Focus on Arts and Ecology

Agriculture has boomed in Uruguay over the past decade, but the accompanying rise in agrochemical use poses a problem for honey producers. 

By Lucía Cuberos, April 10, 2026

What began as isolated reports quickly turned into a mass mortality crisis that has reignited the debate on sustainable agriculture.

In late 2025, beekeepers in Uruguay began reporting that their bees were dying. Some 15,000 hives and more than 85 beekeepers were reportedly affected. Jihmy Fiorelli, president of the Uruguayan Beekeeping Society (SAU), says this could be less than the reality: “That figure could double, as many beekeepers did not want to report it out of fear.”

Typically renting space from landowners, apiarists fear being evicted for complaining.

Those complaints would be aimed at farming methods: in Uruguay, beekeepers set up their hives in soya, maize and rapeseed fields. The variety of flowers and the fertility of the soil on these farms aid steady honey production.

In 2025, there were 2,200 registered beekeepers in Uruguay and over 550,000 hives, producing approximately 9,000-12,000 tonnes of honey per year. However, this army of beekeepers is increasingly concerned that farmers’ use of pesticide “cocktails” poses a threat to their sector.

The pesticide cocktail

Uruguay’s bee colonies typically lose around 30% of their population each year, due to nutritional stress, and exposure to both agricultural pesticides and other chemicals. However, several researchers tell Dialogue Earth that the latter is an increasingly significant risk factor.

Estela Santos, an entomologist at Uruguay’s University of the Republic (Udelar), says the 2025 die-off could not have been due to natural causes: “We were able to confirm that it was a case of chemical poisoning. It cannot be explained by any disease.”

Insecticides were detected in only two of the 24 samples analysed in Santos’s study. This led the scientists to focus on other pesticides: the cocktail of herbicides and desiccants (drying agents) used in agriculture. They hypothesised these might combine to produce a lethal toxic effect, one not anticipated by analysing each product separately.

Gustavo Fripp is a beekeeper and delegate of the Honorary Commission for the Development of Beekeeping (CHDA) at the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries (MGAP). He explains that complex mixtures are often prepared to maximise the profitability of agricultural production: “Sometimes six or seven products are mixed together, and then we don’t know what the effect will be.”

Santos also highlights that, although the individual use of chemical inputs is regulated, there are currently no regulations in Uruguay requiring impact assessments for these mixtures.

The MGAP has informed Dialogue Earth that its investigations into the 2025 bee mortality event are so far inconclusive. No chemical molecule has been found that recurs systematically in all affected hives. Agustín Giudice, the ministry’s director general of agricultural services, says they are leaning towards a multi-causal explanation: nutritional, health and management factors, alongside exposure to agrochemicals.

The National Commission for Rural Development (CNFR), a group of family farm businesses, issued a statement in December in response to the deaths, urging that “all relevant investigations be carried out”. It also highlighted the importance of coexistence between beekeeping and agriculture.

Agricultural boom

Over the past decade, Uruguay has seen an expansion of agricultural land devoted to crops, particularly soya and maize, with production reaching record highs.

This growth, however, has been accompanied by a high volume of chemical inputs.

Preliminary data from the MGAP indicates 31 million litres of herbicides were imported in 2024. Paraquat – classified as moderately hazardous by the World Health Organization – was one of the most imported, after glyphosate.

Giudice asserts that these chemicals are necessary to ensure the sector’s competitiveness. According to Santos, however, they have ecological costs that extend beyond bees. He claims they affect the more than 500 species of insects in Uruguay that play a beneficial role in pollination, as well as the decomposition of organic matter.

Fiorelli says the impact of soil fumigation with agrochemicals causes a “monstrous ecological imbalance”, affecting wasps, mangangás (large bees native to South America) and butterflies.

Regulation and standards

For Santos, one of the biggest problems is that Uruguay assesses chemicals using “lethal dose 50” (LD50). This metric indicates whether a compound will cause the death of 50% of test organisms under laboratory conditions. LD50 ignores differences in local ecosystems in terms of climate, flora or pollinator behaviour, explains Santos.

These differences, Santos believes, could mean that international chemical standards are insufficient for assessing localised mortality: a specific imported chemical could prove to be more lethal in Uruguayan fields than its label suggests. He expresses regret that this has not yet “caught the attention” of regulatory agencies to prompt an update of impact assessment protocols.

There are also commercial implications. A recent study revealed almost 50% of the active ingredients in pesticides permitted in Latin America are not permitted in the European Union (EU), due to environmental safeguarding. Furthermore, 88% of the pesticide active ingredients that are approved for use in at least one Latin American country, and that are classified as high-risk by the World Health Organization, are not permitted in the EU. In particular, Uruguay has 86 approved active ingredients that are banned in the EU.

A recent legislative amendment also removed the obligation for farmers to report crop spraying. “This led to a sharp drop in the number of reports. Reinstating mandatory reporting is one of the main demands [of beekeepers],” says Fripp.

The agricultural landscape

Although experts and authorities claim intensive agriculture and beekeeping go hand in hand, in practice, the two industries appear increasingly at odds.

Beekeepers operate on farmland via private agreements, but these have become more fragile. According to Fripp, some agricultural associations argue they should have exclusive use of the land to produce, free from bee-friendly restrictions, while beekeepers claim they depend on precisely that same fertile area to carry out their activities.

Alternatives are emerging, such as integrated pest management (IPM) and the use of biological inputs. IPM is a production strategy that aims to reduce reliance on pesticides through systematic crop monitoring technology and the selective use of chemicals. Biological inputs follow the same logic, using products made from plant or insect extracts with less harmful chemicals – or none at all – to control pests and diseases.

Research suggests that training in these types of agroecological practices can reduce pesticide poisoning by up to 73%.

The use of biological inputs has begun in Uruguay, although Fripp points out that “they are more expensive and still represent a very small share of the market”. In any case, he stresses, biological inputs are not a “magic solution”, but must be integrated into a broader management framework.

Santos insists that true coexistence requires “learning to give way in terms of space, time and practices”, such as applying chemicals at night or avoiding spraying during plant flowering periods. These changes can protect pollinators.

Uruguay recently proposed a tax on those pesticides that the World Health Organization and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization both consider to be the most dangerous to health.

Fripp says this is “a positive sign” but that the funds raised should go directly to beekeepers. After all, industry estimates place the value of the “free” pollination services they provide at up to USD 400 million a year.

Lucía Cuberos

As the Gulf conflict plunges Southeast Asia into a deepening energy crisis, empowering local governments to transition from fossil fuels has never been more necessary. 

By Champa Patel, April 2, 2026

The war in the Gulf region is being fought with weapons, but its wider consequences are economic. It is also another entirely predictable shock that exposes a deeper vulnerability: our continued dependence on fossil fuels.

Around a fifth of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, now at the centre of escalating tensions. As the US called on allies to safeguard shipping routes from potential Iranian attacks and, more recently, seize control of the strait, the fragility of this corridor reiterates how exposed the global economy remains to geopolitical risk.

There is an uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of the international response. Just weeks before the world convenes in Colombia for the first major summit focused on phasing out fossil fuels, governments are mobilising to protect the very commodity driving both climate breakdown and geopolitical instability. Despite the lessons of the war in Ukraine and Covid-19, which sent energy and food prices soaring, our dependence on fossil fuels remains structurally unchanged.

The impacts across Southeast Asia are immediate and severe. Thailand is managing critically low energy reserves – around three months’ worth – forcing emergency measures such as work-from-home orders for state agencies. Fuel rationing has been introduced in Myanmar and the Philippines, where the government recently declared a national energy emergency. In some areas, essential services have been disrupted – from farmers unable to access diesel for machinery to cremations being delayed due to fuel shortages. As Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr put it, countries in the region are “victims of a war that is not of our choosing”.

This is not simply a failure of climate policy – it is a failure of economic and security policy. We will not emerge from this crisis unscathed, but we can emerge from it clearer-eyed. Clean energy is no longer just an environmental imperative; it’s the only credible path to durable energy security and long-term economic resilience.

Homegrown clean power is a strategic necessity. Crises, whether geopolitical or climate-driven, are no longer exceptional events. They are becoming structural features of the global economy.

What must not continue to become structural is our exposure to fossil fuel volatility.

Why subnational governments matter

Some of the most decisive leadership is emerging below the national level. States, regions and devolved governments are increasingly treating climate policy as security policy. In the US, California has accelerated investments in renewable energy, battery storage and electric vehicles not only to meet climate targets, but to shield its economy from global fossil fuel volatility.

Across Europe, similar dynamics are playing out. North Rhine-Westphalia, long defined by coal and heavy industry, is investing at scale in wind and hydrogen as a means of reducing exposure to geopolitical shocks. In Spain, regions such as Catalonia and Navarre are pairing renewable expansion with green industrial policy, positioning clean energy as both an economic and security strategy. Scotland, with its vast offshore wind potential, is making a similar case for energy sovereignty.

These examples point to a broader shift: where national governments hesitate, subnational actors are moving ahead, reframing the energy transition as a matter of economic security as much as climate responsibility. What makes this level of governance so critical is not just ambition, but proximity to delivery.

States and regions control many of the levers that determine how energy systems actually function: planning and permitting for renewables, grid infrastructure, building standards, public procurement and increasingly, investment vehicles of their own. This is what energy security looks like in practice: not abstract commitments, but targeted investments in domestic capacity, flexibility and resilience.

It is also why financing subnational governments is so critical. Without access to capital at the level where projects are delivered, the transition will remain slower, more uneven, and more exposed to political cycles at the national level. Yet the transition remains profoundly uneven and far from just. States and regions are responsible for up to 70% of climate mitigation and over 90% of adaptation actions, and are often closest to affected communities. But they receive less than 17% of international climate finance, according to global subnational government network Regions4.

Southeast Asia: exposed and underfunded

According to the International Energy Agency, the current disruption constitutes the largest oil supply shock in history. It has exposed structural vulnerabilities in oil-dependent economies across Southeast Asia, raising the cost of transport and essential goods, straining public services, and disproportionately affecting lower-income households who face the brunt of energy insecurity. This is a stark reminder that fossil fuel dependence does not just carry environmental costs, but systemic economic and social risk.

Energy systems across the region remain highly centralised yet deeply exposed. Around 60% of the region’s oil imports come from Southwest Asia, leaving economies directly vulnerable to the kind of geopolitical disruption now unfolding. At the same time, demand is rising rapidly: electricity consumption increased by more than 60% over the past decade and is projected to grow at around 4% annually to 2035.

This demand continues to be met overwhelmingly by fossil fuels, which have accounted for nearly 80% of energy demand growth in recent years, with coal alone generating around half of the region’s electricity. What this creates is not just an emissions challenge, but a structural security risk with economies that are simultaneously growing, import-dependent, and locked into volatile global fuel markets.

There are early signs of a shift. In Indonesia, provincial governments are beginning to play a greater role in renewable deployment, particularly in solar and distributed energy systems. In Vietnam, local authorities have been instrumental in enabling the rapid expansion of solar in recent years, even within a centrally directed system. These examples are the exception rather than the rule, but they do illustrate that even in highly centralised systems, local implementation capacity can accelerate change when it is empowered and resourced.

Yet despite this exposure, Southeast Asia attracts only a fraction of global clean energy investment – approximately 2% in 2023, highlighting a fundamental mismatch between risk and capital allocation. Financing subnational governments will be essential to closing this gap, enabling investment to reach the level where infrastructure is planned, permitted and delivered. It is at this level where, if action happens, communities feel the benefits. Whether it is multilateral or national development banks; sub-national development banks or the private sector; green bonds or blended finance, we cannot afford to underfund the frontline.

Regional cooperation as the key to energy security

Energy security in Southeast Asia cannot be achieved by countries acting alone. Initiatives such as the planned Asean Power Grid aim to connect national electricity systems, enabling countries to share renewable energy across borders and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. The potential is significant: a more integrated regional grid could smooth supply, lower costs and reduce exposure to global shocks. But progress has been slow, constrained by political fragmentation, regulatory misalignment and concerns over sovereignty.

The question is not whether regional energy security can translate into national resilience, but whether governments are willing to build the trust and coordination required to make it possible. In a region defined by diversity, that will not be easy. But the alternative – continued fragmentation in the face of shared risk – is so much more costly, because when one region lags, the effects are widespread. We cannot mitigate shared risks in siloes.

This is the reality of a fossil fuel-dependent system where exposure amplifies risk. The uncomfortable truth is that we are not short of warnings. We are short of political follow-through. The answer cannot be a return to the status quo; it must be a more strategic and equitable acceleration of the transition, led by all key economic stakeholders including governments and businesses.

That means investing not only at the national level, but in states, regions and cities that are already driving progress. Financing subnational governments will be essential to building resilience where it is most needed, and to ensuring that the transition delivers security as well as sustainability.

In a world of compounding crises, energy security is national security. The question is no longer whether we should accelerate the transition to clean energy, but whether national governments are willing to align finance, governance and political will behind the actors already driving it.

Champa Patel

The two-billion-year-old Aravalli Hills stand at the mercy of a contested verdict on their definition. 

By Shalinee Kumari, April 4, 2026

Over two billion years old, the Aravalli mountain range in north-western India feels like an oasis running through Rajasthan’s hot, arid landscape.

Its rolling hills, biodiverse forests and water bodies form a massive green wall protecting the rest of the country from the heat and dust that rises from the Thar Desert on the western edge of the state.

Yet despite its ecological significance, commercial mining has been degrading the Aravallis. At least 29,209 instances of illegal mining were reported between 2018 and 2023 in Aravalli districts.

Mining pressure linked to urban expansion continues to reshape the landscape. At least 65 minerals are mined across the Aravalli range, including lead, zinc and copper, as are industrial minerals used in urban infrastructure, like marble, quartz, limestone and granite.

Environmental activist Kailash Meena has felt the impact of this mining in his hometown of Neem Ka Thana, a village in northern Rajasthan. His father was a shepherd, whose livelihood was his livestock and subsistence agriculture. But marble mining in his village has made it hard to sustain these.

Mining and blasting are causing groundwater levels to fall in the area, and risk fracturing the ancient rock formations that allow rainwater to percolate underground. This is according to a submission Meena made to the Supreme Court in February about the environmental degradation caused by mining and stone crushing along the Aravalli range. Dust generated by crushers and heavy transport vehicles settles on crops, degrading soil quality and contaminating water and air, notes Meena’s submission. Grazing lands and forest produce on which many rural households depend have gradually disappeared.

These changes have pushed some families to abandon traditional occupations such as farming, fishing and livestock rearing, the filing says. Those who continue to farm have seen their earnings take a hit.

“Villages like ours are aggrieved by the mining mafia,” Meena tells Dialogue Earth. “A lot of construction that takes place in regions like Delhi … get their materials through mining in our small eco-sensitive villages.”

Further alarming native communities and environmentalists is the central government’s proposed redefinition of what comprises the Aravalli Hills and range. “Any landform located in the Aravalli districts, having an elevation of 100 metres or more from the local relief, shall be termed as Aravalli Hills,” stated a government press release. The Aravali range, meanwhile, has been defined as all landforms existing within 500 metres of two adjoining hills of over 100 metres in height.

Environmentalists and experts say these definitions are narrow and endanger a substantial chunk of the Aravalli landscape, especially vast stretches of low-lying scrub hills, grasslands and ridges. Locals worry they might open up the Aravallis for more mining, this time legally.

The definitions had been accepted by the Supreme Court in November, but sustained criticism and protest led the court to suspend that decision just weeks later, shortly after the central government halted new mining leases in the region. With the court’s suspension still in place, activists like Meena have been submitting evidence to the court demonstrating the ill effects of mining on their communities.

“People sitting in air-conditioned rooms cannot understand the complexities of the ground realities of the Aravallis. Our voices should become a part of decision-making,” says Kusum Rawat, a 30-year-old researcher from Banswara district in southern Rajasthan that lies within the Aravallis. Further worrying her is a new gold mine discovered in the district, which is expected to result in more mining on the hills.

Communities come together

Rawat was among activists, researchers and community leaders who recently completed a 700-km, 38-day Aravalli sanrakshan yatra (protection procession). It passed through all the states and territories the mountain range stretches across – Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Delhi.

Along the route, members of the procession met at least 1,000 people who shared the challenges they face living along the Aravallis. While mining-induced air pollution came up often, many also reported suffering from silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling large amounts of crystalline silica dust, which gets released into the air during mining.

Meena’s court filings cited a study stating that more than 23,000 cases of silicosis have been identified in Rajasthan, with nearly 7,000 deaths recorded up until May 2022. It noted how the prevalence of silicosis in stone carving and sandstone mining is much higher than generally believed.

The Rajasthan state government was approached for comment on these figures but did not respond.

Kanchi Kohli, an independent forest analyst, says one of the biggest mining pressures typically comes from urban expansion, with the Aravallis being a source of raw materials for real estate and road expansions around the ecoregion. She urged governments to keep in mind the social and ecological impacts of urbanisation on important ecoregions like the Aravallis in their planning.

Across the Aravalli range, individuals and collectives are fighting the threat of even more mining arising from the government’s definitions of the ancient mountain system.

In January, the citizen-led collective People for Aravallis, who played a key role in the yatra, submitted a 638-page intervention to the Supreme Court challenging the definition of the Aravallis. It included GIS maps, field documentation, community surveys and reports on mining impacts across the Aravalli landscape. “The whole range is bleeding,” says founder of the collective, Neelam Ahluwalia.

Referring to communities like Meena’s village, Ahluwalia adds: “These are communities with almost no carbon footprint. Yet they are the ones facing the impacts of environmental destruction.”

This long-suffering part of India hardly gets any attention, Meena notes. “In the last few years, pollution and heatwaves in north India have made headlines. But our areas have been facing these issues for 30 years now,” he says, adding that without the Aravallis, the northern areas will, like Neem Ka Thana, “have a difficult time surviving”.

With the Aravalli yatra, Ahluwalia notes, activists set out to bring local voices into the conversation through meetings and public consultations across the region. “People who depend on the Aravallis for their sustenance and live in its lap need to be consulted as to what they want before taking any decision which will directly impact their lives, health and livelihoods,” she says.

The interventions of communities and environmentalists are bearing fruit.

A Supreme Court petition filed in January by a group from Neem Ka Thana, separate from Meena’s, resulted in action from the Rajasthan state government. Authorities recognised that land designated to a private company for mining was within the Aravalli range, and ordered a stop to all activity. Mining operations had begun despite an earlier Supreme Court ruling that no mining can be allowed without the court’s approval, leading to the villagers’ petition.

In March, the Supreme Court assembled a committee of experts from fields including forestry and geology to come up with a new uniform definition for the Aravallis.

The impact on the environment

The ecological importance of the Aravalli range is undisputed, experts say.

The 100-metre definition for the range risks excluding from protection ecologically connected areas such as forests, wildlife corridors and groundwater recharge zones, Ahluwalia notes. “The idea is to open up everything for mining and make it legal.”

A report from the Forest Survey of India submitted to the Supreme Court in September 2025 observed that smaller hills in the Aravallis, located at the edge of the Thar Desert, serve as natural barriers against desertification by stopping heavier sand particles. They act as windbreaks, protecting Delhi and neighbouring plains from sandstorms.

This report was suppressed by the Ministry of Environment, K Parameshwar, the amicus curiae (who provides specialised expertise in cases) said in his report to the Supreme Court. Parameshwar noted that the 100-metre definition was not supported by several key parties involved, including the Forest Survey of India. The proposed definition was also never put up for public consultation.

The reduction of the Aravalli Hills would also jeopardise the role they play in rainwater harvesting. “There could be clear impacts on the groundwater recharge in the area which is likely to affect agriculture and access to water,” disrupting cropping patterns, says Kohli.

Government figures have found these concerns alarmist. In December 2025, environment minister Bhupender Yadav said that nearly 90% of the Aravalli landscape will be protected and that only 0.19% of the range could ever be eligible for mining under existing rules. An analysis by Down To Earth, however, notes that nearly 49% of the Aravallis would be exposed once the definition is applied.

After being approached by Dialogue Earth, a representative of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change responded that the matter was subjudice, or under judicial consideration, and did not comment. However, its press release noted that because its definition of the Aravalli range protects the 500 metres of land between two adjoining hills, “it is, therefore… wrong to conclude that mining is permitted in all landforms below 100 metre height”.

In his report, Parameshwar noted that land would not be protected if it lies between hills above 100 metres but farther than 500 metres from each other.

The fight goes on

The need to define the Aravalli range is being questioned by some citizen-led conservation groups. Jyoti Raghavan, from the conservationist group Aravalli Bachao Citizens Movement, notes that the landscape is already widely understood and recognised. “When it is already accepted that this is what Aravallis are, why do we need to narrow down its definition?”

Despite the ban on the new mining leases, the lack of resolution remains a cause for worry to those directly impacted by it.

“Clean air and pure water are the necessities of life. What will happen to our future generations if we do not conserve our ecology?” says Rawat. “It is our duty.”

Raghavan, who lives near the Aravallis in Gurugram, near Delhi, notes the biodiversity loss she has observed over her years of working in the region. “The birds, the jackals and the neelgai that I used to see are vanishing right in front of my eyes,” she says.

“I am in this fight for the ones who cannot speak for themselves… the animals, the wildlife that do not have a voice.”

For communities like Meena’s, their whole lives are at stake. “We are trying to protect our livelihoods. We are trying to protect our existence. Our farms, livestock, and water have been threatened. At what cost are we mining the hills?”

This article was updated on 16 April 2026 to include a response from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

Amid rising heat, doctors and researchers are focussing on low-tech, inexpensive solutions to suit Pakistan’s context. 

By Zuha Siddiqui, April 2, 2026

It was the beginning of spring in Karachi, and frigid mornings were giving way to balmy afternoons. But Bilal Colony was already far warmer than the rest of the city, and uncomfortably so.

The eastern neighbourhood – a dense tangle of poorly ventilated homes, dusty roads and almost no green cover, tucked behind factories and car showrooms in one of Karachi’s largest industrial areas – absorbed heat differently. By afternoon, it felt several degrees warmer than neighbourhoods just a few kilometres away.

Naseem, a Bilal resident who was pregnant last spring, describes feeling suffocated in the poorly ventilated two-storey home she shares with eight others. “I felt dizzy, I couldn’t eat anything, I just wanted ice, and I couldn’t get that either because there was no electricity,” she says.

A growing body of research points to pregnant women as being among the most physiologically vulnerable to heat.

Temperatures in Pakistan routinely exceed 40C in the spring and summer, and millions live without access to reliable electricity or healthcare. Rising levels of heat are an additional stressor in a country that has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world – 186 per 100,000 live births in 2019. The neonatal mortality rate was 38 per 1,000 live births in 2023, compared to 17 and 18 per 1,000 in India and Bangladesh respectively, according to data from the World Health Organisation.

Yet in Pakistan and many other low- and middle-income countries, little data exists on how heat is harming mothers and babies – the country is almost entirely absent from literature on neonatal and maternal mortality.

“The lack of research and studies in [such countries] means that we are underestimating the global burden of heat on pregnant women,” says Darshnika Lakhoo, a research clinician at Wits Planetary Health Research, an organisation focusing on the effects of climate change on public health. “Without the data and compelling arguments, [pregnant women] will never be prioritised in policy.”

For example, the disaster management authority of Pakistan’s Sindh province has standard operating procedures for heatwaves, but they contain no dedicated provisions for pregnant women. Instead, the plans depend on infrastructure that frequently fails: temporary cooling shelters in heat-prone areas; SMS and social media alerts for broadcasting heatwave warnings and precautions where women often have no mobile phone access; “cooling facilities” with air conditioning and fans in a city where electricity is often erratic. This is not specific to Pakistan: in a study published last year, researchers warn that a third of state heat action plans in India do not have any recommendations for pregnant or lactating women.

The need to fill this gap in understanding is urgent: a World Weather Attribution study found that a 2022 heatwave across Pakistan and India was made about 30 times more likely by climate change, and such events will only become more frequent as time passes.

No time to wait

“We should not wait for country-specific studies before taking action,” says Amelia Wesselink, a research assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health whose work focuses on heat and reproductive health.

Where local data may be lacking, high-quality studies from similar regions can be generalised to other settings, she says, while acknowledging that “what works in Karachi may be very different from what works in Boston”.

The starting point is finding out how local people experience heat, where evidence is generally limited.

“We need to start by talking to pregnant women about their experiences with heat,” Wesselink tells Dialogue Earth. “What are settings and times when they struggle to stay cool? What would be most helpful to them in those contexts?”

Since 2024, Jai Das has been working to fill those gaps in understanding in Karachi.

Das, a paediatrics research associate professor at Aga Khan University, co-authored a 2026 study which found that between 9-13% of low birth weight cases in Pakistan were attributable to heat exposure. He is also working on a first-of-its-kind study that attempts to assess the impacts of extreme heat on maternal, foetal and newborn health within Karachi and the wider Sindh province.

So far, his team have enrolled 1,200 women in the study, and aims to enrol 6,000 by the end of the year. For each woman, they are measuring biomarkers that have been historically linked with heat stress through pregnancies.

These biomarkers will help them understand the bigger pictures, says Das. “For instance, if a child is born with low birthweight, what are the pathways that have resulted in this? Understanding which biomarkers have the largest link with extreme heat will help us understand the overall impact of heat on the body.”

Exposure and equity

A key question is what interventions can help pregnant women deal with heat.

South Africa’s National Heat Health Action Guidelines identify pregnant women as a vulnerable group requiring priority interventions. They recommend community health workers be deployed to assist vulnerable populations during heat extremes. In India, city-level plans from Surat, Bhubaneswar and Rajkot include concrete steps to relocate maternity and neonatal wards away from the hottest parts of hospital buildings, and to provide education for new mothers on heat stress before they leave the hospital.

Gregory Wellenius, director of the Center for Climate and Health at Boston University, says many pregnant women in low-income countries face much larger health risks from heat than those in wealthier places. They tend to have higher exposure coupled with less access to healthcare and fewer ways of lowering temperatures. A systematic review published in November 2025 by Lakhoo and other researchers revealed that mothers in low-income countries face significantly higher risk of preterm birth due to heat.

“Many commonly recommended heat interventions assume reliable electricity, formal workplaces, and universal phone access, making them impractical for many women in low-income countries,” Wellenius tells Dialogue Earth. A fan, let alone an air conditioner, can be out of reach.

“Effective protection needs targeted, low‑tech approaches that leverage existing local community resources and are suited to the local context.”

Finding such approaches is now a priority.

Since August 2025, a group of researchers, engineers and scientists at the Aga Khan University have been trialling low-cost cooling interventions across more than 3,000 households in Karachi’s Bilal Colony and Garden West neighbourhoods, and Matiari village in Sindh province, with a specific focus on pregnant women, children and marginalised communities.

They have been installing canvas canopies that shade roofs and create spaces where women from conservative families can sit outdoors while still observing purdah (a practice that involves veiling the face in front of men who are not relatives). They have added wind-catcher ducts that funnel air into cramped homes, solar reflective paint that bounces sunlight off surfaces, and bamboo stilts with vines spread across them, which can cool narrow lanes and create communal outdoor spaces.

Anjum Naqvi, the project’s assistant manager, told Dialogue Earth he had already observed a 3-4C decrease in ambient temperature inside homes where they trialled their interventions, one per house.

He says his team feels a sense of urgency about their work. Heat has been associated with increased risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, gestational diabetes, congenital heart defects and cardiovascular events during labour.

And in Bilal Colony, where they are working, this research is a lived reality.

“We decided to focus on this [particular] neighbourhood primarily because of what happened in 2015,” Naqvi says.

That year, a heatwave drove temperatures to 45C, with the death count so high in some areas of Karachi that morgues were at capacity. Korangi district, where Bilal Colony is located, was among the hard-hit areas.

Sitting in her room, which doubles as a makeshift kitchen for the house, Naseem tells Dialogue Earth that she hopes the canvas canopy Naqvi and his team have installed in her courtyard will bring some relief.

“My husband and I are saving up to buy a solar-operated fan too, so that we can bear 16-hour long electricity cuts that are routine in summer months,” she says. “I am praying summer [will be] bearable this year.”

In part one of this article: ‘My body feels like lead’: Heat is making pregnancy a nightmare in Karachi