“The trade in illegal timber products—those harvested and exported in contravention of the law of the producer country—is entangled in corruption, conflict, insecure land rights, and poor governance,” said Sandra Nichols Thiam, Senior Attorney of the Environmental Law Institute. She moderated a panel titled “Citizen Enforcement in the Forestry Sector” hosted by the Environmental Law Institute that explored illegal logging within the forest sector. Illegal harvesting of timber accounts for roughly 50 percent to 90 percent of forest activities in major producing countries within the Amazon Basin, Central Africa and Southeast Asia, said Thiam. This illegal timber trade is estimated to be worth from $30 billion to 100 billion dollars annually. Dismantling this extensive illegal enterprise would help promote biodiversity conservation, climate mitigation, human rights and sustainable development.

“Saving Mothers, Giving Life has undeniably raised the bar in how we address maternal perinatal mortality,” said Dr. Florina Serbanescu, Team Lead of Global Reproductive Health Evidence for Action at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the launch of the Global Health: Science and Practice Supplement on Saving Mothers, Giving Life at a recent Wilson Center event. Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL), is a public-private partnership created to reduce maternal and newborn mortality in sub-Saharan African countries. “The achievements show that what is often seen as an intractable problem,” said Serbanescu, “can be addressed with the right leadership, resources, and political will.”

This month’s top post highlighted a new animated short from the Wilson Center and USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation.  “Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding” illustrates how building peace can bolster water security and—at the same time—how improving water security can increase the peace within and across borders.

“Food production is the largest consumer of water and also represents the largest unknown factor of future water use as the world’s population continues to balloon, and we face increasing weather-related shocks and stresses,” said Laura Schulz, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment. She spoke at “Feeding a Thirsty World: Harnessing the Connections Between Food and Water Security,” an event sponsored by the Wilson Center, Winrock International, the Sustainable Water Partnership, and USAID. Currently about 70 percent of global water goes to agriculture, a number that is projected to rise “as high as 92 percent,” said Rodney Ferguson, the President and CEO of Winrock International. 

As an agricultural engineering professor, I was excited to visit and tour the farm village Houbali, in southwestern Shandong Province. I found myself standing among newly constructed high-rise buildings, a vastly different community than I had expected to encounter. A bicycle repair shop was setting up alongside other bustling businesses in the first-floor storefronts. Farm families occupied apartments in the upper floors and a beautifully landscaped park and playground were a short walk away. This neighborhood looked like a transplant from Beijing, but these modern buildings were a newly developed farm village surrounded by agricultural fields. The new buildings brought together the residents of four old, nearly empty or “hollow” villages.

With rapidly aging populations and rising levels of female employment, the United States and other wealthy nations are facing unprecedented demands for non-familial care. These nations vary in their ability to address such demands. Those with more robust welfare states, including publicly supported, high-quality child care and elder care services and facilities, are generally able to meet growing needs for care, while those with weaker welfare states experience severe “care deficits,” leaving families with few alternatives. Increasingly, in the United States and elsewhere in the developed world, families are turning to migrants—usually women—to solve their care dilemmas.

In “Africa’s smallest war,” both Kenya and Uganda lay claim to Migingo Island, a tiny island in the waters of Lake Victoria. While the claims are over the island, the conflict is about something else entirely: Lates niloticus, also known as Nile perch, a tasty white fish that swims in the waters surrounding the island. The fish forms the backbone of the Lake Victoria economy but is increasingly hard to come by along the lakeshore. Catches are in decline, incomes are dropping, and the Ugandan government is taking increasingly harsh, militarized steps to help revive the fishery.