WWF climate scientist Regine Günther. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

Kristin Palitza spoke to REGINE GÜNTHER, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), about the dangers climate change poses to security and livelihoods.

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 9 (IPS) - Despite the high risk, it remains difficult to convince politicians to take immediate action to prevent further climate change and make available the necessary funds to do so. Scientists have warned repeatedly of the effects of climate change: If governments will not act fast, they will cause an irreversible catastrophe.

IPS spoke to Regine Günther, climate protection and energy policy chief at the World Wide Fund for Nature, about the dangers climate change poses to security and livelihoods.

Q: What are the consequences if the 17th United Nations climate change summit in Durban ends without firm results and targets?

A: There are several scenarios. If countries stick to the voluntary commitments to reduce carbon emissions they have made during the last two summits in Cancun and Copenhagen, we will see an increase in average temperatures by between three and four degrees Celsius. If they manage to start a process in Durban that will lead to higher emission reduction targets by 2020, we could succeed in not going above a two degree Celsius rise.

But at the moment, it doesn’t look good. If we continue like before and don’t even implement the voluntary pledges, we will reach a dangerous temperature rise of six or seven degree Celsius.

Q: What happens if average temperatures increase by more than two degrees Celsius?

A: An increase of two degrees Celsius already has negative effects. If we go beyond it, climate change will become dangerous. Glaciers will melt, up to three billion people will suffer from severe water shortages, mainly in the developing world, we might lose up to 30 percent of our biodiversity, droughts will lead to food insecurity, large regions will be permanently flooded, including small islands, and so forth. That’s why climate change is not only an environmental problem. It’s a threat to livelihoods and economies.

Q: Everyone is talking about the drastic effects of climate change in developing countries. What will be the effects on the global North?

A: Think back to the major heat wave in Europe in 2003. It was a very hot summer (with several people dying from heat strokes). If we don’t get climate change under control, the summer of 2003 will be regarded as a normal summer in 2040. By 2060 it will be regarded as a cool summer. The United States have also felt the impact of changing weather patterns this year, with an unusual number of hurricanes and storms. So yes, the industrialised world will also experience a lot of change and will have to adapt.

Q: Will masses of people in developing countries have to migrate, as some scientists predict?

A: That is very possible. And this will effect the global North as well. If droughts and hunger increase in the South, people will be unable to continue living there. If there are thousands and thousands of climate migrants, the question is of course who will offer them refuge. Many will look expectantly to the North.

Q: When will it be too late to act?

A: If you measure the dangers of climate change based on the two degree Celsius limit, we will have to reach the peak of global carbon emissions within this decade. Scientists say that a drastic reduction of CO2 emissions by 2020 would still be an option, but the very last one. I believe, by 2020 it will be too late. Nonetheless, we have to continue making every effort possible, because it makes a big difference if we live in a world that is two, five or six degrees hotter.

Q: Why do you believe emission reductions by 2020 will be too late?

A: The later global carbon emissions peak, the steeper the necessary downward trend of reductions needs to be. Achieving this will not only become very expensive but also extremely difficult. There will be a point in time, when not enough can be done to keep climate change under the two degree Celsius limit. Once we have reached that limit, which means that a certain amount of greenhouse gases sit in the atmosphere, the process of trying to lower temperatures will take decades, because the atmosphere reacts to changes only slowly.

Q: Why does it remain so difficult to convince politicians to act, despite the horror scenarios?

A: The biggest drivers for man-made climate change, the coal, oil and gas industries, are the biggest beneficiaries of our current industrialised economies. They work with major lobbies and large amounts of money against the trend to reduce their share of the economy.

It is also important to note that politicians are elected for four or five years, not until 2040. Within four years, the effects of climate change are not felt very heavily. The big changes lie in the future and happen slowly. As a result, there is a gap between today’s reality and the scientific knowledge of the effects of climate change if we don’t act.

Q: Do climate sceptics influence governments’ hesitant commitment?

A: In the U.S., climate sceptics have massive influence in the debate. In Europe, science has the top hand. That climate change is largely man-made is widely accepted. People have understood that something can be done about it and are more willing to take action. In other countries in the world that’s unfortunately not the case.

Q: How expensive will it become to fight climate change if governments continue postponing mitigation and adaptation measures?

A: According to British economist Nicholas Stern, taking no action will cost up to twenty times more than taking immediate action. Countries like Germany and U.S. have been able to mobilise billions of dollars last year to bail out their banks.

Now, they are trying to tell us that the international community is unable to mobilise 100 billion dollars within a decade to finance climate change adaptation in developing countries. If countries would make climate change as much a priority as the financial system, they would reduce other expenditures to drum up the needed funds. Exactly like they did during the economic crisis. (END)

Tinus de Jager reports from COP 17 in Durban that the African negotiators have a clear idea of what they want from the climate talks.

Dorah Marema, coordinator of Gender and Climate Change in Southern Africa. Credit: Zukiswa Zimela/IPS

And those in rural areas, who depend on agriculture for survival, will be even worse off.

Dorah Marema, coordinator of Gender and Climate Change in Southern Africa, a network of gender civil society organisations, activists, and experts spoke to IPS about the importance of highlighting gender at the climate negations at the 17^th Conference of Parties (COP17) in Durban.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: Do you find that enough attention is being paid to gender issues at this year’s climate change negotiations?

A: Well there has definitely been a shift when we consider how gender issues have been considered in the previous COP’s. At this COP there is a lot of motioning of gender issues, there are over thirty side events focusing on women and climate change. Whether this indicates a substantive positive change we don’t know, so we are unable to evaluate whether they are making an impact.

Q: You advocate for climate justice as gender justice. Can you explain why you want to separate gender from the mainstream conversation and place it as a top priority on the climate change agenda?

A: When we talk about climate change and the issue of justice we talk about the global South being impacted the most. We then zoom in and say that Africa will be the worst affected in the South, simply because it is a poor continent.

…Although climate change will affect all countries, its impacts will be differently distributed among various regions, generations, age and income groups, occupations and genders. The poor, the majority of whom are women, will be disproportionately affected.

Over the past decade, the relationship between climate change and poverty in countries where people’s livelihoods depend on natural resources and environmental services has increasingly become a developmental issue.

This relationship between climate change and people’s livelihoods is seen to have strong linkages to poverty. To this nexus is an added strong gender component, which if ignored could lead to inappropriate policy measures and increased poverty, especially amongst the disadvantaged, poor population.

We say that women are poor in those nations and we say that women are the majority of the poor and we know that they are very reliant on natural resources.

They are also the food producers who are very reliant on agriculture. Those two things, including water (scarcity), mean that they are vulnerable because they are dependent on rain, and they are dependent on rain-fed agriculture.

Q: What sort of recourse are you looking for for women and how do you think they can be better empowered to adapt to climate change?

A: One example that I can give is that now there is the conversation around finance, the Green Climate Fund. What we are asking for is direct access to the funds.

(We want access) not just for countries, but also for organisations with projects that work with empowering women. They need that money so that they can implement adaptation and mitigation projects.

Also in terms of mitigation we need to consider the gender issues there. There are a lot of high-tech mitigation projects, which are not talking about empowering women.

So what we are doing is advocating for jobs that are decentralised so that women would be able to benefit by getting jobs. (END)

Women from the Eastern Cape at the Rural Women's Assembly. Credit: Khanyisa Sinqe/TerraViva

The women – including farm workers, farm owners, and farm dwellers from inside South Africa, and as far away as Zimbabwe and Malawi, Kenya and Senegal – were not accredited participants in the air-conditioned venue in the city centre.

Their discussions, with thoughtful analysis of issues from a truly grassroots perspective enlivened by singing and seed exchanges, took place in a marquee tent at the People’s Space, the alternative conference held at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.

Rural women are the most affected by global warming, they say. They have seen weather patterns change, causing boreholes to dry up and harvests to weaken.

Phelokazi Dlikilili, from Dimbaza in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, says that as a woman depending on natural resources, her life has been changed by a changing climate.

She and her sisters can no longer rely on the gardens they cultivate for food to eat and sell because of strange weather. “Since I was born, I have never experienced snow in the Eastern Cape, particularly in my village. But this year, Dimbaza was covered by snow. That was foreign to us.”

‘They are putting money before people’s lives. It’s not fair.’ – Constance Mogale, Landless People’s Movement

Aminata Seck, who led a group of women farmers from Senegal, said women in the West African country had been trying for a decade to persuade their government to buy into their ideas to protect small farmers from the changes.

“In 2001, we as rural Senegal women organised ourselves and came up with an initiative to build shelters where we plant organic food. We have also built dams, that will store water when it rains,” she said.

The women took an active role in the civil society march through on the Dec. 3 Global Day of Action. Addressing the crowd outside the International Convention Centre, Constance Mogale, chairperson of Landless Movement of South Africa, blamed the United States for holding up progress on a global climate pact. “The U.S is dragging its feet on this matter while people are dying. They are putting money before people’s lives. It’s not fair.”

The Rural Women’s Assembly drafted a set of five demands to the official conference, demanding that women’s role in fighting climate change be recognised, with a radical programme to grant women access to and control over half of the world’s land. They pointed out that women produce 80 percent of food eaten in Africa, and called insisted that any financial support for climate change adaptation to reflect this.

The women rejected “false climate solutions” such as carbon markets, genetically-modified organisms and biofuels, instead demanding that indigenous knowledge be at the centre of policies to promote biodiversity and repair ecosystems and livelihoods. They blamed the existing global economic system for unsustainable use of the earth, and called for trade sanctions against the countries historically responsible for most of the pollution if they refuse to cut emissions.

* Community media coverage of COP 17 is being supported by the Media Development & Diversity Agency of South Africa, which is promoting the participation of local journalists through a programme of training and reporting on climate change.

(END)

Nalifu Yussif sostiene cestas bolga en la COP 17, que se realiza en Durban, Sudáfrica, del 29 de noviembre al 9 de diciembre. Crédito: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS.

Por Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, Sudáfrica, 5 dic (IPS) Talata Nsor, originaria de la norteña comunidad ghanesa de Bolgatanga, lleva buena parte de sus 54 años de vida tejiendo las cestas típicas de la zona. Pero en los últimos tiempos se le hace muy difícil conseguir la materia prima.

La actividad fue redituable para Nsor en el pasado, pues le permitió incluso pagar la escuela de sus hijos. Sin embargo, ahora cada vez se puedan producir menos cestas bolga, famosas en África occidental y vendidas en mercados de Europa y América, porque el material usado, conocido como hierba de elefante, se extingue, debido al cambio de las condiciones climáticas.

“Hace 10 años caminaba hasta cualquier pantano cercano, en el norte de Ghana, y cortaba la hierba sin costo alguno. En cambio, ahora tengo que ir muy lejos o, incluso, llegar hasta Kumasi, a unos400 kilómetros, para comprarla”, explicó.

La hierba de elefante solo crece en pantanos, que ahora la población de la zona los utiliza para cultivar y paliar la inseguridad alimentaria ante la falta de lluvias.

“La gente prefiere convertir los pantanos en granjas hortícolas frente al fracaso de la agricultura dependiente de la lluvia”, indicó Nafisatu Yussif, oficial de programa de Abantu, organización que promueve políticas con perspectiva de género en África.

“Las precipitaciones ya no son confiables y la gente necesita cultivar en zonas donde la irrigación esté asegurada”, apuntó.

Nafisatu Yussif es una de las muchas representantes de comunidades rurales de todo el mundo que lograron llegar hasta esta ciudad sudafricana para alzar su voz en la  17 Conferencia de las Partes (COP) dela Convención Marcode las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático, de dos semanas que terminará este viernes 9.

“Recibimos a diferentes mujeres de distintos ámbitos”, señaló Samantha Hargreaves, de ActionAid Internacional (http://www.actionaid.org/?intl=), una de las organizadoras de la Asamblea de Mujeres Rurales, que se realiza en forma paralela a la COP 17 (http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com/), que comenzó el 29 de noviembre.

“Más de 500 mujeres en este foro comparten experiencias de diferentes países sobre cómo seguir adelante y mostrar las mejores prácticas. El resultado de la asamblea se presentará al Grupo Africano de Negociadores como posición común de las representantes de los países más pobres”, indicó Hargreaves.

Según las participantes de la asamblea, las mujeres de países pobres afrontan dificultades similares.

“En mi país, las mujeres trabajan duro en la huerta, pero a la hora de cosechar, los hombres asumen la responsabilidad de recaudar el dinero. Me acabo de enterar de que lo mismo ocurre en África y otros países asiáticos”, indicó María Estela Jocón González, quien representa a las campesinas de tres regiones de Guatemala propensas a inundaciones, fenómeno que se agravó en los últimos tiempos.

“Cuando hay inundaciones, los pozos se llenan de agua sucia. Según nuestra cultura, es responsabilidad de la mujer garantizar la suficiente cantidad de líquido para beber y otros usos domésticos”, dijo a IPS.

González pide a la comunidad internacional, reunida en Durban, que asegure la implementación de sistemas para contener las crecientes inundaciones.

“Quiero escuchar que los países se comprometen a reducir las emisiones de gases contaminantes que causan el calentamiento global. Es bueno pensar en el desarrollo, pero no tiene sentido sin un ambiente sano”, observó.

Mientras hay inundaciones en Guatemala, faltan lluvias en el sur de Senegal.

Faty Khody, de la comunidad rural senegalesa de Kaulak, dijo a IPS que las lluvias en esa zona disminuyeron de900 milímetros, en2001, aentre 300 y400 milímetros, en la actualidad.

“Solíamos cultivar verduras que vendíamos en el mercado local. Pero ya no es posible, a menos que tengamos irrigación”, indicó Khody, oficial de promociones de Interpench, una organización que reúne a más de 7.700 campesinas senegalesas.

“El patrón de lluvias cambió, las sequías son más pronunciadas y, cuando llueve, hay inundaciones, que causan sufrimiento en la población rural, en especial mujeres, niños y niñas, añadió.”

Con apoyo de la organización no gubernamental Horizon 3000, Interpench lanzó un proyecto llamado “Una mujer, un árbol frutal”, como forma de adaptación al cambio climático.

“Decimos un árbol porque es el primer paso. Se entrega el almácigo de forma gratuita para plantar el primero y se le da el nombre del que lo haga, como recordatorio. Pero la idea es motivar a las mujeres a participar, no solo en la plantación de un árbol, sino en que este sea frutal”, explicó Khody.

“Esperamos que los debates enla COP17 concluyan con ideas que apoyen iniciativas femeninas de adaptación al cambio climático”, remarcó Hargreaves.

Pero para que esos proyectos tengan éxito, deben erigirse sobre los sistemas de conocimiento indígenas, insistió.

“El Grupo Africano de Negociadores no debe sucumbir ante la presión de los países ricos enla COP17”, remarcó.

“La mayoría de las negociaciones se realizan en salas de reuniones sin involucrar a la gente de a pie”, coincidió Elizabeth Kakukuru, oficial de programa de la Unidadde Género de la Comunidadde Desarrollo de África Austral (http://www.sadc.int/).

“Pero las recomendaciones elaboradas deben ser implementadas por campesinas. Llegó la hora de que las partes afectadas participen de forma directa en estas importantes negociaciones”, indicó.

En lo que respecta a la transferencia de tecnología para adaptarse al cambio climático, Kakukuru observó que todos los proyectos deben ser apropiados y desarrollados en consulta con las comunidades indígenas. (FIN)

Nalifu Yussif holds a few Bolga baskets at the ongoing COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. Materials for making these hand woven baskets are becoming more difficult to source due to climate change. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5 (IPS) – Talata Nsor, a 54-year-old woman from Bolgatanga community in Northern Ghana, has been weaving the cultural Bolga baskets, which are named after her community, her entire life.

It has been a successful enterprise for her, and she has even managed to put her children through school with proceeds from her sales.

However, she is concerned that soon her community may no longer be able to continue making the baskets, which are famous in the entire West African region, with a market in Europe and America.

This is because the raw material used to make the baskets, commonly known as elephant grass or Veta vera as it is known scientifically, is becoming extinct due to what Nsor refers to as changing climatic conditions.

“Just 10 years ago, I would walk to any nearby wetland area within Northern Ghana and harvest the grass free of charge. But today, I have to walk very far, or travel to Kumasi, about 400 kilometres away, in order to buy the raw material,” said Nsor.

The elephant grass can only grow in wetlands. But according to experts from the area, people are converting wetlands into agricultural land as a means of coping with the lack of rain and rising food insecurity.

“People prefer turning wetlands into horticultural zones because rain-fed agriculture is failing. Rain patterns are no-longer reliable, and people need to farm in places where they are assured of water for irrigation,” said Nafisatu Yussif, Programme Officer at ABANTU, an organisation that engages policies from a gender perspective in Africa.

She is one of the many women representing their communities from all over the world who have made their way to the ongoing United Nations climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa, in order to have their voices heard.

“We are hosting different women from different walks of life,” said Samantha Hargreaves of ActionAid International, one of the conveners of the Rural Women’s Assembly running alongside the 17th Conference of Parties.

“More than 500 women in this forum are sharing experiences from different countries, suggesting the way forward, and showcasing their best practices. The outcome of the assembly will be presented to the African Group of Negotiators as a common position of women from the world’s poor countries,” said Hargreaves.

However, according to the assembly’s participants, women from poor countries have predicaments that are almost similar.

“In my country, women toil on the farms, but when it comes to harvesting, the men take the responsibility of collecting the money. I have just learnt that the situation is the same in Africa and other Asian countries,” said María Estela Jocón González, who is representing rural women from three rural regions in Guatemala.

The western, southern and northern regions of Guatemala are areas prone to floods, a situation which has worsened in the recent past, González said.

“When the floods come, the water wells get soaked up with dirty flooding water. Yet according to our culture, it is the sole responsibility of a woman to ensure that the family has enough safe water for drinking and other domestic uses,” she told IPS.

She is calling for the international community meeting in Durban to ensure systems are put in place to keep in check the increasing floods.

“I want to hear of commitments for countries to reduce emissions of gasses that cause global warming. It is good to think about development, but development without a sound environment is useless,” she said.

While there is flooding in Guatemala, southern Senegal is experiencing a lack of rainfall. Faty Khody from Kaulak, a rural community found in the southern part of Senegal, told IPS that rainfall in the area has dropped from an average of 900 millimetres in 2001, to between 300 and 400 millimetres currently.

“We used to grow vegetables and sell them in the local market. But currently, this is not possible unless it is done through irrigation,” said Khody, who works as a promotional officer for Interpench, a community-based organisation that brings together over 7,700 women from rural Senegal.

“The rain patterns have changed, droughts have become extreme, and when it rains, it results in floods, which often cause suffering to the rural people, especially women and children.”

With support from the non-governmental organisation Horizon 3000, Interpench has started a project called “One woman, one fruit tree” as a way of adapting to climate change.

“We say one tree because it is the first step. The seedling for the one tree is given out free of charge, and it is named after whoever plants it as a reminder. However, it is supposed to be a motivation for women to participate largely in not only the planting of trees, but planting fruit-producing trees,” Khody said.

“We are hoping that the deliberations at COP 17 will come up with ideas that will support such women- driven climate change adaptation initiatives,” said Hargreaves.

However, she insists that for such projects to succeed, they must be built on indigenous knowledge systems.

“The African Group of Negotiators must not succumb to the pressure from the developed countries at COP 17,” she said.

Similar views were shares by Elizabeth Kakukuru, the Programme Officer for the Gender Unit at the Southern African Development Community.

“Most negotiations have always been done in boardrooms without involving the person on the ground. Yet the recommendations made are supposed to be implemented by a woman who lives in a rural area. Time has come for the affected parties to be involved directly in such important negotiations,” she said.

With regards to the use of technology transfer for climate change adaptation, Kakukuru observed that all projects must be appropriate, and should be developed in consultation with indigenous communities.

(END/2011)

photos by Khanyisa Sinqe – Zithethele Community Newspaper*

DURBAN, Dec 4 – (TerraViva) “Unite against climate change” was the order of the day on Dec. 3, when Greenpeace successfully coordinated a march through the streets of Durban. Several thousand people took part, including both South African activists and campaigners from around the world who have come to Durban to make their voices heard on the issue of responding to global warming.

“World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change,” said Desmond D’Sa, a Durban environmental activist and one of the protest’s organisers.”

“Never trust a COP”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations” were just some of the messages held aloft by demonstrators.

The march had to overcome an early conflict at its outset in Durban’s Botha Park, when a group of young people dressed in the green tracksuits issued to COP 17 volunteers attempted to take up a position at the head of the procession. They said they represented the African National Congress Youth League and had come to show support for President Zuma who they felt was being unfairly targeted by some of the placards and banners posters displayed by protesters.

Marshals managed to contain briefly violent confrontation between this group and members of the Democratic Left Forum; organisers negotiated an agreement that the Youth League group would march further back, with the steadying presence of members of the Rural Women’s Association between them and the DLF marchers.

The march route led through the city centre, pausing outside the International Convention Centre where the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) deliberating over global climate treaty is taking place. Here marchers listened to speeches from representatives of youth, organised labour and the environmental movement.

A list of demands was presented to COP 17 president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres.

Responding to the marchers’ call for greater attention to adaptation and strong support for women who form the backbone of Africa’s food production, Figueres acknowledged the importance of civil society to the process. “These are the voices we hear from the developing countries. We will make sure that the decisions taken at COP 17 will take adaptation forward.”

On her part, Nkoana-Mashabane promised the summit would be run in a transparent and manner inclusive manner. “We will ensure that we use this gathering to make sure that the demands of the many people you are representing are heard.”

* Community media coverage of COP 17 is being supported by the Media Development & Diversity Agency of South Africa, which is promoting the participation of local journalists through a programme of training and reporting on climate change.

(END)

By Kristin Palitza

Dubbing Saturday the “Global Day of Action”, demonstrators from international and national non-governmental groups as well as labour, women, youth, academic, religious and environmental organisations came together to highlight civil society’s demands for politicians all over the world to take serious action to fight climate change.

“We are asking for 100 percent change. Today will be the beginning of a strong movement that is going to challenge the rich nations of the world,” said Global Day of Action subcommittee convenor Desmond D’Sa. “World leaders are discussing the fate of our planet, but they are far from reaching a solution to climate change.”

Protesters said it was time for climate change negotiators to listen to the voices of ordinary people. They marched holding banners which said: “Never trust COP17”, “Unite against Climate Change”, “Climate Justice Now” and “Ensure the survival of coming generations”.

There was a general feeling that ordinary people remained largely excluded from important debates on important issues that directly affected their lives.

“We want to ensure that the one percent on the inside [of the conference] will hear what the 99 percent on the outside have to say,” explained Bobby Peek, one of the organisers of the protest and director of Friends of the Earth South Africa. “We demand immediate, drastic emission cuts by rich countries that have caused climate change.”

Widespread anger could be felt about the slow progress made during the first week of the climate change negotiations, mixed with fear that the summit will end without tangible results.

Peek said he was gravely disappointed about the outcomes of the first week of negotiations. “It was generally a disastrous first week. There is no evidence of moving forward on [emission reduction] targets.”

Greenpeace international executive director Kumi Naidoo agreed, lashing out at the United States for never having ratified the Kyoto-Protocol, the only global, legally binding instrument to cut carbon emissions: “This is not a dress rehearsal. A week of belligerence, bickering and backstabbing needs to now give way to real deals about the future of our planet. Those who are not interested in saving lives, economies and environments, like the US, must now stand aside and let those with the political will move forward.”

Chanting slogans and signing protest songs, a large throng of demonstrators walked from Durban’s city centre to the entrance of the International Convention Centre where the climate change summit is being held, to hand over a list of their demands to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Civil society requests that governments meet the following targets by the end of the conference on December 9:

• Ensure a peak in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015.
• Ensure that the Kyoto Protocol continues and provide a mandate for a comprehensive, legally binding instrument.
• Deliver the necessary finance to tackle climate change.
• Set up a framework for protecting forests in developing countries.
• Ensure global cooperation on technology and energy finance.
• And ensure international transparency in assessing and monitoring country commitments and actions.
Activists criticised rich, industrialised nations for using the global financial crisis as an excuse to give national interests priority before international ones. After a week of negotiations, it remained unclear how money to finance climate mitigation and adaptation projects – measures particularly important to developing nations – will be generated.

“So far we don’t even know where the money will come from. There is a real risk we walk away from Durban with empty pockets. And that failure will be measured in lives, economies and habitats,” warned Tove Ryding, Greenpeace co-ordinator for climate policy. “If governments don’t move forward, the final agreement will be stripped of any possibility of protecting the climate.”

Demonstrators voiced strong concern about a lack of political commitment to put in place legally binding and comprehensive agreements. The protest march was therefore particularly meant as a message to the heads of state and ministers from around the globe, which are expected to arrive at the summit on December 5.

“We demand urgent and strong action on climate change. We can’t just keep talking and keep wasting time,” said ActionAid international climate justice coordinator Harjeet Singh. “We march today to show our outrage. We want to give the ministers, who will arrive next week, a clear message: You cannot continue to make excuses.”

(Ends)

Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 1 (IPS) – Zambian dairy farmer, Effatah Jele, does not believe in farming luck but in pragmatism because of climate change.

“Farmers should be taught about good farming practises instead of blaming everything on climate change,” said Jele, who runs a dairy farm in the Luanshya Cooperbelt Province of Zambia and is the vice chairperson of the Dairy Association.

“Changes are there, no doubt, but it is also important for farmers to have the right farming practises for them to survive those changes. For example, some women are growing vegetables and, due to ignorance, dig the soil right up to edge of the river. Then, when it rains, the soil is all washed into the stream and after a few years the stream becomes shallow. And some say this is because of climate change.”

Jele said changes in the weather pattern have serious implications for farmers like her who depend on increasingly scarce water resources to keep a viable dairy herd. Crop farmers, she said, are worse off unless science and practical ideas come the rescue.

“I feel our scientists should go around talking to the farmers and making them understand the difference between climate change and self-inflicted problems through using the wrong ways of farming. That is important, because otherwise we will not find solutions that will ensure food security,” Jele said.

“Some of things we blame on climate change are failures by us farmers to do the right thing at the right time. Because there is a song of climate change, we are all singing ‘climate change, climate change’,” said Jele.

Fears of what climate change will do for African agriculture are real and in southern Africa farmers are taking action to ensure that negotiators at 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) in Durban get the message.

The Southern African Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) – granted observer status at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) session – wants the global negotiations to put agriculture firmly on the climate change agenda and establish a work programme that will outline and coordinate necessary responses such as a specific allocation to the sector under the Green Climate Fund.

Climate smart initiatives such as conservation farming, water harvesting will not only help farmers cope with extreme weather but also ensure they curb carbon emissions. According to scientists, agriculture is responsible for between 15 to 30 percent of global emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which affects the earth’s temperature.

Farmers are campaigning for a deal that specifically includes agriculture, which will be heavily affected by climate change in terms of reduced crop yields and low productivity. For them productive and sustainable and farms are the insurance against the risks of climate change.

Noting the close links between the challenges of addressing climate change and feeding a growing global population, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) President Kanayo Nwanze is to call on COP 17 to focus on helping half a billion smallholder farmers in developing countries to grow more food in environmentally sustainable ways.

According to research by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, climate change will shrink agriculture productivity with projections of a rise in temperatures and an increase in droughts and floods, which would alter agricultural seasons and decrease harvests

“Our expectations as farmers of Southern Africa is to have agriculture included in the text that will be agreed at the end of the Durban COP 17,” said Stephanie Aubin, SACAU Policy Development Officer.

“Agriculture must be included in the specific text so that there are specific funds and specific action that are implemented.”

A draft text was discussed and negotiated during the past COP meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun but was dropped because agriculture was lumped together with bunker fuels.

“It is important that agriculture has special treatment at the UNFCCC negotiations because its special in terms of livelihoods for millions of people in Africa and food security for the planet and it’s the most climate sensitive sector which at the same time can contribute adaptation and mitigation efforts,” said Aubin.

“We want a specific chapter on agriculture in the text and long term action as it will unlock funding needed by the agriculture sector in Africa to response efficiently to Climate change.”

Aubin was optimistic that with the COP 17 being held in Africa, African governments will put the required effort to push for agriculture in the final text.

A grouping of 15 global and regional organisations have endorsed a call to action for COP 17 climate change negotiators stating that whilst agriculture is a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, it has significant potential to be part of the solution to climate change.

“At the upcoming climate change negotiations in Durban, we call on negotiators to recognise the important role of agriculture in addressing climate change so that a new era of agricultural innovation and knowledge sharing can be achieved, said a grouping of global and regional, ” said the statement issued ahead of the Agriculture and Rural Development Day event to be held at COP 17.

“Specifically, we ask that they approve a work programme for agriculture under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice so that the sector can take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future challenges.”

Bruce Campbell, Director of the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), told IPS that agriculture has been neglected in the negotiations so far, despite the sector accounting for between 16 to 29 percent of total emissions. Additionally, he said farmers, especially poor farmers in the developing world, are going to be particularly hard-hit by climate change.

“The agricultural sector must be empowered to take early action to determine the long-term investments needed to transform agriculture to meet future food and energy challenges effectively,” Campbell said. “The Agriculture and Rural Development Day will not only reflect this call-to-action, but it will also showcase a series of success stories in agriculture, which specific actions could be further scaled up with further investment and a coordinated approach to implementation.”

(END/2011)

MIchelle Bachelet, directrice exécutive de l'ONU-Femmes. Credit: Sriyantha Walpola/IPS

Rousbeh Legatis s’entretient avec MICHELLE BACHELET, directrice exécutive de l’ONU-Femmes

NATIONS UNIES, 28 Nov (IPS) – Impliquer les femmes dans la prise de décisions et la gestion des ressources est une nécessité fondamentale pour toute mesure efficace visant à faire face aux conséquences multiformes, menaçant la vie, des changements climatiques, affirme la directrice exécutive de l’ONU-Femmes.Se tournant vers Durban, en Afrique du Sud, où les dirigeants du monde discuteront des politiques futures de lutte contre les changements climatiques du 28 novembre au 9 décembre, Michelle Bachelet demande aux dirigeants d’assurer que “les paroles deviennent réalité”, pour une participation totale des femmes à tous les niveaux des négociations, et une “conclusion qui répond aux besoins des femmes et fait la promotion de leur autonomisation”.

Les femmes et les filles – qui constituent la majorité des pauvres au monde – ont un accès beaucoup plus limité à l’information et aux ressources financières que les hommes; un fait qui les expose à un risque plus élevé des graves effets des changements climatiques, a souligné Bachelet.

Dans la conception et la mise en œuvre des instruments financiers comme le Fonds vert pour le climat, elle exhorte les délégués des gouvernements, les experts internationaux et les acteurs de la société civile réunis à Durban à retenir une approche sensible au genre pour améliorer le sens de la responsabilité.

“Le financement climatique devrait être équitable et répondre aux besoins pressants de tous les membres de la société, et les questions de l’égalité entre les sexes doivent être prises en compte à toutes les étapes du processus de financement”, a-t-elle déclaré à IPS.

Le risque de blessure et de décès dus aux catastrophes naturelles – telles que les inondations, les sécheresses et les glissements de terrain – est systématiquement plus élevé chez les femmes et les enfants, a-t-elle expliqué. “Dans les sociétés injustes, plus de femmes que d’hommes meurent des catastrophes”.

Spécialement les femmes et les filles des zones rurales dans des pays en développement “portent un fardeau particulièrement lourd des changements climatiques” en raison du stress environnemental et de leur responsabilité d’assurer l’eau, la nourriture et l’énergie pour la cuisine et le chauffage.

Elles passent plusieurs heures par jour à collecter et transporter de l’eau, par exemple, et cela devient beaucoup plus difficile dans les zones touchées par la sécheresse, a indiqué Bachelet. “Pour beaucoup de filles, cela signifie rater l’école et perdre une éducation”.

Entre 1980 et 2010, le nombre moyen d’événements météorologiques extrêmes a plus que doublé, soulignant le “besoin pressant d’investir dans les femmes et les filles et de promouvoir l’égalité des sexes”.

Bachelet a parlé au correspondant d’IPS à l’ONU, Rousbeh Legatis, des besoins des femmes dans le contexte des changements climatiques et de la manière de remodeler la politique mondiale sur le climat.

Voici quelques extraits de l’entretien.

Q: Quels sont les besoins des femmes, et ont-elles un rôle particulier à jouer quand il s’agit des changements climatiques et des stratégies d’adaptation?

R: Les femmes ont besoin de chances égales et de droits égaux. Cela comprend le droit de participer aux décisions relatives aux changements climatiques. Les femmes ont besoin d’être activement engagées dans les processus qui affectent leur vie – de l’urbanisme qui vise à renforcer la résistance des communautés aux chocs climatiques, en passant par la fourniture de services tels que l’eau potable et des projets d’irrigation dans une communauté rurale, au développement d’une technologie d’énergie propre qui vise à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre.

Trop souvent, les femmes sont exclues des consultations. Elles ne sont pas à la table de prise de décisions et leur absence rend les programmes et stratégies moins sensibles et efficaces. Il existe des preuves empiriques pour montrer que l’implication des femmes dans la prise de décisions et la gestion des ressources peut produire des résultats environnementaux positifs.

Des preuves provenant de l’Inde et du Népal suggèrent que l’implication des femmes dans la prise de décisions soit associée à une meilleure gestion des ressources communautaires, telles que les forêts. Une étude menée dans 130 pays a révélé que les pays ayant une représentation plus élevée de femmes au parlement étaient plus enclins à ratifier les traités internationaux sur l’environnement.

En plus du fait d’engager les femmes dans la prise de décisions, les stratégies climatiques doivent intégrer des considérations de genre qui sont spécifiques à chaque situation. Dans des zones rurales en Afrique, par exemple, il faut tenir compte des besoins des femmes agricultrices, qui sont responsables de 60 à 80 pour cent de la production alimentaire ainsi que de la nutrition de leurs familles. Trop souvent, les femmes agricultrices n’ont pas accès aux droits à la propriété, la terre et au crédit, et cela réduit les rendements des cultures et menace la sécurité alimentaire.

L’Organisation des Nations Unies pour l’alimentation et l’agriculture souligne que l’élimination de l’écart entre les hommes et les femmes dans l’accès aux ressources et aux intrants agricoles augmenterait les rendements dans les fermes des femmes de 20 à 30 pour cent et accroîtrait la production agricole dans les pays en développement de 2,5 à 4,0 pour cent, ce qui pourrait à son tour réduire le nombre de personnes sous-alimentées dans le monde de 12 à 17 pour cent ou de 100 de 150 millions de personnes.

Q: Voyez-vous assez de sensibilisation sur la situation spécifique des femmes, et l’implication des perspectives et expériences des femmes lorsque les décideurs engagent des discussions sur la façon d’affronter les changements climatiques et sur comment s’adapter au changement des circonstances environnementales?

R: La sensibilisation s’est certainement intensifiée sur cette question, en particulier parmi les dirigeants et les décideurs politiques. Nous notons des changements dans les attitudes et les politiques. Le secrétaire général de l’ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a encouragé la participation égale des femmes pour relever les défis des changements climatiques en 2009; certains gouvernements parlent des dimensions relatives au genre dans les changements climatiques et l’égalité des sexes est incluse dans l’Accord de 2010 à Cancun.

La prochaine étape, c’est de s’assurer que les paroles deviennent réalité sur le terrain et que les femmes participent aux processus de prise de décisions. Si nous considérons le financement du climat, par exemple, les considérations relatives au genre ont une histoire de ne pas être systématiquement intégrées dans leur conception.

En réponse, l’ONU-Femmes travaille avec des partenaires pour s’assurer que le nouveau Fonds vert pour le climat ne répète pas cette erreur et intègre la question de genre dès le début en incluant le principe de l’égalité des sexes dans ses activités et son suivi des impacts et des résultats.

En plus du niveau de la politique internationale, les femmes doivent être pleinement engagées au niveau national, sur le ‘front intérieur’, où des stratégies nationales sont conçues et mises en œuvre, des budgets sont élaborés, et des services fournis afin d’atténuer ou de s’adapter aux changements climatiques.

Malheureusement, les femmes demeurent sous-représentées dans les parlements nationaux et spécialement dans les ministères qui sont au cœur de la prise de décisions sur les changements climatiques et leur viabilité. Globalement, les femmes occupent seulement 16 pour cent des postes ministériels et parmi celles-ci, seules 19 pour cent sont dans la finance et le commerce; sept pour cent dans l’environnement, les ressources naturelles et l’énergie, et seulement trois pour cent dans les sciences et la technologie.

L’absence des femmes dans les prises de décisions nationales entrave leur capacité à influencer les politiques et les budgets. Cela limite l’inclusion des considérations relatives au genre dans l’agenda sur la gestion environnementale, le développement durable et les changements climatiques. (FIN)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 25, 2011 (IPS) – Involving women in decision-making and resource management is a basic necessity for any effective plan to address the multi- layered and life-threatening consequences of climate change, says the head of UN Women.

Looking to Durban, South Africa, where world leaders will discuss future climate change policies Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, Michelle Bachelet is calling on leaders to ensure “that words become reality”, for full participation of women at all levels of the negotiations, and an “outcome that responds to women’s needs and advances women’s empowerment”.

Women and girls – who make up the majority of the world’s poor – have much more limited access to information and financial resources than men, a fact which exposes them to a higher risk of severe climate change impacts, underscored Bachelet.

In devising and implementing financial instruments like the Green Climate Fund, she urges government delegates, international experts and civil society actors gathering in Durban to retain a gender- sensitive approach to improve accountability.

“Climate financing should be equitable and respond to the urgent needs of all members of society, and gender issues must be taken into account at all stages of the financing process,” she told IPS.

The risk of injury and death from natural disasters – such as floods, droughts and landslides – is systematically higher among women and children, she explained. “In inequitable societies, more women than men die from disasters.”

Especially rural women and girls in developing countries are “carrying a particularly heavy burden of climate change” due to environmental stress and their responsibility to secure water, food and energy for cooking and heating.

They spend many hours a day collecting and transporting water, for example, and this is becoming much more difficult in areas impacted by drought, Bachelet pointed out. “For many girls, this means missing out on school and losing an education.”

Between 1980 and 2010, the average number of extreme weather events more than doubled, underscoring the “urgent need to invest in women and girls and advance gender equality”.

Bachelet talked with IPS U.N. Correspondent Rousbeh Legatis about women’s needs in the context of climate change and how to reshape global climate policy-making.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What are women’s needs and do they have a particular role when it comes to climate change and adaptation strategies?

A: Women need equal opportunities and equal rights. This includes the right to participate in decisions related to climate change. Women need to be actively engaged in the processes that affect their lives – from urban planning that aims to build resilience of communities to climate shocks, to the delivery of services such as clean water and irrigation plans in a rural community, to the development of clean- energy technology that aims to reduce green-house gas (GHG) emissions.

Far too often, women are left out of consultations. They are not at the decision making table and their absence makes programmes and strategies less responsive and effective. There is empirical evidence to show that women’s involvement in decision making and the management of resources can have positive environmental outcomes.

Evidence from India and Nepal suggests that women’s involvement in decision-making is associated with better management of community resources such as forests. A study of 130 countries found that countries with higher female parliamentary representation were more prone to ratify international environmental treaties.

In addition to engaging women in decision-making, climate strategies need to integrate gender considerations that are specific to each situation. In rural Africa, for instance, consideration must be given to the needs of women farmers, who are responsible for 60-80 percent of food production as well as the nutrition of their families. Too often, women farmers lack access and rights to property, land and credit and this reduces crop yields and threatens food security.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation points out that eliminating the gap between men and women in access to agricultural resources and inputs would raise yields on women’s farms by 20-30 percent and increase agricultural production in developing countries by 2.5-4.0 percent, which could in turn reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12-17 percent or 100-150 million people.

Q: Do you see enough awareness of the specific situation of women, and the involvement of women’s perspectives and experiences when policy-makers enter into discussions about how to confront climate change and how to adapt to changed environmental circumstances?

A: Awareness has definitely increased on this issue, especially among leaders and policy-makers. We are seeing changes in attitudes and policies. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged women’s equal participation in addressing the challenges of climate change in 2009, some governments are talking about the gender dimensions of climate change and gender is included in the 2010 Cancun Agreement.

The next step is ensuring that words become reality on the ground and women participate in decision-making processes. If we consider climate financing, for example, gender considerations have a history of not being systematically integrated in their design.

In response, UN Women is working with partners to ensure that the new Green Climate Fund does not repeat this mistake and integrates gender from the start by including the principle of gender equality in its operations and monitoring of impacts and results.

In addition to the international policy level, women must be fully engaged at the national level, on the ‘home-front’, where national strategies are designed and implemented, budgets are formed, and services delivered to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

Unfortunately, women remain underrepresented in national parliaments and especially in Ministries that are central to decision-making on climate change and sustainability. Globally women occupy only 16 percent of ministerial posts and of these only 19 percent are in finance and trade; seven percent in the environment, natural resources and energy; and a mere three percent in science and technology.

The lack of women’s presence in national decision-making hinders women’s ability to influence policies and budgets. This limits the inclusion of gender considerations in environmental management, sustainable development and the climate change agenda.

Q: What is needed to enhance women’s participation in climate policy- making and protection from adverse climate change impacts?

A: It is important to support women’s organisations to participate in consultative processes for the development of climate change strategies, especially at the local and national levels. This requires outreach to affected groups and targeted efforts to ensure inclusivity. Within formal processes, special measures such as quotas, even if temporary, can provide the impetus needed to increase women’s participation and leadership.

We also need better sex-disaggregated data to inform gender responsive climate policies. All too often that information and data cannot be found and this is blocking progress in disaster risk management, urban planning and agricultural reform.

(END)

Las mujeres son las mayores víctimas de los efectos del calentamiento global, pero al mismo tiempo las que primero reaccionan y levantan las banderas de la lucha en la mitigación y la adaptación al cambio climático, dijo a IPS Janete Guilherme, coordinadora de la asociación comunitaria. “Los hombres vienen detrás”, aseguró.

Women coffee growers speak to Martha Nyambura about the impact of climate change on their production.

Water stands in the roads of Bwaise after a light morning rainfall. The urban slum’s drainage system is unable to handle even slight rains. Credit:Andrew Green/IPS

The gardens around Regina Bayiyana’s home in Bwaise keep washing away. Her husband and all five of her children died after long illnesses, leaving her to raise 15 grandchildren on her own in her one- bedroom house. The crops she grew in the gardens – bananas, sweet potatoes and yams – were her main source of both food and income.

Now she and her family have cut back to one meal a day and there is no longer money for school fees.

“Ten years back this used to be a good place,” Bayiyana said. “Now we can’t plant… The water is entering our homes whenever it rains. All my property was washed away by the rains.”

In hilly Kampala, Bwaise is a low-lying area that was settled in the early 1980s, according to Florence Masuliya, a programme officer at Tusitukirewamu Group – a women’s empowerment organisation based in the slum. Many of the people who moved there were refugees from violence-ridden areas around the country.

Though it was never a desirable community, people were able to set up shops and cultivate enough food to get by, Masuliya said. At least, until rain patterns in the capital city began to change.

“It used to be that November and December was the rainy season,” she said. “But right now, since January, we’ve been experiencing rain, rain, rain. I think it came due to climate change.”

A 2008 Oxfam International report, written with assistance from district officials in Uganda, said many of the changes to the country’s climate – including “heavy and violent” rains – were consistent with global warming effects.

Though weather patterns in Uganda have always been unpredictable, the authors said the recently inconsistent rainfall combined with the country’s continuing deforestation could increase risk of floods, as the soil is unable to absorb as much water. And the report predicted that the entire region could expect to become even wetter in the future.

A woman feeds her child in Bwaise – a slum on the outskirts of Kampala. She sits among the remains of local gardens that have been destroyed by floods. Credit:Andrew Green/IPS

The water running down from the surrounding developed communities into Bwaise emphasises the report’s finding. Because there was little official planning that went into the development of the community, the drainage systems that are in place are too few and too rudimentary to handle the amount of water being dumped on the neighbourhood. Instead, it just runs through the houses and shops.

Many buildings are beginning to rot or crumble. The rains at night are especially treacherous, with floods catching families unaware and sometimes drowning small children. And the water that remains, standing stagnant on roads and in gardens, has been a breeding ground for diseases like cholera and typhoid.

Though she was not ready for the floods when they first started coming, Bayiyana has now learned to prepare for the rain. When she hears it coming at night, she piles the family’s three mattresses on top of each other and instructs her grandchildren to clamber on top to avoid the water and the snakes that sometime wash into their home.

But they have not managed to completely avoid the contaminated water. Several of Bayiyana’s grandchildren recently broke out in skin rashes and she had to take them to a nearby hospital for treatment.

She would like to move away, but “no one would buy this land. If I sold it, I would get very little money.”

Though the rains are indiscriminate, the group they have ended up hitting hardest are Bwaise’s mothers and grandmothers, said Florence Kasule, the programme manager for Africa Women’s Economic Policy Network. Her organisation has been working to raise awareness of the problems in the community.

She said that since the rains came, men have been moving from the community to look for steadier income, because the flooding had made work unreliable. Most left their wives and children behind.

“Women cannot easily shift because of their children,” Kasule said. “Nobody can accommodate three or four children.” In the absence of their husbands, most women are left to look for whatever work they can find, sometimes selling food outside bars at night or hocking dried fish on the roadside.

Susan Nakayiza’s husband left her to raise their 12 children alone. She said her family was not prepared for the rains. There had been no official warning and she had no way to know that the previously normal rains would turn to floods, so when they started in 2008, they destroyed nearly everything she owns.

To make ends meet, she is now running a clothes-washing business out of her house, which is cramped with piles of her neighbours’ dirty laundry.

Her children help out with the business, taking orders and washing clothes in their cramped yard. But she still had to pull the younger children out of school because money was too tight. And business is getting worse as more and more people move away.

Like Bayiyana, Nakayiza dreams of leaving, “but I don’t have the money to rent somewhere,” she said.

Masuliya’s organisation is looking for funding to support the local women who are left behind. They recently facilitated a grant from the United States Embassy through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that provides money for women to grow mushrooms, which they can eat or sell.

Bayiyana is one of the participants. Because her gardens are flooded, Masuliya is letting the grandmother cultivate land behind the Tusitukirewamu Group’s headquarters.

Masuliya has also been working closely with local officials to encourage them to develop a better drainage system in Bwaise to draw water away from residents’ homes. She has been promised that the next year will bring a new system, funded by the World Bank.

And local officials have also gotten involved. The Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has held workshops in the district to encourage people to properly dispose of their garbage, so it doesn’t get caught in the floods, according to Janet Massazi, a KCCA community development officer.

They have also been holding official disaster preparedness workshops in Bwaise and the surrounding communities over the last three years. It’s not a new drainage system, but it is an effort to raise awareness and prepare people for the floods.

Bayiyana said she is grateful for the efforts others have made to help the people left in Bwaise, but she does not expect things to really change in her lifetime.

“My message to the government is: Support these people,” she said. “I myself am a widow. I can’t do anything. I need to get support from somewhere.”

(END)

Campesinas and organisers at the Rural Women Against Climate Change Public Hearing. Credit:Mariela Jara /IPS

Huatay and four other campesinas or peasant women from different regions of Peru gave their personal accounts at the Rural Women Against Climate Change Public Hearing, held Thursday Nov. 10 in this city 1,105 km southwest of Lima.

The forum, organised by the Centro Flora Tristán women’s rights group, formed part of the Gender and Climate Justice Tribunals organised by the Feminist Task Force and Global Action Against Poverty (GCAP) since October in 15 developing countries.

The aim of the tribunals is to gather and compile the testimony and suggestions of women in the developing South and channel them to the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held Nov. 28-Dec. 10 in Durban, South Africa.

Some 200 people, including local authorities, farmers and representatives of civil society, were moved by the accounts of the women who spoke at the hearing held in an auditorium of the state government of the south-central Andean province of Cuzco.

The five peasant women were Huatay, who is from a village in the northern province of Cajamarca; Sonilda Atencio from the southeastern highlands province of Puno; María Ibárcena of the southern Andean province of Arequipa; Bertha Berecho of the coastal province of Piura in the north; and Hilara Yanque of Cuzco.

The five indigenous or mixed-race women talked about the impact of climate change on their lives, economic situation, family relations, and physical and mental health.

They exemplify the reality of poverty and neglect experienced by tens of thousands of families in a country that has enjoyed years of high economic growth that has not been felt by everyone – overall, more than 30 percent of Peru’s 29 million people continue to live in poverty, and the rate is as high as 70 percent in some rural highland areas.

The rural poor receive less than one percent of the state budget, although they produce seven of every 10 tons of food consumed in the country.

“In my community, women still wear ‘polleras’ (traditional native skirts), we know nothing about shoes, we use our ‘ojotas’ (rubber sandals), we cook with firewood and we sleep on animal skins on the floor,” Atencio, a 35-year-old mother of three, told IPS.

“We have been hunting, farming and grazing our animals since we were just girls,” she said.

The campesinas who gave their personal accounts in the hearing, sitting in the front row. Credit:Mariela Jara /IPS

In her rural community, Pacha Ccaccapi, located 3,810 metres above sea level, crop freezes have gotten worse and worse over the last few decades, as a result of climate change. Temperatures drop to 33 degrees below zero, destroying crops and pasture alike, and leading to the death of livestock by hunger.

“We work hard in the countryside, and all it takes is one night of intense cold for us to see nothing but dried-up plants the next day. We feel like pachamama (mother earth) is upset because we are destroying nature; the balance has been broken, and we have to fix things,” Atencio said.

Her story was similar to that of the other campesinas, even though each one of them came from very different regions in one of the most megadiverse countries in the world.

Peru is also highly sensitive to the impacts of climate change, a global phenomenon caused by the actions of the countries of the industrialised North, it was emphasised in the hearing.

Although the abrupt climate swings affect the population at large, poor rural women are the most exposed to the risks, which have further undermined their economic, social and cultural rights.

Ibárcena was unable to harvest any of the fruit or flowers she planted this year, because they were destroyed in the freezes, and the worry and despair over the loans she owes to the bank have thrust her into a state of depression.

Participants at the hearing in Cuzco. Credit:Mariela Jara /IPS

Huatay lost her potato, corn and bean crops due to drought, which forced her children to move to other parts of the country to find work. Meanwhile, she stayed in the village, raising her grandchildren, and she is constantly overworked and stressed out, she commented to IPS.

For Yanque, uncertainty about the future has caused her anxiety since the Lucre river flooded and swept away her house and belongings.

And Berecho has not yet got over the loss of her crops and seeds to flooding caused by frequent torrential rains.

When the women shared their pain and frustration with the auditorium, their voices would break momentarily. But when they talked about their suggestions and ideas, the strength with which they have withstood the climate injustice that has made their difficult lives even tougher shone out.

Their resilience is enormous, despite the fact that they live in times when everything seems to have turned upside down and knowledge handed down over generations can no longer be relied on because of climate change.

For example, the seasons of the year, which determine agricultural and water cycles, are no longer predictable.

“We don’t want to be given money; we are asking for training support to get ahead using our own skills and tools; for our areas to be reforested to create microclimates that buffer against the freezes; for the biodiversity to be preserved; and for organic farming to be fomented,” said Atencio.

Blanca Fernández, head of the Centro Flora Tristán’s rural development programme, told IPS that the state is not doing much to fight climate change. She said that while there are some initiatives in different regions, there is no national policy, let alone a gender perspective.

“The government has committed itself to include a focus on climate change and sustainable development in all of its development policies; we as civil society will be closely watching to make sure women and their organisations are included in the policies,” she said.

Tania Villafuerte, a provincial government authority in Cuzco, acknowledged that the state is still “blind, deaf and dumb” regarding climate change and that it has yet to face the challenge of “bringing policies down to earth, and rooting them in people’s lives.”

“This phenomenon does not affect everyone alike, it’s not neutral,” she said. “Women have to be protagonists in the process of taking care of natural resources because they have the ancestral knowledge that has made it possible to care for and preserve biodiversity, such as in the case of native seeds.”

Skills training among women farmers for the efficient use of water, improvement of soil and organic farming were key proposals presented by the five women who gave their testimony at the hearing. Another was the establishment of farm insurance that also covers women.

They also called for afforestation efforts in highlands areas, to generate microclimates to attenuate the freezes, as well as sustained policies to promote the conversation of biodiversity.

Rosa Montalvo, who commented on the women’s proposals at the hearing, said they were all viable, if gender policies complete with budgets are established, “taking into account the different impacts of climate change on men and women.”

“The ancestral knowledge of women farmers should also be recognised and strengthened with modern technologies, and enforcement of the laws and equal opportunity plans should be ensured at all levels of the state,” the gender expert said. (END)

Beatriz Vásquez speaks out about the impact of the construction of a dam in the state of Veracruz. Credit:Emilio Godoy/IPS

“Because of the lack of water we’ve been plagued by rats, lice and cockroaches. And the poor quality (of the water) causes dermatitis and other infections,” Salazar, 51, told the People’s Tribunal on Climate Justice, which drew people affected by climate change in several states to Mexico City Nov. 10.

The meeting, sponsored by the NGOs Mexicanos Contra la Desigualdad (Mexicans Against Inequality) and Comunidad en Movimiento (Community in Movement), held three parallel hearings on natural and social disasters, the countryside and food sovereignty, and uncontrolled urbanisation, unsustainability and loss of natural resources by local communities.

At the hearings, whose theme was “Climate Justice; Mexico’s Communities Raise Their Voices”, participants talked about being displaced because of ecological problems like increased drought, water scarcity, loss of natural resources and socioenvironmental conflicts caused by hydroelectric dams.

Unlike other public hearings held since October in Latin America, the one in Mexico did not focus on women as a group particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming, which was criticised by some of the women taking part.

Beatriz Vásquez, an activist with the Comité Defensa Verde, Naturaleza para Siempre (Green Defence – Nature Forever Committee), came from Amatlán de los Reyes, 450 km southeast of the capital, to protest the construction of the El Naranjal hydroelectric dam, which will affect eight municipalities in the east-central state of Veracruz due to the diversion of the Blanco river.

“The river is heavily polluted,” Vásquez said. “By redirecting its course, there is a risk that contaminated water from the river will leak into the groundwater we depend on. Furthermore, the cemetery and sports field will vanish, and the river will run through urban areas, dividing communities.”

Opponents of the dam created the Committee and have gathered 8,500 signatures against it in 26 regional assemblies. But the state authorities have turned a deaf ear to their protests.

This Latin American country of 112 million people is suffering the effects of global warming in the form of worse droughts, stronger hurricanes, heavy flooding and a rise in the sea level.

But while women are particularly affected by the impacts of climate change – because they have to walk further to fetch firewood or water, and they have to care for sick children with respiratory diseases – they are missing from government programmes to tackle the issue, civil society groups complain.

“We have to talk more from a gender perspective, about how climate change affects women in their daily lives. They are the first to organise and to raise their voices,” Humberto Jaramillo, coordinator of Mexicanos Contra la Desigualdad, told IPS.

“We want them to expose their situation and set forth proposals, to organise and to fight for climate justice,” said the representative of the organisation, which is a GCAP (Global Action Against Poverty) partner.

Participants in the Mexican hearing on climate justice. Credit:Emilio Godoy/IPS

The hearings form part of the Gender and Climate Justice Tribunals organised by the Feminist Task Force and GCAP since October in 15 countries of the developing South, including Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico and Peru in Latin America.

One of the aims of the Tribunals is to influence the negotiations at the Nov. 28-Dec. 10 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Durban, South Africa. Climate justice will be one of the key issues at the international conference.

They also hope to influence the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June, 20 years after the first Earth Summit in that Brazilian city.

Xochimolco, a district on the south side of greater Mexico City that has a network of canals and artificial islands built by the Aztecs, also has water problems. The San Lucas Xochimanca dam, which has been operating there since the 1940s, pollutes the environment in five of the city’s 14 neighbourhoods.

“The dam and reservoir receive sewage from slums, which is dumped into the river that feeds them. The main problem is the air pollution,” Esther González, a 50-year-old retired nurse, who gave testimony on the diseases suffered by people in the area, told IPS.

The community has come together in the San Lucas Xochimanca Committee, to defend and preserve the local culture and environmental health.

Iztapalapa and Xochimilco are two of the 16 “delegaciones” or boroughs into which the Federal District is divided. (Greater Mexico City, comprised of the Federal District and adjacent municipalities, has a total population of 22 million.)

The two boroughs share the fear of pollution of their groundwater supplies, deforestation and unplanned construction.

“We have organised to save and haul water. We are waiting for the government of the capital to authorise us to install rainwater collection systems and the use of solar cells,” said Salazar.

The results of the hearings will be incorporated in the environmental portion of the activities of the Mexican chapter of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, which was launched on Oct. 21 and is to hand down a verdict two years from now.

“We suffer from droughts and floods that ruin the crops. The question of climate justice can help raise awareness and help people to organise,” said Vásquez from Amatlán de los Reyes, where people in her community depend on street vending, domestic work and the cultivation of coffee, sugar cane and fruit.

In 2010, the Mexican government, academics and representatives of civil society produced the Mexican Declaration on Gender and Climate Change, which called for policies with a gender focus, adaptation and mitigation efforts, and the necessary funding. However, little progress has been made in that direction.

“Now there are more skin, respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments, because of exposure to the sun, and air pollution. If we achieve climate justice, our health and quality of life will improve,” said González, the retired nurse from Xochimolco.

The hearings, which are collecting denunciations and proposals on climate justice from women, are also backed by Greenpeace International and the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS). (END)

NOAKHALI, Bangladesh, Nov 10 , 2011 (IPS) – Char Nongolia village is a basket case when it comes to climate change impacts such as increasing salinity, frequent cyclones, tidal surges, erratic rainfall and extended droughts.

Arzu Begum testifies at the climate hearings for women in the deltaic village of Char Nongolia. Credit:Naimul Haq/IPS

Yet, the 40,000 people of this village, sitting on a delta that drains the sub-continent’s major river systems, have endured the creeping devastation of their homeland in southeastern Bangaldesh with no help from anywhere.

There is no drinking water supply, no land to grow food crops on, no healthcare facility, no roads, no jobs and absolutely no sign of any security or authority. Any natural protection afforded by forests has long ago been stripped away.

“Today we have nothing left. Even the last piece of land we had was lost to river erosion,” said Salma Khatun, 72, narrating at a climate hearing for women in this village, late October, how her family steadily lost its farming lands to erosion.

“We moved to this place from nearby Hatiya island about nine years ago after we lost our ancestral home to river erosion. After settling here the same disaster hit us five more times,” said Arzu Begum, 35.

Arzu and her husband Anwar Hossain and their extended family of ten lost all their belongings to river erosion and floods and now live in a flimsy bamboo hut perched on the river bank.

Khadiza Akhtar, 24, moved with her husband to Char Nongolia five years ago, hoping to build their lives here. But, last year’s flood and the incessant river erosion washed away all her dreams.

“We had a decent living with steady earnings from selling milk,” said Akhtar. “We had three dairy cattle and about four dozen ducks. All of them disappeared when the floods inundated our village.”

Rumani Akhtar,27, said: “About 15 years ago my husband used to earn about Bangladeshi taka 25,000 to 30,000 (327 to 392 dollars) every season by selling paddy cultivated on leased land. He gave up farming due to increasing soil salinity and we now live a hand-to-mouth existence.”

Several other women, victims of climate change, told stories of lost livelihoods to a mock jury at Char Nongolia organised by a local non-government organisation, Noakhali Rural Development Society and the People’s Forum on the Millennium Development Goals with support from the Global Call for Action Against Poverty.

Lawyers from Noakhali town patiently heard the women’s stories of sufferings amid a crowded audience at a site where many victims had lost their homes. The women hope that their voices will reach the United Nations climate conference starting in Durban on Nov. 28.

“How many more times do we have to suffer? We have lost all our belongings eight times in the past three years. I cannot take it any more, God help us,” cried out Jannatul Ferdous.

Ferdous, 26, lives on a piece of land not far from the river bank with her husband and two young daughters. Once a successful fisherman, Ferdous’s husband has been reduced to penury.

“No one comes to inquire about our miseries,” said Shumi Akhtar. “This place is hell. We are being tested to see how we much more of this torture we can tolerate.”

Once known for its rich forests, Char Nongolia is now barren and surrounded by similar islands of accumulated silt. Farming is now rare, although riverbeds and embankments are known to be naturally fertile.

For centuries, the people in this area coped with cyclones, floods and droughts but the adaptation to increase in frequency and intensity of adverse climatic events has reached the limit.

“We never had extreme cold or high temperatures. In fact, we never experienced drought and fog during our childhood,” said Nurul Islam, a 74-year-old shopkeeper.

Char Nongolia and the surrounding dried-up riverbeds (locally called char), were once famous for an abundance of freshwater fish. People would sail in from all over the country during the peak season to buy up the fish.

“We used to sell several tons of fish every season and the cash would flow in. But now the catch has reduced drastically,” said Syed Abdullah, 68, who now puts out to sea to continue with his profession.

“During those days people in Char Nongolia were relatively well-off. But look at what nature has done to us. Today we have no work,” Abdullah said.

Most of the able-bodied men have migrated to the port city of Chittagong to find jobs, leaving the women to fend for themselves. Even the microfinance institutions that have helped women across Bangladesh is missing from these parts.

The district commissioner, Sirajul Islam, told IPS that he would soon launch ‘vulnerable group feeding’ entitlement cards for the poor in Char Nongolia to enable them to survive. A reforestation campaign to protect the survivors from cyclones and river erosion is also on the cards.

“I have already requested the concerned officials to release the funds,” said Islam.

Islam admits that even basic needs have been neglected for decades and promises that the “families of the local fishermen would be given food entitlements on an emergency basis.”

But past promises on reforestation and the construction of embankments, to mitigate natural disasters and the effects of climate change events remained unfulfilled.

Such is the air of helplessness in the coastal regions that Bangladesh’s junior minister for environment, Hasan Mahmud, admitted at a recent public meeting that close to 30 million people are likely to be displaced soon by the relentless loss of land.

According to the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, given a business as usual scenario, 17 percent of Bangladesh would be submerged uder seawater by 2050 with several hundred million people forced to migrate from the coastal zone.

Women in Nepal’s Dolakha district testify to living in fear of being submerged by a glacial lake outburst flood. Credit:Sudeshna Sarkar/IPS

“The sirens are always there at the back of my mind, they won’t let me have any peace,” the 45-year-old farmer’s wife cries out addressing a crowd of people, mostly women, who have gathered in this town to talk about the hardships they have been facing due to changes in the climate.

It is one of Nepal’s “women and climate justice hearings” and the village women, some of whom had walked for hours to reach the venue, are hoping their voices would be heard by the authorities, perhaps also at the U.N. conference on climate change to be held in Durban this month.

Organised by Jagaran Nepal, a Kathmandu-based non-profit working to promote women’s rights, peace and governance, and local host Mahila Utthan Kendra (Centre for Women’s Upliftment), the tribunal, held on Oct. 30, was supported by the feminist task force group of the GCAP (Global Call for Action Against Poverty) Foundation.

It focused on select villages in Dolakha, a mountainous district about 135 km northeast of the capital city of Kathmandu, which lives with the threat of potential submergence.

Nagdaha, the village Suntali comes from, lies under the shadow of Tsho Rolpa, the largest glacial lake in Nepal and now, the most potentially dangerous. Lying at 4,580 m at the foot of the 7,146 m high Gauri Shankar peak in the Himalayas, Tsho Rolpa was formed by the gradual melting of the Trakarding glacier.

Though walled in by a natural moraine dam, the 1.76 sq km lake has been swelling as the Trakarding is melting due to the rise in temperature. Nepal’s annual mean temperature has been rising by 0.06 degrees Celsius per year with the mountains warming even faster by an additional 0.08 degrees Celsius.

This has caused glaciers to recede and glacial lakes in the Himalayan region to grow in number as well as in size. With the Trakarding retreating at the rate of 66 m per year, frequent avalanches now pose a greater threat to Tsho Rolpa’s natural dam.

Since the 1960s, Nepal has seen 17 glacial lakes breach their boundaries, causing death and destruction. Studies had forecast that Tsho Rolpa would also cause a GLOF – glacial lake outburst flood – in 1997. If the dam gets breached, a flood of nearly 80 cu m of water could put the lives of over 6,000 people at risk and destroy a 60 megawatt hydropower project.

Villagers say in the worst-case scenario, a Tsho Rolpa GLOF could also affect the Tamakosi river that flows through the region. The Tamakosi is a tributary of the mighty trans-border Kosi river that flows through Tibet, Nepal and China. The Kosi creates frequent monsoon flood havoc in Nepal and India and a GLOF could increase its power to devastate.

Though Nepal’s government installed 17 stations to issue early flood warnings – through air horns backed by sirens – villagers say some of them were disabled during the 10-year civil war fought by the Maoist insurgents. Also, while people from the at-risk zone moved to safer areas in 1997, they returned to their villages when nothing happened.

The warning signs put up by the government mean nothing to people like Suntali, who cannot read or write.

“There is no school in Nagdaha,” Kamala Shrestha, a 24-year-old poultry farmer, tells the tribunal. “The nearest school is in Charikot, which is two hours drive. So only two or three women in this village can read and write.”

There are no health posts either. “Even to buy paracetamol we have to go to Charikot,” Kamala adds. “Plus, there is no motorable road, which means we have no access to the market. We wish the tribunal will make the government build a school, health post and road.”

Sharmila Karki, Jagaran Nepal’s president, says the tribunal’s report will be forwarded to COP 17 when it starts in Durban on Nov. 28.

“We want a member of the community to raise the issues in Durban but it is a tough challenge,” Karki says. “Though Nepal is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, people here are still not aware of the dangers. Also, there is a huge deficit in gender perspective when it comes to making policies.”

When the first tribunal was held in Kathmandu in 2009, a participant told the audience she was suffering from a prolapsed uterus due to climate change.

“She said the streams in her village were drying up and she had to walk for nearly five hours to fetch water,” Karki said. “Doctors affirm that carrying heavy burdens for long periods can cause uterine prolapse in women; yet many people in the audience, unaware of that, laughed in derision when they heard her.”

Karki finds an ominous development since the last hearing. In 2009, women talked about physical problems: being displaced by floods, food insecurity and poor health. But this time, they talked of mental stress as well.

While the government last year made policies to prevent domestic violence, there is no policy to help women get climate justice.

“Living in an environment of psychological terror is also a violation of women’s basic rights,” Karki warns.

“Women who have to manage households are under growing stress, especially since there is no policy to ensure their access to natural resources like water, healthcare or the education that they need in order to be able to cope with change.”

CHANGWON, South Korea, Oct 19, 2011 (IPS) – Yacouba Sawadogo, a peasant farmer from Burkina Faso, is known as the “man who stopped the desert.” But when he first tried to save his arid land from desertification by planting the trees that have since grown into a 15-hectare forest, people in his village thought he was mad.

Some 30 years later the people of Gourga, in northwestern Burkina Faso, who left the infertile area for a better life in the city, are returning while Sawadogo travels the world sharing his success story.

Farmers, environmental experts and scientists are also flocking to Sawadogo’s home to learn about the man who singlehandedly stopped the desert.

Sawadogo’s story also attracted film director Mark Dodd who produced an award-winning film titled “The Man who Stopped the Desert”, which was showcased at the 10th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Congress of Parties (COP 10) currently being held in Changwon, South Korea.

But Sawadogo had not started out trying to save the land from desertification. Thirty years ago he was merely looking for a way to harvest his crop in an area where the land had become barren and many were giving up farming and migrating to urban areas.

“There was no food because of the drought and water was very scarce in my community,” the elderly, polygamous farmer told delegates at the UNCCD.

Sawadogo then realised that it was no longer sufficient to dig ordinary holes to plant his crop, so he decided to dig bigger and wider holes in order to retain rainwater for a longer period.

He also used compost to enhance the growth of the sesame seeds and cereals – sorghum and millet – that he grew.

“The traditional farming method used in my village allowed the rainwater to be easily washed away leaving the crops to dry up within a short space of time. That’s why I thought of a technique that would counter this problem,” said Sawadogo.

He was not only worried about food security but was concerned that the land in Gourga was rapidly turning into a desert. So he began planting trees. It not only saved the land from degradation but also restored ground water to unprecedented levels.

“People thought I was mad when I started planting these trees,” he said. “It is only now that they realise how beneficial the forest is.”

The trees, which he planted with the help of his family, are a thick forest of 15 hectares made up of indigenous plants, some of which are used for medicinal purposes.

He now gives away seeds for planting to farmers in Burkina Faso and in the Sahel, an ecoclimatic zone 1,000 kilometres wide that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

The facilitator of Africa’s Re-greening Initiatives at the Centre for International Cooperation, Chris Reij, said experts have a lot to learn from Sawadogo.

“Yacouba would have become a professor if he had been to school,” said Reiji. “Scientists come to learn from him.”

This is true.

Dorcas Kaiser, a termite specialist, has been to Gourga to learn from the smallholder farmer about the role the insects play in land restoration.

“(It) is a scientist’s dream place to study the role of termites in the land restoration process,” said Kaiser.

World experts have debated land restoration, and masses of money has been spent trying to find solutions to desertification, land degradation and droughts, but so far these efforts have been fruitless, said Reij.

“It took a smallholder farmer to come up with a system that works where global agencies have failed,” said Reij.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Luc Gnacadja also noted the role farmers play in re-greening Africa during the COP 10 opening ceremony on Oct. 17.

Gnacadja said that planting trees, and using fertiliser on farmlands and grazing lands has already been adopted in many regions and has contributed to improving over six million hectares across Africa.

“These good practices should be scaled up and governments should encourage them everywhere when relevant,” he said.

Senior environment specialist cluster coordinator for sustainable land management at the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Dr Mohamed Bakarr, agreed and added that indigenous people like Sawadogo do not need a lot of money to make a difference.

“Policies that say you can’t own trees or you can’t have land tenure make people neglect these resources,” said Bakarr.

GEF is helping governments in Africa remove these barriers in order to create an enabling environment for people to become involved in combating desertification and creating food security.

However, despite saving Gourga from becoming a desert, Sawadogo may end up losing both his land and his forest. The Burkina Faso government is in the process of repossessing Sawadogo’s land for development.

He acquired the land through the traditional system and does not have a title deed, and the government has already started with their construction plans.

In the new land plan the government claims ownership of Sawadogo’s forest and fields and divides his father’s grave into two.

Seeing his father’s grave being split to give way for the construction of a house kills him as much as the idea of letting go of his forest does, Sawadogo said.

The only way Sawadogo can retain his land is if he buys it back from government. It is an option that he feels is both unfair and unaffordable.

Sawadogo would need 100,000 Euros to buy back the forest alone.

“This is unjust,” he said. “I’ve worked so hard for this and now the government is punishing me.”

He has been to the United States where he pled his case to President Barrack Obama and asked him to consider the plight of smallholder farmers in the G8’s Global Food Security Initiative for underdeveloped countries. The initiative was a pledge by the G8 to boost world food security.

“What Yacouba has started has to be preserved,” said Reij, who is working closely with the farmer.

Gnacadja reminded delegates that if desertification, land degradation and drought occur unabated, the world would continue witnessing political instability and famine, like the one occurring in the Horn of Africa.

(END)

ACCRA, Oct 19 (IPS) – As streams dry out, groundwater levels dwindle, and forests and other vegetation yield to droughts or sever storms, women who live their lives in the rural areas of Ghana have to spend more time and energy finding water and food for their families.

For these women, climate change means more hard work just to survive.

However, “decisions to tackle changes in the climate, which has become a threat to livelihoods in developing countries, are void of women’s participation,” says Kenneth Nana Amoateng, chief executive officer of Abibimman Foundation.

Yet these women are also the same people who pick up the pieces, improvise solutions and provide responses to the challenges imposed by climate change.

Amoateng said that most of the women directly affected by climate change are either inadequately represented or exempted from government’s policies and programmes designed to solve the issue.

Akos Matsiador, a 40-year-old fish seller who lives in Horvi village along Ghana’s coast, is now homeless after rising sea levels led to tidal waves surging through her village almost a year ago.

“The current of the sea was so strong that it submerged the entire village. Baskets of smoked fish that I had stored to sell to other women in other villages were swept away by the sea,” Matsiador says.

She was not only displaced, but was also rendered jobless as her source of income – selling smoked fish – was destroyed.

Matsiador and other victims of the tidal wave, like Mercy Hlordzi who lost her husband and her livelihood, now live in a shed by the village chief’s house.

“We are just there, we don’t do anything because our work has been destroyed by the sea,” Hlordzi says.

They, together with other women who have suffered a similar fate because of climate change, are hoping that the Ghanaian government will intervene and help them rebuild their lives.

Their voices are currently not incorporated into the countries climate change discourse and processes as they have little or no knowledge of the issue and its effects on their livelihoods.

In their quest to give a platform to these women, Abibimman Foundation, together with Greenpeace and various other non-governmental organisations, organised the Women and Climate Justice Hearings on Monday in Tema, Ghana. Women from various towns and villages across Ghana were brought together to share their experiences.

Memuna Sandow, an assemblywoman from the Wulugu electoral area in West Mamprusi district in northern Ghana, says the recent dry season in the region dried up water sources such as wells, streams and even some bore holes.

“The drought has lead to the loss of food, crops and animals, which are basic for human survival,” she says.

“They maintain the environment more than men, but when it comes to decisions regarding climate change, women are not represented,” Sandow adds.

She says, however, that women’s lack of knowledge on the issue of climate change has rendered them paralysed in the fight against it.

She says that it is necessary for the government to involve women in the design and implementation of climate change policies and programmes.

“Poor participation of women in the decisions has a negative effect on the efforts to combat climate change,” Sandow says.

Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs Juliana Azumah Mensah shares the same opinion.

“It is an undisputed fact that women constitute a large number of the poor in communities that are highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihoods.”

She adds that Ghana, as a signatory to international conventions, agreed to infuse gender perspectives into ongoing research by the academic sector on the impact of climate change.

Mensah says government is considering the active participation of women in the development of funding criteria and allocation of resources for climate change initiatives.

“My expectation is that output from these climate change hearings will be communicated to appropriate agencies to inform plans at the national as well as local districts assembly,” Mensah says.

Amoateng reiterates an old Chinese proverb “we should see the earth not as an inheritance from our fathers but a borrowed asset from our children, which we will be required to give back to them.”

(END/2011)

MEXICO CITY, Sep 30, 2011 (IPS) – Despite the growing participation of women in forestry projects in Mexico, the national strategy for the United Nations-led REDD+ forest plan in this country lacks a gender focus.

Women involved in forest initiatives in different parts of Mexico told IPS that they were not familiar with REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), and said the government of conservative President Felipe Calderón had not consulted them on designing programmes for the possible implementation of the strategy in 2012.

“I don’t know anything about that project. No one has explained it to me,” Alma Reyes told IPS. She is secretary of the common lands committee – a local government body – in San Miguel and Santo Tomás Ajusco, communities to the south of Mexico City that include 7,600 hectares of forest in their territories.

REDD+, initially launched in 2008 by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the U.N. Development and Environment Programmes (UNDP and UNEP, respectively), is aimed at conservation of biodiversity and boosting carbon storage in forests by supporting developing countries financially and technically, to either prevent deforestation or regenerate forests through reforestation and afforestation.

The government is designing the national REDD+ strategy, and one of the principles of the draft document, which is in the stage of discussion among the different actors involved, refers to inclusion and equity (territorial, cultural, social and gender-related).

About 65 million hectares in Mexico are covered by forest. The authorities say the country loses some 150,000 hectares of forest annually, but Greenpeace and other environmental organisations put that figure above 300,000 hectares a year.

This Latin American country of 112 million people emits 709 million tons a year of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the main greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, 16 percent of which comes from agriculture and deforestation.

The National Institute of Statistics indicates that annual emissions related to agriculture and deforestation – euphemistically called “land use changes” – ranged between 69 and 86 million tons of CO2 between 1990 and 2006.

Francia Gutiérrez, a leader of the Consejo Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (National Council of Campesino Organisations), which groups six organisations of campesinos or small farmers, told IPS that women in local communities have no idea what REDD+ is.

“They have been left on the margins,” she said. “They haven’t received information and they haven’t been consulted. Due to that lack of information, they see it as a threat.”

Mexico will be carrying out one of the eight pilot projects under the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), an alliance of 28 nations, NGOs and international organisations that funds the reduction of emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation.

Under this scheme, Mexico will receive 3.6 million dollars, once it meets all the requirements and signs the final document. According to the latest FCPF report, five pilot projects will be set up to test the REDD+ programme in the states with the highest levels of deforestation, although little information on this is available.

The national strategy aims to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions by up to 41.8 million tons by means of forestry initiatives, and nearly 4.7 million tons by adopting measures in the areas of livestock and agriculture, by 2012.

“Women are not familiar with the programme. And projects are incomplete if they do not involve women. We have to ask ourselves what it means to train women to work in the forests, if they are not allowed to take part in decision-making,” Erika Barrón, a consultant who has worked with women in forestry for over 10 years, told IPS.

Mexico has set itself a goal of zero emissions from deforestation by 2020, and of significant reduction in the rate of forest loss, while the country “will have maintained biodiversity in the national territory, strengthened the social capital of its rural communities, and promoted economic development through sustainable progress in rural areas,” the draft document for the national REDD+ strategy says.

Of the 2,300 local communities in Mexico that produce timber under forest management plans, 600 have their own saw mills or furniture-making companies, according to the Mexican Council for Sustainable Forestry (CCMSS).

“We want to get more women involved in caring for our natural resources, and we want them to be included in an equitable manner,” said Reyes, the first woman to hold a post in the Comisariado – the local government council – in San Miguel and Santo Tomás Ajusco. “We must keep up the fight, because we have to be included.”

In a report published in June, Leticia Guimaraes, Matthew Ogonowski and Diana Movius with the Washington-based Center for Clean Air Policy said REDD+ has good potential for reforestation, generating job opportunities, and empowering groups of women and economic associations.

The report, “REDD+ Design in Cambodia, Indonesia and Mexico: Lessons to Inform International REDD+ Policy Development”, also identifies challenges and barriers like limited funding, carbon quantification, even distribution of payments that do not reward high performers, areas highly vulnerable to climate change, and an expansion of pasture land for cattle production.

Women “help protect forests, but they could be left out of the scheme,” said Gutiérrez.

“We haven’t been able to get across the concept of how women use and protect forests. We have to learn to develop gender projects that are not simply focused on the number of women participating,” Barrón said.

The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)‎ signatory countries are meeting Oct. 1-7 in Panama City in the last large-scale talks prior to the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP-17) in late November and early December in Durban, South Africa.

The Mexican government will present its REDD+ national strategy in Durban. (END)