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Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle and Kevin Dolan and Dame Vivian Hunt and Sara Prince

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Although the business case for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is stronger than ever, many companies’ progress has stalled. A systematic approach and bold action can help.

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Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice | TED

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Philanthropist and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates discusses her new book, "The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World." Believing that all lives have equal value, Melinda and her husband, Bill Gates, have donated more than $50 billion to improving equity, health and education in the United States and around the world. Through her work at the foundation over the last 15 years, Melinda has seen firsthand that empowering women and girls can bring transformational improvements in the health and prosperity of families, communities and societies. "How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings?" Melinda asks. "And especially for women because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity."

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Super Soul - Melinda Gates: The Moment of Lift

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Philanthropist and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates discusses her new book, "The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World." Believing that all lives have equal value, Melinda and her husband, Bill Gates, have donated more than $50 billion to improving equity, health and education in the United States and around the world.

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Closing the gender gap IN STARTUP INVESTING THROUGH EDUCATION Education: Our goal is to shed light on the black box of startup investing for investors and founders through education. Transparency: 37 Angels has a process that's built around clear and open communication for both founders and funders.

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The Basic Facts About Women in Poverty

A woman in Miami spends time looking at videos with her 6-year-old granddaughter after being laid off from her job as a food service cashier in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, March 2020. (Getty/Joe Raedle)

This fact sheet contains a correction.
In the United States, more women than men live in poverty. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, of the 38.1 million people living in poverty in 2018, 56 percent-or 21.4 million-were women.*¹ The coronavirus pandemic has put individuals and families at an increased risk of falling into poverty in the United States, as they face greater economic insecurity, due in large part to unprecedented unemployment that has disproportionately affected women.² Congress' emergency unemployment assistance during the first few months of the pandemic staved off a predicted spike in the poverty rate; federal economic support must be extended throughout the duration of this fluctuating crisis to prevent an increase in the number of families living in poverty in the long term.³ Moreover, research has shown that the cost and financial burden of medical expenses in the United States pushes millions of families into poverty-a foreboding fact to consider in the midst of a global health pandemic.⁴ Illustratively, before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded coverage and lowered certain health costs, a leading cause of personal bankruptcy was medical debt, resulting from unexpected or unaffordable medical expenses.⁵

The following facts present a snapshot of women in poverty, explain why women experience higher rates of poverty, and explore the policy solutions that can best ensure lasting economic security for women and their families.

The federal poverty line: An imperfect measurement of poverty

The poverty estimates included in this fact sheet are based on the federal poverty line, or the minimum annual income for individuals and families determined by the U.S. government to pay for necessities. In 2018, the poverty line was set at an annual income of $13,064 for a single individual younger than age 65 and $25,465 for a family of four with two adults and two children.*⁶

While the federal poverty line is an important measure of economic insecurity and is widely used to determine eligibility for many public assistance programs, it is narrow and outdated.⁷ It takes into account the cost of food as a proportion of families' expenses, but it leaves out geographical differences and other essential costs of living, such housing, transportation, child care, and medical costs. One study⁸ found that more than 50 million households struggle to pay for basic necessities such as food, housing, and health care-despite only 16 million of them being officially classified as "in poverty." Another study⁹ found that based on an adjusted inflation measure, at least 3.2 million more people live in poverty than are counted by the federal government. However, due to the ubiquity of the federal poverty line and its real implications in determining people's eligibility for various programs, the authors define poverty as individuals falling below 100 percent of the federal poverty line, unless otherwise specified.

Quick facts about women living in poverty

Women experience higher rates of poverty than men. In 2018, 12.9 percent of women lived in poverty compared with 10.6 percent of men.*¹⁰ Nearly 10 million women lived in deep poverty, defined as falling below 50 percent of the federal poverty line.¹¹

Race and ethnicity

Women of nearly all races and ethnicities face higher rates of poverty than their male counterparts. (see Figure 1) The highest rates of poverty are experienced by American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN) women, Black women, and Latinas. About 1 in 4 AIAN women live in poverty-the highest rate of poverty among women or men of any racial or ethnic group.
Figure 1

Black women, Latinas, and AIAN women are also disproportionately represented among women living in poverty. (see Figure 2) While Latinas represent 18.1 percent of all women in the U.S. population, they constitute 27.1 percent of women in poverty. Similarly, Black women represent 22.3 percent of women in poverty but make up only 12.8 percent of all women in the U.S. population.
Figure 2

Marital and parental status

Unmarried mothers have higher rates of poverty than married women, with or without children, and unmarried women without children. (see Figure 3) Almost one-quarter of unmarried mothers live below the poverty line. In 2018, 11.9 million children younger than age 18 lived in poverty, making up 31.1 percent of those living in poverty.*¹²
Figure 3

Age

Poverty rates for women and men are nearly even throughout childhood, but the gap widens significantly for women ages 18 to 44-during prime childbearing years-and again for women age 75 and older. (see Figure 4) Between ages 25 and 34, women are 69 percent more likely than men of the same age to live in poverty. While the gap in poverty rates between women and men narrows after age 34, it never closes throughout their adult life, and it actually widens again in old age: 13.2 percent of women 75 years and older live in poverty compared with 8.8 percent of men the same age.
Figure 4

Disability status

Women with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty than both men with disabilities and individuals without disabilities. (see Figure 5) Women with disabilities have a poverty rate of 22.9 percent, compared with 17.9 percent for men with disabilities and 11.4 percent for women without disabilities.
Figure 5

Sexual orientation and gender identity

LGBTQ women experience higher rates of poverty than cisgender straight women and men due to the intersections of discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression. A 2019 survey by UCLA Law School's Williams Institute found that 17.9 percent of lesbian cisgender women, 29.4 percent of bisexual cisgender women, and 29.4 percent of transgender people lived in poverty, compared with 17.8 percent of straight cisgender women and 13.4 percent of straight cisgender men.¹³ They also found a similarly high poverty rate among gender-nonconforming people.¹⁴ Unfortunately, the Current Population Survey does not collect data about individual respondents' self-disclosed sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI), and only a handful of federal surveys collect SOGI data.¹⁵ Federal data collection must be improved to include the collection of SOGI data, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and other factors, to ensure a better understanding of the lived realities of all LGBTQ individuals.¹⁶

Why more women live in poverty

The effects of sexism and racism on institutional structures and across society limit the employment opportunities available to women, availability of caregiving supports, access to public social assistance programs, and more, leading to higher rates of poverty among women, particularly women of color, compared with men. Some of the interrelated causes include the following factors.

The gender wage gap

On average, women earn less than men-and the wage gaps are wider for most women of color. Based on 2018 U.S. Census Bureau data, women working full time, year-round earn an average of 82 cents for every $1 earned by their male counterparts.¹⁷ For every $1 earned by white, non-Hispanic men, Latinas earn 54 cents, AIAN women earn 57 cents, Black women earn 62 cents. Asian women overall earn about 90 cents, however women belonging to certain Asian subgroups experience much larger wage gaps.¹⁸ Not only do more women than men struggle to cover everyday expenses due to the gender wage gap, but the gap compounds over a lifetime, meaning women end up with fewer resources and savings than men. This represents a significant factor contributing to the gender disparity in poverty rates among women and men age 75 and older.

The gender wage gap is driven by a host of factors, including, but not limited to, differences in jobs or industries worked, hours worked, and years of experience-although differences in occupation or education level do not explain away the gap.¹⁹ Discrimination based on gender, race, and/or ethnicity plays a significant role in the wage gap, depressing women's earnings both directly, by paying women unequally, and indirectly, through sex- and race-based structural biases that can influence the jobs women hold and the number of hours they work.

The gender wealth gap

Women are less likely to have the savings and wealth necessary to weather financial shocks and provide for themselves and their families throughout their lifetimes. The gender wealth gap is informed by numerous factors, including the fact that women earn less than men; are more likely to be denied mortgages and to be overcharged for them; are particularly vulnerable to predatory lending; hold more debt; and face other obstacles that undermine their ability to build wealth and savings.²⁰ For example, women hold two-thirds of U.S. student loan debt, and Black women in particular graduate with more debt than any other group, regardless of gender.²¹ On average, a Black woman borrows a total of $37,558 to finance her education compared with $35,665 for a Black man and $31,346 for a white woman. Essential to note is that the wealth gap is significantly larger for women of color, who face both a wage gap and a wealth gap informed by both gender and racial discrimination.²²

Occupational segregation into low-paying jobs

Women are disproportionately represented in certain occupations-particularly low-wage jobs-due to pervasive gender roles, expectations that women's work is low skilled, and the systemic undervaluing of women's labor. These factors cause women, especially women of color, to be segregated into low-wage jobs and make low wages a defining feature of women-dominated jobs.²³ For example, in 2018, two of the top occupations for women had a median weekly wage of close to or below the 2018 weekly poverty threshold, $490, for a family of four: Women who are child care workers earned a median weekly wage of $492, and women who are maids and housekeepers earned $457 per week.*²⁴ Women represent about two-thirds of workers earning the federal minimum wage-$7.25 per hour-or a few dollars above it and nearly 70 percent of tipped workers, for whom the federal subminimum wage is $2.13 per hour.²⁵ Conversely, women are underrepresented in high-wage occupations such as engineers, in part due the professions' demand for long hours in the office and lack of flexibility for caregiving.

Lack of supportive work-family policies to manage work and caregiving

The United States lacks supportive work-family policies such as adequate funding for child care, a national paid family and medical leave program, and an earned paid sick leave law, which would help women manage work and caregiving responsibilities. Reliable child care, which enables parents to participate in the labor force, is often unaffordable and hard to find, which can contribute to lower employment among mothers compared with fathers.²⁶ The United States is an outlier among developed countries in failing to guarantee access to paid family and medical leave and paid sick leave, which would allow workers time away from work to recover from an illness, care for a sick family member, or care for a new child.²⁷ Without these critical work-family policies, women-who perform the majority of unpaid care work for children, elderly, and disabled family members-have fewer economic opportunities and are often forced to reduce their paid work hours or leave the workforce entirely.²⁸ Women are also more likely to be single mothers than men are to be single fathers, a driving factor of the gender differential in rates of poverty.²⁹ In addition, among parents with children younger than age 6, 25 percent of mothers work part time, and 35 percent are out of the labor force compared with just 4 percent and 5 percent of fathers, respectively.*³⁰ This caregiving burden on women has only worsened during the coronavirus crisis due to necessary school and child care provider closures, which are also likely contributing to the higher job losses among women.³¹

Disability

Disability is both a cause and consequence of poverty.³² People with disabilities face barriers to employment and have low earnings which can lead to economic hardship and poverty.³³ Only 16.4 percent of women with a disability were employed in 2018, compared with 60.2 percent of women without a disability.*³⁴ Moreover, disabled workers are more likely to work part time and in low-wage jobs without access to workplace protections and benefits.³⁵ Section 14(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act allows employers to pay workers with disabilities a fraction of the federal minimum wage.³⁶ Poverty can also limit access to quality and preventative health care, which can lead to or aggravate a disability, perpetuating the cycle of poverty for women with disabilities.³⁷

Domestic violence

Domestic violence can worsen women's economic standing in the United States, causing them to lose an average of 8 million days of paid work per year.³⁸ A study published in 2016 found that about one-quarter to slightly more than half of women experiencing homelessness reported that domestic violence was the immediate cause.³⁹ Financial costs to survivors of domestic violence can also increase if they need to address trauma experienced or disabilities acquired as a result of the violence.⁴⁰ These facts are part of a cycle of violence that both disproportionately affects low-income women and perpetuates women's economic insecurity.⁴¹ Over the years, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has led to lowered rates of gender-based violence in the United States, in part due to its programs and services, including local shelters, transitional housing programs, culturally specific support services, and much more.⁴² However, these programs and services are unable to meet the ongoing needs of survivors without significantly more funding and resources.⁴³

Inadequate and inaccessible public supports

Essential public social assistance programs designed to alleviate financial hardship do not provide sufficient support and are not as widely accessible as needed. Some of the most essential programs in need of enhancement include:

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP): SNAP, which provides nutrition assistance to low-income families, helped feed 38 million people in 2019 alone, but the program is still in need of vital improvements.⁴⁵ More than half of SNAP recipients exhaust the monthly benefit within the first two weeks of receipt, and the current benefit is too low to adequately meet household needs.⁴⁶ Meanwhile, opponents of the program continue to explore ways to exclude hundreds of thousands of hungry individuals and families from lifesaving benefits.⁴⁷

Medicaid: Medicaid has historically provided essential health coverage to certain low-income individuals, including children, pregnant people, seniors, and people with disabilities. Medicaid is critical for women's health; women and girls make up the majority of beneficiaries, and the program provides key services related to pregnancy and other reproductive health.⁴⁹ As of July 2020, 36 states and Washington, D.C., have expanded eligibility for their Medicaid programs under the ACA to adults with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty line, regardless of their pregnancy, disability, or parenting status.⁵⁰ Medicaid expansion has reduced the number of uninsured Americans, decreased unpaid medical bills, and eased financial stress among low-income families.⁵¹ However, continued attacks on the ACA have put millions of people-particularly Black women and Latinas-at risk of losing health coverage under Medicaid.⁵² These attacks are on top of additional barriers to health care for many low-income women, including harmful Medicaid work requirements, an insufficient duration of pregnancy-only Medicaid coverage, and the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits certain federal funding from covering abortion care outside of the limited instances of rape, incest, and life endangerment.⁵³

Earned income tax credit (EITC) and child tax credit (CTC): The EITC and CTC are two of the most effective income boosters for low-income families available under the U.S. tax code.⁵⁴ The EITC is a refundable federal tax credit available to people with low to moderate incomes and was received by 8.8 million women of color in 2018 alone.⁵⁵ While the EITC is beneficial to families with children in particular, 5 million low-income workers without children do not sufficiently benefit-eligible for a maximum credit of only $538 in 2020.⁵⁶ The CTC provides families with a credit of up to $2,000 per child younger than 17 years old, but stagnant wages and rising child-related costs render it insufficient to meet the needs of low-income families.⁵⁷ The CTC is not fully refundable, and it fails the lowest-income families because they may be excluded by the minimum earnings requirement and do not receive an increased benefit when their children are young-when costs are highest.⁵⁸ Finally, both EITC and CTC benefits only come once per year, too infrequent to cover recurring costs such as food bills, housing payments, and child-related expenses.

Steps to reduce poverty among women

Lifting women out of poverty requires a variety of robust policy solutions that will ensure women's long-term economic security. These include:

Raising the minimum wage and eliminating the subminimum wages for tipped and disabled workers: Congress must raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, as proposed by the Raise the Wage Act,⁶⁵ which would benefit more than 19 million women.⁶⁶ Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would bring the earnings for a full-time minimum wage worker in a family of four above the federal poverty line for the first time.⁶⁷ The legislation would also phase out the subminimum wages for tipped workers and workers with disabilities until their wages reach parity with the full minimum wage. States that have eliminated the subminimum wage for tipped workers have significantly lower poverty rates among tipped workers.⁶⁸

Ensuring access to work-family policies: Congress must pass the Child Care for Working Families Act to make vital structural reforms to limit child care costs to parents, increase child care assistance to low-income families, and ensure access to a range of care options.⁶⁹ Workers, especially low-wage workers, who are more likely to be women, need fair and predictable work schedules, as would be required through the Schedules That Work Act.⁷⁰ All workers also need access to paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave, as proposed in the Providing Americans Insured Days of Leave Act of 2020.⁷¹

Improving tax credits: Lawmakers must expand tax benefits, such as the EITC and CTC, to ensure that they provide the critical support needed for families with children-particularly those living in poverty. Congress should pass legislation such as the Working Families Tax Relief Act⁷⁹ and the American Family Act,⁸⁰ which propose necessary improvements such as disbursing benefits monthly rather than once a year through tax refunds, increasing the maximum benefit per young child with a new monthly young child tax credit, and making the CTC fully refundable to help the lowest-income families. The Working Families Tax Relief Act also includes essential provisions to better help individuals and families without children, by expanding EITC eligibility and increasing the maximum benefit for childless workers.⁸¹

Conclusion

To lift women out of poverty, policy solutions must address the myriad ways that structural and societal sexism and racism uniquely burden women, depress their wages, and limit their opportunities. This includes improving vital public assistance programs, addressing workplace disparities, ensuring work-family benefits, and expanding access to lifesaving supports. These robust solutions must prioritize the needs of women of color, who are at heightened risk of poverty due to the combined effects of gender and racial discrimination. Poverty among women is not inevitable, and only intentional efforts to expand opportunities and supports for all women will ensure lasting economic security for women and their families.
Robin Bleiweis is a research associate for women's economic security for the Women's Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Diana Boesch is a policy analyst for women's economic security with the Women's Initiative at the Center. Alexandra Cawthorne Gaines is the vice president of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center. The authors would like to thank Shilpa Phadke, Jamille Fields Allsbrook, Jocelyn Frye, Osub Ahmed, Sharita Gruberg, Rasheed Malik, Lily Roberts, Rebecca Cokley, Sarah Jane Glynn, and Richard Figueroa from the Center for American Progress for their contributions to this fact sheet. Special thanks to Justin Schweitzer for his thorough fact check and invaluable edits and suggestions. * Correction, August 7, 2020: Some of the language in this fact sheet identified 2018 data reported in the 2019 Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, incorrectly as 2019 data. These years were corrected to 2018. For consistent comparison, 2019 data from other sources were updated to reflect 2018 data, when available.

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. A full list of supporters is available here. American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

Robin Bleiweis

Research Associate, Women's Economic Security

Diana Boesch

Policy Analyst, Women's Economic Security

Alexandra Cawthorne Gaines

Vice President, Poverty to Prosperity

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The Basic Facts About Women in Poverty This fact sheet contains a correction. In the United States, more women than men live in poverty. According to U.S.

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Mountain gorillas of Rwanda making a comeback

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Mountain gorillas of Rwanda making a comeback

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With close to a million species now threatened with extinction, it's not often you hear about a conservation success story. But the mountain gorillas of the East African nation of Rwanda are just that.

When American naturalist Dian Fossey moved to Rwanda half a century ago to study mountain gorillas, their numbers were dwindling, down to just 254 individuals, but today they're up to over 600, with another 400 in neighboring Uganda -- the only great ape whose numbers are actually on the rise. How they've done it? A joint effort by scientists and government to save gorillas and help the human communities around them, with a key role played by tourists.

These are the Virunga Volcanoes, home to most of the world's mountain gorillas. Dian Fossey aptly called them gorillas in the mist. But when the mist lifts, they are gorillas in the sun, doing what mountain gorillas do: eat, rest, eatsome more and snuggle.

Tara Stoinski: When you look in the eyes of a gorilla, you see a kindred spirit looking back at you. They are so much like us. They have friends, they have enemies. They love to play. They love to eat. They love to nap. They are incredible moms and incredible dads.

Primatologist Tara Stoinski heads the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, a nonprofit research and conservation organization that grew out of Fossey's work.

Lesley Stahl: How many years did she live up here alone?

Tara Stoinski: She was in the forest for 18 years.

Fossey was sent to Rwanda in 1967 by famed anthropologist Louis Leakey, who had also sent Jane Goodall to Tanzania to study chimps.

Tara Stoinski: The people in the region, they gave her a nickname: Nyiramacibiri, which meant Woman That Lives Alone In The Forest. I'm sure they wondered, like, what was she doing up there?

Lesley Stahl: Strange woman living up--

Tara Stoinski: Strange woman.

Lesley Stahl: --in the mount--

Tara Stoinski: And very tall. She was 6 [feet tall].

What she was doing, as Stoinski showed us, was observing gorillas for hours a day.

Tara Stoinski: What she would do each night is come back and type up all of her notes.

Lesley Stahl (Reading): "There is some soft pig grunting heard from the silverback, and gas is released."

Lesley Stahl: And this just goes on and--

Tara Stoinski: On and on, yeah.

Lesley Stahl: --on and on?

Fossey's research -- and her appearances in National Geographic -- helped change the perception of gorillas from aggressive, King Kong brutes, to the gentle vegetarian giants they actually are. But gorillas back then were under assault.

Lesley Stahl: Why were there poachers? Why were people interested?

Tara Stoinski: Well, at the time, people unfortunately wanted parts of gorillas as trophies. So they wanted a gorilla head for their mantelpiece, or a-- a gorilla hand.

The gorillas' habitat was also being eaten away, as thousands of acres of forest were cut down so farmers could plant cash crops up the mountainside. The demarcation line between farmland and forest stands out like a bad haircut, showing how little land gorillas have left.

Lesley Stahl: We cut down their homes.

Tara Stoinski: Yeah, I mean unfortunately, that's the story for wildlife around the world.

But here, that story is getting a rewrite -- and the new version starts at Volcanoes National Park headquarters every morning, where tourists gather to trek to see gorillas, led by expert guides.

The Rwandan government regulates the visits -- no more than eight people per group, for just one hour with the gorillas, with precautions taken to protect them from human illness. The price tag is steep -- $1,500 per person -- turning Rwanda, a country known for its horrific 1994 genocide, not so much for its beautiful scenery, into a prime destination for the wealthy. Some of the most luxurious hotels in the world have opened here, generating tens of millions in tourism revenue.

Lesley Stahl: Other countries have diamonds, oil.

Would you say that gorillas are the most important natural resource of this whole country?

Tara Stoinski: Definitely. Definitely--

Lesley Stahl: Definitely?

Tara Stoinski: Yeah. It's one of if not the top source of foreign revenue, is tourism to see the gorillas.

Lesley Stahl: For the whole country?

Tara Stoinski: For the whole country.

The government gives 10% of the money from those gorilla treks to districts that border national parks, in a program called tourism revenue sharing.

Prosper Uwingeli: As you see this school behind, that was before.

Chief park warden Prosper Uwingeli met us at a local primary school. Behind him was the old school. Behind me, new classrooms paid for by tourism revenue sharing funds.

Lesley Stahl: It costs $1,500.

Prosper Uwingeli: Yes.

Lesley Stahl: --to go see the gorillas for one hour--

Prosper Uwingeli: For one hour. Special experience.

He admits it's a lot, but says it's made a tremendous difference in his meetings with local leaders.

Prosper Uwingeli: We go there and we listen what communities want the tourism revenue sharing to-- to support.

Lesley Stahl: They decide?

Prosper Uwingeli: Yeah, they decide.

This village built a health center, new housing with water tanks and electricity, a new marketplace. The 10% gives communities up to 650,000 U.S. dollars a year.

Uwingeli divides his time between greeting tourists, managing his rangers, and traveling around these villages -- talking, cajoling, and celebrating what tourism revenue has achieved. A few years back, this community chose to get milking cows, which have since had calves. So the cows are now being given to new needy families. And those colorful striped sweaters? They're a product of tourism revenue sharing too. One year this community used its funds to buy knitting machines.

Lesley Stahl: A lot of the guides, porters come from these communities--

Tara Stoinski: --from these communities. And some of them are former poachers themselves.

Lesley Stahl: No?

Tara Stoinski: Yeah.

Lesley Stahl: Some of the porters and guides?

Tara Stoinski: Yeah.

Lesley Stahl: Were poachers?

Tara Stoinski: Or come from poacher families.

Lesley Stahl: So has all poaching of gorillas stopped?

Prosper Uwingeli: Yeah. In Rwanda, yes. Confidently, yes.

But gorillas can still get caught in snares set for smaller animals like antelopes, so the Fossey Fund dispatches a small army of trackers every morning, 365 days a year.

Tara Stoinski: We go out into the forest. We know every gorilla in all of the families that we monitor. We check and make sure every one of them is okay. If one looks ill, we'll notify the veterinarians. And we call this extreme conservation.

It could also be called an extreme workout. We set off on a gorilla trek with Stoinski, Uwingeli and a team of porters. Visiting mountain gorillas is no walk in the park. It's an uphill hike for more than an hour at an altitude of 8000 feet, through that farmland that once belonged to the gorillas just to get to the park.

Lesley Stahl: Are you out of breath?

Tara Stoinski: Yes. [LAUGHS]

Lesley Stahl: Or is it just me?

Then, just as we reached the park border...

Lesley Stahl: [GASP, POINTS] Oh, my goodness gracious, I can't believe this.

A silverback, used to seeing tourists, sat calmly eating.

Lesley Stahl: He's right here.

Unfazed by our gawking and pointing. Uwingeli told us he's an adult male named Lisanga. Fossey Fund country director Felix Ndagijimana taught us how to signal that we come in peace.

Inside the park, after more climbing...

Tara Stoinski: Look, Lesley, look. Lesley--

Lesley Stahl: Oh look at the baby. Oh my goodness.

We found the rest of Lisanga's group. Uwingeli told us the dominant silverback was heading higher up the mountain, so the whole group was following. And so were we.

In a sign of the population's health, this group has 5 infants, and several juveniles.

Lesley Stahl: Oh, my goodness, they're--

Tara Stoinski: Yeah, they're having a ball.

Lesley Stahl: That's serious.

Tara Stoinski: They're havin' a ball.

She told us they play for fun -- and to practice fighting. Or perhaps, just to show us who's boss.

Near us in the forest, it sounded like a silverback photo shoot was going on. But Fossey Fund research assistant Nadia Niyonizeye wasn't snapping ordinary pictures. She was using a technique called photogrammetry to get better measurements of gorilla size by beaming lasers on to the gorilla's body and head, which it doesn't feel.

Nadia Niyonizeye: There are four centimeter in between each.

Lesley Stahl: Oh, I see it.

Back at the office, she uses the dots to make precise calculations of their size.

Science remains the heart of the Fossey Fund's mission. They have the largest collection anywhere of gorilla skeletons, where scientists from around the world come to do research, and a gorilla poop lab.

Lesley Stahl: You gather their poop?

Tara Stoinski: It's like a treasure trove of information for us.

To study stress hormones and do DNA and paternity testing. But Stoinski says they're running out of space.

So they're constructing a new, multi-building green campus with initial funding from Ellen Degeneres. Set to open next year, it'll celebrate the progress made in saving mountain gorillas -- with plenty of space for researchers, exhibits for tourists and people from local communities. And views of the volcanoes.

Lesley Stahl: And you can see the mist.

Tara Stoinski: It really rolls in.

The building process itself reinforces the fund's motto -- "helping people saving gorillas." It's employing more than 1,500 local workers, more than 20% of them women. One exhibit on display here will teach visitors to speak like a gorilla.

Tara Stoinski: We can play it.
FEMALE VOICE (ON TAPE): Welcome to Gorilla Chat.
Tara Stoinski: You can hear.
FEMALE VOICE (ON TAPE): We're happy that you want to learn to speak like a gorilla.
It plays gorilla vocalizations somewhat comparable to human ones. Yes, gorillas laugh.

Tara Stoinski: Isn't that great? So the idea is that you have to try and mimic it.

Lesley Stahl: That's impossible.

She gave me one she said was simple.

Tara Stoinski: So this is the pig grunt.

Lesley Stahl: What does it mean?

Tara Stoinski: It's kind of like a mild warning. The sort of human version is, "Unh-unh-unh."

Lesley Stahl: You're on thin ice.

Tara Stoinski: You wanna try it with me recording and see?

Lesley Stahl: Yeah.

Tara Stoinski: Okay. (BEEPS)

Lesley Stahl: [GRUNTS] (LAUGHTER) "Try again--"

Tara Stoinski: Again. (LAUGH)

Lesley Stahl: I did such a bad job.

Tara Stoinski: It's hard.

Lesley Stahl: So fun.

Tara Stoinski: Won't it be fun, though?

Stoinski wants school kids to come and be inspired to solve the next set of problems -- increasing numbers of gorillas inhabiting a fixed amount of space.

Tara Stoinski: As the population has increased, but the habitat hasn't, it is putting more pressure on the gorillas. And so the government is looking to try and expand the park so that there will be more space so that population can continue to grow.

There are plans to expand the park by 23% and relocate communities to what the government calls model villages like this one, with electricity and brand new schools. Trying to make park expansion another win-win for gorillas and their human neighbors.

Lesley Stahl: It's a success story.

Tara Stoinski: It is a success story, definitely, but we say it's a fragile success because there are so few of them left and there are still so many threats.

But for now, the news is good. So far this year, 24 new baby gorillas have been born here.

Prosper Uwingeli: Wow, I mean, you can't have enough of telling those stories of gorillas-- when you look at the moms carrying the babies--

Lesley Stahl: Do you know that when you talk about gorillas, your face completely lights up?

Prosper Uwingeli: I know about it. But much of the smile comes from what they're helping us to achieve. That's really the best way we can serve the next generation of kids, gorillas, and-- and-- and people.
Produced by Shari Finkelstein. Associate producer, Braden Cleveland Bergan. Broadcast associate, Wren Woodson. Edited by April Wilson.

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Mountain gorillas of Rwanda making a comeback

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With close to a million species now threatened with extinction, it's not often you hear about a conservation success story. But the mountain gorillas of the East African nation of Rwanda are just that.

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Trabian Shorters is a visionary who has seen and named a task that is necessary for all healing and building, for every vision and plan, whether in a family or a world, to flourish. It's called Asset Framing - and it works with both new understandings of the brain and an age-old understanding of the real-world power of the words we use, the stories we tell, and the way we name things and people. From everyday social media, to hallowed modes of journalistic, academic, and policy analyses, we have a habit of seeing deficits - and of defining people in need in terms of their problems. This has not only doomed some of our best efforts to failure - it leaves all of us prone to cynicism and hopelessness. What's exciting is that what Trabian Shorters proposes is not only more effective, it is simple and straightforward to grasp. It is in and of itself dignifying and renewing. The main question you might be asking at the end of this is why, at this advanced stage of our species, it took us so long to learn to asset frame. Trabian Shorters consults widely in philanthropy, business, nonprofits, and journalism. He's the founder and CEO of the BMe Community. He's been a Vice President of Communities at the Knight Foundation, co-led the Ashoka-US venture team, and founded a successful early social impact tech company in 1999. He's co-editor of the book, _Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living, Leading and Succeeding._ Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.

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On Being with Krista Tippett - Robin Wall Kimmerer - The Intelligence of Plants

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As a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin Wall Kimmerer joins science's ability to "polish the art of seeing" with her personal, civilizational lineage of listening to plant life and heeding the languages of the natural world. She's an expert in moss - a bryologist - who describes mosses as the "coral reefs of the forest."

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Pipeline Angels: We’re Changing the Face of Angel Investing!

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Pipeline Angels is changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs. Our members serve as the friends and family round for entrepreneurs who may not already have support at that critical stage.

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September 22, 2011 - Women and girls are in the spotlight this week as the World Bank launched its World Development Report 2012, "Gender Equality and Development," and ignited a global conversation on how investing in girls is both the right thing to do and smart economics. Joined by the Nike Foundation, the Bank hosted its global Open Forum on Gender and the message was clear: the girl effect all starts with education.
Investing in Education Improves Gender Equality
" Investing in girls is smart," says World Bank President, Robert Zoellick. " It is central to boosting development, breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, and allowing girls, and then women-50 percent of the world's population-to lead better, fairer and more productive lives."

Educating women and girls is fundamental to development and growth because learning and skills enable all people to live healthier, happier, and more productive lives. Research shows that providing girls with an extra year of schooling can increase individual wages by up to 20 percent, while also lowering birth rates, which can have a profound economic impact. An increase of one standard deviation in student scores on international assessments of literacy and mathematics is associated with a 2 percent increase in annual GDP per capita growth. The benefits of education can also transmit across generations as more educated people have fewer children and provide their children with better health care and education. Curbing the intergenerational transmission of poverty is especially important for girls and women.

The Bank plays a key role in advancing gender equality through girls' education, building on an over 20 year foundation of research, funding, policy dialogue, and partnerships. The Bank's commitment and actions are illustrated in a new Companion Note to the WDR, Getting to Equal: Promoting Gender Equality through Human Development. The Companion Note links the WDR 2012 framework (the interactions between households, markets, and institutions) and policy recommendations to the Education Strategy 2020, Learning for All, with examples of global success stories.
Reaching the Most Disadvantaged Girls and Making Education Count
A combination of effective policies and sustained national investments in education have resulted in tremendous gains in access to schooling. Yet WDR 2012 points toward three challenges for the future of girls' education: improving learning outcomes, addressing the needs of severely disadvantaged populations, and reducing segregation in fields of study. Evidence shows that it is what students learn-not the number of years that they spend in school- that leads to growth, development, and poverty reduction. As the WDR 2012 notes, "Only 27 percent of children ages 10 and 11 in India can read a simple passage, do a simple division problem, tell the time, and handle money." The WDR 2012 and the Education Strategy 2020 stress learning and addressing constraints faced by populations contending with multiple disadvantages: gender, poverty, rural/urban divides, ethno-linguistic background, and disability.

When an education system fails to deliver learning, the failure is often severe for poor and disadvantaged children and young people. The Education Sector Strategy 2020 addresses the final education policy recommendation of the WDR 2012 in that it aims to improve the labor-market relevance of education by focusing more on the match between skills acquired and skills required. With women representing 40 percent of the global labor force and growing, any discussion of the linkages between education and the labor market must include how all people are given the opportunities to pursue the livelihood they desire.
Moving the Pendulum Forward on Girls' Education
As one of the founding agencies of the Education for All (EFA) movement, the Bank, along with United Nations partner agencies, has worked to improve the quality of education and learning for all, especially girls. It also has served as both a convener and a bank of knowledge, helping re-energize the global debate on gender equality in education and accelerate the collective global response to the persistent challenges of women's equality and empowerment. A growing number of Bank-supported impact evaluations of education projects, such as those in Cambodia, Colombia, Malawi, and Pakistan, are shedding new light on the gender impact of scholarships and other demand-side interventions, as well as on governance reforms that enhance school performance and accountability. In September 2010, the Bank pledged an additional $750 million through 2015 to help countries meet the education MDGs of universal access and gender parity. The Bank will continue to work through partnerships such as the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative and the Global Partnership for Education to advance gender equality in education.
Education projects help promote Gender Equality Improving Services to reduce Gender Gaps in Human Capital Enrolling more girls in school in Yemen
Yemen has made significant progress toward universal primary education over the past decade, including increasing girls' enrollment from 49 percent in 1999 to 78 percent in 2009. Despite this growth, many girls from rural areas remain out of school-and those who are enrolled tend tobe over-age, with most dropping out before completing the primary cycle. With financing from the Bank's Fund for the Poorest and the InternationalDevelopment Association, the Basic Education Development Program aims to increase school enrollment in the country (with a particularfocus on gender equality in impoverished districts) and improve the quality of teaching. As of 2009, the project had built almost 4,000 classroomsand trained over 90,000 teachers. To close the gender gap in education, the project has provided conditional cash transfers to more than 30,000girls from the most underprivileged rural households, starting in 2008. It has also focused on recruiting and training female teachers to makegirls' education more culturally acceptable. The gross primary school enrollment rate in the country rose from 68 percent to 87 percent over theperiod 1999-2009, with larger gains for girls than for boys. This improvement in overall basic education also contributed to a considerable rise inthe grade 6 completion rate for girls, from 38 percent in 2001 to 51 percent in 2009.
Making Markets work for Gender Equality Improving education access and quality through private schools in Pakistan
Pakistan faces significant challenges in public education: 30 percent of primary school-age children are still not inschool, the primary school gender parity index (GPI) is 0.8, and half of the country's population is less than 17 years old. At the cost of just a dime a day per student, the government is subsidizing private schools as a promisingsolution to these challenges. In Punjab, the largest province and home to 60 percent of the country's total population,the Bank is helping expand access to quality education and promote better governance and accountability inthe education system. The Punjab Education Sector Project (PESP) is a performance-based project that supportsthe government's reform program, which aims to increase school enrollment and completion rates, reduce genderand urban-rural disparities in school participation, and strengthen the measurement of student learning. Underthe government's program, over 400,000 eligible girls receive targeted monthly stipends pegged to school attendancein the 16 lowest literacy districts. In addition, the government financially supports approximately 2,000 low-cost private schools that serve almost one millionstudents from lower-income quintiles.

Another Bank-supported project promoting gender equality in education in Pakistan is the Sindh EducationSector Project (SEP), which supports a government reform program that directly affects the schooling conditionsof 3.8 million students. Since 2007 (the baseline for the project), the primary net enrollment rate has increasedfrom 50 to 54 percent, or an additional 600,000 children, and the ratio of female-male primary net enrollmentin rural areas rose from 61 to 76 percent. The government program also includes a public-private partnershipprogram that offers subsidies for individuals or organizations to set up and operate free, coeducational,primary schools in underserved rural communities, with subsidies tied to quality-related standards. Preliminaryresults from the first year showed large gains in getting children into school and even larger gains for girls, erasingthe pre-existing gender gap. The program counted among the cheapest interventions in developing countriesfor generating enrollment gains. Both the publicprivate partnership programs in Punjab and Sindh provinceshave also generated significant achievement gains in program schools; in the case of Sindh, achievementgains in the target communities have been as large as two standard deviations in a span of two academic years. Aprevious, similar pilot project in Balochistan province also resulted in substantial increases in school enrollment, with the gains for girls well exceeding those for boys.
Breaking Normative Barriers to Gender Equality Creating more engineering educational opportunities for women in India
Through the Second Technical/Engineering Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP), the Bank is working with the government of India to strengthen higher and technical education vital to addressing current skill shortages in the country's economy. The project is improving the quality of engineering schools and thus helping expand the pool of highly qualified engineers, including by targeting women. Specific interventions include promoting the capacity building of technical education policy planners and administrators and strengthening monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to improve the governance of institutions. The project's Equity Action Plan helps ensure that students and teachers from tribal communities and other vulnerable groups, including girls, benefit equally from the project. Despite rising female enrollment in engineering programs in India, increases are not occurring in all disciplines, and the "gender-friendliness" of many campuses needs to be improved. This means ensuring that all refurbishments financed by the project will follow infrastructure guidelines to improve the ability of campuses to serve both women and disabled students, as well as expanding access to training for female engineering faculty.
Using Household Incentives to Achieve Gender Equality Keeping boys in school in the Caribbean
Many poor households in both the Caribbean and Central America are unable to invest in secondary schooling for their children due to cash constraints and other factors, resulting in school dropouts. Particularly among boys, limited opportunity for gainful employment contributes to their engagement in crime and violence and an impoverished adulthood. Conditional cash transfers can be designed to address this problem by properly identifying the constraints to secondary schooling and responding with the right incentives to keep boys in school. In 2008, the Bank's Jamaica Social Protection Project was set up to improve the design of the government's PATH program, which aims to offset the higher opportunity cost of boys staying in school. The PATH program provides greater benefits to boys than girls for school attendance, which rise incrementally for every additional year of secondary school completed, and a bonus for graduating from high school and moving on to tertiary education or training. Preliminary results and qualitative analysis indicate that the project has already helped increase the school attendance of secondary school-age boys and thus close the gender gap.
Getting more girls into school in Cambodia
Most Cambodian children attend school, but low completion rates remain an issue, especially in rural areas and among girls. Among rural girls, only 78 percent of 15-19 year-olds complete grade 1 and only 17 percent complete grade 7. In 2005, the Bank launched the Cambodia Education Sector Support Project (CESSP) to address constraints in supply, demand, quality and efficiency, with a special focus on poor and underserved communities. The project has promoted gender equality in a number of ways. First, the project encouraged girls' school enrollment and attendance by expanding schools in poor areas to shorten travel distances and promote community oversight; improving school sanitation facilities, with separate facilities for girls; and providing a clean and safe physical environment. Second, the project is also using teacher training as an avenue to challenge gender stereotypes, leading to greater awareness-raising about the importance of equal access for boys and girls to education and other opportunities. Third, by expanding the government's effort to provide scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, with a disproportionate number of scholarships targeted to girls. The project funded scholarships of $60 and $45 to students ready to make the transition from primary to secondary school, provided that students enrolled in school, maintained a passing grade, and were absent without "good reason" fewer than 10 days in a year. The program resulted in more than a 20 percentage point increase in enrollment and attendance in participating schools for both girls and boys 18 months after they first joined the program, and 4 years later were found to also have increased the transition rates to upper secondary school, especially among girls.
Creating opportunities through early childhood development programs in Mozambique
Regardless of income, women worldwide bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for child care, which often limits their ability to pursueeducational or economic opportunities. Access to subsidized, quality child care is positively associated with increases in the number of hourswomen work, particularly in formal sector jobs, suggesting that better access to child care affords women greater flexibility and income-earningopportunities. In collaboration with the Government of Mozambique and Save the Children, the Bank conducted an impact evaluation of innovative,community-driven early childhood development (ECD) centers in the rural Gaza province, where 42 percent of children who do not receiveECD services are stunted and 50 percent are at risk in terms of cognitive functioning. These delays have significant implications for children'sreadiness to learn and, therefore, their future success. The ECD program enrolls poor and vulnerable children aged 3-5 in high-quality, low-costECD services that build the foundation for lifelong learning. The program promotes cognitive stimulation and language skills, as well as goodhealth, nutrition, and hygiene practices at home, which mostly benefit women. After 2 years, girls who participated in the programs were significantlymore likely to be enrolled in primary school at the right age than girls who did not participate. Participants also scored significantly betteron measures of cognitive, fine motor, and socioemotional development, and were better prepared to learn. The gender equality impacts extendeven further, as big brothers and sisters were more likely to be enrolled in school, and both fathers and mothers were more likely to be engagedin income-generating activities, presumably because the preschool program frees up several hours of each day previously spent in child rearing.

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Getting to Equal: How Educating Every Girl Can Help Break the Cycle of Poverty

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September 22, 2011 - Women and girls are in the spotlight this week as the World Bank launched its World Development Report 2012, "Gender Equality and Development," and ignited a global conversation on how investing in girls is both the right thing to do and smart economics.

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The Hopecast: Jane Goodall's Podcast - Jane Goodall

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Photo credits in order: Vincent Calmel, JGI/Hugo Van Lawick

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A powerful new theory of human nature suggests that our secret to success as a species is our unique friendliness

"Brilliant, eye-opening, and absolutely inspiring-and a riveting read. Hare and Woods have written the perfect book for our time."-Cass R. Sunstein, author of How Change Happens and co-author of Nudge

For most of the approximately 300,000 years that Homo sapiens have existed, we have shared the planet with at least four other types of humans. All of these were smart, strong, and inventive. But around 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens made a cognitive leap that gave us an edge over other species. What happened?

Since Charles Darwin wrote about "evolutionary fitness," the idea of fitness has been confused with physical strength, tactical brilliance, and aggression. In fact, what made us evolutionarily fit was a remarkable kind of friendliness, a virtuosic ability to coordinate and communicate with others that allowed us to achieve all the cultural and technical marvels in human history. Advancing what they call the "self-domestication theory," Brian Hare, professor in the department of evolutionary anthropology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University and his wife, Vanessa Woods, a research scientist and award-winning journalist, shed light on the mysterious leap in human cognition that allowed Homo sapiens to thrive.

But this gift for friendliness came at a cost. Just as a mother bear is most dangerous around her cubs, we are at our most dangerous when someone we love is threatened by an "outsider." The threatening outsider is demoted to sub-human, fair game for our worst instincts. Hare's groundbreaking research, developed in close coordination with Richard Wrangham and Michael Tomasello, giants in the field of cognitive evolution, reveals that the same traits that make us the most tolerant species on the planet also make us the cruelest.

Survival of the Friendliest offers us a new way to look at our cultural as well as cognitive evolution and sends a clear message: In order to survive and even to flourish, we need to expand our definition of who belongs.

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Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity

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Buy Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders

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Unlock the Power of
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Unlock the Power of Markets for Impact SOCAP is the thought leadership platform for the accelerating movement towards a more just and sustainable economy. We convene a global ecosystem and marketplace - social entrepreneurs, investors, foundation and nonprofit leaders, government and policy leaders, creators, corporations, academics, and beyond - through live and digital experiences that educate, spur conversation, and inspire investment in positive impact.

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Benefits of economic empowerment

Women's economic empowerment is central to realizing women's rights and gender equality. Women's economic empowerment includes women's ability to participate equally in existing markets; their access to and control over productive resources, access to decent work, control over their own time, lives and bodies; and increased voice, agency and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels from the household to international institutions.

Empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work are key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [1] and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 5, to achieve gender equality, and Goal 8, to promote full and productive employment and decent work for all; also Goal 1 on ending poverty, Goal 2 on food security, Goal 3 on ensuring health and Goal 10 on reducing inequalities.

When more women work, economies grow. Women's economic empowerment boosts productivity, increases economic diversification and income equality in addition to other positive development outcomes.[2] For example, increasing the female employment rates in OECD countries to match that of Sweden, could boost GDP by over USD 6 trillion,[3] recognizing, however, that. growth does not automatically lead to a reduction in gender-based inequality. Conversely, it is estimated that gender gaps cost the economy some 15 percent of GDP.[4]

Increasing women's and girls' educational attainment contributes to women's economic empowerment and more inclusive economic growth. Education, upskilling and re-skilling over the life course - especially to keep pace with rapid technological and digital transformations affecting jobs-are critical for women's and girl's health and wellbeing, as well as their income-generation opportunities and participation in the formal labour market. Increased educational attainment accounts for about 50 per cent of the economic growth in OECD countries over the past 50 years.[5] But, for the majority of women, significant gains in education have not translated into better labour market outcomes.[6]

Women's economic equality is good for business. Companies greatly benefit from increasing employment and leadership opportunities for women, which is shown to increase organizational effectiveness and growth. It is estimated that companies with three or more women in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of organizational performance.[7]

The world of work

Gender differences in laws affect both developing and developed economies, and women in all regions. Globally, over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. Of 189 economies assessed in 2018, 104 economies still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 economies have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and in 18 economies, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working. [8]

Women remain less likely to participate in the labour market than men around the world. Labour force participation rate for women aged 25-54 is 63 per cent compared to 94 per cent for men. [9] When including younger (aged 15 years and up) and older women (aged 55 and up) , in 2018 women's global labour force participation rate is event lower at 48.5 per cent, 26.5 percentage points below that of men.[10]

Women are more likely to be unemployed than men. In 2017, global unemployment rates for men and women stood at 5.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively. This is projected to remain relatively unchanged going into 2018 and through 2021.[11]

Women are over-represented in informal and vulnerable employment. Women are more than twice as likely than men to be contributing family workers.[12] From the latest available data, the share of women in informal employment in developing countries was 4.6 percentage points higher than that of men, when including agricultural workers, and 7.8 percentage points higher when excluding them.[13]

Globally, women are paid less than men. The gender wage gap is estimated to be 23 per cent. This means that women earn 77 per cent of what men earn, though these figures understate the real extent of gender pay gaps, particularly in developing countries where informal self-employment is prevalent.[14] Women also face the motherhood wage penalty, which increases as the number of children a woman has increases.[15]

Women bear disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work. Women tend to spend around 2.5 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men.[16] The amount of time devoted to unpaid care work is negatively correlated with female labour force participation.[17]

Unpaid care work is essential to the functioning of the economy, but often goes uncounted and unrecognized.[18]. It is estimated that if women's unpaid work were assigned a monetary value, it would constitute between 10 per cent and 39 per cent of GDP.[19]

Women are still less likely to have access to social protection. Gender inequalities in employment and job quality result in gender gaps in access to social protection acquired through employment, such as pensions, unemployment benefits or maternity protection. Globally, an estimated nearly 40 per cent of women in wage employment do not have access to social protection.[20]

Women are less likely than men to have access to financial institutions or have a bank account. While 65 per cent of men report having an account at a formal financial institution, only 58 per cent of women do worldwide. [21]

The digital divide remains a gendered one: most of the 3.9 billion people who are offline are in rural areas, poorer, less educated and tend to be women and girls.[22]

Women are less likely to be entrepreneurs and face more disadvantages starting businesses: In 40% of economies, women's early stage entrepreneurial activity is half or less than half of that of men's.[23]

Women are constrained from achieving the highest leadership positions: Only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are Women.[24]

Violence and harassment in the world of work affects women regardless of age, location, income or social status. The economic costs - a refelction of the human and social costs - to the global economy of discriminatory social institutions and violence against women is estimated to be approximately USD 12 trillion annually.[25]

Almost a third of women's employment globally is in in agriculture, including forestry and fishing, but this may exclude self-employed and unpaid family workers. Yet, differences across countries and regions are striking. The share of women workers in agriculture is only 9.5 per cent in upper-middle-income countries and 2.6 per cent in high-income countries, while agriculture remains the most important employment sector for women in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.[26]

Women farmers have significantly less access to, control over, and ownership of land and other productive assets compared to their male counterparts. Land is perhaps the most important economic asset; women account for only 12.8 per cent of agricultural landholders in the world.[27]

Women and girls suffer most from the dearth of safely managed water and sanitation. Women and girls are responsible for water collection in 80 per cent of households without access to water on premises.[28] Menstrual hygiene management is difficult in the absence of water, soap and gender-responsive sanitation facilities, whether at home, school or work.

Women and girls are more likely to carry the burden of energy poverty and experience the adverse effects of lack of safe, reliable, affordable and clean energy. Indoor air pollution from using combustible fuels for household energy caused 4.3 million deaths in 2012, with women and girls accounting for 6 out of every 10 deaths.[29]

Environmental degradation and climate change have disproportionate impacts on women and children. Women often bear the brunt of coping with climate-related shocks and stresses or the health effects of indoor and urban pollution, which add to their care burden. As land, forest and water resources are increasingly compromised, privatized or "grabbed" for commercial investment, local communities and indigenous peoples, particularly women, whose livelihoods depend on them, are marginalized and displaced. Globally, women are 14 times more likely than men to die during a disaster.[30]

Sustainable Development

Women constitute approximately half of the 258 million migrants who live and work outside their countries of birth. Migrant women and girls outnumber men and boys in all regions except Africa and Asia; in some countries of Asia, men migrants outnumber women by about three to one.[31]

Despite gender inequalities in the labour market and gender wage gaps globally, women migrant workers were responsible for sending half of the estimated $601 billion in remittances worldwide in 2016.[32]

Research has shown that women migrant workers are often more likely than men to remit on a regular basis owing to women's stronger links to family members and self-insurance motives[33] underlining the link between a woman's gendered caregiving role in the household and her increasing propensity to remit.[34]

Although many migrant women are highly skilled and well-educated, they face challenges in accessing foreign labour markets. Employment restrictions for migrants coupled with the de-skilling prevalent in gendered labour markets and pervasive stereotypes associated with migrant women in countries of destination, can negatively impact their job prospects. Indeed, many migrant women participate in low-skilled and precarious jobs characterized by low wages, poor working conditions, limited labour and social protections, and exposure to physical and sexual violence.

Women migrant workers

Women migrant workers are often concentrated in informal, low paid and unregulated work. The main sectors in which women migrant workers are employed are: services and retail (18.8 per cent), elementary occupations (17.3 per cent), craft and related trades (15.2 per cent), professionals (13.9 per cent) and clerks (12.3 per cent).[ 35] Of the estimated 11.5 million international migrant domestic workers (in 2013), approximately 73.4 per cent were women.[ 36]

Notes

[1] UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Women's Economic Empowerment, Leave No One Behind: A Call to Action for Gender Equality and Women's Economic Empowerment. . Available at: https://www.empowerwomen.org/-/media/files/un%20women/empowerwomen/resources/hlp%20briefs/unhlp%20full%20report.pdf?la=en

[2] International Monetary Fund (2018). Pursuing Women's Economic Empowerment https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2018/05/31/pp053118pursuing-womens-economic-empowerment

[3] PwC, Women in Work Index 2018. Available at: https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/economics-policy/insights/women-in-work-index.html

[4] See Cuberes, D., & Teignier, M. (2016). Aggregate Effects of Gender Gaps in the Labor Market: A Quantitative Estimate. Journal of Human Capital, 10(1), 1-32.https://doi.org/10.1086/683847 and Ferrant, G. and A. Kolev (2016), Does gender discrimination in social institutions matter for long-term growth?: Cross-country evidence. OECD Development Centre Working Papers, No. 330, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5jm2hz8dgls6-en

[5] OECD, Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship: Final Report to the MCM 2012. http://www.oecd.org/employment/50423364.pdf p. 3.

[6] UN Women, Progress of the World's Women 2015-2016. Chapter 2, p. 69.

[7]McKinsey & Company, Women Matter: Time to accelerate. Ten years of insights into gender diversity 2018. Available at: https://www.empowerwomen.org/-/media/files/un%20women/empowerwomen/resources/hlp%20briefs/unhlp%20full%20report.pdf?la=en .

[8] World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2018. (Washington, D.C., 2018). Available at: http://wbl.worldbank.org/

[9] UN Women, Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (New York, 2018). Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/2/gender-equality-in-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development-2018

[10] International Labour Organization (ILO), World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends for Women 2018: Global Snapshot (Geneva, 2018). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_619577.pdf

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] ILO, Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture, third edition (Geneva, 2018). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/WCMS_626831/lang--en/index.htm

[14] UN Women, Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (New York, 2018). Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/2/gender-equality-in-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development-2018

[15] Damian Grimshaw and Jill Rubery, "The motherhood pay gap: A review of the issues, theory and international evidence," International Labour Organization, Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 57, (Geneva, 2015). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/@publ/documents/publication/wcms_348041.pdf

[16] ILO, World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends for women 2017 (Geneva, 2017). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/weso/trends-for-women2017/lang--en/index.htm

[17] OECD Development Centre, 2014. Unpaid Care Work: The missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes (2014). Available at: https://www.oecd.org/dev/development-gender/Unpaid_care_work.pdf

[18] Diane Elson, Labor markets as gendered institutions: Equality, efficiency and empowerment issues, World Development, vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 611-627 (1999).

[19] UNRISD, Research and Policy Brief 9:Why Care Matters for Social Development. Available at: http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpAuxPages)/25697FE238192066C12576D4004CFE50/%24file/RPB9e.pdf

[20] ILO, Women at Work: Trends 2016 (Geneva, 2016). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_457317.pdf

[21] Demirguc-Kunt and others,The Global Findex Database 2014: Measuring Financial Inclusion around the World. Policy Research Working Paper 7255. (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2015). Available at: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/187761468179367706/pdf/WPS7255.pdf

[22] E/CN.6/2018/3. Available at: http://undocs.org/E/CN.6/2018/3

[23] Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2017). GEM 2016/2017 Women's Entrepreneurship Report. Women's Entrepreneurship Report. https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/49860

[24] Cheryl. (2014). Women CEOs of the S&P 500. http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-ceos-sp-500

[25] McKinsey & Company, The Power of Parity: How advancing aomen's equality can add $12 trillion to global growth (2015). Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Employment%20and%20Growth/How%20advancing%20womens%20equality%20can%20add%2012%20trillion%20to%20global%20growth/MGI%20Power%20of%20parity_Full%20report_September%202015.ashx

[26] E/CN.6/2018/3. Available at: https://undocs.org/E/CN.6/2018/3

[27] FAO, Gender and Land Statistics Recent developments in FAO's Gender and Land Rights Database (Rome, 2015). Available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4862e.pdf

[28] UN Women. Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (New York, 2018). Available at: < a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/2/gender-equality-in-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development-2018">https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2018/2/gender-equality-in-the-2030-agenda-for-sustainable-development-2018

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, "New UN DESA report finds numbers of migrants continue to rise", 18 December 2017. Available at: https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/international-migration-report-2017.html

[32] Western Union, "Western Union Pays Tribute to Global Women Work-Force as World Economic Change Agents and Calls for Greater Recognition and Integration", 8 March 2016. Available at: http://ir.westernunion.com/news/archived-press-releases/press-release-details/2016/Western-Union-Pays-Tribute-to-Global-Women-Work-Force-as-World-Economic-Change-Agents-and-Calls-for-Greater-Recognition-and-Integration/default.aspx

[33] Maelan Le Goff, "Feminization of migration and trends in remittances", January 2016. Available at: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/220/pdfs/feminization-of-migration-and-trends-in-remittances.pdf?v=1.

[34] Mónika López-Anuarbe and others, "More than altruism: cultural norms and remittances among Hispanics in the USA", Journal of International Migration and Integration, vol. 17, No. 2 (May 2016). Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12134-015-0423-3

[35] UN Women, Women migrant workers' journey through the margins: labour, migration and trafficking (New York, 2016). Available at: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2017/women-migrant-workers-journey.pdf?la=en&vs=4009

[36] ILO, ILO global estimates on immigrant workers: Results and methodology: Special focus on migrant domestic workers (Geneva, 2015). Available at: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_436343.pdf

[Last updated July 2018]

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When more women work, economies grow. If women's paid employment rates were raised to the same level as men's, the United States' gross domestic product would be an estimated 9 per cent higher, the Euro-zone's would climb by 13 per cent, and Japan's would be boosted by 16 per cent.

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Henry Red Cloud is the direct 5th generation descendant of Chief Red Cloud, one of the last Lakota war chiefs and one of the most famous Native Americans in history. Henry was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Oglala Lakota Nation, where living conditions are extremely difficult.

For more than a decade, Henry has devoted himself to developing his expertise with renewable energy applications that are environmentally sound, economically beneficial, and culturally appropriate. Today, Henry is a twenty-first century Lakota Warrior, bringing green technology and employment to Native American communities. He reminds tribes that they can live sustainably and shows them that by embracing clean, renewable energy applications there is a way to get back to a traditional relationship with Mother Earth. As Henry says, " This is a new way to honor the old ways."

In partnership with Trees, Water & People (TWP), Lakota Solar Enterprises founded and now operates the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCREC), where Native Americans from around the country come to receive hands-on training in renewable energy applications from fellow Native American trainers. RCREC's facilities also include demonstration solar air furnaces, a solar electric system, straw bale home demonstration sites, a wind turbine, green houses and garden, buffalo from the Red Cloud herd, and wind break and shade trees. In addition to educating about the benefits of renewable energy, RCREC's workshops are creating green jobs for residents of Pine Ridge, as well as visiting trainees from other tribes. Throughout the years, as tribal leaders have learned how to incorporate sustainable technology into housing plans, employment training, and energy strategies in their own areas, RCREC's impact has increased exponentially.

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Henry Red Cloud - Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center - eTown

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For more than a decade, Henry Red Cloud has devoted himself to developing his expertise with renewable energy applications that are environmentally sound, economically beneficial, and culturally appropriate. Today, Henry is a twenty-first century Lakota Warrior, bringing green technology and employment to Native American communities.

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No creature on Earth is more closely related to humans than the bonobo. Sharing almost 99% of our DNA, bonobos are truly our sister species. Chimpanzees, our other closest relatives, are noted for their male-dominant, aggressive behaviors; bonobos present a very different paradigm, a harmonious society built on cooperation, trust, and female power.

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Investment Fund Focused on Women-led Startups | MergeLane

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MergeLane is the leading venture fund investing in high-growth startups with at least one female leader.

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Ibram X. Kendi: The difference between being "not racist" and antiracist

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There is no such thing as being "not racist," says author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. In this vital conversation, he defines the transformative concept of antiracism to help us more clearly recognize, take responsibility for and reject prejudices in our public policies, workplaces and personal beliefs.

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The Moment of Lift
How Empowering Women Changes the World
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Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"In her book, Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she's met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention-from child marriage to gender inequity in the workplace." - President Barack Obama

"The Moment of Lift is an urgent call to courage. It changed how I think about myself, my family, my work, and what's possible in the world. Melinda weaves together vulnerable, brave storytelling and compelling data to make this one of those rare books that you carry in your heart and mind long after the last page."

- Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Dare to Lead

"Melinda Gates has spent many years working with women around the world. This book is an urgent manifesto for an equal society where women are valued and recognized in all spheres of life. Most of all, it is a call for unity, inclusion and connection. We need this message more than ever." - Malala Yousafzai

"Melinda Gates's book is a lesson in listening. A powerful, poignant, and ultimately humble call to arms." - Tara Westover, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Educated

A debut from Melinda Gates, a timely and necessary call to action for women's empowerment.

"How can we summon a moment of lift for human beings - and especially for women? Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity."

For the last twenty years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down.

In this moving and compelling book, Melinda shares lessons she's learned from the inspiring people she's met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, "That is why I had to write this book-to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live."

Melinda's unforgettable narrative is backed by startling data as she presents the issues that most need our attention-from child marriage to lack of access to contraceptives to gender inequity in the workplace. And, for the first time, she writes about her personal life and the road to equality in her own marriage. Throughout, she shows how there has never been more opportunity to change the world-and ourselves.

Writing with emotion, candor, and grace, she introduces us to remarkable women and shows the power of connecting with one another.

When we lift others up, they lift us up, too.

Praise For The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World...

"The Moment of Lift is an urgent call to courage. It changed how I think about myself, my family, my work, and what's possible in the world. Melinda weaves together vulnerable, brave storytelling and compelling data to make this one of those rare books that you carry in your heart and mind long after the last page."-Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times #1 bestseller Dare to Lead

"An inspirational look at the need to empower women to make change in the world." -The Washington Post

"[ The Moment of Lift] is a moral appeal, imploring each of us who reads it to look around - at our own families, our own workplaces, our own place in a gigantic, but highly connected, world - and get to work making it more equal." - Chicago Tribune

"Drawing on her vast experiences meeting women in far-flung corners of the developing world, Gates' book is a heartfelt memoir about stepping out of her comfort zone, as well as a manifesto of sorts about the transformative power of broadening women's rights." - Jessica Zack, San Francisco Chronicle

"At a time when beneficial globalization is being threatened by nationalism, and women's rights are in danger of being rolled back to nineteenth-century norms, Gates offers urgent reminders of why it's necessary to help women everywhere achieve their full potential." - Booklist, starred review

"Part memoir, part call to action, Gates's compassionate narrative underscores her determination to leave a positive mark on this world. She inspires and emboldens in this eloquently argued work." - Publishers Weekly

"This book is a beautiful and concise mission statement on what we need to do to move society forward-continue to empower women. At every level and in all places women are truly the bedrock supporting their communities." - Trevor Noah

"Melinda Gates uplifts and inspires by weaving a narrative of fortitude and hope. She pushes us to challenge the status quo and never settle." - Mellody Hobson

"The Moment of Lift is a gift to humanity. With concrete stories and examples, Melinda Gates helps us see and embrace the great truths - "The goal is for everyone to be connected. The goal is for everyone to belong. The goal is for everyone to be loved." Melinda's message is so real, so personal, so intelligent, so needed. If only everyone would read it and know it, we would all rise up together!" - Richard Rohr

" The Moment of Lift is a book about gender equity and its golden thread is empathy. This book lifts up the voices of women and girls whose experiences have been entirely unlike Melinda's own. They've taught her a great deal, and in this beautifully crafted and artful memoir, Melinda Gates invites the reader to learn from them too." - Paul Farmer, M.D., co-founder of Partners In Health

"I think this is one of the best books I've ever read." - Warren Buffett

Flatiron Books, 9781250313577, 288pp.

Publication Date: April 23, 2019

About the Author

Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls.

As the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda sets the direction and priorities of the world's largest philanthropy. She is also the founder of Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company working to drive social progress for women and families in the United States, and the author of the bestselling book The Moment of Lift.

Melinda grew up in Dallas, Texas. She received a bachelor's degree in computer science from Duke University and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School. Melinda spent the first decade of her career developing multimedia products at Microsoft before leaving the company to focus on her family and philanthropic work. She has three children, Jenn, Rory, and Phoebe, and lives in Seattle, Washington.

1. In the Introduction, Melinda shares stories from her life-watching Apollo launches as a child, and, as a mom, taking off on airplanes with her family-that in part inspired the title of the book. How has she maintained the sense of wonder and curiosity she felt as a child in her work as a philanthropist? Can you recall any moments in your own life that elicited a similar feeling of grace and being "lifted like a scarf on the wind," as Mark Nepo describes (2)?

2. Melinda explains that she has shared these women's (and men's) stories as a way to inspire us to lift each other up. In your experience, how does lift happen? Are there individuals in your life whom you feel you've helped to lift, in a big or small way? Who has helped lift you?

3. Each chapter of the book focuses on a central issue of gender equality, and yet taken as a whole they form a matrix of issues that support that idea that "there are no isolated problems" (16). Did you feel strongly that one issue or another was a "root" cause from which the others proliferated, or that you identified with one or two more than others? Which issue in the book is most relevant to your own life?

4. What are some of the taboos around women's education cited in the book (e.g., Vicki Phillips in rural Kentucky) and from your own experience?

5. Melinda writes that "the most transforming force of education for women and girls is challenging the self-image of the girl who goes to school." Did you have a teacher who helped change your self-image? How did he or she do it? What effect did it have on you?

6. Melinda speaks candidly of the way her relationship with her husband, Bill, has been impacted by her work with women internationally. Did reading about their communication give you any ideas for how you might open a dialogue between men and women in your home or workplace? What kind of education might men benefit from-Bill being an example of a man who "challenges people very hard . . . but listens and learns"-to understand how to lift up women (182)?

7. Consider the examples of women acting on instinct in spite of hierarchical or bureaucratic obstacles-such as Mama Rosa, who was able to instruct Hans to stop the vaccine car after a mother and baby died in childbirth; and Ruchi, who saved a baby by bringing him to her own skin. Can you recall a time where you acted in a similar way, or witnessed another woman "breaking the rules," as it were? What helped overcome the fear of power, and how did the reactions to that event change the way people understood a woman's power?

8. Gates cites shocking statistics about the time women spend doing unpaid work-an average of seven years more than men in a lifetime, or the equivalent of the time it would take to earn a bachelor's and master's degree education (118). Discuss your perspective on unpaid work done by women from your own life. Have you ever tried to reduce your unpaid work or redistribute it? What has worked for you?

9. Did you grow up with certain expectations of what was "women's" work, and how it was valued compared to work done at an outside job? How does your current workplace and/or home value the tasks of taking care of a home and family, and where might you use your voice to make the two more compatible as Melinda describes?

10. Melinda writes: "As soon as we began to spend more time understanding how people live their lives, we saw that so many of the barriers to advancement. . . can be traced to the limits put on the lives of women." (50) Can you think of a barrier that women face in your community that keeps women or their children from education, income or economic opportunities?

11. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was first interested in transforming agriculture through science alone-developing seeds that would help farmers grow more food-but ultimately discovered that gender bias would keep better seeds from reaching-or benefiting the people who plant them. The resistance of some team members to shift views leads Gates to question in the book, "How do you follow your plan and yet keep listening to new ideas? How can you hold your strategy lightly, so you'll be able to hear the new idea that blows it up?" (185). Have you ever had to convince people in your work or family life to see things from a different perspective?

12. In describing her own journey with her Catholic faith, Melinda explains the importance of acting according to one's conscience-that "Faith in action to me means going from the margins of society, seeking out those who are isolated, and bringing them back in" (73). Does this resonate with your experience with religion or spirituality?

13. Gates asks, "What gives me the right, as an outsider, to support efforts to change the culture of communities I'm not part of?"-a question that many Westerners have when looking for ways to help developing countries (172). How do the personal narratives in The Moment of Lift break down the barriers that encourage exclusion, which Melinda cites as a major cause of inequality and suffering? What threads did you trace among the stories that illustrate the importance of having a common purpose-such as all people wanting their babies to be healthy and safe, and the collective desire for love?

14. Gates's friend Killian Noe, founder of the Recovery Café, explains this principle behind her work: "To be known without being loved is terrifying. To be loved without being known has no power to change us. But to be known and deeply loved transforms us" (149). Where do you see yourself on this spectrum of being deeply known and/or loved? Have you had experiences of being one or the other, neither or both, and what impact did that have on your ability to be "excited about living"?

15. We often hear about striving for a "work-life balance"-creating equal time for private life and professional life, but separating them to avoid burnout. In reading about the challenges of women in the book to achieve this in male-dominated environments, how did your view of work-life balance change, if at all? How might we reframe the conversation to not see them as discrete areas of life, but part of accepting each other as whole, multi-faceted beings? Consider how Melinda interacted with her colleague whose brother was ill, and her development of an unofficial paid family leave policy.

16. "A low self-image and oppressive social customs are inner and outer versions of the same force," writes Melinda, as a way to illustrate why personal and cultural change are equally important in fighting inequality (112). Has reading this book given you new insights on how to improve your own and others' self-image, and the culture around you? Which seems more difficult to achieve in your opinion?

17. After finishing the book, has your understanding of what it means to empower women changed, in terms of concept and execution? What are some of the ways Melinda suggested we can all-women and men-move out of this state of fear and into one of love and acceptance?

18. Visit Melinda's website, Evoke.org, which is a hub for empowering stories by and about women making a difference in their communities and join the conversation with #MomentofLift on social media. Why do you believe equality can't wait in your own life? Is there anything you plan to do differently to help accelerate progress towards gender equality in your own home, workplace and community?

Coverage from NPR

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The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World | IndieBound.org

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"In her book, Melinda tells the stories of the inspiring people she's met through her work all over the world, digs into the data, and powerfully illustrates issues that need our attention-from child marriage to gender inequity in the workplace." - President Barack Obama"The Moment of Lift is an urgent call to courage.

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1863 Ventures accelerates new majority entrepreneurs from high potential to high growth. We are dedicated as we are ambitious to create $100B of new wealth and economic power for/by the new majority. We want to help small businesses scale to high growth companies.

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Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest: Robin Kimmerer at TEDxSitka

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Read 14.1k reviews from the world's largest community for readers. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the ...

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Capital is the means to live and prosper. It builds cities and realizes dreams. It nourishes ideas and perpetuates growth. It is a reality of life. And yet, money can be riddled in controversy, shame, confusion and taboo.

Within the investment world specifically, there is a schism between the role capital investment plays in our lives: There are those who feel the sole purpose of investing is to gain a financial return, and those who believe that the essence of investing carries potential to do good in the world. In considering both sides, research unveils there is a growing belief in the latter. More people are believing that investing is not only an opportunity to build wealth, it is an invitation to create needed, positive, lasting change. There exists the expanding world of impacting investing.

This marriage of money and meaning-beyond the traditional models of charity and philanthropy-suggests a new frontier. That is what we are exploring here at The Conscious Investor. Every week we will shed a light on the world of impact investing. We will break assumptions, seek the advice of seasoned experts, and offer a compass for anyone who wants to get involved. We will ask questions and spotlight changemakers. We will feature thought leaders and belief shifters. Ultimately, we will provide a platform in hopes to inspire anyone who is eager to move their personal needle toward good.

The mission of The Conscious Investor is to illustrate the potential of impact investing and the possibilities of marrying profits with purpose. It is a beacon for what is possible and a means to create a world where humanity, peace, and prosperity is not a privilege but a part of every person's life in all decisions that they make.

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Welcome to The Conscious Investor - The Conscious Investor

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Capital is the means to live and prosper. It builds cities and realizes dreams. It nourishes ideas and perpetuates growth. It is a reality of life. And yet, money can be riddled in controversy, shame, confusion and taboo.

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REDWOOD National Park 4K (Visually Stunning 3min Tour)

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A Story of Justice and Redemption

A powerful true story about the Equal Justice Initiative, the people we represent, and the importance of confronting injustice, Just Mercy is a bestselling book by Bryan Stevenson that has been adapted into a feature film.

About EJI &
Bryan Stevenson

Equal Justice Initiative

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Montgomery, Alabama.

LEARN MORE ABOUT EJI

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. A widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned, he has won numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Prize and the ACLU's National Medal of Liberty.

JUST MERCY - #1 New York Times Bestseller

The Book

An unforgettable true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to end mass incarceration in America - from one of the most inspiring lawyers of our time.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation's highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI's first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn't commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching - a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.

Download discussion guide

The message of this book . . . is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful.

Ted Conover / The New York Times Book Review

Selected as a

New York Times Best Seller

Winner of the

Dayton Literary Peace Prize

Winner of a

NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction

Finalist for the

Kirkus Reviews Prize

Winner of a

Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Selected as a

An American Library Association Notable Book

The Movie

Just Mercy takes us inside America's broken criminal justice system and compels us to confront inequality and injustice.

Based on the bestselling book, the Just Mercy movie presents the unforgettable story of Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and the case of Walter McMillian (Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx), who was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.

Download discussion guide

I spent most of Just Mercy devastated by its most rueful death-row inmate, only to belatedly realize that it was [Rob] Morgan who was breaking my heart.

Wesley Morris / The New York Times

Just Mercy is a handsome, impeccably mounted tribute to [Stevenson's] activism and also his fellow advocates.

Justin Chang / Los Angeles Times

Winner of

ABA Silver Gavel Award

Winner of the National Board of Review's

Freedom of Expression Award

Earned audience score of

99% on Rotten Tomatoes

Michael B. Jordan Winner of

BET Award for Best Actor

Winner of

Christopher Award

Winner of

Four NAACP Image Awards

Winner of American Black Film Festival

Movie of the Year

Jamie Foxx Winner of American Black Film Festival

Excellence in the Arts Award

Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Andrene Ward-Hammond, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Karan Kendrick

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He had barely opened the nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, when he agreed to represent Walter McMillian, a Black man wrongly convicted of killing a white woman in the town that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird.

Clients

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI's clients, from Walter McMillian and Anthony Ray Hinton - who were exonerated from Alabama's death row - to Joe Sullivan and Ian Manuel - who won release after being sentenced to die in prison for nonhomicide crimes in Florida when they were just 13 years old. We invite you to learn more about the clients featured in the book below.

Sign up to stay connected and receive updates about EJI's work.

By submitting this form, you are granting: Equal Justice Initiative, 122 Commerce Street, Montgomery, Alabama, 36104, United States, http://www.eji.org permission to email you. You may unsubscribe via the link found at the bottom of every email. (See our Email Privacy Policy for details.) Emails are serviced by Mailchimp.

FAQ

If you have additional questions about Just Mercy or the work of EJI, please visit eji.org.

Is Just Mercy a true story?

Yes. The movie is based on an actual case that is detailed in Bryan Stevenson's book, Just Mercy, published in 2014. Bryan took on Walter McMillian's case in 1988 to challenge his wrongful conviction and death sentence. Over the next six years, Bryan filed multiple legal challenges and conducted several hearings, but the trial court refused to grant Mr. McMillian a new trial despite overwhelming evidence of innocence, including the recantation of the State's main witness, Ralph Myers. Bryan appealed the ruling and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial because the State withheld evidence of Mr. McMillian's innocence. Bryan filed a motion to dismiss all charges; the trial court granted it after the district attorney acknowledged Mr. McMillian's innocence. While the movie condenses the six years of litigation, it mostly tracks the actual account presented in the book. Mr. McMillian's claim of innocence attracted national attention as broadcast a story about the case. The movie accurately introduces other people represented by Bryan Stevenson, including Herbert Richardson, a Vietnam War veteran who was executed in 1989, and Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit.

What made the Walter McMillian case unique?

Sadly, while the McMillian case had some unique features, there are actually lots of people who are innocent who have been sentenced to death in the United States. Because Mr. McMillian was accused of a crime that took place in Monroeville, Alabama, the community where Harper Lee grew up and wrote the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there were interesting dynamics at play in the case. While the Monroeville community loves the Mockingbird story and took great pride in its association with the fictional characters of the book, there was tremendous resistance to recognizing Mr. McMillian's innocence despite overwhelming evidence. Walter McMillian and Ralph Myers were both placed on death row before going to trial, which is illegal and a rare form of coercion. After Mr. Myers agreed to give false testimony against Mr. McMillian, he was removed from death row. Mr. McMillian spent 15 months on death row awaiting his trial in an effort to pressure him into pleading guilty. The case was unique as well because the trial judge, Robert E. Lee Key Jr., moved the trial from Monroe County, which is over 40% Black, to Baldwin County, which had a much smaller Black population, making a nearly all-white jury more likely. Despite that change of venue, the jury that convicted Mr. McMillian of capital murder sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. In Alabama, the trial judge has the authority to override a jury's verdict of life and impose the death penalty, which is what happened. Judge override of life verdicts has been a unique characteristic of the death penalty in Alabama. The Walter McMillian case is also significant because it was one of the very early cases where a death row prisoner was proved innocent after being sentenced to death despite death penalty reforms in the 1970s and early 1980s.

What happened to Walter McMillian after his release?

Walter McMillian stayed in Alabama after his release. Bryan and the staff at EJI filed civil rights lawsuits against state and local officials for putting him on death row before his trial and for violating his rights. The case settled out of court after several years of litigation. Because police, prosecutors, and judges are immune from judgments that require them to make payments to people victimized by abuse of authority and wrongdoing, the settlement compensation was much less than had been hoped. An effort to make the sheriff accountable went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but the Court ruled that the sheriff could be protected from liability based on immunity laws. With the money that was obtained for Mr. McMillian, he was able to work in Monroe County selling scrap metal. About 10 years after his release, he began showing symptoms of early onset dementia, which some doctors believed was caused by the trauma of his ordeal on death row. Mr. McMillian died in 2013. He and Bryan remained close friends, occasionally traveling together to talk to audiences about the death penalty. They appeared at a United States Senate hearing shortly after Mr. McMillian's release to testify about the need for ending the death penalty and for reform of the criminal justice system. Read Mr. McMillian's statement.

How often are innocent people sentenced to death?

Since 1973, more than 165 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence was uncovered. A shocking rate of error has emerged: for every nine people executed in this country, one innocent person has been exonerated. Wrongful convictions have been found to result from erroneous eyewitness identifications, false and coerced confessions, misconduct by police and prosecutors, inadequate legal defense, false or misleading forensic evidence, and perjury by witnesses who are promised lenient treatment or other incentives in exchange for their testimony. Nine people have been exonerated in Alabama. Walter McMillian, Randall Padgett, Gary Drinkard, Louis Griffin, Wesley Quick, James Cochran, Charles Bufford, Anthony Ray Hinton, and Daniel Moore were found not guilty of the crimes that originally put them on Alabama's death row.

How does the Just Mercy book differ from the movie?

The book provides much more historical context for the issues raised in the movie and provides detail about our nation's evolving embrace of mass incarceration and excessive punishment. The book discusses many more clients and cases than the McMillian case depicted in the movie. The book focuses a lot on Bryan and EJI's work challenging the adult prosecution of children, some of whom were condemned to die in prison when they were 13 or 14 years of age. Bryan explores the evolution of mass incarceration and the impact on the poor, people of color, and people who are disfavored. The impact of over-incarceration on the mentally disabled and the growing numbers of people sentenced harshly because of mental illness is detailed. There are chapters that explore the increasing incarceration rates for women and how many women are criminalized for being poor. Bryan's own journey dealing with racial bias, police violence, and the enormous obstacles that must be overcome to do justice are more fully developed in the book, which recently was adapted for young adults.

How can I learn more about the issues raised in the movie?

In addition to reading the book, Just Mercy, you should visit EJI in Montgomery, Alabama. EJI has recently opened a major cultural complex to educate the public about our nation's history of racial injustice and the implications of that history for issues like mass incarceration and the death penalty. The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration opened in April 2018 along with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is dedicated to thousands of African American victims of lynching. EJI's Peace and Justice Memorial Center provides daily presentations about EJI's work and the sites. Over 600,000 people have visited these sites. Visit eji.org to take a closer look at the work of EJI.

Do you have resources for discussing Just Mercy with students or community groups?

Yes, we have a Discussion Guide that provides background information and selected topics for discussing the Just Mercy movie with students, community groups, friends, and family. You can also download this discussion guide for students and groups who are reading the Just Mercy book.

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Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson | Bestselling Book and Adapted Film

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'Just Mercy' is a bestselling book telling the story of EJI and who we represent, that has been adapted into a feature film.

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Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

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Josie Nixon of Denver, Colo. had to select "other" for her gender when registering for a Covid vaccine. There was no option for "transgender woman." Credit... Caleb Alvarado for The New York Times

Few states collect sexual orientation or gender identity data, so no one knows how many people in some communities are getting vaccinated.

Josie Nixon of Denver, Colo. had to select "other" for her gender when registering for a Covid vaccine. There was no option for "transgender woman." Credit... Caleb Alvarado for The New York Times

When Josie Nixon visited her health insurer's website seeking a coronavirus vaccine, she felt invisible: On a registration form that collected personal and demographic information, the 29-year-old Denver resident had to select "other" for her gender.

There was no option for "transgender woman."

Days before, Ms. Nixon had felt a sense of hope when President Biden announced his nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, to one of the nation's top health posts and signed an executive order aimed at ameliorating Covid-19 health inequities in the country's most vulnerable communities. But her experience was a stark reminder, she said, that the nation's estimated 11.3 million L.G.B.T.Q. adults still have a long way to go toward reaching equity in health care and treatment in the United States.

Advocates and health experts are concerned that Ms. Nixon, like millions more in this population, will be unseen in a vaccine rollout for which data has revealed searing inequities across racial and socio-economic lines. Communities of color and other marginalized groups have faced some of the most severe coronavirus outcomes, yet have received a smaller share of vaccines. L.G.B.T.Q. people could face similar problems but may be overlooked because they aren't counted.

Unlike with racial and ethnic data, the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data is scattershot at best, captured in only a few states and territories.

The collection of this data would increase the visibility of vaccine disparities, advocates say, and allow policymakers and health care providers to more nimbly and equitably allocate resources and craft messaging campaigns for members of these groups. That's important because they have routinely experienced health disparities and often mistrust the health care system, a result, in part, of a history of medical mistreatment.

Many doctors, for example, refused to treat those infected with H.I.V. during the early stages of the crisis. Some patients who were treated were prescribed toxic doses of a drug approved to combat AIDS. It was only in 1987 that the American Psychiatric Association fully stopped treating homosexuality as a mental disorder. "Gender identity disorder" was treated as such until 2013.

Today, many in this population continue to be turned away by doctors for emergency, pediatric and other forms of medical care. In some states, such as Arkansas, doctors will be able to legally withhold medically necessary treatment from L.G.B.T.Q. patients.

Experts fear this historical and continued mistreatment could deter even those willing to receive a vaccine from seeking one.

Adding sexual orientation and gender identity data to providers' vaccine registration forms, then, can also serve another purpose, advocates say: It signals an affirming, safe space for this population of people, which could help address vaccine hesitancy.

A number of national surveys and studies have found that L.G.B.T.Q. people are more likely to face hurdles to health care, from lack of transportation to outright denial of care.

A 2020 study shows that transgender people frequently experience overt discrimination by health care providers, from being denied care to being verbally harassed. And care seekers who were out to their providers were more than five times more likely to experience overt discrimination.

Those in intersectional vulnerable groups, such as Black or low-income L.G.B.T.Q. people, may have even more medical mistrust.

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Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, an infectious disease physician and professor of social medicine at Harvard University. Credit... Kayana Szymczak for The New York Times

"You have a system where people are trying to access care and not receiving it, or not receiving treatment at the rate in which their white counterparts are receiving it, so, naturally, you're not going to trust that system," said Bisola Ojikutu, an infectious disease physician and professor of social medicine at Harvard University. Brad Sears, founding executive director at the Williams Institute in Los Angeles, which conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, echoed this point.

"Being part of two marginalized groups results in marginalization that's more than the sum of those two parts," he said. "It is a compounded vulnerability."

The pandemic may also be exacerbating some of these barriers. Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline, said that calls from people unable to access care have more than doubled since before the pandemic.

And when people from L.G.B.T.Q. populations first enter a medical setting, they often fill out intake and registration forms that ask for age, race and ethnicity as well as gender. But the latter most often refers only to the sex a person was assigned at birth, not the gender with which they identify, and leaves out questions of sexual orientation.

It's uncommon for medical institutions to go deeper and seek sexual orientation and gender identity data that allows a person to report whether they are straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or something else, and whether they identify as female, male, transgender, nonbinary or gender-fluid.

And of more than 100 federal surveys in one study, only 11 collect some sexual orientation and gender identity data. While federal regulations mandate that some health care providers must carry electronic health record software with the capability to capture this data, a loophole in the ruling means they don't have to actually collect it: they face no consequence if they do not include sexual orientation and gender identity questions on intake forms and in conversations about registration.

For some, not being represented on medical intake forms is yet another example of marginalization.

"So many people define me by my transgender identity," said Ms. Nixon, who works as a development coordinator at Out Boulder County, a nonprofit organization that provides services and education to local L.G.B.T.Q. residents, and who has been denied care at least twice from clinicians. "But then when it finally comes down to it, they don't actually care to ask me that identity when we're dealing with a pandemic, or trying to get a lifesaving vaccine."

Others, however, disagree with the idea of reporting sexual orientation and gender identity data when seeking a Covid-19 vaccine. Jaden Janak, a 25-year-old transmasculine, nonbinary doctoral student in Black Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, said that while it is important to have an option to self-report this data, that information shouldn't be given out unless it's necessary. "I don't feel like the nurse that I'm going to see for 30 seconds needs to know that about me," they said.

Jaden Janak, a transmasculine, nonbinary doctoral student in Austin, Texas, asked why sexual orientation and gender identity data needed to be collected during vaccinations. Credit... Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

There is also the question of how such data would be stored and used. Last year, at least 44 transgender people were murdered in the United States and its territories. "As with any sort of tracking, there's always another side, which is surveillance," they said. Compiling this data could put "already oppressed people into an even more precarious situation."

Still, even if some people are hesitant to divulge such data, research shows that clinicians overestimate how many patients would refuse to self-report. A 2017 study revealed that about 80 percent of clinicians believed patients would be hesitant to provide this data, but only 10 percent of patients reported they would refuse to do so.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also said that it should be optional for patients to report their gender identity. Having a chance to self-report, advocates say, is the key. "It's important for people to be able to identify themselves, just like any other demographic," said Chris Grasso, associate vice president for informatics and data services at the Fenway Institute. "We want to normalize the collection of data - just like we ask people questions around their age, race or ethnicity."

L.G.B.T.Q. advocates have raised alarm bells throughout the pandemic, writing letters to health organizations and the new administration, asking that agencies report on coronavirus testing, care outcomes and vaccine uptake in their communities.

A few states and jurisdictions have started to make strides: Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., collect and report some of this data in their Covid-19 surveillance systems. And in September, California's governor signed into law a bill requiring health care providers to collect the data for all communicable diseases.

But as recently as March, the California Department of Public Health had not made its sexual orientation and gender identity statistics public. And other officials, echoing concerns of those who want to keep their sexuality private, have expressed hesitancy over collecting this information. For example, Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, who is gay, said in an April 2020 discussion with other elected officials that "there's a lot of people in Colorado who don't want that info out there."

In spite of the paucity of data, the C.D.C. notes that L.G.B.T.Q. people may be more likely to suffer severe Covid-19 outcomes than heterosexual people, in part because of a higher prevalence of pre-existing conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, asthma, cancer, obesity and smoking.

Not knowing how many of these people have received a Covid-19 vaccine is a problem, advocates say.

"The reason we need to do data-driven, culturally responsive outreach is that medical mistrust - and along with that, vaccine hesitancy - among L.G.B.T.Q. people is rooted in the stigma and discrimination that this community has experienced over time," said Alex Keuroghlian, a psychiatrist in Boston. Credit... Greta Rybus for The New York Times

Agencies rely on population data to make policy decisions and direct funding, and advocates say that failing to collect sexual orientation and gender identity data on Covid-19 vaccine uptake could obscure the real picture and prevent vaccine distribution decisions and funds from positively impacting this population.

When it comes to Covid-19 vaccine distribution, "how can you design interventions and know where to target your resources if you don't know where you've been?" said Dr. Ojikutu.

A February study showed that L.G.B.T.Q. people with high medical mistrust and concern about experiencing stigma or discrimination were least likely to say they would accept a Covid-19 vaccine.

"The reason we need to do data-driven, culturally responsive outreach is that medical mistrust - and along with that, vaccine hesitancy - among L.G.B.T.Q. people is rooted in the stigma and discrimination that this community has experienced over time," said Alex Keuroghlian, a psychiatrist and director of the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program.

Some L.G.B.T.Q. people have the opportunity to receive vaccines in health centers built for members of their communities, but most don't. And placing affirmatively worded sexual orientation and gender identity questions with inclusive response options on vaccine registration forms could encourage members of these populations to more confidently sign up for Covid-19 vaccines outside of population-focused providers.

In a 2017 study, Meghan Romanelli, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Washington, found that L.G.B.T.Q. people were invested in finding affirmative medical attention, "so that they could be assured safety and nondiscriminatory care," she said.

Transparency in how that data would be used, experts say, would also be important in helping this population to report this data at vaccination sites, rather than leaving fields blank.

And the time to do it, they say, is now.

"We have to do better at tracking the disparities and figuring out how to equalize people's access to health care in between epidemics," Mr. Sears said, "because the next one is likely to come."

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In Covid Vaccine Data, L.G.B.T.Q. People Fear Invisibility

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Few states collect sexual orientation or gender identity data, so no one knows how many people in some communities are getting vaccinated. Josie Nixon of Denver, Colo. had to select "other" for her gender when registering for a Covid vaccine. There was no option for "transgender woman." Credit...

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Demartini Value Determination - Discover What Drives You

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Congratulations, you are about to determine your Unique Hierarchy of Values - your key to empowerment and self-appreciation. You will be asked 13 questions which will assist you to honestly look at what your life demonstrates as truly important to you.

Dr John Demartini talks you through the Process

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Demartini Value Determination - Discover What Drives You

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Congratulations, you are about to determine your Unique Hierarchy of Values - your key to empowerment and self-appreciation. You will be asked 13 questions which will assist you to honestly look at what your life demonstrates as truly important to you. Dr John Demartini talks you through the Process

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What is biodiversity?

It is the variety of life on Earth, in all its forms and all its interactions. If that sounds bewilderingly broad, that's because it is. Biodiversity is the most complex feature of our planet and it is the most vital. "Without biodiversity, there is no future for humanity," says Prof David Macdonald, at Oxford University.

The term was coined in 1985 - a contraction of "biological diversity" - but the huge global biodiversity losses now becoming apparent represent a crisis equalling - or quite possibly surpassing - climate change.

More formally, biodiversity is comprised of several levels, starting with genes, then individual species, then communities of creatures and finally entire ecosystems, such as forests or coral reefs, where life interplays with the physical environment. These myriad interactions have made Earth habitable for billions of years.

A more philosophical way of viewing biodiversity is this: it represents the knowledge learned by evolving species over millions of years about how to survive through the vastly varying environmental conditions Earth has experienced. Seen like that, experts warn, humanity is currently " burning the library of life ".

Bugs are the base of the many wild food chains that support ecosystems. Illustration: Frances Marriott

Do animals and bugs really matter to me?

For many people living in towns and cities, wildlife is often something you watch on television. But the reality is that the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat all ultimately rely on biodiversity. Some examples are obvious: without plants there would be no oxygen and without bees to pollinate there would be no fruit or nuts.

Others are less obvious - coral reefs and mangrove swamps provide invaluable protection from cyclones and tsunamis for those living on coasts, while trees can absorb air pollution in urban areas.

Others appear bizarre - tropical tortoises and spider monkeys seemingly have little to do with maintaining a stable climate. But the dense, hardwood trees that are most effective in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere rely on their seeds being dispersed by these large fruit-eaters.

When scientists explore each ecosystem, they find countless such interactions, all honed by millions of years of evolution. If undamaged, this produces a finely balanced, healthy system which contributes to a healthy sustainable planet.

The sheer richness of biodiversity also has human benefits. Many new medicines are harvested from nature, such as a fungi that grows on the fur of sloths and can fight cancer. Wild varieties of domesticated animals and crops are also crucial as some will have already solved the challenge of, for example, coping with drought or salty soils.

If money is a measure, the services provided by ecosystems are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars - double the world's GDP. Biodiversity loss in Europe alone costs the continent about 3% of its GDP, or €450m (£400m), a year.

From an aesthetic point of view, every one of the millions of species is unique, a natural work of art that cannot be recreated once lost. "Each higher organism is richer in information than a Caravaggio painting, a Bach fugue, or any other great work," wrote Prof Edward O Wilson, often called the "father of biodiversity", in a seminal paper in 1985.

75% of flying insects were lost in the last 25 years in Germany, according to a recent study. Illustration: Frances Marriott

Just how diverse is biodiversity?

Mind-bogglingly diverse. The simplest aspect to consider is species. About 1.7 million species of animals, plants and fungi have been recorded, but there are likely to be 8-9 million and possibly up to 100 million. The heartland of biodiversity is the tropics, which teems with species. In 15 hectares (37 acres) of Borneo forest, for example, there are 700 species of tree - the same number as the whole of North America.

Recent work considering diversity at a genetic level has suggested that creatures thought to be a single species could in some cases actually be dozens. Then add in bacteria and viruses, and the number of distinct organisms may well be in the billions. A single spoonful of soil - which ultimately provides 90% of all food - contains 10,000 to 50,000 different types of bacteria.

The concern is that many species are being lost before we are even aware of them, or the role they play in the circle of life.

How bad is it?

Very. The best studied creatures are the ones like us - large mammals. Tiger numbers, for example, have plunged by 97% in the last century. In many places, bigger animals have already been wiped out by humans - think dodos or woolly mammoths.

The extinction rate of species is now thought to be about 1,000 times higher than before humans dominated the planet, which may be even faster than the losses after a giant meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago. The sixth mass extinction in geological history has already begun, according to some scientists.

Lack of data means the "red list", produced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, has only assessed 5% of known species. But for the best known groups it finds many are threatened: 25% of mammals, 41% of amphibians and 13% of birds.

Species extinction provides a clear but narrow window on the destruction of biodiversity - it is the disappearance of the last member of a group that is by definition rare. But new studies are examining the drop in the total number of animals, capturing the plight of the world's most common creatures.

The results are scary. Billions of individual populations have been lost all over the planet, with the number of animals living on Earth having plunged by half since 1970. Abandoning the normally sober tone of scientific papers, researchers call the massive loss of wildlife a "biological annihilation" representing a "frightening assault on the foundations of human civilisation".

More than half the ocean is now industrially fished. Illustration: Frances Marriott

What about under the sea?

Humans may lack gills but that has not protected marine life. The situation is no better - and perhaps even less understood - in the two-thirds of the planet covered by oceans. Seafood is the critical source of protein for more than 2.5 billion people but rampant overfishing has caused catches to fall steadily since their peak in 1996 and now more than half the ocean is industrially fished.

What about bugs - don't cockroaches survive anything?

More than 95% of known species lack a backbone - there are about as many species in the staphylinidae family of beetles alone as there are total vertebrates, such as mammals, fish and birds. Altogether, there are at least a million species of insect and another 300,000 spiders, molluscs and crustaceans.

But the recent revelation that 75% of flying insects were lost in the last 25 years in Germany - and likely elsewhere - indicates the massacre of biodiversity is not sparing creepy crawlies. And insects really matter, not just as pollinators but as predators of pests, decomposers of waste and, crucially, as the base of the many wild food chains that support ecosystems.

"If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse," says Prof Dave Goulson of Sussex University, UK. "We are currently on course for ecological Armageddon."

Even much-loathed parasites are important. One- third could be wiped out by climate change, making them among the most threatened groups on Earth. But scientists warn this could destabilise ecosystems, unleashing unpredictable invasions of surviving parasites into new areas.

A single spoonful of soil contains 10,000 to 50,000 different types of bacteria. Illustration: Frances Marriott

What's destroying biodiversity?

We are, particularly as the human population rises and wild areas are razed to create farmland, housing and industrial sites. The felling of forests is often the first step and 30m hectares - the area of the Britain and Ireland - were lost globally in 2016.

Poaching and unsustainable hunting for food is another major factor. More than 300 mammal species, from chimpanzees to hippos to bats, are being eaten into extinction.

Pollution is a killer too, with orcas and dolphins being seriously harmed by long-lived industrial pollutants. Global trade contributes further harm: amphibians have suffered one of the greatest declines of all animals due to a fungal disease thought to be spread around the world by the pet trade. Global shipping has also spread highly damaging invasive species around the planet, particularly rats.

The hardest hit of all habitats may be rivers and lakes, with freshwater animal populations in these collapsing by 81% since 1970, following huge water extraction for farms and people, plus pollution and dams.

Could the loss of biodiversity be a greater threat to humanity than climate change?

Yes - nothing on Earth is experiencing more dramatic change at the hands of human activity. Changes to the climate are reversible, even if that takes centuries or millennia. But once species become extinct, particularly those unknown to science, there's no going back.

At the moment, we don't know how much biodiversity the planet can lose without prompting widespread ecological collapse. But one approach has assessed so-called " planetary boundaries ", thresholds in Earth systems that define a "safe operating space for humanity". Of the nine considered, just biodiversity loss and nitrogen pollution are estimated to have been crossed, unlike CO2 levels, freshwater used and ozone losses.

By weight, 97% of the world's vertebrate land animals are humans or their livestock - just 3% are thought to be wild. Illustration: Frances Marriott

What can be done?

Giving nature the space and protection it needs is the only answer. Wildlife reserves are the obvious solution, and the world currently protects 15% of land and 7% of the oceans. But some argue that half the land surface must be set aside for nature.

However, the human population is rising and wildlife reserves don't work if they hinder local people making a living. The poaching crisis for elephants and rhinos in Africa is an extreme example. Making the animals worth more alive than dead is the key, for example by supporting tourism or compensating farmers for livestock killed by wild predators.

But it can lead to tough choices. "Trophy hunting" for big game is anathema for many. But if the shoots are done sustainably - only killing old lions, for example - and the money raised protects a large swath of land, should it be permitted?

We can all help. Most wildlife is destroyed by land being cleared for cattle, soy, palm oil, timber and leather. Most of us consume these products every day, with palm oil being found in many foods and toiletries. Choosing only sustainable options helps, as does eating less meat, particularly beef, which has an outsized environmental hoofprint.

Another approach is to highlight the value of biodiversity by estimating the financial value of the ecosystem services provided as "natural capital". Sometimes this can lead to real savings. Over the last 20 years, New York has spent $2bn protecting the natural watershed that supplies the city with clean water. It has worked so well that 90% of the water needs no further filtering: building a water treatment plant instead would have cost $10bn.

What's next?

Locating the tipping point that moves biodiversity loss into ecological collapse is an urgent priority. Biodiversity is vast and research funds are small, but speeding up analysis might help, from automatically identifying creatures using machine learning to real-time DNA sequencing.

There is even an initiative that aims to create an open-source genetic database for all plants, animals and single-cell organisms on the planet. It argues that by creating commercial opportunities - such as self-driving car algorithms inspired by Amazonian ants - it could provide the incentive to preserve Earth's biodiversity.

However, some researchers say the dire state of biodiversity is already clear enough and that the missing ingredient is political will.

A global treaty, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), has set many targets. Some are likely to be reached, for example protecting 17% of all land and 10% of the oceans by 2020. Others, such as making all fishing sustainable by the same date are not. The 196 nations that are members of the CBD next meet in Egypt in November.

In his 1985 text, Prof E O Wilson, concluded: "This being the only living world we are ever likely to know, let us join to make the most of it." That call is more urgent than ever.

Further reading
The Biological Diversity Crisis (1985). Edward O Wilson. BioScience (Vol 35) The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014). Elizabeth Kolbert (Bloomsbury) What Has Nature Ever Done for Us? (2013) Tony Juniper (Profile)
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (2010). Pushpam Kumar et al. (Earthscan)

Illustrations: Frances Marriott

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What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us?

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The air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat all rely on biodiversity, but right now it is in crisis - because of us. What does this mean for our future and can we stop it, asks Damian Carrington?

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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson says racism is an insufficient term for the systemic oppression of Black people in America. Instead, she prefers to refer to America as having a "caste" system.

Wilkerson describes caste an artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets benefit of the doubt and access to resources.

"Caste focuses in on the infrastructure of our divisions and the rankings, whereas race is the metric that's used to determine one's place in that," she says.

Wilkerson notes that the concept of caste has been around for thousands of years: "[Caste] predates the idea of race, which is ... only 400 or 500 years old, dating back to the transatlantic slave trade."

Caste, she adds, "is the term that is more precise [than race]; it is more comprehensive, and it gets at the underlying infrastructure that often we cannot see, but that is there undergirding much of the inequality and injustices and disparities that we live with in this country."

Wilkerson's 2010 book,The Warmth of Other Suns, focused on the great migration of African Americans from the South to the North during the 20th century. In her new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Wilkerson says that acknowledging America's caste system deepens our understanding of what Black people are up against in the United States.

Interview Highlights
On hearing a Nigerian-born playwright say that there are no Black people in Africa
It's so shocking to our ears, because, of course, we say that there is an entire subcontinent of people who we would view as Black, but what she was saying was that until you come to the United States, they themselves do not see themselves as Black, they are Igbo ... or they are Yoruba or whatever it is that they are in terms of their ethnicity and identity.

It is only when they enter into a multilayered caste structure ... a hierarchy such as this, do they then have to think of themselves as Black. But back where they are from, they do not have to think of themselves as Black, because Black is not the primary metric of determining one's identity.
On how being "white" is an American innovation
It's an innovation that is only several hundred years old, dating back to the time of the transatlantic slave trade. And that is because before that time, there were humans on the land wherever they happened to be on this planet, and because of the way people were living on the land, they were merely who they were.

They were Irish or they were German or they were Polish or Hungarian, and only [thought of themselves as white] after the transatlantic slave trade, only after people who had been spread out all over the world converged in this one space - the New World - to create a new country, a new culture where all of these people were then interacting and having to figure out how they were going to relate to one another.

That is when you have a caste system that emerges, a caste system that emerges that instantly relegates those who were brought in to be enslaved ... to the very bottom of the caste system, and then elevated those who looked like those who had who created the caste system - meaning those who were British and Western Europeans - at the very top of the caste system. And anyone who entered that caste system had to then navigate and figure out how were they [were] going to manage, how are they [were] going to survive and succeed in this system. And also upon arrival, discovering that they were assigned to a particular category, whether they [wished] to be in it or not.

That means that until arriving here, people who were Irish, people who were Hungarian, people who were Polish would not have identified themselves back in the 19th century as being white, but only in connection to the gradations and ranking that occurred and was created in the United States - that is where the designation of white, the designation of Black and those in between came to have meaning.
On where people of color who are not Black fit into the caste system
There was a tremendous churning at the beginning of the 20th century of people who were arriving in these undetermined or middle groups that did not fit neatly into the bipolar structure that America had created. And at the beginning of the 20th century, there were petitions to the Supreme Court, petitions to the government, for clarity about where they would fit in. And they were often petitioning to be admitted to the dominant caste.

One of the examples, a Japanese immigrant petitioned to qualify for being Caucasian because he said, "My skin is actually whiter than many people that I identified as white in America. I should qualify to be considered Caucasian." And his petition was rejected by the Supreme Court. But these are all examples of the long-standing uncertainties about who fits where when you have a caste system that is bipolar [Black and white], such as the one that was created here.
On the surprising origin of the term "Caucasian"

There was a physician, a German physician in the 18th century who had this obsession with skulls, and he collected these skulls from all over the world and his effort to determine who was supreme in humanity. So he had skulls from all over the world, and he identified the most beautiful skulls as having come from the area around the Caucasus Mountains. And as a result of that, because they were, in his view, so beautiful, he decided to identify this skull as Caucasian clearly, and to name the group to which he belonged as Caucasians.

In other words, this was the group that was the most beautiful and perfect of all groups of humanity. This was a group that he presumed himself to belong to - though he was German. And this was the group that he described as European, and thus the word "Caucasian" actually refers to people who come from the Caucasus Mountains.

Now, what's fascinating about that as well is that the very people who were from that region of the world actually are among those who had the most difficult time gaining entry to the United States as citizens as white in the early 20th century, because they did not qualify based upon the preferences for those who were from Northern European ancestry.
On how the U.S. used immigration as a legal way to maintain the caste system
Curating the population means deciding who gets to be a part of it and where they fit in upon entry, and so there is a tremendous effort at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, with the rise of eugenics and this growing belief in the gradations of humankind that they wanted to keep the population closer to what it had been at the founding of the country. And so there was an effort to restrict who could come into the country if they were not of Western European descent.

Tremendous back and forth, tremendous efforts on the part of eugenicists who then held sway in the popular imagination, tremendous effort to keep out people who we now would view as part of the dominant group. It was a form of curating who could become a part of the United States and where they would fit in, and they used immigration laws to determine who would be able to get access to that dominant group.
On why the Nazis studied American Jim Crow laws
I have to say that my focus was not initially on the Nazis themselves, but rather on how Germany has worked in the decades after the war to reconcile its history. But the deeper that I got, and the more that I looked into this, the deeper I searched, I discovered these connections that I would never have imagined.

It turned out that German eugenicists were in continuing dialogue with American eugenicists. Books by American eugenicists were big sellers in Germany in the years leading up to the Third Reich. And then, of course, the Nazis needed no one to teach them how to hate. But what they did was they sent researchers to study America's Jim Crow laws. They actually sent researchers to America to study how Americans had subjugated African Americans, what would be considered the subordinated caste. And they actually debated and consulted American law as they were devising the Nuremberg Laws and as they were looking at those laws in the United States.

They couldn't understand why, from their perspective, the group that they had identified as the subordinated caste was not recognized in the United States in the same way. So that was the unusual interconnectedness that I never would have imagined.
On the Nazi reaction to America's "one drop rule," which maintained that a person with any amount of Black blood would be considered Black
That idea of the one drop rule, that was viewed as too extreme to [the Nazis]. It was stunning to hear that. ... The Nazis, in trying to create their own caste system, what could be considered a caste system, went to great lengths to really think hard about who should qualify as Aryan, because they felt that they wanted to include as many people as they possibly could, ironically enough, and as they looked at the United States, it did not make sense to them that a single drop of Black blood would make someone Black, that they could not and did not accept. And in defining and creating their own hierarchy, they ended up coming up with a different configuration that actually encompassed more people into the Aryan side than would have been considered than the equivalent would have been in the United States.

Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz and Molly Seavy-Nesper adapted it for the Web.

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It's More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America's 'Caste' System

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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson says racism is an insufficient term for the systemic oppression of Black people in America. Instead, she prefers to refer to America as having a "caste" system. Wilkerson describes caste an artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets benefit of the doubt and access to resources.

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IDEAS: the Magazine of the Aspen Institute is the tri-annual flagship publication of the Aspen Institute, with a mandate to promote not just the ever-increasing initiatives and programs of the Institute but the ideas driving them.

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IDEAS: the Magazine of the Aspen Institute is the tri-annual flagship publication of the Aspen Institute, with a mandate to promote not just the ever-increasing initiatives and programs of the Institute but the ideas driving them.

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In Mombasa on the coast of Kenya is a place called Haller Park. People flock there to see 180 indigenous species of plants and trees, and a variety of animals including hippos and giraffes.

In The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams (Gail Hudson is an additional author), discuss the park as an example of how our injured Earth can be restored and healed. At one point the park was "a monstrous five-hundred-acre scar where almost nothing grew" because a cement company created a quarry that ravaged the land. The company's CEO decided to repair the damage and slowly, year by year, with horticultural tending and introduction of wild animals, the area was transformed.

I start with this story in honor of Goodall's forceful argument that hope for our ailing planet is galvanized through storytelling: It's crucial, she says, that people - especially young people - know how positive action can still turn around the frightening trajectories of climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and the ongoing global pandemic. "It's mostly because people are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of our folly that they feel helpless," Goodall states. They need to hear stories of "the people who succeed because they won't give up."

Jane Goodall is one of those people herself. She is the world's foremost chimpanzee expert; UN Messenger of Peace; winner of the 2021 Templeton Prize; activist through the Jane Goodall Institute and its many projects that help local communities and the environment; and author of numerous books, the first of which, In the Shadow of Man, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

While The Book of Hope is marketed as written by Goodall and Abrams, that's a little misleading. The text is a skillful arranging of transcribed conversations between the two, with Abrams speaking in first person and Goodall directly contributing only the introduction and conclusion. This observation is not a complaint. On the contrary: This format makes perfect sense, and not because at age 87 Goodall needs to take it easy. She remains committed to a grueling schedule of public speaking and interacting with others about our planetary crisis.

Abrams is co-author also of The Book of Joy that brought together the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu in conversation. To speak with Goodall, Abrams traveled first to her home in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and later to a cabin at which she was staying in the Netherlands; the final meeting, planned for Goodall's family home in Bournemouth, England, took place over Zoom because of the pandemic. In this third set of conversations, Goodall spoke to Abrams surrounded by familiar and loved objects that she described for him. I found especially moving the objects from around the world given to Goodall, including a bell fashioned from the material of land mines left in the ground after civil war in Mozambique and a piece of limestone from the quarry where Nelson Mandela labored while imprisoned on Robben Island, South Africa.

From these conversations emerge an informative road map of ideas for ways in which every person may help bring about positive change in the world. This guidance is rooted firmly in an awareness of how bad things really have gotten. It's good to see Goodall mention nationalism, racism and sexism in this context, as well as global inequalities in wealth, though her focus remains on the environment. "Any discussion of hope would be incomplete without admitting the horrible harm we have inflicted on the natural world and addressing the real pain and suffering people are feeling as they witness the enormous losses that are occurring," Goodall says. "We only have a small window of opportunity - a window that is closing all the time."

First of Goodall's four reasons to hope is the amazing human intellect. While an intelligent animal "would not destroy its only home" as our species is doing, we have the intellectual power to come up with new innovations all the time, including "renewable energy, regenerative farming and permaculture, moving toward a plant-based diet."

Next on the list is the resilience of nature, attested to by the example of Haller Park I've already discussed. Goodall tells stories of animals brought back from the very edge of extinction, including a species of black robin whose population has grown so far from seven to 250.

Reason for hope number three is the power of young people, from elementary school age right through to college. Back in 1991, a dozen Tanzanian students approached Goodall with their concerns ranging from live animal markets to poaching in national parks; this interaction led to the Jane Goodall Institute's founding of Roots and Shoots, a youth organization now active in 68 countries.

Last of Goodall's reasons to hope is what she calls the indomitable human spirit, the ability we have individually and collectively to wrest a victory from what appears to be an inevitable defeat.

In one way, this section goes a little awry. Reminiscing about her second husband Derek Bryceson's partial leg paralysis as a result of a WWII injury, Goodall tells of an aunt, a physiotherapist, who noted at the time that he was walking "by sheer willpower." Other anecdotes follow of individuals with serious injuries or disabilities who live cheerfully with them or overcome them in "inspiring" ways. I have no doubt that each person mentioned was, or is, a courageous person. Not everyone with physical limitations, however, will be able to overcome them, nor should they be celebrated only if they can; disabled and abled people may show an indomitable spirit in many different ways.

One of the book's most welcome aspects is that Abrams plays the role of a skeptic, repeatedly voicing questions that may occur to us as we read. Regarding the power of young people, for instance, he asks what is truly different now than before, different enough to give us hope for change? Goodall replies that today, young people are not only keenly aware of the pressing issues they have inherited from previous generations, they are also more politically motivated to do something about it.

Goodall speaks plainly and effectively throughout the book. At one point, she conveys her belief that a "spiritual power.... seems to have sent me on this mission." She adds a welcome comment, that "there are many people leading ethical lives, working to help others, who are neither religious or spiritual."

Most of Goodall's statements do - or, I believe, should - speak to all of us. "I personally believe that animals have as much right to inhabit this planet as we do," she says.

And, as troubling as this current pandemic is, "we must not let this distract us from the far greater threat to our future - the climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity. "

Most wonderfully of all, Goodall calls each of us to action: "Let us use the gift of our lives to make this a better world."

Barbara J. King is a biological anthropologist emerita at William & Mary. Her seventh book, Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild, was published in March. Find her on Twitter

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Jane Goodall encourages all to act to save Earth in 'The Book of Hope'

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In Mombasa on the coast of Kenya is a place called Haller Park. People flock there to see 180 indigenous species of plants and trees, and a variety of animals including hippos and giraffes.

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World Wildlife Day - March 3

From the mighty tiger to the humble worker bee, the huge variety of life on Earth contributes to our lives and well-being in more ways than we think. From offering a wealth of natural medicines to safeguarding us from climate shocks and improving soil health, we need wildlife for our survival, well-being and prosperity.

However, the way we live and work - from the food we eat to how we build our infrastructure - is causing a steep decline in their numbers. In the past 40 years alone, we've seen, on average, a decline of 60 per cent in populations of species.

This coming World Wildlife Day (Tuesday 3 March), please spare a thought for the plight of many threatened species around the world. Here are five reasons why they should be a priority for all of us.

1. Protection against climate change

We all know that forests play a vital role in tackling climate change by storing carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere. But did you know that the wild animals in these forests also have a crucial role to play?
Protecting wildlife could significantly reduce the frequency and intensity of destructive forest wildfires. Plant-eating wild animals reduce the amount of grass that can fuel fires through grazing. In Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa, for example, one of the world's largest grazers, the white rhinoceros, has been known to reduce the spread and intensity of fire, especially after high rainfall when grass grows more rapidly.

Furthermore, large wild grass-eaters such as elephants, zebras, rhinos and camels do not produce so much methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as domestic livestock. This is because they digest grass in a different way than livestock - using a large, single stomach rather than regurgitating their food.

But that's not all. Wildlife can also help forests to store carbon more efficiently. Many tree species in tropical rainforests rely on animals like elephants and toucans to eat their large, fleshy fruits - and so help disperse their seeds. Trees with large fruits can grow taller than those with small fruits, making them more effective in trapping carbon. Studies show that the loss of such trees results in as much as a 10 per cent drop in the carbon storage potential of tropical forests.

1. Nutrient-rich food source

Wild animals serve as a critical food source, rich in proteins and minerals for billions of people around the world. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that 34 million people rely on fishing for a living; providing protein to over 3 billion people. In tropical countries, people harvest over six million tons of medium-to-large-sized mammals, birds, and reptiles for their meat annually which serve as a rich source of important minerals. The proportion of children suffering from anemia is projected to increase by 29 per cent if they lose access to meat from wildlife, with a much greater impact on lower income households. Wildlife ranching could also have major advantages for human health, since game meat contains higher proportions of unsaturated fatty acids. Consuming wild meat also helps cut down on food miles and the carbon footprint of food production making it a win-win for us and the planet.

1. Nature's medicine cabinet

Chemicals from nature have been a part of human civilization ever since our early ancestors began using them to improve and enrich their own lives. Today, they continue to provide valuable knowledge to researchers and medical practitioners with crucial implications for medical sciences. Amphibians are especially important for modern medicine with compounds extracted from frogs alone used for treating depression, seizures, strokes and memory loss. We also rely on animals for a range of novel compounds including "frog glue," a flexible adhesive obtained from the glands of Australian holy cross frog species used to treat human knee injuries; lanolin and Vitamin D3 derived from sheep's wool; and Premarin, prepared from mare's urine and used to treat menopausal symptoms.

1. Cultural significance

Non-material benefits, ranging from spiritual enrichment to leisure pursuits, while difficult to measure and value, are amongst the least recognized yet most important contributions of wildlife to human well-being.
Wildlife offers numerous therapeutic benefits. Research has shown that people are most drawn to landscapes that are tranquil, aesthetically appealing, have a historic significance and contain wildlife. Natural habitats and landscapes which support thriving wildlife populations also serve as valuable spaces for people to interact with wildlife, ranging from photographing wildlife to watching wildlife films. Not surprisingly, international travel to wildlife destinations has tripled over the past 20 years, with visits to protected areas rising in most developing countries and generating an estimated revenue of 600 US billion dollars a year.

Wildlife also provides us important spiritual benefits, with sacred places and species playing an important role in many people's lives. The snake temple in Penang, Malaysia and the Galtaji Temple in Jaipur, India, dedicated to monkeys, are just two examples of wildlife forming the basis of religious practices and rituals.

1. Improving soil health and fertility

Wild animals play a key role in enhancing the health and fertility of soil by improving its nutrients. Their dung and urine helps replenish the nutrient content of the soil by providing it with enriching minerals. Wildlife, which range widely, can also move nutrients around - for example, the hippo's night-time grazing in grasslands brings nutrients back to the river through their dung, increasing fish productivity.

Maintaining ecological connectivity and keeping ecological corridors open
Bison bonasus, the largest land mammal in Europe, is a key species for preserving wilderness strongholds. The bison's browsing ability in the search of food helps maintain a mosaic of forested areas and grasslands, a landscape which is highly valuable from for its biodiversity and natural resilience in the face of climate challenges. Moreover, the bison is a species that, if successfully re-introduced and its habitat actively preserved across the entire Carpathian Mountains, will help maintain ecological corridors on a large scale, allowing for species migration, be it the bison itself or other large carnivores such as the brown bear, the wolf or lynx. The European bison is one of the most threatened large mammals in the world, and it is protected at the European level. WWF Central and Eastern Europe's and Rewilding Europe's Life Bison Project aims to establish a wild bison population that is demographically and genetically viable, by reintroducing 100 individuals in the Țarcu Mountains and Poiana Ruscă Natura 2000 sites in south-western Romania, where one of the largest wilderness areas in Europe survives.

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6 Reasons Why Wildlife Conservation Should be on your To-Do List

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World Wildlife Day - March 3 From the mighty tiger to the humble worker bee, the huge variety of life on Earth contributes to our lives and well-being in more ways than we think. From offering a wealth of natural medicines to safeguarding us from climate shocks and improving soil health, we need wildlife for our survival, well-being and prosperity.

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Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide toCreating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy, ThirdEdition (w/CD)

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This newest edition of the classic book shows how anyone can align and integrate values, passions, and dreams for their communities and families into their plans. Inspired Philanthropy explains how to make a difference by creating giving and legacy plans, tells what questions to ask nonprofits, and spells out how to help partner with advisors and nonprofit leaders for inspired outcomes. In addition to overall updates to statistics, the new edition includes a discussion of the implications of the Buffett gift to the Gates Foundation; new legacy planning tools; expanded resources on youth, giving circles, and communities of color; key questions for advisors and donors; and worksheets and resources available on the enclosed CD.

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Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide toCreating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy, ThirdEdition (w/CD)

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Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide toCreating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy, ThirdEdition (w/CD) [Gary, Tracy] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Inspired Philanthropy: Your Step-by-Step Guide toCreating a Giving Plan and Leaving a Legacy, ThirdEdition (w/CD)

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Half the Sky | Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women | Independent Lens | PBS

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Half the Sky follows travels to nine countries and meet inspiring and courageous women turning oppression into opportunity.

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The Biggest Little Farm Movie. Coming to theaters Spring 2019

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A testament to the immense complexity of nature, The Biggest Little Farm follows two dreamers and a dog on an odyssey to bring harmony to both their lives and the land. Search for screenings and book tickets on the official website brought to you by NEON

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Bending the Arc - A friendship that changed the world

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Decades before they launched the first statewide contact tracing program to fight COVID-19 in the United States, and long before they helped battle Ebola in West Africa, three young people barely out of their teens began a movement that would change global health forever. Bending the Arc tells their story.

Not long ago, the public health establishment declared it was impossible to treat poor people suffering from certain deadly diseases. In the 1980s, a fledgling group of unstoppable health advocates set out to change that. Their revolutionary model of training community members as health workers and treating all people with world-class medicine, has forever changed public health.

Bending the Arc is the story of Harvard medical student Paul Farmer, idealistic physician Jim Yong Kim, activist Ophelia Dahl, and the international movement at the center of some of the world's most pressing humanitarian crises.

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Bending the Arc - A friendship that changed the world

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Decades before they launched the first statewide contact tracing program to fight COVID-19 in the United States, and long before they helped battle Ebola in West Africa, three young people barely out of their teens began a movement that would change global health forever. Bending the Arc tells their story.