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A quinoa farmer near Huancayo, Peru. Worldwide, only 20% of women own the land they farm. Research shows that when women have access to farmland ownership, positive impacts are felt: poverty is reduced, less children die, domestic violence is rarer, and farm output rises. Photo: Elmer Ayala Hinojosa

A fragile Andean ecosystem, Peru. Degradation has reduced the health and productivity of about one quarter of all agricultural lands worldwide. Restoring just 12% of these 150 million hectares could produce enough food for 200 million people, raise $36 million per year in farm incomes, strengthen resilience, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Photo: Herbert Renato […]

A woman rowing on Lake Titicaca, Peru. Water sustains life – but many bodies of water risk pollution because of mining or industry nearby. Careful spatial planning, involving citizens, local government and the private sector, can help reduce this risk. Photo: Paola Baltazar

A burnt forest in Indonesia. Globally, initiating restoration of degraded forest areas could generate US$170 billion/year in net benefits from watershed protection, improved crop yields, and forest products and sequester up to 3 billion tons of CO2e per year- almost 10% of current global fossil fuels emissions. Photo: Sri Sadono

Rain falls in the Peruvian Amazon. The illegal conversion   of forests for commercial agriculture is estimated to produce the equivalent of 25% of the European Union’s annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, making it an important contributor to climate change. Photo: Michael Langford

Sunset in the Peruvian Amazon. About three quarters of the world’s usable water comes from forests, thanks to the way they store and filter water. Such forest services constitute critical natural capital, but tend to be undervalued in conventional – and unsustainable – approaches to business. Photo: Michael Seiden

A thermal power plant, Madhya Pradesh, India. While burning fossil fuels continues to be the main source of energy worldwide as well as the largest contributor to climate change, deriving energy from biomass can be a sustainable alternative if carefully done. Photo: Nishant Jain

A child in Puno, Peru. The growth in the global population is pushing up consumption – a change that is expected to drive demand for water up by 40% by 2030. Photo: Susan Katiusca Baltazar

A fisherman casts his net out on Situ Gunung Lake, Indonesia. Around the world, forests are a source of food, materials and income for an estimated 1.6 billion people, who gather building materials, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, honey and medicinal plants, harvest wood, graze livestock, fish or hunt game. Photo: Ricky Martin

Yagua man, Peruvian Amazon. In many rural societies, women tend to have only a marginal role in making decisions about how land is to be used – or none at all. Yet research shows that including women in decision-making in community forests improves sustainability of forest management. Photo: Alexis Huaccho Magro