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Category: Africa, Blog Action Day, Climate change, wildlife | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: Maina

This is my view of how climate change will affect wildlife - Maina

When world leaders discuss climate change, the picture that is in their minds is of people caught in drought and floods, melting snow and icecaps in the mountain ranges and polar regions, and the polar bear. Well, that is not the worst case scenario. Less obvious wildlife (as compared to the polar bear) will suffer too – and perhaps more than humans.

You see human kind – as a species – will survive this rapid change in climate better than wildlife. Humans, in short, will survive. But some non-human inhabitants of mother Earth will not. It’s a given that wild species of animals and plants survived the beginning and end of the Ice Age, but they did so naturally. The climate change then was not as rapid as the climate change we are witnessing today. We all know the reason why – humans had not invented the steam engine, hadn’t discovered coal and petroleum and industrialisation was not even a seed in the little mind our ancient ancestors.

Now greenhouse gas emissions and an opulent consumerism has renderd the natural systems weak and the pace at which global warming and other climate change factors are progressing is mind boggling – and wildlife cannot keep abreast.

Take the example of trees. In mountain ranges, there is a nice tiered arrangement of different dominant species of plants. From lowland forest trees to upland, bamboo, alpine glades, tundra etc. Two problems arise here. 1) Assuming the vegetation belts can quickly stay at pace with temperature rise, they will push each other up the mountain until they all have nowhere else to go then they go extinct. 2) In reality, they cannot keep up the pace so they will die on the way up.

The great Savannahs of Africa may look indestructible – but they are not. We are increasingly seeing irregular rain patterns which is disrupting vegetation growth resulting in mass deaths of the massive herds of charismatic and much loved large herbivores, and their attending predators iconically represented by lions, cheetah, leopard and the like.

In Kenya recently, prolonged drought – and we can not rule out the effects of climate change as the cause – first killed livestock, then pushed the livestock into wildlife habitats, then killed the wildlife. Now Kenya is – ironically – waiting for El Nino rains to settle in so that it can save people, their livestock and wildlife. But the El Nino could be made more severe by the effects of climate change. So more people, livestock and wildlife will die. Iregi Mwenja, a Kenyan bushmeat researcher posted pictures of the onset of the El Nino rains in Voi today. One of the casualties of the big water was a masai goat that died in the floods.

That is a look on the extreme weather conditions that climate change is making worse. The silent increase in temperature will have the most devastating impact on wildlife as habitats change. According to the BBC:

It is estimated 20-30% of plant and animal species will be at increased extinction if the temperature rises by more than 1.5 – 2.5C. Less snow in winter, warmer temperatures in summer and more winter rain will affect wildlife across the board. Sea level rises will reduce land area in some countries, which will instantly affect vegetation which is currently used for homes and foods by animals.

In Africa, most of traditional dispersal area for wildlife is now occupied by humans as population increases exponentially. When climate change takes full effect, wildlife will attempt to move to these areas and human-wildlife conflict will escallate. The result is that wildlife will be killed. From another perspective, humans, with the effects of climate change on their heels, will invade wildlife protection areas, killing wildlife to create room for themselves, and their ravenous progeny.

Lest you tell me that the earth is man’s home, and we don’t need the wildlife, let me remind you the intricate balance between biological  systems, including bacteria! and the physical (rock) earth. The scientific author, Edward O Wilson, in his book “The Future of Life” talks of the earths biological system as a layer of living matter so thin you cannot see it sideways from space but absolutely neccessary for overall integrity of the planet as a whole (including energy flows). So there you have it: Without the biological system, there is no earth. Or in a language that you will understand, without the biological matter of old that became fossilized millenia ago, we would not have oil or coal = no fuel = no cars = no industrialization.

It is time to act. Our first wave of action is no doubt massive adjustment to our consumption patterns in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This, if dully practiced, could slow down climate change. Talk, write, chant, wave placards at or do what you do best, but make your leader act on climate change. Tell them that when they get to Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009, they have to come up with a climate deal that saves us and wildlife. And go over to TckTckTck and join the more than 2 million ‘planet earthians’ tell the world leaders that you are ready for a climate deal that works.

It is said that climate change is inevitable, but the pace will have to slow down. Climate change has occurred before, but not at this pace. Let us all change the way we live, slow climate change and give the other inhabitants of this planet a chance to take on climate change at their own pace. We cannot make them adapt at our pace…they were not made that way.

Let’s slow climate change. Lets save our wildlife.

Tags: Africa, Blog Action Day, Climate change, emission, environment, extinction, global warming, greenhouse gas, wildlife

5 responses so far

Category: Climate change | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: paula

Dear all, I invited readers and friends to contribute their thoughts on Climate change in the run up to Copenhagen from 6th - 8th December - only 52 days away. It may not surprise many of you that our first guest blogger is Sheryl who writes  her own fantastic blog Not Honey: Please don’t tap on the glass.

Climate change decision must include commitment to slow and stop population growth

No one likes to talk about human overpopulation as the number one
crisis facing our planet. Most environmentalists and wildlife
protectors don’t like to talk about it. There’s the idea that having
as many kids as you want is a God-given right and mentioning that
“right” as a cause for climate change and planetary destruction irks
many people.

That silence is deadly. Here the world waits for the U.S. to take the
lead on climate change and the best we can do is a useless
cap-and-trade bill that has no chance of actually limiting greenhouse
gas emissions. There are too many loopholes, including the
“offsets” that industry insists they must have, and no clear plan for just how
many credits for emissions the big polluters can buy. Not included at
all in this bill are greenhouse gases from farms, which emit
35-40 percent of all methane emissions, “(which have 23 times the
global warming potential of carbon dioxide), 65 percent of nitrous
oxide (which is 320 times as warming as carbon dioxide) and 64 percent
of ammonia, which contributes to acid rain” according to the 2006 UN
report “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”

Food production for an exploding human population is a major source of
global warming pollution. There is talk now among wildlife protectors
about designating more wildlife parks and reserves for agriculture and
animal farming. Dr. Richard Leakey, noted anthropologist, wildlife
protector, and head of WildlifeDirect, in an interview for
“Kenya Imagine” said the following:

“Population growth is, as far as I am concerned, is
probably the single most worrying factor for the planet. We can look
at a farm, we can look at a national park – we can say the carrying
capacity of that area is “x.” If we look at the planet, the carrying
capacity for our planet has been exceeded. This planet has too many
people on it. How we address this I don’t know. But I am certain if we
don’t address it, many of the good efforts being made to cut carbon
dioxide emissions and to find alternative sources of energy won’t have
the desired effect. It has got to be linked and conceptualised in a
way that stabilises the human population and ultimately brings the
numbers down.”

Iregi Mwenja, a researcher on WildlifeDirect, has posted more than once about
the threat to wildlife from a growing human population. Recently, he
posted:

“With the population of the world at 9 billion in
2050, we may have 370 million people facing famine
worldwide. FAO says more land is needed to increase food production by
70 percent in 2050. In a country like Kenya where land is scarce now
and famine is the order of the day, the situation will be grave
serious in 40 years time when human population will have grown to over
60 million people. We may be forced to sacrifice some land in our
protected areas to feed this overblown human population! If you don’t
want to contribute to this catastrophe, let us limit the number of
kids per couple to 2. Please read the BBC NEWS
article below for more details on the FAO report.”

Read that again: Food production must increase 70 percent over
the next 40 years to feed the growing human population. What
does that mean?

More factory farms and far more greenhouse gas emissions promoting
global climate change than can be regulated or capped-and-traded. The
BBC story states that “Climate change, involving floods and droughts,
will affect food production.” Climate change is already having a
devastating affect on food production and vice versa.
Thousands of farmers in India have committed suicide because of crop failures
due to drought. Deforestation in the Amazon to make room for
cattle farms and soybean farms to FEED THE CATTLE has caused the loss
of more than 150,000 square kilometers of rainforest in Brazil between 2000-2008.
Loss of forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo is putting
gorillas at risk of extinction, which will put humans at risk of
extinction, too.

How’s that? How can the loss of a fellow Great Ape species have
anything to do with human survival? Turns
out that gorilla dung is a major component in forest growth. We
need rainforests to turn carbon dioxide into clean air and to deter
the greenhouse effect. Gorillas, according to Ian Redmond, the UN
ambassador for the Year of the Gorilla, “are herbivores, feeding on
fruit and plants. The digested food, as it passes through their
systems, helps seeds to germinate. … The full extent of the
gorillas’ role in propagation is unclear. But Redmond said a number of
plant species could not flourish without them, or wild elephants, the
other large mammal crucial in germination.” The gorillas “caught up in
the region’s civil wars, preyed on by poachers, and crowded out of
their homes by mining and logging industries - are already endangered
across Africa. …But Redmond’s argument could help give the animals a
new level of protection.” Economists have suggested spending $15
billion on reforestation as a “cheap” way of cutting greenhouse gas
emissions.

“Redmond said gorillas were crucial in maintaining the lifecycle of
the rainforests in the Congo basin. The forests themselves suck up
more than 1bn tonnes of carbon every year.”

“This is what the species are for. They are not ornaments. They are
not just interesting things to study. They are part of an ecosystem,”
he said.”

We are the only species of Great Apes on this planet who seem not to
know their place in an ecosystem. If we continue to allow human
populations to grow and crowd out all the wildlife until they’re all
extinct, and use up all the forests until they’re gone … what will
we have left? A planet full of nothing but humans and a ruined
environment that can no longer support life.

“It is only if you bring numbers down that we will be able to find a
way for resource utilisation per capita to increase. It is the only
way you are going to deal with poverty and unless you deal with
poverty, the situation can only spiral downwards. This is a massive
problem and the solutions are not simply condoms versus draconian
measures such as one child per family. It has to be looked at in
different countries in different ways. I think there has to be a
commitment everywhere to slow and stop population growth. I do believe
that we have been set back a long way by the opposition to family
planning that is being shown by some of the religious groups and by
some of the more conservative governments such as the current US
administration.” - Richard Leakey, in an interview published during
the Bush Administration

–
NotHoney@gmail.com
http://nothoney.com
“… a vegan driving a Hummer contributes less to greenhouse gas
emissions than a meat-eater riding a bicycle.”–Capt. Watson

Thank you Sheryl!

Please leave Sheryl a comment here and if you would like to contribute your thoughts on a blog just write to me paula@wildlifedirect.org.

Tags: Blog Action Day, cattle, Climate change, Gorillas, Ian Redmond, not honey, richard leakey, vegan, wildlife, wildlifedirect

4 responses so far

Category: Africa, Climate change | Date: Oct 12 2009 | By: paula

 It’s hard to ignore the tension as the world hold it’s collective breath for the outcome of a meeting in Copenhagen on December 9-12 when the parties of

the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet for the last time on government level before the Kyoto climate agreement must be renewed (In 2012 the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming expires).  Governmental representatives from 170 countries are expected to convene at the Bella Center as well as over 8000 others from governmental representatives, NGO’s, journalists and concerned people.

This is a HUGE issue. The conclusion of the meeting will be the Copenhagen Protocol to prevent global warming and climate changes. It will affect you and me and all generations to come, very directly.

Floods in the Philippines - proof of climate change?

It’s not just me that is worried. A survey of world wide views on global warming polled 4,400 citizens of 38 countries revealed that 91% thought the climate situation very urgent. It is a huge relief that the human race is finally aware that there is a climate problem.

 The way I see it there are two HUGE issues.  

Should the worlds economies focus primarily on

1.   Emissions reductions ie. Kick the carbon addiction

or

2.     Climate change adaptation Ie. Find a way to live with climate change

According to the World Wide views on global warming 58% of citizens of industrial nations believe that between green house gas emissions should be reduced by 25 – 50%.

At the Copenhagen ClimateCouncil earlier this year, the president of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon said “We know that the safest way of reducing climate risks is to reduce emissions. We know that taking early action makes good business sense. And we know the cost of inaction will be much bigger that the cost of inaction now”.

But yet fewer people from developing nations though that they should face the same emissions reductions. The problem is that if low income countries agree to lower gas emissions they will be unable to develop at a desirable pace or to the standards they aspire to. They also cannot afford the cost of climate change adaptations.

But Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Program Executive Director says that cutting green house gases will not be enough. And Prof. Lučka Kajfež Bogataj from the University of Ljubljana agrees with him. On the Climate Thinkers Blog she says that the problem may be worse than we think “Deep down some of the scientists believe that we will soon be surprised to learn that the global climate change impact has been under estimated and that we will recognize that the climate change cost is even higher than was estimated”.

So my question is this. Do we humans really have the will to deal with climate change?

Well there’s a lot of shouting and yelling going on and activists are screaming for governments to agree to emissions controls.It feels good and people are being asked to make personal commitments to reduce their carbonf ootprint by 10%.

But do we really comprehend the scale of personal sacrifices that are needed for us to avert the consequences of climate change?

In this list what would you be willing to do?

1. Live in cold houses through the winter
2. Forgo air conditioning in the summer
3. Sell your car and use only public means or walk to get about
4. Eat much much less,
5. Be a vegan
6. Never travel on holiday again

Let’s face it, we are addicted to comfort – kicking the carbon habit = suffering. It aint gonna happen, most humans aren’t masochists.

As one very smart person said to me yesterday “we are constantly seeking to earn more so that we can live more comfortably, Americans will not change their way of life for climate change. Nor will they respond to the impacts of climate change which are already affecting poor countries“. The American who said this to me is a teenager. That scares me.

I am currently in Boston where it’s very cold outside and it’s toasty warm indoors – so warm that it’s delicious. I just don’t see people agreeing to be cold – it’s dangerous for our bodies and makes us grouchy.

Grouchy angry people are unpleasant to be around, but hungry starving people are dangerous

From what I’ve seen in Africa, I personally believe that the impacts of climate change will lead to civil conflicts, wars, and genocide.

Imagine what its like being a parstoralist in Northern Kenya where it has not rained for 3 years. Your cattle are starving and dying all around you. All your wealth could be gone in days unless you find grass and water. Your children are sickly and dying too – you watch them go for days with out eating. They don’t complain. Your wife is dehydrated, she cannot even produce tears when the youngest dies. You bury him in a shallow grave, you are too weak to dig any deeper. The sun is burning your skin but there is no shade, you are weak but you must keep moving in search of grass to keep the few emaciated cattle alive. You don’t care that you are in other peoples land, that they are armed and have threatened to kill you. You know that there will be a bloody battle so you carry a gun and you are ready to use it. You have armed your children and your wife too. This is a life or death struggle, you will do anything to stay alive and feed your family.

Sound fictional? It’s happening in Kenya right now watch this BBC video about drought conflict and elephants

The Copenhagen Treaty tries to address the immediate impact of climate change on developing nations and on page 122 it says

17. [[Developed [and developing] countries] [Developed and developing country Parties] [All Parties] [shall] [should]:]
(a) Compensate for damage to the LDCs’ economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;
(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

First let me tell you I HATE LEGALESE.

But what worries me more is that this language sounds like socialism and I’m afraid it is a red flag to the capitalists (who happen to currently rule planet earth). If you’ve been following the health care debate in USA you’ll know what I mean. Comments on the Coyote blog confirm my worst fears about lack of empathy by some American people towards other non Americdans. All I can say is that these people frighten me.

It’s hard not to feel despair for the planet.  I feel especially pained because climate change is affecting me. Kenyans are dying of starvation in a drought caused largely to climate change yet the countries that are mostly responsible for the climate change have not responded adequately to appeals and the WHO warns that only 10% of required food is available to feed 10 million starving people. I feel powerless to do anything to save my people. I know that suffering is already fueling conflicts.

Maybe it’s just me but I get the feeling that the countries attending the Copenhagen meeting are doing so with heavy hearts, the decisions at hand are very tough and will necessarily be painful. It’s as if to survive we have to chop off our limbs – otherwise we will slowly boil, and everything will be affected, oceans, soil, water, people, the air we breathe, wildlife and nature in general..

I’ve met many young people who believe it’s too late, we’re too greedy, too slow and too selfish.

But we cannot despair, it paralyses us. We are the thinking ape, LETS THINK up some solutions!

You can Help us!

We are inviting 30 guest bloggers to give us their views, their experiences, and to share their 3 big ideas in the run up to Copenhagen.  If you would like to contribute please send me an email paula@wildlifedirect.org subject My Planet

For a great guide to Copenhagen visit the Climate Feedback Blog

Tags: Africa, Climate change, conflict, Copenhagen, flooding, Kenya, UNEP, wildlife, wildlifedirect

7 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Sep 29 2009 | By: paula

A recent report by BBC reporter James Morgan on the impact of the destruction of Kenya’s Mau Forest has been making waves in Kenya. This well researched article highlights the causes of the forest destruction (bad policies), and it’s impacts (rivers, farming, climate and conflict). The current Kenya Government is trying to undo the damage caused by the previous regime and rich cronies  - ironically these people starting with the former president who have destroyed a national asset and caused untold suffering in the short and long term, will actually be compensated in cash. This policy of rewarding wrong doers has angered Kenyans intensely and the situation on the ground is very volatile.

High in the hills of Kenya’s Mau forest, some 20,000 families are facing eviction from their farms - accused of contributing to an ecological disaster which has crippled the country.

The authorities are to start the process of removing them any day now. Farmers will be asked to surrender their title deeds for inspection.

If their documents are genuine, they have a chance of being resettled, or compensated.

If not, they will simply be told to go.

Mau forest is Kenya’s largest water tower - it stores rain during the wet seasons and pumps it out during the dry months.

But during the last 15 years, more than 100,000 hectares - one quarter of the protected forest reserve - have been settled and cleared.

Tearing out the trees at the heart of Kenya has triggered a cascade of drought and despair in the surrounding valleys.

The rivers that flow from the forest are drying up.

And as they disappear, so too have Kenya’s harvests, its cattle farms, its hydro-electricity, its tea industry, its lakes and even its famous wildlife parks.

The finger of blame is being pointed at the settlers in Mau. And the solution, according to a special task force appointed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, is to uproot the invaders and replant the trees.

Of 20,000 families living in the forest, they estimate that perhaps as few as 1,962 have genuine title deeds.

Civil conflict

“We must act now - before the entire ecosystem is irreversibly damaged,” said Mr Odinga.

“We are looking at securing the livelihoods and economies of millions of Africans who directly and indirectly depend on the ecosystem.”

The prime minister was speaking at the United Nations - appealing for donations of 7.6bn shillings ($100m; £63.5m) to “rehabilitate” Kenya’s water supply.

If he does not act, he foresees a struggle for water and land which could escalate into a bloody civil conflict.

Because in the valleys downstream of Mau forest, farmers like Peter Ole Nkolia are running out of water, cattle, and patience.

“Those people up there need to just move,” says Mr Nkolia, as he stands by the carcass of a dead cow.

“If the destruction of Mau shall continue I can assure you that a lot of people will suffer.

“What you are going to see here in Narok is just the skeletons of cattle - and maybe people.”

Worse still, the water from Mau quenches thirst far beyond Kenya. Its rivers feed Tanzania’s Serengeti and keep the fishermen of Lake Victoria afloat.

When you consider that Lake Victoria is the source of the Nile, you begin to grasp the scale of the crisis the Kenyan government is facing.

“This is no longer a Kenyan problem,” said Mr Odinga. “Tanzania and Egypt are feeling the heat from the Mau.

“And the implications go beyond the environment. This has the potential to create insecurity as people squabble over dwindling resources.”

‘Buffer zone’

Chopping down the tree cover in Mau has removed a natural “pump” which keeps the ecosystem alive.

“It rains a lot in Kenya - but only in the rainy seasons. Then you have four long months with not a drop,” explains Christian Lambrechts, from the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“So you need a buffer zone - a way to ration the rain water and release it slowly into the rivers in the dry season. That buffer is the forest.

“If you remove this ecosystem, you reduce the moisture reservoir. Which means that in the dry season… ‘Hakuna maji’. No water.”

When the rains in Kenya stop falling, the 12 rivers which stem from the Mau forest are the lifeline for about 10 million people.

And this year in Kenya, the rains failed badly.

Narok county - the breadbasket of Kenya - was a barren dustbowl in April, the wettest month of the year. The government declared a “national emergency” with 10 million Kenyans facing starvation.

Cattle keeled over and died, in their millions. And as the drought worsened, Kenyan government was forced to bail out farmers by slaughtering their weak animals for just 8,000 shillings ($105; £65) a head.

In western Kenya, the tea plantations of James Finlay, which feed on the rivers of western Mau, have seen their yields cut to 80%. And the town of Kericho experienced water rationing for the first time in a generation.

Trouble in paradise

Wildlife tourism - another pillar of Kenya’s economy - is wilting in the heat.

Lake Nakuru, the birdwatcher’s paradise, is disappearing. The rivers that feed it have run dry. They come from Mau.

And in the Masai Mara, the river which hosts the world famous “crossing of the wildebeest” has fallen to its lowest ever level.

Water scarcity has brought wild animals and farmers into conflict. Deaths, injuries and compensation claims are at record highs in Narok, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

The fuse for all these disasters was lit in Mau.

“The Mau, in a sense, is the hen that lays the golden eggs,” says Paul Udoto, of KWS.

“The eggs are Lake Nakuru, the Masai Mara, the tea plantations… the farming that is being done by pastoralists.

“Once you destroy the centre - the hen - that is the Mau - then by necessity you have to lose the golden eggs.”

Frequent droughts

But can deforestation really be to blame for all these catastrophes?

After all, there have always been cyclical droughts in Kenya.

The trouble is that these droughts are becoming more frequent, more severe and less predictable. Particularly since 2001 - the year when 60,000 hectares of Mau were allocated to settlers and cleared.

“At a time when the climate in Kenya is becoming drier, that is when you need to boost your ecosystem - to help it to absorb the impact of climate variability,” says Mr Lambrechts.

“Go in the opposite direction, and you are going to feel those impacts much bigger. That is what we are currently feeling.”

Mr Lambrechts is one of 30 officials recruited to the task force by Prime Minister Odinga.

Their report, published in July, set out in painstaking detail how more than 100,000 hectares - one quarter of the entire forest reserve - was parcelled up and cleared for settlement.

Almost 20,000 land parcels were “excised” by the governments of Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, and handed out to farmers - which helped to boost the two presidents’ popularity in the run-up to elections.

At the time, much of these excised land parcels were promised to Ogiek peoples, the original forest dwellers. But the title deeds ended up largely in the hands of local officials and incoming settlers.

Map showing three types of settlement within the Mau forest reserve: (i) Land excised and allocated to settlers by government (ii) Trust land which was adjudicated to indigenous forest peoples (iii) Land which was encroached or illegally purchased

Meanwhile, in the southern Maasai Mau forest, almost 2,000 plots were illegally purchased within the protected forest reserve, with the help of local officials.

Plots known as “group ranches” were expanded, subdivided and then sold on to third parties, unaware that their new title deeds may be “irregular” or “bogus”.

Finally, large chunks of the forest were simply occupied and squatted - “encroached” to use the official terminology - by settlers with no title claim whatsoever.

Political tightrope

The task force insists that almost all of these settlers and land owners should leave the forest as soon as possible.

But how many deserve compensation? This is a political tightrope for Prime Minister Odinga.

The task force has promised that each family will have their claim heard on a “case-to-case basis”.

All holders of “genuine” title deeds will be compensated - perhaps even those high-ranking public officials who are named by the task force as having received land via irregular means.

A search for new land to resettle farmers is underway, but is already provoking controversy.

“I hope when they go to the World Bank they won’t get any money,” says Professor Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Laureate and environmental campaigner.

“The only reason why we are being held hostage with the Mau is because people who were in power want to be compensated.”

Double-whammy

But perhaps the biggest challenge of all facing Kenya is the ecological one - the co-ordinated replanting of 100,000 hectares of indigenous forest.

It will take decades to restore the canopy - years in which Kenyans will continue to suffer from the double-whammy of local land degradation and global climate change.

Yet among environmentalists there is some relief that, at last, Kenya has woken up to a disaster that has been brewing for decades.

Countless warnings have gone unheeded, as Ms Maathai can testify.

“I keep telling people, let us not cut trees irresponsibly… especially the forested mountains,” she says.

“Because if you destroy the forests, the rivers will stop flowing and the rains will become irregular and the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation.

“Now the problem is, people don’t make those linkages.”

In Kenya this year, everyone is making those linkages.

Tags: BBC, Climate change, deforestation, forest, Kenya, Lake Nakuru, Maasai, Mara, Masai Mara, Mau Forest, Serengeti, wildlifedirect

7 responses so far

Category: Climate change | Date: Mar 23 2009 | By: admin

While Tata Motors today rolls out the first of the worlds cheapest car, the Nano, at $1,980 a piece, it will enable poorer citizens in developing countries to move to four wheels for the first time. It will be a  monumental celebration of Indian leadership in innovation- particularly at a time when many Western car manufacturers are facing economic crises

You’ll agree with me, it’s an adorable little car. But the celebration may be dampened if not completely drenched by environmentalists who are crying murder.

The release of Tata Nano has been hyped up so much that it is probably the most anticipated car in world history, after all, it’s the first time in history, the worlds poor will be able to afford a car.

Millions of Indians will fulfil their dreams of car ownership, and most importantly, safe transportation which indeed was one of the main motivations of Tata Motors Chairman Rtan Tata, for making this new safe family car.

But despite Tata Nano being India’s pride and joy in technology and innovation, criticism and controversies abounds about the environmental and social impacts of this car. Greenpeace have released a video criticizing Tata for it’s impacts on turtles.

Because of it’s afordability, this cheap car will lead to a reliance on cars and not mass transport. This will lead to more cars on the road and therefore more pollution and congestion in a nation that is already suffering severely from both. One of India’s most prominent scientists, Sunita Narain of the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), has called for the Tata Nano to be “taxed like crazy”. Another prominent environmentalist, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, with Al Gore) claims that he is “having nightmares” about the Tata Nano.

American scientists are also outspoken. “This car promises to be an environmental disaster of substantial proportions,” says Daniel Esty, an environmental expert at Yale.

Tata however responds that the Tata Nano will get about 20 kilometers per liter of gasoline (50 miles per gallon) and will meet stringent European emissions standards that have yet to be adopted in India - check out this table. If this is true, then the Nano will pollute less than the two-wheelers it is intended to replace and get roughly the same gas mileage as the Maruti models. The Nano’s catalytic converter will reduce most pollutants by about 80 percent. Environmentalists predict that Indians will not maintain their cars in tip top shape and therfore the catalytic convertors will fail. When this happens, emmissions of pollutants could shoot up fivefold.  Note that exhaust emissions standards regulate the particles that make up smog, not emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide which the EU does not currently regulate.

When it comes to carbon the story is worse. CO₂ escapes catalytic converters completely. Since the Nano will replace motor scooters and motorbikes, which get about 54 kilometers to the liter, much more fuel will be burned and therefore increasing carbon emissions. According to Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, “Every new purchase of this vehicle is increasing fuel use per passenger by a factor of two to seven, depending on how many people are in the car,” says Sperling. That doesn’t even account for a decline in fuel efficiency if the cars are not maintained well.

These doomsday predictions bother me deeply. I don’t think that any of us really have the moral standing to criticize Indians for wanting safe family cars, particularly if the vehicles meet the highest Western emissions standards. Some observers feel that the environmental criticisms  smack of hypocrisy.

At the same time, the release of hundreds of thousands of these cars onto  Indian markets will undoubtably affect the climate change - nobody has done the projections yet on the scale of the impac but some environmentalists believe that the consequences will be far reaching if not disastrous.

I would love to consider the argument from both sides by asking you all a question. If you could, would you buy a Nano?

Tags: Climate change, global emissions, green peace, Nano, Tata, Turtles, wildlifedirect

9 responses so far

Category: Climate change, wildlife trade | Date: Oct 11 2008 | By: Maina

In a previous post in this blog, Paula reminded us that destroying the environment is far worse than the collapse of banking and other financial services that we are witnessing worldwide. But climate change, accelerated by the same factors that are contributing to loss of biodiversity, has an uglier face that could lead to further economic disasters.

A report produced by a team from the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Health Program and presented at the ongoing IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain shows that climate change is not just a problem of rising sea level and melting ice-caps. Climate change, according to the report, will also bring with it the plague of emerging infectious diseases such as Lyme disease, yellow fever, plague, avian influenza, Ebola, cholera, and tuberculosis which have crippling economic consequences.

Reportedly, these diseases, which can be transmitted from wildlife to humans, could reach cataclysmic levels as climate change continues to ravage this planet. The WCS has selected 12 out of the 600 ailments that are shared between humans and animals and labeled them the Deadly Dozen because of their immense human health risk. There are 14,000 recorded ailments but the 600 are known to infect both humans and wildlife.

As climate change affects temperature and precipitation patterns and levels, wildlife is being forced to change their migratory patterns, their habitat ranges and other population behaviors. Pathogen carriers, such as ticks and mosquitoes, are also expanding their ranges to areas where the resident animals and humans have not evolved any defense mechanisms against the pathogens attacks. In short, diseases are coming into areas where no one is prepared to deal with them.

Wildlife, in their resident ecosystems, have evolved with their pathogens and therefore have mechanisms to limit disease prevalence such that there are hardly any epidemics. Where the hand of climate change has played havoc to the ecosystem, there may be new pathogens or the old pathogens may be favored by - say - warmer temperatures thus becoming more successful. This could lead to epidemics.

The health experts at WCS believe that programmes to monitor the health of wildlife could act as early warning systems that can help prevent the outbreaks of epidemics among humans. An example is the Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance (GAINS) programme which monitors the movement of bird flu through wild bird populations around the world. Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT3), a champion for the GAINS Program, is quoted in the WCS website saying that “Emerging infectious diseases are a major threat to the health and economic stability of the world.” She adds that “What we’ve learned from WCS and the GAINS Program is that monitoring wildlife populations for potential health threats is essential in our preparedness and prevention strategy and expanding monitoring beyond bird flu to other deadly diseases must be our immediate next step.”

Monitoring wildlife thus becomes important. But to monitor wildlife, such wildlife must exist. An article posted at the National Geographic website by Christine Dell’Amore quotes William Karesh, co-author of the report and vice president of Global Health Programs at the New York-based WCS saying “Without the presence of wildlife, we would be clueless about what’s going on in the environment.”

Wildlife, and its role in the propagation of infectious diseases is already aided by nasty unnatural factors such as poaching and illegal wildlife trade supported by the large wildlife products market in Asia. China’s appetite for Civet-meat for instance, according to Dell’Amore’s article, led to a sudden outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which reached epidemic levels in 2002.

Dr Richard Leakey, in his statement against proposals to legalize bushmeat, cited the spread of these dangerous diseases as a good reason not to allow the killing and eating of wild animals. It is now even more imperative not to allow bushmeat hunting and trade given that climate change, a much more complex problem, has reared its ugly head into an already deteriorating situation.

This is a two pronged problem now. When bushmeat and climate change combine forces, then woe betide planet earth. Estimates of how much these disease outbreaks can cost have already been done, and it is pretty obvious that they are costlier than the credit crunch and collapsing banks. For instance, WCS says that “avian influenza and several other livestock diseases that have reemerged since the mid-1990s have caused an estimated $100 billion in losses to the global economy.”

Three things come to my mind right now: one, we have to adopt sustainable living as humans to reduce the severity of climate change and its effects; two, now more than ever, we have to safeguard our wildlife for they are our early warning systems against outbreaks of these deadly diseases; and three, bushmeat trade has to come to an end - and there is no question of whether it is legal or illegal.

What is your take on this matter?

Tags: bushmeat, Climate change, disease, Dr. Richard Leakey, health, IUCN Congress, National Geographic, WCS, wildlife

8 responses so far

Category: Climate change | Date: Aug 24 2008 | By: baraza

In a recent publication titled “Native wildlife on rangelands to minimize methane and produce lower-emission meat: kangaroos versus livestock” George Wilson  and Melanie Edwards argue that we should be eating Kangaroos not beef and lamb. They show that cattle and sheep produce 11% of Australias Green House Gases, while kangaroos produce negligible amounts. Basically they don’t belch or pass wind unlike most other livestock! They suggest the removal of 7 million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020 and the increase of kangaroo numbers to 175 million to produce same amount of meat. This they say “would lower Australia’s GHG emissions by 16 megatonnes, or 3% of Australia’s annual emissions”.

The Australian wildlife protection council warns that “Australia has no culture for the eating of kangaroo meat. It was eaten during the starving tomes of early white settlement but was considered a poor substitute for beef, sheep meats, pork and chicken”  another Australian, Corey Bradshaw, says” Beef is bad but skippy is better”.

The math adds up, but there’s no question it would be an uphill challenge to change the cultural and social standards of diet and livestock production. Nevertheless, trials are underway based on international experiences of managing free-ranging species to give farmers an option to reduce the contribution that livestock make to green house gas production.

Personally I hate the idea of eating Kangaroos, but I do eat meat. I also love Kangaroos (Skippy is tattooed on my brain) and doubt I could ever eat one.

What about you? Knowing the carbon benefits, what do you think about eating Kangaroo meat to save the planet?

1. Absolutely, I wish I”d known earlier, I’ll switch to roo in a minute

2. I’ve no objection, I’d eat it at least part of the time

3. I’m vaguely disgusted at the idea  of eating Kangaroo and wouldn’t switch from beef/lamb/pork etc

4. I’d never eat a roo. Never! In fact, if there was no other choice I’d become a vegetarian

Tags: Climate change, eating kangaroos, green house gases, Kangaroo, ruminants

14 responses so far

Category: Climate change | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: admin

Richard Leakey yesterday talked about the effects of climate change in East Africa in which he predicted major weather changes due to the melting of ice in Antarctica.

According to Dee Boersma, a biology professor at Washington University in Seattle, penguins are the first victims of climate change. Their populations have already begun to crash over the past there decades in Argentina, and declined to 63,000 from 1.5 million a century ago in South Africa.

Why do I care? Because penguins are the stars of my all time favourite film “March of the Penguins” which in 2005 probably suffered from a colony-wide breeding failure due to climate change. I can’t bear the thought!

Dee describes penguins as the“canary in the coal mine,” and their declining numbers are evidence that people are altering the animals’ environment. She also suggests that fish species eaten by penguins are disappearing due to our seafood diet as well as global warming effects on ocean currents. Unstable ice in the Antarctic broke up earlier than normal in 2006, forcing two-month-old chicks that couldn’t survive the cold water to swim, Boersma said. Can you imagine that? Her study will be published in the July/August edition of the U.S. journal BioScience.

Unrelated to this, Seamus of Kilimanjaro Lions talked about a new software for identifying penguins in massive colonies. Great idea but what if there are no penguins to study in the future?

Tags: antarctica, Climate change, melting glaciers, penguins, richard leakey

3 responses so far

Category: National Parks and protected areas | Date: May 28 2008 | By: baraza

Well, I’m back and it was a MEGA adventure. First let me tell you how it all ended – 65 km later, up and down an elevation of over 2,500m and from temperatures of 35 degrees C to minus 15 degrees! I returned with one big blue toe and a wonderful sense of achievement!

Hard to think that this mountain straddles the equator. The peak, Batian is named after Mbatian, the Maasai paramount chief. Its sister peak, Nelion is named after Nelieng his brother. Two other peaks Lenana and Tereri were his sons, while Sendeyo was a headman. All other peaks, valleys, lakes and points of interest carry the names of the British explorers and armers in the area (not a single Kenyan explorer or climber is recognized on the plaques at the peak! It’s rather sad. I apologise for this venting but not a single peak is named after the Kikuyu, the tribe that lives around the mountain, to whom the mountain symbolizes God. Strange! You can read the colourful history of the ‘discovery of Mt Kenya on Wikipedia‘

Climbing Mt Kenya is not a cultural norm in Kenya. Only 10,000 visitors enter the park and attempt the climb each year – that is compared to 22,000 visitors going to Tsavo East National Park per month! I don’t understand why it is such an under appreciated park? It’s stunning as you’ll see from these photos.

Alpine moorlands dotted with giant groundsels, silvery cabbage gruondsel, and amazing sunbirds and other rare yet tame creatures everywhere. My decision to go was rather impulsive and I expected huge regrets. I let myself down on that one, it was simply amazing and for several reasons. First there was nobody else on the mountain but Peter and me plus our team of porters and a guide. Yes, we did it the easy way – first we didn’t even know the way up, and secondly there was no way in hell I was going to lug 15 kg of kit up a 15degree slope for 5 days…. And survive. So we splashed out and contacted a firm called Go to Mt Kenya who sorted us out with some very grateful local guides and porters to do the work. Since tourism has all but collapsed they were really happy for the income so while Peter felt horribly guilty - I accepted that were it not for them I’d not be trekking.

The hike up Mt Kenya started at the Sirimon Gate on the north western side of the mountain in the forest Zone about 2,800m. Setting off almost went belly up – I’d forgotten my identification and the rangers at the gate argued with me for 45 minutes – was I really a Kenyan or not (Kenyans pay daily park fee of only 20$ vs 40$ for tourists so they didn’t want to lose any money). I had to make many phone calls, answer too many funny questions, and even my Swahili was not convincing. Eventually someone high up told them off, apologies were accepted and we set off on something of a walk and a scramble…..

Bamboo zone - incredibly dark and mysterious full of elephants!

Alpine meadows

Everything is wierd on Mt Kenya - and beautiful. Our first day, Saturday, was easy – only 3 hours of uphill on a road – we stopped frequenly, observed insects, hugged trees and enjoyed the sunshine. The forest zone thins out to Bamboo and then giant heather before it’s suddenly moorland – open tussocky grasslands …

Giant groundsel at higher altitudes form forests! This one is over 100 years old

Everything there was tame, even these Mountain Chats wantd to hang out with us. as we walked the blue sky turned white as clouds and mist crept up and overtook us… then it started raining.

My first thought was ‘rats, what were we thinking climbing in the rainy season’. Luckily we were near Old Moses hut which was very dry, offered good beds with mattresses and that was when we first realized just how spoiled we were. Within minutes of changing into dry clothes we had mugs of hot chocolate, cookies, and local donuts. We were told to eat up- we needed the energy for the next day, an 8 hour hike to the next camp. At 3,200 m it was cold at Old Moses but not freezing.

Old Moses hut is managed by this guy who was absolutely amazing. It was clean, warm and perfect in that rainy weather

At 7 am on Sunday we set off for Shipmans camp 4,300 m – the walk continued up hill, until there was no more heather, everything shrank … until it was just grass, and then all of a sudden everything was giant again – giant cabbage plants and other rosette plants, giant lobelias, huge hyraxes, mosquitoes!

I’m glad I didn’t touch this but - it’s a blister bug, one touch and you end up covered in disgusting warty blisters according to Dino. We were collecting bugs for Dino in streams – it wasn’t easy, the water was freezing and every time we stopped the cold would chill us to the bone.

I even looked for bugs in hyrax poop. We had such enthusiastic support from the guide Nicholas Njuguna that I’d filled almost all the jars by the end of the day.

Nothing we did could shock our seasoned guide Nicholas Njuguna who had a great sense of adventure. Shipmans camp at 4,200m altitude sits at the base of the main peaks of Mt Kenya which tower over the beautifully sculpted Mackinders Valley.

We arrived after the 14 km uphill hike in the afternoon, tired, cold and hungry. As the afternoon wore on it got colder and colder but at least it was dry. We chatted to the guide Njuguna at length, about his love for the mountain and the kinds of people he has guided up as we ate donuts.

It’s almost impossible to imagine how the chef (Yes had a chef!) produced such delights in these conditions!

The hyraxes on Mt Kenya are also giants - seriously!

Njuguna revealed to us that many Kenyans climb, but they are only porters and guides. Not the likes of myself basically. What a shame!

The next day was an acclimatization day – necessary if we really want to make it to Pt Lenana. We planned to use the day going for walks around the peaks. We set off at 7 am to climb up only 370 m scree slopes – sounds easy? Well I promise you, it was much tougher than anything we had done. I knew it wasn’t nearly as bad as the last days climb, and so my doubts began to plague me….when we got to Oblong and Hausberg tarns, only about 3 km from Shiptons, it began to rain, then hail! and we had to abandon any plans to go up and down the next 3 around the peaks (thank you God!).

Call this acclimatization? To what? Hell?

We returned to more hot chocolate and cookies at Shitpons, hiked around the streams, photographed hyraxes, and enjoyed a night of photographing the peaks in the dark. We tried to get off to sleep early but the guides, chef, and porters seemed to be in a terrible argument, on top of it all they were playing really loud Kikuyu music (which I hate). I asked them to keep the noise down - it softened for a few minutes before the pitch rose again. Later I asked what was the cause for such animated discussions - they said politics, but truth is it was nothing, loud is just how these guys communicate! Everyone shouting at the same time!

Until this point we felt like we were the only people on the mountain, and then the doors flew open and an icy gust blew in, with three more tourists. Ug! Two of them were unlikely to be going anywhere but one, a loud over confident athlete was bragging about the final assault, and asking for aspirin (I have to forgive her because she was obviously already suffering from altitude having ascended much to fast).

We began strategizing how to avoid being with her for the last and most spiritual part of the climb. We woke up at 3 am to leave before her, but she was already up, greeted us loudly and bragging about herself. We let her and her guide go first. Half an hour later we left in pitch black, the hike from Shiptons to Pt Lenana is serious, I’m not joking. They say it’s a 3 am start so that you reach the summit at dawn… but I suspect it’s to prevent you from realizing the full stupidity of the final ascent – it is so steep and apparently dangerous that I appreciated the darkness and the amazing starry sky.

The peaks at night

We had a full moon night that revealed the harshness of the peaks against the night sky. It was also absolutely freezing - juice in our drinking bottles froze! I could see her torch on the higher slopes – were it not for her annoying bragging I might have sat down and refused to continue climbing. My muscles were tortured but I had to do it!

At 6.30 we watched the sunrise and light up the icy scree slopes and peaks. Whatever bad thoughts I had until then vanished, the beauty of Gods mountain just overturned all thoughts. The hiking up hill was bad but the scrambling was terrifying one wrong footing and I could have gone hurtling down hundreds of meters into a glacier – or rocks. I know I sound like a terrible wimp but the truth is that Mt Kenya is one of the most dangerous mountains in the world (so experienced climbers say).

Anyway, I don’t feel at all embarrassed that I had to be assisted with a pull at the very final point to climb a rock that seemed impossible at that altitude. It was icy and slippery but once up I had my balance. The weather was perfect, the sunrise stunning and the peaks of Batian and Nelion were absolutely spectacular.

At the top of Point Lenana is a flag placed by Kiseo Munyao - the only Kenyan mountaineer I’ve ever seen recognized(!) who planted this flag on Kenya’s independence.

It was very very cold!

After half an hour bathing in the sense of achievement, we had to start the descent – it was actually much harder than you can imagine.

For Peter and I this was a lifetime achievement, we’d been talking about doing it for years.

Once the sun was up, the ice had started to melt, stones were slippery and legs were wobbly.

The truth is - I was in pain. But breakfast beckoned…our itinerary said

‘Descend to Minto’s hut for full breakfast. After a short rest descend further to Mt Kenya bandas lodge through the gorges valley for dinner & overnight. You can enjoy log fires, hot showers and bed at the lodge.’

It left out the part about the descent being 12 hours of really tough hiking! Hence the painful blue toe

The worst part is that you can’t give up on that track - there’s nothing out there… just total wilderness

Still, it was worth it for the views - these are the Vivian falls (yes named after some guys girlfriend or something)

We actually detoured to view the beautiful lake Michaelson (named after a colonial farmer I think).

Day 4 was certainly the most difficult, I had changed shoes as my hiking boots were destroyed by the scree, and ended up in a pair of hiking shoes that were far from ideal – hence the blue toe.

Though it was 12 hours – it was a glorious 12 hours through some of the most spectacular country I’ve ever hiked. Ever!

The so called Mt Kenya bandas lodge was a bit of a joke – we expected to have a noisy smoky bar full of Yahoos, and all that goes with ‘lodge’ but in fact it was just a rather poorly maintained set of cottages – but there were clean beds, hot water and a wonderful fire.

The next day we slept in, and had to be roused for the final 10 km hike to the car and then drive to Chogoria – and matatu (public minibus transport) back to Nanyuki. This part was an adventure in itself – suffice it to say that we made it (high speed, lots of shouting and banging,Bob Marley music blaring, watching the driver bribe police, crazy overtaking….). Getting back into my car was tough, my muscles had all seized into theat cramped position in the matatu – all other customers must have found it rather amusing to watch me.

The dashboard of one of the cars we ended up in! We drove all the way back to Nairobi and our house on the edge of the rift Valley getting home at 9 pm feeling really smug as we settled into our beds. We did it. What a great feeling!

Having done the mountain once, we’ve decided to do it again early next year. And, we’re planning to do something about the poor access to information about how to get there, and how amazing the local porters and guides are. We will do an online and printed guide book for the visitors like us to the Mountains of East Africa, for peopel who want to know about the people, local climbers, the flowers, the animals, the routes, geology and the mountain itself for ordinary people like us, to inspire everyone to go hiking. That means I have to do more hiking… got to replace those darned boots!

PS. the noisy athlete made it to the peak but appeared to be in considerable trouble on going back down (and I thought I was scared of heights!)

Tags: Climate change, climbing, glaciers, Kenya, Mount kenya, mountains

10 responses so far