As the Atlantic hurricane season kicks off this month, some coastal communities in the United States and small-island nations in the Caribbean are still recovering from last year’s record-breaking damage. At the same time, the heavy rains pounding the East Coast this week are part of a long-term trend towards more severe heavy rainfall events that have led to deadly floods and threaten critical U.S. military bases. Even on sunny days, cities such as Norfolk and Manila contend with high tide or “nuisance” flooding—a phenomenon that has increased as much as nine-fold since the 1960s, according to NOAA.

“Community mobilization, local capacity-building, and innovation are the cornerstones of successful development. And that for us includes resilience,” said Franklin Moore, Africare’s Chief of Programs, at a Wilson Center event on family planning and sustainable development. As rapid population growth intersects with challenges like food insecurity and water scarcity, communities in developing countries need not only the capacity to absorb short-term shocks, they also need transformative capacity to address long-term challenges.

Starting in 2014, the number of migrants from Central America’s Northern Triangle—Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—surged, with border apprehensions increasing fivefold from 2010-2015. While apprehensions have declined from their peak, emigration from these countries has not necessarily slowed, and the conditions the migrants are seeking to escape have not changed. Experts blame the region’s widespread criminal violence for spurring migration. But the Northern Triangle countries also share similar ecology, staple crops, and vulnerability to climate events. While environmental and natural resource factors are just part of the complex picture, understanding how they intersect with other migration drivers is key to creating and implementing effective policy responses.

“It is often expected that women care more, and therefore women are going to volunteer, and be the saviors” in times of crisis, said Eleanor Blomstrom, the Program Director and Head of Office for the Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO), at a Wilson Center event on climate displacement and the changing role of women. A panel of experts discussed the impacts of climate change that not only force women to move, but also put them disproportionately at risk.  By integrating gender dimensions of climate-related displacement into research, policy, and programs, we can gain a better understanding of the challenges that women face and support women’s efforts to be changemakers for their communities as they adapt to climate threats. “All issues are women’s issues,” said Blomstrom.

In late 2017, I visited the several Rohingya refugee camps (Leda, Mainner Ghona, & Kutupalong-Balukhali Makeshift Settlements) in Ukhia Upazila (Cox’s Bazar District), Bangladesh. These camps are home to more than a million refugees escaping ethnic violence in Myanmar.

With a swiftly changing climate comes rapidly rising sea levels, more frequent storms, and rising inequality. Slow yet consistent events like sea-level rise, as well as extreme events like hurricanes and other climate disasters, can force women and families from their homes. As the climate continues to change, adaptation will become more difficult, spurring some to leave home in search of safer ground. In the face of climate-induced instability, women are not just on the frontline of impacts, but also at the forefront of solutions.

Every year, millions of shorebirds migrate to the Arctic to breed—some coming from as far away as Australia and New Zealand—and then head back again. Nearly all of the birds making this journey spend time in the food-rich intertidal mudflats of the Yellow Sea ecoregion, on the east coast of China and the west coasts of the Korean peninsula. But as China’s economy has grown, around 70 percent of the intertidal mudflats in the Yellow Sea area have disappeared—the land drained and “reclaimed” for development. All of the more than 30 species of shorebirds that rely on the mudflats are declining, and those that stop there twice a year are declining at a faster rate than those that stop only once. If the current trajectory continues, the Yellow Sea—once known as the cradle of China—will become the epicenter of extinction.