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From Octopus Conservation to Disaster Relief: Vik Mohan on PHE in Madagascar
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When Tropical Cyclone Haruna struck in February 2013, leaving thousands without shelter and tens of thousands without water, it was a test for Blue Ventures’ integrated approach to development in southwest Madagascar. According to Dr. Vik Mohan, they passed.
“By the time the first aid organization arrived just to collect information, we had distributed to 17 villages already,” Mohan says in this week’s podcast. “We were the mouthpiece of the community, and because of our infrastructure on the ground, because of our good relationships with the community, we were able to procure and disseminate supplies that the community needed.”
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Five Years of Population, Health, and Environment Programs: What Works and What’s Next?
›More than 20 percent of the world’s population live in ecological hotspots, places rich in biodiversity but often lacking basic government services. Population, health, and environment – or PHE – programs address compounding stresses in these areas by helping to meet people’s needs for basic health services, including reproductive health care; promoting food security and poverty reduction; and teaching sustainable natural resource management. [Video Below]
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Coastal Resource Management, Family Planning Integration Build Resilience in Madagascar and The Gambia
›Growing awareness of the connected challenges of natural resource management, economic growth, and human health has encouraged more integrated models of international development. The experience of two organizations – TRY Oyster Women’s Association, based in The Gambia, and Blue Ventures, based in Madagascar – demonstrates the success of a community-based approach to building resilience, enabling communities to bounce back from adversity and establish a long-term basis for development. [Video Below]
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Flooding and Food Security in Trinidad and Tobago: Roger-Mark Interviewed for ‘A Sea Change’
›August 21, 2013 // By Schuyler Null“Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that we are facing in today’s world; it is particularly important for us in the Caribbean and for a country like Trinidad and Tobago,” says ECSP Director and Trinidad-native Roger-Mark De Souza in an upcoming documentary by Sustain T&T, a non-profit based in the islands.
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Backdraft: Flipping the Frame on Conflict and Climate Change
›Fire needs oxygen to burn. When a fire starts inside a building, the floors, ceilings, walls, doors, and windows can constrict the flow of air. Breaking in to fight the fire thus carries the risk of opening a new airway. If that happens, a smoldering fire can expand explosively, bursting into roaring flames as it sucks air in through the new passageway. This sudden inrush of air to fuel a burst of fire has a name: backdraft.
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Beyond Arctic Conflict: Prospects for Peace and International Cooperation
›Temperatures in the Arctic have increased at twice the global rate over the past 40 years, vaulting the region to international prominence as an emerging theater for maritime transportation and competition over newly uncovered resources.
The international community should start strategizing now to manage the ambitions of circumpolar states and minimize the potential for conflict, write authors Rob Huebert, Heather Exner-Pirot, Adam Lajeunesse, and Jay Gulledge in a report. Published by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Climate Change and International Security: The Arctic as a Bellwether explores the geopolitical implications of climate change in the Arctic and puts forth several recommendations for policymakers to consider. Huebert et al. write that “maintaining security and peace in the Arctic will require adapting policies and institutions to the emerging environment there.” They recommend that Arctic states strengthen existing multilateral agreements by, for example, advocating the accession of the United States into the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Further, they propose that the Arctic Council lifts its ban on discussing security issues in order to become a forum for meaningful discussion. -
Joan Castro on Engaging Youth to Create Change in the Philippines
›“Exposing young people to information about PHE [population, health, and environment] and food security dynamics can be a powerful tool to steer their interests and commitment to care for the environment and become sexually responsible individuals,” says PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc. (PFPI)’s Joan Castro in this week’s podcast.
PFPI’s Youth EMPOWER project has trained close to 300 “youth peer educators” in the southern Philippines to promote environmentally sustainable livelihoods, clean up the environment, raise awareness of reproductive health, and encourage participation in local government.
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Leslie Mwinnyaa: Young People Drive Integrated Development in Ghana’s Ellembelle District
›“I have been amazed and inspired by the youth that I’ve worked with, with their dedication and motivation to help their countrymen and to try to make their communities better places,” says Leslie Mwinnyaa in this week’s podcast.
When Mwinnyaa arrived in the Ellembelle district of coastal Ghana as a Peace Corps volunteer she found a multitude of development challenges. Fishermen routinely use illegal techniques like chemicals, lights, and dynamite that decimate fish stocks; “sand winning” and mangrove clearing increases erosion, leaving communities vulnerable to flooding and reducing breeding grounds for local fish; poor waste and refuse management contributes to disease and poor health; and teenage girls have twice the national rate of pregnancy.
Showing posts from category oceans.
