Climate change diaries: Zimbabwe
Hello, I am Lasten Mika.
You may have heard a lot about Zimbabwe in the media in recent years, yet an often unreported side of life here is the changes that are taking place in our climate.
Did you know that in the last twenty years, we have been hit with the extremes of weather? And that since 1987, my country has experienced the six warmest years on record?
We have had to deal with ten droughts during this time, leaving us with less freshwater and destroyed biodiversity. Our agricultural zones have now also shifted. Yet while some communities have struggled to cope with a dry and sparse landscape, others have faced the exact opposite as devastating floods persistently hit the lower Guruve.
These events have revealed just how vulnerable parts of Zimbabwe are to weather events and the high price we have to pay.
Let me explain: Any changes to the climate exacerbate Zimbabwe’s problems with poverty. When the impacts of climate change hit those living in poverty, it starts a dangerous cycle. Disasters can strip people of their basic needs for survival and all changes in climate can undermine any progress we make in reducing poverty.Many people rely on the climate to provide the conditions for water and food supply, essential factors for maintaining health and creating opportunities for economic growth.
Yet these are now at risk; climate predictions for our country show that the situation is likely to continue and even get worse.
The UN Development Programme believe that agricultural production – the main livelihood source for nearly three-quarters of the population – could decrease by up to 30 percent this century, with our growing season shortening by up to 35 days.
For people already balancing precariously on the poverty line this means a decrease in maize, the country’s staple food, along with a loss in livestock production as it becomes difficult to find areas for grazing. Water is likely to become a problem in two respects; with fewer rain days there will be greater stress on our supplies as the water table lowers, but when the rains do occur they will continue to happen with greater intensity, increasing the risk of floods and other natural disasters.
Zimbabwe must prepare for what threatens to one of the most serious food security challenges of the 21st century. Practical Action is working with groups of farmers living in Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable regions to protect water and food supplies.
Together we have taken urgent steps to save the water catchment areas in Matabeleland, Masvingo and Mashonaland through reforestation and promoting proper land use.
We are also working with farmers to enhance their agricultural practices in ways that conserve the local ecosystems, are relevant to their needs, and allow them to be flexible to changes in the future. Typical techniques include; minimum soil movement, maintaining surface cover with crop residues or live plants, and crop rotation.
The starting point for protecting ecosystems is the farmers’ local knowledge. In order to deal with the new challenges of climate change, this needs to be combined with emerging agricultural innovations.
The ‘Learning Centre’ developed by Practical Action is a place for this, creating an interactive forum for raising awareness, and promoting techniques that help adaptation at the farm-level.
The learning centre helps share information about good techniques widely, yet it would struggle to reach all farmers. And, as I mentioned earlier, the impacts of climate change go wider than the farming sector, threatening most people living in vulnerable areas; we now need investment to support and scale up adaptation projects that include strengthening of early warning systems, disaster preparedness, water harvesting and many others.
The people of Zimbabwe need a climate deal to be agreed in Copenhagen – a deal which can limit the effects of climate change we will experience, while providing support for Zimbabwe to implement its adaptation plans.
Despite all the other issues Zimbabwe has faced, this country was among the first to show its commitment to addressing climate change by ratifying the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Now the industrialised countries have the chance to correct climate injustice. Are the leaders of these countries prepared to take seriously the concerns of people in developing countries and tackle climate change? Zimbabwe has many challenges for the future, but climate change should not be one that we are unprepared for.
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Our work in Zimbabwe |
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Stop Climate Injustice |
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Working to adapt |
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Climate change diaries: Kenya
Hello, my name is George Kamau. In my country, Kenya, Maasai’s herdsmen and agro-pastoralists are being displaced and loosing their traditional livelihoods as global warming destroys their rangelands. It is important to realise that the damage caused by climate change is not a distant concern in Kenya – it is here now and will be the future. This is why I tell the stories of Ngotiek Sankiti and Catherine Senja as they struggle with the new climate threats.
Ngotiek Sankiti, 51, has lived all his life in Oloika, Kajiado district – 150 kilometres south of Nairobi. A former successful pastoralist who had over 500 cattle, he is a witness of the challenges brought by changes in weather patterns across the district in recent years.
“Before the long droughts in 2005/6, I enjoyed societal prestige because of the cattle in my boma (livestock shed). The long dry spell attacked the grass, our water sources and later had a big impact on our only source of livelihood, livestock,” he said.
His words are echoed by Catherine Senja, a widow eking a living out of small-scale businesses by selling the famous Maasai red shukas. Senja is a victim of climate change impacts around the expansive semi-arid district.
“When I got married, my husband and I had 500 goats and 490 cattle. However, the drying up of the reliable water points and the eventual wilting of the once green grass in the area has eaten into my herd. As we speak, I am bitter to proclaim that I only have 49 goats and 5 cows! The worst of all is zinaendelea kuisha! (The herd population decreases every month).
To feed the remaining herds the two families have to trek for about 12 kilometres every day to the nearest hill with green grass and a fresh water source. “The cattle have to be driven for about 10 kilometres every day to Ewaso Nyiro River for water. The distance sucks life out of our remaining herd”.
According to recent data from the Kenya Meteorological department, incidences of drought have increased fourfold in the region in the past three decades. In fact, one-third of herders living there have already been forced to abandon their pastoral way of life because of adverse climatic conditions.
During the last drought, so many cattle, donkeys and goats were lost that 60 per cent of the families who remain as herders need external assistance to recover. Their surviving herds are too small to support them.
What is worrying about the recent findings is that they reveal how a system of nomadic pastoralism – a system that has, over the centuries, been able to cope with unpredictable weather patterns and regular drought – is now being threatened by these conditions made more extreme by climate change.
This is a reality for all those who, like Sankiti and Senja, have been forced out of their traditional lifestyles to settle at the Oloika settlement. Nearby are dry patches of land and bones, the last of once thriving food crops and healthy animals – victims of the worst drought in living memory.
The families who until last year herded these animals across the district and beyond now huddle in this semi-urban settlement, their children rendered prone to malnutrition and other illnesses, but at least they are close to a reliable source of water, thanks to Practical Action working in Eastern Africa. From once self-sufficient livestock producers, they are now reduced to dependence on relief food handouts.
‘Our whole life has been spent moving, but we are desperate people. People who have lost our livelihood,’ says Sankiti, one of the elders at the Oloika settlement. ‘We didn’t settle here by choice, it was forced upon us.’
Everywhere are tales of huge livestock losses. In one roadside settlement, which now depends on selling merchandise – mostly shukas, food stuffs and milk from the few remaining animals – Isaac Lepilal recounts the dark days of the drought. It is shocking. His stories reveal that the community lost more than 300 sheep and goats and 150 cattle in a single day. And while torrential rains did come to the region for the first time in more than six months, it was too late for the communities who no longer have animals to put out to pasture.
Isinya is another sizeable community along either side of the region’s main road to Kenya-Tanzania border. Members of Isinya’s women association explained how the periods of rain have got shorter and the dry spells longer – changing the pattern of seasons on which the pastoral communities depended.
And while there were always droughts, they said, “Decade after decade it has been getting more severe. It has only been getting more and more serious.”
The future
Sankiti and Senja are representatives of a group of Maasai pastoralists who have borne the brunt of global warming; representatives of the people most likely to be wiped out by devastating change in weather patterns commonly referred to as global warming.
They are representatives of the three million pastoralists living in Kenya – part of a generation faced with the elimination of their great grand fathers’ way of life, a way of life that has sustained them for thousands of years.
They are a section of the hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders who have already been forced to forsake their traditional culture and settle in Kajiado’s growing urban centres following consecutive droughts that have destroyed their livestock in recent years.
They are the people destined to become the victims of world climate change. And as climate change activists, policy makers and government ministers are readying to travel to Copenhagen in December for this year’s UN Climate Conference, Sankiti and Senja will be many hundred miles away from their deliberations – thinking how to cope with the changes.
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Drought in Kenya |
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Stop Climate Injustice |
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Climate change diaries: Sudan
Hello, my name is Noureldin and this is my diary of climate change in Sudan.
Sandstorm approaching Khartoum
As the largest country in Africa, Sudan is a land of diversity both in its people and throughout its natural landscape. With a population of more than 36 million, we have a vibrant culture made up of more than 50 groups and 600 tribes each with distinctive languages, styles and traditions. The Sudanese people live across the whole range of topography that Africa has to offer – from arid deserts to rich savannahs, tropical swamps to Red Sea coastal banks intersected with mountainous regions.
Our greatest concern about climate change is the damage it is causing to our agriculture. Sudan’s economy, like that of many developing countries, is heavily based on farming and livestock keeping, the major employment sectors of the country. More than 70% of the population relies on traditional and subsistence agriculture, the majority of which are dependent on rain-fed agriculture and pastures. This all makes our economy extremely vulnerable to any slight changes in the weather. These changes are happening now and many people’s livelihoods are under threat.
Our government has produced a study into Sudan’s vulnerability to climate change for the UNFCCC – the organisation under which a global climate deal is expected to be agreed in Copenhagen this December. The results are worrying. Desertification now threatens the livelihoods of millions of Sudanese people living at the edge of the dry Sahel belt – even small variations in temperature and rainfall here could tip the balance towards desert conditions. By 2030, Sudan’s average annual temperature will increase between 0.5 and 1.5°C and rainfall is expected to drop by approximately 5%. We predict a major decline in yields for Sudan’s three most common crops – sorghum, millet and gum arabic.
Local solutions
On the positive side, the unique location and wonderful diversity of Sudan makes it one of the best places for promoting local innovation, particularly in ecologically-friendly agriculture and natural resource management – both vital techniques for increasing the ability of people to adapt to climate change. Amongst other projects, Practical Action is working to spread local knowledge and build partnerships in these areas as part of a global learning network called Prolinnova. Together we help to promote and scale up farmer-based approaches to adaptation by combining local ideas with scientific knowledge. In other areas of Africa where droughts are becoming harsher and lasting longer, Practical Action works with communities to harvest rainwater, irrigate land and select drought resilient seed varieties.
These projects reflect Practical Action’s approach to adaptation: by building on people’s experiences and indigenous knowledge our work reduces the vulnerability and enhances the resilience of local communities living in marginalised areas. This is a good starting point to increase people’s capacity to cope with climate change.
Global climate deal
Practical Action is helping communities in Sudan adapt to climate change. However, to reach all those that will be affected in our country, let alone those in other developing countries, we need a global response to the issue. Now is the time for world leaders to agree a climate deal. The people of Sudan have contributed little to global warming, now we need support to adapt if we are to maintain our unique lifestyles and continue to develop.
Thank you for reading my climate change diary. I hope that people in the UK and other developed countries can urge their leaders to create the best climate deal possible at Copenhagen. I leave with you this message:
رسالة:
Ùلنعمل معاً للØد من آثار التغير المناخي
Let us work together to reduce the effects of climate change
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Greening Darfur |
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Stop Climate Injustice |
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Working to adapt |
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