Environmental groups were pleased at the end of 2007 when the UN announced that its under-resourced adaptation funds - established to help less-industrialised nations adapt to the effects of climate change - were to receive a cash injection.
What do you do when your faith, identity, independence and livelihood are all endangered by a mine that has the backing of a multi-billion pound company and even your own government? For the Dongria Kondh hill tribe of Orissa, India, there is only one answer: you stop them.
Revenues obtained from the often illegal extraction and supply of commodities such as timber and diamonds are directly bankrolling corrupt regimes and armed insurgency groups, and fund the purchase of weapons and other contraband goods that perpetuate cycles of conflict.
As the bluetongue virus sinks its teeth into British livestock, there is one appalling certainty: like the outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease and foot-and-mouth before it, some farmers will see no way out, and take their own lives. Farmers in Britain are the profession second most likely to commit suicide (after, bizarrely, dentistry).
For the Canadian Aanishnaabek tribe, who live on a reserve surrounded by chemical plants, there seems no escape. Do they leave, and abandon their past, or stay, and perhaps lose their future? Zoe Cormier investigates
For the Canadian Aanishnaabek tribe, who live on a reserve surrounded by chemical plants, there seems no escape. Do they leave, and abandon their past, or stay, and perhaps lose their future? Zoe Cormier investigates
The native Inuit people of the Arctic regions need no convincing of the effects of global warming. As Clare Kendall discovers, they are already suffering its impact
Ladakh is framed by the Karakoram mountains to the north and the Himalayas to the south. Yet even in this remote environment the forces of global consumerism are intruding. Nicola Graydon reports on the locals' inspiring defence of their culture
Janine Roberts describes how De Beers cons the world into paying so much for its cheap, plentiful diamonds and turns a blind eye to the eradication of the oldest culture on the planet.
Isolated by the surrounding desert, Kashgar was once
an oasis on the old Silk Road. Now the city is being overwhelmed in the rush to open up the region’s oil and gas reserves. By Dan Box.
