In parched brown hills in north Afghanistan, Abdul Hahad tears stalks of wheat out of the arid earth. In the third year of water shortages and high temperatures, his harvest is barely enough to support his family.

The 55-year-old farmer from Nahr-e-Shahi district in Balkh province used to plant two or even three wheat crops a year but in the last three years he has only been able to grow one. The yields from his nine acres of land are dwindling year by year.

“It’s been three years since the drought started, wells and the river have almost dried up. We don’t even have enough drinking water, you can see all our land has dried up,” he said, as he sat near a pile of wheat beneath the sun in heat of 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

Persistent drought across Afghanistan is taking its toll on farmers, its economy – a third of which is generated by agriculture – and food security.

Experts say the drought is exacerbated by climate change which leads to intensifying pressure on water resources. The Global Climate Risk Index says Afghanistan is the world’s sixth most affected country by climate-related threats.

With little functioning irrigation, Afghanistan relies on snow melting in the mountains to keep its rivers flowing and fields watered during the summer.

But Najibullah Sadid, a water resources and environment expert and Research Associate at the Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute in Germany, said as temperatures rise, precipitation falls and with less snow, the summer melt is not feeding into rivers as much as it used to.

The United Nations said on Friday it had completed the removal of more than 1 million barrels of oil from a decaying supertanker off Yemen’s Red Sea coast, averting a potential environmental disaster.

U.N. officials and activists have been warning for years that the entire Red Sea coastline was at risk, as the rusting Safer tanker could have ruptured or exploded, spilling four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.

The war in Yemen caused the suspension of maintenance operations on the Safer in 2015. The ship is used for storage and has been moored off Yemen for more than 30 years.

“It is a major moment of having averted a potentially catastrophic disaster,” said Achim Steiner, administrator of the U.N. Development Programme, which coordinated complex efforts to remove the oil from the ship.

Salvage crews operated for 18 days in a coastal conflict zone riddled with sea mines, amid high summer temperatures and strong currents, to offload the oil from the vessel.

Steiner said the U.N. raised more than $120 million for the operation, which required the purchase of a second tanker for the offloaded crude, aircraft waiting on standby to release chemicals to dissipate the oil in case of a spill and policies with more than dozen insurers to underwrite the operation.

“It was literally until the last minutes that we looked at this operation as one that had to ensure the highest degree of preparedness of risk mitigation,” Steiner said.

“The best end to the story will be when that oil actually is sold and leaves the region altogether.”

There is no agreement on how such a transaction will proceed and U.N. officials in Yemen will soon begin negotiations with the country’s conflicting groups in an attempt to agree on how to share the proceeds of a sale of the oil, which is majority owned by Yemeni state firm SEPOC.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is an important natural reserve which is shared between the provinces of Puntarenas and Alajuela in the northern part of the Republic of Costa Rica.

Covering an area of about 10,500 hectares (26,000 acres), the reserve was named by the mountain that has the same name, which in fact was named in 1951 by the 11 families who moved in the area in order to avoid the conscription for the Korean War.

Called the Quakers, they began with agricultural and farming activities where the area suddenly began to change its appearance. In addition to the widespread hunting, there were great concerns regarding the rich flora and fauna of the “Green Mountain”, which was seen by the number of biologists who were doing some kind of researches of Monteverde.

As a matter in fact, in 1968 while working for the Tropical Science Center, Dr. Joseph Tosi and Dr. Leslie Holdridge met with the leaders of the Quaker community in order to convince them to preserve the forest as much as possible.

Later in 1972, George Powell who was a young graduate student at that time visited and did some research of the flora, especially on the birds in Monteverde.

As he was mesmerized by the biodiversity, he bought a small piece of land with hope to establish a small biological reserve, and with the help of the Costa Rican biologist Adelaida Chaverri and wildlife specialist Christopher Vaughn the idea of promoting Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve was born.

At that time, there were not that many national parks in Costa Rica so this was not considered something serious. Still, throughout the years, the cloud forest slowly started gaining importance and the number of visitors was increasing with the years.

Nowadays, there are more than 70,000 people who would like to experience this Costa Rican treasure.

There are some 878 species of flora, among which the most common is the epiphyte, making about 29% of the total flora.

The fauna on other hand is less in number, estimating it to have around 161 species of amphibians and reptiles, among which the most known, and definitely most recognizable one being the golden toad.

Monteverde’s cloud forest serves also as a stopping point for the migratory birds, nonetheless, there are 91 in total so far that have been identified to live here, or visit the reserve.

Still, with the growing numbers of tourists coming here, the mammals are not having an easy time to adjust to the peace and quiet as it once was, however, those who are visiting the area, are finding quite the handful of ways to explore it without interrupting the wildlife.

There is a well maintained network of trails stretching to about 13 km (8 mi) which is perfect for daily adventures. All in all, very adventurous Costa Rican gem that is well hidden from the public eyes, and yet it is certainly one of the best experience one could have while visiting the Central American nation.