During his first term in office, Donald Trump relaxed nutritional standards on school meals, undoing an Obama-era initiative to feed students with whole grains and fresh produce. He also put officials from the chemical industry in charge of environmental policymaking. Under his watch, food and drug regulators eased up on enforcement.

That was then.

Last week, Mr. Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat who ran as an independent presidential candidate, as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The president-elect said that Mr. Kennedy, an outspoken critic of the U.S. agriculture, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

Mr. Kennedy, a former environmental litigator and scion of the Kennedy dynasty, has promised to ban food additives, remove sodas from food stamp programs, and overhaul nutritional guidelines. He rails against the federal health agencies that he would oversee and promises to radically repurpose them – by redirecting funding for medical research into holistic and alternative cures, shifting the focus from infectious to chronic disease, and slashing workforces.

He’s among several Trump nominees who could face strong resistance in Senate confirmation hearings. His debunked claims about vaccines, which he has lately tried to downplay, are certain to be scrutinized in Congress. He has repeatedly spread falsehoods about vaccine safety, particularly for children. But Mr. Trump appears to have his back in taking on what both men have framed as a “corrupt” medical and scientific bureaucracy.

Mr. Kennedy’s ascension in Mr. Trump’s policy circle follows his decision in August to end his own White House run and campaign for the former president.

But their alliance reflects a broader shake-up in politics, one that in Mr. Kennedy’s orbit has brought together health policy advocates, entertainers, and entrepreneurs on both the left and right who attack the U.S. health care system and its pharmaceutical and scientific enablers. This unlikely coalition – crunchy liberals and combative libertarians – is united by distrust of mainstream medicine, disregard for traditional scientific authority, and despair at the unhealthy nation they inhabit.

Hans Pennink/AP

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks against proposed Democratic bills that would require new doses of vaccines to attend school, during a protest rally at the state Capitol in Albany, New York, Jan. 8, 2020.

Mr. Kennedy’s grab bag of populist policies and scorched-earth approach to public health agencies, however, doesn’t square with what most voters say they want, says Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor emeritus of public health and health policy who studies public opinion on health issues. When asked, voters say they are concerned about drug costs, the fight against opioids, and health insurance rates, not about pesticides in crops or additives in breakfast cereal.

Mr. Kennedy’s priorities “aren’t the priorities of the people who voted for Trump,” says Professor Blendon, who works at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The president is repaying Kennedy [for his campaign support], but it doesn’t fit the agenda of either Republican voters or many in the House or Senate.”

And the clout of rural voters in Congress could blunt Mr. Kennedy’s ability to take on food and agricultural producers. “We are going to discover that Republicans have very strong farmer constituencies,” says Professor Blendon.

A shift among conservatives

Some of Mr. Kennedy’s proposals, such as capping drug prices paid by federal insurers and keeping junk food out of public nutrition programs, are popular among Democrats. Indeed, President Joe Biden signed landmark legislation to reduce drug copays paid by Medicare enrollees, a policy that Republican legislators opposed. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a prominent backer of efforts by Democratic-run cities to stop allowing food stamps to be used for sodas. On Thursday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, voiced his support on the social platform X for Mr. Kennedy as HHS secretary “taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.” He also cited his policies on prescription drug prices, nutritional programs, and farm pesticides.

Alex Brandon/AP

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., poses for a selfie during an America First Policy Institute gala at President-elect Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, Nov. 14, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida.

But Mr. Kennedy’s biggest supporters include entrepreneurs and activists on the right who want to loosen the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on drug regulation and roll back public health mandates. While anti-vaccine views were once more common on the left, and gained celebrity endorsers, the biggest pushback is now from conservatives who rebelled against mandates for COVID-19 vaccines.

And distrust of the federal health agencies that Mr. Kennedy wants to overhaul is much greater among conservatives. In a meta-study of preelection surveys co-authored by Professor Blendon, 53% of Democrats expressed a great deal of confidence in leaders of the scientific community, compared with 22% of Republicans. A majority of Republicans said they had little or no trust in public health institutions, such as the Federal Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In past decades, health agencies could mostly count on bipartisan support. The pandemic and the government’s response to it, including lockdowns, and mask and vaccine mandates, turned many conservatives against public health experts and fed into conspiracy theories about global elites, creating an environment for unorthodox politicians like Mr. Kennedy to break through.

Mr. Kennedy has promoted unproven wellness cures and products, from raw milk and ivermectin to peptides and psychedelics. Just as Mr. Trump has benefited politically from relentless attacks on public institutions that increase distrust and buttress his assertions that only he can fix Washington, critics say Mr. Kennedy has profited from the causes that he pursues, rooted in an antiestablishment politics that eschews scientific authority.

He has leaned into a medical conspiracism, “which basically causes people to distrust regulatory agencies and scientists who actually support evidence-based medicine,” says Andrea Love, a biomedical researcher and science communicator in Philadelphia.

Like many medical professionals, Ms. Love recoils at Mr. Kennedy’s nomination and the effect he could have. As HHS secretary, “He is the face of public health,” she notes. “He could say things that contradict every scientific expert and all the consensus data,” and his words would carry weight.

Seeking a broader health agenda

The medical industry is a frequent target of Mr. Kennedy’s. And there’s no question it exerts influence on politics: Four of the top 10 lobbyists of the federal government are from the health care industry. Critics, mostly on the left, have long complained about regulatory capture of federal health agencies by these industries, including large drugmakers.

One of Mr. Kennedy’s proposals is to reform how the FDA is funded. Under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the majority of funding for its drug division comes from pharmaceutical firms. When the act was renewed in 2017, the only senator to oppose it was independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Andrew Harnik/AP/File

The Food and Drug Administration campus is in Silver Spring, Maryland. One of Mr. Kennedy’s proposals is to reform how the FDA is funded.

Also opposed was Public Citizen, a progressive consumer watchdog group founded in 1971 by Ralph Nader. Ending this practice, though, would require Congress to appropriate more money for the FDA, says Robert Steinbrook, who directs Public Citizen’s health group. He’s skeptical that Republicans would do this – and even more skeptical of Mr. Kennedy as an agent of reform.

“Eliminating user fees and having Congress fully fund the FDA budget would be a great idea. Promoting hydroxychloroquine or circulation therapy would be a horrible idea,” says Dr. Steinbrook. “If there are areas of common ground that can be moved forward on, that would be great. But we’re very concerned that a lot of [Mr. Kennedy’s] ideas are rooted in false claims and conspiracy theories.”

Mr. Kennedy’s crossover appeal to activists on the left and right creates some internal dissonance. While some of his supporters want to see less federal regulation of emerging medical products and technologies and for consumers to choose their own treatments, others want to see far greater regulation of food and drugs so consumers are exposed to less risk. Mr. Kennedy has advocated both types of policies, often at the same time.

This push-pull over drug regulation is baked into the process, says Kevin Cranston, a former assistant commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, who retired last year. He recalls how communities wanted access to experimental drugs during the HIV/AIDS crisis, which led to changes in how drugs were tested and approved.

“The FDA is in a bind. Its job is to ensure safety, and its job is also to get helpful devices and medications and vaccines out the door to help people,” Mr. Cranston says. “People on one side say, ‘I need my medications now. You need to approve them now.’ And people on the other side are saying, ‘They have to be absolutely safe, and you need to guarantee that.’”

The FDA is only one of the agencies that would fall under Mr. Kennedy’s sway if he’s confirmed. The Department of Health and Human Services, which has around 80,000 employees, also monitors and helps fight infectious diseases, decides on treatment coverage by Medicare and Medicaid, funnels billions of dollars into medical research, and contributes to recommendations on what foods Americans should eat.

That Mr. Kennedy wants to promote healthier lifestyles, require nutrition classes in medical schools, and address the root causes of disease is welcome, say public health experts. But, they add, that doesn’t mean Congress should confirm a vaccine skeptic who has spread disinformation.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a broader health agenda, and I hope he would do that. But there are many other people who have the same agenda who are well trained and have experience,” says Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Editor's note: When this article was originally published Nov. 18, it misstated the month of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s departure from the presidential race. This has been corrected. 

David Zalubowski/AP

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Oct. 11, 2024, in Aurora, Colorado.

Donald Trump vowed during his campaign to enact “the largest deportation operation in American history,” possibly involving the military. Can he?

Legal and logistical barriers may stymie his plans. The president-elect also pledged more deportations during his first term than he delivered. And yet, a second Trump administration is armed with lessons learned from his prior administration and hard-line loyalists who shaped his border policies before.

Among those are Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s newly announced “border czar,” and Stephen Miller, an immigration adviser who will take on a deputy chief of staff role. Trump advisers are discussing declaring a national emergency to help facilitate immigration detention and deportation, and potentially open up the use of military bases to hold immigrants, The Wall Street Journal reports. On Monday, Mr. Trump called similar reports “TRUE!!!” on his Truth Social account.

For their part, many immigrants and their advocates are bracing for major change. Their fears include more separations of mixed-status families and potential hits to industries like agriculture, which economists say could raise prices across the United States.

The scale of deportations may depend on what Mr. Trump wants to accomplish, says David Thronson, immigration law professor at Michigan State University.

“If he wants headlines,” says Professor Thronson, he could order mass roundups at the limits of the law – and let courts decide “what violates due process or not.”

What are Trump’s deportation priorities?

Congress hasn’t made major changes to the country’s immigration laws since the 1990s. Yet the application of those laws depends on who’s in office, as presidents set priorities. That includes which immigrants to focus on for “removal” – a legal term for deportation.

During the Biden administration’s first year, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on the removal of noncitizens who threaten national security, public safety, and border security. He counseled against spending resources on those posing no threat.

The incoming administration similarly says it will first target criminals who pose security risks. But Mr. Trump will likely broaden that scope to other unauthorized immigrants. Entering the country illegally, for example, is a misdemeanor on the first offense. Residing in the U.S. without proper authorization, such as by overstaying a visa, is a civil violation.

Mr. Homan, tapped to oversee the mass deportation effort, has confirmed to press that workplace roundups would resume. He also told conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk that the operation should be transparent, with a weekly briefing to the public.

Former acting director of ICE under the first Trump term, who pitched the “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in family separation, Mr. Homan says transportation and shelter help from the Department of Defense may be necessary. He’s also mentioned outreach from “thousands” of military and law enforcement retirees willing to assist.

“If you’re in the country illegally, you shouldn’t be comfortable,” he told The New York Times. “You should be concerned because you broke our laws.”

That concern is felt by a small-business owner in Colorado. She overstayed her tourist visa and now lives here without authorization.

“It’s scary for us,” says the woman, who preferred not to have her name published for privacy. There are “not many options for us to come here in the ‘right’ way.”

Mr. Trump’s win was “something we didn’t expect to happen,” she says. Her family plans to remain in blue-state Colorado and avoid visiting relatives in Florida. She considers the Republican-led state more supportive of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

Veronica G. Cardenas/AP/File

Guatemalan migrants are searched before boarding a deportation flight in Harlingen, Texas, May 5, 2023.

Some polls suggest the majority of Americans support mass deportations. Yet other survey questions hint at more nuanced views held by the U.S. public – like strong desires for both border security and increased pathways to citizenship. How many unauthorized immigrants are currently in the country, and subject to deportation, is unclear.

As of January 2022, the government estimates, there were 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. (That’s roughly a quarter of the foreign-born population.)

However, many immigrants have since entered illegally, and it’s unknown how many have stayed. At the southern border, from the beginning of the Biden presidency through June, the administration has released into the country some 4.6 million individuals who lacked prior permission to enter, estimates the Migration Policy Institute. By contrast, under 1 million were released under Mr. Trump’s first term.

The Department of Homeland Security includes people with temporary protections from deportation in its “unauthorized” count. That’s another reason it’s hard to pinpoint exact numbers eligible for removal. Mr. Trump has spoken of ending those temporary protections, however.

No matter how dramatically Mr. Trump scales up removals, though, infrastructure will need to scale up, too.

What are the logistical and legal hurdles?

Removals involve ICE officers, detention space, court bandwidth, and charter flights. One pro-immigrant group has put the price tag of mass deportations at $315 billion, if not more. Yet the businessman returning to the Oval Office dismisses the cost.

“When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here. There is no price tag,” Mr. Trump told NBC News.

To carry out his plan, Mr. Trump speaks of tapping into military might, including the National Guard. But there are legal limits around how presidents can use those troops to enforce laws.

Immigration lawyers point to the Constitution’s due process protections that extend to immigrants on U.S. soil. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has said he’ll invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. During times of war or invasion, the law makes subjects of enemy nations “liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies.” The president-elect and his allies have repeatedly said that illegal immigration is an “invasion.”

How immigration judges decide cases – including defenses to deportation, like asylum – may also change based on who’s installed as attorney general. That’s because the country’s immigration courts and judges operate within the Department of Justice. (One of Mr. Trump’s former attorneys general, Jeff Sessions, for instance, decided victims of domestic or gang violence generally weren’t eligible for asylum. The Biden administration reversed this.) Last week, Mr. Trump announced his nomination of Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a lawmaker staunchly opposed to illegal immigration, as attorney general.

Moreover, Mr. Trump may benefit from a legal victory handed to Mr. Biden last year. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to challenge the government’s immigration enforcement priorities.

In some ways, the incoming president is “in a stronger legal position” than before, and can “push the envelope on other things,” says Professor Thronson.

The Republican administration can expect challenges from elected officials, however. Some Democratic governors, like those in Illinois and Massachusetts, have already pledged to limit cooperation, based on protecting their state residents and democratic norms. Selene Rodriguez, a campaign director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, argues that places with “sanctuary” polices are only “aiding and abetting crime committed by illegal aliens.” She says liberal leaders “need to get out of the way” and let the government do its job.

Another roadblock for Mr. Trump will be diplomatic. Despite the president-elect’s frequent disparagement of Venezuelan immigrants, including suspected gang members, Venezuela doesn’t currently accept deportees from the U.S., reports Axios.

How will this affect communities?

In Oklahoma City, immigration lawyer Kelli Stump is fielding fearful calls from people worried they’ll get deported.

Potential mass deportation is a “wait-and-see situation,” which makes it hard to counsel clients, says the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Still, Ms. Stump hopes she’s right in thinking that mass removals “can’t happen overnight.”

Beyond human impacts, however, there may be economic ones. Given the country’s reliance on unauthorized immigrants for labor, some economists worry mass deportations could spike prices.

“I think we can learn a lot from that first term,” when agricultural employers were largely spared, says Rick Naerebout, chief executive officer of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. That’s because the impact of mass deportation on rural economies, often reliant on agriculture, would be “devastating,” he says.

In sectors like his, employers may compete for workers more than workers compete for employment. Idaho’s September unemployment rate was 3.6% – below the nation’s 4.1%.

“Our jobs are not jobs that Americans have filled for decades now,” he says.

Not since the 1980s, under Republican President Ronald Reagan, have unauthorized workers benefited from mass amnesty. In as soon as two months, Americans may see what mass consequences are possible.

Editor’s note: This article was updated Nov. 18, the same day as publication, to add Mr. Trump’s comments on mass deportation plans.

Read these companion articles:

Trump calls for mass deportation. How would that work?

The Republican Party has sought to capitalize on voter concerns over record-high illegal immigration during the Biden years. Here we look at the feasibility of a pillar of Donald Trump’s plan for addressing that influx and disincentivizing such crossings.

Deportation 101: How removing people from the US really works

Deportation sounds like a straightforward term, but it’s complicated in practice. Here’s context for understanding the rise in deportations under President Joe Biden and Republican proposals calling for more.

Murad Sezer/Reuters

World leaders react as they pose for a photo at the United Nations climate change conference known as COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12, 2024.

World diplomats are gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan, trying to make some progress on what many see as the trickiest part of combatting climate change: paying for it. 

For 29 years now, these policymakers – along with tens of thousands of advocates, academics, industry executives, and other onlookers – have gotten together for an annual COP, or “Conference of the Parties,” to make big collective decisions about what to do about global warming.

The process has led to some remarkable consensus-building; 195 countries have agreed to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. They have promised to phase out fossil fuels and stop deforestation by 2030, and they have decided that wealthy countries – those most responsible for Earth’s warming – should financially help developing nations adapt and deal with the impacts of climate change.

But turning these goals into reality is an immense challenge, one that even supporters of international diplomacy say may require a new approach. The election of Donald Trump in the United States adds another variable; he pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and many have speculated that he may do so again.  

Despite the pledges, greenhouse gas emissions are still on the rise. And the global price tag for slowing and adapting to climate change is breathtakingly high, with some estimates putting it at more than a trillion dollars a year. (At the same time, it’s important to point out that many climate advocates argue that the cost of not reacting to global warming is even more jaw-dropping.)

This issue of “climate finance” is front and center at this year’s COP. And it gets complicated quickly.   

SOURCE:

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

One big question that diplomats are debating is how much money wealthy countries should send to developing nations to help with their climate transitions. In 2009, for instance, wealthy countries promised to send an annual $100 billion in climate finance. Now developing countries are asking to raise that to $1.3 trillion.

It’s a huge jump from the last commitment because, as Lisa Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Center on Sustainable Investment points out in an email, the $100 billion was “always too low relative to the true costs of climate action – including the costs to transition the world’s energy, transportation and industrial sectors, as well as to build resilience to more frequent and more extreme weather events.” 

Still, it’s a number most wealthier countries say is likely unfeasible. But at the same time, they are looking at another force in financing to help – the private sector.  

This is also complicated. But it’s arguably one of the more interesting and optimistic aspects of climate action today. 

SOURCE:

European Comission Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, Carbon Brief

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Over the past few years, clean energy has evolved into one of the biggest economic growth sectors around the world. Clean energy was a primary driver of China’s economic growth last year, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, and the sector is growing exponentially around the world, according to the International Energy Agency. In the U.S., the clean-energy sector saw a job growth rate of 4.2% in 2023, compared with an already strong 2% growth rate in the overall economy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. 

“Unlocking” private capital to flow into developing countries could both help pay for the world’s climate change response and be an economic boon, some say; a win for both business and global equity. Others in the climate world are doubtful. “Private finance has multiple issues,” says Ivana Vasic-Lalovic, senior research associate at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. “It’s a lot more expensive for countries … and by handing over the control of these climate projects the state can lose out.”

Many in the business world are acutely focused on this year’s COP because they are hoping for a more stable global regulatory environment, as well as government investment they say could supercharge innovation. Different types of funding mechanisms and carbon taxation plans are also on the agenda. 

With all of this complexity, some longtime COP supporters are suggesting that the annual meeting is due for an overhaul, to prompt less talking and more doing.

SOURCE:

Climate Policy Initiative

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

On Friday, more than a dozen prominent climate change officials, including Ban Ki-Moon, former United Nations secretary-general, and Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, called for a revamp of the COP process. 

“Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity. This is what compels our call for a fundamental overhaul of the COP,” they wrote. “We need a shift from negotiation to implementation.”

Thanda Ko Gyi came across a horrific sight in 2016 while diving in the waters off southern Myanmar. Many bamboo sharks and other marine animals lay dead or trapped alive in an abandoned fishing net. When she returned to the site 10 months later, the net hadn’t moved, as part of it was entwined in some coral on the ocean floor.

“It was hanging like a curtain, and it was still killing,” Ms. Thanda recounts in a phone call from Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. At that moment, she vowed that she would do something about “ghost gear” – nets, traps, ropes, lines, and other fishing devices that are left behind by humans and indiscriminately kill marine life.

Ms. Thanda, whose undergraduate education was in architecture, had learned to dive as a university student in Australia. The abandoned gear that she discovered off southern Myanmar shocked her, but she says the suggestions she made to organizations and leaders in the country to combat the problem weren’t taken seriously because of her gender and her lack of formal training in marine conservation. So in 2018, Ms. Thanda launched her own nonprofit – Myanmar Ocean Project (MOP), the country’s first registered marine conservation organization.

Devastated but undeterred

For the next couple of years, Ms. Thanda led a team of international diving volunteers in removing nearly 2 tons of ghost gear from about 100 sites in the Myeik Archipelago in southern Myanmar.

“Prior to Thanda’s work, very few people had any idea of the extent of the ghost gear issue in Myanmar,” says Joel Baziuk, associate director of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, which has helped MOP seek funding. “Thanda’s work has drawn attention to an area and an ecosystem that was thought to be more or less pristine, but under the surface lurks a huge amount of lost and abandoned fishing gear.”

Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Myanmar Ocean Project

Ms. Thanda returns to the boat at the end of a dive.

Based on the MOP team’s observations, Ms. Thanda wrote and published online in August 2020 what Mr. Baziuk says is the first status report on Myanmar’s ghost gear problem. But the COVID-19 pandemic raging at that time brought MOP’s ghost gear retrieval efforts to a halt. The 2021 military coup came not long after, shaking the nation and creating more challenges for MOP. “With the coup and COVID combined, things were really chaotic,” Ms. Thanda says. “I still remember the devastation I felt. I had planned so much.”

Undeterred, she pivoted to other projects. In the first half of 2021, she conducted research on the shark and ray trade in Rakhine, a western state racked by long-running violence. While interviewing fishers who were displaced and living in camps in Rakhine, she found that endangered sharks and rays were being processed for export to China. “You cannot go into these communities and ask people to stop,” Ms. Thanda says. “What are these people supposed to do when they haven’t been allowed to leave the camp for 10 years? ... I came into this thinking I’m saving species, but in reality, the context is so complicated.”

Ms. Thanda’s research helped her identify marine areas in Myanmar in urgent need of protection to conserve sharks and rays.

Wartime hurdles

Domestic travel has been difficult since the coup, especially for men under age 30. Ms. Thanda’s male associates have had to avoid road travel to certain areas, and their phones and belongings have been searched by military personnel. “You have to build a level of tolerance if you want to keep working,” Ms. Thanda says.

Soon after the coup, she observed that local activists were creating comics, posters, leaflets, and other art to raise awareness about various social and political issues. Inspired by the positive reception to this art, she developed a comic series to discuss marine conservation topics with people in local communities, especially rural ones that lack educational resources.

“A comic book made it safe to engage with young people,” Ms. Thanda says. “Safe for the people engaging with it, safe for the funders, and safe for myself.”

Published online in 2022, the comic series “Our Ocean, Our Home” follows protagonist Thazin, a young girl who encounters various marine animals along Myanmar’s coast. MOP has since secured permits to print a small number of copies this year for distribution in some village schools.

Sirachai Arunrugstichai/Myanmar Ocean Project

Nets that MOP removed from the water during dives in the Myeik Archipelago are left to dry on a boat before being packed away.

Six comic books in the series have been published, on topics ranging from turtles and whale sharks to ghost gear and Lampi Marine National Park, the country’s only protected marine area. Each issue is published in English and three other languages.

“When we started, the target audience for these comics were kids in coastal communities,” Ms. Thanda says. “But now, even kids who live inland, who have never seen the ocean, are enjoying the books.”

She is in discussion with potential partners to print more copies and to organize activities around the books to get more children engaged. In future issues, she hopes to cover topics such as overfishing and marine plastic pollution.

But in these difficult times in Myanmar, even releasing comic books turned out to be an emotionally fraught experience for Ms. Thanda and her team. “[Pro-democracy] activists were being hung on one of the days we were launching a comic online,” she recalls. “We didn’t want to release the comic that day, but I had to remind myself that a lot of kids need a healthy distraction.”

Ms. Thanda has also been working on creating a drop-off pontoon in Lampi Marine National Park where fishers can deposit any abandoned or lost nets they find. MOP recently built a sturdy pontoon that is meant to last at least a couple of years. At present, she is trying to find the best way to recycle the collected nets.

Because of sanctions against entities and individuals linked to the junta, many international funding bodies have been reluctant to finance projects in Myanmar. Ms. Thanda is now focused on raising money from within the country.

“Myanmar has very little marine conservation work being done,” says Tara Sayuri Whitty, a California-based socioecological researcher who has worked in Myanmar for several years. “Any good work helps fill this large gap.”

Mr. Baziuk says that doing such work “in remote areas of Myanmar, often with very little in the way of resources, and in the face of political upheaval, is quite something.”

Much of the success of Ms. Thanda’s efforts depends on the security situation. “I’ve been pushing so hard,” she says.

“Sometimes I need to remember that I’m living through war,” she adds.

Some 1,800 people live in Kyzyl Tuu, Kyrgyzstan, on just three long, unpaved streets. By day, the streets are all but deserted. Most adult villagers are at home working by hand on some part of a yurt, a felt-covered tent used by the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. The World Crafts Council has designated the Issyk-Kul region as the World Craft City for Yurts, but most of Kyrgyzstan’s yurt production is concentrated in tiny Kyzyl Tuu.

In the large courtyard of his home on the main street, Kurmanbek Achemob is shaping a wooden pole that will form the skeleton of a yurt. “My father taught me the trade when I was a child,” the third-generation yurt-maker says proudly. He works with his wife, Nazira, and hopes that at least one of their three sons will continue the family tradition. It takes the couple about two months to make one yurt.

Ms. Achemob is at a loom weaving the ormok, the tension bands made with sheep’s wool that will hold the skeleton and the felt covering. About 200 meters (656 feet) of the wool is needed for a single yurt, she explains.

The Kyrgyz have been seminomadic for centuries, and the yurt – whose rooftop, or tyunduk, is featured on the country’s flag – is the key element in maintaining this way of life. Almost all Kyrgyz families now live in houses, but for the warmer months, many transport their yurts and their grazing animals to the mountains.

Mirlan Kasmaliev and his wife, Cholpon, set up their three yurts each May at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters by Kol Ukok, a small lake. This is the highlight of their 7-year-old son’s life. “It is the best time of the year for him, when he finishes school and can go up the mountain to live in the yurts,” Ms. Kasmaliev says.

A yurt can last 100 years, Mr. Kasmaliev notes. The family’s yurts “are still the ones my parents used, although there is always some maintenance to be done,” he adds. “Every five years or so, we change the felt cover to make them as good as new.”

Bolot Mukaeb, a first-generation yurt-maker, says it is a tradition to build a yurt when a child is born. Weddings, funerals, and other occasions also are marked in yurts. “Although cheaper Chinese yurts made of synthetic fabric and metal have entered the market, many people still prefer the traditional ones handmade by families like us,” Mr. Mukaeb says.

Oscar Espinosa

GIMME SHELTERS: Each May, the Kasmaliev family sets up three yurts by Kol Ukok, a mountain lake, to live in during the warmer months.

Oscar Espinosa

CROWNING GLORY: Bolot Mukaeb, a first-generation yurt-maker, places the tyunduk, the yurt’s rooftop. A tyunduk is featured on the national flag of Kyrgyzstan.

Oscar Espinosa

FEAST TIME: Members of the Sattarov family take a lunch break before continuing to work on their latest yurt order. The family has made yurts for generations in Kyzyl Tuu.

Oscar Espinosa

THREADED WITH HISTORY: Aigul Asangulov sews the shyrdak, a traditionally patterned carpet used to insulate the interior of a yurt.

Oscar Espinosa

MAGICAL CARPET: Gulzat Mukaeb works on rugs that will insulate a yurt. During the day, she teaches at the Kyzyl Tuu school.

Oscar Espinosa

REED ALL ABOUT IT: Arabya Mukaeb makes the chi, the reed mats decorated with colored wool that will line the walls of a yurt.

Oscar Espinosa

VILLAGE LIVELIHOOD: Most adults in Kyzyl Tuu are engaged in making yurts. Thanks to this activity, there hasn’t been a mass exodus to the capital, Bishkek, or other countries for jobs, as has happened in many other Kyrgyz villages.

For more visual storytelling that captures communities, traditions, and cultures around the globe, visit The World in Pictures.

AP

In Colombo, Sri Lanka, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, right, hands over official documents to Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya during the swearing-in of new Cabinet members, Nov. 18.

In a year of major elections worldwide, one consistent theme so far has been a desire for more accountability in governance. Voters have tossed out incumbents, defied autocrats, and forced political rivals into partnerships. In particular, young people have demanded better economic performance.

One election stands out on that last note. In Sri Lanka last week, citizens elected a new Parliament with one party winning a majority large enough to make reforms without opposition. Corruption was the most vocal concern. But beneath that lay a desire for equal access to opportunities for wealth.

“Sri Lankans want to see a Government that works for them, not against them – a Government that acts in the national interest and upholds the rights and dignity of every citizen,” observed Daily Financial Times, a newspaper in Colombo, the capital.

The parliamentary vote followed the rise in September of Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the leader of a new coalition called the National People’s Power (NPP). The young upstart politician was elected president in the wake of a devastating financial crisis that erupted two years ago and toppled a political dynasty dominated by a single family. Mr. Dissanayake has vowed to tackle corruption and heal the ethnic and religious enmity that has long divided the island nation off the southern tip of India.

Voters have taken him at his word. The NPP made gains in Parliament across both the ethnic Sinhalese majority, which is mainly Buddhist, and the ethnic Tamils minority , who are mainly Hindu.. His party’s new supermajority – the first in Sri Lanka’s history – marks another unprecedented turn. Tamil voters, who still seek justice and land restitution stemming from a civil war that ended 15 years ago, rejected those parties that long fed off their ethnic grievances.

On Monday, Mr. Dissanayaka challenged his new Cabinet to uphold voters’ rejection of identity-based politics. In a symbolic gesture of unity, the new fisheries minister took the oath of office by speaking in Tamil, not in the dominant Sinhala.

Mr. Dissanayake may be an imperfect messenger of unity. He was once a strong proponent of Sinhalese nationalism. Yet during his campaign for office, he spoke in the language of reconciliation. “On the question of accountability, it should not be in a way to take revenge, not in a way to accuse someone, but only to find out the truth,” he said.

During the parliamentary campaign, some NPP candidates treated voters as “people,” not as “just a vote bank,” said Krishnan Kalaichelvi, an NPP candidate who won in a predominately Tamil district. “We campaigned hard on the ground, listening to people’s issues,” she told The Hindu, an Indian newspaper.

That humility plants the seeds for a renewal of democracy. “The challenge has always been convincing the majority community that granting equal rights to a numerically minority community does not take away their rights,” M.A. Sumanthiran, a Tamil politician, told The Hindu prior to the election. In Sri Lanka, identity-based divisions may be giving way to individual dignity.