On an early May morning, 55-year-old Alhaji Bashir Sule walks excitedly through his five-hectare farm in Kano State, northwest Nigeria, watching a solar-powered pump gush water into the fields.

Bashir used a water pump powered by fossil fuels to irrigate his farm for over a decade, but rising fuel costs became a burden. In Nigeria, 140 million people equivalent to (63 percent  of the population) live below the poverty line. After the government ended the national fuel subsidy in 2023, the dramatic rise in fuel prices led to higher costs for transporting goods, which affects the entire food production and supply chain. Even staple foods are becoming unaffordable for many households, and rural communities across the country are at the brink of hunger crisis.

Many of Bashir’s neighbors in the Bauje farming community don’t even cultivate their land in the dry season because they can’t afford the fuel. 

“I spent about ₦12,000 [US$8.70] every three days on petrol to irrigate this land last year,” Bashir said. “This is why most of my neighbors didn’t use their lands because they can’t afford the amount. But now, with just ₦2,500 [US$1.80] per day, my rice farm is always wet.”

As Nigeria’s rural farmers reckon with rising fuel prices and increasingly irregular rainfall patterns tied to climate change, more of them are turning to solar-powered irrigation to save and earn more money.

Adopting solar-powered irrigation helps farmers like Bashir cut fuel costs by more than 60 percent while extending their growing seasons and boosting crop yields, according to the Energy Commission of Nigeria.

Among more than 10,000 smallholder farmers who tried solar irrigation in the rural northwestern state of Kebbi, over 70 percent reported higher incomes, researchers from the YELF Climate Trust Foundation told the Nigeria Guardian earlier this year. Farmers saw their crop yields rise and operational costs drop, and most saved more money with solar compared to other energy sources for irrigation, the study found.

Improving incomes while curbing emissions 

In Sauki Dabula, another community in Kano State, 39-year-old farmer Saidu Abba also saw healthier crops and bigger payouts when he switched from a petrol-powered water pump to solar for irrigation. Last year, the cucumber and maize he harvested from his two-hectare farm were smaller in size because he couldn’t afford enough petrol to keep the pump running. 

“If not for this solar, with the way the petrol price is surging, the crops might have even become much more stunted than last year’s because I can’t afford the price,” Abba said. 

Ibrahim Badamasi, 36, also saw improved harvests at his onion farm in Sauki Dabula. He usually gets three or four large sacks of onions from the farm each season. “This year, as a result of proper irrigation, I made six similar sacks from the same farm,” he said.

Nigeria’s National Economic Council is now urging more farmers to use solar and has directed the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning to fund the production and distribution of pumps to farmers across the country. And Horti Nigeria, a Dutch-funded program working to enhance food and nutrition security, has already provided solar irrigation systems to more than 2,000 farmers in Ogun, Oyo, Kaduna and Kano states. 

Along with helping farmers grow more food, expanding access to solar-powered irrigation reduces the use of diesel generators on farms, which emit greenhouse gases and harm local air quality. 

Nigeria’s agricultural sector creates nearly 86 million tons of carbon equivalent emissions each year, roughly three times the annual emissions of Nigeria’s capital city, Lagos. Along with contributing to climate change, the country’s federal government says emissions from agriculture are driving a severe public health crisis through air pollution.

Rural communities can feel it. 

Nearby resident Haruna Muhammad said the fumes from Abba’s old petrol pump often blew in his face as he passed by the farm. “The air around his farm was discomforting, but why would I be the only one to speak it out,” he said. “But when, in the last few months, I noticed that he replaced the petrol-powered pump with a solar-powered one, I felt happier.”

Similarly, at Bauje, Bashir described the air around his rice farm as “sickening” when the petrol pump was on. “When I was using a fuel-based pump, I rarely spent an hour in the farm,” he said. “But now, whenever I come visiting, I could spend hours because the air quality has improved.”

Increasing access could lessen brutal climate impacts

Agriculture accounts for about 22 percent of Nigeria’s gross domestic product and more than a third of its total employment. Farming is the backbone of rural livelihoods and national food security, as the majority of the country’s staple foods are produced domestically. Yet Nigeria’s rural farmers are threatened by the worsening impacts of climate change, including heatwaves and irregular rainfall that ravages fields with both floods and drought. 

In this context, solar-powered irrigation systems offer multiple benefits: They extend the growing season by allowing farmers to irrigate their crops when the fields go dry, while reducing the use of polluting diesel fuel. If solar-powered water pumps were used across all of Nigeria’s irrigated maize fields, that alone would eliminate 4 million tons of carbon emissions annually.

John Olaoye, a professor in the department of agricultural and biosystems engineering at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria, agrees that solar-powered irrigation systems are a promising solution for farmers, but only if rural communities are actually able to access it. And access remains an issue. 

While solar generators and irrigation eliminate regular petrol purchases, the high upfront cost of these systems is often too much for smallholder farmers, meaning most dry-season farmers in Bauje and Sauki Dabula still use petrol generators to irrigate their lands. 

When Bashir checked the prices earlier this year, the lowest he could find was more than half a million Nigerian naira, too high for him to afford. Instead, he was able to rent his solar system from Women In Mechanized Agriculture (WIMA). The Nigerian nonprofit rents solar equipment to small-scale, male farmers and uses the income to fund women-focused agricultural programs in other parts of the country, as cultural norms often limit women in northern states like Kano from operating farming machinery.

Bashir expects the solar setup to save him money, even with the cost of renting it. “I’m still excited about it because it saved me the worries about fuel costs,” he said.

But cost isn’t the only barrier for farmers when it comes to using solar. Though they pollute less, solar irrigation systems are often new technology for rural communities, so there’s typically a learning curve in making them work on the farm. 

When Bashir first rented his system, for example, he worried it would be stolen if left unattended in the fields overnight, so he opted to carry the panels from his home to the farm every day. “The panels are large, and one day while carrying them on my motorcycle to the farm, one of them slipped away,” he said. “A part of it broke and it stopped working.” He had to pay to replace it, which led him to hire a local security guard instead. “Not every farmer can afford that,” he added.

A shortage of local technicians to repair malfunctioning solar equipment is also a growing challenge that can hinder more widespread adoption in rural communities, said Muhammad Hamza Abubakar, a Nigerian sustainable agriculture and agribusiness strategist. 

Though the Nigerian government is exploring subsidies for solar-powered pumps, experts like Hamza say more policy support and federal funding are needed to meet the need among farmers. 

For those who have been able to access the technology ahead of this year’s dry season, it has made all the difference. “If not for this solar intervention, farming would’ve been very much difficult for me this year,” Abba said. “I’m glad I came in contact with it and hope the government makes it easily accessible to everyone.”

As he walked through the field, a fluttering Kaftan rustling against his rice plants, Bashir shared similar hopes of more investment to support Kano State’s smallholder farmers. “It’s my life,” he said. “We’re intentional about what we do.”

TriplePundit]]> Taylor Haelterman https://triplepundit.com/?p=71322 2026-07-28T21:24:39Z 2026-07-28T20:53:10Z

Public buses and trains don’t usually extend into the outskirts of rural communities, if they stop in them at all. Microtransit helps more rural residents reach their local station, but it comes at a cost.

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Many rural populations would benefit from using the public bus or train, if only they could get there. Microtransit programs can help, but they’re not always successful. 

What is rural microtransit? 

Microtransit is not as complex as it sounds. Different versions of it have existed since at least the 1970s, but it’s slowly garnering new attention as modern technology makes these services easier to run. Similar to rideshare platforms like Uber and Lyft, microtransit is an on-demand vehicle service that picks up a rider where they are and takes them where they want to go. Users typically book a ride via an app or a phone call, and may sometimes ride alongside other passengers heading the same direction. 

The catch is: Microtransit programs only run in a specific region, like within a municipality or across a couple of counties. While a van might pick you up at the bus stop on the edge of town and bring you to the next town over, it might not take you on an hour-long ride to the city. These services are typically designed to fill the gaps between where residents live and where public transit runs, help people travel to set locations, or offer complementary paratransit services for people with disabilities. 

Filling public transit gaps is critical to accessibility and affordability in rural areas, where people often live miles away from grocery stores, hospitals, schools and workplaces. Less than 2 percent of all public transportation rides across the U.S. are in rural locations, but the majority of those rides are to critical services like work or medical appointments, according to a 2025 American Public Transportation Association report. That’s particularly important for older Americans, who make up about 20 percent of the rural population in the U.S., and people with disabilities, who make up a larger portion of rural populations than urban ones. 

Where are these programs running? 

While microtransit is far from a household term, it’s up and running in more rural locations than you may expect. On Washington’s west coast, residents of Gray’s Harbor County can schedule rides across several towns for free. The county-run program, called HarborFlex, travels through areas that do not have enough demand to justify a bus route. Officials say seniors often use the service to attend local events, and more than two dozen locals have used it to get critical medical treatment. 

On the other side of the country, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation turned a successful 2023 pilot into a running microtransit program in two rural counties. The service provided over 48,000 trips over the 18-month pilot, with most riders hailing a van multiple times each week, according to a study from the department. Today, the participating transit agencies, Bay Transit and Mountain Empire Transit, offer on-demand rides across more than 10 counties. 

Up north in Vermont, the private nonprofit Rural Community Transportation provides fare-free microtransit rides across two counties. The nonprofit covers expenses like gas, but volunteer drivers make the program possible by donating their time and using their own cars. Rural Community Transportation also offers point-to-point transportation to medical appointments, essential services, and community events for Medicaid clients. Combined, the two programs make up almost 75 percent of the rides given by the agency, according to the nonprofit’s 2025 report. When the microtransit program expanded to Newport (a town of about 4,400 people) after the pilot, monthly ridership in the area reportedly grew by 200 people.

These are just a few examples. Just over 55 percent of public transit agencies are rural, according to the American Public Transportation Association report. And the vast majority of all urban and rural agencies offer demand response services, a category that includes programs like microtransit, late-night rides and point-to-point operations for people with disabilities. 

Is microtransit actually working? 

The examples above may make microtransit seem like a widely successful experiment, but that’s not the case. Research from 2020 found that 40 percent of these programs fail before the three-year mark, rising to a 50 percent failure rate over seven years. That statistic stands globally, with 50 percent of programs ending within two years. The researchers found a strong connection between failed programs and high costs. Simpler programs with less flexible routes were more cost efficient and more likely to be successful. 

For example, a microtransit service that shuttles drivers anywhere within a given zone has the potential to go long distances with no passengers in the car, even in an area with high demand. Frequent long rides and driving without passengers leads to higher costs compared to a service that follows a set route of short stops on a set schedule, particularly in rural areas, according to a 2026 study of a rural microtransit service in California. High costs are an especially difficult hurdle to overcome while transit agencies across the country struggle with unstable funding. 

A 2025 study from the University of California Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center suggests replacing microtransit services that bring riders anywhere in the region with services that stop at set locations along a schedule could help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Importantly, the researchers aren’t saying microtransit’s limitations mean rural programs aren’t worth the cost. They instead argue these programs should be carefully considered based on regional context and point out that metrics like accessibility, safety and user satisfaction may be a more appropriate measure of a program’s success. Whether microtransit “works,” seems to be a question each community must answer on its own. 

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71311 2026-07-24T21:17:00Z 2026-07-24T21:14:19Z

The U.S. federal government is spending billions in taxpayer dollars on foreign wars and immigration enforcement while basic needs at home go unfunded and unaddressed.

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As U.S. President Donald Trump continues to wage war against Iran, public frustration is at a boiling point. Eighteen U.S. service members have been killed since the war began. Their deaths underscore the senseless harm and waste of taxpayer resources in the Middle East while basic needs at home go unfunded and unaddressed.

Urgent needs at home: America’s decaying infrastructure

The nation’s municipal wastewater infrastructure is among those basic needs going unaddressed. Regardless of partisan political posturing over social issues, wastewater management is an essential public health and quality-of-life function in a modern industrialized society. It transcends — or should transcend — the red-blue divide.

But wastewater systems have been falling into disrepair across the United States for decades amid debates over the use of federal funding to support local infrastructure projects. States, cities and utilities now shoulder more than 90 percent of the cost of wastewater upgrades and repairs, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Many can’t afford to pay, so they delay the expensive underground work that’s needed, often until it’s too late.

The urgent need to address civic infrastructure reached national headlines in January when a sewage pipeline collapsed and spilled more than 200 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the Potomac River in Maryland, near Washington, D.C. It was among the largest, if not the largest, such event in U.S. history.

Wastewater spills also left beaches and recreation areas closed in New York, Massachusetts and California ahead of the July 4 holiday. Just last week, another major spill into a tributary of the James River in Virginia alarmed residents and shuttered recreational areas nearby.

Researchers confirm these events are happening more frequently and will continue to happen until the U.S. invests what’s needed to bring its most basic systems into the 21st century. These investments aren’t glamorous, but they’re desperately needed and long overdue.

More U.S. infrastructure shows the signs of age

On July 2, a power system at a wastewater facility on the Hudson River north of New York City failed. The power loss sent an estimated 39 million gallons of untreated wastewater into the waterway, resulting in public health warnings and beach closures.

The same day on the other side of the country, a 2,000-gallon spill resulted when a wastewater pump failed in the city of Laguna Beach, California, leading officials to close a half-mile stretch of the coast to swimmers.

Dramatic events like these, though, are only part of the danger that outdated water systems pose to public health. Approximately 700 municipalities, largely but not exclusively concentrated in the northeast, have older drainage systems that combine wastewater with storm runoff. During periods of heavy rain or snowmelt, a combined system outruns the capacity of wastewater treatment plants, and the excess goes directly into local waterways, untreated.

These are so common in the U.S. they have a name: combined sewer overflows, or CSOs. While some have been remediated with holding tanks and other improvements over the years, they still happen regularly across the country. In April, for example, heavy rains led to a capacity overrun at a retention facility in Macomb County, Michigan, sending 1.2 million gallons of untreated wastewater into local waterways. Earlier this month, heavy rains led to CSO advisories covering parts of the Connecticut, Chicopee, and Mill Rivers in Connecticut.

For larger cities, the cumulative impact of CSOs is substantial. In Philadelphia alone, CSOs send an estimated 12.5 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the city’s waterways each year. And, despite substantial improvements since the 1970s, New York City’s CSO system continues to discharge an estimated 18 billion gallons of wastewater into the surrounding waterways annually.

Where does funding for wastewater upgrades come from?

The U.S. federal government once covered more than half the cost of wastewater and sewer system upgrades through direct grants to municipalities. But in 1987, the U.S. Congress replaced federal wastewater grants with loans through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.

This fund totaled more than $160 billion in financial support for local water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure over its first 35 years. Through the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014, the EPA also began issuing loans to municipalities, distributing $43 billion in financing over its first eight years. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law carved out $50 billion for water system upgrades, including $13 billion earmarked for wastewater and stormwater management.

But this is nowhere near the levels of investment needed to upgrade systems serving tens of millions of people, many of them decades past their intended retirements. Localities often end up covering the entire cost of wastewater projects, if they ever happen at all. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates more than $625 billion — and up to $1 trillion — will be needed for upgrades and repairs to water, wastewater, and stormwater systems over the next two decades.

Follow the money…to the Middle East

Since taking office last year, Trump has summarily withheld or suspended federal water system funding while proposing steep cuts to the EPA’s revolving loan programs. Though the country’s wastewater problems far predate the current administration, the prospect of new infrastructure investment at the levels needed is unlikely as Trump diverts billions in taxpayer dollars to fund his war in the Middle East and mass deportation campaign at home.

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has estimated the cost of the Iran war at $37.5 billion so far. NBC News is among those reporting the costs are far higher, in the range of $80 billion to $100 billion in just five months. That figure includes the rising need to replace destroyed U.S. aircraft, repair damaged military facilities, and replenish the depleted weapons stockpile.

Four in five Americans now say they expect the war in Iran to continue “for an extended period.” While public opinion polls do not necessarily reflect voter behavior, a new poll commissioned by the news organization Politico shows that even Trump’s MAGA base has soured on the economic impact of the war.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have authorized more than $150 billion in funding for immigration enforcement over the past year alone, as public outrage rises over human rights and civil rights abuses by federal immigration agencies.

TriplePundit]]> Elyse Hauser https://triplepundit.com/?p=71113 2026-07-28T20:55:06Z 2026-07-21T12:00:00Z

Anyone in Washington can travel hundreds of miles by bus without paying a cent. As gas prices and the cost of living climb, transit ridership is rising in counties with zero-fare programs.

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Should you travel from Seattle to Long Beach Peninsula, a vacation spot famous for fresh oysters and coastal vistas, you can do it without a car and for less than the price of a cup of coffee. The nearly 200-mile journey crosses much of western Washington, passing through old logging towns and working-class river communities. Even in these far-flung places, public buses make their daily routes. Though the bus trip from Seattle to Long Beach includes six transfers and takes most of the day, you’ll only pay $3 thanks to the region’s free transit systems.

A combination of new funding sources and local political will allowed many rural counties in western Washington to get rid of transit fares in recent years. Whether the shift will have staying power, though, remains to be seen. 

The zero-fare decade

Eight western Washington counties now offer free transit options for all riders: Clallam, Grays Harbor, Island, Jefferson, Lewis, Mason, Pacific and Thurston. 

It may sound unusual for so many local governments to offer transit for free, but what’s even more remarkable is that it often helps them save money. “For the rural systems that don’t have a lot of [population] density, it can actually cost more to manage a fare system than what people actually collect,” said Don Chartock, director of the Public Transportation Division at Washington’s Department of Transportation.

In Thurston, the fare-free county with the largest population, officials were surprised to learn just how little fares contributed to their transit agency’s revenue. Thurston’s Intercity Transit agency serves more than 300,000 people across the state capital, Olympia, nearby suburbs, and small towns at the county’s edges. Back in 2018, Thurston residents voted to increase the sales tax by 0.4 percent to improve public transit. 

One of Intercity Transit’s goals for the new funds was to make fare collection more efficient. The cost and effort of handing cash was already an issue, but installing new fare card systems would run roughly $7 million, said Nick Demerice, Intercity Transit communications and outreach officer. When the city hired a consulting firm to run the numbers, “what they found is somewhere between 2 to 3 percent of our revenue was being recovered at the fare box,” he said. The majority of the agency’s funding actually comes from local sales tax, which is the case for many transit systems in Washington.

Intercity Transit opted to make all its buses free to ride at the start of 2020. Thurston County now serves as a transit hub connecting the surrounding rural counties, many of which are on the fare-free transit list. At the Olympia Transit Center, “if you sit there for an hour, you’ll see Mason Transit pull in, you’ll see Grays Harbor pull in,” Chartock said.

Shortly after Thurston went fare-free, new state transit funds made cutting fares possible for more counties. In 2022, a Washington transportation funding package dedicated $3 billion of state funds for addressing climate change to public transit across the state. The 16-year funding package included grants offered to transit agencies that made fares free for anyone under 18 years old.

“Our farebox recovery rate is so small and modest that when that extra funding source came along, it was roughly equivalent to what we’re making in fares,” said Eric Lint, communications specialist at Grays Harbor Transit, which serves a coastal county defined by its large bay. 

Like Intercity Transit, most of Grays Harbor’s funds come from local sales tax. Lint said the agency also uses funds from two Federal Transit Administration grants that support rural agencies providing local connectivity. With the new Washington state transportation grants added, Grays Harbor County made its transit free for all riders. 

A new transit era

Although small towns are often associated with cars, not everyone has the money or ability to use a personal vehicle. The median household income in the rural U.S. is lower than in urban areas, and seniors make up almost 20 percent of the rural population. Where necessities like schools and stores are rarely within walking distance, public transit puts necessary trips within reach for more people and offers access to new options for jobs, healthcare and recreation. When the transit costs nothing, that access is even greater.

“I have been using public transit here in Olympia for roughly 20 years,” said Mike Holbein, a local restaurant chef. “I remember when it was not free.”

Public transit is Holbein’s primary means of commuting to work, the grocery store and anywhere else outside of his neighborhood. Now that it’s free, “convenience is exceptionally high,” he said. 

Intercity Transit ran a community survey about two years ago, asking riders how the zero-fare program impacts them. Most respondents said the process is easier, and they appreciate not having to think about how much money is on their card or keeping the exact change on hand, Demerice said.

Getting rid of fares helps riders board the bus faster and with less stress, and it reduces the risk of arguments between riders and drivers. “If you look nationally, fare collection is one of the top reasons for operator assaults and disputes,” Demerice said. 

Free-fare counties have already noticed the difference. The Grays Harbor Transit safety training team, which interviews drivers when an incident occurs on a bus, has noticed a decrease in conflicts since fares were eliminated. 

At first, going zero-fare was a challenging transition for some long-term drivers, who were initially taught that collecting fares was an integral part of their role, said Robert Andrews, a former bus driver who now trains drivers in Thurston County. But once it became more familiar, drivers also started to see the benefits. 

“We see a lot longer retention of employees, not only because of the zero-fare, but just our agency in general and how it operates,” he said. “The zero-fare definitely helps on a deeper level because that’s one less stress that you have to worry about, and it’s only as stressful as you make it.”  

Making connections

In some parts of Washington, free transit even extends beyond ordinary buses. “There’s a new trend called microtransit, which essentially tries to do the public sector version of Uber and Lyft,” Chartock said. Grays Harbor County’s microtransit system, called HarborFlex, allows riders to order on-demand rides in a van or SUV outside of regular bus routes but within specific towns in Grays Harbor County. That system is fare-free, too. 

“We’re mainly operating it in the small rural towns where we can’t run a fixed-route bus,” Lint said. Even where demand isn’t high enough to justify a regular bus route, it can be enough to justify microtransit options. Seniors often use microtransit for things like meetups at the local library, he said. 

These smaller vehicles also allow for responses to extremely specific situations, like when a dialysis center in Grays Harbor County closed temporarily for maintenance in 2024. The clinic had funds for transporting patients to other treatment locations, but the funds ran out when the maintenance took longer than planned. The closest clinics were all about 50 miles away in places like Thurston County’s Olympia. 

“Immediately Grays Harbor Transit, Mason Transit and all the different [agencies] along the way got together,” Chartock said. “It’s like, ‘Alright, how do we get these folks to this service that essentially keeps people alive?’” 

The agencies and the clinic were able to arrange free rides for the 29 dialysis patients, coordinating schedules and pickup points between different transit providers, until the local clinic reopened.  

Even as public transportation becomes more accessible than ever in some places,  many of the most rural parts of western Washington lack public transit altogether. Others lack convenient, reliable options for riders — free or not. 

Buses often don’t meet local needs for small communities on tribal reservations, for example. “We have one up to Taholah,” Lint said. “It’s a really small fishing town on the edge of the national forest, and our service isn’t very frequent.”

People in Taholah, a coastal village in the Quinault Indian Reservation, say they do use the bus, but it doesn’t typically run when they need it to. 

“There would not be enough revenue in the world to meet all of the [transit] needs of a rural area,” Chartock said. The state works with regional transportation planning organizations every few years to figure out how local transit can better serve riders with the resources that are available. 

Even in places with longstanding bus routes, people still may not know there’s a bus nearby, much less a free one. “We meet people every single day who don’t know we’re zero-fare,” Demerice said. “We are always, always reminding them.” 

The agency hosts in-person events to spread awareness, and it recently sent mailers to every Thurston County home to announce an upcoming route change with a reminder about the free-fare program.  

But the people who most need these programs, such as those who lack housing, can be the hardest to reach. In Grays Harbor County, one of Lint’s tasks is reaching out to community members through events like resource fairs for unhoused people to spread the word about free rides. 

The road ahead

Given the rising cost of getting around as fuel prices are driven up by the war in Iran, public transit plays a growing role in people’s lives. “With traffic and gas prices, we’re seeing an uptick in ridership right now,” Demerice said. This holds true across the United States, with transit use recently jumping in places like California and Texas.

The fare-free parts of rural Washington see surprisingly high ridership, even compared to other rural regions in the U.S. Ridership per capita in southwest Washington far exceeds the national average for rural areas, Chartock said, citing data from the National Transit Database. 

Free fares may play a role in this. A 2026 review of global research on free transit found that eliminating fares can increase rider numbers while helping locals stay socially connected and physically active.

Western Washington residents may be getting used to the perks of free transit, but there’s no promise these programs will last. Intercity Transit’s zero-fare program is currently running until 2028, and the Grays Harbor County board of directors needs to approve its fare policy every year for the program to continue. 

Funding is subject to change, too. Anything from an economic downturn to a new board member could lead to reinstated fares. For some riders, that would be a serious financial hurdle. 

“The primary way in Washington state … that transits are funded is through sales tax, and it’s all locally passed and supported,” Chartock said. “So, it fluctuates.” 

Although cost was never a barrier to public transit for Olympia chef Mike Holbein, he recognizes the issue fares can pose for others.

“Everything has gone up in cost so much in our daily lives that adding another $2.50 or $3 — or whatever it ends up being — to our daily transit, it’ll be impactful for people that have to ride the bus every single day,” Holbein said.  

Given the success of fare-free programs so far, and the difficulties of reversing course toward a fare card system, hopes are high for the future of free transit in the region. “I hope we can continue this forever,” Lint said. “For an agency our size, it just makes sense.” 

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71293 2026-07-17T23:48:42Z 2026-07-17T20:16:09Z

Frequent contradictions between witness testimony, video evidence, and official accounts underscores the powerful role of citizen journalists in making the truth about violent ICE interactions known to the public.

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It’s been six months since mass protests erupted following the murder of two unarmed U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. The mainstream news cycle moved on to other matters: the war in Iran, the World Cup, the record-breaking heat wave, the U.S. midterm elections. But citizen journalists and observers never stopped watching, reporting, and warning of escalating violence in communities amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

With three more unarmed people killed so far this month, the public has once again turned a sharp lens onto the administration’s immigration policies, and again it is often ordinary observers who are making the truth known.

The leopard tries to changes its spots

President Trump shuffled top personnel at the Department of Homeland Security shortly after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot dead by federal agents in January, an apparent attempt to allay public outrage over the agency’s violent tactics.

The strategy worked, but only to the extent that it helped get federal immigration agents out of the national headlines for a time. With media attention lapsing, the administration quietly began surging more officers into selected cities, culminating in 10,000 immigration arrests over a five-day period at the end of June.

The result of an unprecedented number of hastily hired immigration agents being unleashed onto city streets and told to arrest 2,000 people a day has predictably proven dangerous. Three unarmed men have been killed during interactions with federal immigration agents since last week.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo of Texas and Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero of Maine were shot dead by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during traffic stops while on the way to work. Araujo was a father of three from Mexico with no criminal history, who has lived and worked in the United States for over 35 years. Neighbors describe 26-year-old Guerrero, who also had no criminal record, as a loving dad to a 3-year-old girl, who witnessed her father’s lifeless body laying in the street of their own neighborhood. The agent who shot him had a history of violent behavior before being hired by ICE.

The third person, an as-yet unidentified man, was hit by a truck and killed while attempting to flee a traffic stop in Florida. In a fourth incident, an ICE agent was caught on film firing shots in a residential neighborhood during a traffic stop in Pennsylvania.

In each of these cases, the administration claimed the victims posed a threat to agents or the public that justified the use of deadly force, only for video shot by bystanders or private security footage to become available that contradicts the official version of events.

Citizen observers make state violence known

Frequent contradictions between witness testimony, video evidence, and official accounts underscores the powerful role of citizen journalists and observers in making the truth about violent ICE interactions known to the public.

While recording video on a cell phone may not sound like much, it can be the reason the truth gets out there. Guerrero’s death was reported by his neighbors on social media before it even reached the local press. “We need everybody to use these things,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said, holding a cell phone in his hand, at a press conference after Pretti was killed.

Organizers and concerned neighbors have done just that. The Immigrant Defense Network, a coalition of labor, faith and community organizations, trained nearly 30,000 people in Minneapolis as constitutional observers to document and record federal agents’ interactions with the public. The group has since expanded training to 30 other Midwest cities, and it’s not alone.

As violence in communities escalates, observer and rapid response groups are activating across the country to document immigration agents’ activities and inform their neighbors, from the Bay Area of California to Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York, among others.

People brave risk to share the truth

Considering the documented cases of agents turning violent against observers simply for filming them, and the administration’s targeting of observers for arrest, people put themselves in real jeopardy when they record immigration enforcement activities.

Immigrants in detention have also moved to break through the information shroud that surrounds the growing network of DHS facilities, at incalculable risk to themselves. Attorneys, family members and even congressional representatives have been denied access to detention centers, leaving the public largely in the dark about what’s going on inside.

In May, around 300 people detained at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark, New Jersey, collectively declared a hunger strike over human rights and labor abuses, documenting their case in a series of letters.

They described being “forced to work, in most cases without pay, or for $1 an hour,” while living in squalid and unsanitary conditions with frequent disease outbreaks and lack of access to medical treatment and legal representation. “The company in charge [the for-profit prison firm GEO Group] fails to meet the basic conditions necessary to protect our health and our lives,” they wrote.

DHS coerced, deported, or dispersed some of the detainees to other facilities, but not before they successfully drew attention to conditions in Delaney Hall. Word quickly spread through the surrounding community, and protestors soon gathered. Several elected officials including U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) were swept up in violent clashes with ICE agents outside the facility, motivating another round of media attention on DHS as well as the private companies that have benefited from Trump’s immigration policy.

On Monday, 100 diverse faith leaders from around the country rallied at the facility, drawing attention to the killings in Texas and Maine alongside the death of Jean Wilson Brutus, who died at Delaney Hall in December after just one day of detention.

Although citizen pushback against DHS has achieved some success, the victories have been only partially successful. Citizen evidence has forced ICE to back down from some claims that people agents harmed had committed crimes, but the thrust of Trump’s immigration policy persists.

Pressure on airlines to stop deportation flights, for example, has met with limited success. The Trump administration has also been trying to clamp down on grassroots ICE trackers including The ICE List, ICE Activity Tracker and the Deportation Data Project. The administration pressured Apple to remove a tracker called ICEBlock from its app store last year, though it continues to host new information for people who previously downloaded it.

Additionally, though grassroots trackers and citizen activists successfully raised the alarm over a DHS plan to convert industrial warehouses into immigrant detention camps earlier this year, DHS has not entirely mothballed the plan. “Days after federal attorneys announced that ICE would be abandoning its plan to convert a Morris County warehouse into an ICE prison, a new legal filing suggests the plan may be back on,” the hyperlocal news organization Patch reported from New Jersey this week.

Citizen action continues

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin ordered a temporary pause on most ICE traffic stops in response to the recent violence, but Trump quickly attempted to reverse it via a post on social media. Despite the uphill battle and the personal danger faced by opponents of the administration’s immigration policies, the triple killings have galvanized a new wave of protest.

On Monday, protestors met in Biddleford, Maine, to honor the life of Joan Sebastian Durán Guerrero and demand change to ICE operations in communities. On Tuesday, hundreds gathered at City Hall in Houston, Texas, to recognize Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and protest his killing. A wake was held for Araujo in the city today. “It can’t be, they killed him without mercy,” one of his neighbors told NBC News. “He raised his children and gave people jobs. What happened is a tragedy.”

Featured image: Geoff Livingston/Flickr

TriplePundit]]> 3p Editors https://triplepundit.com/?p=71209 2026-07-14T21:28:28Z 2026-07-14T21:20:10Z

Range riders are reemerging in the western U.S. in response to the slow but sure resurgence of apex predators. As the animals return to their former territories, now also home to people, new tensions are emerging.

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In a quest to learn how local ranchers coexist with grizzlies and wolves in Montana’s Blackfoot Valley, TriplePundit reporter Emily Senkosky joined range rider Sigrid Olson on the job.

The once omnipresent range riders are reemerging in the western United States in response to the slow but sure resurgence of apex predators like wolves and grizzly bears. As the animals return to their former territories, now also home to people, new tensions are emerging.

Many local ranchers credit limited human-wildlife conflict in the Blackfoot Valley to the ranger riders’ presence on the landscape. They keep an eye on grazing livestock, reporting back so ranchers can make informed decisions about their herds.

Read the full story here.

TriplePundit]]> Farai Shawn Matiashe https://triplepundit.com/?p=71186 2026-07-31T00:45:54Z 2026-07-14T12:00:00Z

Rebounding populations of lions and elephants are venturing out of protected parklands and closer to nearby communities. With human-wildlife conflict on the rise, a grassroots organization is empowering communities with non-lethal solutions.

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January Nebiri emerged from his house as the frost-covered dawn cut through the darkness with sharp morning light. Mist drifted gently across the landscape and birds chirped cheerfully. Before heading out to tend to his farm in northern Zimbabwe, Nebiri checked on the livestock he cares for at home.

He could not believe his eyes. Most of his cows were lying lifeless or injured and scattered outside of the enclosure. Scanning the area for tracks, Nebiri realized lions had attacked them during the night. He stood in silence, shocked.

“I felt devastated,” he told TriplePundit. “I swore to my ancestors not to keep cows ever again.”

Only one of Nebiri’s four cows survived. He has lost dozens of his livestock to lions, leopards and hyenas over the past three decades.

Human-wildlife conflict is on the rise across Zimbabwe. As climate change increases the frequency and severity of droughts, it reduces the availability of water and natural forage for people and animals. So, they must compete for inadequate available resources.

At the same time, rebounding populations of protected animals like lions, leopards, hyenas and elephants are outgrowing the capacity of the national parks they typically reside in, thanks to successful conservation and anti-poaching efforts.

Now, they’re spending more time outside of these protected parklands looking for freshwater and food, but much of the land once reserved for wildlife was rapidly developed over recent years to make room for a growing population of humans. Though reestablishing populations of protected species beyond the parks is conservationists’ goal, their crossover with local communities leads to conflict.

“Droughts, population growth and habitat encroachment push wildlife and communities into closer and often lethal contact,” said Arthur Musakwa, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority director of operations.

The southern African nation recorded 12,374 human-wildlife conflict incidents between 2016 and 2025, according to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. This left 486 people dead and 554 injured. Over 4,000 livestock animals were also lost.

It is worse for people living in protected areas near national parks, like Nebiri, whose village sits on the edge of Matusadona National Park in the Kariba district. Some villagers there have retaliated against wildlife, causing deaths or serious injuries to the animals.

After the loss of his cows in 2024, Nebiri met workers from Wildlife Conservation Action (WCA), a grassroots organization working to protect African animals and prevent human-wildlife conflict by empowering local communities with non-lethal solutions.

The workers gave him a sturdy gray cloth material to cover the kraal where he keeps his livestock. Called boma, the gray cloth keeps predators like lions from seeing the animals inside. Lions do not attack cows they cannot see.

“The day after the boma was installed, I woke in the middle of the night after hearing noises outside and noticed a pride of lions roaming around the kraal,” Nebiri said. “They were there for hours but could not get through the kraal. They left without attacking a single cow.”

WCA distributes predator-proof cattle bomas and automated LED lights, called lion lights, to keep livestock safe from attacks. Workers encourage community members to build raised kraals to mitigate human-wildlife conflict.

After following this advice, Nebiri now has six cows, and community members without bomas bring their cows to his house for security during the night.

His next project is building a raised kraal for his goats. Built on wooden poles about 2 meters off the ground, the kraal provides effective predator protection for small livestock.

WCA has installed 300 lion lights, which mimic the movement of a person patrolling with a flashlight to trick lions into believing someone is watching them, and 150 mobile bomas, which are portable enclosures that allow farmers to move their livestock to different grazing areas, protecting at least 1,000 cows in Kariba.

“We also educate communities on livestock management through the 18 community guardians we have in the area,” said Kudakwashe Chuma, a district programs coordinator at WCA. Community guardians live within communities frequently in the path of animals like lions and elephants. They provide rapid responses to human-wildlife conflict, monitor wildlife movements, support early warning systems for approaching predators, and build trust between communities and conservation partners.

To villagers like Nebiri, raising livestock is not only about food security. It offers economic stability. They sell their animals to settle school fees and medical bills. One cow can fetch as high as US$300, while a goat fetches US$30.

“I make a living from farming and rearing cattle,” Nebiri said. “I sell the goats or cows to look after my family. With recurring droughts, farming is no longer viable, so I use proceeds from selling goats and cows to buy food for my six children.”

Out of this necessity, the Kariba community embraced the bomas and is at the forefront of constructing raised kraals, said Chuma of WCA. And it’s paying off.

“We have recorded zero incidents inside the boma,” Chuma said.

In Zimbabwe, wildlife conservation is widely dominated by international organizations and trusts founded by white people. WCA is the only wildlife conservation organization founded by a Black woman. Born in Zimbabwe, conservation biologist Moreangels Mbizah grew up in Chiredzi, a small town in the southeast. She founded WCA after an American trophy hunter killed a famous lion she spent years studying and tracking in Hwange National Park.

Established in 2019, the organization places communities at the center of conservation, rather than treating them as beneficiaries of externally designed solutions as mainstream conservation organizations have historically done when addressing human-wildlife conflict.

“We prioritize prevention rather than response,” Mbizah said. “Instead of waiting until crops are destroyed or livestock are killed, we invest in community preparedness, predator-proof livestock bomas, crop protection methods and awareness programs.”

The organization combines local knowledge with science to build solutions that stick.

“Our work integrates community observations with technologies such as GPS tracking, camera traps and EarthRanger to improve decision-making,” Mbizah said. These early warning systems alert villagers when animals like lions encroach their communities.

In this way, WCA recognizes coexistence as both a conservation and development issue. “Alongside conflict mitigation, we promote land restoration, sustainable livelihoods, and environmental education to strengthen community resilience,” she said.

WCA helps villagers diversify their sources of income to become less dependent on livestock, for example. The organization supports them in learning beekeeping and building community gardens. The money they earn from selling honey and vegetables improves their livelihoods, complementing proceeds from selling goats and cows.

In northern Zimbabwe, villagers encounter a variety of wildlife in their everyday routines. Here, human-wildlife conflict isn’t limited to predators.

Wilson Charumbira lives in Kafurira, another village in Kariba district, and his ready-to-harvest maize crop was once wiped out by a herd of elephants in the night. He attempted to use a light to scare them away, but it did not help. He looked on miserably as the elephants feasted on his maize crop, a staple food for many in Zimbabwe.

“We had to survive on gifts from other villagers that year,” Charumbira said. “It was terrible.”

African elephants from the nearby Matusadona National Park roam the fertile valley-floor at night, seeking water and lush greenery.

Zimbabwe is home to Africa’s second largest elephant population due to ongoing conservation and anti-poaching efforts. Their numbers exceed 80,000 against a carrying capacity of about 45,000 in all protected areas, and competition for land between elephants and humans is intensifying.

Though the growing elephant population is part of the discussion around conflict prevention, it is not the major driver of human-wildlife conflicts, WCA’s Mbizah said.

“In many landscapes, the challenge is less about total numbers and more about the concentration of elephants around limited water sources during the dry season, combined with shrinking habitat outside protected areas,” she said. “In Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley, these pressures create predictable hotspots where conflict occurs year after year.”

Charumbira, whose farm sits in one of these hotspots, now works with WCA to co-exist with the elephants. He built a fireguard and a fence with wooden poles on the perimeters of his farm, and he hangs a cloth soaked in a potent mixture of chili oil along the fence to deter elephants from ravaging his crops. Elephants have a powerful sense of smell and sensitive trunks, making them strongly averse to the pungent, burning sensation of chili.

“This is helping us,” said Charumbira, who also lives on the edges of Matusadona National Park. He harvested nearly 1 tonne of maize this season, which is enough to feed his family throughout the year.

WCA has expanded into the Mbire and Binga districts of Zimbabwe, and 24 community guardians live throughout the communities. So far, over 10,000 households across the three districts have adopted non-lethal conflict mitigation measures, including predator-proof livestock bomas and elephant deterrent fences, as a result of the organization’s work. Incidents of human-wildlife conflict have fallen by as much as 98 percent in Mbire, according to WCA.

Though predator-proof livestock bomas have proven effective across the districts, they are not without challenges, WCA founder Mbizah said. The bomas’ lifespans are short, as high temperatures wear on them, and they need replacement from time to time. But with good management, even under severe weather conditions, they often last beyond five years.

Still, initial construction costs remain high for many households, and bomas only protect livestock at night, as predators can still attack them when grazing in the daytime.

“Good herding practices remain essential during the day,” Mbizah said.

While chili barriers and bomas are working to reduce-human wildlife conflict, more early warning systems are needed to alert communities of approaching animals by day, said Musakwa of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

In the meantime, after finally quelling the steady loss of cows to predators over the years, Nebiri said he is happy to share the lessons he learned with fellow villagers on the edge of Matusadona National Park.

“I was almost giving up on cattle rearing,” he said. “But now there is hope.”

TriplePundit]]> Amy Brown https://triplepundit.com/?p=71166 2026-07-29T18:27:19Z 2026-07-13T17:03:54Z

Though they work in different areas, the Honnold Foundation and Blue Ventures share the same conviction: Local communities should be empowered to envision, design and own investments in a more sustainable future. Both nonprofits have scaled their efforts to reach more communities with support from the Everpure Foundation.

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Back in 2014, four Indigenous nationalities in the Upper Amazon — the Kofán, Siekopai, Waorani and Siona — banded together to save their common future from environmental degradation and oil dependency. Called the Ceibo Alliance, the initiative installs new solar energy and rainwater harvesting systems while supporting traditional practices and defending the local environment.

The effort soon caught the attention of professional rock climber Alex Honnold, regarded as the greatest free solo climber in history. The Honnold Foundation, to which Alex donates a third of his income, supports projects just like this to help bring renewable energy to marginalized communities around the world.

Today, these remote communities in the northeastern rainforests of Ecuador have access to solar energy, supporting the Ceibo Alliance’s ongoing work to improve livelihoods and preserve local ecosystems. 

Across the globe in Madagascar, dozens of coastal communities were struggling to preserve the overfished and depleted octopus fisheries they depend on for food and income. Then, a grant from the ocean sustainability nonprofit Blue Ventures allowed them to introduce community-based fishery management practices. Temporary fishing closures enabled octopus stocks to recover, boosting the fisheries’ productivity and increasing future catches. 

“I am astonished by the change to over-exploited fisheries since our founding in 2003,” said Gildas Andriamalala, a Madagascar native and Blue Ventures’ regional director for Southern Africa. “Now, at least half of the coast of Madagascar has community-based fisheries management.” 

Although they tackle different environmental challenges, the Honnold Foundation and Blue Ventures share the same conviction: Local communities should be empowered to envision, design and own investments in a more sustainable future.

“Those who are working and living from fisheries need to be the ones looking after it,” Andriamalala said. “We strongly believe in local stewardship. The community is in the best position to tackle their own problems.”

The Everpure Foundation, the corporate foundation of the data management company Everpure, shares the same aim. It provides grants to nonprofit organizations advancing locally-led solutions in environmental sustainability, workforce development and basic human needs, like Blue Ventures and the Honnold Foundation. Both nonprofits have scaled their efforts to reach more communities with support from the Everpure Foundation.

Championing local Indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon

When one individual has the power and agency to make a positive difference, the results can cascade across thousands of lives and communities. That’s what drives Alex Honnold, whose 3,000-foot, rope-free ascent of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.” 

While traveling the world to climb, Honnold’s eyes were opened to the inequities that exist around energy access in communities facing the dual challenges of poverty and climate change. He wanted to do something about it, and soon the Honnold Foundation was born.

”He saw that one way he could personally make a difference would be contributing toward solar energy projects,” said Peter Walle, director of partnerships for the Honnold Foundation. “They’re small, easily deployable and scalable, but can make a profound difference for communities in a variety of different contexts.”

Today, the foundation supports community-scale solar projects that increase climate resilience, bolster social and economic equity, reduce pollution, and improve peoples’ lives in more than 30 countries. Solar projects funded by the foundation directly impact an estimated 650,000 people. It distributed 37 grants worth nearly $5 million last year and has supported 135 projects to date. 

But installing solar in communities is about more than switching on a lightbulb, Walle said. “We see how solar energy creates resilience and the opportunity to build economic mobility in ways that are culturally relevant and based fundamentally within those communities,” he explained. “We support our partners in many ways, but they fully own their solar installation and how it is used.” 

That community leadership approach differs from traditional philanthropic initiatives, Walle added. 

“We fundamentally believe that communities are the best experts,” he said. “They don’t need someone to come in there to tell them what is needed. When properly supported, they are the best ones to implement the solutions. We come in with the funding and wraparound support, so they can become stronger and more sustainable in the long term.”

The Ceibo Alliance in the Upper Amazon, for example, trains Indigenous locals as solar technicians who build and maintain the new solar arrays in their own communities, empowering them with the knowledge they need to keep the systems working for years to come. 

In other cases, a community might opt for solar-powered boats or an agrivoltaics project on local farmland. Communities often develop projects with the Honnold Foundation that combine solar with workforce development, education and healthcare opportunities.

The grants are designed to be unrestricted but project specific — and the Honnold Foundation has an open call for projects, so anyone can apply. “We’re able to cast a wide net and therefore fund projects that might slip through the cracks,” Walle said.

The foundation is also open to a greater degree of risk tolerance. “Philanthropy in general can be a little bit risk averse when it should really be the first form of capital deployed in a really risk-tolerant way to fund proof-of-concept projects,” Walle said. 

It’s important for philanthropists to reframe risk in these contexts, he argued. “It is not a line on a spreadsheet. The risk in the communities we serve is oftentimes life or death. We feel we should be the ones to take on the risk to serve as many community partners as possible.”

Fishing for the future in coastal Madagascar 

Small-scale fisheries directly or indirectly support the livelihoods of more than 500 million people worldwide. Residents of Madagascar depend heavily on small-scale fisheries for food security and income. Facing severely over-exploited fisheries, the communities on the country’s coast had to find a better way to maintain their traditional livelihood and way of life. Yet, in new export markets, non-local actors had disproportionate negotiating power.

This is the situation Blue Ventures wanted to address when it launched a project focused on creating community-based partnerships, called Locally Managed Marine Areas, to take charge of nearby fisheries. It hoped these partnerships would improve community-based data collection to boost local negotiating power in the market, as well as communities’ power in responding to relevant legislation.

Word of the pilot’s success quickly spread among neighboring villages who wished to replicate this new approach, and today, around 280 villages have adopted Locally Managed Marine Areas. These fragile but vital sections of the ocean are managed by the community with support from local NGOs. Blue Ventures’ funding goes toward helping to establish the Locally Managed Marine Areas as well as supporting NGOs.

“We didn’t just stay in Madagascar,” said Andriamalala of Blue Ventures. “It is now a global approach.”

The nonprofit now supports community-managed fisheries across 11 countries in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. To date, it has dispersed around $5.2 million.

But there is still much to be done. An estimated 225 million people across 85,000 coastal communities in low-income tropical countries depend on fisheries for their food and livelihoods, but they face mounting climate, ecological and industrial barriers. The greatest challenges to supporting these communities are limited funding and lack of knowledge, technical training and data, said Andriamalala.

Blue Ventures aims its support at all of these areas to help communities build capacity. 

“We help raise their voices and bring attention to the marginalization of small-scale fisheries,” he added. 

It’s another similarity with the Honnold Foundation, which also includes storytelling and amplification as part of its work. Partners are invited to join the Honnold Foundation at different environmental conferences to publicize their efforts and attract more funding.  “This is also part of capacity building — giving these community members a seat at the table,” Walle said.

Like Blue Ventures, the Honnold Foundation also sees more demand than it can meet. “We’re funneling in projects from a tremendous pipeline of need,” Walle said. “In 2025, we received 1,200 applications from over 100 countries, with capacity to fund a little less than $5 million worth of projects.”

The challenges fuel both nonprofits’ determination to do more. 

“You need to be resilient and adaptable enough to face whatever changes and challenges arise, nationally, globally, environmentally and geopolitically,” Andriamalala said. “We see the climate breakdown, the biodiversity loss, the over-exploitation of fisheries, all of which is driving a humanitarian and ecological crisis and economic emergency. We have to keep going, helping communities at the frontline of these crises with the resources they need to not only survive but thrive.”

TriplePundit]]> George Timms https://triplepundit.com/?p=71096 2026-07-07T01:10:26Z 2026-07-07T12:00:00Z

India's most decorated triathlete, Pragnya Mohan, is on a mission to help 1 million Indian girls finish high school by the end of the decade. Refurbished bikes are turning that goal into reality.

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In rural India, 58 percent of girls do not complete their education. After finishing elementary school in their village, the closest high school can be up to 10 kilometers (over 6 miles) away, and many have no way of making that commute. Families are more willing to let boys travel that distance independently, but girls are often expected to stay closer to home as a result of traditional gender norms and safety concerns.

“The school, the books, and the uniform are free if it’s a public school, but the commute is not covered by the government and there are no school buses,” explains Indian triathlete Pragnya Mohan. “There are so many girls and women in India who do not get what they’re worth because of distance limitations.”

While growing up in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Mohan was able to travel 10 kilometers to attend swimming training and catch a bus to school every morning thanks to a hand-me-down bike from a sibling. 

After completing her education, Mohan went on to become India’s most decorated triathlete and launched Ek Beti, Ek Cycle (EBEC) — or One Daughter, One Cycle in English. The initiative provides refurbished bikes to female high school students in the Indian state of Gujarat’s rural areas, as well as teaching them how to ride, maintenance skills and road safety. 

“The bicycle is not just transport,” she said. “It becomes a tool for independence, access and confidence.”

Mohan conducted the first EBEC pilot in November 2023 by campaigning door-to-door in Ahmedabad with friends and family asking for bike donations. These days, most EBEC donations come from students in private city schools who don’t use their bikes. 

Donated bikes are refurbished through a partnership with MYBYK, the largest bike sharing platform in India. Then, they are taken to rural primary and secondary schools across the state. The schools help identify girls who would benefit most from a bike, often those travelling from nearby villages and transitioning into secondary school the following academic year. Families typically spend between 1,000 and 1,300 Indian rupees (approximately US$10 to $14) per month on transportation to secondary school, a substantial expense in many rural households that leads to increased risk of a child dropping out of school.

To receive a bike, girls commit to attending three to five day workshops conducted by EBEC volunteers, during which they learn to ride and maintain their new modes of transportation.

“For many of them, the bicycle represents their first real experience of independent mobility,” Mohan said. ”The ability to travel on their own, manage time independently and move beyond the immediate boundaries of home.”

School staff members are provided with equipment to service the bikes, but it’s the girls themselves who have embraced maintenance tasks the most. “These girls have some jugaad,” Mohan said, referencing a Hindustani term for unconventional and thrifty solutions. 

Some participants who were initially afraid of cycling on rough village roads started out by practicing early in the morning, when roads were quieter, to build confidence gradually. Others customized their bikes with ropes, cloth strips and baskets to balance school bags and books.

Girls who learn how to cycle faster often stay longer after EBEC’s training sessions to help others practice, Mohan said. The groups create a strong sense of support and teamwork amongst the girls. 

Previous workshop participants are also encouraged to support the next wave by leading the workshops, making the initiative almost self-sufficient. Only one or two EBEC volunteers are present, if needed. “We want them to be self-reliant rather than reliant on us,” Mohan said. “That way we can scale up faster and reach more schools.”

While the girls are excited to ride after seeing boys in their families and villages enjoy the freedom of cycling, one of EBEC’s biggest challenges is convincing parents and guardians to allow girls to participate. Schools play a crucial role in this process by organizing parent meetings to explain the project and build trust with families. 

“We intentionally let the schools lead these conversations because they already have longstanding relationships and credibility within the community,” Mohan said. 

Teachers complete structured feedback forms around three months after EBEC’s training workshops. They report improvements in attendance consistency, physical stamina and sign-ups to school sports teams among girls who cycle daily.

“The biggest change we see in girls through Ek Beti, Ek Cycle is confidence,” Mohan said. “Girls who were once shy and hesitant are now participating more actively both inside and outside the classroom.”

One student requested permission to retain her bike after completing secondary school because she wanted to pursue higher education. Distance was the main concern for her family, and having access to a bike gave her the ability and confidence to continue studying.

EBEC is also working with the School of Public Health at Ahmedabad University to study changes related to cycling regularly, such as stamina and sporting ability, among girls participating in the project.

After working with almost 1,200 girls across Gujarat over the last two and a half years, EBEC is expanding to Pune, a city in the neighboring state of Maharashtra. But each location presents its own challenges. 

“In some regions, the challenge is road quality. In others, it may be traffic, distance or cultural perceptions around girls cycling publicly,” Mohan said. “The important lesson for us has been that mobility challenges are never one-size-fits-all. The bicycle remains the common solution, but how we implement the program must respond to the realities of each community.”

For example, most of the bikes donated so far were converted to single speed, making them easier to ride and maintain. But Pune is hillier, so bikes will need multiple gears to tackle its inclines. EBEC is considering sourcing new bikes, in addition to its second-hand fleet, to help the foundation scale at greater speed.

Every location EBEC operates in also requires finding local organizations that can automate the process, following the model in Ahmedabad. As the foundation expands its horizons, Mohan is searching for new partnerships with education and sports organizations, as well as companies interested in supporting community initiatives. 

“The aim is to build partnerships with organizations that not only support the project financially but are also interested in creating meaningful exposure and opportunities for the girls,” Mohan said.

After celebrating EBEC’s two-year anniversary earlier this year, Mohan hints that the organization is discussing government collaborations that would allow it to expand across India. This would make her ambitious goal of keeping 1 million Indian girls in education by 2030 achievable, she said. “It’s just a matter of when, not if.”

TriplePundit]]> Tina Casey https://triplepundit.com/?p=71114 2026-07-13T17:05:20Z 2026-07-02T21:47:22Z

While not as attention-grabbing as the yearly election cycle, the comment period on new federal projects is a critical way the public can influence policy under the American form of government.

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Last week the U.S. Department of the Interior proposed a rule change aimed at limiting public commentary on new oil and gas leases on federal land. Coming as it does against the backdrop of new voter restrictions backed by the Donald Trump administration, the new rules represent yet another in a series of efforts to silence the voice of the American public.

Why public comments matter

Trump-supported voter suppression efforts under the proposed SAVE Act have received widespread media attention, but elections are far from the only opportunity for the public to influence policy under the American form of government.

Community meetings and hearings routinely take place at every level of government. The power of in-person public input can be seen most recently in the local pushback against new data centers, ICE detention facilities and industrial plants, alongside ongoing local opposition to new wind and solar farms.

Pressure on government officials also plays a constant role in the democratic process regardless of the election schedule. When the National Science Foundation started abruptly dismantling a key ocean observation system in May, for example, a bipartisan firestorm quickly forced the agency to reverse course.

Where in-person appearances are not feasible, public comments in writing can carry considerable weight, particularly at the federal level. The public’s right to submit written comments on rulemaking by federal agencies has been codified into law for decades. While not as attention-grabbing as the yearly election cycle, the comment period on a new rule or project can serve as an effective rallying cry that motivates broader public action and raises the pressure on elected officials.

The fate of the Keystone XL oil pipeline is a particularly dramatic example. First proposed in the early 2000s, the project would have brought crude oil from tar sands fields in Canada through the midwestern United States and on south to refineries in Texas. President Trump attempted to push the project forward during his first term, but environmental organizations and individuals flooded the required comment period with more than 120,000 submissions.

“With a huge amount of public comments pouring into the State Department’s comment period, steadfast climate activists, Indigenous communities, landowners, and farmers along the route have shown that 11 years of resistance have only strengthened the movement against the Keystone XL pipeline,” said Kendall Mackey, a campaigner with the climate organization 350.org, in a 2019 press statement.

The Keystone XL project was ultimately abandoned amid public pushback, though the tar sands fight continues. Earlier this year, for example, Trump fast-tracked the Bridger project aimed at piping tar sands oil from Canada to a terminal in Wyoming.

The new oil and gas rules

The Trump administration’s effort to squeeze public input out of the federal rulemaking process has already touched off opposition from advocacy groups.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s proposed rule changes include shortening the public comment period for new oil and gas leases on public lands from 90 days to just 10 days.

Advocates say the proposal is only the latest in a series of attempts from the administration to remove or weaken public input on new development. “By ignoring public comment [requirements] while propping up companies, they’re really attacking democracy in a very clear way,” Alexa Dietrich, research director at the science advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Guardian. “The administration is eliminating an important part of our democratic participation … where people still get to have a voice, not just every four years when they vote, but throughout the process of governance.”

For example, last month the Bureau of Land Management eliminated more stringent Biden-era requirements for community input on public land use, including review of environmental impacts and scientific evidence. The Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity are also suing the Trump administration over a new U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that would eliminate public comment from most projects in national forests.

For its part, the Interior Department described its proposed rule changes as “modernizing federal onshore oil and gas policy,” “eliminating unnecessary administrative barriers,” and streamlining “outdated procedures that have slowed development.”

Environmental and community advocates disagree, and they’ll have a chance to make their voices heard through the very process the administration is looking to dismantle. Under current federal rulemaking requirements, the Interior Department’s proposed rules cannot take effect until they are subjected to a 60-day comment period, which commences when the rules are published in the Federal Register.

The comment period is open until August 24. The Wilderness Society, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the National Wildlife Federation and Public Land Solutions are among the organizations urging the public to weigh in.

“We really firmly believe that the public should be given plenty of time to analyze any proposal from the [Bureau of Land Management], leasing on public lands, any type of activity that would occur on public lands,” Aaron Kindle, director of sporting advocacy at the National Wildlife Federation, told the Colorado newspaper Summit Daily.

Advocacy groups are also beginning to organize at the state level, such as the newly formed ND Public Lands Coalition, which includes the North Dakota Wildlife Federation, Dakota Resource Council, and the state chapter of the Sierra Club. The coalition plans to post billboards across North Dakota during the open comment period in protest of unchecked leasing on public lands. “Let’s do this responsibly, and not just try and make it so that a handful of people are making themselves extremely rich off the great resources of our public lands,” Dave Brandt, a board member for North Dakota Wildlife Federation, told the North Dakota Monitor.

Those interested in adding a public comment in support of, well, public comments can post your input on the Federal Registrar website.

Featured image: Bonnie Moreland/Flickr

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