Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Increasing demand for water continues to put a strain on available water sources, threatening the livelihood of millions of small-scale farmers who depend on water for their crops. At a time when one in eight people lack access to safe water, Nourishing the Planet points to low-cost, small-scale innovations to better manage this vital resource. These efforts are increasing the availability of water for crops and helping farmers improve crop productivity and become more food-secure.

• Innovations to improve the availability of water for crops can help farmers become more food-secure. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack) •

The Green Revolution of the 1960s led to a near tripling of global grain production and a doubling of the world’s irrigated area. It also, however, demanded vast quantities of water. Previous agricultural investments have focused narrowly on increasing crop yields, while there has been relatively little research and investment in ways to make better use of scarce water resources. Affordable innovations that boost agricultural development and meet the increasing demand on already-scarce water resources while also mitigating the impacts of climate change, are more important than ever.

Nourishing the Planet recommends three models for effective water management that have the potential for getting ‘more crop per drop’:

Human-powered pumps. The foot-operated treadle pump enables 2.3 million farmers in the developing world—some 250,000 in sub-Saharan Africa—to boost crop productivity, improve harvest reliability, and raise incomes. The original $35 version can irrigate 0.2 hectares with ground water; newer models can irrigate up to 0.8 hectares and cost no more than $140 installed. These devices already generate $37 million a year in profits and wages. In Zambia, International Development Enterprises worked with farmers to determine the most effective type of pump. The Mosi-O-Tunya pump is manufactured locally and delivers 25 percent more water per second than older versions.

Affordable micro-irrigation. A suite of low-cost drip irrigation technologies is helping farmers use limited water supplies more efficiently, often doubling water productivity. These systems deliver water directly to the plant roots through perforated pipes or tubes, and can come in the form of $5 bucket kits, $25 drum kits, or $100 shiftable drip systems that irrigate up to 0.2 hectares. Solar-powered micro-irrigation drip systems are also making their debut in West Africa. One study found that after a year of using these systems, villagers in Benin had higher incomes and protein in their diets. Children attended school more often, since they no longer needed to spend their day collecting water.

More effective use of rainfall. Conservation tillage methods that leave the soil intact; timely weeding and mulching; and planting vegetative barriers all help to maximize green water, or rainwater stored in the soil and plants as moisture. Rainwater harvesting using small earthen dams and other methods also helps maximize rainwater utility. Supplementing these practices with irrigation may produce optimal results. In Kenya, Maasai women are working with the U.N. Environment Programme and the World Agroforestry Centre to build rooftop catchment tanks, which provide water for their households and save women time collecting water.

Satisfying the water requirements of the future, while also coping with population growth, increasing consumption, persistent poverty, and a changing climate, will take a commitment well beyond what has materialized to date. Support—and research and investment—from governments, development agencies, and international and national NGOs can help make such technologies more accessible to smallholder farmers.

To purchase State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet please click HERE.

To watch the one minute book trailer click HERE.

In his just published memoirs, The Age of Deception, former chief United Nations nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei asks that George W. Bush and officials in his administration face international criminal investigation for the war in Iraq. One thing he learned from the Iraq war, he says, is that deliberate deception is not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators.

ElBaradei is harshest in his comments when criticizing the 2002-2003 drive for war with Iraq, when he and Swedish inspector Hans Blix led UN missions looking for signs that Saddam Hussein’s government had revived nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs. They found no evidence that Saddam Hussein actually did so.

The Egyptian nuclear expert tells about a meeting he and Blix held with leading Bush administration officials. In that meeting, held in October 2002, they met with, among others, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. They tried to convert the UN mission into a cover for what Bush officials wanted to be a United-States directed inspection process.

Both he and Blix resisted, and their teams carried out some 700 inspections of potential weapons sites in Iraq, and found no evidence supporting the U.S. claims. Former president Bush and his team rejected ElBaradei and Blix’ findings, and continued to insist on Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction to justify the war against that country. The unfortunate result is that the US orchestrated a war in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were killed as well as several thousand U.S. soldiers.

ElBaradei’s demand for Bush’s prosecution is in line with several previous actions by individuals and legal and human rights organizations. In the book The Prosecution of George W. Bush, former U.S. prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi argues that former president Bush intentionally misled Congress and the American people about the evidence that he claimed justified going to war with Iraq.

The strongest evidence against Bush is a speech he gave on October 7 of 2002 in which he claimed that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the security of the U.S. and was capable of attacking America at anytime with his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, according to Bugliosi. In addition, says Bugliosi, leading officials in former president Bush’s administration edited a declassified version of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released to Congress and the public in a way that made the Iraqi threat look more ominous than what it really was.

Bugliosi also asserts that far from making serious efforts to avoid going to war, former president Bush considered the possibility of starting a war by sending U2 reconnaissance aircraft falsely painted in UN colors on flights over Iraq along with fighter escorts. If Saddam ordered them shot down, that would constitute ground for war.

In their seventh annual convention in Austin, Texas, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) stated that the growing body of evidence, including testimony from British officials in the Chilcot Inquiry, shows that Bush officials could be charged with criminal offenses against the U.S. and violations of international law for making false claims about national self-defense.

Although there are formidable legal barriers that may rule out such an investigation, ElBaradei cites the war-crimes prosecution of Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic as showing that, indeed, it should be possible to do it. As the IVAW stated, “It is time for America to hold the officials responsible for this war to account for their decisions.”

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

The Government of Bahrain has been conducting a systematic attack on doctors and other medical personnel, ostensibly because of care they are providing to protesters attacked and maimed by government forces. The United States, which has been quite clear in its criticism of repression in Syria, should make it clear now where it stands with regard to human rights abuses in Bahrain.

The Bahrain regime of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa started its last round of repression following protests last February 15, and hasn’t stopped since then. As of the middle of April more than 400 people had been arrested. Twenty-seven political opponents and protesters are reported dead and dozens are missing.

On March 16 the government imposed a state of emergency. Its security forces, backed by troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, cleared protesters from Pearl Square in Manama, the kingdom’s capital.

Government soldiers have taken control of Salmaniya Medical Complex, Bahrain’s largest public hospital. According to the government, both the hospital and local clinics are nests of radical Shiites intent on destabilizing the country. The result is that many sick people have nowhere to go.

The government’s crackdown on doctors and medical personnel is probably intended to instill fear in doctors so that they will not take care of wounded demonstrators. However, many doctors still respond to the mandate of their Hippocratic Oath and manage to care for those wounded, in many cases taking them to the hospital or neighborhood clinics in their own cars rather than in ambulances to avoid being stopped by the police.

Bahrain’s campaign of intimidation and persecution of doctors runs counter to the Geneva Convention rules about guaranteeing medical care to people wounded in conflict. A series of email messages between a surgeon in Salmaniya hospital and a British colleague obtained by The Independent shows the extent of the abuse. “It has been a long day in the [hospital] theatre with massively injured patients equivalent to a massacre. Things are still volatile and I hope that there will be no more death,” wrote the Bahraini doctor to his colleague in Great Britain.

The government has repeatedly denied that it is targeting doctors or medical personnel. However, the opposition claims that plainclothes policemen target medical personnel at checking points if they suspect that they have been treating injured protesters. In addition, the government is accused of having turned away a Kuwaiti medical delegation which was coming to the aid of injured civilians.

“Now we are seeing security lockdowns and attacks against hospitals, tampering with medical records, beating of patients and arrests of doctors. This represents a serious escalation of violence against the medical community,” states Human Rights Watch, which has been closely following the situation in Bahrain.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has denounced that armed security forces have abducted three doctors, one of them from the operating room while he was performing surgery, and their whereabouts are still unknown. PHR has also found flagrant abuses against patients and detainees including torture, beating, verbal abuse, humiliation, and threats of rape and killing.

The government’s repression is not only targeted at doctors, however. According to Human Rights Watch, unknown assailants threw teargas grenades at the home of Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Committee.

The grenades were identified as Triple Chaser CS 515 grenades, manufactured by Federal Laboratories in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania. According to Human Rights Watch, only Bahrain’s security forces have access to this type of grenades.

“In two decades of conducting human rights investigations in more than 20 countries, I have never seen such widespread and systematic violations of medical neutrality as I did in Bahrain,” wrote Richard Sollom, deputy director of Physicians for Human Rights in The Independent. Given its close relationship with the Bahrain government, the U.S. has the right, and the responsibility, to help put a stop to these abuses.

Dr. Cesar Chelala, an international public health consultant, is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

As a young girl in Gyula, Hungary, Anne Gabor Arancio sat in the Jewish temple in her small hometown looking down at the Rabbi and the religious services from the second floor. Why, she wondered, couldn’t she sit with the men and boys on the first floor? Why weren’t women and girls allowed to touch the Torah? The message she internalized was that females defile the Torah by touching it.

• Anne Gabor Arancio at her home in Oakland, California. •

Leanne A. Grossman is a San Francisco Bay Area writer. Enjoy more of her articles and images at portfolio-of-passions.com.

“For the next six months, no walking!” the doctor warned my friend Robert (not his real name), a well known architect in Manhattan. To say that my friend was thunderstruck by the news is an understatement. Not to be able to walk for six months meant altering his normally heavy work schedule in Manhattan, plus canceling travel plans abroad scheduled for the next few months. For a man devoted to his students and a key participant in professional meetings overseas the blow was incalculable.

Although he is no longer that young, Robert keeps in extremely good physical shape. On weekends he plays soccer with neighborhood friends. During one game, he suddenly felt intense pain after making a rough movement and had to be taken home in his friends’ arms.

He had broken his Achilles tendon, and for it to recover, he required total rest. In addition, the doctor prescribed sessions with a physiotherapist several times a week.
Even with the rehabilitation process in full swing, he remained dependent for the most basic chores at home. He was barely able to move around nor cook for himself. A group of old friends met and decided to visit him regularly to supply him some home-made food, something that he would probably miss during the prolonged stay at home.

One day, anticipating that he would be by himself, I decided to visit him in the evening, and bring him a dish that I knew he liked: spinach with tahine (sesame seeds) sauce, an Arab dish that my mother had taught me how to prepare and whose recipe I am usually quite selfish to share.

When I arrived at Robert’s apartment, I knocked on the door and was surprised not to have any response. I knocked again and since there was no answer nor any noises emanating form inside -slightly worried- I decided to go in, concerned that something may have happened to him.

As soon as I entered, however, I was relieved. On a couch in the living room was Robert joined in a passionate embrace with a young, attractive woman, his leg with a cast dangling precariously in the air.

Surprised as he was at this unexpected visit he eminently gracious and welcomed me in. I, however, felt as out-of-place as a fishmonger in the Sahara. I said hello to his companion, had a brief conversation with them and, after leaving my spinach dish in the kitchen, was ready to exit. Robert wouldn’t hear of it so heeding his insistent request I stayed for dinner determined to leave as soon as we finished eating. While waiting for them to finish preparing dinner, I could hear their romantic exchanges...

Although it was an awkward moment, we managed to have a rather pleasant dinner with abundant good wine. Aside from the spinach dish, my friend (or the woman visiting him) had prepared some very good appetizers followed by Chilean sea bass with vegetables and a terrific dessert with ice cream, chocolate truffles, and Grand Marnier. From Robert’s Soho apartment, we had a stunning view of downtown Manhattan.

Since I assumed they both wanted to continue their unfinished business, I told them that I had to prepare some classes and left my friend’s apartment. Finally! they probably thought, eager to make up for lost time. I was happy to see my friend in good company but frustrated about what had happened. As soon as I was leaving Robert’s apartment, however, I found myself face-to-face with another mutual friend, a big smile on his face. Over his arm was a bag containing a bottle and several containers of ice cream…

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a writer on human rights and foreign policy issues.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

For over 40 years, Earth Day has served as a call to action, mobilizing individuals and organizations around the world to address these challenges. This year Nourishing the Planet highlights agriculture—often blamed as a driver of environmental problems—as an emerging solution.

Agriculture is a source of food and income for the world’s poor and a primary engine for economic growth. It also offers untapped potential for mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity, and for lifting millions of people out of poverty.

• Agriculture is emerging as a solution to our most pressing environmental challenges. Photo credit: Bernard Pollack. •

1. Guaranteeing the Right to Food. Guaranteeing the human right to adequate food—now and for future generations—requires that policymakers incorporate this right into food security laws and programs at the regional, national, and international level. Governments have a role in providing the public goods to support sustainable agriculture, including extension services, farmer-to-farmer transmission of knowledge, storage facilities, and infrastructure that links farmers to consumers.

2. Harnessing the Nutritional and Economic Potential of Vegetables. Micronutrient deficiencies, including lack of vitamin A, iodine, and iron, affect 1 billion people worldwide. Promoting indigenous vegetables that are rich in micronutrients could help reduce malnutrition. Locally adapted vegetable varieties are hardier and more dependable than staple crops, making them ideal for smallholder farmers. Research organizations like AVRDC/The World Vegetable Center are developing improved vegetable varieties, such as amaranth and African eggplant, and cultivating an appreciation for traditional foods among consumers.

3. Reducing Food Waste. Experts continue to emphasize increasing global food production, yet our money could be better spent on reducing food waste and post-harvest losses. Already, a number of low-input and regionally appropriate storage and preservation techniques are working to combat food waste around the world. In Pakistan, farmers cut their harvest losses by 70 percent by switching from jute bags and containers constructed with mud to more durable metal containers. And in West Africa, farmers have saved around 100,000 mangos by using solar dryers to dry the fruit after harvest.

4. Feeding Cities. The U.N. estimates that 70 percent of the world’s people will live in cities by 2050, putting stress on available food. Urban agriculture projects are helping to improve food security, raise incomes, empower women, and improve urban environments. In sub-Saharan Africa, the Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO) has helped city farmers build food gardens, using old tires to create crop beds. And community supported agriculture (CSA) programs in Cape Town, South Africa, are helping to raise incomes and provide produce for school meals.

5. Getting More Crop per Drop. Many small farmers lack access to a reliable source of water, and water supplies are drying up as extraction exceeds sustainable levels. Only 4 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s cultivated land is equipped for irrigation, and a majority of households depend on rainfall to water their crops—which climate scientists predict will decline in coming decades. Efficient water management in agriculture can boost crop productivity for these farmers. By practicing conservation tillage, weeding regularly, and constructing vegetative barriers and earthen dams, farmers can harness rainfall more effectively.

6. Using Farmers’ Knowledge in Research and Development. Agricultural research and development processes typically exclude smallholder farmers and their wealth of knowledge, leading to less-efficient agricultural technologies that go unused. Research efforts that involve smallholder farmers alongside agricultural scientists can help meet specific local needs, strengthen farmers’ leadership abilities, and improve how research and education systems operate. In southern Ethiopia’s Amaro district, a community-led body carried out an evaluation of key problems and promising solutions using democratic decision-making to determine what type of research should be funded.

7. Improving Soil Fertility. Africa’s declining soil fertility may lead to an imminent famine; already, it is causing harvest productivity to decline 15–25 percent, and farmers expect harvests to drop by half in the next five years. Green manure/cover crops, including living trees, bushes, and vines, help restore soil quality and are an inexpensive and feasible solution to this problem. In the drought-prone Sahel region, the Dogon people of Mali are using an innovative, three-tiered system and are now harvesting three times the yield achieved in other parts of the Sahel.

8. Safeguarding Local Food Biodiversity. Over the past few decades, traditional African agriculture based on local diversity has given way to monoculture crops destined for export. Less-healthy imports are replacing traditional, nutritionally rich foods, devastating local economies and diets. Awareness-raising initiatives and efforts to improve the quality of production and marketing are adding value to and encouraging diversification and consumption of local products. In Ethiopia’s Wukro and Wenchi villages, honey producers are training with Italian and Ethiopian beekeepers to process and sell their honey more efficiently, promote appreciation for local food, and compete with imported products.

9. Coping with Climate Change and Building Resilience. Global climate change, including higher temperatures and increased periods of drought, will negatively impact agriculture by reducing soil fertility and decreasing crop yields. Although agriculture is a major contributor to climate change, accounting for about one-third of global emissions, agricultural practices, such as agroforestry and the re-generation of natural resources, can help mitigate climate change. In Niger, farmers have planted nearly 5 million hectares of trees that conserve water, prevent soil erosion, and sequester carbon, making their farms more productive and drought-resistant without damaging the environment.

10. Harnessing the Knowledge and Skills of Women Farmers. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, women represent 43 percent of the agricultural labor force, but due to limited access to inputs, land, and services, they produce less per unit of land than their male counterparts. Improving women’s access to agricultural extension services, credit programs, and information technology can help empower women, while reducing global hunger and poverty. In Uganda, extension programs are introducing women farmers to coolbot technology, which uses solar energy and an inverter to reduce temperatures and prolong the shelf life of vegetables.

11. Investing in Africa’s Land: Crisis and Opportunity. As pressure to increase food production rises, wealthy countries in the Middle East and Asia are acquiring cheap land in Africa to increase their food productivity. This has led to the exploitation of small-scale African farmers, compromising their food security. Agricultural investment models that create collaborations between African farmers and the foreign investing countries can be part of the solution. In Ethiopia’s Rift Valley, farmers grow green beans for the Dutch market during the European winter months, but cultivate corn and other crops for local consumption during the remaining months.

12. Charting a New Path to Eliminating Hunger. Nearly 1 billion people around the world are hungry, 239 million of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. To alleviate hunger, we must shift our attention beyond the handful of crops that have absorbed most of agriculture’s attention and focus on ways to improve farmers’ access to inputs and make better use of the food already produced. Innovations—such as the human-powered pump that can increase access to irrigation and low-cost plastic bags that help preserve grains—offer models that can be scaled-up and replicated beyond Africa.

13. Moving Ecoagriculture into the Mainstream. Agricultural practices that emphasize increased production have contributed to the degradation of land, soil, and local ecosystems, and ultimately hurt the livelihoods of the farmers who depend on these natural resources. Agroecological methods, including organic farming practices, can help farmers protect natural resources and provide a sustainable alternative to costly industrial inputs. These include rotational grazing for livestock in Zimbabwe’s savanna region and tea plantations in Kenya, where farmers use intercropping to improve soil quality and boost yields.

14. Improving Food Production from Livestock. In the coming decades, small livestock farmers in the developing world will face unprecedented challenges: demand for animal-source foods, such as milk and meat, is increasing, while animal diseases in tropical countries will continue to rise, hindering trade and putting people at risk. Innovations in livestock feed, disease control, and climate change adaptation—as well as improved yields and efficiency—are improving farmers’ incomes and making animal-source food production more sustainable. In India, farmers are improving the quality of their feed by using grass, sorghum, stover, and brans to produce more milk from fewer animals.

15. Going Beyond Production. Although scarcity and famine dominate the discussion of food security in sub-Saharan Africa, many countries are unequipped to deal with the crop surpluses that lead to low commodity prices and food waste. Helping farmers better organize their means of production—from ordering inputs to selling their crops to a customer—can help them become more resilient to fluctuations in global food prices and better serve local communities that need food. In Uganda, the organization TechnoServe has helped to improve market conditions for banana farmers by forming business groups through which they can buy inputs, receive technical advice, and sell their crops collectively.

To purchase State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet please click HERE.

To watch the one minute book trailer click HERE.

On Monday we visited Link TV in San Francisco. One thing we learned about was their fantastic project ViewChange.org where Link TV is using the power of video to tell stories about real people and progress in global development. Along with browsing and watching videos from all over the world, you can also share videos on blogs like The WIP Talk! Here is a video from the gender subject area:

After decades of conflict, the people of southern Sudan are rediscovering what it means to live in a time of peace. One of the most immediate benefits is wider access to education, but with limited resources and high demand, young people aren't always finding it easy to catch up on the years of school they missed.

Watch! Learn! Share!

One of the stanzas in the Argentinean epic poem “Martin Fierro,” by José Hernandez, says, “He who is born with a fat belly will not be helped by a cummerbund.” The concept could very well apply to the Egyptian military, which is now facing a special dilemma: Are its members going to respond to the Egyptian people’s demand for change or are they continuing to be the same powerful class as before, inured to the needs of the majority of Egyptians?

The question is quite pertinent today, as the military high command faces people’s demands to try former President Hosni Mubarak, his family and cronies and all those who committed serious abuses during Mubarak’s term in office. The Egyptian military are known to possess considerable –and diverse- economic interests in the country.

“Based on my financial disclosure report that confirms that I do not own any assets abroad, I agree to present any documents, reports or signatures that would help the Prosecutor General ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reveal any assets owned by me or my wife abroad,” stated Mubarak in a recorded audio message.

What Mubarak failed to mention is that it took the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) a long time to freeze assets, thus allowing Mubarak to hide any evidence to support accusations of foreign investments, as indicated Nabil Abel-Fattah, a researcher in Al-Ahram Institute for Political and Strategic Studies.

In the meantime, Egypt’s Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud has notified the United States and other governments around the world that Hosni Mubarak and his sons Gamal and Alaa may have hidden hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cash, gold and other state-owned valuables, according to information obtained by The Washington Post.

Egypt’s Prosecutor wrote that Mubarak and his sons may have violated laws prohibiting the “seizing of public funds and profiteering and abuse of power.” They may have done this using complicated business schemes that allowed them to divert the assets to offshore companies and personal accounts in banks overseas. According to some preliminary estimates, Mubarak’s family fortune may be as high as or even higher than $70 billion.

Despite these actions, it is not known how far the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces under the leadership of Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi will support these investigations and the proper punishment of those guilty. Tantawi was, after all, appointed defense minister by Mubarak, was part of Mubarak’s inner circle and, according to WikiLeaks documents he is very much a conservative, reluctant to embrace change or reform.

During last Friday’s demonstrations in Tahrir Square, called “Friday of Purification and Trial” because of the protesters’ demand to cleanse the government of corruption, hundreds of soldiers beat protesters with clubs and fired into the air, reportedly killing two protesters and injuring at least 10. Many protesters trying to flee were blocked by soldiers, who hit them and dragged them away.

This is critical time for Egypt’s budding democracy, one in which the army can show that it is willing to answer to people’s demands for justice and for choosing a new way out of the present interlude in the country’s history. It is a difficult –but not impossible- call for an organization which has been no stranger to corruption itself.

Former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Mohamed ElBaradei indicated that the road to stability consists of: quick responses to legitimate demands, power sharing with civilians during transition, a clear road map and the need to start a national dialogue. These are important aims, ones that the Egyptian military should keep in mind if they are willing to chart a new course towards democracy and development for the country.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights.

People from back home keep asking me about Australia and I keep responding with one word: “amazing”. I can’t help it, it just is that: amazing. The boisterous, friendly people, the giant, bounding marsupials and the ridiculous foray of insects in my bedroom (among other things) make this place so unique from any where else that I’ve ever experienced. Australia is Exciting. Exceptional. Dynamic.

And static…?

On April 1st of this year (2011, if we’re forgetting), journalist Sarah Irving gave an articulate reaction to Australia’s Northern Territory Emergency Response (also known as the Northern Territory Intervention) of 2007: a territory initiative that continues to greatly restrict human rights of the Yolngu and other Indigenous clans in the area; allegedly addressing the uncomfortable statistics of Aboriginal child abuse as reported by the publication, Little Children are Sacred.

Unfortunately, this article wasn’t a part of an April fool’s joke; instead its coverage is quite the opposite.

Limited land rights were granted to Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory with the establishment of the Land Rights Act of 1976. A basic element to Aboriginal culture is their connection to ‘country’: the land, its resources and, essentially, its spirit. Quite a brutal action this was, given that it had taken centuries for the Aboriginal clans to get native rights recognized by Australian law (in some cases longer: Native Title was finally acknowledged in 1993 in Queensland in the High Court ruling [Mabo v. Queensland]).

Irving surfaces a key point in this Intervention critique that sparked something in my memory: she points out that from where these Indigenous land rights are being stripped and leased out by the government (in 5 year intervals), is a land rich in minerals: uranium, aluminum and coal. Severe repercussions on local residents? Yeah.

In May 2010, Ranger - a uranium mine in the Kakadu which local indigenous people resisted since the 1970s - released large quantities of radioactive water into ecologically sensitive wetlands. And in late 2010, controversy emerged over attempts by local officials and mining giant Rio Tinto Alcan to sideline independent indigenous voices during negotiations to re-sign leases for the Nabalco bauxite mine. (Irving, 2011)

Sound familiar? Anyone heard of Tar Creek? Closer to home (relatively), in Oklahoma, there exists an Environmental Protection Agency superfund site called Tar Creek. A terrifying documentary, directed by Matt Myers in 2007 , detailing an American history in which mining for lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) had been allowed on Native American territory regardless of the Indigenous community’s consent and rightful concern (those in the Bureau of Indian Affairs who objected to the mining were overruled as incompetent and stripped of authority). Over a hundred years has passed and the exploitation had left both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities marginalized and suffering from Pb and Zn poisoning and water pollution.

I’m not without a sense of irony in my writing, being the progeny of western Europeans who made their way to America, traveling across the continent to settle in Oregon: the land of evergreen forests, Pacific salmon and Native Americans. My life has been full of opportunity. However, it’s not without costs. The electricity, that keeps my computer running so that I may type this reflection, predominantly comes from the Australian coalmines (about 80%).

As a graduate student, I bury myself in climate change literature, constantly reviewing the latest publications on carbon mitigation and climate adaptation. For example, the World Bank has created the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), in order to finance carbon emission reduction mechanisms in developing countries in response to global warming: in essence, providing financial incentives to stop deforestation. Sounds promising? Could be. However, non-governmental organizations , interested in Indigenous human rights, continue to present one example after another in which land tenure and native rights of forest peoples are being ignored.

As we moved forward into the 21st century, consuming our way through limited resources, we need to re-consider the cost of our fuel, our technology, our lifestyles; and I’m not talking about in the sense of pounds, euros or dollars. Your tank of gas, my computer’s electric consumption, is costing us our humanity. The price paid is the continual marginalization, oppression and dehumanization of the original inhabitants of colonized territories. They are losing their culture, their livelihoods, their country.

We can help. We can change. That’s the greatest part about being human: we’re quite resilient and adaptable. Start thinking about where things come from, support those who do it right and debunk those who don’t.

Debunk unjust mineral extraction propaganda that tells you that everything is all right: April Fools, it’s not. Support research that shows that Aboriginal land management equates to a healthy environment and truly see that Australia is amazing.

Going to the gym is the bane of my existence. I'm not an athletic person and there's almost nothing I despise more than getting up at 6AM every morning so I can check my email, drink a requisite cup of coffee, and get in a bit of exercise before catching the subway to work. But I do it. Every flippin' day, I command myself to do this thing I hate because I know it's good for me. Well, and because that's when I listen to NPR.

I developed a love of public radio when I was living in the stationary city of Atlanta, GA. To combat the notorious inertia of commuter traffic in and out of the southern metropolis, I tuned my station to NPR. Near the left the dial (a symbolic reflection of its politics?), I was introduced to the soothing voice of Terry Gross as she deftly interviewed the likes of actor John Malkovich, illustrator Marjane Satrapi, and musician Booty Collins – all with the same volume of couth and rigor. These stimulating conversations helped get me through a year of substitute teaching in some of the most challenging schools in the metro Atlanta area by providing a space of calm for my inevitably frazzled end-of-the-workday mind. So, when it came to going to the gym, this should have been a piece of cake. But it wasn’t.

Truth be told, I’d rather be baking that piece of cake (and I’m not a baker) than chugging along on a treadmill or straining to do just one chin up – on an assisted machine no less. I’m not obese person, or even overweight; I’m considered “normal” and healthy for a person my height and heft. It’s just that I’m tall and solid and I don’t like to exercise. I didn’t play sports as a child because my single mother of three didn’t have the money to pay for afterschool programs. So, I never got into the habit of seeing physical activity as fun. I saw it as something to be resented and envied, something other kids could do that I couldn’t. And eventually I convinced myself I didn’t want to play sports anyway. Who wants to be a dumb jock?

Later in college, as a campus activist who was developing a feminist consciousness, I wrote off going to the gym as “something anorexic girls do.” And god forbid I be mistaken for one of those. At eighteen years old, I was too cool to care about my body, and too much of a feminist dogmatist to make the connection between working out and health. And to be honest, if I had paid much attention and become more self-aware then, I might have realized that starving my body of exercise was probably just as bad as starving myself of food. Maybe worse, because in my case, I had a political justification to obfuscate self-delusion.

On my last birthday, I turned thirty years old. And while I didn’t have some cliché crisis about my age, I did finally admit that I must start taking better care of myself. Being vegetarian isn’t enough when you’re eating a ton of simple carbs without getting any cardio. So, I gave myself a birthday present: a membership to the gym.

The first visit was pretty excruciating. Lady Gaga was blasting at me from every possible angle and all I could see in any mirror-laden direction was the scowl on my sweaty face. The seconds dragged and I searched for an excuse to skip out early. Truth be told, I only stayed the full hour because my partner had come with me, and I didn’t want to cut his workout short by asking him to leave. So, I spent the time silently pondering how to make these daily excursions a little less miserable. The answer dawned on me: NPR.

If you look at my iPod, you’ll find that it contains absolutely no music – only podcasts. As I’m lacing up my sneakers, the familiar voices of journalists fill my ears and it’s go time. If I can stay focused on what Culturetopia’s Neda Ulaby has to say about Steve Harvey’s fruitless attempts to appeal to white people then I can make it through my warm up on the treadmill. By concentrating on the comedic banter of the Pop Culture Happy Hour crew, I find a way to ignore the fact that my heart is pounding at 160 beats per minute. Soon enough my workout is finished and I make a break for the showers, pondering the new knowledge I've just been exposed to and giddy about what I might learn the following day: perhaps the mysterious homing ability of pigeons or a review roundup of Freedom.

My method isn’t foolproof and sometimes it results in a gaff, like laughing out loud at Radiolab’s investigative antics or stifling a sob elicited from a story told at The Moth. I’ve solicited more than a few concerned glances at my seemingly bizarre behavior. But I do what I need to do in order to pull through yet another morning of reticence and resistance. You see, what I’m shedding isn’t pounds; it’s the past. And in my case, NPR is beneficial for both my body and my mind.

Somalia can be considered one of the most troublesome countries in the world, one frequently called a “failed state,” ravaged by violence and instability. But in such unfavorable place a valiant woman has quietly emerged as a presence of dignity and hope. Dr. Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe has, for years, been taking care of thousands of Somalis and is a voice of peace in the war-torn land.

A physician trained in the Ukraine, the 63-year-old Dr. Abdi returned to Somalia in 1983 and opened her own one–room clinic in the outskirts of Mogadishu, a city lacking in government health facilities. Since then, that one room has grown into a huge 400-bed hospital surrounded by 1,300 acres of farmland where 90,000 now make their home.

In Somalia, fighting between rival warlords and an inadequate response to famine and disease have marked the life of this nation and led to the deaths of up to one million people in recent decades. Presently, almost a third of the population depends on food aid and the country hasn’t had an effective government since 1991.

The country, divided into clan fiefdoms, is in desperate need of a working government and the rule of law. In January of 2009, a moderate Islamist and former rebel, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected president of a transitional government. His government, however, only controls a few blocks of the capital with the support of the United Nations and African Union troops.

Most of the country is controlled by insurgent groups, particularly by Al-Shabab, which means “youth” in Arabic and which wants to impose a strict version of Islam throughout Somalia. Mr. Ahmed had been elected by the Somali parliament which was sitting in neighboring Djibouti to be safe from the violence back at home.

With very few exports and living mainly through remittances from Somalis living abroad (they sent an estimated 20 million dollars a month to Mogadishu alone) and a climate of lawlessness in the country it should not surprise that piracy has become a serious threat to international shipping.

In the meantime the country, with an estimated 1.2 mn displaced in South-central Mogadishu alone, is undergoing one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Added to these severe social challenges is the Somalis’ lack of access to adequate heakth care. It is in this context that Dr. Hawa Abdi and her two daughters are working to address not only the health needs of tens of thousands of internal refugees in the country but also other social and educational needs.

Dr. Abdi achieved international notoriety in May of 2010 when 750 armed militias from the group Hizbul Islam surrounded her hospital, held her at gunpoint and demanded that she stop her work. They also allowed dozens of adolescents to ransack the hospital, destroy anesthesia machines, tear up medical records and destroy hospital infrastructure.

Undeterred, Dr. Abdi confronted her assailants and asked them to explain their behavior. When they threatened to kill her she calmly responded, “If you want to kill me, kill me, no problem. Someday I have to die.” When the incident was known internationally there was widespread outrage. Dozens of Somalian women stormed the hospital in a show of solidarity and insisted on the departure of the militia.

Facing strong condemnation for their actions, and after keeping her under detention for seven days, the leader of Hizbul Islam, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys ordered her release. When the militia left, Dr. Abdi was able to resume her work. She had won an important battle.

In 2010, the U.S. magazine Glamour named Dr. Abdi and her two daughters, Dr. Amina Mohamed Abdi and Dr. Deqa Mohamed Abdi “Women of the Year,” and called them the “Saints of Somalia.” As they continue their work, these valiant women represent a ray of hope in a bleak land.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

The health and well being of Yemen’s children, which has never been adequate, is even less now with the conflicts raging throughout the country. On March 8, UNICEF stated that the violent protests now taking place in Yemen are affecting children’s well being, who should be protected at all costs. UNICEF also said that a number of schools in al-Mansoura and al-Mu’alla districts in the Aden governorate were being attacked by demonstrators and putting children’s lives at risk.

The seven-year-long war in Northern Yemen has produced a generation of children grown in violence. It is estimated that children make 60 percent of the roughly 300,000 people who have been displaced and had to flee their homes in terror. As a result of this, many children bear the scars of war and have manifested in a variety of psychological symptoms and threatened their proper development.

Because of the situation of abject poverty, many children are trafficked to Saudi Arabia, often with the support of their parents who are promised a bright future for their children by intermediaries. They end up, in many cases, being abused and some fall prey to adults who involve them in prostitution, drug-trafficking and other illicit activities. Some escape and go back to Yemen only to become “street children” in the country’s main cities and where many continue a cycle of abuse and lawlessness. A UNICEF study showed that there are more than 30,000 street children in Yemen.

The phenomenon of street children in Yemen can be traced back to 1990s, when the economic situation in the country deteriorated. Today, the number of street children is rapidly increasing and includes children of other governorates who came to live in Sanaa city, children from poor families living there and children from refugee families coming mainly from Somalia.

Although the rights of children are enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Yemen is a signatory, the situation of the children in Yemen is shameful, according to the Director of the Democratic School for Human Rights, Mr.Jamal al-Shami. According to Mr. al-Shami, children are exposed to violence in homes, in schools and on the streets, and about 60 percent among them are exposed to torture in refuge homes and prisons.

Due to lack of economic resources and poverty in the families children often work in difficult and dangerous jobs and may end up exploited by gangs and subject to abuse. “The ministry has carried out a number of projects dealing with child labor, and it is preparing a project to monitor the worst forms of child labor in a number of Yemeni governorates,” said Mona Ali Salem, chairwoman of the Child Labor Unit in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour.

The situation is even worse for Yemeni girls, who are worse off than boys in almost all social indicators. Poverty and lack of awareness has discouraged many poor parents from having their children, particularly girls, educated. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) approximately 52 percent of girls attend primary school, compared to 86 percent of boys. In rural areas, where 72 percent of Yemen’s population lives, fewer than one in three girls go to school. Despite some recent improvements in enrollment, education statistics in Yemen are among the worst in the Arab world.

Violence throughout the country affects everybody, including children, who grow up in an atmosphere of danger and lawlessness. In Yemen, there are three times as many guns as there are people, and boys learn to carry out an AK-47 from an early age. 500-600 children are killed or wounded every year through direct involvement in tribal combat in the country, according to some estimates.

Disruptions caused by conflict have a negative impact on children and youngster’s health, education and well being. As Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF’s Yemen representative stated, “Ignoring the plight of Yemeni youngsters short of food, education and security is not only cruel but dangerous.”

Dr. Cesar Chelala, an international public health consultant, is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.