ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopian (PAMACC News) - African civil society organizations on climate change have been at the forefront in building momentum for vulnerable people on the continent and other developing economies to access climate justice.The voices were high and loud going into the UN Conference of Parties (COP21) on Climate Change which produced the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015.But these voices have gone down low after the talks.Two years after Paris, most countries on the continent have slowed in climate action.Sudanese scientist and climate activist, Dr. Shaddad Mauwa, has sat in meetings, shouted and held placards in demonstrations at the local, continental and global stages to clamour for climate justice.He acknowledged that though African climate change actors – governments, parliamentarians, negotiators, civil society – are doing better than before, there seems to be a wall that has become difficult to break.“There are many issues still not going in the line of what Africa will like to see,” he said.For him, these issues include the commitment of developed economies to heed to the Paris Agreement in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, lack of access to climate funds by developing countries and poor implementation of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to be climate-resilient.Pushing the African Climate AgendaThe Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) has for almost a decade served as the largest advocacy platform for CSOs in Africa.The activities of the Alliance resonates with the global call for action against climate change proclaimed by the United Nations, with a singular clarion call that no single individual, institution, country or region can single-handedly defeat the threats posed by the changing climate and the quest for achieving a sustainable development while leaving no one behind.Secretary-General of the Organization, Mithika Mwenda, however, says the major concern is how to make the Paris Climate Agreement relevant to the vulnerable farmer who needs to irrigate his farm all year round to produce food and the community that gets displaced by flood anytime it rains.“Having the Agreement is one thing and getting it implemented is another thing,” he said. “One of the things we’ve been trying to do is to push the governments to focus more on implementation because now we have a framework which is supposed to go on the ground”.It is a shared opinion that Africa is not deficit in policy formulation. But getting the thoughts off paper to achieve set goals on the ground becomes problematic. Lack of finance for implementation is often cited as hindrance.PACJA has been pushing the international community to provide sufficient funds for the implementation of provisions in the Paris Agreement, which includes each country’s NDCs, to ensure integration of climate change into the new paradigms of low-carbon development and climate resilience pathways.“We are very optimistic, though it is not an easy thing to do. Africans and the global community have no choice; we have to act on climate change. We have frameworks in countries that if we build on, we can have very transformative economies,” said Mithika.Building a stronger…

KWALE, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Balozi Dena may have felt helpless in stopping land encroachment that has stalked poor villages in coastal Kenya for the last 68 years of his life. But he is keen on leaving a legacy: protection of indigenous plants.The elder from Ukunda village in Kwale, has been working with community conservation groups like Coastal Forest Conservation Unit (CFCU) to prevent the destruction of Kaya forests. He is not sure if he is winning. “It is difficult,” says the father of six. “Most parts of the forests have already been grabbed. Attempting to remove the occupants can sometimes lead to bloodshed.”During his youth, the Kaya forests - which were thick belts of lowland woodland - surrounded villages and were believed to be sacred by the Mijikenda community. Cutting trees for timber, grazing of livestock and clearing of farmland were strictly prohibited, he says.“The forests were places where individuals facing problems in their daily lives could go and seek help by praying there,” he says.They had another purpose, which is keeping him vigilant lately: medicinal plants. Studies show that Kenya’s coastal province is endowed with more than half of known rare tree species and shrubs in the country.But their sacred and medicinal value may remain etched in the memories of a gone generation, if the continued encroachment for property development is not stopped.“It is the tourism obsession,” argues Dena. “Permanent buildings now stand where forests once flourished.”That may appear so to Dena. But a status report on Kenyan forests by the 2016 Kenya Water Towers Agency report lists charcoal burning, logging and illegal harvesting of unique plant species as some of the leading threats facing the country’s ecosystem.For instance, by the time the report was being released, Kenya had less than 3.5 per cent of gazetted forest. In 1990, there were 4,670,866 hectares of forest cover while in 2000, the figure reduced to 3,492,358 hectares.“This destruction of forests can be blamed on the failure by the government to separate community land from public land,” argues Mohamed Swazuri, chairman of Kenya’s National Land Commission.The price for such anomaly is high: loss of indigenous knowledge stored by rare plants, according to Kamau Ngugi, the executive director, National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders.“The government should learn how to tap traditional knowledge held by communities living around forests in order to conserve our plant genetic wealth,” says Kamau. “That is a very critical knowledge that we are losing as a society.”Dena seems to agree. And if his bet is right this time, he just might be getting there. A botanical garden at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) is working with communities like Dena’s, to conserve plant genetic wealth threatened by forest encroachment.“It is a project between the government of the Peoples Republic of China and the government of the Republic of Kenya,” says Prof. Robert Gituru, the founding Director, Sino Africa Joint Research Center SAJOREC, which hosts the garden.Established in 2014 by Kenyan and Chinese scientists, the garden…

(Open only for journalists from Asia and Africa) February 22-23, 2018 Nimli, Rajasthan Climate change is real. Despite all the recent brow-beating to the contrary, most notably by the Trump administration-led US, it is here to stay – and the developing world (including India) is facing the brunt of its impacts. Acute water stress, heat waves and droughts, extreme rainfall events, storms and flooding... the list of disasters is growing every year. How is the Global South coping with it? Are climate adaptation interventions working? Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) invites journalists from Asia and Africa to its Annual Media Briefing on climate change and adaptation. The briefing will be conducted away from New Delhi, in CSE’s new state-of-the-art training facility, the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute (AAETI) campus in Nimli, near Alwar, in Rajasthan. The total period in this briefing, including travel days etc, may extend from February 20 to 25th. This includes travel from respective destinations to Delhi, and from Delhi to Nimli (two and half hours) and back. Applicants are requested to bear this in mind. CSE would be supporting the travel and stay of selected participants. We have only 50 seats for this programme. Journalists writing on climate and adaptation issues would get preference. Please send a mail to the undersigned attaching the following: A latest copy of your CV Two samples of latest writings/coverage of climate issues – journalists writing in other languages will have to send English translations Last date for receiving applications: January 26, 2018 Souparno Banerjee The CSE Media Resource Centre This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 9910864339

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has welcomed the British government’s plan to close - with some limited exemptions - its domestic ivory markets.Ivory (whether raw or worked) continues to be traded legally within UK and the other European Union (EU) Member States, in auction houses, markets, shops and online – and that antique items can even be traded without permits or certificates. Paul Gathitu, KWS spokesman said the existence of legal ivory markets and exports provide opportunities for laundering illegal ivory.“The existence of these markets and exports also fuel demand for ivory within the UK and abroad and thus contribute to poaching,” Gathitu said.He noted that KWS and Government welcome the plan by UK to close its ivory markets as this will obliterate any chances for opportunists, who may have in the past used the existing market in antique ivory as a cover for trade in illegal ivory. The UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson at the end of last year said that his aim is to make 2018 the year of British leadership in defeating the ivory trade. “Ivory poaching is an abhorrent crime and it is shocking that in the 21 century we are still witnessing the slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants every year for their tusks. It is mankind’s privilege to share the planet with these wonderful creatures but their treatment is heartbreaking,” Johnson said.He added, “We are committed to tackling this problem and are playing a key role in building global consensus to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade. Our plans to ban the sale of all ivory products in the UK will remove opportunities for criminals to trade illegally-poached ivory, helping to protect this majestic and endangered species.”Speaking last week, UK’s Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the decline in the elephant population fuelled by poaching for ivory shames the current generation.“The need for radical and robust action to protect one of the world’s most iconic and treasured species is beyond dispute. Ivory should never be seen as a commodity for financial gain or a status symbol – so we want to ban its sale. These plans will put the UK front and centre of global efforts to end the insidious trade in ivory,” Gove said.Effective January 1, 2018, China banned the mainland domestic sale of elephant ivory and related products, a significant move toward slowing the annual slaughter of the largest land animals on Earth. The UK’s plan to follow suit could not have come at a better time. Consequently, Gathitu noted that KWS and Kenya recognizes this bold step as important in the war against elephant poaching and illegal ivory trade, pulling especially the African elephant further away from the precipice of extinction.“The significance of support from such an influential quarter can be measured in the multiple effects seen in the results on the ground. An example is the global effort focusing on elephant conservation between 2014 to date, targeting ivory source countries, transit and consumer countries, which has…