Africa Sustainable Development (AFRICASD): Forest & Climate Change: Issues & Options in West Africa

Thursday, 27 August 2009

Forest & Climate Change: Issues & Options in West Africa

Forest & Climate Change: Issues & Options in West Africa
Fobissie Kalame
Johnson Nkem
Monica Idinoba
Yacouba Coulibaly
Center for International Forestry Research

Background
• The vulnerability of West African forest ecosystems to both climatic & non
climatic stimuli is unquestionable
• Dependence on natural resources is only increasing
– for livelihood security
– National development etc
• Climate impacts on forest will amplify the risks on humans putting the region
in jeopardy of other risks
• Autonomous adaptation of forest is insufficient to resist current and projected
impacts of CC in WA
• Planned adaptation is the option & should explore every opportunity
available & done urgently.

http://www.wamis.org/agm/meetings/iwacc09/S4-Kalame.pdf

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Global climate change has emerged as an important challenge facing Africa

Climate change has become a major challenge for development cooperation because it jeopardizes the economic and social development of developing countries and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, particularly Goal 1, target 1, i.e. to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and Goal 7, i.e. to ensure environmental sustainability. The effects of climate change that will occur over the next generation are now inevitable. However there is a lot that can and must be done to help developing countries to adapt and to protect the most vulnerable. With climate change, by 2080, an extra 600 million people worldwide could be affected by malnutrition. An extra 400 million people could be exposed to malaria. And an extra 1.8 billion people could be living without enough water. By 2050, 200 million people could be rendered homeless by rising sea levels, floods and drought. Glaciers in the Himalayas are likely to disappear by 2035, affecting the water supply of three-quarters of a billion people in Asia. The continent of Africa stands to suffer the most from climate change whilst having contributed the least to the problem. The region is already experiencing significant impacts from climate change including increasing desertification. There is great concern that many of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa are already in a precarious position in terms of food production and agriculture and that climate change is likely to have a far greater human impact here than in more temperate regions. There is a lot of untapped potential of clean energy on the continent. African countries, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa, need to make greater use of their huge largely untapped renewable energy potential, especially hydropower, geothermal energy, solar and wind power, and more efficient use of biomass. The development of such energy options could be financed in part by sale of certified carbon emission credits. Equally important is the need to promote greater energy efficiency and conservation, while investing in greater energy access.

Poverty: A Cause and Effect of Environmental Degradation

Poverty is linked to environment in complex ways, particularly in natural resource-based African economies. About two-thirds of the population lives in rural areas, deriving their main income from agriculture. Land degradation, deforestation, lack of access to safe water, and loss of biodiversity, compounded by climatic variability, are the concerns that invariably arise from assessments of their natural environment.

Degradation of resources reduces the productivity of the poor who most rely on them, and makes poor people even more susceptible to extreme events (weather, economic, and civil strife). Poverty makes recovery from these events extremely difficult and contributes to lowering social and ecological resistance. The poor, with shorter time-horizons, and usually less secure access to natural resources, are unable, and often unwilling to invest in natural resource management. Moreover, poor people are often the most exposed to environmental damage since they cannot purchase safe water or have the option of living in a less polluted area (The World Bank, 1997).

In fact, poverty and environmental protection are closely linked, as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Africa’s development blueprint, makes clear. NEPAD’s environmental action plan states, “Africa is characterized by two interrelated features: rising poverty levels and deepening environmental degradation ... poverty remains the main cause and consequence of environmental degradation and resource depletion in Africa. Without significant improvement in the living conditions and livelihoods of the poor, environmental policies and programmes will achieve little success.”

Climate Change Threatens Future of Local Tourism in Africa

Africa’s highest mountain - the spectacular Kilimanjaro in Tanzania will never look the same as snows are disappearing at an alarming rate. The melting of glaciers on Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya had led to the shrinking of some lakes in the region, mainly due to insufficient inflow of water. While climate change will affect every sector of the economy, the tourism industry will be hardest hit, especially by unusual torrential rains and long droughts. Climate change may increase the frequency of flooding, drought and land degradation and subsequently reduce the viability of recreational activities and wildlife safaris in the continent. The wildlife in the reserves and national parks are closely connected to climatic conditions. The rise of temperatures would lead to reduction in the number of species in parks, change of animal activities -hampering game drives, and also the population of wildlife species. Heat waves, forest fires, rising seas, droughts, diseases and flash floods could turn profitable tourist destinations into holiday horror stories. The tourism industry could be faced with huge costs as global warming begins to influence decisions about when and where people will go on holiday. Ecosystems and biodiversity are constantly under threat as they are particularly vulnerable to climate change. In the long run impacting the gains the sector has already achieved.

Clean water and sanitation are the most important preconditions for sustainable development.

Africa remains one of the world's regions endowed with abundant water resources that are sadly not efficiently utilised. With 17 large rivers and more than 160 lakes, the continent only uses about 4 percent of its total annual renewable water resources for agriculture industry and domestic purpose. Currently, about 50 percent of urban water is wasted, as is 75 percent of irrigation water. An adequate supply of clean water, sanitation and hygiene are the most important preconditions for sustaining human life, for maintaining ecological systems that support all life and for achieving sustainable development. The seventh of the eight Millennium Development Goals calls for governments to cut by half the percentage of their population living without safe water and basic sanitation. Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region that looks set to miss both of these targets unless a concerted effort is made. Poor sanitation leads to poor health. More than 700,000 African children die every year from diarrhoea. Diarrhoea can also lead to chronic malnutrition. Millions of children who survive suffer from chronic malnutrition, which is responsible for over half of all child deaths on the continent. Sickness forces children to miss school and can damage their ability to learn. It has been shown that providing schools with basic sanitation, including separate toilets for boys and girls, improves attendance and encourages more girls to enrol. In rural Africa, 19 per cent of women spend more than one hour on each trip to fetch water, an exhausting and often dangerous chore that robs them of the chance to work and learn. Women without toilets are forced to defecate in the open, risking their dignity and personal safety.

The risk of contamination from unsafe water and poor sanitation is highest in the slums.

According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the proportion of urban dwellers with access to safe drinking water in sub- Saharan Africa has only declined slightly, from 86 percent in 1990 to 83 percent to date. Additionally, low-income urban dwellers have to pay high prices for water sometimes up to 50 times the price paid by higher income groups. This problem has been worsened by a high rate of urbanization. Africa has been experiencing the world’s most rapid rate of urbanization at nearly 5 per cent per annum. The most severe problems are in high-density slums, where the risk of contamination from unsafe water and poor sanitation is highest.

Saving Africa’s forests

Trees are among the world’s largest and most efficient living storehouses of carbon monoxide, the “greenhouse gas” most responsible for the earth’s temperature rise and changes in the planet’s climate. Preserving Africa’s surviving tropical forests and planting new trees to replace those lost to deforestation could help reduce the severity of climate change by absorbing more carbon from the air, and ease the local impact of climate change by regulating local weather conditions. An even bigger reason for protecting forests is that cutting trees down helps to cause global warming. According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 20 to 25 per cent of all carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere each year comes from burning trees to clear the land for farming — more than is produced by the all the world’s cars, planes, ships and trains. Burning trees and brush releases the stored carbon back into the atmosphere. Scientists argue that the continent is already making important contributions to the fight against global warming, primarily through its forests which absorb and trap the carbon dioxide gas -- a principal cause of global warming. Africa is home to 17 per cent of the earth’s remaining forestland and fully a quarter of its dense rain forests which clean the atmosphere of emissions caused by industrial polluters thousands of miles away. However, forests in Africa are vanishing at a rate of over 5 mn hectares per year. They are cut down in wasteful and unsustainable commercial logging and “slash and burn” clearing for agriculture. Experts note that between 1980 and 1995, some 66 mn hectares of forests were destroyed. The conversion of forest land to agriculture, both subsistence and commercial, is by far the most common and most destructive cause of deforestation in Africa and other tropical regions. As demand for farmland grows in response to growing populations, millions of hectares of tropical forests are being burned in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Enhancing governments’ ability to manage forests, expand tree planting programmes and change the way people view forests and calculate the value of the existing forests could be key to the survival of Africa’s deep woods.

Women are the ones who spend hours collecting firewood, water and other natural resources

In Africa women's role in the management of natural resources assumes a multidimensional nature. Unfortunately, the central and crucial role that women play is often both overlooked and unappreciated, rendering them invisible and greatly diminishing their contribution as both producers and active agents in sustainable development. Women are the ones who spend hours collecting firewood, water and other natural resources. There is a great need for women to have independent rights/access to land and other natural resources like indigenous food and medicinal plants. They seek to manage the environment, although their struggle for survival often results in environmental damage from activities such as fuel-wood collection.

Africa Sustainable Development (AFRICASD)

Thursday, 27 August 2009

Forest & Climate Change: Issues & Options in West Africa

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Global climate change has emerged as an important challenge facing Africa

Poverty: A Cause and Effect of Environmental Degradation

Climate Change Threatens Future of Local Tourism in Africa

Clean water and sanitation are the most important preconditions for sustainable development.

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