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My grandfather would routinely remove debris from the water’s surface and unclog the outlet as part of maintenance for ensuring an unrestricted flow of surface water, which would later be treated and stored by the water utility. This impressed upon me the value of environmental protection and conservation for supporting vibrant ecosystems and keeping good surface water quality.

As the sun rises across Mexico’s Sierra Gorda nature reserve, a golden light illuminates its nearly 400,000 hectares of mountains, gorges and valleys.

Set amid this vast wilderness is the Bucareli mercury mine.

Just after dawn, a metal door to the mine opens. The morning’s silence is broken by the dull sound of a generator and workers traipsing to their posts.

The Caribbean island of Barbuda still bears the battle scars of its most brutal encounter with climate change. In 2017, Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 leviathan of unprecedented power, roared across its pristine turquoise waters.

The island’s only storm shelter collapsed, with 300 people hiding inside. Around 95 per cent of Barbuda’s buildings were wrecked, including homes, schools and critical infrastructure.

A few dozen kilometres inland from northern Panama’s coast is the Hato Chami school.

Set amid winding roads, green trees and stunning mountains, it has more than 1,000 pupils, most of whom hail from one of Panama’s largest indigenous groups, the Ngäbe.

Rosa Cordero, who is diabetic, remembers a time when she couldn’t store her insulin safely. Her refrigerator was old and unreliable, and she never knew if the temperature was cool enough to store the drug.

From record-breaking storms to floods and fires, perhaps more than any year before it, 2021 has underlined the position of our cities as frontlines in the global struggle to rebalance our relationship with nature.

On January 20, 2021, the day of the inauguration of American president Joe Biden, two ducks named “Joe” and “Kamala” took flight from a remote wetland near Negril, Jamaica. And, like their namesakes, the fowl will be the focus of international attention.

The United Nations Environment Programme is working with San Salvador city and its surrounding coffee farms to create a natural defence against floods. Known as CityAdapt, the project is restoring 1,150 hectares of forests and coffee plantations to revive San Salvador’s ability to absorb rainfall.

For World Cities Day on 31st October, we follow the story of how the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is working with San Salvador city and its surrounding coffee farms to create a ‘natural’ defence against floods.

When you are a small island nation, every inch of space counts. But from rising sea levels to natural disasters and coastal erosion, in the age of climate change many islands are shrinking before their citizens’ very eyes.

Chile is renowned for its diverse ecosystem, from the vast mountain ranges of Patagonia to the southernmost tip of Tierra del Fuego. The country is also home to a less famous carbon storage powerhouse—peatlands.

In the lead up to International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem on 26 July, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is running a series of stories on mangroves, and their impact on the environment and economies of countries across the world.

As iconic as the islands’ pristine beaches and tropical forests, the 60,000-plus green monkeys of St. Kitts and Nevis are a quintessential part of the Caribbean experience for many visitors.

The Mexican city of Xalapa is surrounded by ecosystems that not only harbor stunning flora and fauna, but also provide crucial services to the city and its 580,000 people.

Walking backwards, Georgina unspools a thick white ribbon in a rectangle about half the size of a soccer pitch, before planting fence posts into the thick grass and stringing up an electric fence in Ecuador’s mountainous Pichincha province.

The fence in place, she ushers her 13 prized cows into the lush, green meadow—a now daily routine for the 46-year-old rancher.

The shy and elusive neotropical otter is widely distributed in Latin America, but it is hardly spotted. When Manuel Chávez and his team discovered that a specimen was captured by one of their river camera traps in the depths of the Sierra Tarahumara canyons, in northwestern Mexico, they were thrilled.

A new generation of farmers brings productivity back to Cuba’s landscape

With its tropical beaches and rolling hills, spotted with tobacco plantations and pine forest, Cuba might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of degraded land. But behind the tourist idyll lies a grimmer reality.