The reality of climate change
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
For some people, climate change appears to be a distant threat. But for local communities in Bangladesh, Kenya and Zambia climate change is an everyday reality. Concern is helping these people by clearing irrigation and flood canals, building wells and establishing plans and responses for future disasters.
For millions of people around the globe the threat of climate change is now a fact of everyday life. Many of these people live in poor, under-developed countries, and many are people that Concern is working with. These people feel the effects of climate change on a daily basis: it has changed the way they live; it has forced them to move from their homes; it is killing their crops and livestock.
Concern has talked with people in Kenya and Zambia and documented their experiences. Although not an exhaustive study by any means, these selective case studies nonetheless provide a valuable perspective on an evolving climate. The perceptions of these farmers, fishermen, mothers, reed weavers and pastoralists are important, and their perceptions are that the climate has already started to change for the worst.
This has manifested itself in several ways: drought is becoming more frequent and more extreme; people are finding it more and more difficult to recover from these droughts; vegetation is disappearing and the land is eroding as a result. These are not recent phenomena either. According to these eye witnesses, the climate has been changing noticeably since the 1990s.
Early ‘90s
In the 1980s and 1990s, Lake Lutende in Zambia was a major tourist attraction. People from nearby Mongu Town and tourists from further afield used the lake for recreation. They would swim, ride speedboats and watch the many and varied species of bird. The lake directly benefited the local communities in the area and helped to bring in much-needed foreign currency through its international tourists.
In the early 1990s, the lake started disappearing and in 1996, when there was severe drought, completely dried up. When this happened, local people began to cultivate the land on the lake bed; it was fertile and could support crops. Local farmer Mushiba Nyambe explains, “I was one of the people who had a field in the lake, we grew crops like maize, beans, cabbage and the harvests were quite good.”
But the new farming land gave way to further drought, “When the natural lake dried up the huge reserves of the reeds also died away, the land also dried up and became incapable of supporting crops and grazing land...It became a complete dried area within a few years.” As well as losing their source of income, the community had also lost its vital source of fish and its improvised farming land.
Impact on families
The impact on communities surrounding Lake Lutende was profound. Nyambe told Concern that most of the men in the area were skilled in reed mat weaving and they felt they could not abandon their skill. They began making the long trek to the Zambezi plains where reeds are still found. This was fine for the younger men, but the older men didn’t have the energy to make the long return journey. The women tried to generate an income by brewing and selling a traditional beer called “sipesu”. Other people have resorted to selling wooden poles and thatching grass.
Similar disruptions have been caused to the social fabric of other communities faced with the threat of climate change and drought. In Kenya Habiba Mohamed Adan lived in Moyale for most of her life. But like many other people who depended on their livestock, she was forced to move with her family in search of pastures and water. In 1991, Habiba Mohamed Adan and her family decided to permanently settle in Yaballo. This was after they lost most of their livestock to drought, reducing their original herd of 70 cattle to only 10. When they settled in Yaballo, they sold the 10 cattle and bought four camels to enhance their chances of survival. Camels, Mrs Habiba says, have a high chance of survival during drought, high milk production and require less man-power.
Elsewhere in Kenya, drought is forcing communities to abandon their traditional way of
life. This is impacting negatively on families, especially women and children. Women in rural Kenyan communities are usually responsible for feeding the family, collecting and managing water. The current crisis has arguably hit them the hardest. Oxfam reports from Wajir have suggested that the loss of donkeys has made their lives even harder as transporting water is now much more difficult and time-consuming. There are also anecdotal reports that more women are being forced to seek employment away from home in order feed their families. In some cases, prostitution is the only form of employment available to them. With the men travelling further afield to look for pasture, the risk of sexual violence against the women and girls left behind increases.
Working to address climate change
Concern is working in Kenya, Zambia and Bangladesh to support people who face the reality of climate change everyday. In Kenya, Concern is working in four of the districts hardest hit by climate change, namely Marsabit, Moyale, Malindi and Kajiado. In these areas, Concern has provided emergency food distributions, as well as water programmes. As part of this, there has been construction of boreholes, water pans, dams, underground water tanks and shallow wells.
In Kajiado, people who lost their livestock during drought were provided with start-up stocks including bulls, heifers, goats, sheep and donkeys. In Malindi, seeds have been distributed to small farmers who lost all their crops during the 2005/06 drought and subsequent floods.
Planning for the future
In Zambia, Concern has been working with the District Disaster Management Committee on a long-term project to establish plans and responses for future emergencies. An example of this has been the canal clearing activities. This is vitally important as it can protect the local communities from flooding and provide water for agricultural production. For many years, however, this work was not done, causing flood water to wash out the crops before harvesting. For the last three years, Concern has been helping communities clear their canals. This reduces their vulnerability to floods, protects their assets and helps increase the productivity of their land.
Valuable work is also being done in partnership with local communities in Bangladesh. Working through its partner Shushilan, Concern has been helping to promote sustainable and environment-friendly agricultural and fishery practices. Click here to watch a video about Shushilan. Forestation projects are underway, so too are programmes to raise awareness of environmental issues and to help local communities to prepare for future disasters.
As the rate of climate changes continues to increase, future emergencies will probably become more frequent for these people in Bangladesh, Zambia, Kenya and beyond. For them, climate change does not appear to be a distant threat. To these people climate change is an everyday reality.
