Unprecedented, devastating, pervasive. No matter how you describe the COVID-19 pandemic, for billions around the world the virus has changed life as we knew it.  We are living through a remarkable period of history, one that will affect each of us for decades to come.

icture an ideal dinner plate. If you’re like most Americans, it features a hearty portion of meat, from animals fattened on midwestern corn and soybeans, and a helping of vegetables, largely trucked in from California.

Corruption in the land sector in Africa is rampant and it has led to a rise in the number of land disputes before the courts, forced evictions and death of many people across the entire continent.

Around the world, biodiversity is dropping precipitously. In North America, about three billion birds have been lost over recent decades and amphibian populations are declining at a rate of about four per cent per year. Globally, insects are vanishing at a rate of about nine per cent per decade.

 Christopher Reeves has farmed rubber for more than three decades in Liberia, selling his crop to the international tire-maker Firestone, which also operates the world’s largest rubber plantation here.

We live in extremely challenging times.