Climate change and rainforests

Ethiopia - Sustainable Land Management Project
Environment, Forests & Forestry Ethiopia Sub-Saharan Africa
'The objective of the Sustainable Land Management Project (SLM) in Ethiopia is to reduce land degradation in agricultural landscapes and to improve the agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers.

There are three components to the project. The first component is the watershed management. It is aimed at supporting scaling up of best management practices in sustainable land management practices and technologies for smallholder farmers in the high potential/food secure areas that are increasingly becoming vulnerable to land degradation and food insecurity. The second component is the rural land certification and administration. The objective of this component is to expand the coverage and enhance the government's land certification project, with the aim of strengthening land tenure security for smallholder farmers. The third component is the project management. The focus of this component is to provide financial and technical assistance to the federal ministry of agriculture and rural development and local government units responsible for sustainable land management to effectively support coordination and implementation of the SLM project.'

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/04/10/000334955_20080410050936/Rendered/PDF/429270PAD0P10710and0IDAR20081007211.pdf
WHAT ARE RAINFORESTS?
Tropical rainforests are forests with tall trees, warm climate, and lots of rain. In some rainforests it rains more than one inch every day! Rainforests are found in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America. The largest rainforest in the world is the Amazon rainforest

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/

AFRICA: What will we eat in the future?
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Photo: Flickr
Drought-tolerant crop varieties will be hard to come by
JOHANNESBURG, 17 June 2009 (IRIN) - It will take at least ten years to develop a variety of staple grain that will survive in the climates caused by global warming in most parts of Africa, and the continent has less than two decades in which to do it, warn the authors of a new study.

"The countries have to start developing varieties now, but many of these countries don't have breeding programmes," said Luigi Guarino, one of three authors of a study to be published on 19 June in the US journal, Global Environmental Change. "This study, we hope, at least raises the flag." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international scientific body, has predicted that food production in Africa could halve by 2020 as global warming pushes temperatures up and droughts become more intense.

The new study by researchers at Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, in the US, and the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, noted that "For a majority of Africa's farmers, warming will rapidly take climate not only beyond the range of their personal experience, but also beyond the experience of farmers within their own country."
For a majority of Africa's farmers, warming will rapidly take climate not only beyond the range of their personal experience, but also beyond the experience of farmers within their own country

Guarino, a Senior Science Coordinator at the Global Crop diversity Trust, pointed out that many farmers could find staple crop varieties in other African countries, where current temperatures and conditions were similar to what they might experience in future. "For example, farmers in Lesotho [with one of the coolest climates in Africa] could find maize varieties grown in parts of Mali [one of the hottest countries in Africa] now, which would be tolerant to the very high temperatures they would face in another 20 years." Six countries in the Sahel - Senegal, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone, the hottest in Africa - are of major concern to the researchers, as they will face conditions unlike any currently encountered by farmers in the continent. "Of course, parts of these countries will never be able to grow maize [which is more heat sensitive]," he said, and would have to settle for the "drought-tolerant maize, which is sorghum". Many parts of Africa would no longer be able to grow anything.

Guarino said it was possible to develop crop varieties in simulated conditions, based on projections for the Sahel belt, but very few traditional primary cereal crops - African varieties of maize, millet and sorghum - selected by farmers over the centuries for their unique suitability to local growing conditions were available in genebanks. The researchers found that ten African countries, including Sudan, Nigeria, Cameroon and Mozambique, had current growing conditions very similar to those many other countries would soon face, but few of the crop varieties cultivated in the countries were found in major genebanks. In an earlier study, the Stanford University researchers projected that maize production, southern Africa's staple food, could drop by as much as 30 percent in another two decades. Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said climate change called for closer collaboration, sharing of resources and more investment. The researchers' call to help African countries came during the global debate over a legally binding funding mechanism to help poor countries adapt to climate change at the recent talks in Bonn, Germany. jk/he
Themes: (IRIN) Early Warning, (IRIN) Environment, (IRIN) Food Security
[ENDS]
Report can be found online at:http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84892

Weather Monitoring Stations Will Help Africa Adapt To Climate Change

By Lisa Schlein Geneva18 June 2009

A new initiative has been launched in Geneva to radically improve Africa's weather monitoring network. Its aim is to help people across the continent adapt to the impact of climate change. The Global Humanitarian Forum headed by former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization and leading mobile communications companies are behind the initiative dubbed "Weather Info for All." "Global warming is causing an ever increasing number of extreme weather events that affect the word's poorest and most vulnerable communities. The change means that age-old knowledge passed from one generation to the next can no longer be relied upon to protect peoples lives and livelihoods," explained a video presentation.


And, that is where science and the ability to better forecast the weather become increasingly important."The initiative brings together the technical expertise and resources of private and public bodies to help people adapt to the effects of climate change," said Kofi Annan.Former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan is President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, which is spearheading the "Weather Info for All" initiative.

He says climate change is not a threat waiting to happen. He says climate change already is altering traditional weather and rainfall patterns and threatening the health, security and livelihoods of millions of people in Africa. He says Africa is the continent that will be hit hardest by the impact of climate change. Yet, he notes Africa badly lacks the facilities to effectively monitor ground level weather data."As a first important step, we urgently need to scale up both the quantity and quality of information about weather patterns in Africa," he said. "This will enable farmers to make informed decisions in planning the seeding and harvesting of crops. It will also enable accurate warnings to be given about extreme and violent weather conditions."The initiative involves a unique public-private partnership. Swedish telecom giant Ericsson will install weather stations at new and existing mobile network sites throughout Africa.

And, Zain, one of Africa's largest telecommunications companies, will provide band width to send raw data and disseminate forecasts and early warnings.Both companies are in the process of installing 19 automatic weather stations in new wireless network sites in the Lake Victoria Region. And, in the last quarter of the year, hundreds of new installations will be made in East Africa. The goal is to install up to 5,000 new observation stations across Africa over the coming years. Members of the initiative say huge benefits in mitigating climate change will be achieved for a relatively small amount of money. They estimate the cost of installing 5,000 new weather stations is a relatively modest $30 million. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2009-06/2009-06-18-voa46.cfm?CFID=267912270&CFTOKEN=22412058&jsessionid=de30365460f1a3f66e172b31356266d4dfb6