A special type of tree could facilitate peacebuilding in the Sahel. A stretch of semi-arid land south of the Sahara that runs from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean through 10 countries (Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Algeria, Mauritania, and Senegal). But the western subregion covering the Lake Chad area (the intersection of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger) and Liptako-Gourma (the tri-border zone of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger) in the Sahel has been the scene of a growing humanitarian crisis. Armed groups are terrorizing local populations. Rampant insecurity has forced 1 million people to flee their homes. People have been cut off from their livelihoods. Food insecurity is worsening. Casualties continue to mount. And climate change will likely exacerbate conditions, forcing more people to compete for depleted forest resources and land. More food shortages and instability will surely follow.

Contrary to popular belief, Lake Chad is not shrinking, according to Shoring up Stability: Addressing Climate and Fragility Risks in the Lake Chad Region, a new report from adelphi. This finding has profound implications for how the governments of countries bordering Lake Chad (Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon) as well as the international community should address the conflict trap in which the people of the region are caught. “Supporting the people of the basin,” write the authors, “is not a function of saving Lake Chad from desiccation.” 

Conservationists and development practitioners may not have always seen eye to eye, but a new partnership between a cheetah conservation charity and a network of reproductive health NGOs is making the case for why these groups need to work more closely together.

AGADEZ, Niger — The world dismisses them as economic migrants. The law treats them as criminals who show up at a nation’s borders uninvited. Prayers alone protect them on the journey across the merciless Sahara.

When Lake Poopó, Bolivia’s second-largest lake, dried up last December, an entire community lost their way of life and the scientific community cast their eyes to the map asking, where next? They didn’t have to look far. According to a report prepared by the World Lake Vision Committee, a collaboration between the International Lake Committee Foundation, the Shiga Prefectural Government of Japan, and the United Nations Environment Program, there are very few major lake systems that are not experiencing decreasing water quality, volume, biodiversity, or some combination of the three.

Featured side by side at the top of The New York Times home page recently were two stories: one on the United States and China, the world’s largest producers of carbon emissions, committing to a global climate agreement, another on how rising seas are already affecting coastal communities in the United States.

The Nile River is shared by 11 countries, for which it is vital for food and energy production, freshwater, and as a means of transportation. Sharing the resources of the Nile has, however, been politically difficult. Recently, the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has caused a major dispute with downstream Egypt which fears the dam will affect water flow in its own territory.