Stepping away from herds of cattle, subsistence farms, and other responsibilities at home, roughly a hundred Kenyan villagers traveled overnight by bus from the Tana River Delta to Nairobi in February 2011 for a hearing at the national high court. The claimants declared that the lack of a “comprehensive land use master plan” infringed on the rights of the region’s people, and called for the prohibition of further land and resource development until such a plan was negotiated.

From the mountains and foothills of the Himalayas to the Terai plains, climate change is rapidly changing life in Nepal. Many communities however, are not strangers to environmental stress; for decades, rapid population growth alongside agriculture and fuelwood collection have degraded land and diminished forests. [Video Below]

As climate change upends established patterns of life, resilience – the ability of social and ecological systems to mitigate, endure, and adapt to short-term shocks and long-term stressors – has become a buzzword in development and humanitarian circles. [Video Below]

To stop and perhaps one day reverse climate change requires changes big and small. Despite the thousands of power plants burning coal and other fossil fuels today, nearly 3 billion people still depend on solid fuels, such as wood, dung, and crop residues, for their daily energy needs.

Water is a key ingredient for peace, especially in the Middle East. The Jordan River, which forms the border between Israel, the Palestinian West Bank, and Jordan, is central to the interrelated political and environmental challenges facing the region. Addressing these challenges requires not only high-level diplomacy but also direct, people-to-people engagement, which can form lasting relationships that go beyond water, said experts at the Wilson Center on October 17. [Video Below]