Sub-Saharan Africa is not only the fastest growing region of the world demographically but is also one of the most vulnerable to climate changes, according to many measures, and already facing natural resource scarcity in many areas. These factors combine with existing development challenges to create security threats that African governments and the United States should be concerned with, says ECSP Director Roger-Mark De Souza in a presentation for the Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ introductory course on demography and the environment at the National Defense University.

The BALANCED initiative in Tanzania’s Saadani National Park, “the only terrestrial park in the country with a contiguous marine area,” released the results of a 2012 progress survey on its efforts to create community champions for sustainable natural resource management and family planning awareness. Compared to the last survey in 2009, they found increased family planning awareness, higher contraceptive distribution and usage, and improved discussion and acceptance of contraceptive use from male partners. BALANCED-trained community-based distributors provided contraception to “31 percent of all pill users and 21 percent of all condom users.” Survey results also show a greater community awareness of the impact of individual and collective actions on the surrounding biosphere. The report calls for the continued training of community-based distributors and PHE “champions,” along with outreach to the private sector in order to ensure training and distribution can continue without the permanent presence of the BALANCED Project.

China is one of the world’s 12 “mega-biodiversity” countries, but its incredible natural landscapes, from Sichuan’s sparkling, turquoise-colored lakes to Guilin’s dramatic karst topography, are bearing the cost of rapid economic development, writes British environmental photojournalist and videographer Sean Gallagher in a new multimedia e-book.

More than 84 percent of the 2010 world population – 5.8 billion people – consider themselves religiously affiliated, according to a recent study. Religious leaders can therefore have significant influence across a broad range of social, economic, and political issues. Perhaps nowhere is that influence felt more strongly than in debates about reproductive health and rights, and perhaps nowhere are the consequences so large than in poor and marginalized communities.

The original version of this article first appeared on The Globalist.

Haze may be the new weapon of mass destruction. Not in the narrow sense of an incoming ballistic missile, of course, but for millions in Southeast Asia, this summer’s sooty haze poses a threat more dire than a nuclear-tipped missile.

For a country that once made headlines for famine, poverty, and war, Ethiopia is gaining a reputation as a development leader on the African continent. In just over 10 years, the country has slashed child mortality rates by half, rising in global rank from 146 in 2000 to 68 in 2012. More money is being spent on health care, poverty levels and fertility rates are down, and twice as many children are in school.

Since 2008 – a year in which rapid increases in the global prices for major grains helped to trigger outbreaks of civil unrest in more than 40 countries – scholars and policymakers have paid increased attention to the potential influence of global food prices on social and political instability. Since that time, spiking prices have periodically sparked public protests and governments have struggled to respond.