THP Perspective: Most hungry people work on the land. Thus, it is the hungry people of our world whose lives and livelihoods are most immediately dependent upon our natural environment and the most committed to its sustainability. They already suffer the impact of climate change, and have a right to the information they need to adapt to it.

(Right – THP-organized water pollution protest in Dhaka)

Women farmers in particular are often the traditional caretakers of the environment, and possess the traditional wisdom for sustainable natural resource management. Those currently living in rural poverty, therefore – particularly women – must have a primary voice in environmental decision-making.

The Hunger Project has contributed to the now widely-shared consensus that environmental sustainability and the end of hunger must go together. At the Rio “Earth Summit” in 1992, it was The Hunger Project that articulated the first principle that was adopted – that all people have the right to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.

Key Interventions:

• Agroecology
• Building grassroots movements for the environment
• Climate Change Adaptation
• Community-based Natural Resource Management
• Reforestation/Sustainable Woodlots

Global Campaigns and Initiatives:

• Agenda 21 – the Outcome Document of the 1992 Rio Conference
• UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Key agencies:

• UN Environment Program

Key reports and data sources:

• UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform
• UNDP-UNEP Poverty and Environment Initiative

Key blogs and newsfeeds:

• FoodTank
• Building Agricultural Resilience in Response to Climate Change
• Climate change threatens to put back the fight to eradicate hunger by decades (OXFAM)

Must-read books:

• Danielle Neirenberg and Brian Halweil, Innovations that Nourish the Planet