Nature Answers: Rural Stories from a Changing Planet

In this episode, we sit down with a key project coordinator to explore the vital intersection of community radio, climate resilience, and rural collaboration. Our guest unpacks their precise role within the Movement for Impact and Sustainable Action (MISA) and the Nature-Based Solutions project. We learn how they manage relationships with local broadcasters—including Breeze FM—and coordinate rural...

In Zambia's Chipangali district, farmers are overcoming climate-induced agricultural challenges by forming listening groups to engage with radio broadcasts about nature-based solutions. Facilitated by local broadcasters and the Media Institute of Southern Africa, these cooperative, community-led efforts have successfully transformed agricultural practices and increased yields through shared knowle...

Farmers in Zambia’s Kadiani Village are combating climate change and soil degradation by reverting to "kraal shifting," a traditional practice using manure to fertilize sandy soil, which improves moisture retention during droughts. By communal sharing of livestock for this process, the village increases resilience against the high costs and diminishing returns of chemical fertilizers.  This episod...

Before the guns came, Alebelebe Village was alive with trees, rain, and abundance. What happened next, and how this community found its way back, is a story you won't soon forget. In this episode, we take you to Alebelebe Village in the Lira District of Uganda, where the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency forced families from their homes and shattered the rhythms of life they had always known. When...

What if the secret to feeding your family, saving your land, and transforming your community was already growing in your backyard? In this episode, host Ivy Prosper takes us to Overland Missions Base Camp in Choma, Zambia, where pastor and base camp director Caristo Chipwaya is combining gospel teachings with organic farming to help rural families grow more with less. Through a program called Farm...

This episode is hosted by Ivy Prosper, produced by student producer Madison Eldridge, and edited by John McGill. Translation and dubbing by Gertrude Nalubinga, Hadija Mutesi, and Brenda Mugwisagye Murangi. We are deeply grateful to the women of Katagi Village who courageously shared their stories, including Annet Nassanga, Zigama Elivania, and Kyalinkunda Esiter, as well as Nagawa Marium and the b...

What happens when the loss of forests reshapes not just the land, but the safety and lives of the women who depend on it? In this powerful first episode of a two-part series, host Ivy Prosper takes us to Katagi Village in Uganda, where deforestation has had devastating ripple effects. As logging companies cleared community forests, essential resources like firewood and water became scarce, forcing...

How can a village secure its food supply in an unpredictable climate? In Biasso, Côte d’Ivoire, a series of neatly lined ponds are doing just that. Built in response to food shortages, these fish farms have become a sustainable solution, providing a reliable source of nutrition and income even in the face of heavy rains and prolonged droughts. By reinvesting profits into expansion and infrastructu...

What does it take to turn barren land into a thriving future? In Eastern Uganda, Emmanuel Odeke and his wife Teresa Tino transformed a struggling 1.5-acre plot into a flourishing fruit farm using nature-based solutions. After growing up in poverty and leaving school early, Emmanuel took a risk: selling a sheep to buy lemon seeds, and began experimenting with grafting techniques to improve fruit qu...

Climate change skeptics in their community doubted them. Still, Bebane Mahadi’s joined forces with other young farmers, dug up two wells, and manually installed an innovative irrigation system that saved them during the 2016 drought. In our season launch, host Ivy Prosper introduces us to young farmers of Bourdhonc, in Sassandra, a coastal city in southern Cote d’Ivoire. Surpassing the initial rej...

In season 3 of Nature Answers, we will take you across Uganda, Zambia and Côte d'Ivoire.  Episode 1 is coming this Thursday where we will travel to Côte d'Ivoire to meet a young farmer who made what was an unpopular decision in the early 2000s that led to surviving a drought in 2016. Since then, he's helped empower other members of the community to build the same resilience.  Season 3 is coming th...

On a sunny day in Choma, Zambia, Cornwell Hademu shares a traditional drink—and a powerful idea. In this season finale of Nature Answers , we meet Kelvin Siafweba and the team from Happy Planet, a cooperative of people recovering from addiction who are turning agricultural waste into sustainable charcoal and soil-enhancing biochar. But this episode is about more than just climate solutions. It’s a...

Under the Mochipapa tree in Choma, Zambia, is a research station. The researchers there are studying drought-resistant crops and sustainable farming—with the help of farmers like last episode’s Cornwell Hademu.  In this episode of Nature Answers , you’ll hear about the challenges involved in sustainable farming when your country is in the middle of a drought and electricity is scarce.  But you’ll...

When Cornwell Hademu, of Choma, Zambia, started mentoring the women of nearby Mbole, he was sure it would help them on their fields and their farms. What wasn’t clear was just how far that mentorship would take the women.  In the past few years, the Twachiyanda Women’s Group has gone from foraging for food in the surrounding area, to weathering a drought thanks to Cornwell’s mentorship on nature-b...

In Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa and rubber farms, yields are dwindling due to deforestation and rising temperatures. In this episode we meet farmers like Gbagnon Jean-Pierre Lodugnon who have been farming those fields for a lifetime. Alongside fellow farmers Aicha Fofana and Lamini Zoungrana, Jean-Pierre faces a difficult choice: keep relying on traditional crops that no longer thrive—or make space for t...

In Northern Uganda, a community once torn apart by war is regrowing its future—one tree at a time. In this episode, we travel to Bar Opok, a rural village in Northern Uganda, to learn how a resilient community is reclaiming its forests. Once devastated by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency, the land was stripped bare, its people displaced, and its environment left vulnerable to erosion, h...

Nestled on a narrow strip between the Gulf of Guinea and the Keta Lagoon, the Ghanaian village of Setsinu has long depended on its unique geography for farming and fishing. But climate change is transforming that blessing into a threat. Setsinu’s proximity to water has left it at a high risk of flooding, and in recent years those floods have wiped out crops and displaced families. Through the voic...

In Kugzua, Ghana, farmers were falling sick. They soon determined the cause: chemical fertilizer. But faced with a choice between poor crops and poor health, farmers stuck with what they were told would keep them fed—until they encountered another option. It’s one that both stemmed from their traditions, and promised a healthier future for both them and their crops.  In this environmental food fig...

Yaara stands as a lone, lush oasis in its part of Ghana. And yet, women in the town have to walk six miles every day to fetch water. Despite pressure from surrounding communities, Yaara has decided against cutting their trees to make a profit by producing charcoal. Why? They’re holding out hope they can bring their water access back. Community members, including Chief Nana Yaw Sumaa, the Queen Mot...

When Jessica Sheillah Aanyu moved a six hour bus and motorcycle ride from home, she found herself asking, “What can I do to make a difference.” When an illness threatened her life, she asked herself, “What have I left behind that the world will be proud of.”  The answers to these questions led to founding Trees for Life, an environmental organization started by Jessica and her husband that brings...

Mangroves are money-makers in coastal Côte d’Ivoire. And the fish you can cook with the smoke from their branches are delicious. But the very practice of cutting down the trees to burn put the fish in danger. So people like Jean-Claude Kaké have had to make a choice: Do you keep cutting the trees to make money in order to feed your family? Or do you forgo the cash for a future that might take year...

When the Malili Women’s Cooperative first tried new farming techniques in reaction to climate change, their community laughed at them. But what started as a simple listening group for a farming radio program has grown into a powerful, women-led farming cooperative, leading the way with nature-based solutions. These women have faced financial struggles, skepticism from their community, and even a n...

The Mabamba Swamp is home to the dinosaur-like shoebill stork. But it wasn't always that way. In order to save it. Joseph Kimbagaya had to convince his friends, his elders, and ultimately the Catholic Church.  In our season launch, host Ivy Prosper takes us to the lush Mabamba Swamp in central Uganda, home to over 300 bird species, including the striking shoebill stork.  Hear how local leaders, to...

When Ggingo first found encroachers digging up their community forest, they called the police. But they soon found that chasing people from the forest wasn’t a long term solution – so they changed tactics.  In this teaser for Season 2 of Nature Answers you’ll find that conflict isn’t always the answer.  And – meet our new host, Ivy Prosper. The Ghanaian-Canadian joins us from Accra, Ghana where we...

Local media can make a difference — at least if it's done right. That's what these professionals had to say during a recent live podcast recording at the Cooperation Canada Forum in Ottawa, Canada.  Hear from media professionals both in Canada and Africa about the power of community media in all its forms. This lively discussion saw panelists tasked with proving the impact of radio in a world of d...