Global Us: What connects us all

Forests, swamps, and savannas - the Mono River delta is a natural paradise. But the growing population along the river separating the African nations of Benin and Togo is encroaching on the environment. Forests become farmland; hunters decimate antelope herds.

If this continues, little natural beauty will remain. Now a cross-border biosphere reserve is planned consisting of seven separate small regions.

Gomati Devi Dohara, a farmer, shows us her living room. She lives with her daughter Chitta in the village of Belvadi in western Nepal. The 300 villagers live from beekeeping.

Nespresso customers around the globe will soon be able to buy coffee from South Sudan. By late 2016, Nestlé, the world's largest foods company, plans to invest 2.5 million dollars in coffee production in the relatively stable state of Central Equatoria.

Many farmers are glad of a cash crop but can't feed their families from this alone. Farmers' associations say the country badly needs investment in its own food security.

Célia and Helena are two women who live in Mozambique. When we met them six years ago, both were pregnant and both were HIV-positive. Millions of African women share their fate. The highest risk of infection with HIV comes from transmission from mother to child. How are these women and their children doing now?

The rainforest of southern Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula has one of the richest bio-diversities of any region on Earth: 500 tree species, nearly four hundred kinds of birds, plus monkeys, jaguars and reptiles. But not even here are they entirely safe. Conservationists on the Osa Peninsula are working to save one of the last pieces of untouched paradise.

Their idealism has already carried them to some initial victories. But any environmental project needs funding to have a lasting impact. Raising the needed cash is up to the United Nations BIOFIN Initiative.

Weather in Pakistan is getting more extreme and unpredictable. In June, 2015, the country was hit by one of the worst heat waves ever. Just two months later, floods devastated homes and fields, displacing thousands of people within their own country.

Almost nowhere else are the signs of climate change as visible as in Pakistan. The poor rural population is hit hardest by the radical changes in their environment.

As a result of climate change, more and more regions are turning into inhospitable deserts. Fertile soil becomes so desiccated or saline that nothing will grow in it. There's increasing less to eat. Hunger and thirst force ever more people to flee their homes. Competition and conflict over dwindling resources are all but pre-ordained.

Climate change has already reached Alaska. In fact the largest state in the US is especially hard hit. Temperatures here are rising twice as fast as the global average. That's resulting in more forest fires and in problems for local fishing communities. And melting ice threatens to wipe many villages off the map.

The small national park of Los Colorados is one of Colombia's most important forests and a paradise rich with animal life. But the pressure from outside is growing: a busy road, deforestation and above all the nearby town are all having an impact on life in the park. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, is seeking solutions.

Its approach is to raise awareness among the local population about the need to protect the environment, and to show that humans and animals can live in harmony. They're drawing on the example set by an ancient indigenous people, the Malibú, who populated this region for centuries.

Thaabiet Abrahams lives in Bo-Kaap, a historical district of Cape Town. More than 6000 people live there, most of them Muslims. Thaabiet likes to go swimming. HIs favorite music is psychedelic trance.