Friday, January 24, 2014

Climate change increasing vulnerabilities in rural communities,

may threaten people’s jobs and livelihoods- says Earth Hour Champions 2014 #WalktoMali

Author: Mamadou Edrisa Njie reporting from Gusua, Nigeria

Earth Hour Team in Gutsura village, Zamfara State, Nigeria

 

The most vulnerable groups in Nigerian society that are clashing with climate change are the rural poor as they often depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, for instance from agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
 Now man-made climate change poses an additional challenge, increasing the vulnerability of rural communities; the impacts of climate change currently predicted for rural communities in Nigeria is in the rise and rain-fed grain crops, and a rising number of extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods and desertification is the uppermost of climate vulnerability.

These impacts will vary strongly in their extent and form around the country. To cope with the risks, therefore, interventions will have to be specially tailored to suit the different states and regions especially the villagers of Gutsura located in Zamfara State, North-West of Nigeria.


To prepare for the impacts of climate change, the community calls on the Federal, State and Local government to help them construct concrete dams for them.

During raining season, “You cannot get in the village, only if you use canoes, because the whole village is surrounded by water” said Alhagie Omar Nasarawe [village elder] sharing his experience with Earth Hour Nigeria during a community participatory live mapping.

According to him, the natural event [floods] since 2010 to date, have made most them to be homeless and as a result the Federal government of Nigeria has allocated them a new site to relocate [empty land] without given them financial support to build houses.

“The Federal government only gives us empty land for us to relocate with no single “Koboo” in Nigerian local language meaning Naira.”
January, 20, 2014 Earth Hour Nigeria started live mapping of places of interest [camps, roads, schools, health centers, water pumps] and facilitating of vulnerability maps for the local communities.

Nasarawe noted that the new site that the government located to them, none of the village is in position to construct houses because they loss millions of Naira as result of flooding.
     
Mansabanko Blo Publisher posed with villager elders

Community outreach [Education] in local communities to distribute communication materials on promoting the culture of peace and provision of 2,800 solar lamps and 1,000 clean cookstoves – are all part of WalktoMali project with no financial support from the Nigerian government, international organisations or humantatian organisations says Community outreach [Education] in local communities to distribute communication materials on promoting the culture of peace and provision of 2,800 solar lamps and 1,000 clean cookstoves – are all part of WalktoMali project with no financial support from the Nigerian government, international organisations or humantatian organisations says Oludotun Babayemi, Country Director Earth Hour Nigeria.

“We the rural poor often have just limited access to financial products which could help to reduce the impacts of climate change on our livelihood,” Takur Muhammed said,

He informed Earth Hour Nigeria champions that villagers have little awareness and expert knowledge regarding adaptation to climate change, particularly at the local level.
For this reason, he said focus of projects like communicating relevant approaches, technologies and lessons learnt and through their participation in an information and knowledge management system, will help them to enhance their knowledge and raise the resilience of the communities.

As a society, “we have structured our day-to-day lives around historical and current climate conditions. We are accustomed to a normal range of conditions and may be sensitive to extremes that fall outside of this range and climate change may threaten people’s jobs and livelihoods says Mansabanko blog publisher cum Social Secretary Biodiversity Action Journalists-The Gambia (BAJ-Gambia) Mamadou Edrisa Njie.  

Njie pointed out that climate change will affect certain groups more than others, particularly groups located in vulnerable areas and the poor, young, old, or sick adding that cities are sensitive to many impacts, especially extreme weather impacts.

[In red shirt] Mike in action Earth Hour Nigeria
Etta Micheal Bisong journalists Blueprint Newspapers Nigeria said that climate change could affect our society through impacts on a number of different social, cultural, and natural resources.

Given examples, he stated that climate change could affect human health, infrastructure, and transportation systems, as well as energy, food, and water supplies.
He continued, some groups of people will likely face greater challenges than others. Climate change may especially impact people who live in areas that are vulnerable to coastal storms, drought, and sea level rise or people who are poor.
 

He projected climate change will affect certain groups of people more than others, depending on where they live and their ability to cope with different climate hazards. In some cases, the impacts of climate change would worsen existing vulnerabilities, he concluded

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