Photo Gallery

From Fires to Floods: 12 Photos of Environmental Destruction and Efforts to Stop It

Local communities see the effects of global climate change.

Sabinagar resident Kulenthiran Sivagowry uses stepping stones to avoid floodwater in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Poor housing conditions and climate change worsen the effects of flooding during monsoon season.

Vijayatharsiny Thinesh, GPJ Sri Lanka

Plastic bottles litter the Huacapa River, which flows through the center of Chilpancingo de los Bravo, Guerrero, Mexico. For years, the river was a clean water source to wash clothes, bathe and fish, but it has become a dump site and gives off an unpleasant odor.

Avigaí Silva, GPJ Mexico

Marc Evens Joseph rows a canoe past a destroyed area of the Haut-Fourneau mangroves in Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Mangroves, which work as a barrier against natural disasters and rising water levels, are under threat due to deforestation and pollution.

Jusly Felix, GPJ Haiti

Residents check their vehicles and houses on a flooded road in Sukhbaatar, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. After heavy rain, a river through the city flooded, and hundreds of citizens have faced movement restrictions, property loss, and damage.

Nansalmaa Oyunchimeg, GPJ Mongolia

Mushrooms are displayed at an event called Funga Colecta Yuy Fest at Parque Ecoturístico Montetik in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. The event emphasized the importance of water for mushrooms and how the current heat wave and delay in seasonal rains have affected the area’s edible mushroom populations.

Marissa Revilla, GPJ Mexico

A bridge spans the Runde River in Chiredzi, Masvingo, Zimbabwe. The river normally forms permanent pools, even during dry seasons, but only a few downstream ponds remain due to changes in rainfall patterns.

Gamuchirai Masiyiwa, GPJ Zimbabwe

Rogelio Gutiérrez, left, and Gabriel Ruiz López deconstruct palm-thatched shelters on the beach in Boca del Cielo, Chiapas, Mexico. Rising tides inundate the beach more often now, so shelters are taken apart to reuse the material after tides wash them away.

Marissa Revilla, GPJ Mexico

The Jalpan de Serra dam, a protected Ramsar site in Querétaro, Mexico, shows atypical water levels. Contamination and climate change threaten Mexico’s wetlands.

Patricia Zavala Gutiérrez, GPJ Mexico

Bat-Erdene Ayushjav herds cattle on the way back to his hometown, Tumurbulag, on the banks of the Delgermurun River in Murun, Khuvsgul province, Mongolia. Pasture degradation due to extreme weather conditions made him travel about 300 kilometers (186 miles) from his hometown to stay in a region with better pastureland for 10 months.

Dolgormaa Sandagdorj, GPJ Mongolia

Men fish in the Kankai River in Jhapa district, Nepal. They hope the monsoon rains will bring fish from upriver.

Mayamitu Neupane, GPJ Nepal

Gibbin Sampa puts fire bricks in the sun to dry after molding them in Lilayi, Lusaka, Zambia. Zambia started a project to make these bricks, using maize husk and sawdust, as an alternative to charcoal, which accelerates deforestation and emits carbon dioxide during its production and use.

Prudence Phiri, GPJ Zambia

Abel Balderas Martínez, left, and María Rosa Olvera Monzón select the best mesquite for breeding at El Carmen plant nursery in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The nursery’s mesquite pods are renowned for their size and resistance to climatic changes.

Patricia Zavala Gutiérrez, GPJ Mexico