Climate change news from the ground, in a warming world Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here [[link removed]] Laurie Goering [[link removed]]

Climate editor

The Karamojong people of northeast Uganda have long traveled great distances with their cattle in dry times, negotiating access to grazing and water with other communities and slaughtering a bull to cement the deal.

But these days the herders need to seek permission [[link removed]] as well from a growing number of government officials to move their animals - something that is making moving them more complicated even as climate-change-driven droughts make it more necessary.

"This is a new culture where everything is done by the government," Alex Lemu Longaria, a Karamojong elder, told our correspondent Liam Taylor.

Finding better ways to adapt to climate change pressures ranging from harsher droughts to worsening floods, storms, wildfires and sea level rise is becoming urgent nearly everywhere in the world, scientists say.

But the obstacles remain huge, from a lack of money reaching local people to growing competition for scarce land, as a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to make clear next week.

Cattle in Nakapiripirit district, Uganda, on December 2, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Liam Taylor

Communities and governments around the world are waking up to growing climate threats - but dealing with them can be more complicated than expected.

Colombia's government, faced with a surge of wildfires in the Amazon and other forests, this month created a mugshot poster offering a $75,000 reward for information leading to 17 suspects considered "Most Wanted for Deforestation" [[link removed]].

Six are now under arrest after 86,000 hectares of forest were razed in more than 300 fires since mid-December.

But forest experts say that with a complicated mix of criminals behind growing deforestation - from former left-wing guerrillas to illegal gold miners, drug gangs and law-flouting officials - getting a lasting handle on forest losses and fires is going to take something much harder: building an ongoing government presence in remote areas of the country.

"These particular regions are in a sense no man's land," said Manuel Rodriguez Becerra, a former Colombian environment minister, told our correspondent Anastasia Moloney.

Until the state has real oversight in such areas, "I am very skeptical" deforestation can be controlled, he said.

A view of a deforested area in the middle of the Yari plains, in Caqueta, Colombia March 2, 2021. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez

U.S. federal firefighters, however, struggling with a compensation system that has made it hugely difficult for them to claim help after serious job-related injuries or illnesses, may finally be on the path to getting some help [[link removed]] as wildfire risks worsen.

Top U.S. senators last week demanded an update from President Joe Biden's administration on a new special claims handling unit for firefighters being developed.

"This is simply unacceptable - these firefighters put their lives at risk to defend American lives and property, and they deserve our support," California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and other other senators of both political parties wrote, following an investigation [[link removed]] by our correspondents Avi Asher-Schapiro and David Sherfinski.

See you next week!

Laurie

Tree-clearing criminals fuel Colombia's wildfire surge [[link removed]]

Government officials are hunting suspects accused of setting wildfires – but genuinely slowing rising deforestation will require a more proactive government presence in threatened areas, analysts warn

Senators press Biden on 'unacceptable' firefighter health claims [[link removed]]

Senators want answers from U.S. Labor Department on how to handle compensation claims for federal firefighters, after Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation revealed what some call a "broken" system for care

Red tape, conflict stop Uganda's herders moving to cope with climate change [[link removed]]

As the country suffers worsening droughts and floods, pastoralists move to survive – but the increasing need for official permission to travel across grasslands is rooting many of them in place

Global nature pact urged to reform harmful subsidies of $1.8 trln a year [[link removed]]

Doing so could make an important contribution to unlocking the roughly $700 billion required each year to halt and reverse the loss of nature this decade, researchers say

OPINION: It’s time to turn climate change adaptation ambition into action [[link removed]]

And local people need a say in what to do – and the money to make it happen.

OPINION: Five hopes for a more equitable, resilient and sustainable 2022 [[link removed]]

The world’s cities are taking the initiative on a range of environmental and social problems, from climate change adaptation to access to affordable food

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