Liberia, Sept. 24 -- Summary

By Nemenlah Cyrus Harmon, climate and environment reporter with New Narratives

GBAA-GAYE TOWN, Grand Bassa County - Eight-month-old Helen does not play the way babies usually do. She lies against her mother's chest, as they sit under a palaver hut in this remote village surrounded by forest and accessible by one hand-cut road. Helen's legs are as thin as reeds, her belly is swollen, her hair yellowing, and her eyes are too large for her face.

Helen cries weakly until her mother, Naomi, lifts a breast to her mouth. Helen should be eating solid food now. But her mother doesn't have money for her food.

"That food we can get is food for ourselves to eat, but the one for the baby to eat, we don't get that," Nao...