Efforts to restore damaged but once fertile land in Jordan's desert is sprouting hope for one of the world's most water-scarce nations, as a land assessment report Wednesday warned of the growing scale of global degradation.

Local organizations believe projects that reintroduce native plants and implement smart water harvesting systems will cushion the impacts of climate change and desertification, which are only set to worsen, according to the United Nations report.

Hours from the California coast, surfers are hoping one of the next spots where they can catch a wave is in the desert.

At least four large surf lagoons are proposed for the region around Palm Springs, which is more commonly known for art festivals, mountain hikes and golf, and has no natural waves in sight.

A group of wild elephants sift through garbage looking for food at a landfill in Sri Lanka. It's a dangerous undertaking — around 20 elephants have died from consuming plastic trash from the landfill in the Ampara district over the last eight years.

A swan stands on a bank of the Danube River in Belgrade, Serbia, completely covered by plastic bottles and other solid waste.

An indigenous environmental activist has been shot dead in Peru, authorities reported Wednesday, the latest in a long line of rights defenders to meet a violent end in the Andean country.

With drought casting a constant shadow over Santiago's 7.1 million residents, there has been a recent rush to replace thirsty, exotic plants with hardier, native ones in the hopes of staving off water rationing.

Floating on a river boat near a Liberian island, vet Richard Ssuna watches intently as animal carers wade towards the shore hurling fruits and imitating chimpanzee calls as they go. 

Fire managers across the US Southwest are reckoning with strong winds that forecasters say could lead to explosive growth in wildfires this week. Hundreds of people were evacuated in numerous blazes that have scorched structures and signaled an early start to the fire season.

A wildfire on the outskirts of Flagstaff continued its run Wednesday though dry grass and scattered Ponderosa pines around homes into volcanic cinder fields, where roots underground can combust and send small rocks flying into the air, fire officials said. Aircraft was grounded for a second day due to high winds, and a major northern Arizona highway remained closed as smoke shrouded the air.

Between vast almond orchards and dairy pastures in the heart of California's farm country sits a property being redesigned to look like it did 150 years ago, before levees restricted the flow of rivers that weave across the landscape.

The 2,100 acres (1,100 hectares) at the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers in the state's Central Valley are being reverted to a floodplain. That means when heavy rains cause the rivers to go over their banks, water will run onto the land, allowing traditional ecosystems to flourish and lowering flood risk downstream.

Iraq was hit Wednesday by its third heavy dust storm in two weeks, temporarily grounding flights at Baghdad and Najaf airports, as the weather phenomenon grows increasingly frequent.

Heavy winds have kicked up a towering wall of flames outside a northern Arizona tourist town, ripping through two-dozen structures and sending residents of more than 700 homes scrambling to flee.

Flames as high as 100 feet (30 meters) raced through an area of scattered homes, dry grass and Ponderosa pine trees on the outskirts of Flagstaff as wind gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kph) pushed the blaze over a major highway.