Infrastructure Stories

Alexandria Abuzanuq Ivanoff, who is from Unalakleet, Alaska, a small hunting and fishing community on the northwest coast, discusses how warming waters and increased shipping could impact Indigenous peoples and wildlife. 

 

Rivers are more than water; they’re the lifeblood of ecosystems. So when a river’s natural flow is impeded by a dam, biodiversity suffers.

In a significant step forward for nature and communities that depend on the mighty Mekong River, the Cambodian government has abandoned plans to build the Sambor hydropower dam and has put a 10-year moratorium on any new dams on the Mekong mainstem.

We can and must rethink our approach to development—what it looks like, what it’s delivering, and how it’s meeting our needs—to ensure that it's more useful for people and less harmful to wildlife.

By 2050, it’s estimated that Earth will hold 75% more infrastructure than it does today, and much of it will be manufactured out of concrete. WWF is working to address the concrete problem.

WWF is advocating that energy investors replace plans for hydropower dams in Cambodia with large-scale solar farms, which are more environmentally friendly and quicker to build.

Infrastructure is the backbone of modern civilization, but when it’s poorly considered, planned, designed, developed or maintained, we endanger wildlife, wild places, and our own communities. Here's what we can do.

Only a little more than one-third of the world’s 246 longest rivers remain free-flowing, drastically reducing the diverse benefits that healthy rivers provide to people and nature everywhere, according to a new study by WWF and partners.

A pair of mega dams in construction on the Santa Cruz river’s banks could flood more than 135 square miles of the surrounding region--an area almost twice as big as Buenos Aires--and transform Argentina’s last free-flowing glacial river into a series of brackish pools.

This year’s Living Planet Report shows that populations of animals—including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians—plummeted by 60% between 1970 and 2014. But those living in freshwater are experiencing a far more drastic decline: 83% since 1970.

The coastal nation of Belize is at a crossroads. In 2009, the reef system was added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger. It remains on the list today because of mangrove deforestation, unsustainable coastal development and offshore oil exploration. The good news is a coastal zone management plan can safeguard Belize’s natural assets and produce a win-win opportunity for the people and environment.

The coral reefs and coastal mangroves of Belize are necessary for both the wildlife that live there and the people who rely on it for income and protection. Help us save this threatened World Heritage site.