Merlyn Sandoval next to the rainwater collection tank built on the small plot where she lives, in the village of San Jose Las Pilas, in eastern Guatemala. She and her family participate in a program to alleviate the effects of the drought in the Central American Dry Corridor. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS JILOTEPEQUE, Guatemala, Oct 30 2025 (IPS)

Water scarcity that relentlessly hits the rural communities in eastern Guatemala, located in the so-called Central American Dry Corridor, is a constant threat due to the challenges in producing food, year after year. But it is also an incentive to strive to overcome adversities.

The peasant families living in this region struggle to counter hopelessness and, with the help of international cooperation, manage to confront water scarcity. With great effort, they produce food, aware of the importance of caring for and protecting the area’s micro-watersheds."Unfortunately, last year the rainy season also ended in September and we harvested almost nothing, there was no rainy season, there was no water. So it's difficult for us here, that's why they call it the Dry Corridor, because we don't have water" –Ricardo Ramirez.

“We are in the Dry Corridor, and it’s hard to produce the plants here, even if you’ve tried to produce them, because due to the lack of water (the fruits) don’t reach their proper weight,” Merlyn Sandoval, head of one of the families benefiting from a project that seeks to provide the necessary tools and knowledge for people to overcome water insecurity and produce their own food, told IPS.

Sandoval is a native of the village of San Jose Las Pilas, in the municipality of San Luis Jilotepeque, in the department of Jalapa, in eastern Guatemala. Her community has been included in the program, funded by Sweden and implemented by several organizations, such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), together with the Guatemalan government.

The initiative, which began in 2022 and ends this December, reaches 7,000 families living around the micro-watersheds of seven municipalities in the departments of Chiquimula and Jalapa, in eastern Guatemala. These towns are Jocotan, Camotan, Olopa, San Juan Ermita, Chiquimula, San Luis Jilotepeque, and San Pedro Pinula.

The project focuses on creating the conditions to promote food and nutritional security and the resilience of the population, prioritizing water security that allows for food production.

“The strength of the (project’s) goals lies in the training and the action of the micro-watershed concept… people were trained depending on whether they were upstream, downstream, or in the middle of the watershed,” Rafael Zavala, FAO representative in Guatemala, told IPS.

He added: “The area is highly expulsive of labor due to migration, and this causes women to be the heads of households.”

The San Jose River basin is one of the watersheds being targeted for protection and preservation due to its importance for the water security of the towns in San Luis Jilotepeque, in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Drought and poverty

A report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that the area included in the program shows a significant deterioration of livelihoods and a scarcity of economic opportunities.

It adds that in the department of Chiquimula, 70.6% of the population lives in poverty, while in Jalapa, the figure reaches 67.2%.

The Central American Dry Corridor, which is 1,600 kilometers long, covers 35% of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people.

In this belt, over 73% of the rural population lives in poverty and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, according to FAO data.

Central America is a region of seven nations, with 50 million inhabitants, of which 18.5 million live in Guatemala, the most populous country, with high inequality and where a large part of poor families are indigenous.

In the home of Merlyn Sandoval’s family in San Jose Las Pilas, the granary for storing the corn and beans, which are so difficult to produce due to the lack of water in the area of eastern Guatemala, is never missing. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Learning to Harvest Rainwater

As part of the project, the young Sandoval has learned the key points about micro-watershed management and has developed actions to harvest rainwater on her plot, in the backyard of her house. There, she has set up a circular tank, whose base is lined with an impermeable polyethylene geo-membrane, with a capacity of 16 cubic meters.

When it rains, water runs down from the roof and, through a PVC pipe, reaches the tank they call a “harvester,” which collects the resource to water the small garden and the fruit trees, and to provide water during the dry season, from November to May.

In the garden, Sandoval and her family of 10, harvest celery, cucumber, cilantro, chives, tomatoes, and green chili. In fruits, they harvest bananas, mangoes, and jocotes, among others.

Next to the rainwater harvester is the fish pond where 500 tilapia fingerlings are growing. The structure, also with a polyethylene geo-membrane at its base, is eight meters long, six meters wide, and one meter deep.

When the fish reach a weight of half a kilo, they can be sold in the community.

“The harvesters fill up with what is collected from the rains, and that helps to give a water change for the tilapia and also to give water to the fruit trees,” said Sandoval, 27.

The young woman also produces corn and beans, on another nearby plot, of approximately half a hectare. These plantings, more extensive than the garden and fruit trees in the backyard, cannot be covered by irrigation from the tank.

Ricardo Ramirez shows the inside of the macro-tunnel (a small greenhouse) where he has managed to harvest cucumbers, tomatoes, and green chilies, and where the plants of the new tomato planting can already be seen, on his small farm in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

As a result, these crops, in this region of the Dry Corridor, are always vulnerable to climatic fluctuations: they can be ruined both by lack of rain and by excess rain during the same rainy season, from May to November.

Sandoval has already lost 50% of her harvest due to excess rain, she stated, with a hint of sadness.

This has also happened to Ricardo Ramirez, another resident of San Jose Las Pilas, who has experienced these fluctuations of lack and excess of water in his crop of corn and beans, staples in the Central American diet.

“Unfortunately, last year the rainy season also ended in September and we harvested almost nothing, there was no rainy season, there was no water. So it’s difficult for us here, that’s why they call it the Dry Corridor, because we don’t have water,” said Ramirez, 59, referring to his bean crop, planted on two plots totaling half a hectare, of which he has lost roughly half.

From the rainwater collection tank, Ricardo Ramirez manages to drip-irrigate the crops in the macro-tunnel, as this type of greenhouse is called. The system has allowed him to harvest produce despite water insecurity in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Green Hope

However, the support from the program driven with Swedish cooperation funds has been vital for Ramirez, not only to stay afloat economically as a farmer, but also to bet, with hope and enthusiasm, on the land where he was born.

Through this international initiative, Ramirez was also able to set up a rainwater collection tank with a capacity of 16 cubic meters, as well as an agricultural macro-tunnel: a kind of small greenhouse, with a modular structure covered by a mesh that protects the crops from pests and other bugs.

Inside the macro-tunnel, he planted cucumbers, tomatoes, and green chili, among others, and watered them by drip irrigation through a hose that carried water from the tank, just three meters away.

“From one row I got 950 cucumbers, and 450 pounds (204 kilos) of tomatoes, and the chili, it just keeps producing. But it was because there was water in the harvester and I just opened the little valve, gave it just half an hour, by drip, and the soil got wet,” Ramirez told IPS, while checking a bunch of bananas or guineos, as they are known in Central America.

All of that generated sufficient income for him to save 2,000 quetzales (about 160 dollars), with which he was able to install electricity on his plot and also buy an electric generator to pump water from a spring within the property, for when the collection tank runs out in about two months.

In this way, Ramirez will be able to maintain irrigation and production.

San José Las Pilas has a community water system, supplied by a spring located nearby. The tank is installed in the high area of the village so that water flows down by gravity, but the resource is rationed to just a few hours a day, given the scarcity.

Nicolas Gomez still has to walk two hours, like many others, to get water from a river when his collection tank runs out during the dry season in eastern Guatemala. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Long Walks to Obtain Water

However, not everyone is as lucky as Ramirez, to have a water spring on their property and to irrigate gardens when the collection tank runs out.

When that happens, Nicolas Gomez has to walk almost two hours to reach the San Jose River, the closest one, and carry water from there, loading it on his shoulder in containers, to meet basic hygiene and cooking needs.

“So now, in the rainy season, we have water stored in this tank. But for the dry season we have nothing, we go to the river to fetch water, to a spring that is quite far, about a two-hour walk, that’s how hard it is for us to obtain it,” said Gomez, a 66-year-old farmer who has also suffered the climate onslaughts of drought and excess water on his corn crops.

Gomez lives in Los Magueyes, a rural settlement, also within San Luis Jilotepeque. Poverty here is more acute and visible than in San Jose Las Pilas. There is no community water system or electricity, and families have to light themselves with candles at night.

“Life here is hard,” stated Gomez, amidst the smoke produced by the wood-fired stove he was using to cook a meal when IPS visited on October 21.

View of a plant owned by Aguas Antofagasta, a company created 20 years ago that now has three desalination plants to supply drinking water to 184,000 families in that desert city in northern Chile. Credit: Courtesy of Acades

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Oct 22 2025 (IPS)

Desalination projects are booming in Chile, with 51 plants planned to process seawater and a combined investment of US$ 24.455 billion. However, these initiatives hardly benefit small-scale farmers, who are threatened by the prolonged drought, and cause environmental concerns.

A survey by the Capital Goods Corporation and the Chilean Desalination and Reuse Association (Acades) revealed that these projects, already in the engineering and construction phases, will add 39,043 liters of water per second in production capacity."Using seawater, desalinated or saline, and reusing wastewater relieves pressure on rivers and aquifers, ensuring water for people, ecosystems, and productive activities" –Rafael Palacios.

Fifteen of these projects belong to the mining sector, eight to the industrial sector, eight to the water utility sector, and 20 are linked to green hydrogen, a clean fuel but very water-intensive, which the country aims to be a major producer of.

Of the future plants, 17 are located in the desert region of Antofagasta, in the far north of this elongated South American country, which lies between the Andes mountain range and the Pacific Ocean.

There are 11 projects in the southern region of Magallanes, followed in number by the regions of Atacama, Coquimbo, and Valparaíso, in the north and center of Chile, which concentrate most of the investment.

Rafael Palacios, executive director of Acades, told IPS that this country “faces a scenario in which water availability in northern and central Chile could decrease by up to 50% by 2060, so we cannot continue to depend solely on continental sources.”

“Using seawater, desalinated or saline, and reusing wastewater relieves pressure on rivers and aquifers, ensuring water for people, ecosystems, and productive activities,” he emphasized.

Currently, 23 desalination plants are already operating in Chile with a capacity of 9,500 liters per second. They primarily serve mining needs, but also industrial and human consumption.

One of the large greenhouses for the hydroponic cultivation of vegetables irrigated with desalinated water, on the farm of one of the 90 members of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. Credit: Courtesy of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada.

Small-scale farmers benefit

Dolores Jiménez has been president for the last eight years of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, in Antofagasta. The association has 90 active members who collectively own 100 hectares where they have created a Hydroponic City.

“We have no water problems thanks to an agreement with Aguas Antofagasta. We have an oasis which we would otherwise not have without that agreement,” Jiménez told IPS by telephone from Antofagasta, the capital of the region of the same name.

Aguas Antofagasta is a private company that desalinates water in the north of this country of 19.7 million inhabitants. The company draws water from the Pacific Ocean using an outfall that extends 600 meters offshore to a depth of 25 meters.

In desalination, outfalls are the underwater pipes that draw seawater and return and disperse the brine in a controlled manner, far from the coast and at an adequate depth.

Founded 20 years ago, the company currently desalinates water in three plants in the municipalities of Antofagasta, Tocopilla, and Tal Tal, supplying 184,000 families in that region.

Dolores Jiménez, president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, shows the strength of the crops thanks to the use of desalinated water that reaches small farmers due to an agreement with Aguas Antofagasta. Credit: Courtesy of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada

In its project to supply the general population, it included the association of small-scale farmers who grow carrots, broccoli, Italian zucchini, cucumbers, medicinal herbs, and edible flowers.

“They support us with water from the pipeline that goes to Mejillones (a coastal city in the region). They financed the connection for us to fill six 30,000 liter tanks, installed on a plot at the highest point. From there, we distribute it using a water tanker truck,” informed Jiménez.

“Now, thanks to a project by the (state) National Irrigation Commission, we were able to secure 280 million pesos (US$294,000) for an inter-farm connection that will deliver water through pipes to 70 plots,” she added.

This will mean significant savings for the farmers.

Jesús Basáez in his farm in Pullally, on the central coast of Chile. There he grows quinoa, which he irrigates with highly saline water that the grain tolerates without problems. Previously, that saline water forced him to stop producing strawberries. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

In Pullally, in the municipality of Papudo, in the central Valparaíso region, 155 kilometers northwest of Santiago, Jesús Basáez used to grow strawberries alongside a dozen other small farmers. But the crop failed due to the salinity of the groundwater, apparently caused by the drought affecting the La Ligua and Petorca rivers and proximity to the sea.

He then switched to quinoa, which tolerates salinity well. Today he is known as the King of Quinoa, a grain valued for its nutritional properties and versatility, which was an ancestral food of Andean highland peoples and has now spread among small Chilean farmers.

Basáez has three hectares planted with white, red, and black varieties of quinoa, which he irrigates with water obtained from a well, as he told IPS during a visit to his farm.

The public University of Playa Ancha, based in the city of Valparaíso, installed a mobile desalination plant on his farm that uses reverse osmosis to remove components from the saltwater that are harmful for irrigation. Pressure is applied to the saltwater so that it passes through a semipermeable membrane that filters the water, separating the salts.

After successful tests, Basáez is now about to resume his strawberry cultivation.

“It was three years of research, and it was concluded that it is viable to produce non-brackish water to grow strawberries again. The problem is that the cost remains very high and prevents replicating this experience for other farmers,” he said. The mobile plant cost the equivalent of US$ 84,000.

The mobile desalination plant installed on Jesús Basáez’s farm to research the high salinity of the water at the site. For three years, teachers and students from the University of Playa Ancha, in the central Chilean region of Valparaíso, researched how to reduce the water salinity on this agricultural property. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Debating the effects of desalination

Since 2010, Chile has been facing a long drought with water deficits of around 30%. There was extreme drought in 2019 and 2021, and the country benefited from a normal period in 2024, although the resource deficit persists, in a country where water management is also privatized.

A report from the Climate and Resilience Center of the public University of Chile, known as CR2, indicated that current rates of groundwater use are higher than the recharge capacity of the aquifers, causing a decline in reserves.

In the 23 already operational desalination plants, seawater is extracted using outfalls that are not very long, installed along the coastline of a shore that has numerous concessions and uses dedicated to aquaculture, artisanal fishermen, and indigenous communities.

The main problem is the discharge of brine following the industrial desalination process.

“I will never be against obtaining water for human consumption. Although this highly concentrated brine that goes to the seabed has an impact where a large part of our benthic resources (organisms from the bottom of water bodies) are located. On a local scale, except in the discharge area, this impact has never been evaluated,” Laura Farías, a researcher at the public University of Concepción and at CR2, told IPS.

“There is literature that points out that there is undoubtedly an impact. There are different stages of biological cycles, from larvae to settled organisms. There is even an impact on pelagic organisms that have the ability to move. And also an impact at the ecosystem level,” the academic specified by telephone from Concepción, a city in central Chile.

She added that this impact is proportional to the volume of desalinated water.

Jesús Basáez, in the municipality of Papudo, poses showing a mature quinoa plant in one hand and in the other a container designed to sell each kilogram of the grain he produces in its white, red, and black varieties. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

According to Farías, the water crisis has led to desalination being part of the solution, despite its impact on marine ecosystems, coastal vegetation, and wildlife.

“It is a maladaptation, because in the end it will have impacts that will affect the coastal inhabitants who depend on those resources,” she emphasized.

There are currently initiatives to legislate on the use of the coastal zone, but according to Farías, they seek to “normalize, regularize, and standardize those impacts, after these plants already exist and there are others seeking approval.”

Palacios, the director of Acades, has a different opinion.

The concerns about the environmental impact of desalination on coastal ecosystems are legitimate, but current evidence and technology demonstrate that this impact can be managed effectively, he says.

“In Chile, recent studies show no evidence that the operation of desalination plants has so far caused significant environmental impacts, thanks to constant monitoring and advanced diffusion systems,” he detailed.

He added that “in most cases, the natural salinity concentration is restored within two or three seconds and at less than 20 meters from the outfalls.”

Palacios explained that research by the Environmental Hub of the University of Playa Ancha “confirms increases in salinity of less than 5% within 100 meters.” And in areas like Caldera, a coastal city in the northern Atacama region, they are “less than 3% within 50 meters, limiting the areas of influence to small zones.”

“We are already implementing the first Clean Production Agreement in desalination and water reuse, promoted together with the (state) Agency for Sustainability and Climate Change, advancing towards voluntary standards for sustainable management, transparency, and strengthening the link with communities,” he emphasized.

A worker displays the radish harvest in one of the gardens of the agroecological production demonstration farm, managed by the Trinational Border Municipal Association of the Lempa River, in the district of Candelaria de la Frontera, western El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
CANDELARIA DE LA FRONTERA, El Salvador , Mar 21 2025 (IPS)

The hope of Salvadoran Cristian Castillo to harvest tomatoes in a municipality of the Central American Dry Corridor hung by a thread when his well, which he used to irrigate his crops, dried up. However, his enthusiasm returned when a regional project taught him how to harvest rainwater for when the rains begin in May.

“We are waiting for May to start collecting rainwater and begin planting again,” Castillo, 36, told IPS. He is a resident of Paraje Galán, a rural village of 400 families in the district of Candelaria de la Frontera, in western El Salvador."Here we have artisanal wells, but they are no longer enough, and when the water project came, we were thrilled because we would finally have water all the time”: Gladis Chamuca

This district is located in the so-called Central American Dry Corridor, where water is always scarce, affecting agriculture, livestock, and other livelihoods of rural families.

The 1,600-kilometer-long Corridor spans 35% of Central America and is home to over 10.5 million people.

In it, more than 73% of the rural population lives in poverty, and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Central America is a region of seven nations, with a population of 50 million people and significant social deficiencies.

However, Candelaria de la Frontera and its surrounding villages are part of the Trinational Border Municipal Association of the Lempa River, a regional, non-governmental effort that brings together a total of 25 municipalities: 11 from Guatemala, 10 from Honduras, and four from El Salvador.

Due to their proximity, these localities have joined forces to promote sustainable development projects in their territories. Local governments are the backbone of the initiative, but professionals in various fields are involved in its operational, executive, and administrative management.

Cristian Castillo benefits from a rainwater harvesting system installed on his nearly one-hectare plot in Paraje Galán, a rural village of 400 families in the western Salvadoran district of Candelaria de la Frontera. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Water for Food Security

Projects on food security and integrated water management and governance, among others, are what this initiative promotes in this region of the Dry Corridor, where producing food is always a challenge.

These programs helped Castillo, like dozens of other families, receive  materials to build a water catchment tank. Its metal roof will serve as the surface to “harvest” rainwater and redirect it to the tank, which can store 10 cubic meters of water, equivalent to about 50 water drums.

“All that collected rainwater will be pumped to the upper part of the property where the tomato crop is,” said Castillo, sitting next to the tank, which is already built and is only lacking the roof.

Castillo estimates that, with this system, his nearly one-hectare property can produce about 100 boxes of tomatoes per harvest, each weighing 13 kilograms. He hopes to sell them and generate income for his family: his wife and three daughters, aged 4, 11, and 13.

For Gladis Chamuca, 57, life is easier when water comes directly from the tap, thanks to a community water project in the village of Cristalina, in Candelaria de la Frontera. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

The rainwater harvesting system will also allow him to save the US$40 he pays monthly to the community water system, which charges US$5 per cubic meter. With this water, he has been able to irrigate and keep his tomato plants alive, which already show green fruits, while waiting for the rainy season in May.

When the dry season arrives in November, the farmer will be able to keep his crops productive thanks to the water stored in the tank.

But Castillo might also need to rely on the tank during drought periods, even during the rainy season.

In the July heatwave, farmers can go more than 20 days without rain, explained agroecologist Arturo Amaya, who is in charge of the demonstration farm that the municipal association maintains in Candelaria de la Frontera.

Since 2017, the farm has been a demonstration site for agroecological production. Families from the involved municipalities come here to learn various techniques for harvesting with organic fertilizers and other bio-inputs produced on-site.

They also teach how to build tanks like the one installed on Castillo’s property. Members of environmental organizations and students, among other groups, also visit the farm.

“One of the main policies of the association is the promotion of zero hunger, meaning developing food and nutritional security through food production with an environmental conservation approach,” said Amaya.

The Trinational Border Municipal Association of the Lempa River participated in the installation of a potable water tank that supplies around a hundred families in the village of Cristalina, in western El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Saving the Lempa River

The municipal association, established in 2007, is an autonomous entity born out of the need for local border governments to generate programs and actions that alleviate socio-environmental conditions in the territories, explained Héctor Aguirre, the general manager of the initiative, to IPS.

The water component is key in the association’s actions, and the central focus revolves around the Lempa River, which flows 422 kilometers from its source in the mountains of Chiquimula in eastern Guatemala, through southern Honduras, and into El Salvador, where it runs from north to south until it reaches the Pacific Ocean.

The Lempa is the main source of energy, powering hydroelectric dams, and is also a source of agricultural, livestock, and water development for millions of people in these countries, especially in El Salvador. Of the river’s course, 85% is in El Salvador.

However, the river faces pollution and overexploitation issues.

“In this region shared by the three countries there is considerable water production, but there are also difficulties in supporting the local population,” Aguirre noted.

With projects like rainwater harvesting, farming families have been taught that water resources can be reused in agricultural production, especially horticulture, making the territories more resilient to the climatic conditions of the Dry Corridor, Aguirre explained.

The various programs are funded through three avenues: the participating municipalities pay a monthly fee, international cooperation, and the institution provides services to the associated local governments, such as creating technical portfolios or designing projects.

“The sum of these resources allows us to provide an integrated, structured, and harmonized service as an action from local governments,” Aguirre stated.

The governments of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are simultaneously promoting a similar development program called the Trifinio Plan, referring to the geographical point where the three borders meet.

However, these plans are subject to political ups and downs and depend on the ideological vision of the party in power in these nations, making the programs unstable, said Aguirre.

In contrast, in the municipal association, everyone is committed to the same goal.

For example, Carlos Portillo, mayor of Esquipulas in eastern Guatemala, emphasized that as a municipality, they are seeking financially viable options to treat the town’s wastewater to prevent further pollution of the Lempa River.

“We want to support the search for solutions that prevent the contamination of these important water resources,” Portillo told IPS during a meeting attended by mayors from the three countries, international cooperation agencies, and environmental groups.

The meeting, organized by the association, was held in San Salvador on March 14.

A section of the Lempa River in the department of Chalatenango, in northern El Salvador. This river is key for food and water production in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Credit: Edgardo Ayala / IPS

Water for All

Another important project of the association was the installation of a drinking water distribution tank that provides water to about a hundred families who previously lacked this benefit in the village of Cristalina, still within the jurisdiction of Candelaria de la Frontera.

The project, initiated in November 2019, led to the formation of the Water Board in this rural community dedicated to subsistence agriculture.

These boards are community organizations that set up their own water systems, as the central government fails to provide the service to these remote villages. It is estimated that there are about 2,500 such structures throughout the country, providing service to 25% of the population, or around 1.6 million people.

The FAO and the city councils of Barcelona and Valencia in Spain, among other institutions, participated in the construction of the system.

In Cristalina, water is pumped from a well to a 25-cubic-meter tank, perched on a 20-meter-high platform supported by eight cement pillars. From there, it flows by gravity to the taps of families, who pay about US$7 for 13 cubic meters per month.

“Here we have artisanal wells, but they are no longer sufficient, and when the water project came, we were thrilled because we would finally have water all the time,” Gladis Chamuca, a resident of Cristalina, told IPS.

Chamuca, 57, who is a homemaker, said life is easier when water comes directly from the tap.

Her neighbor, Juan Flores, added that the system has worked very well so far, thanks to the good coordination and communication among the board members, of which he is the chairman.

Flores, 72, is also engaged in pig farming and uses pig manure to produce fertilizer for his tomato and cabbage gardens.

“Here it’s a horticultural area: chilies, cucumbers, tomatoes. People are asking me about the fertilizer because it’s 100% organic,” he said.

For all of this, water has been key, he stresses.

Maria Aparecida dos Anjos points to where the stream, now reduced to a trickle of water, reaches when flooded in the community of Santa Helena do Inglês, one of the riverside towns along the Rio Negro, a large tributary of the Amazon, in Brazil

By Mario Osava
MANAUS, Brazil, Dec 20 2024 (IPS)

The flow of the igarapé always dropped for three months every year, but now it has been dry for two years in a row, complains Maria Aparecida dos Anjos, looking at the trickle of water that when flooded reaches the stilts of her wooden house, 50 metres away and on a slope of more than 10 metres high.

The stream, known as igarapé to the riverside dwellers, flows into the Negro river, the great northern tributary of the Amazon, whose flow has dropped by more than 15 metres compared to the rainy season, affecting the essential river transport and the fish-based diet of the local population.

The unprecedented drought temporarily interrupted the growing bonanza of the 30 families of the Santa Helena do Inglês community since they received electricity from the government’s Light for All programme in 2012, reinforced in 2020 by solar energy provided by the non-governmental  Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS).“Energy is life, or perhaps the river is life, but without energy it doesn't work”: Nelson Brito de Mendonça.

The Vista Rio Negro community lodge, with eight rooms, has had to suspend its activities since August this year because of the drought. Ecotourism is an important source of income for the community near Anavilhanas, an attractive river archipelago.

Half of the lodge’s income is share among the community, while the rest goes to salaries, expenses and maintenance.

The guests would spread the word on “the suffering to get to the lodge”, having to walk hundreds of metres on uneven ground and mud, given the distance from the riverbank, and “no one would come anymore”, explained Nelson Brito de Mendonça, 48 and president of the community for the last 22 years, when IPS visited the place.

Berth at the Santa Helena do Inglês lodge, where the Negro River flows during the rainy season in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Communities only accessible by river

Santa Helena is only accessible by river. It takes an hour and a half by speedboat to travel the 64-kilometre distance between the community and Manaus, the Amazonian capital of 2.2 million people. The “Englishman’s” addition comes from a British couple who lived there in the past.

“The inn used to receive occasional guests during the dry period, but it only closed completely in 2023 and 2004,” the two years of severe drought, said Keith-Ivan Oliveira, 54 and manager of the establishment, located at the entrance to the community, with a berth where the water comes in, but now hundreds of metres from the river.

He hopes to reopen the inn in January. For that “the water has to rise a lot, otherwise the big boats can’t reach it,” because of the risk of getting stuck on the sandbanks, he said.

Ecotourism, also practised by several local families in their small individual dwellings, was only made viable by electricity, especially from solar energy, which complemented the energy transmitted by cables, which was insufficient and frequently interrupted by trees blown down by rain and winds.

Air conditioning, indispensable for tourist comfort in the Amazonian heat, takes a lot of energy.

The Pousada Vista Rio de Negro, opened in 2014 as a source of income for the Santa Helena do Inglês community, home to 30 families of fisherpeople, cassava farmers and artisans in the Brazilian Amazon. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

No power, no water, no food

“Other communities suffer water shortages, but we don’t because we have two sources of energy, the cable network and solar power. If there is no electricity, there is no water, which is then pumped,” Oliveira said.

Santa Helena uses water from an 86-metre deep well that reaches three elevated reservoirs in the highest part of the community. From there, the water drains by gravity to the consumption premises.

For Dos Anjos, who is 59 and heads a typical local family with eight children and six grandchildren, most of them living in Santa Helena, electricity means the comfort of having a refrigerator and not having to keep meat in salt, as well as fans to keep out the heat, television and other electrical appliances.

Lucilene Ferreira de Oliveira, 39, who also has eight children, benefits doubly. She is a cook at the inn, which earns her about 700 reais (US$120) a month when it is open, and she prepares ready-made food at home that she sells in the community. The refrigerator and electric oven are indispensable to her.

Keith-Ivan Oliveira, manager of the Pousada Vista Rio Negro, at the entrance of the ice factory under construction, which will have its own solar energy. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

She highlights the educational improvement for the children. “The school now has air conditioning, which is turned on when it is very hot, a benefit for everyone,” she said.

The electricity also favoured the internet connection that allows for virtual classes, which is necessary since the local school only covers the first five years of Brazilian primary education.

Elizabeth Ferreira da Silva, 16, a granddaughter of Dos Anjos, is completing her ninth and final year of primary school online. The knowledge she has accumulated on the web has facilitated the work she does with the inn’s communications, which is essential in attracting tourists from far away, including foreigners.

The community actually tried solar energy before, in 2011, but it was a very small plant that was soon rendered useless by lightning. Now it has a modern plant with 132 panels and 54 lithium batteries, installed by UCB Power, a company specialising in energy storage, which is sharing the project with FAS.

The solar panels of the plant that will supply the ice factory in the Amazonian community of Santa Helena do Inglês, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It will produce three tonnes per day. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

Ice empowers fishing

In addition, Santa Helena already has another plant, with 84 panels, for the operation of an ice factory that is expected to be launched in a few months, with a capacity of three tonnes per day.

This is another project promoted by the FAS and vital to enhance the income of the Amazonian coastal villages, fisherpeople by nature.

“With our ice, we will no longer have to buy it in Manaus, to preserve the fish and sell it at a better price,” Mendonça celebrated. The inhabitants often lose their fish for lack of ice and “already had to give it for free to the trading companies,” he said.

“Energy is life, or perhaps the river is life, but without energy it doesn’t work,” he said, admitting that the ice factory only came about because the community managed to get help for the second solar plant.

The network of electricity distribution cables reached the Brazilian Amazonian community of Santa Helena in 2012, but with insufficient power and frequent interruptions. Solar plants installed later overcame the shortfall, but encourage activities that increase demand and require more energy. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

The river dwellers are gaining independence as fisherpeople and reducing their conservation and transport costs, which results in higher profits and better productivity and quality of the fish, Oliveira summarised.

This process points to the beginning of transformations in Santa Helena and the other 18 communities of the Rio Negro Sustainable Development Reserve (RDS), an environmental conservation area of 103,086 hectares in which its inhabitants remain, taking advantage of their natural resources but in a sustainable way.

The reserve was created in 2008 after eleven dwellers were arrested for illegal logging and sparked a movement for traditional peoples’ rights, sources of income and dignified livelihoods.

Negotiations with the Amazonas state authorities in the capital Manaus resulted in the creation of the RDS. As a result, the inhabitants of the reserve gained the exclusive right to fish in the local section of the Negro River and the departure of the companies that carried out industrial and predatory fishing.

The riverside dwellers became fisherpeople on a commercial scale and today have 13 boats, almost all of them with a capacity of five tons of fish. The ice factory has taken activity to a new level, even if the drought temporarily threatens the activity.

Timber extraction is limited to personal use and sustainably managed forests. Fishing, ecotourism and the cultivation of cassava (manioc), from which flour is made in the various “flour houses”, are the main sources of income.

Lucilene Ferreira de Oliveira, the inn’s cook, also produces meals for sale at her home, an activity that requires sufficient energy for her refrigerators and electric oven, in the small community of Santa Helena do Inglês, in Brazil’s northeastern Amazon. Credit: Mario Osava / IPS

An example

This is a model to be replicated in the many Amazonian riverside communities, according to Valcleia dos Santos Lima, manager of sustainable community development at FAS.

The community of Bauana, in the municipality of Carauari, in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon, has already installed a plant with 80 photovoltaic panels and 32 batteries. In this case, the idea was to launch “a productive chain of factories that benefit from andiroba and murumuru oil,” this graduate in public policy management told IPS.

These are two Amazonian species, respectively a tree and a palm tree (Carapa guianensis and astrocaryum murumuru) whose fruits produce oils for medicinal and cosmetic use.

Energy is key for Amazonians to thrive, to add value to bio-economy products and to promote community-based tourism. In addition, almost one million inhabitants of the Amazon do not have electricity and 313 of the 582 communities in which the FAS operates only have it for four hours a day, Lima recalled.

“In this context, it is important that renewable energy can meet social demands as well as the demands of the economy and employment,” she concluded.

United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD’s) is focusing more on a drought preparedness approach which looks at how to prepare policymakers, governments, local governments and communities to become more drought resilient. Credit: Campbell Easton/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Feb 1 2019 (IPS)

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD’s) Drought Initiative is in full swing with dozens of countries signing up to plan their drought programme.

The Drought Initiative involves taking action on national drought preparedness plans, regional efforts to reduce drought vulnerability and risk, and a toolbox to boost the resilience of people and ecosystems to drought.

“As of right now we have 45 countries who have signed on to our drought programme,” UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary Dr. Pradeep Monga told IPS.

He said UNCCD is focusing more on a drought preparedness approach which looks at how to prepare policymakers, governments, local governments and communities to become more drought resilient.

UNCCD says that by being prepared and acting early, people and communities can develop resilience against drought and minimise its risks. UNCCD experts can help country Parties review or validate existing drought measures and prepare a national drought plan to put all the pieces together, identify gaps and ensure that necessary steps are taken as soon as the possibility of drought is signalled by meteorological services. It is envisaged that such a plan would be endorsed and eventual action triggered at the highest political level.

UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary Dr. Pradeep Monga said UNCCD is focusing more on a drought preparedness approach which looks at how to prepare policymakers, governments, local governments and communities to become more drought resilient. Courtesy: Desmond Brown

“Drought is a natural phenomenon. It’s very difficult sometimes to predict or understand when it happens or how it happens. Yes, prediction has become better with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) so we know in advance that this year there can be more drought than last year so we can prepare communities better,” Monga said.

He said the more resilient communities are, the better they can face the vagaries of climate change.

“They can also preserve their traditional practices or biodiversity, and most importantly, they can help in keeping the land productive,” Monga said.

“This is also important to migration – whether it’s migration of people from urban areas to borders and then to other countries and regions. We believe that addressing drought, preparing communities, governments, policymaker and experts better in drought becomes very relevant for addressing those issues which otherwise will have cascading effects.”

He spoke to IPS at the 17th Session of the Committee for the Review of Implementation of the UNCCD (CRIC 17), which wrapped up in Georgetown, Guyana on Jan. 30.

Minister of State in the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon says Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean are faced with their own problems with drought.

He said that Guyana is looking at the utilisation of wells in the communities which have been hit the hardest.

Harmon said Guyana and the Federative Republic of Brazil have signed an agreement where the Brazilian army, working together with Guyana Water Incorporated, Civil Defence Commission and the Guyana Defence Force are drilling wells in at least eight major indigenous communities in the southern part of the Rupununi.

“That will now allow for them to have potable water all year round and that’s a major development for those communities,” Harmon told IPS.

“Here in Guyana we speak about the Green State Development Strategy and part of our promotion is that we speak about the good life for all Guyanese. So, when we are able to provide potable water to a community that never had it before, then to them, the good life is on its way to them.

“This is what we want to replicate in every part of this country where people can be assured that drought will never be a factor which they have to consider in planning their lives, in planting their crops, in managing the land which they have again,” Harmon added.

UNCCD Executive Secretary Monique Barbut said droughts are becoming more and more prevalent. For this reason, she said it is even more crucial for countries to prepare.

“We see them more and more, and if you look at all the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] IPCC reports, we know that they are going to become even more severe and more frequent. This is the reality we are faced with, whatever increase of temperature we get,” Barbut told IPS.

“We have been looking in NCCD at what we do on drought. Last year, I did propose a new initiative to the Parties because we noticed that only three countries in the world had a drought preparedness plan. Those three countries are the United States, Australia and Israel.”

Barbut said while preparedness planning will not stop drought, it will mitigate its effects if it is well planned.

“We launched an initiative last year and we’ve got the resources to help 70 countries with their planning. They are now in the process of doing that exercise and we hope that at the next Conference of the Parties in October, we will be able to report on those 70 countries and extend it to the rest of the world.”

According to the latest report from the IPCC, without a radical transformation of energy, transportation and agriculture systems, the world will hurtle past the 1.5 ° Celsius target of the Paris Climate Agreement by the middle of the century.

Failing to cap global warming near that threshold dramatically increases risks to human civilisation and the ecosystems that sustain life on Earth, according to the report.

To keep warming under 1.5 °C, countries will have to cut global CO2 emissions 45 percent below 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by around 2050, the report found, re-affirming previous conclusions about the need to end fossil fuel burning. Short-lived climate pollutants, such as methane, will have to be significantly reduced as well.

More than 1.5 °C warming means nearly all of the planet’s coral reefs will die, droughts and heat waves will continue to intensify, and an additional 10 million people will face greater risks from rising sea level, including deadly storm surges and flooded coastal zones. Most at risk are millions of people in less developed parts of the world, the panel warned.

Low water in a nearby reservoir prevented the use of this central pivot machine for spray irrigation on the state-owned La Yuraguana farm for several days this year due to the severe drought affecting Holguín province and many other areas in Cuba. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

By Ivet González
HOLGUÍN, Cuba, Jun 28 2016 (IPS)

Five gargantuan modern irrigation machines water the state farm of La Yuraguana covering 138 hectares in the northeastern province of Holguín, the third largest province in Cuba. However, “sometimes they cannot even be switched on, due to the low water level,” said farm manager Edilberto Pupo.

“The last three years have been very stressful due to lack of rainfall. We take our irrigation water from a reservoir that has practically run dry,” Pupo told IPS. In 2008 La Yuraguana received new irrigation equipment financed by international aid.

Central pivot machines are a form of overhead water sprinkler that imitates the action of rain. The machinery is assembled in Cuba using European parts.

Since late 2014 Cuba has endured the worst drought of the past 115 years.

The extremely dry weather has sounded an alarm call drawing attention to the urgent need to modernise and change water management practices in response to climate challenges, and to other problems such as water wastage from leaky supply networks, inefficient water storage and conservation policies and absence of water metering at the point of use.

National reforms begun in 2008 have not yet achieved the hoped-for lift-off in agricultural production. Farming, however, is the main consumer of water in this Caribbean country, responsible for using 65 percent of the island’s total fresh water supply for irrigation, fish farming and livestock.

Future difficulties loom on the horizon, because droughts are becoming more seasonal in nature in the Caribbean region due to climate change, according to a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published June 21. 

“Agriculture is the most likely sector to be impacted, with serious economic and social consequences,” the FAO report says. “Most of Caribbean agriculture is rainfed, and demand for fresh water is increasing with irrigation use becoming more widespread in the region.”

The Caribbean region accounts for seven of the world’s top 36 water-stressed countries, FAO said.

The eastern part of Cuba suffers most from droughts, and its population, alongside small farmers in Holguín province, has its own methods of addressing the problem of lack of rainfall. They say that in extreme droughts, irrigation equipment is of little use.

“At the most critical time we had to plant resistant crops like yucca (cassava) and plantains (starchy bananas that require cooking) that can survive until it rains,” Pupo said, speaking about the cooperative farm which sells vegetables, grains, fruit and root crops to the city of Holguín’s 287,800 people.

Julio César Pérez weeds a cassava (yucca) field on a farm owned by the Eduardo R. Chibás Credit and Services Cooperative in the eastern Cuban province of Holguín. An irrigation system installed in 2010 has increased the cooperative’s yields by 70 percent. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

La Yuraguana employs  93 workers, 14 of whom are women. Its 2016 production target is 840 tonnes of food, for direct sale to markets in the city of Holguín, in the adjacent municipality.

“We hope Saint Peter will come to our aid, that the rains will come and fill the reservoir, so that we can water our crops and keep on producing,” said Pérez. Devout rural folk call on Saint Peter, whose feast day is June 29, to intercede on their behalf because they believe the saint is able to bring rain.

Cuba’s total agricultural land area is about 6.24 million hectares out of its total surface of nearly 11 million hectares. Only 460,000 hectares of arable land is under irrigation, mostly with outdated equipment and technology, according to the government report titled “Panorama uso de la tierra. Cuba 2015” (Overview of land use: Cuba 2015).

At present only about 11 percent of the land used to raise crops is irrigated, but FAO forecasts that by 2020 the area equipped for irrigation will nearly double, to some 875,600 hectares, through a programme launched in 2011 to modernise machinery and reorganise farm irrigation and drainage.

Use of irrigation increases average crop yields by up to 30 percent, experts say.

Cuban authorities want to boost local production in order to reduce expenditure on purchasing imported food to meet demand from the island’s 11.2 million people, and from the influx of tourists – there were three million visitors to Cuba in 2015. The bill for imported food is two billion dollars a year.

Agricultural scientist Theodor Friedrich, the FAO representative in Cuba, told IPS that “irrigation is not the answer to drought.”

This Caribbean island “should curb the use of irrigation rather than extend it,” he warned, because exploiting water sources, especially underground aquifers, could lead to “degradation and accelerated salinisation of water resources.”

A better course of action, he said, is to “implement water conservation measures at once, including the reduction of leakage losses throughout the piped water distribution network, avoidance of all forms of sprinkling irrigation, watering the soil directly and irrigating according to the particular needs of the crop, not forgetting to take into account long-range meteorological forecasts.”

In Friedrich’s view, sustainable solutions must be based “on soil management” and conservation techniques.He pointed out that eco-friendly organic agriculture “achieves greater production yields with less water and opens up the soil so that rainwater can infiltrate to the fullest depths and refill aquifers.”

This ditch for collecting rainwater in the rural outskirts of Holguín, a city in eastern Cuba, is used by small farmers to water their cattle. Now it is almost empty due to the drought. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

Cuba is not blessed with any large lakes or rivers, and so is reliant on rainfall, captured in 242 dammed reservoirs and dozens of artificial minilakes.

Local experts agree with FAO’s Friedrich that over-exploitation of underground water reserves should be discouraged because of the risk of causing salinisation and losing fresh water sources.

The present drought in Cuba was triggered by the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate phenomenon, which has had devastating effects in Latin America this year. Shortage of water has affected 75 percent of Cuban territory, according to official sources, with the worst effects being felt in Santiago de Cuba, a province adjacent to Holguín.

In spite of steps taken to put the water consumption needs of people before agricultural and industrial uses, one million people experienced some limitation on their access to water in May, said the state National Institute of Water Resources. 

On June 20 the European Union announced an additional grant of 100,000 euros (113,000 dollars) to Cuba via the Red Cross, as disaster relief for 10,000 drought victims in Santiago de Cuba. The funds are intended to improve access to safe drinking water and to deliver transport equipment, reservoirs and materials for water treatment and quality control.

However, many of those responsible for the agriculture and small farming sectors still see irrigation as the key to boosting production.

“Yields under irrigation when necessary are much higher than when one just waits for nature to take its course,” said Abdul González, deputy mayor in charge of agriculture for the municipal government of Holguín. Unfortunately “80 percent of our land under crops lacks irrigation,” he told IPS.

“Small farmers from all forms of agricultural production (state, private and cooperative) are demanding irrigation systems. Some of them resort to home made tanks and ditches to mitigate the negative impacts of the drought,” he said.

At the Eduardo R. Chibás Credit and Service Cooperative, not far from La Yuraguana, Virgilio Díaz, one of the cooperative’s beneficial owners who grows garlic, maize, sweet potato, papaya and sorghum on his 22-acre plot, ascribed much of his success to the irrigation system bought in 2010 by the 140-member cooperative.

“Income went up by over 70 percent: we raised salaries; I was able to request a lease on more land and I built a new house,” Díaz said. He and five other workers between them produce 200 tonnes of food a year, when the climate is favourable.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez. Translated by Valerie Dee.

One of the most significant aspects of the international conference on climate change, concluded in Paris on December 12, is that food security and ending hunger feature in the global agenda of the climate change debate.

The text of the final agreement adopted by the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change recognizes “the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger and the special vulnerability of food systems production to the impacts of climate change.”

Indeed, of the 186 countries that presented voluntary plans to reduce emissions, around a hundred include measures related to land use and agriculture.

The approved programme of measures constitutes a sector-by-sector program to be implemented by 2020, which implies there will be ongoing focus on agricultural issues and not just about energy, mitigation or transportation, which drew so much of the attention in Paris.

In the next years the commitments must be implemented, which will require helping developing countries make necessary adaptations through technology transfer and capacity building.

The Green Climate Fund, comprising 100,000 million per year provided by the industrialized countries, will be a key contributor to this process. Contributions of additional resources to the Fund for the Least Developed Countries and the Adaptation Fund, among others, have also been announced.

The issue of future food production, long saddled with a low profile in the media, is increasingly a major concern and poses a challenge to governments.

A recent World Bank report estimated that 100 million people could fall into poverty in the next 15 years due to climate change. Agricultural productivity will suffer, in turn causing higher food prices.

According to Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “climate change affects especially countries that have not contributed to causing the problem” and “particularly harms developing countries and the poorer classes.”

The facts speak for themselves. The world’s 50 poorest countries combined, are responsible for only one per cent of global greenhouse emissions, yet these nations are the ones most affected by climate change.

Approximately 75 per cent of poor people suffering from food insecurity depend on agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods. Under current projections, it will be necessary to increase food production by 60 per cent to feed the world’s population in 2050.

Yet crop yields will, if current trends continue, fall by 10 to 20 per cent in the same period, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and higher ocean temperatures will slash fishing yields by 40 per cent.

One of the least-mentioned problems associated with climate change are the effects of droughts and floods, which have become a near constant reality. On top of the destruction of resources and huge losses brought by these phenomena, they also cause increases in food prices which in turn affects mainly the poor and most vulnerable.

Rising food prices have a direct relation to “climate migrants”, as the drop in production and income is one of the factors that triggers displacement from rural areas to cities, as well as from the poorest countries to those where there are potentially more opportunities to work and have a dignified life.

For example, migration in Syria and Somalia are not driven by political conflicts or security issues alone, but also by drought and the consequent food shortages.

This is why FAO argues that we must simultaneously solve climate change and the great challenges of development and hunger. These two scenarios go hand-in-hand. The dilemma is to make sure that measures adopted to address the former do not generate a constraint on the latter. Production capacity, particularly of developing countries, must not be jeopardized.

This is why developing countries argue that, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they need technologies and support that they cannot fund with their own resources without hobbling their own development plans.

And since the most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are the industrialized nations, the countries of the South insist, and have done so long before the COP21, that richer nations contribute to funding the changes needed to preserve the environment.

It was therefore natural that this dilemma was at the center of discussions in Paris and that efforts were made to find an agreement.

The creation of the Green Climate Fund was one of the keystones for an agreement that practically binds the whole world to the goal of keeping average temperatures at the end of the century from rising more than two degrees Celsius. The agreement will enter into force in 2020 and will be reviewed every five years. In that period, many problems will arise and need to be resolved.

Yet beyond the difficulties we will face on the way, it now seems legitimate to expect that the big problem will be addressed and the future of the planet will be preserved.

(End)

These Zimbabwean farmers with their harvested sorghum are at the mercy of climate change, while the government struggles with meagre financing and tall ambitions to take adequate action. Credit: UNDP-ALM

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe , Aug 2 2015 (IPS)

With the U.N. Climate Change conference later this year in Paris fast approaching, Zimbabwe’s climate change commitments face the slow progress on an issue that continues to stalk other developing countries – climate finance.

As it prepares for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP21), Zimbabwe – like many others in the global South – is grappling with radical climate shifts that have seen devastating exchanges of floods and droughts every year, and still awaits green bailout funds from developed nations, with officials here telling IPS, “this support should come in the forms of technology.”

The country’s halting progress on the climate front is being blamed by local climate researchers on the country’s failure to invest in state-of-the-art climate monitoring technology. More still needs to be done as the country heads to Paris, says Sherpard Zvigadza, Programmes Manager, Climate Change and Energy, for the Harare-based ZERO Regional Environment Organisation (ZERO)."The country [Zimbabwe] needs to partner with those in the private sector who are making an effort to develop projects or reduce their footprint, and implement a reward-based strategy so that both individuals and corporates are encouraged to support the government’s policies" – Steve Wentzel, director of Carbon Green Africa

“Zimbabwe should strengthen systematic observation, ensuring improved real-time observations and availability of meteorological data for research,” Zvigadza told IPS.

These concerns arise from what is seen here as repeated failure by the poorly-funded Meteorological Services Department to adequately monitor climate patterns and put in place effective early warning systems for disaster preparedness.

However, these constraints have not stopped Zimbabwe, which for the past two decades has seen a wilting of international financial support for crafting ambitious climate change interventions.

Recurrent climate-induced disasters have shown that this not the time to treat anything as “business as usual”, says Elisha Moyo, principal climate change researcher in the Climate Change Management Department of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate.

And these efforts have brought together civic society organisations (CSOs), farmers and ordinary Zimbabweans in what is expected to shape the country’s negotiations in Paris.

CSOs point to the fact that Zimbabwe has been identified by GLOBE International, which brings together legislators from all over the world, as having on the most comprehensive environmental laws in southern Africa, and say that this should be a stimulus for helping the country make greater strides in climate governance.

According to a climate ministry brief issued last month, Zimbabwe’s climate policy seeks, among others, weather and climate modelling, vulnerability and adaptation assessments, mitigation and low carbon development.

However, as tall as these ambitions sound, the climate ministry has acknowledged that in the absence of adequate financing the country could still be far from meeting its United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) commitments.

“There is a need to expand current projects as well as develop new projects throughout the country for the country to position itself to be able to raise funding for these developments,” said Steve Wentzel, director of Carbon Green Africa, a Zimbabwe-based company established to facilitate the generation of carbon credits through validating Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) projects.

“The country needs to partner with those in the private sector who are making an effort to develop projects or reduce their footprint, and implement a reward-based strategy so that both individuals and corporates are encouraged to support the government’s policies,” Wentzel told IPS.

“If the country is serious about moving away from business as usual, awareness raising is key for all stakeholders, including the general population as well as industry,” Zvigadza told IPS. “A vigorous campaign is needed across the country. More importantly, Zimbabwe’s national climate change response strategy has to be operationalised so that the challenges are addressed according to different local circumstances.”

Yet, by the climate ministry’s own admission, progress has remained slow due to the continuing problem of lack of funds, which Moyo believes should be tapped from the richer nations.

“As Africa, and supported by other developing countries from other regions, we believe the rich countries have not yet shouldered a fair share of the burden and should lead by example, in terms of cutting emissions and also providing financial support to poorer nations as stated in the Climate Change Convention,” Moyo told IPS.

And Zimbabwe certainly does need the money. The climate ministry is already wallowing in reduced state funding after the Finance Ministry slashed its national budget from 93 million dollars in 2014 to 52 million this year.

Meanwhile, domestic economic considerations are one of the obstacles to implementation of the country’s troubled climate change policy. Despite seeking to promote clean energy, power generation is still largely fossil fuel-based, where instead of cutting emissions, relatively cheaper coal feeds power generation.

The climate ministry policy brief says the country needs to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions from energy production transmission and use”, but economic hardships have made this a tall order where millions also rely on highly-polluting firewood for fuel.

“We are compiling the “intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) and have been conducting consultations and data collection around the country especially with reference to the energy sector, which has a high potential of emission reductions through adoption of
renewable energy wherever possible,” Moyo told IPS.

INDCS are the post-2020 climate actions that countries say they will take under a new international agreement to be reached at COP21 in Paris, and to be submitted to the United Nations by September.

For its climate change ambitions to succeed, Zimbabwe must go back to the grassroots, says Wentzel, but unfortunately “there is a lack of knowledge of climate changes issues,” he told IPS.

As Washington Zhakata, Zimbabwe’s lead climate change negotiator put it: “The road to the Paris summit remains unclear with many stumbling blocks on the road.”

Edited by Phil Harris   

“Poor and rural communities are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis. It is them – who did the least to create this problem – who are suffering the most from it”. Photo credit: UN Photo/Tim McKulka

By Dipti Bhatnagar and Susann Scherbarth
BRUSSELS/MAPUTO, Apr 1 2015 (IPS)

World governments expect to agree to a new global treaty to combat climate change in Paris in December. As the catastrophic impacts of climate change become more evident, so too escalates the urgency to act.

Mar. 31 should have marked a major milestone on the road to Paris, yet only a handful of countries acted on it. Unfortunately, the few plans that were announced before that date show that our leaders lack the ambition to do what it takes to tackle the climate crisis.

National plans for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will most likely form the basis of the Paris agreement. These plans – known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) – are meant to indicate a government’s self-stated commitment to solve the global climate crisis through domestic emission reductions as well as through support for the poorest and most vulnerable countries.“People on the frontline of climate impacts are burning while governments fiddle. People are paying and will pay for the devastation of climate change with their lives, livelihoods, wellbeing, communities and culture”

This architecture will result in an agreement that is weaker than each country being legally mandated to reduce emissions based on their fair share, determined through science and equity.

Yet, even with this architecture, the idea was that national governments would declare these plans by the end of March so that they could then be scrutinised.

Only six pledges had been received by the United Nations by the deadline – from the European Union, the United States, Norway, Mexico, Russia and Switzerland. These nations, with the notable exception of Mexico, are among the worst historical carbon emitters, yet these pledges do not reflect that immense historical responsibility and do not show any real willingness to address the scale of the climate crisis.

The commitments are well below what science and climate justice principles tell us is urgently needed to avoid hitting climate tipping points. The European Union announced target to cut emissions by ”at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030” is merely re-hashed from last year’s announcement.

The United States has cobbled together a plan for a meagre reduction of 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels, by 2025. If these insignificant pledges are an indication of what is to come, we are on track to a world which will be 4-6°C warmer on average. To put this into context, the climate impacts we are facing today are the consequence of a planet which is only 0.8°C warmer than it was.

So far, none of these countries’ announcements would contribute their ‘fair share’ according to science and equity. All parties are capable of much greater ambition, and it is high time to bring it to the table.

The deadlines that matter most are not set by governments, but by our planet and its natural boundaries, which have already been stretched considerably by the impacts of the climate crisis, for instance by the lethal and extreme weather events from Vanuatu to the Balkans to the Sahel.

Climate change is already happening now, bringing more floods, storms, droughts, rising seas and more devastating typhoons and hurricanes.

The mockery made of this latest Mar. 31 deadline is just another revelation of our governments’ inaction – under the influence of powerful polluting corporations – in the face of impending disaster.

People on the frontline of climate impacts are burning while governments fiddle. People are paying and will pay for the devastation of climate change with their lives, livelihoods, wellbeing, communities and culture.

Poor and rural communities are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis. It is them – who did the least to create this problem – who are suffering the most from it.

We need a just and drastic transformation of our societies, our energy and food systems, and our economies. Proven and workable alternatives exist and are already being implemented.

Key decisions about our energy systems are made regularly, and will of course be made long after the Paris summit. Take for instance U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring planet-wrecking tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

A decision is expected soon and a rejection of the pipeline project would send a strong signal that our long-term future is not founded on the exploitation and burning of more and more fossil fuels.

European Union governments announced their INDCs back in February with their new ‘Energy Union’ vision for meeting the region’s energy needs. The bloc has recognised the need to reduce energy consumption and help citizens take control of clean, local renewable sources. But these moves towards the good must not be negated with new investments in the bad – new gas pipelines are also on the menu.

Throughout 2015, Friends of the Earth International and others will be bringing more and more people together to fight against the power of the polluters and make sure politicians hear the voices of the voiceless and take real action.

In the run-up to Paris, and along the road beyond, we, together with thousands of others, will be promoting the wealth of real solutions and proven ideas that are already delivering transformation around the world.

We will be on the streets throughout 2015, in 2016, and as long as it takes to realise community-owned renewable energy solutions that benefit ordinary people, not multinational corporations.

The Paris deadline will come and go, like others before. But the energy transformation is under way and, whatever our governments will pledge or not pledge at the climate summit in Paris, the transformation will not be stopped.

Edited by Phil Harris

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

* Dipti Bhatnagar is Climate Justice & Energy Co-coordinator for Friends of the Earth International, based in Maputo.

* Susann Scherbarth is Climate Justice & Energy Campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe, based in Brussels.

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