many of the events that took place in the National Stadium focused on the topic of gender and its relation with climate change, and tried to shed a light on problems that require action from policy-makers.

Côte d’Ivoire Poised at a Development Crossroad

All over the Ivorian economic capital, Abidjan, large cranes, involved in the construction of new buildings and highways, are dotted across the city skyline.

“World Toilet Day” No Joke for Billions Without Sanitation

The United Nations has a longstanding tradition of commemorating political milestones - like the abolition of the slave trade - or sustaining day-long vigils on controversial issues such as a ban on nuclear tests.

Bachelet Poised for Easy Win in Fed-Up Chile

Voters fed up with the extremely unequal distribution of wealth and power in Chile are expected once again to elect a centre-left government Sunday.

Indonesia’s Forest Communities Victims of ‘Legal Land Grabs’

Indonesia’s rainforests are facing “legal land grabs”, allege NGOs. Its ancient communities are finding that their ancestral lands are slipping into the hands of foreign companies for oil palm cultivation, as demand for the product grows in Europe, India and China.

Fishing Communities Will Face Warmer, Acid Oceans

Eating fish has been an integral part of the Caribbean's cultural traditions for centuries. Fish is also a major source of food and essential nutrients, especially in rural areas where there are scores of small coastal communities.

Las Pavas Extracts a Miracle from God

The rural community of Las Pavas in northern Colombia received this year’s National Peace Prize Wednesday in recognition of its peaceful struggle for land that is claimed by an oil palm company, in a case that became an international symbol of the conflict over land in this country.

Protecting Tanzania’s Farmers from Weather Extremes

When Habiba Msoga from Kiroka village, in Tanzania’s Morogoro Region, first began applying a method of rice cultivation that was different from what her fellow farmers traditionally used, they laughed at her.