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New Research Finds Building Homes Near Jobs and Transit Could Save Millions in Public Dollars

shannon.paton@wri.org — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 21:01:58 +0000

New Research Finds Building Homes Near Jobs and Transit Could Save Millions in Public Dollars shannon.paton@… Thu, 08/13/2026 - 17:01

February 5, 2026 – The United States is facing a housing crisis. Many policymakers are seeking solutions.

New research by The Pew Charitable Trusts, led by experts from the New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO) and ECOnorthwest, found that building homes near existing jobs, stores and transit could save taxpayers thousands and municipalities millions of dollars in upfront and ongoing infrastructure costs.

The research used economic modeling to estimate the fiscal impact of new housing in 10 states: Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. For each state, researchers modeled the number of new homes needed to relieve housing shortages over the next 10 years and how public costs and revenues would vary according to the type and location of housing.

The analysis found that the upfront cost to government and taxpayers of building roads, water and sewer lines, and other public utilities to serve new homes near existing jobs, stores and transit is approximately $21,000 lower per home than the infrastructure costs of building homes at the outer edge of cities and towns.

Furthermore, the ongoing costs to government and taxpayers of maintaining roads and utilities that serve new homes are on average 50% lower when those homes are built near existing jobs, stores and transit. The average payback period for infrastructure serving these homes is nine years, compared to 13 years for homes built in outlying areas. Property taxes generated per acre are 13% higher on average when new homes are built near jobs, stores and transit.

Achieving these savings requires reforming rules and regulations in many cases. Cities that have achieved housing growth and improved affordability, such as Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Houston, Texas, have done so largely by making it easier to build apartments near commerce and public transit. Other successful reforms include limiting costly parking mandates, allowing homebuilders and property owners to determine the amount of parking that residents actually need, and streamlining permitting.

Making it easier to build housing is an important step. But that is not the end of the story. Housing reforms that target areas with existing transit, amenities and infrastructure can concentrate maintenance needs, reduce long-term costs and alleviate budgetary pressure on local governments and taxpayers — all while providing much-needed housing in areas with high demand.

Modernizing regulations so that it is easier to build housing in amenity-rich, well-connected areas improves affordability for renters as supply gets closer to demand. It gives people more choice in where to live, strengthens public finances and helps communities thrive.

Read the full study and methodology at pew.org.

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Pastoralists Are Protecting Many of the World’s Remaining Rangelands

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

Pastoralists Are Protecting Many of the World’s Remaining Rangelands alicia.cypress… Thu, 08/13/2026 - 08:00

As the sun sets on the vast grasslands of Mongolia’s Eastern Steppe, herders can often be seen guiding sheep, goats, cattle, camels and horses across the open landscape, moving steadily toward fresh pastures and natural springs that have emerged after seasonal rains. By dusk, herders meet their families back at their campsite before packing up their white felt gers (traditional Mongolian tents) and continuing a journey their ancestors have followed for generations.

Against backdrops of rolling hills and distant mountains, pastoralists all over the world are not simply raising and herding livestock, they are stewarding some of Earth’s remaining intact grasslands. Together, these landscapes and their keepers provide food, income and environmental benefits to close to 2 billion people. Their seasonal movements also allow vegetation to recover, strengthening the land’s resilience to drought and degradation, while helping conserve biodiversity and mitigate climate change.

Pastoralists and their families in Mongolia live in felt gers, which they can pack up and relocate as they move their herds through rangelands. Photo by Richard Mortel/CCBY2

Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who make up the majority of pastoralists, stewarded at least 44% of the world's rangelands (grasslands and shrublands used primarily for grazing livestock) — about 1.4 billion hectares — in 2024, according to an analysis that combines global maps of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ territories from LandMark with Global Nature Watch data on rangeland extent, soil carbon and land-use conversion.

The analysis also shows that, when pastoralists’ land rights are secure, rangelands are more likely to remain ecologically intact while providing vital benefits, including storing carbon to mitigate climate change and securing food and livelihoods for millions of people — underscoring the cascading benefits from pastoralists’ management of these lands.

In some countries, such as Australia, where more than three-quarters of the country’s rangelands fall within Aboriginal territories, this stewardship is especially significant. Other countries like Russia, China, Sudan, Botswana and Mongolia similarly have among the highest total area of pastoralist-held rangelands in the world.

What Are Rangelands?

Rangelands are open landscapes dominated by grasses, shrubs and other native vegetation that can support grazing livestock. For this analysis, rangelands are defined as natural or semi-natural grasslands using data developed by the Global Pasture Watch consortium. Under this definition, rangelands include relatively undisturbed native grasslands and short-height vegetation, such as steppes and tundra, and may contain a mix of native and introduced species due to historical land use and natural processes. In general, these areas are a mosaic of grasses, shrubs and other vegetation alongside well-connected streams, rivers and other bodies of water.

Who Are Pastoralists?

Pastoralists are people whose livelihoods depend primarily on raising and herding livestock on rangelands. From the arid steppes of Central Asia and South America to the Arctic tundra, an estimated 500 million pastoralists globally herd animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, yaks, llamas, buffalo, horses and reindeer, moving them seasonally to follow fresh grazing and water. The animals provide pastoralists with meat, milk, fiber (wool or hides) and transportation that they use to sustain their families and generate income.

About the Data

Given that most pastoralists identify themselves as Indigenous Peoples or local communities, for this analysis, maps of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ lands from LandMark were cross-referenced with a map of rangelands to define the extent of pastoralists’ lands. While LandMark data is the best available global map of Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' lands, the lack of data availability in areas such as Central Asia and the Middle East, where pastoralism is common, means this analysis underestimates the global extent of pastoralism.

Rangelands and Pastoralists Are Integral to Healthy Ecosystems and Livelihoods

Pastoralists have a unique cultural identity rooted in the land. Their traditional land management practices sustain healthy and diverse vegetation cover, productive soils and natural ecological processes that enhance rangeland resilience to drought, erosion and land degradation, while also maintaining ecosystem services such as water regulation and carbon storage. As a result, these practices keep rangelands resilient to climate change. In turn, these healthy ecosystems provide a reliable foundation for livestock production, food security and the cultural and economic well-being of pastoralist communities as climate and environmental pressures escalate.

Legally Recognized Indigenous- and Community-Held Rangelands Are Better Protected

Pastoralist communities and the rangelands upon which they depend are increasingly threatened by land-use conversion, particularly agricultural expansion, industry and infrastructure development. These changes — especially on lands where Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ land rights are not recognized — reduce their access to grazing lands, limit seasonal movement and fuel conflict over land and resources. Ecologically, this kind of land-use conversion damages the ecosystem, ultimately limiting the ability of these landscapes to store carbon and mitigate climate change.

However, data shows that rangelands managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities have much lower land-use conversion rates when their land rights are secure.

Globally, between 2016 and 2024, an average of 14 million hectares of rangelands per year were lost to land-use conversion. But only 8% of this loss occurred where Indigenous Peoples and local communities had secure land rights. The remaining 92% of rangeland loss occurred in areas where Indigenous Peoples and local communities did not have secure land rights, their legal situation was unknown or the rangelands were outside mapped Indigenous and local community territories. In other words, one of the best strategies for protecting rangelands and the important services they provide is to ensure that pastoralists have secure legal rights to manage them.

For example, in Kenya, many of the livestock routes that pastoralists use to move their herds to fresh pastures, watering holes or markets are under threat. The routes that have historically been used are no longer passable, mainly due to infrastructural development or agricultural encroachment and land conversion, as well as the spread of invasive plant species. These blockages mean that more animals must graze on fewer available pastures, leading to overuse and degradation of the grasses as well as conflict over limited resources.

These issues can lead pastoralists to reduce their herds or even abandon their livelihoods, causing decreased food security, less resilient rangelands and loss of their cultural identity. As climate change shifts vegetation patterns, protecting pastoral corridors will be increasingly important to preserving mobility, sustaining productive rangelands and maintaining pastoral ways of life.

Pastoralist-Held Rangelands Store Large Amounts of Soil Carbon

Soil organic carbon is a key indicator used to assess ecosystem condition, land degradation and climate mitigation potential. Higher soil carbon stocks mean healthier, more resilient soils that improve water regulation, nutrient cycling and sustained ecosystem productivity.

Pastoralist-held rangelands store large amounts of carbon in their soil. As of 2020, these rangelands held 44 billion metric tons of soil organic carbon in the topsoil, accounting for 38% of the total amount of carbon stored in the world’s rangelands. If all of this soil carbon were to be emitted into the atmosphere, it would be equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 37 billion gasoline-powered vehicles driven for one year.

In some regions, pastoralist-held rangelands have higher soil carbon densities than other rangelands. In the peat-rich rangelands of Russia, Canada, the United States (Alaska), Norway, Sweden and Finland, Indigenous-held rangelands hold an average of 88 metric tons of soil organic carbon per hectare, which is more than double the average for rangelands globally.

Of the 44 billion metric tons of soil carbon that is managed by pastoralists, only 40% is stored within lands that are legally recognized as belonging to pastoralists. The remaining 60% of the carbon is stored in pastoralists’ rangelands that are not legally recognized (49%) or under an unknown legal recognition status (11%), and is thus at greater risk of conversion to other uses that would result in the loss of stored carbon.

To Protect Rangelands, Protect the Rights of Pastoralists

Pastoralists’ unique way of life — with their livelihoods dependent on moving their herds across landscapes — means they need unique legal frameworks that protect their mobility and ensure they can access and manage grazing lands as seasons and weather patterns change. Protecting these rights, in turn, will benefit rangelands, where agriculture, industry and development are increasingly competing for the same land.

The International Land Coalition and partners recently published a set of indicators that can be used to assess the extent of tenure security for pastoralists, and where laws or their implementation can be strengthened. In countries like Burkina Faso in Africa and Mongolia, for example, pastoralism laws need to be strengthened to address gaps in protecting mobility and to establish mechanisms for addressing land-use conflicts. In India, laws protecting grazing rights and access to common lands exist but are not fully implemented.

Secure land rights are an investment in healthy, resilient rangelands. By enabling pastoralists to continue stewarding these landscapes, legal recognition helps safeguard biodiversity, maintain soil health and carbon storage, support sustainable livestock production and food security, and strengthen resilience to climate change. As countries work to meet their land degradation neutrality commitments under the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, recognizing and protecting the rights of pastoralist communities should be viewed as a cornerstone of sustainable rangeland management and long-term environmental stewardship.

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A pastoralist in Mongolia herds sheep.

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An analysis shows that when pastoralists' land rights are secure, rangelands stay healthier and keep storing carbon, sustaining food and supporting the livelihoods of millions of people.

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With ‘Agrivoltaics,’ Farmers Can Grow Both Food and Energy

shannon.paton@wri.org — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 13:42:28 +0000

With ‘Agrivoltaics,’ Farmers Can Grow Both Food and Energy shannon.paton@… Wed, 08/12/2026 - 09:42

Visitors to Roundabout Meadows farm in rural Virginia are greeted by rows of tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplants and leafy greens. But not long ago, this land faced a very different future.

As northern Virginia’s Loudoun County expanded, the property was slated for housing and retail development. Instead, the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), a local organization, stepped in to protect the landscape, preserving 172 acres and creating Roundabout Meadows, now home to an 8-acre community farm. The decision was celebrated by nearby residents, conservation advocates, and visitors who value northern Virginia’s rural character.

From smallholder farms in Africa to the busy streets of Bogota, communities are reshaping the way the world designs its cities, uses energy and produces food. These examples show not just what could work, but what already does. Learn more about the series.

Although Roundabout Meadows itself is relatively new, it is rooted in a region shaped by generations of farming, livestock grazing, viticulture and wildlife stewardship. Four staff members and hundreds of volunteers cultivate healthy soils and grow vegetables using sustainable practices. Almost everything harvested is donated to local food pantries and hunger relief organizations, amounting to nearly 240,000 pounds of fresh produce since 2019.

Roundabout Meadows is doing something else impressive as well: generating clean, affordable power through an emerging practice known as “agrivoltaics.”

Roundabout Meadows in rural Virginia installed on-farm solar panels on its crop fields. The panels and a battery provide enough energy to fully meet the farm's electricity needs. Photo by Hugh Kenny/Piedmont Environmental Council

Driven by the belief that farmers and communities should not have to choose between producing food and generating clean energy, the community farm at Roundabout Meadows became Virginia’s first crop-producing “agrivoltaics” site in 2025. With technical assistance from the National Laboratory of the Rockies’ Clean Energy to Communities program, the farm installed a 17-kilowatt solar array consisting of 42 panels, paired with 23 kilowatts of battery storage. The system generates enough power to meet the farm’s annual needs, with some capacity to spare.

Eighteen different crops now grow between the rows of solar panels, allowing the farm to continue producing food while advancing research on agrivoltaics. Teddy Pitsiokos, Roundabout Meadows’ farm manager, is monitoring crop performance to identify which varieties thrive under solar panels, while scientists from Virginia Tech conduct annual soil testing to ensure the land remains healthy and free of contaminants. This research is helping to build trust among the community and demonstrate that integrating solar on cropland can advance clean energy goals without compromising agricultural productivity.

While the community farm at Roundabout Meadows does not add capacity to the electric grid, it demonstrates how solar panels can coexist with working farmland— and, in some cases, even improve growing conditions. In doing so, the project offers a practical solution to one of the most contentious debates facing rural communities: How can we expand clean energy while preserving agricultural land and local character?

Those concerns have become increasingly pronounced. As efforts to halt renewable energy development spread across the United States, debates over land use, the industrialization of open space, and who benefits from clean energy development have intensified. For many residents, skepticism is not simply about the technology itself, but about how and where it is deployed, as well as who benefits. These conversations are especially important as rapid data center growth increases attention on electricity demand, land use and utility bills.

Crops grow in raised beds beneath a 17-kilowatt solar array. Photo by Hugh Kenny/Piedmont Environmental Council

Agrivoltaics: Combining Solar Power with Food Production

Agrivoltaics involves incorporating solar panels onto agricultural land, enabling the simultaneous production of energy alongside crops or livestock. Solar panels can be located in livestock grazing areas, placed between rows of crops, or installed alongside pollinator habitats to generate clean energy. This electricity can be sent to the grid, charge batteries, or power farming operations, including irrigation systems, agricultural equipment or barns.

Sheep grazing is currently the most common and commercially mature application of agrivoltaics, as it allows land to remain in use while also reducing vegetation management costs for landowners. American Farmland Trust (AFT) has many great examples of how this practice is not only becoming more common, but helping farmers and ranchers expand their operations. Texas Solar Sheep is one such example.

Integrating specialty or row crops with solar, however, is less common. Protecting topsoil and maintaining crop health beneath solar panels can be technically complex and require careful engineering.

Beyond the community farm at Roundabout Meadows, several larger examples are emerging in other states. In Colorado, Jack's Solar Garden produces 1.2 megawatts (MW) of clean energy and acts primarily as a research site, serving as a model for governments, solar developers and farmers. These crop-producing agrivoltaics projects have a unique opportunity to inform decisions and policymaking nationally while demonstrating what‘s possible for communities and farmers.

The Role of Policy, Markets and Farmer-First Agrivoltaics

Virginia is among a growing number of U.S. states working to advance “farmer-first” agrivoltaics, ensuring that clean energy primarily benefits farmers. Ten states having already enacted relevant policies and definitions, and 11 others are considering similar legislation.

In 2026, Virginia became one of the first states to establish a statutory definition of agrivoltaics. The legislation defines agrivoltaics as the intentional co-location of agricultural production and solar energy generation on the same land, with the goal of prioritizing and sustaining agricultural production. The definition helps distinguish agrivoltaics from conventional ground-mounted solar by emphasizing that agricultural production remains an active and sustained component of the project rather than being secondary or incidental.

The adoption of this farmer-first definition is happening at an important time. Farmers throughout the U.S. face mounting economic pressure as operational costs rise and crop prices decrease. Meanwhile, energy demand is growing throughout the U.S., most notably for new data centers. Rising electricity prices are one side effect of energy demand spikes, but there’s also the question of where new power systems can be built. Farmland is often the first to be slated for housing, energy infrastructure and other development projects. The AFT estimates that between 2001 and 2016, 11 million acres of farmland across the U.S. were converted to other uses.

“Fifty years ago, Loudoun County was all farms,” said Bill Hatch, a Virginia farmer and winemaker. “Now it’s mostly residential neighborhoods. They want to keep what remains as farmland so they can enjoy how beautiful it all is. We can’t keep it farmland though, if it's not viable for us.”

That’s where agrivoltaics can play a helpful role. Producing clean energy on farms can preserve much-needed agricultural land for food production. The AFT recently launched its Thriving Farms and Ranches Initiative to complement its Smart Solar program, both of which aim to safeguard farmland and strengthen farm viability by accelerating solar energy development.

“Nobody is more exposed to rising energy costs right now than farmers, especially those with smaller, family-owned farms or those in the poultry and dairy industry,” said Ethan Winter, director of AFT’s National Smart Solar program.

At Roundabout Meadows, for example, solar provides 130% of the farm’s electricity — more than enough to fully cover the farm’s energy needs. In some situations, agrivoltaics allows farmers to actually make money from their clean energy production.

Depending on a state’s electricity regulatory structure, farmers can use solar generated on-site to reduce their monthly utility bills, sell the energy generated back to the grid, or do both through net-metering. Participating in Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), or programs that aggregate distributed energy resources like solar panels to reduce demand on the grid during times of peak use, could unlock additional revenue streams for farmers if they have battery storage systems installed alongside solar. There are several VPP programs emerging nationwide, including a few pilot programs in Virginia and a program through Green Mountain Power in Vermont. In this program, participants earn rebates of up to $10,500 for discharging power from a battery to the grid. The best part is farmers can largely participate without changing anything about their farming practices.

“We must change as little as possible for farmers to adopt this,” said Pitsiokos. “Don’t tell them to grow a different crop or buy new machinery … it has to be farmer forward in order for it to be truly agrivoltaics.”

Agrivoltaics Can Help Farmers, Communities and the Grid

Compensation and revenue diversification, while a key draw for farmers, are far from the only advantages of agrivoltaics. Potential benefits extend to the broader community, local workforce and even the grid, including:

Diversifying local economies and protecting farmland: Rural communities that rely heavily on a single agricultural commodity or production system can be vulnerable to market fluctuations and economic shocks. According to a 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture study, 84% of farmers earn income from off-farm employment to supplement farm revenues. Agrivoltaics can diversify farm income by creating an additional revenue stream from solar energy while keeping land in agricultural production, strengthening both farm viability and the broader local economy. By improving the financial viability of working farms, agrivoltaics can also help reduce development pressure on agricultural land and support the long-term preservation of local food production.

Expanding clean energy: Agrivoltaics demonstrates that solar energy and agriculture can coexist on the same land, helping shift the conversation from choosing between food production and clean energy to advancing both simultaneously. By enabling solar development on active farmland without displacing agricultural production, agrivoltaics can reduce land-use conflicts, expand the amount of land available for renewable energy development, and contribute additional clean electricity to the grid. When paired with battery storage, these systems can also improve on-farm energy resilience by reducing the impacts of power outages.

Increasing energy resilience and reducing operating costs: Depending on state policy and utility regulations, agrivoltaics systems can offset on-site electricity consumption, export excess generation to the grid, or both. By generating electricity on-site, farms can lower energy costs, reduce exposure to volatile utility prices, and improve energy independence. These systems can also support the electrification of farm equipment and operations, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and potentially decreasing air pollution.

Improving agricultural productivity, soil health and climate resilience: Although additional research is needed, some evidence indicates that agrivoltaics can improve agricultural productivity when implemented alongside practices such as crop rotation, no-till farming and water rationing. This is particularly important for areas susceptible to extreme heat or facing drought conditions, where shading plants and preserving water can support crop growth. Solar panels also create cooler, shaded working conditions that protect farmers’ safety and comfort.

Supporting workforce development and local expertise: Designing, installing and operating these systems requires collaboration among farmers, engineers, installers, developers and agricultural specialists. Prioritizing local developers, businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions helps build regional expertise, strengthen local supply chains and provide workforce training that supports future agrivoltaics and other renewable energy projects.

Building awareness through demonstration projects: Agrivoltaics demonstration sites serve as valuable educational resources for farmers, researchers, students, developers, policymakers and community members. Through workshops, field days, internships and farm tours, early adopters can share lessons learned, demonstrate successful practices and increase public understanding of dual-use solar. For example, PEC hosts visitors at Roundabout Meadows to learn about agrivoltaics, tour their farm and even assist in planting. As more projects are developed and evaluated, best practices become better understood, reducing uncertainty and making future projects easier and more cost-effective to implement.

Advancing agrivoltaics research and innovation: Because agrivoltaics is an emerging field, researchers continue to evaluate how solar panel design, spacing and shading influence agricultural production across different crops, soils and climates. Partnerships among farmers, universities and research institutions enable demonstration projects to generate valuable data that advances scientific understanding, informs project design and supports the responsible scaling of agrivoltaics across diverse regions.

Building a Path Forward: Lessons Learned

Despite growing interest in agrivoltaics, there are still several barriers to getting projects off the ground. Farms may face hurdles with interconnection and working with the electric utility, high up-front costs, lack of information about the opportunity, and contractor and workforce constraints.

Finding a trusted and reputable contractor is critical. Roundabout Meadows selected Charlottesville-based solar firm TigerSolar to design and install its system. Beyond construction, the company also helped the farm navigate operational and logistical challenges, including coordinating with the local electric utility and zoning departments. At one point, leadership at Roundabout Meadows was told it would need a $10,000 transformer upgrade that threatened to significantly increase project costs. However, after re-evaluating the interconnection requirements, TigerSolar determined that the upgrade and associated costs were unnecessary, saving the farm from a substantial expense.

Some states are taking action to address barriers by passing supportive legislation and offering incentives such as subsidies or tax breaks. Reacting to the passage of Virginia’s 2026 agrivoltaics legislation (HB 508/SB 340), Ashish Kapoor, senior energy and climate advisor at PEC, highlighted the importance of establishing a formal definition for the technology: “This was a huge win for us. Now the state can start drafting more favorable policies, farmer protections and even incentives for these projects.” The new law represents an important step toward creating a clearer policy framework to support the development of agrivoltaic projects in Virginia.

As more states move to support agrivoltaics, the opportunity now is to scale the impact. Clear definitions and incentives can help unlock investment, streamline interconnection and give farmers the ability to pursue these projects. But their success will ultimately depend on how well they translate the benefits and opportunities to local communities.

While it’s important to note that the community farm at Roundabout Meadows, as well as similar projects, are not yet operating at utility scale, agrivoltaics represents an important piece of the broader puzzle for expanding clean energy. The field is still young. Continued innovation and growth will depend on building practical experience, sharing lessons and best practices, and demonstrating successful models that can build momentum for the future.

Projects like Roundabout Meadows offer an early blueprint for what that can look like: farmer-centered and community-informed. If that model can be scaled thoughtfully, agrivoltaics has the potential to make U.S. farms a vital partner in the clean energy transition.

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A man harvests vegetables at Roundabout Meadows Community Farm, which is experimenting with on-farm solar panels.

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As U.S. farmers face rising costs and threats to their land, on-farm solar panels may offer a critical lifeline.

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New Global Freshwater Assessment Finds Action Is Failing to Keep Pace with Mounting Pressures

alicia.cypress@wri.org — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:50:31 +0000

New Global Freshwater Assessment Finds Action Is Failing to Keep Pace with Mounting Pressures alicia.cypress… Tue, 08/11/2026 - 08:50

August 11, 2026 — Systems Change Lab today launched its new Freshwater System, bringing together the latest evidence to track global progress across the transformations needed to protect the world’s freshwater. The findings show that action is lagging across nearly every measure assessed.

Freshwater sustains life on Earth, but it is under growing strain. Although freshwater ecosystems cover less than 1% of the Earth's surface, they support nearly 10% of all known species, provide drinking water, sustain food production, generate energy, help regulate the climate, and underpin livelihoods. Yet global action to safeguard freshwater is not keeping pace with growing threats, including climate change, overextraction and land-use change.

Among the 37 outcome indicators Systems Change Lab assessed against key global climate, biodiversity and equity goals and targets:

Four are headed in the right direction but remain “well off track,” including access to clean water and mangrove restoration.
Five are headed in the right direction but lack quantitative targets, including surface water and groundwater quality, and heavy metal contamination.
Eleven are heading in the wrong direction entirely, including groundwater levels, flood risk and water stress.
Seventeen have insufficient data to track progress, including wetland loss, lake restoration and overfishing pressure.

The Freshwater System also includes more than 80 additional indicators examining the conditions that can enable progress, as well as critical barriers to transformational change.

The findings come as growing pressures on the freshwater system are driving increasingly severe impacts. Communities around the world are grappling with rising water stress and scarcity, worsening floods, prolonged droughts and degraded water quality, and billions of people still lack access to clean water.

Transforming the freshwater system will require action across several major shifts: minimizing disruptions to the water cycle — including by protecting and restoring freshwater ecosystems — and tackling major drivers of biodiversity loss, such as pollution, overexploitation and the spread of invasive alien species. At the same time, the world must ensure equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for all.

Since climate change is driving disruptions to the water cycle, safeguarding freshwater will also hinge on the world’s ability to rapidly slash emissions across power, buildings, industry, transport, forests and land, and food and agriculture — while scaling up carbon removal. In other words, the future of the world's freshwater system depends on global climate action.

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WRI's ProTana Project Starts First Seedling Planting Across Four Watersheds in Ethiopia

sarah.brown@wri.org — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 16:11:12 +0000

WRI's ProTana Project Starts First Seedling Planting Across Four Watersheds in Ethiopia sarah.brown@wri.org Mon, 08/10/2026 - 12:11

August 10, 2026 — The first seedling planting campaign of the Protecting Water Supplies and Catchments in Ethiopia’s Tana Subbasin (ProTana) project took place in July. It’s the project’s first of many restorative measures aimed at rehabilitating land and protecting community water sources within degraded watersheds in the Tana Subbasin.

This marks an important milestone in the project, formally launched by WRI and partners earlier this year. It aims to strengthen rural water security and livelihood opportunities in the area through improved ecological and catchment health.

The campaign initiates ProTana's field-based watershed management interventions and builds on the positive results of previous efforts in the Minzir 01 micro-watershed of North Mecha woreda (district). After just three years, those efforts showed that landscape restoration has helped revive local water supplies, while also benefiting crop cultivation and the broader environment.

ProTana is a five-year project that seeks to institutionalize stronger water governance practices across the region and basin, and implement community-led watershed restoration measures in three woredas of the Amhara Region that overlap the Tana Subbasin: North Mecha, Farta and Dera. For the watershed component, WRI is working closely with WaterAid Ethiopia and ORDA Ethiopia. Advancing a participatory approach to create enduring incentives for sustainable land and water management is critical to addressing ecological degradation and livelihood pressures. These challenges form a vicious cycle, putting strain on nature and the people who depend directly on natural resources.

Informing and mobilizing community members for the planting activity. Photo by Khedir Dawed

Selecting the Watersheds to Restore

WRI, WaterAid Ethiopia and ORDA Ethiopia spent months in the early phases engaging closely with woreda-level officials and community leaders in the villages in the watersheds, seeking buy-in and planning future interventions.

This followed a long process to identify and select the project’s intervention areas, prioritizing micro-watersheds based on criteria that considered, among others:

Hydrological aspects
Ecological conditions
Level of catchment degradation
The needs of the community and their willingness to participate
Implementation feasibility

The selected areas have several things in common: They are important to local water supply points, they face high erosion and degradation pressures, and they provide resources that local communities depend on for their domestic, agricultural and livestock water needs. Input from project partners, the river basin organization and regional and woreda representatives guided the final selection during a workshop.

Together, the four selected micro-watersheds span over 2,100 hectares of land and comprise thousands of households. The four are:

Workmemash micro-watershed (524 ha) in Farta Woreda
Mutansa micro-watershed (695 ha) in Dera Woreda
Minzir 02 micro-watershed (538.8 ha) and Minzir 01 (400 ha) in North Mecha woreda

Strong Participation From the Start

Across the watersheds, WRI and partners worked with local communities to initiate the first restorative practices. In July, at the start of the main rainy season in northern Ethiopia, a total of 152,333 tree seedlings were planted. Of those, 93,413 are intended for agroforestry systems on privately managed land, while 58,920 were planted on communal and institutional land.

A total of 152,333 tree seedlings were planted in July, 2026, as part of restoration efforts. Photo by Khedir Dawed

More than 1,000 people participated in this first campaign, almost half of them women. Many youth and children also attended, observing first-hand the broad participation and enthusiasm and learning more about why land and water degradation must be addressed for future water and livelihood security. This strong turnout demonstrates broad support and involvement from the start, as well as a shared responsibility to restore and protect their environment.

More than 1,000 people, almost half women, participated in ProTana's first seedling planting campaign in July. Photo by Awoke Addise

The ground is prepared for planting seedlings. Photo by Bewuketu Abebe

In the next months and years, many more activities are planned beyond tree planting. ProTana also aims to implement soil and water conservation practices, including terracing, check dams and soil bunds, alongside regenerative agricultural measures. Together, such interventions can both protect the landscape and provide for household needs.

"The success of watershed management depends on the commitment and leadership of local government, communities and strong coordination among project partners," said Muluneh Bimrew, Program and Research Specialist, Water Program, WRI Africa. "In time, restoring watersheds can help supply more reliable water, support better livelihoods and help communities cope with the impacts of climate change. When people realize and experience real benefits firsthand, they are more committed to protecting and caring for the restored landscape."

Seedling monitoring will continue throughout the rainy season. By the end of the project, these measures are expected to contribute to improved water availability and quality, local wellbeing and livelihoods and climate resilience, benefiting present and future generations.

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NUMO Helps Build Thriving, Resilient Cities in the US With “Community Connectors” Program

sarah.brown@wri.org — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:37:10 +0000

NUMO Helps Build Thriving, Resilient Cities in the US With “Community Connectors” Program sarah.brown@wri.org Thu, 08/06/2026 - 13:37

August 6, 2026 – From 2023 to 2025, NUMO, the New Urban Mobility Alliance, hosted by WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, collaborated with 15 communities in small and midsize cities across the United States as a partner in the Community Connectors program. The collaboration advanced efforts to repair the harm caused by highways and other transportation infrastructure often routed through marginalized communities.

Through capacity-building grants and two years of technical assistance, the Community Connectors program supported diverse grassroots coalitions to address health, economic, mobility and other challenges in these communities. The program was led by Smart Growth America, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and implemented in collaboration with Horizon 54 (formerly Equitable Cities) and America Walks. It resulted in communities raising $150 million to build stronger community governance in cities affected by divisive transportation infrastructure.

Using the “Good Start Approach,” NUMO supported community-government coalitions in acknowledging past harms, building trust and developing shared values and a shared vision. After coalitions in each community defined their scopes of work, capacity-building grants were provided directly, allowing them to build social and civic community power in ways that best responded to their local context. Technical assistance emphasized equity, including anti-displacement strategies and equity-centered land-use analysis.

The Community Connectors program was designed to change how transportation infrastructure is planned. It does this by acknowledging how past infrastructure decisions disproportionately affected communities of color and centering community needs, voices and leadership. Communities with a history of displacement and those that continue to experience the impacts of living adjacent to highways were prioritized. These impacts include increased air and noise pollution, higher rates of pedestrian injuries and fatalities, reduced access to jobs and amenities and lower home values.

In 15 participating communities, NUMO helped local coalitions build legitimacy, strengthen partnerships and advance equity-centered visions for change. Several communities strengthened their governance structures, with leadership increasingly rooted in community-based organizations and reinforced by new staff, skills and resources. Demonstration projects and public events enabled residents and decision-makers to visualize alternatives to harmful infrastructure, generating momentum and public support.

This work resulted in concrete outcomes, including policy advances, technical studies and successful funding applications at the local and federal levels. Notable wins include:

A $600,000 U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Reconnecting Communities planning grant secured by Macon, Georgia, to reinvest in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood and provide access to groceries and other daily necessities without needing to cross a highway.
A $1.6 million USDOT Reconnecting Communities planning grant secured by Our Streets in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to advance the Bring Back 6th! Campaign, which is working to replace a highway that displaced an integrated Black and Jewish community with a safer, more people-centered boulevard.
A $102 million USDOT Neighborhood Access and Equity Program grant secured by Buffalo, New York, for the Bailey Avenue bus rapid transit corridor.
A $2 million USDOT Neighborhood Access and Equity Program planning grant to Mundo Gardens in National City, California, for community engagement around the Southeast Greenspace Corridor.

Together, these outcomes reflect stronger governance, enhanced technical capacity and deeper trust between communities and public agencies, laying the groundwork for long-term, community-driven infrastructure transformation.

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The Best Defense Against 'Natural' Disasters Is Nature Itself

sarah.parsons@wri.org — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 01:15:25 +0000

The Best Defense Against 'Natural' Disasters Is Nature Itself sarah.parsons@… Wed, 08/05/2026 - 21:15

I’ve watched in horror as Europe burns.

Ferocious wildfires have swept through Spain, France and now Greece, scorching towns and forests and spewing toxic smoke. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes. Many will have little left to return to.

European communities are just some of many suffering from this summer of extremes. In just the last month, we’ve seen sweltering heat in the U.S., Europe and India; rampant wildfires in Europe, Canada and the U.S.; and deadly floods in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

These “natural disasters” dominate today’s headlines, but they are anything but natural.

Humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are driving natural disasters to very unnatural extremes. The data speaks for itself: The last 11 years have been the hottest on record. In the U.S. alone, the average length of heat wave season is now 46 days longer than it was in the 1960s. Wildfires are similarly record-breaking. Data from Global Nature Watch shows that fires burn twice as much forest today as they did 20 years ago. And the number of people exposed to floods is projected to double between 2010 and 2030, due largely to climate change, development and land subsidence.

These events wreak havoc on both people and ecosystems. But as communities around the world deploy more firefighters and first responders, it’s time to also realize that our best defense against natural disasters may be nature itself.

Medellín's Green Corridors program has planted millions of trees and shrubs, helping to cool some parts of the city. Photo by Alexander Caras Arango/Shutterstock

Healthy Nature: An Underutilized Tool Against Heat, Fires and Floods

We often think of nature as something that needs protecting. But in the face of escalating floods, fires and heat, it’s high time we recognize the many ways nature can protect us.

Perhaps nature’s strongest protective force is reining in the world’s greatest existential threat. Forests, the ocean, soil and natural ecosystems absorb roughly half of humans’ carbon emissions. This natural “carbon sink” shields communities around the world from even more climate impacts than what we’re already experiencing today.

Nature offers a buffer against current climate threats, too. Leaders often turn to built infrastructure as necessary climate resilience measures — sea walls to prevent floods, air-conditioned buildings to beat extreme heat, pipes to hold and redirect stormwater. Yet nature-based solutions provide many of these same services — often with greater flexibility, cheaper costs and considerable co-benefits.

Take heat, one of the most pervasive and growing threats cities face today. Nearly 500,000 people die every year from scorching temperatures. This is simply unacceptable from both a public health and an equity perspective. High heat is especially dangerous for vulnerable groups like pregnant women, children and the elderly. Temperatures are often the hottest in poor neighborhoods, which lack updated buildings, air conditioning and shade.

There are many necessary solutions to hotter temperatures, but one is decidedly low-tech. Urban trees are natural air conditioners, offering both shade and evaporative cooling. Data from WRI’s Cool Cities Lab finds that a tree-lined street can feel up to 14 degrees F cooler than one exposed to the sun. Yet most cities prioritize heat-trapping concrete over cooling green space.

One exception is Medellín, Colombia. The city’s Green Corridors program planted more than 800,000 trees and millions of shrubs and plants along roads, parks, rivers and other public spaces. Shaded areas saw temperatures drop by up to 10 degrees C (18 degrees F). And cooler air wasn’t the only benefit. The added green space has reduced air pollution, provides habitat for urban wildlife, and offers pleasant places to bike, walk and relax. The program also created thousands of jobs for city gardeners and planting technicians.

Fires are an area where ecosystem restoration can make a big impact. While fires are a natural part of forest ecosystems in many parts of the world such as big stretches of Canada and the U.S., hotter, drier temperatures and poor forest management fuel the kind of large-scale fires we see today. Restoring forest health can help.

Ironically, that sometimes means fighting fire with fire. The Lomakatsi Restoration Project in the western U.S. trains forestry technicians in practices such as prescribed burns, which reduce the buildup of flammable materials like thick underbrush. They also thin forests to remove unhealthy or overly dense stands of trees and build fuel breaks to stop fires from spreading.

The result is a healthier, more fire-resistant forest — as well as a healthier community. Lomakatsi prioritizes jobs for members of economically disadvantaged Tribal communities. The 35,000 acres of forest the project has restored so far has also helped protect the local water supply. Healthy forests play a critical role in regulating stream temperatures, reducing erosion and sedimentation, and improving water quality.

Seneca Hescock, an ecological forestry technician with the Lomakatsi Restoration Project, measures trees to determine which should be thinned as part of a forest restoration effort. Photo by Natasha Collins/WRI

We also see the power of nature in mitigating the floods that threaten riverine and coastal communities around the world. Part of the reason these areas are so vulnerable to floods in the first place is because the nature around them is unhealthy. Deforestation in upstream forested watersheds destroys trees’ deep root systems that lock soil in place. Draining and filling in wetlands demolishes cities’ natural water-absorption systems. So does paving over green space with impermeable concrete.

Some cities are starting to recognize that healthier nature makes for a safer community. Long plagued by floods and landslides, leaders in Kigali, Rwanda, decided years ago to rehabilitate the city’s degraded wetlands by carefully relocating thousands of homes, factories and buildings to other areas of the city. Removing pollutants and sediment, restoring natural soil and thirsty plant species, and building wooden boardwalks transformed the landscape. A few years ago I had the pleasure of visiting the result: the Nyandungu Ecotourism Park. The massive wetland acts like a natural sponge, storing and filtering water that used to cause dangerous floods.

But the park is so much more than a flood-prevention mechanism: It supports about 4,000 local jobs, cleans the air, stores carbon and attracts thousands of visitors to walk the paths and ride bikes. It truly is one of the most beautiful parts of the city, as I describe in my book "The New Global Possible."

Nyandungu Ecotourism Park has restored Kigali, Rwanda's natural wetlands, helping to prevent floods while providing other benefits. Photo by Anna K. Mueller/Shutterstock

A New Way of Thinking About Nature

As the examples above show, nature is one of our best tools for climate resilience. And yet, it remains grossly underutilized. Research shows that for every $1 invested in restoring and conserving nature, $30 is spent destroying it. We’re plowing down and paving over infrastructure that cools the air, stops floods, reduces fires, and provides clean and ample water — at a time when we need these services more than ever.

Like so many things, what we need is finance. Research shows that meeting the world’s climate, land restoration and biodiversity targets requires $571 billion a year by 2030, 2.5 times the amount that’s currently flowing to nature-based solutions.

But, more importantly, what we need is a change in mindset. Leaders must realize: We don’t need to just build our way to a better future with concrete and steel; we also have to plant it.

Embracing nature isn’t just about avoiding risk; it’s about creating healthy, vibrant spaces where both people and planet can thrive. Research shows that every $1 spent on nature-based solutions can deliver up to $8 in benefits. These kinds of projects can create and sustain jobs, clean the air, be deployed virtually anywhere, and, better yet, help rein in the climate change that’s driving more natural disasters in the first place.

As we anxiously anticipate the next fire, flood or heat wave that will inevitably come, it’s time to recognize that fortifying nature is fundamentally about fortifying ourselves.

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Firefighters fight a forest fire in France, July 2026.

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Lessons From Nepal: Partnerships to Scale Crop Residue-Based Feed for Food Security and Climate

sarah.brown@wri.org — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:24:03 +0000

Lessons From Nepal: Partnerships to Scale Crop Residue-Based Feed for Food Security and Climate sarah.brown@wri.org Wed, 08/05/2026 - 07:24

August 5, 2026 — Livestock is central to income and food security for many rural households across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. But in many places, the feed available for livestock remains scarce, seasonal and low in quality. That limits how much milk and meat animals can produce, affecting livelihoods and food security.

Crop residues are a major feed resource and are widely available after harvest. But in their untreated form they are fibrous, poorly digestible and low in energy. When animals eat feed that is not very digestible, they produce less milk and meat than they otherwise could. They also belch methane during digestion, and poor-quality feed leads to higher methane emissions per unit of milk or meat produced. Better-quality feed can improve productivity while reducing methane emissions associated with producing food. The challenge is making these improved feeds available, affordable and reliable beyond project pilots.

Our previous project update, “Developing Business Models to Scale Crop Residue Use for High-Quality Cattle Feed in Ethiopia and Nepal,” explored what is needed to improve the use of crop residues such as rice straw, wheat straw and maize stover to support livestock productivity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This update focuses on the partnerships needed to turn that vision into practice, drawing on a partners meeting in Nepal convened by WRI, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.

Lessons Learned on Partnership-Led Adoption Pathways

In April 2026, WRI, ILRI and Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development co-convened a three-day partners meeting and field visits in Kathmandu as part of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) funded project, “Crop Residue Improvement to Improve Productivity and Reduce Emissions from Livestock in Ethiopia and Nepal.” The event brought together around 60 participants from Nepal, Ethiopia, India and Kenya, including feed enterprises, cooperatives, national research institutions, government agencies, universities and project partners.

Discussions focused on the practical steps needed to ensure improved feed actually reaches farmers, from reliable production and quality verification to sales channels, early-stage finance and policy support. The project’s theory of change is: Crop residue upgrading is most likely to scale through enterprise- or cooperative-led feed business models supported by breeding systems, enabling policies and credible evidence on productivity and emissions outcomes.

Crop residue improvement was the starting point, but participants placed it within the broader goal of transforming the livestock feed sector. This means shifting from poor- to high-quality feed, from manual to more mechanized systems and from relying on a narrow range of conventional feed resources to a more diversified and reliable local feed supply. Achieving that will require progress on multiple fronts, including improved forages, insect-based proteins, dual-purpose crop varieties, forest-based feed resources and supportive policy.

The meeting’s six working groups were designed around that broader goal and helped refine three questions that now guide the project’s theory of change.

How can the burden of processing crop residues shift from individual farmers to agribusinesses and agricultural cooperatives?
How can the feed sector reduce its reliance on imports while making better use of locally available wastes and byproducts such as crop residues?
How can delivery systems turn proven feed technologies into products and services that reach farmers?

Most partners identified the same constraints: inconsistent feed quality, weak quality regulation, dependence on imported feed ingredients, limited mechanization, high transport costs and weak business models for improved feed. Any feed technology introduced in Nepal must operate within these constraints, especially in a country with an estimated 17% feed deficit, where feed and nutrition account for more than 60% of livestock production costs. Similar challenges exist across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Feed Technologies Need to Earn Farmers' Trust

The technical sessions linked evidence on digestibility, productivity and methane reduction with the practical question: Will farmers accept and adopt improved feed? Nutritional improvements matter only if the final product is something farmers are willing to buy, store and feed to their animals regularly.

One important lesson came from Fertile Green Industries in India, a large-scale producer of crop residue-based Total Mixed Ration — a complete cattle feed that combines residues with other nutritious ingredients. Its experience, spanning more than a decade, showed that nutritional improvement alone does not guarantee adoption. Farmers also respond to the appearance, smell, and texture of the final feed. If a feed product does not look or feel acceptable, it may not reach the cattle feed trough, even when the nutritional case is strong.

For Nepal and Ethiopia, this means that farmers' perceptions and trust need to be treated as adoption factors from the start, alongside nutrition and cost. Farmers are more likely to trust improved feed when it is consistently high quality, easy to handle, and supplied by businesses or cooperatives they know.

This also underscores the importance of local inputs including microorganisms and additives needed to produce high-quality feed. For example, Ilami Agro and Tech, a Nepali startup, is studying bacteria found in traditional high-altitude fermented foods to improve the quality of silage (a fermented feed made from grain crops) under Nepal’s conditions. Similar locally produced bacteria could help improve crop residue-based feed while reducing dependence on imported additives.

Agri-businesses Can Shift the Labor Burden From Individual Farmers

Four private-sector project partners from Nepal and Ethiopia — Nutri Silage Research Farm, Maharanijhoda Small and Farmer Agriculture Cooperative, ASF Feed Processing PLC and Luna Export — presented distinct business models that could shift crop residue processing from individual farmers to businesses. After the meeting, the project team visited the two Nepal collaborators to see how these models are beginning to work in practice.

Nutri Silage Research Farm offers one model: an existing feed business expanding into crop-residue-based feed. Since 2020, the company has increased annual silage production from about 400 tons to nearly 1,800 tons, supplying dairy farmers from the Terai lowlands to hill districts. With project support, it has added “strawlage” (rice straw fermented in a similar way to corn) to its product line. The company has already produced about 30 tons from dry rice straw and plans to produce another 50 tons in 2026 from rice straw collected soon after harvest.

This model shifts labor away from individual farmers by turning straw into a product that feed businesses buy, collect and process. Instead of each household collecting, chopping, treating, fermenting and storing straw on its own, Nutri Silage aggregates straw from farmers and manages the processing steps using existing machinery and staff. The result is a more efficient production system and a reliable supply of high-quality feed to its customers.

For our project, Nutri Silage is a useful test case because it:

Builds on existing machinery and customer networks.
Adds strawlage to an existing feed business rather than starting from scratch.
Tests whether treated straw can become part of the regular feed supply market.

A worker prepares rice straw for feed production at Nutri Silage Research Farm. The project team observed the company's business model and crop residue processing in action. Photo by Dr. Krishna Kanta Neupane.

Maharanijhoda Small Farmer Agriculture Cooperative in Jhapa shows another model: a farmer-owned rural business. The 24-year-old cooperative has more than 2,200 women members and has expanded from savings and credit to include feed production, milk collection, seed distribution and providing labor services to farmers. With support from the CCAC project, it produced and marketed about 40 tons of strawlage in its first commercial year and aims to produce more in 2026. The cooperative buys straw from farmers at a predetermined price and sells it back after processing it into higher-quality feed.

The Maharanijhodha model shows how a farmer-owned cooperative can make improved feed accessible to smallholders through relationships and existing services. It also creates an incentive not to burn crop residues after harvest by giving straw economic value.

For the project, Maharanijhoda is useful as a test case because it:

Builds on trust among existing women smallholder members.
Links feed supply with the milk market and other rural services.
Provides a practical way to reach fragmented smallholder farms.

Project team members meet with women farmers and cooperative staff at Maharanijhoda Small Farmer Agriculture Cooperative in Jhapa, Nepal. The visit helps the team understand the full crop residue processing chain, an important step in estimating costs, labor needs and the economic benefits of the cooperative model. Photo courtesy of Maharanijhoda Small Farmer Agriculture Cooperative.

Research Partnerships Make Quality and Climate Benefits Measurable

ILRI and partners presented methods for measuring methane emissions from different feed resources, linking feed improvement directly to verifiable climate outcomes. Findings showed significant variation in methane emissions across feed types, indicating that feed selection can be as important for reducing emissions as it is for improving productivity. Participants also discussed newer feed-quality analysis tools, including portable field devices, as a practical way for enterprises and cooperatives to verify feed quality without expensive laboratory infrastructure.

The meeting identified three areas where research partnerships can have the greatest impact:

Quality testing. Faster feed analysis can help businesses and cooperatives maintain consistent feed quality, which supports more consistent animal productivity.
Animal response and methane measurement. Feeding trials and emissions measurements can show how improved feed performs in different production contexts, especially low-production systems where evidence remains limited.
Longer-term crop improvement. Breeding experts highlighted the role of breeding programs in selecting crop varieties that provide both high grain yield and highly digestible residues for livestock feed.

This evidence gives governments, funders and businesses a stronger basis for deciding which feed approaches are ready for investment, policy support and replication.

Policy Partners Make Feed Markets Investable

For improved feed to move beyond pilots, businesses need incentives that make investment worthwhile. They need a way to show that their feed is better than lower-quality alternatives, while farmers need confidence that what they buy is safe and worth the cost. Without that, even technically sound feed options can struggle to gain a foothold in the market.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Department of Livestock Services and National Animal Feed and Livestock Quality Management Laboratory (NAFLQML) participated in the discussions. Participants identified three areas where policy partners can help:

Feed quality standards and testing. Stronger regulation and laboratory capacity can verify feed quality before products reach the market, giving farmers confidence in what they buy while allowing businesses that invest in better processing to compete fairly.
Finance for early-stage feed businesses. Seed grants, soft loans and public-private partnerships can reduce the risk of investing in machinery, storage and processing capacity.
National coordination. A national feed and fodder strategy would benefit from a dedicated agency or formal coordination mechanism to align feed quality standards, laboratory systems, enterprise support, research priorities and public investment.

Strengthening feed quality regulation is a clear near-term policy priority. In Nepal, that includes strengthening NAFLQML’s mandate and testing capacity. More broadly, improved feed markets need public systems that make quality visible and reduce the risks associated with early investment.

Hub-and-Spoke Models Could Improve Feed Delivery

One model that emerged from the working groups was a hub-and-spoke approach. Feed enterprises would serve as the hub, aggregating crop residues, processing them into improved feed and ensuring consistent quality. Farmers would supply crop residues to the enterprise, which would handle processing, quality testing and packaging before marketing feed products back to farmers at a predetermined price.

This model can help overcome the logistical challenges of crop residue processing. Crop residues are seasonal, bulky and scattered across many small plots, often less than an acre. These constraints, combined with labor shortages, often lead farmers to burn residues in the field, contributing to poor air quality and forest fires. A hub-and-spoke system allows enterprises to aggregate enough material to justify investing in equipment, while giving farmers access to improved feed without requiring each household to manage feed preparation on its own.

The forest utilization working group identified another opportunity to strengthen this model. Nepal's forests produce significant quantities of potential feed materials, like leaf litter and other biomass, that are currently underutilized as feed resources. Food waste and processing byproducts could also be incorporated into these feed systems. Together, these resources could be integrated into enterprise feed baskets alongside crop residues and forages, diversifying raw material supply and reducing seasonal gaps.

The model still needs testing. Production costs, farmers' willingness to pay, transport distances, storage losses, product quality and viable enterprise scale all need to be assessed to rationalize investments. But this meeting helped partners identify a plausible delivery pathway and the evidence needed to develop a proof of concept.

Ethiopia Faces Similar Constraints in a Different Context

Ethiopia's enterprise partners, ASF Feed Processing and Luna Export, brought a different perspective to the discussion. ASF highlighted challenges including volatile supplies of raw material and expensive imported inputs. Luna Export, with 25 years of agribusiness experience and a focus on producing corn silage, is exploring how to integrate maize stover and teff straw into its existing feed-supply operations to support its network of more than 7,000 pastoralist households.

Despite differences in crops, livestock systems and market structures, many challenges were common: high transport costs, inconsistent raw material supply, limited mechanization and the need to build farmers' confidence in a new product. These similarities suggest that the barriers to crop residue-based feed adoption are not country-specific. They reflect broader weaknesses in livestock feed sectors where residues are available but not yet organized into reliable feed supply chains.

The CCAC project is collaborating with ASF and Luna to begin pilot production, using Nepal's cooperative and enterprise experience and India's commercial track record as reference points while adapting to Ethiopia's specific context.

Partnerships Can Help Scale Feed Solutions

One benefit of bringing partners from Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya and India together was the opportunity to directly compare different scaling pathways, share knowledge and shorten the learning curve. Nepal’s challenges are common across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: Crop residues are available but often have low nutritional quality. Feed businesses often lack the scale to invest on their own. Quality standards are too weak for buyers to verify feed value. Policy support is too fragmented to enable coordinated sector development. These are structural gaps in livestock feed systems that shape adoption across countries.

The Kathmandu meeting positioned the project as a proof of concept for transforming the livestock feed sector at scale. The CCAC project is piloting improved crop residue-based feed production and generating data on feed quality, animal productivity, enterprise economics and methane emissions. This is the kind of quantifiable evidence policymakers and funders need to assess which feed business models are most investable — and which are most likely to improve food security and livelihoods while reducing emissions.

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Gayatra Gautam Ghimire, a farmer from Jhapa, Nepal, likes high-quality feed for her two cows because they are an important part of her livelihood.

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Rescinding US SEC’s Disclosure Rule Will Blindfold Investors to Climate Risk

sarah.parsons@wri.org — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:07:30 +0000

Rescinding US SEC’s Disclosure Rule Will Blindfold Investors to Climate Risk sarah.parsons@… Tue, 08/04/2026 - 09:07

If you’re one of the roughly 3 in 5 American adults who directly own shares, save money through a pension or contribute to a 401(k), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) latest proposal deserves your attention. The SEC wants to rescind its 2024 climate disclosure regulation, a rule designed to give investors more consistent information about the growing climate-related financial risks facing companies.

Those risks are now, quite literally, on companies’ doorsteps. Wildfire smoke clogs our cities’ air. Extreme heatwaves slash worker productivity, costing the U.S. $100 billion a year. The SEC rule, finalized in 2024 but never allowed to take effect, would have required public companies to disclose financially material climate-related risks like these in their annual reports.

Rescinding the rule would not eliminate climate risk from the market — it simply blindfolds investors to it, at their own expense. Climate risk should not become the exception to smart financial management simply because it has become politically contentious.

It’s in investors’ financial interests to stop SEC from repealing this rule. Without standardized climate disclosure, investors lack information on risks, such as the impacts of extreme weather or costs of the energy transition away from fossil fuels. Such risks could affect the value of investments and pensions for decades to come, if not disclosed and managed.

Investors Asked for a Climate Disclosure Rule

A Ceres analysis of comment letters submitted to the SEC from 320 institutional investors collectively owning or managing more than $50 trillion in assets found strong support for standardized climate risk disclosure. The investors managing your pensions and stock portfolios are on record saying they are best served by consistent climate risk disclosures.

CalSTRS, which today manages more than $400 billion in assets for around one million California educators, told the SEC in 2021 that standardized climate disclosure helps protect their hard-earned retirement savings.

Support was so strong that some investors and environmental groups argued the final rule didn't go far enough, pointing to the SEC's decision to drop an earlier draft requirement for disclosing Scope 3 emissions, companies' product and supply chain emissions.

Climate Risks Are Real and Growing

The U.S. now experiences an average of 20 separate weather disasters causing at least $1 billion in damage on average every year — while the world had its hottest 11-year stretch on record, confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization. Hurricanes, wildfires, floods can all affect companies’ operations, as do rising seas, heat and changing rainfall. Consider a food manufacturer facing drought-related supply gaps, like we see in U.S. beef markets today, or investors holding mortgages tied to coastal property impacted by rising seas.

The rule addresses these physical risks and companies’ “transition risks” from moving to a low-carbon economy, like new regulations, changing technology, shifting markets and reputational hits. Heavy emitting sectors such as energy are especially affected. A BloombergNEF report found that global energy transition investment hit a record $2.3 trillion in 2025, growth that persisted despite policy rollbacks — a sign that markets are already pricing in the shift away from fossil fuels.

Knowing these risks is now fundamental information for investors.

A Retreat from the SEC's Own Mission

The SEC exists to protect investors by ensuring companies disclose material financial risks. Stripping investors of standardized climate information abandons that mission and leaves a gap others are filling. California has its own climate disclosure law, a few states have similar bills they are considering, and the European Union and International Sustainability Standards Board already require it. Yet this patchwork falls short of uniform reporting requirements for all public companies.

SEC's rescission proposal leans on two arguments: that the rule exceeds its statutory authority, and that compliance costs outweigh the reliability of what companies would be disclosing. Neither is persuasive. The first was already rebutted in 2022, when a bipartisan working group, including four former SEC Chairs and 17 law and finance scholars, concluded there is no legal basis to doubt SEC’s authority here.

On the second, as co-founder of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and lead author of its Corporate Standard, now used by 97% of S&P 500 companies, I can attest that rigorous GHG accounting standards already exist. And "too much estimation uncertainty" could apply to other parts of financial reporting — asset valuations, impairments, and contingent liabilities all rest on judgment and assumptions. SEC surely wouldn’t revoke those rules, though.

Rescinding the rule is unlikely to reduce compliance costs anyway. Companies already face costs reporting to a patchwork of rules from California and international bodies. Those costs are dwarfed by what investors stand to lose from leaving climate risks undisclosed and unmanaged.

What Investors Can Do to Keep Climate Disclosure on the Table

This isn't a Washington regulatory fight that matters only to environmental groups. It's about whether investors of all sizes have the information they say they need to protect their investments. Comparable, decision-useful information has guided securities regulation since the 1929 stock market crash.

The rescission is still a proposed rule, and the public comment period closed on August 3, 2026. The SEC will now review those comments and decide on a final rule.

Investors deserve access to material financial information that many of the world's largest asset managers have explicitly requested. Without it, investors will be operating blind in a rapidly changing world — and people’s retirement plans will pay the price.

Note: Janet’s daughter, a former Los Angeles primary school teacher, is a plan member of CalSTRS.

Editor's note: This article was first published on July 31, 2026. It was updated on Aug. 4 to reflect the latest information.

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A 2024 rule requires companies to disclose to investors their financially material climate risks, such as floods and droughts. The SEC may do away with it.

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The Latest Data Confirms: Forest Fires Are Getting Worse

sarah.parsons@wri.org — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0000

The Latest Data Confirms: Forest Fires Are Getting Worse sarah.parsons@… Tue, 08/04/2026 - 08:00

The latest data confirms what we’ve long feared: Forest fires are becoming more widespread and destructive around the globe. Updated data from researchers at the University of Maryland shows that between 2001 and 2025 forest fires now burn over twice as much tree cover each year as they did two decades ago, and more than three times as much in the tropics.¹

How We Measure Tree Cover Loss from Fires

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Researchers at the University of Maryland used Landsat satellite imagery to map the area of tree cover lost to stand-replacing forest fires (fires that kill all or most of the living overstory in a forest) each year from 2001 to 2025. While stand-replacing fires do not always result in permanent forest loss, they can cause long-term changes to forest structure and soil chemistry, making them different from lower intensity understory fires that provide ecological benefits for some forests.

The latest data provides a long-term view of these types of fires over the last 25 years at a higher spatial resolution than other global burned area datasets. It also helps researchers distinguish the impact of tree cover loss from fires and other drivers like agriculture and forestry. Learn more about the data on Global Nature Watch (formerly Global Forest Watch).

This increased fire activity has been starkly visible in recent years. Record-setting blazes are becoming the norm, with four of the five worst years for global forest fires occurring since 2021. As fires worsen — including in historically low-risk areas, like rainforests — they are becoming an increasingly prevalent driver of global forest loss.

Globally, fires accounted for roughly 43% of all tree cover loss each year between 2023 and 2025. This marks a sharp rise from 2001 to 2022, when fires accounted for an average of about 27% per year. Coupled with other persistent drivers, like agriculture and logging, this is part of the reason forest loss remains stubbornly high, despite countries’ promises to combat it.

And record fires seem to be a new normal. 2024 was the most extreme year for forest fires since our data began in 2001, surpassing the previous record set in 2023. But fires continued to be a major driver of tree cover loss in 2025, ranking third behind those two back-to-back record years.

North America saw extreme fires in 2025. In January, Los Angeles experienced large fires rarely seen that time of year. Canada had its second-worst fire season since 2001, behind only 2023. It was also the most destructive wildfire season on record for the European Union and the worst wildfire season on record in South Korea.

These fires aren’t just impacting the world’s forests. They’ve destroyed homes and infrastructure, polluted drinking water and caused billions of dollars in property damage. Dangerous wildfire smoke is estimated to cause more than 1.5 million deaths each year. As fires worsen, so do their impacts, underscoring the urgency of stronger prevention and response.

Here, we unpack what’s behind these concerning trends and examine some of the places most impacted by increasing forest fires.

Climate Change Is Making Fires Worse

Climate change is one of the major drivers behind increasing fire activity. Extreme heat waves are already five times more likely today than they were 150 years ago and are expected to become even more frequent as the planet continues to warm. Hotter temperatures dry out the landscape and help create the perfect environment for larger, more frequent forest fires.

When forests burn, they release carbon that is stored in the trunks, branches and leaves of trees, as well as carbon stored underground in the soil. As forest fires become larger and happen more often, they emit more carbon, further exacerbating climate change and contributing to more fires as part of a fire-climate feedback loop.

This feedback loop, combined with the expansion of human activities into forested areas, is driving much of the increase in fire activity we see today. As climate-fueled forest fires burn larger areas, they will affect more people and impact the global economy.

Climate-Driven Fires Are Reshaping Boreal Forests

More than 60% of all fire-related tree cover loss between 2001 and 2025 occurred in boreal regions. Though fire is a natural part of how boreal forests function ecologically, fire-related tree cover loss in these areas has risen rapidly, increasing by about 171,400 hectares per year over the last 25 years.

Climate change is the main reason for this. High northern latitudes, home to much of the world's boreal forest, are warming at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, contributing to longer fire seasons and more frequent droughts. Together, these conditions are driving greater fire frequency and severity and larger burned areas in boreal forests.

For example, over the last three years, Canada has experienced its three worst fire seasons since 2001. In 2023, the worst of the three years, record-breaking wildfires burned almost 7.8 million hectares of forest; about six times the country’s annual average for 2001 to 2022, spewing large amounts of carbon dioxide. The flames were largely fueled by warmer-than-average temperatures and drought conditions, with some parts of the country experiencing temperatures up to 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) above normal. Fire activity remained high in 2024 and 2025, averaging 4.8 million hectares of forest burned per year, more than three times the average from 2001 to 2022.

Similarly, in Russia, the three worst fire seasons since 2001 occurred in the last six years. 2021 was the most severe, with 5.4 million hectares of tree cover burned, driven largely by extreme heat and dry conditions that summer. Likewise, large fires in 2020, the third-worst year, were driven by prolonged heat that would have been almost impossible without human-induced climate change.

This trend is worrying for several reasons. Boreal forests store 30% to 40% of all land-based carbon, making them critical climate stabilizers. Most of this carbon is stored underground, including in permafrost, and has historically been protected from the infrequent and milder fires that occur naturally. But changes in climate and fire activity are melting permafrost and making soil carbon more vulnerable to burning.

In addition, severe fires can drastically alter the structure of boreal forests — effectively eliminating species like black spruce, which normally dominate the landscape, allowing deciduous trees to take their place. Such changes could have wide-ranging impacts on biodiversity, soil dynamics, fire behavior, and carbon sequestration. In some extreme cases, trees may fail to regrow at all.

These shifting forest dynamics could eventually turn boreal forests from a carbon sink (an area that absorbs more carbon than it emits) into a source of carbon emissions. In fact, recent research shows that boreal forests are already losing their ability to store carbon.

Firefighters put out the remains of a blaze in Alberta, Canada, in July 2024. Canada’s 2023 wildfire season burned six times as much forest area as the 2001 to 2022 annual average, and the summer of 2026 indicated the start of another intense fire season. Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo

Agriculture and Forest Degradation Stoke Fires in the Tropics

Unlike boreal forests, tropical rainforests have historically been protected from fire by heavy rainfall and are not adapted to withstand it. Stand-replacing fires are not a usual part of the ecological cycle in these regions. Yet fires are increasing there as well, including the Amazon and Congo basins, both of which are critical to storing carbon, protecting biodiversity and regulating local climates.

Over the last 25 years, fire-related tree cover loss in the tropics increased at a rate of about 53,100 hectares per year, peaking in 2024 with more than 4 million hectares lost — more than the previous three years combined. Fires also account for a larger share of forest loss. Over the past three years, fires were responsible for more than a third (35%) of all tree cover loss in tropical primary forests each year on average, almost three times the average from 2001 to 2022. In 2024 alone, fires were responsible for nearly half (48%) of all tree cover loss in tropical primary forests, marking the first time fire surpassed agriculture as the leading cause of forest loss in the tropics since our data began. Beyond causing tree cover loss, fire is also a driver of forest degradation in the tropics. Low-intensity understory fires weaken forest structure and leave forests more vulnerable to future damage.

Almost all fires that occur in the tropics are started by people, rather than by natural causes like lightning strikes. Managed fires are commonly used in the region to clear land for new pasture or agriculture. But these fires can escape and escalate, with warmer and drier conditions fueling their spread. Deforestation and forest degradation associated with agricultural expansion also make forests in these regions more vulnerable to fires by contributing to rising temperatures and dried-out vegetation.

In Bolivia, for example, agricultural expansion and droughts have led to a significant increase in fire activity over the last two decades. Fires burned more than a million hectares of forest in the country in 2024, more than double the previous record set in 2019. Peru and Brazil also experienced their worst and second-worst fire seasons, respectively, in 2024, with most of the loss occurring in primary forests. 2025 also saw elevated fire activity in the three countries, although some may reflect late-season fires carrying over from 2024.

In addition to climate and land-use changes, wildfire risk in the tropics is further fueled by El Niño events. These natural climate cycles recur every two to seven years, causing high temperatures and below-average rainfall in certain parts of the world. Strong El Niño events heavily influenced the 2016 and 2024 fire seasons — two of the most severe since the turn of the century — during which tree cover loss due to fire spiked across the tropics. In both years, more than one-quarter of all fire-related tree cover loss occurred in tropical forests, roughly twice the average share seen in non–El Niño years. As of June 2026, El Niño conditions are present and expected to strengthen, potentially becoming one of the strongest El Niño events in records going back to 1950.

Similar to boreal forests, increased fire activity in the tropics is causing higher carbon emissions. Previous studies found that in some years, forest fires accounted for more than half of all carbon emissions in the Brazilian Amazon. This suggests the Amazon basin may be nearing or already at a tipping point for turning into a net carbon source.

Development Compounds Climate-Driven Fire Risk in Temperate and Subtropical Forests

Historically, temperate and subtropical forests have burned less than boreal or tropical forests. Fires in subtropical forests, like the southeastern United States, eastern Australia, and many parts of the Mediterranean, have been increasing slightly, at about 7,800 hectares per year. But fires in temperate forests, including in the eastern U.S., western Europe and parts of eastern Asia, are increasing more rapidly, at about 22,400 hectares per year.

Fires in these regions tend to pose more severe risks to people and property, largely because temperate and subtropical forests are often located near more densely populated areas. These areas also tend to contain a larger proportion of managed forests, which can house fewer species and store less carbon than natural ones, but often carry substantial economic value. As a result, fires in these forests can reduce the economic value of these lands, in addition to threatening nearby communities.

Just as with boreal forests, climate change is the main driver behind the increasing fire activity in temperate and subtropical forests. Europe, where these forests are common, is warming faster than any other continent, fueling intense heat waves and summer droughts that are driving fire activity across the region. This is especially concerning given Europe’s dense population and dependence on managed forests for timber and other forest products. Fires and other climate-driven disturbances are expected to exact steep economic costs as climate change worsens.

In 2025, record-breaking heat and drought fueled wildfires across the region. Spain saw more than 95,000 hectares of forest burned, its highest total since our data began in 2001, surpassing the previous record set in 2022 by about 25%, and more than five times the annual average for 2001 to 2024. It was also the worst year for France and the third-worst year for Portugal over the same period. Research suggests such conditions in Spain and Portugal are now 40 times more likely due to climate change.

A helicopter drops water on flames during a wildfire in Ribadelago Viejo, Castilla y León, Spain, in August 2025. The fire burned in the Tera River Canyon in the Sanabria region amid a period of intense wildfire activity across Spain. Photo by Jose Manuel Martinez Rosas /iStock

Land-use changes and shifting population patterns compound the impacts of climate change. In Greece, a combination of heat waves, drought and large plantations of highly flammable non-native species, like eucalyptus, created ideal conditions for extreme wildfires in 2021 and 2023. In Europe more broadly, the abandonment of agricultural land in recent years has been followed by excessive vegetation growth that has increased fire risk.

In South Korea, 2025 brought the country's worst wildfires since 2001, burning more than 65 times as much forest as the annual average for 2001 to 2024. Like Spain, the fires were driven by an unusually dry and hot spring, conditions that research suggests climate change has made twice as likely. The fires burned through communities as well as forests, killing at least 27 people and destroying a 1,300-year-old temple.

In the U.S., natural lands are rapidly being converted into what’s known as wildland-urban interfaces, which are places where homes and other structures intermingle with trees and vegetation. This increases the risk of fire ignitions, as well as the resulting damage and loss of life. In 2025, wildfires in the U.S. burned about 500,000 hectares of forest, roughly in line with the average for 2001 to 2024, but the damage was anything but average.

The destructive fires that swept through Los Angeles in early 2025 became some of the deadliest and most destructive fires in California history, causing an estimated $140 billion in losses, ranking among the costliest natural disasters ever recorded. The Los Angeles fires are a stark reminder that as homes and communities push further into fire-prone landscapes, even an average fire year can cause catastrophic damage. As human activities continue to warm the planet and reshape the landscape, deadly, multi-billion-dollar disasters like these will likely become more common.

How Do We Reduce Forest Fires?

The causes of increasing forest fires are complex and vary by geography, and there is no single solution. Climate change plays an important role, driving more frequent and intense fires. Without rapid and significant transformations across all systems, fire activity is unlikely to return to the lower levels seen in past decades. But climate change is a global challenge with its own complex set of solutions. How we manage forests will help determine whether they become assets, supporting fire prevention and mitigating climate change, or liabilities that increase fire risk. The path forward requires action across multiple fronts.

Reducing human pressures on forests is also critical. Ending deforestation and forest degradation improves forest resilience, while limiting burning near forests can prevent fires from escaping into surrounding landscapes, especially during droughts. Incorporating wildfire risk mitigation into forest management strategies in fire-prone regions would help protect forest carbon and create jobs and support rural communities at the same time.

Fire-proofing and prevention remain some of the most cost-effective tools available, but are underfunded in many countries. Closing that gap will require increased public investment and innovative financing approaches that engage the beneficiaries of healthy forests, such as utilities and businesses to insurers and local communities. Many of these approaches are already being implemented through collaborative initiatives such as WRI’s Cities4Forests Initiative, which works with cities, utilities and other partners around the world to develop innovative financing models that support forest restoration and wildfire resilience. Mechanisms such as the Forest Resilience Bond, watershed resilience funds and other blended finance models can provide upfront capital for prescribed burning, forest restoration and other measures that reduce wildfire risk before fires start.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities bring centuries of knowledge and experience using prescribed burns to maintain resilient landscapes but are often excluded from fire management decisions and lack the equipment and resources needed to respond quickly when fires do occur. Securing land rights and directing dedicated funding toward local fire brigades would enable these communities to lead fire management in the places they know best.

Better data can also improve decision-making at the national level and enable faster action by communities on the front lines. Tools like Global Nature Watch make it possible to track fire activity in near real-time and over the long term, helping identify trends and develop targeted responses. But data is only useful if it drives the policy, investment and on-the-ground response that forests and the communities who depend on them urgently need.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2022. It was last updated in July 2026 to reflect the latest data on global forest fires.

Mikaela Weisse, former Global Forest Watch (now Global Nature Watch) Director, contributed to an earlier version of this article.

1 Methodology notes: We define forests as all natural, managed or planted trees with at least 30% canopy cover, and all calculations are based on this threshold. Importantly, “forest loss” does not always mean permanent loss. Others, such as the authors of this recent paper led by the University of Maryland, use a similar methodology but apply different canopy cover and height thresholds to define forests. We encourage readers to consider a range of sources when exploring global forest loss trends.

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