International Conservation & Development

“Imagine taking some parts from a car, from an air conditioning system, some more parts from a plumber, and you build a machine that is run with heat instead of gasoline. Then you hook it up to a free energy source such as the sun, and what you get is a clean, sustainable, cost-efficient source of hot water, electricity and even cooling.” Since 2005, Matt and his team have been doing exactly that in Lesotho: Building a solar powered plant for a local hospital as a showcase project for other applications.

Michael S. Stevens is the Co-Founder and Principal of Pioneer Mountain Group, an environmental consulting firm based in Hailey, Idaho. PMG provides a range of management, conservation, scientific and natural resource production and marketing services to clients including non-profit organizations, investment firms, and private landowners. The firm’s current projects are in the western United States, Latin America and Canada.

In 2009, President Barack Obama and leaders of other developed countries committed to mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries confront climate change. However, in an era of fiscal austerity, it is clear that national contributions will need to be supplemented by innovative sources of finance to meet this goal. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund recently released a report on how the shipping industry could be one of these innovative sources of financing.

The reality for some 80% of India's population - there is no running water or electricity. But for 2008 Switzer Fellow Dipti Vaghela this presents a significant opportunity.

"Investment decisions involving loss of land and access to critical resources like water can have a devastating impact on the poorest communities who are dependent on the land to feed their families and make a living. For such projects, there must be even greater transparency, due diligence, and attention to community rights to resources - not less," said Anne Perrault of the Centre of International Environmental Law, co-author of the briefing. Read the full story

Coral reefs are one of the most threatened ecosystems world wide. This project collects critical data for the Kenya Wildlife Service to promote effective coral reef conservation and management of marine protected areas.

Sara Mersha (2010) is the Director of Grantmaking and Advocacy for Grassroots International. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sara worked for 12 years as Lead Organizer and then Executive Director of Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), a grassroots group serving low-income communities of color in Providence, RI. After serving as Visiting Faculty in the Ethnic Studies Department of Brown University, she began a master's degree at Brown's Center for Environmental Studies.

Like the Haugheys, Evan Goldsmith, founder and owner of Hope for Women, was inspired to start his business after multiple trips to India in the 1990s. He worked on a service project in the Himalayas creating pressed-flower greeting cards with local women for a group in the U.K., and said he wanted to stay connected after moving back home. “I realized the market was growing for socially valuable products,” Goldsmith said. “Flashing forward to 2003, the Fair Trade movement was starting to grow with coffee and chocolate.”

Scientists say China must act now. The world has just two or three decades to avoid irreversible climate change, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, an energy professor at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, and author of two books on pollution. “If the Chinese don’t dramatically reduce carbon emissions from coal, there’s no way we can make a dent in climate change globally in the time period that matters,” Gallagher says. Read the full story