Iran’s southeastern province of Khuzestan—which borders Iraq—was already a dry and dangerous place. It was the site of the fiercest battles in the Iraq-Iran war which followed the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and to this day, the region still has many unexploded landmines.

Yet this legacy of violence is not the only issue facing its residents. As climate impacts mount in Khuzestan, the future looks bleak for both the region’s ecosystems and the people already living on this borderline.

On April 18, 2016, I was on the train with my Friends of Nature (FON) colleagues for a work trip when a shocking piece of news erupted on social media: hundreds of students in Jiangsu Province fell ill after moving into a newly built middle school. Reported symptoms included itchy skin with rashes and lesions, coughing, and a decline in white blood cell count. Students and parents later learned that their beautiful new school was built next to a contaminated site, previously home to three chemical manufacturing facilities, the largest of which had produced pesticides for decades. After these companies closed, a company contracted by the local government to clean up the site failed to properly collect and dispose of toxins in the soil. These toxins leaked into the air and sickened the students.

When Russia launched its brutal invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2024, Western nations supported Ukraine with military and financial aid. But over two years, the cost of the war has been devastating—not only in terms of lives lost, and injuries sustained, but also in the number of buildings destroyed. According to some estimates, more than 150K structures have been damaged in the conflict.

In 2001, the UN General Assembly declared November 6 the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict. In the 22 years since, both the impact of the exploitation of the environment during war—and the centrality of natural resources in establishing peace—have gained greater global recognition.

Faced with the grim situation of normalized extreme heat and drought, it is imperative for China to improve agricultural resilience to climate change. Rural communities, often led by women, are using seed banks and traditional techniques to boost local crop diversity and food security in order to adapt to climate change.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

In Conflict-Affected Somalia, Climate Change Adds to Migration Pressures

In the Somalian coastal town of Hobyo, thousands of residents—some of whom settled there to flee the country’s civil war—are starting to leave. Why? Their homes are being engulfed by sand.