New guidelines to help states adapt to climate change

For generations, people have combed the sponge-like cloud forests around the city of Xalapa, Mexico for edible mushrooms. But a combination of deforestation and climate-change-related drought have devastated mushroom crops, an important source of income in a region beset by poverty.

That is starting to change, though, through an initiative called CityAdapt, supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with backing from the Global Environment Facility. It is helping locals cultivate their own mushrooms while replanting 2.5 kilometres of riverside forests, which do the dual job of protecting against landslides and capturing rainwater for Xalapa.