By Elias Ntungwe Ngalame
One of the key outcomes of the COP22 in Marrakech was the establishment of a new transparency fund with the injection of some USD50 million by some developed countries, to encourage transparency efforts in the fight against climate change.
African civil society organizations under the aegis of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) to that effect organized an African regional Post COPP22 sensitization workshop in Kampala, Uganda, 19-21 April, 2017 to examine the readiness of African countries and improve on the momentum towards the fund project.
It is also geared at seeking to expand participation, broadening efforts to build partnership with government and other stakeholders, breaking from the past to build stronger and global resilience.
According to Sam Ogallah of PACJA, the sensitization on the cardinality of the GCF was imperative to measure the readiness and highlight the role of civil society organizations in the funding project.
“Civil society organizations have to be accorded the opportunity to be abreast with the operational modalities of the Green Climate Fund to permit them fully participate in the entire project process and also push their governments to make proposals adapted to the realities of their different countries,” Ogallah said.
Participants during one of the sessions examined the goal, objectives, activities and implementation strategies of the Green Climate Fund, the climate finance process at national and international level within the UNFCCC.
Also examined was the outcome and decisions of the just ended 16th Board Meeting of the GCF and the way forward especially for civil society organizations.
According to participants, the GCF was in line with the Paris agreement in COP21. The Paris Agreement implementation they said should go hand in glove with the 2030 Agenda as well as the AU Agenda 2063, “a process which should take the bottom-up approach, be inclusive and transparent.”
It was also noted that the involvement of all stakeholders including government, civil society, development partners, the private sector, youths and women was not only necessary but imperative to drive the agenda to a success.
“It is a partnership of many facets in development in every country,” says Rebecca Muna civil society representative. The participation of the different stakeholders, she says signals the willingness of countries to understand and undertake climate actions that go beyond adaptation and victory for African countries.
Meanwhile the Green Climate Fund (GCF) on Tuesday, April 18, 2017 launched a new web-based guide that provides Partners with detailed information on how to access its resources.
Tagged “GCF 101”, the guide aims to help GCF stakeholders better navigate the many elements of engaging with the Fund. It provides four distinct chapters addressing the different opportunities the Fund provides to help developing countries respond to climate change: These include, Empowering countries; Getting Accredited; Funding projects; and Implementing projects,” the organization stated in its press release.
According to the GCF, each chapter provides a short overview, a simple step-by-step guide explaining how to apply or access the Fund; and a series of frequently asked questions that tease out more information. Through this approach, the guide increases clarity on the Fund’s main processes as well as transparency.
It adds: “GCF 101 uses non-technical language to make GCF processes easy to understand for non-expert audiences. This approach accords with the GCF mandate to support country ownership of climate finance and recognises the personnel capacity challenges facing many of the targets of GCF support – such as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and African States.
The body notes that, “like the GCF itself, the ‘101’ is a work in progress,” stressing that the guide will be updated and modified as processes evolve.
KUMASI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - President Trump’s Executive Order on Climate Change will have far reaching impacts on many developing countries, especially on the African continent, which is already bearing the brunt of the negative impacts of climate change.
African Civil Society, under the umbrella of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), says reversing the Obama climate plan is one of the greatest injustices and an onslaught on Mother Earth, especially in the fight against climate change.
The Energy Independence Executive Order, signed by US President, Donald Trump on March 29, 2017, has been hailed by groups in the fossil fuels business, but condemned by environmental campaigners as over a dozen measures enacted by President Obama to curb climate change have been suspended.
“Trump’s Climate Change Executive Order is rolling back the many years of global efforts that yielded the Convention and the Paris Agreement. The global community and other world leaders should resist the temptation of following the footstep of Trump to take the world several steps back in the fight against climate change,” said Mithika Mwenda, PACJA Secretary-General.
For a safer world, countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement will urgently need to raise their ambition to increase the level of their greenhouse emission reduction targets communicated to the UNFCCC and keeping the global temperature to below 1.5OC.
The current aggregate level of the communicated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are estimated to lead to the average global temperature increase above 30C by 2030, unless radical emissions reduction targets are urgently adopted by Parties.
The NDC of the United State of America submitted to the UNFCCC on March 31, 2015 commits USA to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%–28% below the 2005 level by 2025.
The US effort constitutes a part to the global comity of nations’ efforts to keep the planet safe.
“As one of the major contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions, the US continues to owe a huge ecological debt that can only be paid by the demonstration that it is committed to servicing this climate debt in an equitable, fair and just manner. Such efforts should align with the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capacity (CBDRC) of the Convention,” said a statement from PACJA.
African Civil Society is worried efforts to improve people’s vulnerability to climate change are being eroded by Trump’s Executive Order.
Currently, impacts of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa have led to deaths of humans and livestock in the region. Farmers in most parts of the Africa are feeling impacts of the changing climate in their agricultural production and productivity.
According to Sam Ogallah, Programme’s Manager at PACJA, Trump's action on climate change is likely to exacerbate the current migrant crisis.
"Climate change impacts are pushing many youth out of developing countries in search of better lives in developed countries. Some of these youth in an attempt to migrate to Europe have lost their lives. Addressing climate change in developing countries can go a long way to solving migrant crisis in Europe and other developed countries,” he said.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Parliaments in sub-Saharan Africa have established a framework that will see a rapid implementation of climate change policies in their different countries into practical ground actions.
The peoples’ representatives through the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change, known with French acronym as REPACC say they are now set to bridge policy and actions on the ground that have so far lagged behind in visible climate change projects and infrastructure.
Even with the existence of climate change policies that continue to stay on paper and the creation of institutions that have continued to lay fallow, little or no actions are visible on the ground for most countries in sub-saran Africa, experts say.
“ It is time for action to move climate change challenges in Africa to a new level with adapted infrastructures and skills that will help find lasting solution,” says Cavaye Djibril, House Speaker of the National Assembly in Cameroon.
He said the countries in Africa,most of who submitted their NDCs and signed the Paris Agreement(to quantify climate protection goal) lack the necessary expertise to effect national measures and projects to make climate finance available for the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
African Parliamentarians say they have now got the backing of the Climate Policy and Energy Security Programme of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Germany with the training of the required expertise to formulate , prepare, supervise the implementation of projects to help their different countries adapt to climate impacts.
To that effect, a cooperation agreement was signed in Yaounde on March 27, between the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Pan African Parliamentarians’ Network on Climate Change to help fast-track measures needed to bridge climate policies into action in the different countries, to speed up the emergence of body of knowledge on climate and the relevant legislation and to manifest the role of parliamentarians in African climate change responses in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, globally, regionally and locally.
According to the President of the Permanent Executive Committee of the Pan African Parliamentarian Network on Climate Change (PAPNCC), Cameroonian born, Hon. Awudu Mbaya Cyprian, the backing of the German Konrad Foundation now gives African law makers the claws to better push climate policies to action.
“The Pan African Parliament for Climate Change will hence be better armed for actions that will bring m the much expected solutions to climate change challenges,” Awudu said.
Professor Olivier Ruppel, resident representative and director, climate policy and energy programme of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung said technical expertise, financial support with help in the infrastructure development and international cooperation needed by African countries to implement climate change projects on the ground.
Cameroon created the Cameroon Councils against Climate Change, National Observatory on Climate Change in 2011 aimed at monitoring the effects of climate change on people, agriculture and ecosystems, and guiding work on climate action.
Other policy actions have since followed like the creation of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction under the ministry of territorial administration, becoming a member of COMIFAC and submitting a national REED+ plan in 2013 etc. But these have not succeeded to hold the line of climate disasters in the country, officials noted.
Like in Cameroon, Parliamentarians in the continent believe with the active involvement of law makers and support from their new partner, the necessary actions including relevant legislation will bring a lasting solution to climate change impacts in the country in particular and sub-saharan Africa in general.
EARTH MEANDERS ESSAY By Dr. Glen Barry
PAMACC News - Given long-predicted and self-evident abrupt climate change and ecosystem collapse, and resultant perma-war and rise of fascism, despite decades of scientific warnings which went unheeded; will you now listen to science, embrace an ecology ethic, and act to avoid biosphere collapse and the end of being before it is too late?
Essentially every warning from ecological and climate scientists regarding the limits to growth have come to pass. Climate models have been amazingly accurate, if anything under-predicting the magnitude of the climate apocalypse dramatically playing out in Polar Regions and radiating heat globally. Water, farmland, soil, wetlands, oceans, old-growth forests, and the atmosphere are, as forecasted, in precipitous decline.
Whole regions are collapsing ecologically and are on track to being uninhabitable and will have to be abandoned. Yet demands for inequitable consumption placed upon nature by seven billion top predators continue to grow exponentially (as a billion live in opulent splendor, another billion face abject soul-sucking poverty, and a handful enjoy half of Earth’s wealth).
There are few naturally evolved large ecosystems remaining to cut, burn, and otherwise plunder for short-term ill-gotten gains as the biosphere and society bear the unpriced external costs. Those natural ecosystems that remain are under threat as the oil oligarchy consolidates its power in order to access and burn every last drop of oil and chunk of coal, destroying our atmosphere and last natural ecosystems in the process.
The global ecological system – our one shared biosphere that makes Earth habitable – is collapsing and dying as human industrial growth overruns natural ecosystems and the climate.
Resource scarcity resulting from ecosystem loss, albeit delayed through the advent of information technology, nonetheless underlies the surge in uncontrolled mass migration and diminished economic prospects for the formerly affluent Western middle classes. Landscapes ravaged by industrial capitalism in the developing countries in particular are barren wastelands unable to support indigenous and other local self-reliant lifestyles that provided for quality lifestyles for millennium.
As foreseen by this author and others, authoritarian fascism has arisen to exploit both environmental decline and surging inequity between the super-rich and multitudinous have nots. A state of perma-war and institutionalized war murders masked as a clash between cultures are more accurately depicted as a scramble for dwindling resources upon which to base overly consumptive and clearly unsustainable lifestyles for the privileged few for a while.
Fascist demagogues have arisen that spout charlatan alternative facts as they stifle voices of ecological and other truths.
Environmental and climate crises long perceived as distant or affecting others, but not you, are increasingly impacting average people in their daily lives, particularly in the over-developed world. Food and water systems are failing and prices rising, as regular patterns of seasonality are lost. Jobs based upon ravaging natural ecosystems are a thing of the past, as they are exhausted, and are not coming back. Foreigners from hard scrabble over-populated countries will work far harder for much less and increasingly take even domestic high-tech positions excluding locals.
Our present state of environmental collapse, driven by inequitable over-population and ecosystem loss, fomenting precipitous social and economic decline, was foreseen by ecological scientists. Numerous warnings from a host of ecological visionaries sought to highlight the problems and the course of action required to move towards not only sustainable, but also just and equitable sustainable development.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the preceding work of Malthus, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson and others went mainstream as the self-evident need to protect land, air, and water led to bipartisan efforts. The ground-breaking Limits to Growth publications highlighted once again the irrefutable fact that exponential growth can only lead to collapse. The advent of micro-processors has pushed back some limits, as others like the absorptive capacity of the atmosphere have clearly been breached.
It has been two years since I proposed a 10th Planetary Boundary in my peer-reviewed scientific journal article entitled Terrestrial ecosystem loss and biosphere collapse regarding how many natural ecosystems can be lost before the biosphere collapses. Noting how smaller ecosystems, indeed anything from which portions are cut, fragment and fall apart at around 40% loss; I proposed a threshold of 66% natural and semi-natural terrestrial ecosystem retention as being required to avoid biosphere collapse.
Despite my findings being subsequently validated in other studies by scientific luminaries, precisely nothing is being done by world governments and even leading environmental NGOS to begin the process of ending natural ecosystem loss and beginning an age of ecological restoration.
With about 50% of natural ecosystems having been destroyed already there can be no other outcome (after unknown lag times) than biosphere collapse and the end of being.
It is not through lack of effort by others and me that deep ecology has not caught on. Indoctrination into a nationalistic, consumptive worldview is pervasive and all-encompassing. Very few are able to escape the religious, racist, nationalistic, and economic lies forced upon them in youth.
Much of humanity has forgotten that it is possible to live in peace and within the bounds of nature. Social cohesion has dangerously frayed. Poorly educated folks falling from middle class lifestyles, as well as the well-off feasting upon the last ill-gotten fruits of nature, are unable and/or unwilling to grok causal connections between declining natural systems and limited economic prospects, and that such growth can only end in collapse.
Our fatally flawed education system fails to provide the necessary cognitive skills to grasp basic truths –like nothing grows forever, ecosystems make life possible, and water is required for life – upon which our existence depends.
Nothing grows exponentially forever, it is a physically impossible.
To deny Malthus, indigenous wisdom, and all subsequent iterations upon ecological knowledge and intuition found in science is sheer utter madness.
The truth of the matter is that while ecological trends are clear, the breaking point of ecosystems and societies is not known with certainty. There may be sources of ecological resiliency of which we are unaware. And given the drive for self-survival of a species can be found in all genetic code, including the hairless ape with the amazing opposable thumb, it would be incautious, indeed ludicrous, to give up.
But we need to quickly change our ways personally and societally to embrace an ecology ethic. We need to listen to ecological and other scientific experts and dramatically reduce industrial and population growth, as well as inequitable over-consumption, or we are faced with ecological apocalypse and biosphere collapse.
One last time swords must be beaten into plowshares (and restored ecosystems).
It is known with certainty that human prospects depend upon functioning natural ecosystems. And the personal and societal changes required to maintain such systems are known with surety as well.
Simply, pollution of land, air, and water must end or we all needlessly die.
To sustain local ecological patterns and processes globally, old-growth forest logging and industrial scale marine fisheries MUST cease immediately, and massive investments in ecosystem restoration be made. Decentralized renewable energy grids and nega-watts from energy conservation must be embraced with utmost urgency as fossil fuel burning ends. Massive investments in women’s education, birth control, and tax incentives for small families must be made worldwide to slow growth and then reduce human population. Genetic modifications and oil intensive agriculture must end as we return to family farming embracing organic permaculture. And all sources of sacred water must be protected at any cost.
Fascism and the threats posed by both large governments and corporations must be eliminated. A guaranteed minimum income must be established worldwide. Armies must be demobilized and international institutions strengthened to pay the price for our continued existence, while ending systematic war murders. Liberty, justice, and equity for all members of the human and all species’ family must be ensured.
This course of action is based upon scientific truths, and further ignoring of ecological limits is a willful death wish.
Humanity heeds the warnings of its sage elders and embraces such an ecology ethic now in all haste or we face intensified abject human misery prior to biosphere collapse and an imminent end to being. Let’s come together now to make it so.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Ghana’s Centre for Climate Change and Food Security (CCCFS) has launched a project to help minimize the misuse and waste of food among the populace.
Dubbed "Campaign Against Food Waste and Overeating", the project is to encourage Ghanaians to make judicious use of available food at their disposal.
Though there is no readily available statistics, it is believed that most Ghanaians waste more food than they consume.
The two key components of the project are to reduce food waste and over-eating which contribute to about 20 percent of the world food being lost.
At the launch of the project, Executive Director of CCCFS, Mahmud Mohammed-Nurudeen, enjoined the citizenry to eat less animal products, and help reduce the global growing trend of food insecurity.
He said students particularly have a pivotal role to play in the prevention of food waste to help prevent damage to the environment.
"If we continue to throw away food and litter around, then we are just preparing a dangerous environment for the future generations," he said.
The project is also part of efforts to reduce the billions of tonnes of food lost to ensure everyone has access to a safe, affordable and nutritious diet.
According to scientists at the University of Edinburgh, the world population consumes around 10 per cent more food than it needs, while almost nine per cent is thrown away or left to spoil.
The researchers at the University examined ten key stages in the global food system including food consumption as well as the growing and harvesting of crops to quantify the extent of losses.
According to the research, almost half of harvested crops or 2.1 billion tonnes are lost through over-consumption, consumer waste and inefficiencies in production processes.
They found out that, almost 20 per cent of the food made available to consumers is lost through over-eating or waste.
Livestock production is the least efficient process, with losses of 78 per cent or 840 million tonnes, the team found. Some 1.08 billion tonnes of harvested crops are used to produce 240 million tonnes of edible animal products including meat, milk and eggs.
This stage alone accounts for 40 per cent of all losses of harvested crops, researchers say.
Dr. Peter Alexander, of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences and Scotland's Rural College, who led the study, said: "Reducing losses from the global food system would improve food security and help prevent environmental harm. Until now, it was not known how over-eating impacts on the system. Not only is it harmful to health, we found that over-eating is bad for the environment and impairs food security."
The Centre for Climate Change and Food Security has therefore taken upon itself to educate young Ghanaians, especially students, on the need to avoid food waste and overeating.
The project was launched as part of the Centre's seminar on the theme: "Today's Climate, Who Should Be Concerned?" held at the University for Development Studies UDS, Wa campus in the Upper West Region.
Ghana Bureau Chief for ClimateReporters, Kofi Adu Domfeh encouraged students to show more concern in the protection of the environment.
He said the students can be agents of change in educating Ghanaians about the effects of the changing climate.
He cited an instant where a farmer at Atebubu in the Brong Ahafo region lost all his crops due to prolonged drought.
Mr. Domfeh also challenged the students to begin a campus campaign on environmental tidiness.
CCCFS has been recommending and implementing policies to safeguard the environment and protect farmers’ livelihoods.
The Centre also embarks on research works that seek to address issues of climate change, food security and agribusiness.
BIMBIA-BONADIKOMBO, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - Stepping into the Bimbia-Bonadikombo community forest in Cameroon, the chatter and hooting from the people and cars in neighboring villages gives way to silence.
A guide and hunter Charles Mokwe, slashes through the thick canopy, slowly making his way along a trail of grass and bush marked with tracks of cutting grass and porcupine.
One could hear shrieks from both far and near. “Those are probably the sounds of animals,” Mokwe says.
“Though human encroachment has scared many animals to far distances, we still find some during our hunting expeditions.”
The Mount Cameroon forest project that includes the Bimbia -Bonadikombo community forest (BBCF)measuring 3.735 hectares, situated on the west flanks of Mt.Cameroon looks an ideal biodiversity conservation project in readiness for the country’s REDD+( reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and carbon sequestration) ambition.
The community forest is a biodiversity hotspot under a three way partnership between the local communities, the government, the Mount Cameroon Project [MCP] the coordinating body in Fako division of Cameroon’s South West region. The project government says is a biodiversity conservation strategy implemented through participatory land-use plan with mapped out areas for settlements, agriculture, community forests including a national park that has contributed significantly to the socio-economic development of the forest community in the area.
“The project is a people oriented conservation programme geared at improving on the livelihood of the local population,” says Eben Ebai Samuel, Southwest regional delegate for forestry and wildlife.
But just along the western edge of the Mt Cameroon Park, there are signs of trouble. Stakes are planted in the ground and a nursery nearby is filled with oil palm seedlings. This is part of an ambitious plan to expand the Cameroon Development Corporation, a Cameroonian palm oil company, to develop a 123,000-acre palm oil plantation next to the forest reserve. The project could possibly overlap with the forest in some places.
“This would be a disaster,” says Ekwoge Abwe, who works with the Ebo Forest Research Project with the help of village volunteers and funding from San Diego Zoo Global, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other groups. The office of their research project is located in the Botanic Gardens in Limbe.
“If this takes place, you would have a good chunk of the community forest disappearing,” Abwe says.
“The habitat would be chopped down and exacting more pressure on species and leading to population declines and local extinctions. For those species that are not resilient, that may be the end.”
Cameroon is among a growing list of African nations following the foot-steps of Asian agro-industrial companies like in Malaysia and Indonesia, which have made hundreds of billions of dollars by converting huge tracts of rainforest into palm oil plantations. The two Southeast Asian countries produce about 85 percent of the world’s palm oil.
This development is threatening community forest that has stood its own in forest conservation since the 1994 forestry laws.
“Our forests are in danger if government does not reinforce and apply the law to stop encroachers,” says chief Njie Masoki, chairman of the Bonadikombo traditional council.
Community and state co-management of protected forest areas were established in Cameroon following the 1994 forestry law as part of relatively new forest governance dynamic aimed at improving livelihood and reducing poverty especially among the forest community population.
The community forest initiative involves the transfer of forest taxes to councils and communities, creation and management of council forest, guaranteeing rural communities access rights to their forest resources among other benefits. However, though the Cameroon community forests initiatives were designed and implemented to meet the general objectives of forest management decentralization for democratic and community management, the expansion of agro-industrial plantations and the spread of management conflicts in many of these communities have shown that the broad expectations have largely not been met.
Cameroon lost 18 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010, with an average annual decline of 0.9 percent, or 220,000 hectares, according to the State of the World’s Forests 2011 report issued by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
This runs counter to plans drawn up by the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), which focuses on sustainable exploitation of the forest and its resources and Cameroon’s plans towards economic emergence with a two digit growth by 2035. Present economic growth stands at just 4.5 %.
Reports say much of the forest loss is due to increasing pressure from other sectors such as commercial and subsistence agriculture, other infrastructure development and especially palm oil plantations. For example, a 73,000 ha oil palm plantation has been allocated in a rich biodiversity forest area in Southwest Region of the country that is breeding conflict between the community and the palms oil company.
“These persistent conflicts between communities and palm oil or rubber plantation companies completely defeats the purpose of the community forest scheme,” Chief Njie says.
Community Forest in Cameroon
According to the 1994 forestry law, the involvement of grassroot community actors in the management of forest and wildlife resources is primordial to improve on the livelihood of the local population and save forest.
Community forestry emphasizes the roles of indigenous and local communities in conservation, and the importance of generating local livelihoods through sustainable forest use. This enable communities to manage and benefit from forests, so that forests can be recognized as a livelihoods asset that contributes to their continuing welfare.
“A community forest forms part of the non-permanent forest estate, which is covered by a management agreement between a village community and the Forestry Administration. Management of such forest – which should not exceed 5,000 ha – is the responsibility of the village community concerned, with the help or technical assistance of the Forestry Administration,” Article 3(11) of Decree says.
The law was the first in Central Africa to promote community forest management as a strategy to sustainably manage forests and promote local development. As of 2011, a total of 301 community forests covering over 1 million ha had some form of management agreement in place.
It provides for the establishment of community-managed hunting areas, council and community forests with the granting of royalties to councils and communities resident in forest management units and hunting areas. Statistics from the ministry of forestry and wildlife shows that about 43% of allocated community forests obtain an annual exploitation certificate each year while exploited volumes in local communities represent about 25% of authorized volumes.
Government officials however say these are carried out on the basis of established agreement between the state and the forest communities.
‘’ On the basis of a management agreement signed with the state, villagers have the opportunity to manage and exploit the products of their community forests and realize opportunities for development,’’ says Eben Ebai Samuel, Southwest regional delegate for forestry and wildlife.
According to the Law, 40% of taxes levied from Forest Management Units like logging concessions go to municipalities and 10% to the local villages. The law also guarantees property rights of communal forests to municipalities and the rights of use of community forests to local villages. Government officials say the law is very clear on that even though local councils and villages as of now only benefit from logging concessions.
“Local villages and councils are entitled by law to use and sell all types of forest resources although in practice the main community forest benefits have been from commercial logging,” says Vincent Onana of the ministry of forestry and wildlife.
Environmentalists say the rights of communities must be respected.
“It is both the responsibility of the government and the companies to ensure that the rights and wellbeing of local communities are respected,” says Augustine Njamnshi of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance.
Environmentalists are fighting on several fronts in Cameroon, where the government has pledged to expand palm oil production by more than 26 percent by 2018 as part of an effort to become a top exporter in Africa. That means an additional 25,000 acres of new plantations each year.
A Cameroonian company, Safacam, is developing plantations that appear to overlap with two reserves, according to Global Forest Watch.
Greenpeace also claims that Sud-Cameroun Hevea, a company owned mostly by Singapore’s GMG, is developing rubber and palm oil plantations that threaten the Dja Faunal Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the largest and best protected rainforests in Africa.
Like Mt Cameroon, most community forest in Cameroon lacks the protection and funding of a national park like Dja Faunal. Even without the palm oil, the forests face a myriad of other threats, from raids by bush meat hunters trapping and shooting primates, antelopes and elephants, to incursions from illegal loggers, activities that challenge the countries REDD+ ambition.
Though the plantation officials and government argue the projects could provide good paying jobs and improve conditions in the villages lacking electricity, clean water and health care facilities environmentalists think they could be located far from the community forest reserve.
For Abwe, it’s hard to argue against jobs, but he hasn’t given up hope the plantation can be pushed back.
“We are encouraging the people to conserve what is left,” Abwe said. “Many villagers depend on the forest for their livelihood. If all the biodiversity goes, there will be nothing left for them.”
(This article was produced under the aegis of the CSE Media Fellowship Programme)
NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Government in partnership with Kenyan insurers, has announced payments to over 12,000 pastoral households under a breakthrough livestock insurance plan.
The plan uses satellites to monitor vegetation available to livestock and triggers assistance for feed, veterinary medicines and even water trucks when animal deaths are imminent. This comes as an epic drought desiccates fields and forages in the Horn of Africa,
To avert future losses, Willy Bett, Cabinet Secretary for the Agriculture Ministry, said Sh215 million ($2.5 million) in insurance payouts across six counties will be made by the end of February through the Kenya Livestock Insurance Programme," (KLIP).
"Payments are pegged to measurements of forage conditions made via satellite for each area, and will range from Sh1,450 per pastoral household in areas that have suffered modest losses to Sh29,400 in areas where drought is particularly severe. The average payment is around Sh17,800 ( $170) per pastoral household, directly reaching about 100,000 people," Bett said.
Pilot projects that preceded the program established payment levels linked to the state of grazing lands, with the goal of providing enough money to help pastoralists keep their animals alive until rains returns.
"This is the biggest livestock insurance payout ever made under Kenya's agricultural risk management program and the most important as well, because without their livestock, pastoralist communities would be devastated," Bett said.
He added, "This insurance programme is not just an effective component of our national drought relief effort. It's also a way to ensure that pastoralists can continue to thrive and contribute to our collective future as a nation."
Livestock are a major component of the Kenyan economy. Between 2008 and 2011, livestock losses in Kenya accounted for 70 percent of the US $12.1 billion in damages caused by drought.
In response to these major droughts, Kenya's Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries has developed KLIP with technical assistance from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the World Bank Group, and Financial Sector Development (FSD) Kenya, as part of their national strategy to end drought emergencies. KLIP is administered as a public-private partnership with APA Insurance, which leads a consortium of seven Kenyan insurers – UAP, CIC, Jubilee, Heritage, Amaco and Kenya Orient, with backing from Swiss Re, a widely respected international reinsurer for agriculture.
"KLIP is intended to provide a safety net for Kenyan herders, who for centuries have grazed their animals across vast stretches of arid and semi-arid lands. KLIP began with two counties in the short-rains season of 2015, Turkana and Wajir, and now covers pastoralists in an additional four counties: Mandera, Marsabit, Isiolo and Tana River," the CS said.
KLIP is based on the internationally recognized "Index-Based Livestock Insurance" model, which was developed several years ago by a team of agricultural economists from ILRI, Cornell University, the University of California at Davis and the World Bank Group, working in close cooperation with pastoralist communities.
The signature feature of this novel insurance scheme is the use of satellite data to generate an index for grazing conditions, so that payments are triggered when conditions degrade below a certain critical level. The index eliminates the need for insurance agents to be out in the field monitoring forage and animals, which, given the remote regions involved, would make livestock insurance logistically and financially impossible to provide.
In February 2017, APA Insurance, on behalf of the insurance consortium, will disburse most payments directly to pastoralists' bank accounts or to accounts accessed via mobile phones—an increasingly popular and convenient way to conduct financial transactions in Kenya, especially in the country's most remote areas. For those without accounts, cheques will be issued.
"It's important to make payments quickly and efficiently and before conditions deteriorate further, because we want these livestock-dependent communities to see index insurance as something they can trust to sustain their way of life," said Ashok Shah, Group CEO of APA Insurance adding that it is critical that others in the market also move quickly to supply pastoralists with livestock feed, water and veterinary medicines they can now afford.
Lovemore Forichi, Head of Agriculture Reinsurance Africa said the programme is a role- model for the rest of Africa, and beyond.
"The government and its partners have brought together the latest technological and financial tools from a group of committed and innovative private sector players. The payouts prove that this program is delivering a financial safety net where it is needed. Having worked in this field across the globe, KLIP highlights Kenya's pioneering role in providing drought protection for its people," Forichi said.
Currently, Government purchases cover on behalf of approximately 2,500 of the most vulnerable pastoral households in each of the six counties. Kenyan officials are now working with colleagues in county governments to scale up the program and make KLIP coverage available to a wider range of pastoralists across all income levels.
"These payouts demonstrate that KLIP works, and we now urge all pastoralists to make use of livestock insurance to cover themselves against drought. The government will look at ways to make this insurance accessible to all pastoralists," said Dr Andrew Tuimur, Principal Secretary in the State Department of Livestock in the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.
The counties in Kenya targeted for KLIP payments are enduring one of the worst droughts to hit the Horn of Africa in a quarter century. The payments being dispatched this month are intended to help herders recover from the lack of precipitation during the so-called "short-rains" period that ran from October to December 2016. If the drought continues during the "long-rains" season, which usually runs from March to June, additional large payouts are likely.
"In addition to the government-led consortium, other organizations have also been involved in delivering index-based livestock insurance for pastoralists. For example, Takaful Insurance of Africa, which launched the provision of a similar product in 2013, will this season be making payouts to over 2,000 households across six counties to the tune of close to Sh10.5 million," Bett said.
Andrew Mude, a principal research scientist at ILRI said the programme is good news for the pastoralists. "We are hopeful that we are writing a new chapter in the long and challenging history of one of the oldest forms of agriculture still practiced in the world today," said Mude, whose contribution to the development of index-based livestock insurance earned him the 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application.
He added, "It's been a team effort," Mude added. "This day would never have arrived without the partnership between the Government of Kenya, the KLIP Implementation Unit led by Richard Kyuma, private sector players and a range of technical and development partners."
YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon (PAMACC News) - A programme to empower local communities manage their forest is helping Cameroon government improve forest governance and management amidst challenges.
Cameroon has been active in REDD+ process (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and carbon sequestration) with the country’s readiness preparation proposal approved by the World Bank in 2013.
However, the government says adequate consultation and participation of forest residents in the planning and execution process was necessary for effective REDD+ participation and reaping of benefits.
We need to build on existing forest governance and clarify the legal framework for REDD+, engage rural and indigenous communities, and ensure transparency and communication for all to reap the benefits from our resources,” said the minister of forestry and wildlife Philip Ngole Ngwese in January 2017.
The Mount Cameroon Forest is one of the community forests with an established“ management agreement between the community and the state, with the Mount Cameroon Project as coordinator.
The project stretches through 11 villages with a heterogeneous population of 122.900 inhabitants, from the slopes of the mountain to the Atlantic Ocean. It generates income for many families, contributing to poverty reduction, officials say.
Created in 1998 following Cameroon’s 1994 forestry law that decentralized forest management, the Bimbia- Bondikombo Community Forest stretch for example is a success story, officials say, despite numerous challenges that need to be addressed.
The forest constitute mangrove along the coast, an evergreen lowland forest, the sub-mountain and mountain forest and the savanna above 2000m. The mountain slope presents clear evidence of active volcanism like lava flow of recent eruption [1999 and 2000] crater lakes, caves and waterfalls. The Forests are rich in podocarpus and bamboo, Prunus Africana and contain unique flora and fauna.
The forests in the Mount Cameroon area hold great cultural significance for the local people and play a crucial role in regulating water supplies, the project officials say.
Bimbia through Bonadikombo is one of the rare communities that rely solely on its community water supply project and not the state owned Water Corporation, thanks to its constant water supply from the Mount Cameroon forest.
Fuelwood and building materials are collected from the forest with products like honey which is of great importance in many herbal remedies, the residents attest.
“We harvest honey from the mountain forest and market it through our cooperative. Carving is also a major income source, with products exported internationally,” says Henry Njombe a resident in Bokwango in the forest area.
A forest of all seasons
The bio-diversity of the Mount Cameroon forests will appeal to anyone who loves nature.
In the rich forest a cushion of leaves sits perched neatly atop cross-cutting branches pulled in place by the creature that built the nest.
Further inside, a stream of cold water rushes through stones coated in lush moss and bird droppings. The sun’s rays pierce through the forest canopy with bright spots dotted here and there like a dancing floor in a night club as I move along to get abreast with the marvels of nature.
As sounds of birds heralds the arrival of midday in the distance, Charles Mokwe a mountain guide volunteer who accompanied me through the Mt Cameroon forest and National park, pointed at the tree with the nest.
“This should be the nest of some animal but I cannot tell whether it is a chimpanzee or monkey or whether it is recent. Even with increasing human encroachment, there are still some wildlife in the forest here protected by the National Park project though not the big species of animals we use to see in the past,” Charles said, clearly excited by the discovery of animal nest not so deep in the mountain forest – a place he said was once a biodiversity hot spot, but is now threatened by the expansion of farmland, agro-industrial palm oil plantations, grazing fields, bushfires and the trappings of other encroaching development activities.
Like most forest areas in Cameroon, the rich forest and wildlife species along the flanks of Mt Cameroon are seriously under threat by encroaching human activities and climate change, necessitating constant tree regeneration activities and tightened animal conservation.
This explains why the conservation of trees by Mount Cameroon project is focused on the regeneration of threatened trees and the reforestation of degraded landscapes. Some 30000 capacity tree nursery containing threatened tree species are nursed and planted back into degraded forest in the area annually to ensure conservation sustainability, the project officials explained.
“ Assisted by the local communities we do annual tree planting in the project area,’’ says Louis Nkembi CEO of Environment and Rural Development Foundation, ERUDEF an NGO working in the Mt Cameroon forest area.
He regrets that the wild chimps and elephants are no longer there due to excessive human activity.
“Wild chimps and elephants that used to be the pride of the Mount Cameroon forest are no longer there. We can only find them now at the Limbe wildlife conservation center,’’ Louis Nkembi said.
The project also includes wildlife conservation at the Limbe Zoo and a Botanic Garden with endemic plant species.
Challenges
The Cameroon community forest project government says, is facing various challenges. Key amongst them is insecurity especially at frontier zones that have remained disturbing phenomena to the peaceful co-existence of the habitat and biodiversity of the different forest areas and national parks.
“Our forest is constantly being invaded by illegal poachers and criminals reason why we are reinforcing security around major national parks,” said the minister of forestry and wildlife Philip Ngole Ngwesse while on visit to the Bouba Ndjidda National Park at the beginning of 2015 according to newspaper report.
He said over 700 ecoguards have been deployed in the different protected forest areas in the country since the massacre of hundreds of elephants at the Bouba Njidda national park in 2012.
A report Cameroon elephant slaughter WWF noted that between January and March of 2012, heavily-armed foreign poachers invaded Cameroon and killed over 300 elephants in Bouba N’Djida National Park. Since the incident, which drew worldwide media attention, Cameroon has moved to bolster security in its protected areas.
The exploitation of local communities by land grabbers is another disturbing phenomenon environment experts say. Critics say that lack of proper consultation and weak legal processes leave local communities displaced and impoverished, while the environmental and economic effects have been devastating.
‘’Agro-industries in complicity with government officials have acquired land adjacent many community forests for their palm plantations and illegal logging in these areas are going on without the consent of the forest dwellers, making the community forest management programme highly controversial,’’ says Samuel Nguiffo of Center for Environment and Development, CED an NGO in Cameroon.
Local opponents have accused these invading agro-industrial companies of corruption, using donations of goods and services to garner support from the government and some elite. Civil society organizations and human right groups have challenged claims of environmental sustainability by these agro-industries.
‘’Talk about environmental sustainability by agro-industries and other forest land grabbers is only on paper. On the ground forest community dwellers are relocated without their consent,’’ says Augustin Njamshi, head of Bio-resources Development and Conservation Programme-Cameroon [BDCP] an NGO in Cameroon.
Critics say that lack of proper consultation and weak legal processes leave local communities displaced and impoverished, while the environmental effects have been devastating.
“In the classification of forest in Cameroon, the rights of the forest inhabitants are not respected,” says Jean Calvin of Cameroon Ecology, a nongovernmental organisation.
The community members are not entitled to own or transfer the land, nor to veto potential investors, Calvin explained. This allows businesses to take forest land from its inhabitants.
“We have been forced to move from our forest habitat to other villages where we have difficulties earning any income,” lamented Monono Martin, head of the Moliwe village community in the Southwest.
“There are no animals to hunt, our medicinal plants from the forest have all been destroyed,” he said.
Environmental experts are critical of the government’s welcoming attitude towards land investors and the increasing displacement of forest communities.
“Land grabbing by heavy investors has caused rapid disappearance of resources, triggering massive movement of the population from resource-depleted zones to other areas where resources are available, causing conflict between communities,” said Andy White of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an international NGO in a press report during a visit in Cameroon in 2013.
“Many women are unable to freely access and control productive resources and this places them in a weaker position in terms of agricultural productivity and economic growth, food security, family income and equal participation in governance,” says Benard Njonga a Cameroonian agronomist who works to promote the interests of local smallholder farmers
Only two kilometres from Korup National Park in the Southwest , for example, the community forest gives way to an industrial logging concession. The Moabi trees found there is particularly favoured by loggers for its hard, dark wood and high market price have all been ferried away.
The Moabi’s fruit that used to be a key component of the subsistence of the women in the local community, especially for the rich oil pressed from the nut have all disappeared. The women relied upon it for their survival.
A few years back it was harvested by women from Farbe village in a forest grove 12km from the village, in the middle of the logging concession.
But those trees are now gone, cut down between 2009-2013 and exported to Europe to make garden furniture and coffee tables. The people around the Korup National Park are poorer, hungrier as a result of European tastes for luxury.
‘’The future of these communities are at stake as their forest is stripped of trees,’’ say Sameul Nguiffo of CED.
A new global study released on September 30th on the eve of a major land rights summit, reveals that indigenous peoples and local communities lack legal rights to almost three quarters of their traditional lands, despite claiming or having customary use of up to 65 percent of the world’s land area.
Pointing to their findings as evidence of the significant disenfranchisement of one of the most basic of human rights, the authors report that failure to recognize land tenure for 1.5 billion people worldwide is hampering efforts to combat hunger and poverty, igniting social conflict, and undermining efforts to reduce deforestation and the impacts of climate change.
“Greed and power”
Experts say what communities on the ground in Cameroon see is no different from what is unfolding in other neighbouring countries in West and Central Africa attributing the forest land gabbing conflict to greed and power.
“The slow pace of good intentions—the efforts to protect communities of forest dwellers and subsistence farmers who have no wealth except for the land that they cultivate—has been overtaken by greed and power,” says Samuel Nguiffo
He says so much human tragedy could be averted if land rights in many African countries didn’t erode so soon after they are established calling on the Cameroon government to speed up reform process to protect community forest.
“We know there has been a surge of new laws and reform processes recently,” added Samuel Nguiffo, “but these efforts are too slow and do not meet the challenges presented by rapid development and exploitation in the extractive sector. Cameroonians will not sit by and watch their future handed over to the highest bidder.”
(This article was produced under the aegis of the CSE Media Fellowship Programme)
