Farmers in Nigeria under the Zero Hunger Commodity Associations have urged governments at all levels to support the the Zero Hunger Nigeria Programme to achieve its targets and objectives particularly through farmer-friendly programmes.
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Chairman of the Zero Hunger Nigeria Forum
The association, a subsidiary of the United Nations Committee – Zero Hunger Nigeria Forum – made the appeal in a communique issued to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Sunday, January 14, 2018.
The communique came after its meeting held in Abuja.
It was signed by the National Coordinator of the association, Dr Tunde Arosanyin.
The farmers’ group sought a collaboration with the Commodity Exchange Market of Nigeria and the Nigeria Export and Import Bank (NEXIM) so as to guarantee good returns on farm produce locally and internationally.
It also urged that Research Institutions and Extension Services be adequately funded by the Federal Government and State Governments for effective performance of the Agricultural sector.
It said the meeting affirmed the association’s belief in the Agricultural Revolution Programmes of President Muhammadu Buhari through Green Alternative Roadmap as a veritable channel to improve agricultural production in Nigeria .
The association, however, resolved that government should encourage appropriate implementation strategy that would be all inclusive.
The body said that it appreciated the leadership qualities of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the Chairman of the Zero Hunger Nigeria Forum, toward the development of the agricultural sector of the country’s economy.
NAN reports that Zero Hunger programme is the brainchild of the United Nations toward actualising the Substainable Development Goals from 2016 to 2030.
The number of lions in the wild is said to be steadily decreasing. In just two decades, Africa’s lion population has decreased by 43%, according to the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF).
Lions
The Nairobi, Kenya-based group says one of the main causes is the alarming rate at which the big cats are losing their habitats due to expanding human populations and the resulting growth of agriculture, settlements, and roads.
Due to habitat loss, lions are being forced into closer quarters with humans, observes the AWF, adding that this, coupled with a decrease in their natural prey, causes lions to attack livestock.
“In turn, farmers, oftentimes, retaliate and kill lions,” stresses the organisation, adding that lions have become prey to people.
“Lions are being killed in rituals of bravery, as hunting trophies, and for their perceived medicinal and magical powers,” adds the AWF, emphasising that retaliation is the primary reason for lion killings.
“We work with communities to help them realise the value of lions and to help them protect their families and livestock from large carnivores,” submits that group, adding that, in Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park, where 10 percent of the world’s remaining lion population can be found, AWF’s Ruaha Carnivore Project is fostering a much-needed shift in the local opinion of carnivores.
The organisations adds: “Since 2012, AWF has been working with Ruaha’s communities to build livestock enclosures to protect livestock from predation, and, in turn, protect lions and other carnivores from retaliatory killing. In addition, Ruaha Carnivore Project provides community benefits to villages that demonstrate success in living peacefully with carnivores.
“African Wildlife Foundation’s researchers are working to gain an understanding of carnivores’ populations, behaviors, movements, and interactions with people in order to develop appropriate conservation actions. Since 2002, our Large Carnivore Research Project has undertaken research aimed at ensuring the continued survival of large predators living around Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.”
The Minister of Water Resources, Mr Suleiman Adamu, says the Federal Government has been budgeting N1 billion annually for the provision of water and sanitation facilities for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed, during a courtesy visit to the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman H. Adamu, in Abuja
The minister said this on Friday, January 12, 2018 when the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Mrs Amina Mohammed, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
He said that the intervention was part of the partnership between Nigeria and the UN, which was aimed at re-integrating the people of the north-eastern states, who were hitherto ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgency.
Adamu noted that the humanitarian crisis facing the IDPs was compounded by the shrinkage of the Lake Chad, which had been a major source of livelihood for many people in the area.
He said that the Federal Government, on behalf of the Heads of State and Government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, was organising an international conference to proffer solutions to save the lake from further desiccation.
“In the next 50 to 100 years, from the hydrological perspective, if nothing is done now, the lives of the people of that region, who depend on the lake as their source of livelihood, would be in danger as the lake faces extinction,’’ he said.
Adamu said that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Lake Chad Basin Commission and PowerChina International Group Limited in April 2016 to save Lake Chad from drying up.
He said that the project would be executed via the transfer of water from the Congo Basin to the Lake Chad Basin.
Adamu said that studies carried out by the PowerChina group indicated that it was technically feasible to transfer water from River Congo to Lake Chad, thereby increasing the water level of the lake.
According to him, this will halt the receding of the lake and the drying up of the Lake Chad Basin due to the climate change.
The minister, however, solicited more workable solutions which could be cheaper than the proposed inter-basin water transfer project.
Earlier, Mohammed said that the high-level mission, which was an informal consultation on political and human rights as well as humanitarian and development issues, would help scale up the UN presence in Nigeria and the North East in particular.
The deputy secretary-general pledged the commitment of the UN to the success of the ongoing re-integration process in the North East and the planned Conference of Saving Lake Chad, which was scheduled to hold in February.
She urged the Heads of State and Governments of the Lake Chad Basin Commission to pass pragmatic resolutions at the conference and forward them to the African Union (AU) for further action.
“Saving the Lake Chad is a sustainable development issue and the UN is ever ready to address such an issue.
“All hands must be on deck in saving the lake from extinction. Tell us how it can work and not how it cannot work,’’ she added.
Over 50% of the world population lives in cities. By 2045, the world’s urban population will increase by 1.5 times to six billion. City leaders, says the World Bank, must move quickly to plan for growth and provide the basic services, infrastructure, and affordable housing their expanding populations need
Traffic congestion in Lagos
Globally, 54% of the population lives in urban areas today, and this trend is expected to continue – by 2045, the number of people living in cities will increase by 1.5 times to 6 billion, adding 2 billion more urban residents.
With more than 80% of global GDP generated in cities, urbanisation can contribute to sustainable growth if managed well by increasing productivity, allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge.
However, the speed and scale of urbanisation brings challenges, including meeting accelerated demand for affordable housing, well-connected transport systems, and other infrastructure, basic services, as well as jobs, particularly for the nearly 1 billion urban poor who live in informal settlements to be near opportunities.
Cities also play an important role in tackling climate change, as they consume close to 2/3 of the world’s energy and account for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As cities develop, their exposure to climate and disaster risk also increases. Almost half a billion urban residents live in coastal areas, increasing their vulnerability to storm surges and sea level rise.
Building cities that “work” – inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable – requires intensive policy coordination and investment choices. Once a city is built, its physical form and land use patterns can be locked in for generations, leading to unsustainable sprawl.
National and local governments have an important role to play to take action now, to shape the future of their development, to create opportunities for all.
As more people and assets become rapidly concentrated in cities, and as infrastructure struggles to keep up with rapid growth, the risk from natural disasters and climate change is rising.
The United Kingdom has released an ambitious 25-year environment plan that will, according to Prime Minister Theresa May, ensure that the present generation leaves the environment in a better state than it found it, and pass on to the next generation a natural environment protected and enhanced for the future.
Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, says in a summary that the plan outlines ways to reduce the use of plastics that contribute to pollution, create a new a new Northern Forest, lead the fight against climate change, invest to prevent wildlife crime, and pursue a ban on sales of ivory
Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
It is this Government’s ambition to leave our environment in a better state than we found it. We have made significant progress but there is much more to be done. The 25 Year Environment Plan that we have published today outlines the steps we propose to take to achieve our ambition.
Environment is – at its roots – another word for nature, for the planet that sustains us, the life on earth that inspires wonder and reverence, the places dear to us we wish to protect and preserve. We value those landscapes and coastlines as goods in themselves, places of beauty which nurture and support all forms of wildlife.
Respecting nature’s intrinsic value, and the value of all life, is critical to our mission. For this reason we safeguard cherished landscapes from economic exploitation, protect the welfare of sentient animals and strive to preserve endangered woodland and plant life, not to mention the greening of our urban environments.
But we also draw from the planet all the raw materials we need to live – food, water, air and energy for growth. So protecting and enhancing the environment, as this Plan lays out, is about more than respecting nature. It is critical if the next generation is to flourish, with abundant natural resources to draw on, that we look after our and their inheritance wisely.
We need to replenish depleted soil, plant trees, support wetlands and peatlands, rid seas and rivers of rubbish, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cleanse the air of pollutants, develop cleaner, sustainable energy and protect threatened species and habitats.
Previous Governments, here and in other nations, have made welcome strides and driven environmental improvement. Yet as this 25 Year Plan makes clear, there is much more still to do. We must tread more lightly on our planet, using resources more wisely and radically reducing the waste we generate. Waste is choking our oceans and despoiling our landscapes as well as contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and scarring habitats. The success of the 5p plastic bag charge in reducing the use of carrier bags by 85% shows the difference which government action can make, and demonstrates that protecting our environment is a job for each one of us.
The Plan outlines ways to reduce the use of plastics that contribute to pollution, and broader steps to encourage recycling and the more thoughtful use of resources. Over the lifetime of this Plan, we want to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste.
The Government’s Clean Growth Strategy – the sister document to this Environment Plan – sets out how we will deliver the clean, green growth needed to combat global warming.
We will do what is necessary to adapt to the effects of a changing climate, improving the resilience of our infrastructure, housing and natural environment.
Population growth and economic development will mean more demand for housing and this Government is committed to building many more homes. However, we will ensure that we support development and the environment by embedding the principle that new development should result in net environmental gain – with neglected or degraded land returned to health and habitats for wildlife restored or created.
Most of our land is used, however, for agriculture not housing. The new system of support that we will bring in for farmers – true friends of the earth, who recognise that a care for land is crucial to future rural prosperity – will have environmental enhancement at its heart.
We will support farmers to turn over fields to meadows rich in herbs and wildflowers, plant more trees, restore habitats for endangered species, recover soil fertility and attract wildlife back. We will ensure broader landscapes are transformed by connecting habitats into larger corridors for wildlife, as recommended by Sir John Lawton in his official review.
Our plan for a new Northern Forest, to which we are contributing more than £5 million, will be accompanied by a new review of National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Planting more trees provides not just new habitats for wildlife – it also helps reduce carbon dioxide levels and can reduce flood risk.
We will work with nature to protect communities from flooding, slowing rivers and creating and sustaining more wetlands to reduce flood risk and offer valuable habitats.
Beyond our coastlines, we must do more to protect the seas around us and marine wildlife. Leaving the EU means taking back control of the waters around these islands. We will develop a fishing policy that ensures seas return to health and fish stocks are replenished. We will also extend the marine protected areas around our coasts so that these stretches of environmentally precious maritime heritage have the best possible protection.
Internationally, we will lead the fight against climate change, invest to prevent wildlife crime, pursue a ban on sales of ivory, and strengthen partnerships to tackle illegal wildlife trade beyond borders, including investigating the feasibility of an anti-poaching taskforce.
We will underpin all this action with a comprehensive set of environmental principles. To ensure strong governance, we will consult on plans to set up a worldleading environmental watchdog, an independent, statutory body, to hold Government to account for upholding environmental standards.We will regularly update this Plan to reflect the changing nature of the environment.
While this 25 Year Environment Plan relates only to areas for which HMG is responsible, we will continue to work with the devolved administrations on our shared goal of protecting our natural heritage.
These actions will, we hope, ensure that this country is recognised as the leading global champion of a greener, healthier, more sustainable future for the next generation.
China’s forestry authority has made a plan to boost the domestic forestry industry and increase its forest resources to the world’s average by 2050.
Forest in China
The plan unveiled by Zhang Jianlong, chief of State Forestry Administration, at a recent conference, is the latest move taken by government sectors to implement the ruling party’s modernisation blueprint.
At its 19th National Congress in November, China’s ruling party decided to make the country prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by 2050.
Zhang said that, by 2050, China’s forest stock will expand to 26.5 billion cubic meters, and 72 percent of the growth of forestry industry will come from technological advancement.
Although China has seen its forest resources growing fastest in the world in the past five years, Zhang said that forestry remained “a weak link” of China’s modernisation drive.
“Inadequate forestry resources were a significant cause of China’s fragile ecology and the lack of ecological products,” Zhang said.
To improve the situation, the administration has broke down the country’s forestry modernisation goals into different phases.
In the first phase from now (January 2018) until 2020, China’s forest coverage rate is expected to reach 23.04 percent from 21.66 percent, while the volume of forest resources will expand from 15.137 billion cubic meters to 16.5 billion cubic meters.
From 2020 to 2035, the percentage of forest coverage will grow further to 26 percent while forest stock will rise to 21 billion cubic meters.
Over the same period, the greening rate in the rural area will surge from 30 percent to 38 percent. By 2050, the figure will reach 43 percent.
Zhang said that, in 2018, the afforested areas in both cities and counties would be 6.67 million hectares.
The aggregate output of the forestry industry will reach ¥7.5 trillion in 2018 compared with ¥7 trillion in 2017, while the imports and exports of forestry products will rise to $160 billion from $150 billion in 2017, he said.
According to German reinsurer Munich RE, natural disasters caused more damage in 2017 than in any the previous five years, with much of the damage caused by extreme weather events linked to climate change, above all severe hurricanes, flooding and fires.
A view of the aftermath of Hurricane Irma on Sint Maarten Dutch part of Saint Martin island in the Caribbean, Sept. 6, 2017.
Last year, natural disasters caused $330 billion worth of damage, nearly double the figure recorded in 2016 ($175 billion) and the highest in history after 2011 ($354 billion).
Munich Re highlights that storm Harvey in August 2017 alone, which led to torrential rains falling on Texas, caused $85 billion in damage.
Two other hurricanes – Irma, which impacted Florida and Maria in the Caribbean, along with the huge forest fires in California, are also noted by the insurer as being particularly severe in terms of economic damage.
In Asia, the monsoon was unusually intense and caused the death of 2,700 people and $3.5 billion in costs.
In Europe, abnormally low temperatures last April caused $3.6 billion in damage to agriculture, of which only 650 million were covered by insurance.
Some of these disasters “have given us a taste of the future,” said Torsten Jeworrek, chief Reinsurance branch of Munich Re. “Our experts expect to see these events more often,” he added.
Poor people are invariably the most vulnerable to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
Governments, together with many stakeholders, are working to make insurance more accessible and more affordable.
At the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23), in Bonn, Germany, an initiative was launched with the aim of providing insurance to hundreds of millions of vulnerable people by 2020 and to increase the resilience of developing countries against the impacts of climate change.
Beautiful, patterned white lines and detailed symbols traced the walls of the room. Inside there, in Gbolaka-Ta village, young Liberian girl Hawa Singbeh almost died from Ebola in 2015 – the same room she was born in. Her brother and sister did not survive this virus.
Dr Winnie Mpanju-Shumbusho, WHO Assistant Director General for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases. Photo credit: media.globalcitizen.org
The most complex and widespread Ebola virus disease outbreak in history occurred in six West Africa nations, from 2013 to 2016. Ebola, which spreads by contact with body fluids of infected humans and handling or eating infected primates, is a violent haemorrhagic fever that leads to internal and external bleeding and organ failure.
Data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) tells us that the “Ebola epidemic claimed the lives of more than 11,300 people and infected over 28,500” in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and Guinea. Under a rapid-containment scenario, West Africa’s estimated GDP lost to Ebola by 2015 was $1.6 billion. In Sierra Leone alone, federal authorities said the impact resulted in an economic deflation by 30 percent.
Ebola is not the end of reality. There are other dreadful viruses that are now increasingly upon us, especially in West Africa. Lassa fever, Meningitis, and Monkeypox are sad viral examples. Decades after their respective index cases in this tropical region, virus diseases are now remerging in epidemic proportions.
For example, Nigeria last year experienced deadly outbreaks of Lassa fever, meningitis, and Monkeypox. Monkeypox is a rare disease that largely resolves itself (no specific treatment or vaccine available), and has milder symptoms in humans similar to those previously manifested in smallpox patients. In 1971, there were two Monkeypox cases in Nigeria. And only a single case was recorded seven years after. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, in October 2017, confirmed a total of 94 cases from eleven states and the Federal Capital Territory.
When one goes far beyond superficial observation on how these increasing viruses are spread and their season of occurrence, real associations between rising global temperatures, human-animal proximity, and public health effect can be documented.
In a 2015 research paper published in Science and co-authored by 18 leading scientists and stakeholders, Johan Rockström reveals that humanity has sprinted past four out of nine “planetary boundaries” – crucial limits for keeping earth stable and hospitable. People are forcing earth into uncertain and dangerous territory – driving up global temperatures, clear-cutting original forests, dumping fertilisers into rivers and oceans and forcing animals, plants and other organisms towards extinction. Rockström, who had the idea of planetary boundaries back in 2007, is executive director at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Today’s numbers on the state of the planet shows that carbon dioxide (an important greenhouse gas that causes climate change) levels are unsafe at 400 parts per million and climbing, 16 percent of biodiversity has been lost around the world, and instead of conserving at least 75 percent of forests, only 62 percent are left due to deforestation and other land use changes.
Will Steffen, the paper’s lead author, believes that crossing the boundaries of climate change and the health of the planet’s ecosystems is troubling since doing so “can shove the earth into completely different states”. Steffen is also the executive director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University.
My experience during the first Online Youth Exchange of Care About Climate and the China Youth Climate Action Network helped put the impact of climate change on public health and biodiversity in context. It was a one-year international capacity building programme and, like other participants, I had to give a webinar. Mine was on climate change and its intersection with viral diseases in West Africa. Here is what I learnt while prepping.
We have an underreported climate crises in parts of West Africa: areas off the Abidjan harbour experience high soil erosion rates and loss of mangrove swamps; resulting surface floods from heavy rainfalls and rising sea levels are disrupting the lives of waterfront dwellers in Lagos islands; neighbouring settlements of the Ivorian western, land boarders with Liberia and Guinea are now seeing changes in ecosystems; and the availability and quality of Sierra Leone’s extensive water resources is significantly challenged as a result of shortages, intense sediment loads, and temperature-driven microorganism reproduction cycles and algal growth, thus, providing more conducive breeding grounds for disease vectors – up to 80 percent of the country’s rural population obtains its water from these sources.
Often in this massive region, deforestation is on the rise, warming events are enduring, and vegetative covers are changing. The number of young people is getting bigger and bigger and so takes this climate crisis downhill. Yet, there is no concerted, scientific research effort to evaluate and understand the impacts of this crisis on ecosystems and human systems, particularly habitats fragmentation and public health.
Perhaps, public health is the most unevaluated human face of climate change. And compelled by warming and instability, our climate is playing a tremendous part in perpetuating the global emergence, resurgence and spread of infectious diseases.
Most infectious diseases have three components: a pathogen, a host, and a transmission environment. Some viruses are pathogens since they are examples of disease-producing agents. Host refers to living animal or plant that supports and nourishes disease pathogens, while transmission environment involves the indirect and direct distribution or spread route of disease.
A 2002 study published in Science shows that temperature can influence the reproduction and development of pathogens. According to Dr. Aaron Bernstein, Centre for Health and the Global Environment scholar at Harvard University, “all pathogenic viruses…and parasites are temperature sensitive.” For example, coinciding with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, global temperature in the months of May had anomalies from 2014 up to 2017. Put simply by Goddard Institute for Space Studies at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), each May in these years were the top 3 hottest in 137 years of modern, global temperature record–keeping.
The biggest misconception about climate change is that everything everywhere gets warmer. However, it is necessary to know that temperature change over land and water may or may not restrict the development and distribution of viral diseases. This depends on their distinctive temperature thresholds.
Furthermore, extreme positive shifts in rainfall amount – often driven by climate change – plays a quiet role in the development of select disease pathogens, as continuous, heavy rain may mix sediments in water and land upwards, leading to the accumulation of fecal microorganisms at surface levels.
Human-animal proximity and close interaction are also likely to support the development, survival, and redistribution of infectious diseases. In this case, intermittent connections of these diseases with wildlife, extreme weather events, and meteorological hazards are seen.
Jungles and deep, unexplored areas are sometimes the natural reservoirs of an infectious disease or the habitat of host animals. People are pushed to these areas from their original homes; as a result of droughts, famines, heatwaves, and floods; for survival and in pursuit of favourable living conditions. When we migrate to these areas, we deforest to commercially farm cash crops, site manufacturing industries, construct roads, and so on. We alter the habitats of reservoirs and hosts. During hazards, for example, rodents that hosts Lassa virus may enter homes to look for food and transmit it to humans, leading to Lassa fever cases. In peri-urban populations of low-income countries, the risk factors for Swamp fever include flooding of open gutters and streets.
“Rising global temperatures would have a catastrophic effect on human health and patterns of infections will change”, Nigeria’s Federal Minister of Environment, Usman Jubril, says.
But we can lessen the extent of this foreseen, catastrophic effect.
Through academic research and science-based methods to meaningfully understand the impacts of climate change (including extreme weather events and meteorological hazards) on public health, especially viral diseases; investing more in surveillance, monitoring and early warning systems; practising open information and experience sharing; and building the capacities of vulnerable populations via campaigns and outreaches, we can help deliver a healthier and sustainable tomorrow for Hawa Singbeh. For everyone.
By Oghenechovwen Oghenekevwe (Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria; @ChovwenKevwe)
During the UN climate negotiations in Bonn last November (COP23), country representatives worked in close collaboration with indigenous peoples to turn the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples platform established at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) into reality.
Indigenous people of Dayak Bahau community in the Upper Mahakam in East Kalimantan, Indonesia
According the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Indigenous and traditional knowledge represents a “major resource for adapting to climate change,” particularly because indigenous peoples care for around 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Besides, local communities and indigenous peoples bear the brunt of climate change impacts and have demonstrated a wide range of ways to engage with the United Nations’ climate process in recent years.
Addressing Indigenous leaders during COP23 in Bonn, the Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change Patricia Espinosa said: “Indigenous people must be part of the solution to climate change. This is because you have the traditional knowledge of your ancestors. The important value of that knowledge simply cannot – and must not – be understated. You are also essential in finding solutions today and in the future. The Paris Climate Change Agreement recognises this. It recognises your role in building a world that is resilient in the face of climate impacts.”
The platform will help share the valuable knowledge of local communities and indigenous peoples to fight against climate change and its impacts, and ensure their views are heard in the climate negotiation process. It will also enable fuller and more effective exchanges of knowledge between governments and indigenous peoples and local communities, by strengthening the knowledge, technologies, practices and efforts of local communities and indigenous peoples related to addressing and responding to climate change, as well as facilitating the exchange of experiences and enhancing engagement of indigenous peoples and local communities in the UNFCCC process.
Juan Jintiach, representing indigenous communities in the Amazon, described the negotiations to launch the platform as, “a way to protect forests and tackle climate change,” and “a victory for indigenous peoples.”
The platform has three core functions to support its objectives:
Knowledge: the platform should promote the exchange of experience and best practices aiming at applying, strengthening, protecting and preserving traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples, and local knowledge systems as well as technologies, practices and efforts of local communities and indigenous peoples related to addressing and responding to climate change, taking into account the free, prior and informed consent of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices;
Capacity for engagement: the platform should build the capacities of indigenous peoples and local communities to enable their engagement in the UNFCCC process. The platform should also build the capacities of Parties and other relevant stakeholders to engage with the platform and with local communities and indigenous peoples, including in the context of the implementation of the Paris Agreement and other climate change related processes;
Climate change policies and actions: the platform should facilitate the integration of diverse knowledge systems, practices and innovations in designing and implementing international and national actions, programmes and policies in a manner that respects and promotes the rights and interests of local communities and indigenous peoples. The platform should facilitate stronger and more ambitious climate action by indigenous peoples and local communities that could contribute to the achievement of the nationally determined contributions of the Parties concerned.
Platform Needs Full Participation of Indigenous Peoples to Work
Clare Shakya of the International Institute for Environment and Development also supported the development, but added a caveat, saying: “This is an important step forward but only if it really does mean that indigenous and local communities are listened to and their knowledge recognised.”
The UN’s top climate change official Patricia Espinosa agreed: “We need your voice to understand how this platform best serves the needs of indigenous communities. Furthermore, we need your knowledge to build bridges between indigenous communities and other groups acting on climate change,” she said.
For that purpose, the decision taken at the UN Climate Change Conference COP23 in Bonn recommended that the platform takes into account four principles put forth by indigenous peoples in its future activities:
Full and effective participation of indigenous peoples;
Equal status of indigenous peoples and country representatives, including in leadership roles;
Self-selection of indigenous peoples representatives in accordance with indigenous peoples’ own procedures; and
Adequate funding from the UNFCCC secretariat and voluntary contributions to enable the platform functions.
During the next climate negotiations in April-May 2018, country representatives will discuss modalities to make the platform fully functional. A multi-stakeholder workshop for local communities, indigenous peoples, country representatives and other relevant organisations to discuss the implementation of the three core functions will be the first activity of the platform.
By inviting indigenous peoples organisations to contribute to the climate negotiations, governments underscored their desire for collaborative and constructive engagement with indigenous peoples and local communities. While more work needs to be done in 2018 on refining the modalities of the platform, the progress on the local communities and indigenous peoples platform drew a lot of positive attention at COP23, with six country representatives as well as indigenous peoples representatives expressing their support to the platform at closing plenaries.
For example, Ms. Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, co-chair of Indigenous Peoples’ Caucus expressed “gratitude to all Parties for their support for this platform,” noting that “it is a positive starting point” and Mr Fremout Geert, representing the European Union was “pleased with the progress on this item – in particular agreeing to the purpose and functions.” Lastly, Ricardo Ulate, representing Costa Rica was “happy with the platform being operationalised, with a roadmap for (its) development.”
The Federal Ministry of Water Resources says it will host a global forum on sustainable solutions to save the drought-ravaged Lake Chad between Feb. 26 and Feb. 28 in Abuja.
Scientists say the Lake Chad, that borders Nigeria and some other countries, has shrunken by 95 percent over the past 50 years. They have also linked the Boko Haram insurgency to the lake’s situation. Photo credit: AP/Christophe Ena
Dr Musa Ibrahim, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, said this in a statement in Abuja on Friday, January 12, 2018.
He said that the theme of the conference was “Saving the Lake Chad to revitalise the Basin’s Ecosystem for Sustainable Livelihood, Security and Development’’.
He said that the ministry would hold the conference, in collaboration with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC).
According to him, the objective of the conference is to create global awareness on the socio-economic and environmental challenges arising from the shrinkage of the lake.
He said that the forum would be an opportunity to deliberate on the effect of the lake’s desiccation on people’s livelihoods and security, with a view to developing a comprehensive programme and action plan to address it.
Musa added that the conference would also inform stakeholders on the consensus of opinion on the different solutions to restore the lake.
He said that the solutions included the Inter-Basin Water Transfer (IBWT) project, which was aimed at transferring water from Ubangi River in the Democratic Republic of Congo into the Chad basin.
He said that there was a need to gather political and financial support for the overall restoration of the Chad basin.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Lake Chad is about eight per cent of the size of Africa and the lake is shared by Algeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Libya, Nigeria, Niger and Sudan.
The eight countries have an estimated population of 373.6 million, with 12 per cent of the estimated population living around the Lake Chad in 2013.
The people living in the basin depend on the lake for water supply as well as farming, fishing and livestock production.
However, the LCBC website says that a review of the hydrology of the Lake Chad Basin shows that in the wet years (years before 1973), water inflow into the basin averaged between 30km3 and 40km3 per annum.
The website says that in the dry years (years after 1974), water inflow averaged between 20km3 and 21km3 per annum, while the lowest inflow – 16km3 – was recorded in 1984.
