Doug Brown helps World Vision look at the quality of its environment and natural resource management programming. This is what he has to say about how climate change impacts World Vision's work.

World Vision: From your perspective, what are the most pressing environmental concerns affecting our world today?

Doug Brown: The one that is on everybody's mind is, I think climate change and its impact is just the tip of the iceberg. People are much more vulnerable to slight changes in the environment now than they might have been 20 or 30 years ago, simply because of the extent of natural resource degradation that has happened over the past few decades.

WV: How are these issues impacting World Vision's work?

DB: The relationship between poverty and the environment is very critical in much of the developing world. Climate change just adds to that. Poor people living in degraded environments already find it very difficult to earn a living. When you add the increased variability of climate change it becomes even more challenging to survive.

Some of the projects we undertake are due to problems resulting from deforestation, soil erosion, and environmental degradation. We try and address these in our work through agro-forestry, reforestation, soil conservation, and small-scale irrigation projects.

WV: What new approaches is World Vision taking to consider the environment and what successes are being shown as a result?

DB: We have an approach we call "sustainable livelihoods." One of our newer projects in West Africa right now is a good example. It encourages farmers to use natural resource management practices that will improve both the yield of their crops and the fertility of the soil. The idea is to not only increase food production for families and households right now, but to do so in such a way that we ensure future productivity.

WV: What can we do?

DB: I think we need to make a serious effort to develop healthier lifestyles and healthier environmental choices in the way we use the resources that we have, that God has given us. For example, we could carpool or use public transportation.

Click here to see a photo gallery about climate change in the developing world.