the similarities don’t end there either. both are being increasingly affected by climate change.

up in flames

in california, wildfires are one of the biggest problems plaguing sierra nevada. heat and dryness resulting from drought and increased temperatures have caused wildfires to increase in intensity, quantity and frequency. according to california’s department of forestry and fire protection (cal fire), nine out of ten of the state’s largest wildfires have occurred in the last decade. the trend is likely to continue, as one study suggests the number of fires could increase by about 20 percent or more by 2040.

jessica morse, deputy secretary for forest and wildland resilience within california’s natural resource agency and board member of sierra nevada conservancy, put it simply.

 “you’re seeing drought plus heat precipitate catastrophic fire,” she said. “you have like 200 days without rain and in some of these areas you’re getting no moisture and it’s causing the fire season to get longer and longer and longer to the point that now it’s basically become year round.”

wildfires actually play a crucial role in sierra nevada’s ecosystem and have done so naturally for centuries. fires can clear out dead organic material. allowing nutrients to return to the soil and new plants to grow. yet, more recent fires have gotten out of hand –– in large part due to human interference. 

there are a number of factors here, from the forced removal of indigenous people who practiced vital cultural burnings, to the clear-cutting during the gold-rush era that wiped out many fire-resilient trees. this was further compounded by a policy of fire suppression by the forest service for most of the 20th century. now, a strand of overly dense and weak trees that burn easily and fast is all that remains.

spain’s sierra nevada has a similar history of human interference, with mass deforestation resulting from factors such as mining activities and privatization of forest land, which was then converted to pastures or arable land once sold.

in the late 1930’s, a major reforestation plan was formulated during the final years of the spanish civil war. while it was recognized that forest regeneration was urgently needed, the plan also provided much needed jobs in a time where hunger and unemployment were rampant in the face of the dictatorial regime that emerged in the post-war era.

the program proved successful on a number of levels –– nearly 275,000 hectares were planted in the first decade of the program and in total 2.9 million hectares of trees were planted between 1940-1983. rainfall was higher than average during this time and the wide scale planting helped deal with ongoing issues of soil erosion. as intended, many jobs were created in the process, as the work did not require much specialization.

yet, there was a problem; nearly 85% of the trees planted were pine species. though not known at the time, the lack of diversity in plant life and thick density of the forests would make for increased risk of fire as the years progressed.  

as blanca ramos, member of sierra nevada’s global change observatory put it, “it is a totally homogenous territory with no diversity in terms of age or structure or species. these systems are extremely vulnerable, for instance to fire.”

this has proved overwhelmingly true. from 1961 to 2005, almost 2.75 million hectares were burned, which represents 93% of the area reforested between 1940 and 1983, meaning a majority of the work has been undone. 

it might seem obvious in hindsight that a lack of biodiversity could lead to issues down the road. yet, as jorge castro, a professor of ecology at the university of granada pointed out, these trees were planted far before science or forest studies found the flaws in planting a monoculture.

“these pines were selected according to the dramatic conditions that were prevalent 60 or 70 years ago and, at that moment nobody talked about climate change,” castro said. “these trees are adults now and they are very dense, so there are not enough resources for them. these plantations are debilitated; it is not a very healthy situation.  

spain’s wildfires occur on a much smaller scale than in the united states. for instance, spain’s biggest wildfire in 2021 scorched around 10,000 hectares of land while california’s 2021 dixie fire burned through over 350,000 hectares. 

as castro explained, the forests in spain are much smaller so there is less to burn –– but, on a relative scale, wildfires are still ravaging ecosystems.

“if you have 1 million kilometers of forest and half is burnt, you still lose half of the forest, so it’s a big issue.” he said.

in the face of increasing wildfires, both california and spain are now trying to reverse these effects. 

fighting fire with fire

in september 2021, california’s governor gavin newsom signed a $15 billion package to tackle the climate crisis, $1.5 billion dollars of which will go toward wildlife and forest resilience efforts. the effort marks the largest investment in the climate crisis in the state’s history. 

according to morse, the $1.5 billion investment package will largely be distributed to the california natural resources agency and will be spread across 21 different departments, including the california department of forestry and fire protection and the sierra nevada conservancy.

morse said the cnra plans to implement the funds on three fronts: putting in defensible space and home hardening so communities and their homes can potentially withstand fires; strategic fuel break around these communities so firefighters have a place to steer the fires away from homes; and finally working to return fire to it’s natural ecological role through forest restoration.

the last part is crucial and will be done through a process known as prescribed, or controlled, burning in which parts of a forest are intentionally burned in order to maintain forest health and protect against more extreme fires. 

as morse explained, controlled burning helps safely reduce excessive amounts of brush and trees, ensuring future fires will not spread as far out of control. she added these fires are planned well in advance and at times when weather conditions are such that the fire will not spread out of control. 

”when a fire does strike, it burns at a low intensity level and plays an ecological role germinating seeds, improving diversity,  and improving the watershed as opposed to the catastrophic role of wiping everything out,” morse said.

prescribed burning is becoming an increasingly popular solution around the country as a way to mitigate fires and it has proven effective in a number of wildfires. as one example, when the 2021 caldor fire ravaged parts of california, south lake tahoe managed to avoid much of the damage in part due to prior prescribed burning.

while more people are coming around to the idea, there is often pushback against the idea of controlled burns, especially among people who are new to the concept. as jamie ervin, a fire restoration advocate and former member of sierra forest legacy, a non-profit dedicated to the protection, restoration and management of sierra nevada, explained, it can be difficult for people to fathom how starting more fires could actually help prevent fires in the future.

“i think people get it to a large part, but, when it actually comes to lighting something near where people are, that can be challenging. you could run into a lot of resistance from folks, especially if it’s a private landowner doing burning instead of a federal agency or something like that,” he said.

cut for time

in spain, prescribed burning is barely considered an option due to negative public sentiment, according to castro.

“not in sierra nevada, not in spain, i will say not in the mediterranean basin … this is taboo,” he said. “it could be a good option to manage the environment but, there is such a concept of fires being something really bad, that society cannot accept that you burn the forest to control the future fires.

it’s not necessarily ignorance or a lack of education driving this sentiment. as castro explained, many people have spent all their lives hearing about or working firsthand on reforestation efforts. proposing to burn the very pine trees that were the long-time focus of the reforestation efforts can seem completely backwards.

“for decades people, the forest service, and the citizens, and the villages have been putting in huge effort to cultivate these trees to have a non-natural forest but a forest nonetheless,” he said. “imagine you’ve spent your life like that and your son has spent his life like that and now you go and say, ‘don’t worry guys, we are going to solve all the problems here. we are going to burn the forest.’ they cannot understand that.”

castro said instead much focus is put into thinning the forest by cutting the lower branches of the pine trees and removing shrubs and brush along the sides of busy roads. this helps prevent fires from starting on the ground and can ease the spread of fires if they do occur.

planting native and diverse plants alongside the pines to naturalize the existing pine forests is another solution. ramos said this a primary focus of the sierra nevada global change observatory (obsnev), an organization that studies the long term effects of climate change in the mountains. still, ramos said even though scientists and workers at the observatory know how to implement this plan, the process is time-consuming and expensive and could take decades to reach fruition.

“it is very expensive to transform an artificial forest covered by pines into an area with brush, meadows and rivers,” she said. “you have to introduce diversity and you cannot do it in one single project. you have to do it in different phases and it takes a lot of money.”

climate change versus global change

unlike the california natural resources agency, the sierra nevada global change observatory doesn’t have a $1.5 billion investment package on their hands. still, obsnev is a unique organization in and of itself and proof that the spanish government is aware and dedicated to solving this issue.

as part of a larger network of global observatories formed under unesco, obsnev emphasizes global change rather than climate change. ramos said at times it is difficult to separate issues of climate change from human involvement in the change of landscapes over time.

“we speak about global change, not only climate change, because we found out that one of the most important drivers of change in sierra nevada has been the use of the land,” she said.  “of course climate change is also very important, but we’d prefer to refer to the changes that occur as a more global group of factors that also includes invasive species and contamination and other global phenomena.”

this proves true in spain, california and elsewhere. as erwin described california’s wildfire problem, “the biggest threat to the forest in sierra nevada, other than climate change, is fire exclusion. and the fact that we’ve excluded fire from these forests that would have burned every five to twenty years prior to european settlement and removal of indigenous californians. there’s also been so much development over the last 50 years of people putting houses in fire prone areas, so there’s way more buildings and human infrastructure for fires to burn up.”

so yes, climate change is a huge driver of wildfires but it’s easy to forget that behind this big idea of global warming are humans who for centuries have drastically modified landscapes. we can successfully combat wildfires with reforestation techniques, but at the same time we should also be aware of other ways in which we shape our surroundings, such as how we manage our forests and where and how we build homes in these fire-prone regions.

if the two sierra nevadas teach us anything, climate change is a global issue that everyone plays a part in. 

why don’t we have ac, you might ask? because it just isn’t that popular. in 2019, less than a fourth of households in france were equipped with at least one air conditioning system, compared to 90% of households in the united states at that time.

but temperatures will continue to rise until at least 2050. how will we be able to cope? 

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editor’s note: check back each day during cop26 for more pieces in planet forward’s climate hits home series.

after growing up in the netherlands — where about a third of land lies below sea level — dr. hebe verrest has looked to other particularly wet nations in the caribbean and south asia for climate change solutions. there, she says, smart city experiments may hold the answer to global sea level rise.

verrest is a human geographer and assistant professor at the university of amsterdam and serves as a global advisor to the united nations global compact cities programme. she focuses her research on the role of exclusion and inequality in fields like urban governance, climate change adaptation, and entrepreneurship.

(editor’s note: this interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

q: what inspired you to research cities, particularly in the caribbean and south asia?

a: to me, cities are super complex systems where all kinds of questions and issues come together related to inequality but also to emancipation or empowerment. i particularly like being in cities because i always get questions about how people make a life here or the things they run into. i see all that diversity and contestation coming up so that’s what inspired me. actually, the caribbean was a coincidence. i started doing geography and i wanted to work on an urban topic and there was an option to work with a ph.d. student in suriname, in paramaribo, so i thought, ‘let’s go there.’ then it transpired to me how unique these cities are, they are—generally speaking—quite small compared to other cities in other regions. they’re often less 100,000, and there’s very few that are larger than half a million. but they’re very dominant in their individual islands, countries. that was something that i thought: ‘that is special and it brings in its own dynamics and its own issues.’ caribbean cities, they bring so much historical but also current issues related to inequality, race, and, increasingly, an environmental question. but i’ve also shifted to also include a bit more about asian cities because i’ve become more interested in urban environmental issues. if you want to do anything with urban environmental issues, there is no way you should not focus at least a bit of your work on asian cities. they bring in an extra complexity because of their magnitude.

q: how are asian cities particularly connected to environmental issues?

a: i’ve only been working there quite recently. i’m very interested in how particular urban floods work out. i’m actually trying to see how these occurrences, because it happens quite a lot, get framed and understood by different populations within a city as a potential risk, and how people navigate this risk. i’ve chosen to focus primarily on small and medium-sized businesses because that fits in with larger debates on the understanding whether an environmental risk is something absolute, separate from the individual person, or if it is a subjectively lived phenomenon. by focusing on small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs, you get a bit of an understanding. many of these businesses flood all the time and they consider that part of what they do in their business. it’s something that they have also managed to control, in that they have found a way to continue their business. it’s the major erratic floods that they really consider a problem because they can’t control that. it was really an interest in the occurrence of floods. there (are) many reasons why areas flood, but it’s usually a combination of more extreme natural phenomenon and political and governance practices that produce, in the end, these kinds of floods. i moved there and i felt the magnitude of some of these asian cities. i had been working with students in jakarta and metro manila and bangkok. the magnitude of these cities is of a completely different scale than caribbean cities. by focusing on smaller cities, you sometimes have the idea that it’s more manageable than it would be in a larger city. but i’m not sure that that’s the case. that’s why the comparison is very interesting to carry out.

q: how did you get involved with the un global compact cities programme? what kind of work do you do there as global advisor?

a: i met one of the former directors and was very intrigued by the methodology that he produced, which is not the methodology they really use now. i’ve been working with him on a few projects in the caribbean and he invited me to become one of the global advisors. whenever there’s a very specific question from an actor anywhere in the world, i may be able to provide information or link up to someone that i know. then it gets transcribed to me or one of the other people. i also, at times, advise the organization on which direction they should take. what i also do is sometimes try to connect. for example, there was a partner here from the water institute in the north of the netherlands who wanted to become a partner and i connect them to the right people. i have to admit that, for the past year and a half, things have been very silent. there, i’m not really doing that much. there’s increasingly knowledge produced within that specific institution, and they’re kind of shifting to working more directly with city municipalities and less with a diverse range of academic partners.

q: is this a positive shift?

a: yes and no. i think city municipalities really need to take a leading role in dealing with environmental questions. first of all, you cannot expect a national government to produce local solutions. also, increasingly depending on the type of the city, there’s extreme combinations of problems that come together in specific urban areas: tourism and airbnb. they come together in very specific cities. and i really believe that local governments need to take a leading role and should move away from leaving things up to the private sector. i believe that’s over. you need to formulate a vision and lead. however, a municipality has local partners with whom it should and needs to cooperate, like citizens and the private sector. you sometimes need to be aware that networks of municipal co-operations are not the answer to environmental issues. that’s part of it, but it’s not where action should stop. the fact that you are a member of c40 (the c40 cities climate leadership group), or something like that, does not mean that you’re addressing climate issues. you’re in a network that talks about climate issues, but that’s something else. you need to take greater leadership than what has happened in the past, but there are other partners that should be included.

q: you wrote in your research on “smart urbanism” that “the urban is not confined to the administrative boundaries of a city.” can you elaborate on this? why is this fact crucial to building smart cities?

a: the understanding that cities don’t end at their administrative boundaries, that’s not rocket science. a city is also a process, it’s a particular way of life. my issue with much of smart urbanism is that it often includes the implementation of a range of one or more “smart city” projects or policies. it’s a policy approach. because it is a policy, what you often see is a private sector policy, as coined by ibm, working in cooperation with a municipality and other partners to organize a city-based project. from that understanding comes the idea that, often, these projects are very much confined within city boundaries because that’s where the municipality has a say. i think smart city projects can be quite problematic and we need to build up our understandings of where these projects come from and what they actually do. you now often see that most of the research we rely on is more policy evaluation, which basically focuses on a project done as planned and the results within the area of focus.

what we argue in “elaborating the urbanism in smart urbanism” is that if you want to get a more integral or holistic understanding of what smart city policies do, you need to do more than that. you need to understand what implications are of a specific project outside of city boundaries. you can think about, for example, when you have a smart transport system. what does it do to traffic just outside the city boundaries? what about the water provision just outside of the city? it might be very smart to get rid of all kinds of polluting industries as part of a smart city. if you just dump them outside of the city boundary, then you’re just moving away the problems.

q: you mentioned that each city is different and requires different solutions. i’ve read coverage claiming that we can look to dutch cities like rotterdam as we face climate change. do you disagree?

a: it might be a good idea because there are lots of solutions developed here that work extremely well in this context. i think there is lots of knowledge and procedural understandings of how you come to develop these projects that can be extremely useful. i’m saying that the exact solution a might not be working in baton rouge. the way it has been implemented in the netherlands worked because it fit this context, in terms of government and socio-economic structures. you really need to see and rethink and include those kinds of questions in how you develop and implement a solution. you always need to tweak it to make sure it is embedded in a local context. then you might end up with a completely different solution. it might still be that the types of questions and information and knowledge that some of these technicians bring in is extremely useful and can also be applied to another context. but you need to use it to develop a locally specific solution to a locally specific problem. in the wider sense, it’s an important debate but much more of an urban studies debate. for a long time, much of the development of urban theory was based on cities in the u.s. and western europe with very few examples for all kind of diverse aspects in different cities. cities in the global south have not been included.

q: what would you like to see happen in the future of urban planning?

a: i would very much hope that a more visionary and integral approach to planning would become more central. i think actual developments are very area-specific. i would want a vision of the type of city where you want to go that produces certain parameters you need to work with; then you transpire that to local practices and plans. i would want people to base climate-related solutions in the caribbean much more on historical practices and observations and produce more out-of-the-box thinking. for example, last year there was a big hurricane on st. martin. in thinking about how to make the island more resilient, the idea is to make better houses that don’t get torn by the next major hurricane. the understanding is to build in such a way that you can rebuild. all houses can have a place to store valuables and you accept that the type of material you use for the house is going to be torn down in five to ten years. it’s going to be cheap and preferably reusable. that changes how we anticipate these kinds of projects.

and finally, i’m a social scientist and urban thinking has many technicians involved. there’s been people who have been saying that the technological developments to deal with climate change are there. the real problem is that many questions are social and political. that also means you develop a different approach. you don’t solve climate change with technology, you solve it with technology being used and implemented by people. in addressing urban questions you bring together different types of actors but also try to combine different disciplines and even combine academic knowledge with technical knowledge and even laymen knowledge. i think these are super exciting processes because i really believe that is a step forward to understand problems and being able to produce solutions.

q: do you believe our concept of ‘the city’ and urbanity will change as we adapt to climate change?

a: it will become much more clear that, as citizens communicate, people produce the city and the city is a lived environment. we see that cities are increasingly popular locations for people to live but you also see some interesting innovations which are sometimes very low-tech, they have to do with changing a way of life or how people communicate with each other. it’s particularly those kinds of innovations that i see becoming more important. people produce a city, it’s not being built; it’s being produced by people. it also i think is going to bring forward the importance of networks, of relations, of being connected to a place. it’s dimensions of a city that we tend to overlook a bit more when we talk about a city as a form of hyper-individualism and anonymity. that is going to change a bit.

agriculture is a field with historic relevance leading back to the early hunter-gatherer societies of humanity. during these times, it was a cultural expectation that everyone had a role in maintaining the land. traditionally, men would embody the role of the hunter, while women maintained the agricultural land as the gatherer. although having different roles, commonality was met with the expectation that all youth would continue the tradition and become the agricultural leaders needed to ensure the survival of their society. a tradition that has since diminished in the majority of society, as generational farmers continue to exist, but their children are becoming less likely to carry-on the family legacy.

the idea that young people think that farming is not cool, the desire of youth to live in thriving cities, or that farming is hard physical work that young people today don’t desire; are some but not the main points of why youth are not interested in farming. additionally, yes, though job security and our society’s push toward medical, technological, and engineering careers are a greater cause for this generational divide; i believe that the answer to this question is rooted in a greater issue: knowledge.

with our world globalizing at a pace faster than ever before, information is at its optimal point of accessibility in today’s society. it is in this society where the media focuses on trending topics where agriculture is lost among the millions of strands of information accessible by a click of a button. without this knowledge, the mundane traditional perceptions of farming will continue to spread, as the field continues to diminish, while youth continue to believe that there is not a place for them in agriculture. however, what if i told you that this was just not true; and that in fact the agriculture field is a place of opportunity for youth and older generations alike? here are three debunked misconceptions about youth in agriculture.

1. technology is growing in agriculture. in fact, it even has its own word, agri-tech. agri-tech, is the use of technology for agriculture, aquaculture, and horticulture that is developed to improve efficiency and profitability. this includes the usage of mobile applications for agriculture focused on efforts of connecting farmers and sponsors, to the usage of drones for agriculture, focused on monitoring fields and livestock. it even includes information communication technologies (ict) like podcasts and other social media efforts (on platforms like planet forward) to bring awareness to agriculture. lastly, and what i found most impressive is that it there is even blockchain for agriculture, which allows the usage of virtual money such as bitcoin to be used in investment and sales of produce and agritech. in fact, according to forbes magazine, agri-tech is a key area of focus for investors globally. a field that continues to surprise, and actually has many career paths and even more job opportunities in agriculture technology.

2. farming can be very profitable. though sometimes becoming a farmer may have humble beginnings, it doesn’t mean that you can’t make a profit out of it. in fact, there are actually multiple financial resources available in the u.s. alone. additionally, if you’re considered to be youth, there are even more financial opportunities for you. with there being such high-demand in the agricultural field, specifically in farming, many governmental and non-profit organizations are creating financial opportunities and rewards to encourage people, specifically youth, to pursue a career in the field. after you’ve secured this funding the next part can be tricky, but with the right practices, your farm can be very profitable. this highly depends on two things: the type of crops you grow and how you choose to operate your farm. from a face-value level, the type of crops you grow can increase your potential profit greatly. just check out these two links which explain the five and 10 highly profitable farming ventures. through this method, you are essentially guaranteed a higher potential profit by growing and raising produce that is in high demand on the market. on the contrary, for someone who does not have the capabilities or environment of producing products such as this, your second option is to alter the manner in which you operate your farm. according to agweb.com, though all farms can be profitable, there are common denominators in the farms that have the biggest success. this includes things from the inclusion of more technology or using outside experts, to revamping their accounting practices to better represent their actual costs. nevertheless, if they can do it, so can you.

3. agriculture can complement your life goals. there are a multitude of agriculture jobs beyond farming. although farmers are in high-demand, the remainder of the agricultural field is vast. this includes jobs from agricultural engineering and wildlife/forest conversation to forest health specialist. this field is not only sustainable within itself, but can easily pair with your own ambitions and goals. for example, if you’re a student majoring in finance with hopes of venturing into banking, consider adding a focus in agriculture and there are jobs such as a wells fargo senior business relationship manager – agriculture available. banking isn’t your thing, but you’re really interested in working in communications? perfect. most companies or organizations focused in agriculture, aquaculture, etc., also have to maintain communication and public relations with the surrounding world. so as you’re thinking about your future, think about how agriculture might pair well with your career goals and apply to an internship or two to give it a try.

agriculture is the world around us, and just like the world around us, it is versatile and open to all. though it has had a negative perception, the agricultural field is actually a field of opportunity. so, truth be told, it’s not that there is not a place for youth in agriculture, instead, it’s that youth have the opportunity to make agriculture something that it never has been before.

the future of agriculture is technology, it’s youth, and it’s change. for the agriculture of tomorrow begins now, with you.

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editor’s note: this series, a zero hunger future, is generously sponsored by the un-fao. all editorial content is created independently. to discover more experiential learning opportunities, email editor@planetforward.org.

the un had just released an alarming report, which warned that 12 years from now we will be beyond the tipping point — the point-of-no-return — when the global warming trend will be irreversible.

global warming isn’t the only issue on the u.n.’s agenda. this year, delegates at the un-fao launched a mission to end world hunger by 2030. the u.n. estimates that more than 820 million people are hungry. that number has been increasing since 2014, despite the un-fao’s previous efforts to rid the world of hunger.

what are global leaders doing differently now to ensure that their end world hunger campaign works this time around?

one of their focuses is to build resilience. several weeks before the un-fao’s annual world food day conference, the fao partnered with the european union on a €77 million (approximately $80 million) project to build global resilience to food crises.

a community is considered to be in a food crisis when at least one in five households have high malnutrition, even with humanitarian aid, according to the famine early warning systems network.

“investing in resilience is key to fighting hunger today and in the future. in view of the magnitude and persistence of food crises,” josé graziano da silva, head of the fao, said in a press release. “we need to invest more in resilience interventions and create stronger alliances with all parties.”

food crises are caused by conflict, drought, flood, disease, and unstable food prices, the un-fao reports. in 2017, a total of 51 countries were affected by food crises, according to an fao report. the same reported estimated that 125 million people are food insecure as a result of food crises. these individuals equal 15% of the global hungry population.

günther hemrich, deputy director of the fao’s nutrition and food systems division, lived in mwingi, kenya—a town tormented with food crises—for three years.

hemrich said that the first crop season he witnessed in mwingi was a failure. the village survived off of humanitarian aid, which was mostly corn. the second season also failed. corn for dinner again. then so did the third. and the fourth. so, more corn was delivered to mwingi.

finally, the fifth season prospered. the rainy season allowed the crops to thrive, but it also triggered a devastating cholera outbreak.

disease is among the top causes of food crises, the un reports. hundreds of village members were affected. those who were healthy enough would carry their neighbors to health centers in wheelbarrows, hemrich said.

although kenya faces food crises, it is not a country that will receive aid from the fao and eu’s 3-year-long project. the food resilience project will focus on 12 countries: yemen, cuba, venezuela, myanmar, madagascar, ethiopia, somalia, sudan, niger, chad, mali, and nigeria.

yemen was the most hunger-stricken country on the globe last year with more than half of the population—about 17 million people—considered food insecure as a result of conflict, displacement and economic collapse.

other countries on the list, such as ethiopia and madagascar, have been affected by extreme weather. ethiopia is still facing the effects of the el nińo drought and madagascar has been impacted by cyclones.

it is not yet clear what these projects will entail or how they will build resilience, but leaders agree that the effort is necessary.

with a growing global population — which is projected to hit 10 billion by 2050 — and the effects of climate change, un leaders feel the pressure to enact monumental change.

“either we carry on doing the same thing, which is not getting us any closer to zero hunger, or we do things differently,” arvelo said.

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editor’s note: this series, a zero hunger future, is generously sponsored by the un-fao. all editorial content is created independently. to discover more experiential learning opportunities, email editor@planetforward.org.

president of the united nations food and agriculture organization (unfao),  josé graziano da silva, challenged delegates in the plenary to stay grounded in this question as they would spend the next week discussing and devising solutions to end global hunger by 2030.

interestingly enough, this was not the first time i found myself facing this powerful question. in my medical school training, we often are asked to take pause on similar questions: “did i think of every possible diagnosis?” “did i ask every relevant question?” “did i evaluate all possible outcomes?” all these questions ultimately boil down to, “did i do everything i could for this patient when there was still a chance?”

at these united nations’ meetings, the “patient” is the world and the outcomes to prepare for range from decreased crop diversity to increased strain on resources. throughout the week, delegates worked to create plans so we could do “everything” we can to keep perhaps our most important patient healthy.

medicine and health played a notable role in these meetings. the united nations 2nd sustainable development goal outlines, “a profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed to nourish today’s 795 million hungry + the additional 2 billion increase in global population expected by 2050.” queen letizia of spain noted a critical element in devising solutions for this goal: “it is not just about feeding, it is about nourishing.”

throughout the week, it was highlighted that diet is the no. 1 risk factor globally for disease. as the world prepares to reshape our food systems, this statistic and the important health consequences from food cannot be ignored.

from a medical viewpoint, malnutrition is understood to be, a “dysfunction resulting from a failure to consume or to metabolize sufficient nutrients to support the body’s structural and functional integrity,” according to the sabiston textbook of surgery (2017). malnutrition can be caused by starvation, metabolic disorders, or even obesity due to intake of inappropriate and nutrient poor foods. prolonged malnutrition can impair organ systems, leading to respiratory insufficiency, delayed wound healing, skeletal muscle wasting, renal atrophy, immunosuppression, or cardiac dysfunction.

while hunger can have devastating impacts on individuals and communities, malnutrition extends beyond hunger. the meetings importantly pointed out that 8 of the 20 countries with the fastest rising obesity rates are in developing parts of africa and just under 40% of adults in the united states are obese. malnutrition is a disease of both poverty and wealth. with an increasing trend in non-communicable diseases, like cardiovascular disease or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, it is imperative to recognize how food trends are influencing the global health landscape.

given the close interplay between health and food, it is clear that policies to end malnutrition will require a close collaboration with the healthcare sector. clinicians need a seat at the table to advocate for patients around the world and to offer insight on the downstream health consequences of shifting diets. in order to “do everything we could when there was still a chance,” we need to involve everyone we can while there is still a chance. from tackling problems as far-reaching as the interplay of climate change and global food security to overcoming microscopic obstacles in a clinical setting, solutions are made stronger when diverse perspectives are involved.

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editor’s note: this series, a zero hunger future, is generously sponsored by the un-fao. all editorial content is created independently. to discover more experiential learning opportunities, email editor@planetforward.org.

the meetings concentrated on discussions concerning worldwide progress being made on global food security measures, specifically relating to the second sustainable development goal: zero hunger. the goal focuses on eliminating hunger completely by the year of 2030. currently, one in nine — 815 million people — around the globe are considered to be malnourished, with the majority of the people living in a developing country. furthermore, 45% of childhood deaths under the age of five are a result of undernourishment.

josè graziano da silva, director of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations said, “zero hunger is not just about feeding people, but nourishing people.”

achieving the goal of zero hunger must include a dynamic, collaborative solution involving public policy, the private sector, and all citizens on this planet including all countries. based on the comments stated throughout the committee on global food security meetings, hunger can be divided into two parts: obesity and starvation.

obesity

malnourishment is not solely defined by starvation, or a lack of a calorie-dense diet. obesity is also a form of malnourishment of epidemic proportion that increases peoples risks to non-communicable diseases by consuming too many calories compared to the amount of exercise the individual is performing.

there are currently 38 million children under the age of five who are overweight and one in eight adults who also struggle with obesity. this health epidemic affects both developed and developing countries. obesity is most prevalent in developed countries, most commonly found in north america. discussion around obesity at the committee for global food security meetings was related to low income budgets turning to foods that are calorie-dense and nutrient-poor including fast food and highly processed foods. these poor food choices are much cheaper and offer a high-calorie food source, which families resort to in an effort to combat their food insecurity. the delegates at the meetings promoted sourcing and creating fresh foods available to these families and also educating the youth on how to implement these fresh foods into their diets and preparing them to be tasteful.

starvation

achieving the goal of zero hunger by reducing starvation requires, perhaps surprisingly, a continued emphasis on the empowerment of women, according to the food and agriculture organization. with agriculture being the single largest employer in the world, employing more than 40% of the global population, there is a continued need for women to be included in active roles in agriculture. the female farmers of the world predominately run agricultural operations with the goal of producing enough food to feed their families, specifically in developing countries. some of the ways women are empowered to promote efficient agricultural production includes education of methodology, implementation of technology, and utilization of proper storage techniques all of which help maximize yields. finally, women need to continue to tell their stories about how they are driven to subsist and feed their families.

we heard about an example demonstrating the importance of storytelling in agriculture is a first-time farmer from sewa, zala shardaben fathesinh. zala strives to produce food for her family to live on and had to begin her operation by borrowing money, and, as a result, was trapped in a vicious cycle of trying to pay the money back to the lender, while also producing enough food for the family. zala discussed some of the challenges that she faces on a regular basis, including drought that has been worsened by climate change and a lack of technology to help optimize her operation. zala’s story exemplifies issues being discussed within the united nations to achieve the goal of zero hunger through the reduction of undernourishment.

food is a basic necessity for life. the type of food available can determine the health and opportunities available to an individual. civilization needs to strive to produce more food, on fewer resources, with more nutrients to sustain the growing population. how is this world going to be able to ecologically sustain the amount of food we need to produce to feed the entirety of the expected population of 10 billion?

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editor’s note: this series, a zero hunger future, is generously sponsored by the un-fao. all editorial content is created independently. to discover more experiential learning opportunities, email editor@planetforward.org.

the influx of refugees to european countries has caused massive pollution, partly due to the simple increase of population in urban areas as well as refugee camps that use plastic as temporary homes. perhaps one of the most pressing issues of this crisis is the life jacket graveyard. over 700,000 life jackets have been left on the coastline and in landfills. because of their non-biodegradable material, these life jackets just sit there as a reminder of the toll taken by refugees. but these graveyards are a hazardous risk to biodiversity. 

odyssea, a ngo located in athens, greece has taken on this challenge by recycling over 55,000 life jackets from greek islands and transforming them into various products. this organization has also facilitated a connection of ngos in greece that hope to minimize the environmental effects of the refugee crisis. once we start talking about this problem, then we can start solving it. 

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(sources: clip 0:02 – 0:06 unhcr syrian emergency http://www.unhcr.org/syria-emergency.html photo 0:25 – 0:28 http://www.greek-islands.us/map-greece/ clip 0:29 – 0:36 unhcr syrian emergency http://www.unhcr.org/syria-emergency.html clip 1:05 – 1:25 moria refugee camp in greek island of lesbos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gzvf1dubmk drone footage courtesy of greenpeace greece clip 1:48 – 1:53 lovest what we do https://www.facebook.com/lovestbyodyssea/videos/239365186457586/ clip 1:59 – 2:08 cnn’s video on odyssea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ym6xewk0i photo 3:25 – 3:31 al jazeera http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/12/life-jacket-mountain-metaphor-greece-refugees-151228132054372.html background information, research and facts: http://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pft/2016/6/24/refugee-crisis-creates-ghostly-ocean-debris https://gelr.org/2016/03/27/environmental-impacts-of-the-refugee-crisis/ https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-06-30/refugee-camps-limited-resources-lead-environmental-degradation http://solidarity2refugees.gr/refugee-accomodation-center-city-plaza/ http://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html http://www.odyssea.org.gr/#intiatives http://www.ekathimerini.com/209500/article/ekathimerini/community/abandoned-refugee-life-jackets-recycled-into-revenue-raising-items https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/may/06/the-volunteers-turning-refugee-lifejackets-into-symbols-of-hope http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/dangers-of-plastic http://www.stonesoup.io/2016/10/19/interview-a-modern-odyssea/)