Yet more than a year and a half later, little progress has been made toward these targets. Only about 13 percent of land and 1.6 percent of our oceans currently lie within protected areas, and half of nature’s most important sites remain unprotected.

Young male tiger. There may be as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild. (© CI/Photo by Frank Hawkins)

Why the slow pace? Among other challenges, the global economic crisis looms at the forefront of many world leaders’ minds. Funding conservation work is simply not seen as a priority. However, this separation of economy and environment is a false dichotomy. Protecting our planet’s ecosystems and species today is critical for a growing human population that is dependent on the fresh water, food and many other resources that would cease to exist without intact natural areas.

The Aichi Targets set in Japan were headed in the right direction, and went beyond direct conservation efforts — like creating protected areas — to really integrating biodiversity into our social economic systems for long-term sustainability. So how can we set these wheels in motion?

Even with political will, there is still a need for a lot of money — fundamental change usually does not come cheap. In the 20 years since the establishment of the CBD, there has never once been a discussion on how much money is needed and where to get it.

When governments meet for the next major negotiation of the CBD this coming October in Hyderabad, India, they will finally start that conversation by opening the first-ever negotiation to establish funding targets to achieve the CBD’s goals. If they manage to agree on funding goals and all 193 participating countries are moving towards meeting them, then there is a much greater chance of achieving the Aichi Targets.

I spent last week in Montreal for the precursor to the India negotiation, and while there were some positive outcomes, progress was slow and many difficult issues were left undecided. To set the stage for a successful negotiation in India, countries discussed the need to:

• Agree on a baseline that funding targets will be measured against. If the target is set as “double current spending on biodiversity,” then the baseline is the number to be doubled. Unfortunately, countries preferred to leave this until the negotiations in India, so we can expect a complex debate about which baseline number to use before the discussion on funding targets even begins.

• Acknowledge that we already know that the funding need is on the scale of hundreds of billions of dollars per year, which is more than enough to move forward with setting targets. Countries discussed preliminary findings from an expert group tasked with estimating the overall funding need — which they say is somewhere between US$ 74–120 billion — but this was not included in the final decision because the findings are still being finalized.

• Emphasize the need to tap all sources of funding. Domestic budgets, overseas aid, payments for ecosystem services and other similar market mechanisms, debt for nature swaps and countless other potential sources will have a role, and this was acknowledged in the final decisions of this meeting.

• Recognize that some of these sources will be better suited to funding certain kinds of activities than others. For example, there is an immediate need to fund the creation of new protected areas before ecosystems are destroyed, but once they are established the funding need changes to a yearly maintenance budget. Public funds are best suited to meeting the first need, whereas a variety of other sources can help meet maintenance costs. In Montreal, a plan was agreed to develop proposals for review in India on how the funding gap for each Aichi Target can be bridged using the most appropriate funding sources.

Lina Barrera

The CBD was originally signed at the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. Next month, the 20^th anniversary of that seminal event — commonly known as Rio+20 — is the ideal moment to reaffirm our commitment to conserving biodiversity and its contributions to sustainable development. The outcome of Rio+ 20 should send a message that funding targets must be determined and adhered to in order to ensure long-term well-being for all species — including ours.

Lina Barrera is the director of biodiversity and ecosystem services policy in CI’s Center for Conservation and Government.

Located off the coast of Costa Rica, the waters around Cocos Island are home to an abundance of marine species. (© Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures)

Expectations are a funny thing. Everyone on board our sailing canoe Gaualofa had their own expectations about what Cocos Island would be like; all of these were surpassed within the first few days of arrival. That was the magic of this place.

The island appeared as a large dark rock in the middle of the ocean in the clear morning sunlight — a very inviting sight after 18 days at sea. The wind, perhaps sensing this, pushed us toward it at a steady 7 knots.

As we got closer, I was impressed by the number of boobies and frigatebirds we passed — there were obviously good feeding grounds around here. And so there should be, given that Cocos Island is one of many wildlife sanctuary parks created by the Costa Rican government, protecting all terrestrial and marine wildlife within 12 nautical miles [22 kilometers] of the island. CI had a leading role in this effort, and continues to support effective management of Cocos Island ecosystems.

The results of these efforts are clear: Here is an intact island ecosystem where populations of species have essentially been left alone to keep their own checks and balances without the perturbations of man. Over the next couple of days, the Pacific Voyagers fleet would witness firsthand just how well nature can do without human interference.

Scuba divers swimming through sea cave with a school of grunts near Cocos Island. (© Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures)

In my attempt to describe a place worthy of its own nature documentary, I can only share highlights and vivid memories of what we experienced there. We dived and snorkeled in clear waters and through dangerously narrow rock cracks. We prepared an umu (earth oven) and kava ceremony for the island’s park rangers. We walked inland to waterfalls with amazing views, and lazed in cold freshwater pools. We hung around the ranger station collecting coconuts, and intermingled with other va’a (sailing canoe) crew members.

Every day, Cocos gave us something new to experience; every day we learned something new about the island and each other. I think it was for this reason we decided to stay here longer than expected.

Every time I entered the water, I saw sharks — mostly whitetips sleeping on the bottom, but also Galápagos, hammerheads and the occasional tiger shark. This is a good sign of a healthy ecosystem, where top predators are in abundance. And that’s not all I saw — I snorkeled with feeding schools of yellowfin tuna, as well as large schools of marauding bonito tunas and trevallies. I saw the occasional spiny lobster running along open sand, and spotted eagle rays vacuuming the seafloor, as well as a wide variety of tropical fish species. Fish seemed to thrive; habitat was healthy.

On the second day in Cocos, a few of us were lucky enough to witness a spectacular force of nature. After finishing a dive off the Isla de Manuelita, we spotted seabirds flying in a frenzy above what looked like boiling water, a sign that a school of fish was being trapped at the surface by circling predators.

Swimming towards this excitement, we were encompassed by the methodical clicking sounds of common dolphins. Some of the sharks and tuna came in close to check us out, swimming among small bits of flesh and scales. Being alone in open water with such large predators — and watching them hunt firsthand — was an invigorating and scary experience, and not something I will soon forget.

Tuna and dolphins feeding on baitball near Cocos Island, Costa Rica. (© Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures)

A few minutes later, the bait ball re-emerged, and this time we were right on top of it. A school of around a thousand bait fish moved like a living organism or a lava lamp, blobbing in and out as sharks and tuna took turns punching through it, taking lunging gulps and creating swirls of open sea amongst the tightly huddled fish in their wake.

I was nearly hit by the largest yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) I have ever seen (dead or alive) as it came roaring out of the ball. It was so close that I felt its force of water movement as it rushed past, eyeballing me as if to say, “What are you doing here?”

At first, the prospect of trying to go inside the ball was furthest from our minds — shark food, no thank you — but as the predators got their fill and started to hang back, we witnesses grew in confidence. I took a breath, went down, circled the ball for a bit and then punched through. The fish opened up and enveloped me like a cloud. Scary, brilliant and thrilling.

That was the magic of Cocos Island. As days went on, we Pacific voyagers learned about the rangers’ daily fight to keep poachers out, the daily patrols, the shed of confiscated fishing gear — they even had an elaborate 25-meter (82-foot) bridge made solely of confiscated and discarded fishing gear — and their education of the large number of dive tourists and boats that visit Cocos each week. The island was as much a part of them as they were a part of it. I dedicate this blog to these rangers in honor of their devotion.

After a week in this haven of fresh water and greenery, it was time to collect what coconuts we could, fill our water tanks with sweet fresh water and depart for the high seas again. Next stop: the Galápagos Islands, one of the most famous protected areas in the world and the inspiration for Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The sail there will take approximately four days — just enough time to digest Cocos Island and re-asses our expectations for this new set of islands that await.

Two of the va'a — traditional Polynesian sailing canoes — participating in the Pacific Voyagers Project. (© CI/Photo by Schannel van Dijken)

Schannel van Dijken is the marine program manager for CI’s Pacific Islands program. Read other blogs from him and his fellow voyagers on the Pacific Voyagers website — and keep an eye out for upcoming posts from his journey here on CI’s blog.

Many people from these cultures, including a wide variety of indigenous peoples, live in the most biologically rich regions of our planet — regions that hold the key to maintaining global biodiversity and ensuring the continued flow of ecosystem services — such as fresh water, pollination and clean air — that are essential to the more than 7 billion of us now living on Earth.

A man in traditional dress in Papua New Guinea. The island of New Guinea has the highest linguistic diversity on Earth. (© Bruce Beehler)

Yet as globalization moves forward, many of these traditional and indigenous communities seem to be forgotten or cheated out of the equitable distribution of benefits derived from the ecosystem services they steward. Even worse, as many of these vital habitats and territories bow to the pressures of economic development, so too does our unique cultural heritage, which is ever more endangered.

As conservation scientists, we have always assumed a strong linkage between biodiversity and human cultural diversity, but it’s never been quantified in a way that demonstrates how strongly the two go hand in hand. To remedy this, I and several colleagues recently published a paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the strong and fundamental connections between biodiversity and the diversity of human languages.

There is some discussion regarding the extent to which languages are a good surrogate for human cultural diversity, but it would be hard to find a better indicator. Languages distinguish one cultural group from another, they derive from and reflect the world view of each group of people, and they are a source of pride and a record of history that sets each community apart from even its closest neighbors. Consequently, when we decided to look at the linkages between biodiversity and human cultural diversity, we chose languages as the best manifestation of the diversity of the world’s peoples.

Map 1: The planet's biodiversity hotspots (regions 1–35) and high biodiversity wilderness areas (regions 36–40). (© Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

The results of our study — carried out by Larry Gorenflo from Penn State University, Suzanne Romaine from Oxford University, and Kristen Walker Painemilla and myself from CI — were quite remarkable. We began with the best available database on human linguistic diversity from SIL International, which recognizes some 6,900 languages still spoken on our planet. We looked to see how these were distributed globally [see Map 2], especially in relation to the highest priority areas for terrestrial biodiversity — the 35 biodiversity hotspots and the five high biodiversity wilderness areas that have been central to CI’s conservation strategy for the past quarter century.

The biodiversity hotspots are the places on our planet — such as Madagascar, the Philippines, the Tropical Andes and South Africa’s Cape Region — that have lost more than 70 percent of their original natural vegetation and yet still contain high concentrations of endemic species found nowhere else on Earth. Collectively, at least 50 percent of plants and more than 42 percent of vertebrates found in the hotspots are endemics found nowhere else. The planet’s high biodiversity wilderness areas — places like Amazonia, the Congo Forests and the island of New Guinea — are also rich in biodiversity, but are distinguished by still being 70 percent or more intact.

Map 2: Geographic distribution of indigenous and nonmigrant languages in 2009. Areas in red have the highest language density. (© Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

Together, hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas are home to at least 67.1 percent of all plants and 50.2 percent of all vertebrate animals. They once covered about 24 percent of Earth’s land surface, but today that coverage has dwindled to an alarming 8.1 percent [see Map 1]. What’s more, if one looks at the endangered species — those at greatest risk of disappearing in the next few decades — we find that between 82–90 percent of the three groups of vertebrates (birds, mammals and amphibians) for which we have the best information are restricted to these priority areas.

Yes, that’s a lot of numbers, but the bottom line is: These biodiversity hotspots and wilderness areas must be among our top priorities for terrestrial conservation if we hope to preserve Earth’s natural ecosystem services and biodiversity for future generations.

Now consider the correlations and added benefits to language diversity. In our research, we found to our great surprise that these areas of exceptionally high biodiversity are also home to an amazing 70 percent (4,824) of the world’s known languages. What is more, many of these languages are also in danger of extinction; other research indicates that 50–90 percent of known languages will have disappeared before the end of the century.

If we look at the languages — and the cultures they represent — that are most at risk of disappearing this century, we find that more than 30 percent of languages spoken by fewer than 10,000 people and almost 28 percent of those spoken by fewer than 1,000 people are found in the hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas. This means that nearly two-thirds of languages spoken by fewer than 10,000 people are found only in these priority regions for biodiversity, a large portion of them indigenous groups that are still highly dependent on natural ecosystems for their daily needs.

There are numerous theories about why this connection between species and language diversity exists. One possibility is that access to plentiful, diverse resources in places like biodiversity hotspots reduces the likelihood of distinct groups of people needing to communicate and share resources with other groups. Another theory suggests that during the time of colonization, European countries mostly focused on expanding into regions with temperate climates, therefore limiting contact with people in tropical areas where most of the high biological and linguistic diversity still occurs. For example, the highlands of New Guinea — the island with the highest linguistic diversity on Earth — were not explored by the outside world until the early 1930s.

Regardless of the reason behind it, at its most basic level this finding further reinforces an ethos that we have at CI: “People need nature to thrive.” It also shows that we can have real win-win approaches in which efforts to conserve nature and ensure the integrity of human cultures can go hand in hand.

At the Rio+20 conference next month, discussions about the development of healthy sustainable economies will be in the global spotlight. The key message at the heart of these discussions should be that integrating conservation of nature and development initiatives is absolutely essential to maintain the full range of life on Earth, including the amazing diversity, traditions and values of human cultures.

Russell Mittermeier

To prevent language extinctions, we must redouble our efforts to prevent biodiversity hotspots and wilderness areas from being converted for short-term gain. If we can do this, I believe that we’ll have a much better chance of saving the language diversity and cultural heritage of our own species.

Dr. Russell Mittermeier is the president of CI. He is also an author, primatologist and chairman of the IUCN/Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group.

Fishermen from outside Raja Ampat, Indonesia hold up carcasses of dead sharks caught in Raja Ampat. Next to the boat is the Kawe MPA patrol speedboat being held by a community patrol officer. (© CI/Photo by Abraham Goram)

Off the northwestern tip of West Papua, Indonesia is a remote chain of stunning islands surrounded by the world’s richest coral reefs. The islands are called Raja Ampat (“the four kings”), and are part of the Bird’s Head Seascape; they’re also my ancestral home. Both as a CI employee and as a member of Raja Ampat’s indigenous council known as the Adat, I work for the conservation of Raja Ampat’s rich marine resources for my community.

Last week, that work was threatened by 33 illegal poachers who entered Raja Ampat in search of sharks, rays and other marine species that they had long since fished out in their own waters. This is the story of how Raja Ampat fought back.

I was conducting a community outreach event on a small island in the middle of the Raja Ampat, when I got the call — an urgent SOS message from my colleagues in the Kawe Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the most remote corner of Raja Ampat. The MPA was under attack!

Kawe community patrol speedboat approaches one of the seven illegal fishing vessels recently spotted in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. (© CI/Photo by Abraham Goram)

The Kawe MPA is known as “the crown jewel” of the Raja Ampat archipelago. This uninhabited area is owned by the Kawe tribe; it is a unique and world-renowned site that features the stunning Wayag karst islands, regionally significant green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nesting beaches, and important shark and ray birthing grounds.

Despite its global importance, the area was previously a hotbed of illegal activities such as dynamite fishing and shark finning from outside fishermen. However, in 2006 the local Kawe tribal leaders decided enough was enough. With support from CI, they declared a 155,000-hectare (383,000-acre) MPA in a bottom-up process that included a declaration both by the Papuan traditional Adat council as well as the Raja Ampat government. This was eventually followed by a national declaration affording it the highest level of protection for any MPA in Papua.

While a Raja Ampat police officer reviewed the vessel's documents, a CI staff member explained the protected area status of Kawe to several of the fishermen. (© CI/Photo by Abraham Goram)

The Kawe communities took it one step further, declaring over 97.5 percent of the MPA as a “no-take zone” through a traditional Papuan sasi declaration, meaning that no fishing of any kind is allowed within this area. With this declaration they made the Kawe MPA into the single largest no-take zone in all of the Coral Triangle, a region stretching from Indonesia to the Philippines and the Solomon Islands. In addition, in 2011 the area was additionally protected under the Raja Ampat shark sanctuary decree, which forbids any shark and ray fishing anywhere in Raja Ampat.

Most importantly, through the dedicated work and mentorship from my colleagues Kris Thebu, Henki Dimalou and Meity Mongdong, the Kawe MPA is 100 percent managed by well-trained and highly capable local villagers from the Kawe tribe. For six years, the communities have carefully guarded this area, working with local police to regularly run joint patrols of the whole area. And they were starting to see results. Previously bombed reefs were recovering with new coral growth, and my friends from the Kawe MPA field station boasted about the abundance of baby sharks swimming in front of their dock.

But now, six years later, we were receiving news that seven fishing vessels from outside Raja Ampat — with fake fishing licenses issued from a village chief from another province — were inside the MPA, illegally fishing for sharks at a dangerous rate.

Fresh shark fins drying on the deck of one of the apprehended vessels in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. (© CI/Photo by Abraham Goram)

My first reaction was rage. The people of the Kawe tribe had set aside this area for the benefit of their children. They guard it with passion because it is theirs, and now in the blink of an eye, poachers were trying to steal it from them. I wanted to rush to Kawe and capture them myself!

However, I knew that was not my role. Instead, I immediately left for Raja Ampat’s capital Waisai to get the Kawe communities the additional support they would need. There, my colleague Alberth Nebore and I worked with the chief of the Raja Ampat water police, as he planned out the patrol strategy and enlisted two members of the navy for the effort.

The team decided to leave at sunrise. Unfortunately in our eagerness to depart, we made the long journey on hungry stomachs, having only packed fried bananas and one flask of tea. However, we passed the time quickly with animated discussions on how we should best approach the poachers.

We arrived at the Kawe community patrol post at 9 a.m., where we were quickly updated on the situation by the community before heading out to where the poachers had last been seen. The patrol team included six community members, a Raja Ampat police officer and two navy officers who carried firearms for the group’s protection. Myself and a few other CI staff joined the team to help document the process.

A photograph is taken of the group of illegal fishermen after they were apprehended for documentation of the case. (© CI/Photo by Abraham Goram)

The patrol team quickly found the seven fishing vessels, some still with long-lines targeting sharks. The boats immediately tried to flee and the fishermen acted extremely aggressively towards us. With only one small speedboat, it was incredibly difficult to chase down and secure all seven boats, but eventually the navy officers managed to gain control of them all without resorting to violence.

While the police and navy officers worked to check the ships’ documentation, the community patrol members recorded the catch and gear on board each vessel. As we boarded the first ship we were confronted with the sight of five dying sharks struggling on deck. It was difficult to contain our emotions as deep heartbreak and anger welled up in each of us as we chronicled the destruction that these fishermen had been able to do in three short days. We found freshly caught sharks and shark fins, manta ray carcasses and sea cucumbers, along with long-lines and illegal compressors. In total the estimated value of the catch and gear was over 1.5 billion rupiah (about US$ 160,000).

The patrol team confiscated all of the ships’ documents, catch and fishing gear, but unfortunately because it was getting late and we only had one small speedboat (now weighed down with the confiscated catch and gear), the navy decided that they would be unable to keep control of all seven boats traveling at night back to Waisai. They made an official arrest and ordered the fishermen to report for processing in Waisai in the morning. Unfortunately, they chose to run instead.

There is one positive outcome of this sad incident: The communities, police and navy have committed to maintaining a heightened patrol presence in the Kawe MPA to prevent this from happening again.

Bram Goram

However, the escape of the fishermen was a bitter disappointment for the communities, who feel like they have been deprived of full justice, despite such a successful apprehension of the fishermen. However, the Raja Ampat government does plan to pursue them — and we are working around the clock to make sure that is exactly what happens.

Bram Goram is the outreach and engagement coordinator for the Bird’s Head Seascape. Thanks to Laure Katz for her help with English translation.

A tree frog in Costa Rica. (© Piotr Naskrecki/ iLCP)

Climbing 30 meters (100 feet) up a canopy tower to look over the Costa Rican rainforest, slogging through dense vegetation to collect data amid snakes and mosquitoes, tramping around in the dark in search of elusive nocturnal species … is this how you’d like to spend your summer vacation? For 16 teachers from around the United States the answer is “Yes!”

Conservation International recently teamed up with the Northrop Grumman Foundation to create ECO Classroom — a unique professional development opportunity for public middle and high school science teachers at the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) site in Costa Rica. In ECO Classroom’s inaugural year, we weren’t sure how many teachers would apply, but we were overwhelmed with the response.

Teachers applied in teams of four and proposed projects that they would conduct in the field if selected. We received 37 team applications — 148 individual applications to read (and reread!). Overall the teachers were impressive, with creative and exciting project proposals, and it was a very difficult selection process. After much consideration and discussion of the applicants, four groups were selected — Anne Arundel (Annapolis, Maryland), the SOL Sisters (southern California), Chicago Northwest (Chicago, Illinois) and the Ecologically Minded Long Island Educators (Long Island, New York).

These teachers represent a wide range of schools, grades taught, ages and academic and professional backgrounds. But they all share a common dedication to teaching and a thirst for new experiences. Over the coming weeks I’ll be meeting with the teachers to give them information and plan for the trip. I know they are as excited as I am to spend two weeks in the forest of the Central Valley of Costa Rica, where howler monkeys wake you and frogs and insects sing you to sleep.

I hope that the teachers will find this experience to be a time of collaboration and learning. I know that the beauty of the Costa Rican rainforest will invigorate and inspire them to return to their classrooms to share their love of science and nature with their students — thus nurturing the next generation of environmental stewards.

Morgan Cottle is the project manager of the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM) Network.

In Cambodia, a fish sanctuary on the Tonle Sap floodplain has been expanded to help safeguard the world’s most productive freshwater fishery — and the livelihoods of millions who depend upon it. (© Kristin Harrison & Jeremy Ginsberg)

Throughout 2012, as we celebrate CI’s 25 years of impact, Editorial Director Todd Christopher is recounting the ways CI has been changing the face of conservation. Today he focuses on field demonstration.

At Conservation International (CI), we’re fond of saying that we have our heads in the sky and our feet in the mud. This is more than just a colorful expression that describes our philosophy and approach to conservation — it captures the idealism and the pragmatism required to bring our vision to life.

It all starts on the ground, where CI strategically invests in the projects and regions where we can have the greatest impact. Virtually every success story — even the most sweeping policy change — can trace its roots to a successful model that demonstrates how valuing and conserving nature create positive impacts for people. We then build upon those successes, collaborating with the right partners to take those results to scale.

For example, CI’s efforts to restore wetlands in the arid Namaqualand region of South Africa have replenished local supplies of groundwater, helping one community reclaim 26,000 liters of water per day. In Cambodia, a fish sanctuary on the Tonle Sap floodplain has expanded to help safeguard the world’s most productive freshwater fishery — and the livelihoods of millions who depend upon it. And in Tanzania, CI is expanding from a pilot project focused on monitoring ecosystem services in smallholder farm landscapes to an open-source African monitoring system — and eventually to a global system — that factors nature and human livelihoods into agricultural development decisions.

Todd Christopher

In the decades ahead, CI’s field work will become even more vital, as the demands of a growing population place enormous pressure on nature’s ability to provide enough food and fresh water for more than 7 billion people. But our successes on the ground, like these, offer plenty of reasons for hope.

Todd Christopher is CI’s editorial director. Read other posts in our “CI at 25″ blog series.

Bogotá’s weather can change from one minute to the next. This high-elevation plateau city of about 8 million inhabitants is often blessed with blue skies and plenty of sun, but can also be veiled in fast-passing clouds loaded with moisture. We are on our second day of filming the páramos surrounding Bogotá from the air. Our target site now is the páramos of Chingaza, but the weather forecast provided by the control tower is not favorable for flying there.

Once again, Ron Chapple, director of cinematography at Aerial Filmworks, and I find ourselves waiting in the pilot’s lounge at the airport, enjoying the best-tasting coffee in the world — Colombian! At 11 a.m. we are updated by Captain Sandoval, or Capi Oscar as we call him, that the weather in the mountains is not expected to improve the rest of the day. However, the weather in Bogotá is perfect, sunny with a few clouds. So we carefully design a new flight plan and set out to get the necessary authorizations to fly and film over Colombia’s capital.

Acquiring compelling aerial footage of this vast metropolis is essential for our story. Bogotá is on the receiving end of the páramos’ freshwater supply. The valley on which this city was built contains marshlands, and it is here where we begin to roll tape and do a few flyovers. A century ago, these marshlands, or humedales, were the main freshwater supply for the inhabitants, but as the city expanded the marshes were soon decimated. Today, Bogotá receives all of its fresh water from surrounding páramo ecosystems.

CI-Colombia has been working closely with the local district governments and other local NGO partners, and together they are successfully restoring those degraded marshes back to their native state. Although these beautiful marshlands no longer provide the quantity of fresh water the city requires to thrive, they absorb carbon and play a huge role in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and creating a healthier environment for those residents who live nearby.

After various low and high altitude maneuvers, both Ron and I are satisfied with the shots of the marshlands; we now head to capture Bogotá’s impressive skyline and intertwined streets and highways.

It is quite jaw-dropping to see a massive city from the sky, and it makes me wonder if the people below — people traveling by car, bus and taxi; people working in offices, stores and restaurants; people going to school and others not going to school; people without a home and others with enormous luxurious homes — have any knowledge of where their water comes from, and how important it is to ensure that the places that provide their water are protected.

My thoughts are suddenly interrupted as Capi Oscar carries out a very close flyby of Bogotá’s financial district and its skyscrapers. It was a very hair-raising moment. And as awesome and marvelous as it was to fly over this fascinating city — the city where I was born — my thirst for reaching Chingaza and its imposing páramos is still not quenched.

As we leave Bogotá and start climbing the zig-zagging hills, the weather begins to improve. Ten minutes later, at an altitude of 10,500 feet [3,200 meters], we witness an unprecedented event: an enormous rainbow, resting on cotton-like white clouds just above the peaks of the Chingaza páramos. Ron quickly directs the camera, zooms in and focuses on this amazing natural spectacle. My head bobs up and down as I alternate watching the rainbow through the cockpit windshield and on the monitor on my lap that connects to Ron’s camera.

After a few minutes with the rainbow, we change course directly to Laguna Seca, or “dry lagoon.” Once a sacred site to the ancient Muiscas, the native people of Colombia’s central highlands, Laguna Seca is the main point where the water from Chingaza’s frailejones — plants that absorb moisture from the air — begins to accrue and get filtered down to create the creeks and rivers that will deliver it to Bogotá. But, why is it called a dry lagoon — where is the water? The landmass that surrounds the lagoon is moss and lichen, which create a spongy surface, constantly absorbing the water and filtering it into the ground.

“We have 20 minutes left,” Capi Oscar warns. “Then we must head back, or else the clouds will close and we won’t be able to fly out.” Not being able to navigate through cloud cover in these high-peak mountains would mean landing the helicopter in a clearing and spending the night in subzero temperatures — and with no supplies at hand, it is a risk we don’t want to take.

As the sun begins to descend, the light creates a beautiful golden shroud over the hills and the yellow frailejon flowers sparkle. It is as if the spirits of the Muisca people, who for centuries considered these mountains sacred, have offered us this gift, and asked the clouds to open up and the sun to shine. We are in absolute awe, and Ron is ecstatic about the images he is recording, at last.

Chingaza is vast and lush. It is mystical and powerful. It is also the birthplace of Bogotá’s water — without it, life would be in peril.

John Martin is CI’s senior video production manager. To see one of the finished products that uses aerial footage from this trip, check out “Páramos: Water for Life.”

Boy herding cows in the spiny desert of southern Madagascar. More than 1 billion people live in regions of water stress and scarcity; as supplies disappear and global population booms, water is increasingly becoming a source of conflict. (© Cristina Mittermeier/iLCP)

I recently attended this event at the Aspen Institute headquarters in Washington, D.C. The forum, which focused on gender issues, family planning, population and access to safe water, was the last in a series called “7 Billion: Conversations that Matter.”

At the event, a panel of experts — including Salva Dut, founder and president of Water for South Sudan; Laurie Mazur, director of the Population Justice Project; Jaehyang So, manager of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program; and Shewaye Deribe, project coordinator for the Ethio Wetlands and Natural Resource Association (EWNRA) — shared their extensive knowledge of water and sanitation.

Fresh water is one of the most essential elements of life on Earth, yet 1.2 billion people — slightly less than the entire population of China — live in regions of water stress and scarcity, where supplies are badly polluted and inequitably distributed. By 2025, an additional 4 million people will further stress valuable water resources in these areas, largely because of population growth.

Water is surpassing oil as the world’s scarcest critical resource. As supplies disappear, the population booms and climate change continues to impact ecosystems, water is increasingly becoming a source of conflict. Salva Dut, one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, has witnessed that violence firsthand. During the dry season in his newly independent country of South Sudan, pastoral tribes must move their cattle many miles to find water. They are forced to share the meager source with other road-weary tribes. Cattle theft, physical intimidation and virulent hostility are common.

“Water wars are inevitable when countries are forced to share the same limited water source,” Dut said. Sadly — and probably not coincidentally — the areas where water scarcity is widespread are many of the same places where political conflicts are occurring, leading to extremely dangerous situations.

Girls in Haiti collecting water. According to the World Bank, Haiti is among the top three countries in the world where water shortages are most acute. (© Robin Moore/iLCP)

Jaehyang So indicated the World Bank has identified 45 countries — 35 in Africa — where water shortages are most acute. Ethiopia, Haiti and Niger top the list with the least amount of water available. All the countries on the World Bank’s list are both water stressed and economically poor, with per capita income of less than US$ 3 per day. The average fertility rate in those countries is 4.8, compared to the global average of 2.6, and their population is expected to nearly double by 2050. A contributing factor to the growing population is lack of access to family planning services and education.

Women and young girls in these countries travel for hours each day to reach water and carry a 40- or 50-pound container back to their village. As their entire morning is spent fetching water, there is no time for the girls to receive basic education. Tradition compels women to have as many children as possible, and without an education they aren’t able to contribute to society any other way. According to Laurie Mazur, “Cultures are not monolithic — they are capable of rapidly changing, but it is important to make the means and the choice available to the people.”

Through their respective organizations, the panelists are taking a variety of approaches to improve freshwater access and related issues. For example, in response to growing population pressure in the Ethiopian highlands, Shewaye Deribe’s wetlands conservation organization EWNRA is integrating voluntary family planning and reproductive health services into its existing environmental management activities.

Partnering with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded BALANCED project, EWNRA community volunteers and peer educators have worked with local women, men and youth to increase understanding of the links between birth spacing, child health, and providing women with choices about family size. Using this approach, EWNRA is improving the quality of lives while protecting this critical watershed that feeds the Blue Nile region. CI is a partner on the BALANCED project, in collaboration with the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resources Center and PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc.

Dut’s organization, Water for South Sudan, has drilled 126 wells that provide fresh water to the local villages in his region. Reducing the time girls spend fetching water has directly increased educational opportunities in the region. Women are able to spend more time with their families, and there is less chance of conflict when water sources aren’t overburdened.

“The complexity of water is not in its science,” So pointed out. “It is about the management of water and how it gets to the right people at the right time.”

To mitigate the water crisis and the inevitability of future resource based conflict, we must slow population growth, increase accessibility of education for women and find a way to distribute our natural resources more equitably.

“If there is any resource that represents a true limit to the growth of the human enterprise, it would have to be water,” Mazur said. “Water is an essential resource. There is no substitute for water. It is essential for agriculture, industry, for human health and life itself.”

Kelsey Rosenbaum is CI’s media coordinator.

Aerial view of Malé, the capital of the Maldives. Photo by Shahee Ilyas (Own work).

It’s like something out of a science-fiction movie — a city emerging in the middle of a boundless ocean. But this isn’t a fictional place. It’s Malé, the capital of the Maldives, and it’s slowly disappearing under the waves.

This startling imagery comes from “The Island President,” a new documentary now playing in select cities. The film focuses on then-President Mohamed Nasheed’s tireless efforts to protect his country from inundation by advocating for global climate change action.

Nasheed is no stranger to struggle; before becoming the first democratically-elected leader of the Maldives, he was imprisoned and tortured multiple times by the previous government regime. As he began his presidential term, Nasheed began to see more evidence of erosion, groundwater contamination and other climate change impacts threatening to destroy life on these beautiful yet vulnerable islands. No spot in the entire country — almost 2,000 islands — lies more than 1.5 meters (5 feet) above sea level.

As a result, Nasheed has gone on to become one of the most outspoken supporters of immediate climate change action. The Maldives was one of the first countries to set the goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2020. Nasheed has traveled across the globe to meet with other world leaders and try to convince them to sign an international agreement to reduce emissions and find ways to adapt to climate change.

“It won’t be any good to have democracy if we don’t have a country,” he says in the film.

Nasheed’s approach is unusual, and his methods are unique; however, when viewing the film I was struck by how much in common he has with another island president an ocean away: Anote Tong, the president of Kiribati in the South Pacific.

Like the Maldives, Kiribati is an island nation that is struggling daily to keep back the tides. And like President Nasheed, President Tong has been a tireless voice for a country on the front lines of the most severe climate change impacts — changes so severe they threaten to not only affect millennia-old cultures, but wipe them out completely.

CI’s video team has just returned from almost a month in the Pacific Islands, including a stop in Kiribati. They filmed beautiful scenery and met some amazing people, but they also captured footage that reveals just how vulnerable these places are. In the clip below, you can see flooded villages and agricultural sites which can no longer be used due to sea level rise.

No matter how many articles I read about the impacts of climate change, nothing drives the point home like seeing it in action — even if only onscreen. Yet despite the fragility of Kiribati’s ecosystems, Tong is far from giving up.

Facing the disproportionate impact that climate change has had on Kiribati — a country with a minimal ecological footprint — President Tong has become a staunch advocate for marine conservation. Despite the country’s tiny land size, Kiribati has stewardship over a giant swath of ocean. With the help of CI and partners, in 2006 Tong established the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, a marine protected area (MPA) that has since grown to the size of California and is currently the largest MPA in the Pacific.

Molly Bergen

He has also been the impetus behind the Pacific Oceanscape, an initiative to collaboratively manage and foster sustainable use of a vast marine area by 16 Pacific Island nations. Improving international collaboration on fisheries management and other aspects of marine governance in this region should go a long way to improve marine health in an area that covers about 7 percent of the world’s surface.

There’s no doubt that the challenges facing leaders like Presidents Tong and Nasheed are daunting — even more so since Nasheed was recently ousted from power by a coup organized by supporters of his predecessor. However, with support from the global community, they and their efforts can persevere.

Molly Bergen is the managing editor on CI’s communications team.   

Two of the va'a — traditional Polynesian sailing canoes — participating in the Pacific Voyagers Project. (© CI/Photo by Schannel van Dijken)

My name is Schannel van Dijken. I am Samoan, I am a Pacific Islander — and I am a Pacific voyager.

Normally I live in Samoa and work as the marine conservation manager for CI’s Pacific Islands program. But since January this year I have taken three months off work from CI to voyage across the Pacific Ocean from San Diego to Tahiti with the Pacific Voyagers Project.

The aim of our voyage is simple. Through traditional navigation and sailing methods, we sail to bring awareness to the troubles of our sea and the preservation of the Pacific, while honoring our ancestors who voyaged before us. My Pacific Island brothers and sisters and I do not separate ourselves from this ocean. It divides but also connects us, the water running through our bodies giving us our strength, our identity. It is who we are.

The Pacific Voyagers Project was first envisioned by a generous German philanthropist named Dieter Paulman, who saw that a powerful ocean message could be delivered through traditional means. Through his conservation organization, Okeanos, he funded the building of seven va’a — traditional Polynesian sailing canoes — to sail and raise awareness of ocean issues and revive the traditional navigation methods that Pacific people used to colonize Oceania.

Each va’a has 16 crew members, coming from Aoteroa (New Zealand), Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. I sail with my Samoan family aboard the Samoan va’a, the Gaualofa, which has been supported by the CI Pacific Islands program.

Life on these traditional canoes is simple but challenging.  Our world is a 6-by-22 meter (20-by-72 foot) area, with our own personal space limited to our beds. We sail 24 hours a day, with three four-person teams doing three hour shifts. We sleep, wake and take turns steering the canoe with the large foe (steering paddle). We clean, set sails, laugh, think and reflect, play ukuleles, sing, nap, eat healthy food made by our great cook, and exercise — all this while trying to escape the ever-present bite of the tropical sun that invades every space.

CI's Schannel van Dijken using the foe (steering paddle) to steer the va'a on a journey across the Pacific Ocean. (Photo courtesy of Schannel van Dijken)

Enduring the elements has been a constant challenge, whether it be escaping the bitter and biting cold sea of a San Diego winter or, as I write this, a tropical heat that engulfs us most of the day, making it hard to get the most simple things done. This is made more challenging with the very limited freshwater supply on board (only 40 25-liter containers). Water is only for drinking, and is strictly rationed. We wash in seawater, we do dishes in seawater, we cool down in seawater. It is literally a part of us.

There is no Internet, no phones, no alcohol, no smoking, no distractions. But time passes quickly. It is a simple and happy existence — an existence that can last up to three weeks at a time before the break of port or new land.

A common question I’ve been asked is, “Why are you doing this?” I’ve observed that many people (including many crew among the fleet on this voyage) see the ocean as something that is vast with apparently infinite resources; something that can withstand everything we put in and take out; something that will always be there to provide for us.

Those of us working in science or conservation know the reality: We are in trouble, big trouble. But effectively getting this message out to those unfamiliar with science, conservation or the environment — the majority of the human race — is the challenge. We need to do a better job informing the masses about what we know is happening, what needs to be changed, what we can do about it — and the hope that still exists if we make changes now.

This voyage presents a unique opportunity to communicate to people; it touches people in the heart and soul. When you see seven canoes come into port — each with a crew of Pacific Islanders who have sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean — you take notice. The mana, the pride, the magic that these canoes bring with them is the messenger, and people are listening.

I get goose bumps writing about this, as I have experienced a power here that provides a simple message on so many levels. This is a powerful way to educate, to talk, to listen. This is the way to communicate in the Pacific to the people who live here. This is a way to connect with one’s own culture as well as others. This is why I voyage.

Schannel van Dijken is the marine program manager for CI’s Pacific Islands program. Read other blogs from him and his fellow voyagers on the Pacific Voyagers website — and keep an eye out for upcoming posts from his journey here on CI’s blog.