William Tell, in popular legend, takes a stand against a system that undermined his human dignity – tyranny and oppression. He refused to bow down before the hat of the evil bailiff Gessler, but was then forced to shoot an apple off his son’s head with a crossbow.

This tale has a universal message. When you are pushed into a corner, your freedom and liberty are under pressure and your family and future are threatened, you take a stand.

So why are we ignoring the fundamental threats to the liberty and freedom of more than one billion poor people globally and pushing them to take a stand? Why do we fail, time after time, to turn the challenges presented by desertification, land degradation and drought into opportunities?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released the last of its three reports on the status of Climate Change. The verdict? The threat of climate change is growing. Poor people, who contributed the least to it, are the most vulnerable to its impacts and pay the highest price.

No single “bailiff” may be dispossessing the poor of their means of survival. But the growing tyranny of a changing climate and oppression of food insecurity and poverty are creating social instability all over the world.

This new trend has emerged repeatedly, from Darfur to North Africa, the Middle East and parts of South Asia. As the choices for survival diminish, the poor are forced to take the stand to fight for their survival or flee.

What is of higher value than being able to feed your family? For a significant part of the global population, this means having direct access to productive land – water, soil and its biodiversity – because land is their only tangible asset.

Some 500 million small-scale farmers support the livelihoods of over 2 billion people. More than 1.5 billion people live off degrading land; at least one billion are poor. The projected climate trends threaten their livelihoods.

For the complete article, please see Thomson Reuters.