We are ready to celebrate International Day of the Tropics on the 29th June, raising awareness of the diverse challenges that vulnerable nations here face. The Tropics are the geographical regions between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, which experience little seasonal change in temperature and increasing rain seasonality with distance from the equator.
Levels of poverty here are consistently higher and more extreme than the rest of the world. According to the United Nations most of the world’s most vulnerable communities are in the Tropics. It is predicted that by 2050, the Tropics region will host most of the world’s population, and approximately two-thirds of its children.
Amongst the diverse challenges to tropical regions are climate change and deforestation. The Tropics are one of the geographical zones experiencing the impacts of climate change most severely, appearing especially sensitive to increasing temperatures and unpredictable weather. Tropical forests play an important role in global climate change, providing the essential service of carbon sequestration, storing approximately 25% of the world’s carbon. However, the rate of deforestation within tropical nations is severe. Deforestation, along with land use change in the tropics is contributing to global warming up to 20% of global carbon emissions according to the IPCCC.
Almost all of the tropical countries remained underdeveloped at the start of the 21st century. Reasons for such range from population explosion exceeding the capacity of food security, local services such as education and healthcare and natural resources, to governance, the threat of natural disasters and fragile ecosystems. Despite home to over half of the world’s renewable water resources, almost half of their population is considered vulnerable to water stress.
Our projects are located within the tropics, helping reduce carbon emissions and improve socio-economic situations within rural communities often isolated from developmental progress.
We focus on offsetting emissions through the distribution of improved, energy-efficient cookstoves into rural communities, which use significantly lower volumes of firewood, and by rehabilitating broken safe water sources to remove the need to boil unclean water for purification. They deliver environmental impacts in the form of emission reductions which are certified by the verification body the Gold Standard; as well as socio-economic impacts through empowering women within the local communities, delivering health improvements by reducing indoor air pollution and providing safe water in the respective projects.
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