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 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.

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".

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.

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 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 by our correspondents Avi Asher-Schapiro and David Sherfinski.

See you next week!

Laurie

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