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The National Council of Churches in India and the World Council of Churches (WCC) cohosted a webinar on 4 June under the theme “Sustainable Environment: Churches in action.”

The rainforests of the world are pivotal to the global ecology, to the health and sustainability of our planet, and for indigenous people whose livelihoods and cultures depend on them. But today rainforests around the world are at escalating risk of destruction and collapse, due to exploitation of short-term interests and lack of protection by governments. To protect and to care for these precious repositories of biodiversity and Indigenous knowledge, faith communities from different traditions can play a key role in ethical and moral leadership.

Using lessons learned from building health-competent faith communities and responding to the HIV and AIDS epidemic, African church leaders are doing their best to help their communities cope with the novel coronavirus.

As the UN warns that the coronavirus pandemic is pushing millions to the brink if starvation in a “widespread famine of biblical proportions,” a senior Christian leader in Africa has emphasised that it is possible to beat hunger, a yoke that enslaves many in the continent.

In a letter to the South Sudan Council of Churches and member churches in South Sudan, World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit conveyed the WCC’s great relief and gratitude to God that the long-delayed establishment of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity in South Sudan was finally achieved on 22 February.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to require the world to protect its most vulnerable people, the reality of undernourishment faces more than 820 million people in the world. This increases vulnerability in our one human family. Dr Manoj Kurian, coordinator of the WCC Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, reflects on the current state of food security.

Recent calls for increased action against hunger by church leaders, faith-based humanitarian agencies and development leaders are finding significance as a new report warns of serious levels of under-nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa.

Church leaders in eastern Africa are calling for increased action against desert locusts which have terrorised the region since January this year.
Like scenes from the Book of Exodus, huge swarms of the insects have descended on the region, destroying farmlands and animal pastures. The outbreak is affecting seven East African countries, where such a scale of infestation was last seen seven decades ago. At stake is food security for millions of people.

Erich Weingartner, who previously helped lead the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, has also represented CanKor, a Canadian interactive resource on North Korea. From the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, he was also founding head of the Food Aid Liaison Unit of the World Food Programme.

Twenty-seven young people from 11 countries across Asia officially began the World Council of Churches (WCC) Eco-School in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The school will run from 4-17 November, exploring water, food, and climate justice.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) and the ACT Alliance, in a joint letter to Burkina Faso president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, expressed concern for developments affecting the secu-rity and human rights of many of the nation’s people.