The Sud province of Haiti is suffering a
drought so severe that the planting season has been postponed. Yet no
international financial assistance has come through to confront the crisis,
reported Cécile Banatte, the local official designated by the interim
government of Haiti to govern the largely agricultural southern province.

There are normally rivers flowing down the slopes of the mountain that cuts
through the region from east to west. Now the river beds are mainly mud, and
produce just enough of a trickle of water for nearby residents to bathe and
wash their clothes, as they have done for centuries (the infrastructure for
running water and sewage systems has yet to reach this area). Also visible
are arid terraces where food crops once grew. 

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The main objective of the 2009 Forum was to provide a platform for proactive dialogue to strengthen inter-regional cooperation and encourage innovative multi-stakeholder partnerships aimed at scaling-up renewable energy in Latin America and elsewhere. Furthermore, the event highlighted the leadership required to promote renewable energy and facilitate the development of supportive policy frameworks aimed at strengthening clean energy initiatives. Other major themes repeated throughout the event included the need for: stability and predictability in renewable energy policy to enhance prospects for private investment; improved capacities to utilize existing renewable technologies; energy poverty and energy justice issues to be addressed; and all countries, rich and poor, to take urgent action to adopt renewable technologies to ensure the transition to a post-carbon society.

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In countries like the Dominican Republic, conservationists can’t afford to look past poverty.

Ramón Antonio Jiménez, a veteran fisherman with sinewy muscles and feet like waterlogged boards, tilts his plastic bucket to show the result of four hard hours at sea: one pound of shrimp. Five years ago, he says, he could have caught 300 pounds in the same amount of time.

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There has been an increase, over the past two years, in the number of poor people living in Penal/Debe, but agriculture can help reverse the trend.

This according to Gary Tagallie, director of the Poverty Reduction Programme (PRP) in the Ministry of Social Development.

Tagallie said, "The poverty level in the Penal/Debe region, especially among families with children ranging from zero months to 18 years, is on an increase from 12.6 per cent within the last two years to 16 per cent."

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This article provides two examples from Latin America illustrating how FAO's Forestry Department is exploring new ways of working together with forest-dwelling indigenous communities - a collaboration that has proved to be mutually fruitful for both FAO and the various indigenous groups involved. The first example describes an experience of technical cooperation with an indigenous group living along the Chapare River in Bolivia, while the second example depicts the consultative process with indigenous groups in Central America leading up to the Fourth Central American Forestry Congress, held in San Pedro Sula, Honduras in September 1995.

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Legally recognized Indian reserves of Brazilian Amazonia span over 100 million ha of largely intact forest and are potentially valuable for biodiversity conservation. An important example is provided by the Kayapó territories which span more than 13 million ha in Pará and Mato Grosso, Brazil, and protect a unique and vulnerable Amazonian forest type that is poorly represented in existing nature reserves. The Kayapó of southern Pará have stopped invasion of their lands by the most perverse threats to Amazonian forests, but they have become involved extensively in the sale of illegal logging concessions for the high-value timber species mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla).

In 1992, the non-governmental organization Conservation International do Brasil (CI-Brasil) began a conservation and development project with the Kayapó community of A’Ukre with the objective of providing economic alternatives to logging and protecting a population of mahogany trees. This paper demonstrates the conservation benefits that can be achieved by supporting sustainable development of indigenous peoples in the Amazon.

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http://symposium2006.conservation.org

In the past, poor communities in Peru and Bolivia have been prejudiced by inequitable water access, pricing policies and quality, and scant protection or legal rights over water usage. Large economic concerns have usually enjoyed de facto priority, or have been given it by regional and national authorities. This historical situation is unlikely to change in a context of reduced water availability.

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http://origin-hdr.undp.org

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The institutional arrangements in which climate change, development and disaster risk management experts operate are usually different, have different orientation and priorities and use different strategies.

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http://unisdr.org