In eastern Nepal, herds of wild elephants continue to rampage, demolishing human settlements and raiding crops.

BBC: Attacks prompt Nepal to cap wildlife growth

Wildlife experts say human settlements known as buffer zones around national parks have become flashpoints for human-wildlife encounters.

BBC: Attacks prompt Nepal to cap wildlife growth

But Sherwood cautions that the same human dark forces that haunt us here will logically dog human settlements in space.

FORBES: Space Architecture And View Condos In Low Earth Orbit

But overall, the world now has 55 million extra slum dwellers than it did in 2000, according to UN Habitat, also known as the UN Human Settlements Programme.

BBC: UN says 227m people escaped slums in past decade

Following nomination by the Secretary-General, the General Assembly, on 25 August 2010, elected Joan Clos of Spain as Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) at the level of Under-Secretary-General.

UN: Secretary-General

Climate change is already adversely affecting many areas, including biodiversity and ecosystems, freshwater resources, human health, human settlements and migration patterns, the conservation of natural and cultural world heritage properties, and peace and prosperity.

UNESCO: Indigenous Peoples

We travel for hours through broad plains of spinifex and red-earth anthills and see few other vehicles and no human settlements except, at the end of long rough dirt tracks, temporary Roy Hill rail-construction camps.

NEWYORKER: The Miner��s Daughter

Most of the world's poor live in densely populated squatter settlements and lack many of the basics of human survival.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Losing sight of the countryside