Sofia Kounti
July 1, 2025
Microfinance loans were meant to offer a pathway out of poverty in countries like Nigeria, particularly for women. But as climate change makes weather patterns more unpredictable, the risk of falling into further debt falls onto the shoulders of women farmers who face not just erratic farming conditions but social stigma from default.
Arrests of high-profile campaigns suggest that even those working on government-approved green initiatives with international backing aren’t safe from Vietnam’s crackdown on environmental activism. But some warn that staying below the radar can be even more dangerous.
After a Canadian mining company challenged a Zapotec community’s Indigenous identity, recalling the ancestral names of sacred landmarks helped reinvigorate their connection to the land – and defend it from extractive industries.
In a remote community enveloped in cloudforest, a whistled form of the Indigenous Chinantec language is perfectly adapted to the land and its weather. But who needs whistles when you can use WhatsApp?
Medicinal wisdom is embedded in Indigenous Mixe languages. By sustaining their mother tongue and practices involving herbs and healing rituals, Mixe people keep alive a cosmovision in which they speak to Mother Earth.
When foreign companies restarted mining operations that had been shuttered since the breakup of Yugoslavia, Vareš had high hopes of economic revival. But as the state fails to take a stand against pollution and deforestation, optimism has given way to nostalgia for the socially owned mines of the communist era.
