The women leading Kano's charge for a greener future

The residents of Kikandwa, Uganda, came together to create the Kikandwa Environmental Association to implement nature-based solutions in their community. The solutions are combatting climate change and generating more income than options with a negative environmental impact. For example, many people traded cutting trees to make charcoal for selling seedlings at the local tree nursery.

An all-women firefighting team in Ketapang, Indonesia, is stopping people from setting fires to clear land, a practice called slash and burn, and putting out the fires they can’t prevent. Arsonists often set fire to peatlands, which pollutes the air and releases stored carbon dioxide.

Indigenous peoples in Thailand's Nan province, in collaboration with researchers from five institutions, launched a citizen-science program using soil, hair, and fish sampling alongside computer modelling to document transboundary pollution from Laos's Hongsa coal plant. This work produced evidence of acidic soils and mercury contamination that has empowered environmental advocacy actions.

In the North Luangwa National Park in Zambia, a conservation team worked with local communities to bring the rate of elephant poaching in the area down to zero in 2018. Poaching had surged in the Luangwa Valley in 2014, and since then the group has protected the elephants by placing the decision-making and benefit-reaping in the hands of the community members. They use financial incentives to stir the economy without depending on poaching money, work with the government to revise policies that redirect any income for the area to benefit the residents, and they patrol the park for any poachers.

Students at Catholic University of America in a net-zero design course are analyzing church structures and making suggestions for green improvements to address the climate crisis, reduce carbon emissions and support the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ mission to conserve energy and protect the planet. Though in its early days, the course has proven beneficial for U.S. dioceses, and students say it’s impacted the way they see architecture and design, and how it can have implications tied to the environment.

Curtis Shuck started the nonprofit The Well Done Foundation with a mission to plug as many abandoned oil wells as possible. Since then, he’s worked with communities, landowners, regulatory agencies, and activists to plug 45 wells, stopping the release of methane and other pollutants into the air and local environments.

The Viet Nam Farmers Union rolled out a train-the-trainer program focused on encouraging rice farmers in Vietnam to take up more sustainable practices. This style of training helps farmers overcome any hesitation towards trying new methods by allowing them to learn from their peers and see the success of demonstration plots.

An activist organization in Poland, Krakow Smog Alarm, teaches people about poor air quality in their city and helps them organize together to lobby their local governments for effective clean air measures.

In the Indian state of Bihar, women-led self-help groups are challenging traditional gender norms and saving money to buy and install solar irrigation pumps. The pumps increase the local agricultural capacity by providing a cleaner, more affordable alternative to the diesel pumps typically used to combat water scarcity in the region.

Mobile homeowners are buying the land their homes are on to form resident-owned cooperatives so they can upgrade infrastructure faster. This allows them to combat and adapt to climate change by installing things like solar panels and drainage systems.