The schoolchildren enter the forest at dawn on a bird-watching field trip. They step softly on crisp fallen leaves and speak in hushed whispers.
Author: WHES
The Philippines: Militancy rising as peace talks stall
Mindanao is rich in resources as well as population diversity. It is also home to a violent patchwork of sometimes-overlapping armed groups. These include Islamist revolutionaries as well as extremist militants, communist rebels, paramilitaries, clan-based private armies, and networks of organised crime.
The global land rights struggle is intensifying
Customary land users care for roughly 50% of the earth’s land, but only 10% is officially recognized as belonging to these communities.
Mapped: The world at war
This map of ongoing conflicts around the world is part of IRIN’s ongoing series on the world’s forgotten conflicts
It’s a disaster’: children bear brunt of southern Africa’s devastating drought
In southern Malawi and Zimbabwe, drought is overwhelming communities, forcing families to rely on meals of leaves and watermelon soup.
Poor policies blamed as India reels from drought, hardship
Land tenure still a problem for women in Latin America
Rural women in Latin America continue to face serious obstacles to land tenure, which leave them vulnerable, despite their growing importance in food production and food security.“Women are the most vulnerable group of people with respect to the question of land tenure,” Soledad Parada, a gender adviser in the regional office of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in the Chilean capital, told IPS.
World Hunger Education Service celebrates its 40th anniversary
Failing states: Many problems, few solutions
Regardless of whether they are called fragile, failed, or failing states, scores of countries around the globe are plagued by overwhelming problems with few solutions in sight. Moreover, the instability and dire straits of these countries are spilling across national borders, destabilizing neighboring countries and regions, while posing enormous challenges for international organizations and donors.
A daughter takes up her slain mother’s activism
The wispy young woman with raven-black hair and expressive brown eyes was introduced to the small crowd as Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, but hardly anyone in her tight circle calls her that. She is known by the Spanish diminutive “Bertita,” an homage to her internationally famous mother, environmental activist Berta Cáceres Flores.
