Global climate trends indicate that our planet will continue warming into the next century, leading to more extreme climate conditions. The Latin America and Caribbean region is vulnerable to some of the most challenging aspects of climate change – sea-level rise, changes in precipitation, glacial melting, spreading of disease, and extreme weather events.

Scenario planning has a long history. The RAND Corporation employed it heavily in planning for potential U.S. responses to nuclear war and 16^th century Spanish Jesuit theologians pointed to the idea as proof of free will. But in many respects this powerful set of methodological tools for managing complexity and uncertainty remains underused, especially beyond the defense, intelligence, and business communities.

With a new peace process underway between the Colombian government and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Cuba, the spotlight is back on this long-troubled South American country. But decades of civil conflict have overshadowed an incredible fact: Colombia is among the four most biologically diverse countries on Earth.

Rice is a thirsty crop. Yet for the past three years, Alberto Mejia has been trying to reduce the amount of water he uses for irrigation on his 1,100-acre farm near Ibague in the tropical, central range of the Colombian Andes.

Imagine an overgrown perennial garden. Impenetrable, shrubby bushes knit themselves together in long rows. Grasses reach chest high. Native hardwood trees hog the perimeter.

Since the early 1990s, the rising price of crude oil and other key natural resources – and the resulting drive by governments and private companies to extract those resources – has led to sharp conflicts in Latin America. At the core of these disputes is the clash between national economic interest and the rights of indigenous people inhabiting the land where most natural resources are located.

Increasingly disruptive protests are likely if oil, gas, and mining companies and national governments don’t pay closer attention to indigenous populations’ needs as Western Amazon basin resources are developed, an expert warned.

Water, energy, and food – this “nexus” of interrelated resource issues continues to garner attention from analysts, policymakers, and the media. Over the next four decades global population is projected to increase to about 9.6 billion and, worldwide, demand for water is projected to increase 55 percent; energy, 80 percent; and food, 60 percent. In a new video about the first of a series of workshops on this nexus, the International Union for Conservation on Nature and the International Water Association explain how they are working to bring together private and public sector water infrastructure experts from across Africa and the world to build partnerships and create some consensus on a “nexus-based approach” to managing scarce resources.