Blog Action Day 2009 was an online event organized by Change.org. It was a virtual gathering of voices discussing climate change. Bloggers from a sampling of countries in Sub Saharan Africa were among those who posted their thoughts, and in this post, we get to listen to their voices.

Kenya

The blogger at Theatre of Inconveniences reminds readers to also think about wildlife and the species threatened with extinction due to climate change. The blogger also looks at the extreme weather situation in Kenya, with a drought that has lasted many months and the expected heavy rains.

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.

The blog Sukuma Kenya took UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) to task on its use of gas guzzling SUV's that release more CO2 into the atmosphere than smaller cars. The blogger wonders whether for one day, the UNEP officials would heed their own advice to cut CO2 emissions.

The blogger on Katch up shares their experience climbing Mt.Kenya, one of the few snow capped mountains in Africa. The blogger mentions changes in the ice coverage as pointed out by the tour guide, and also notices other changes in the environment. A brief story from the blogger's mother illustrates just how fast the environment has changed.

I come from a cold place and my mother tells me how fast certain types of crops used to grow, rain was abundant, seasons were more than one and it was colder. Not anymore. Those days were definitely better and we have been losing.

South Africa

Rory of Carbon Smart writes about community empowerment and climate change. The effects of climate change on the majority of Africans will be severe, and any strategies at dealing with climate change should provide support to the communities.

In Africa particularly, stresses are already being felt - climate change is not something that relates only to the future. The most vulnerable communities are those who struggle the most, as they are living on the edge - quite literally on the periphery of economic activity, whether they are subsistence farmers or urban slum dwellers. In this position, they don't have ‘wiggle room', or the flexibility to adapt their lifestyles to the changes they are experiencing. As a result, strategies for climate change adaptation must ensure that communities do have the means and understanding and support structures to enable them to keep ahead of environmental changes. A key point to be made is that the answer lies not primarily in technology or aid, but crucially in building relationships - institutionally, socially and financially.

Poetry and Poesie shares a poem on global warming

The bergs look limp
to me nowaseasons,
I shouldn't read
National Geographic,
that once was a tree
now covered in blinding shots
of glaciers gliding all the more
readily
sweating in the gloaming -
a new word I coined
for global warming.

I don't need to read
journalistic twilight musings,
I can see when a bear
is panting to death,
I can see the whales flail
in the a-krillic blue sea,
I know the götterdämmerung
is going to be a hot event
Inuitively.

Uganda

Climate Change. Its not just Koalas.

Rebecca writes on Jack Fruity about her experience in the Global Change exchange program, that will be documenting the effects of climate change and partnering with established bloggers in the Global Voices community.

It can be easy to forget that climate change is about more than trees and cuddly animals and fish swimming around in some distant ocean — all of which I care about, don't get me wrong (especially the cuddly animals). But climate change also has real, physical effects on humans: it's altering weather patterns in unpredictable ways, causing crops to fail for lack of rain in some places while floods wash away entire fields in others.

Ghana

Jemila Abdulai writes on Circumspecte blog, she looks at the climate change deniers, and those who believe it to be a hoax, debunks their arguments and sets forth the lessons for Ghana and Africa. The lessons include Information, Education and Accountability.

Ghana and other African countries are relatively better-off (I think) when it comes to pollution. How can we reduce what pollution we have, and how can we prepare for the future?

We should be doing our research and looking at all these models (failed or otherwise) to inform our own policy decisions. If we don't keep ourselves informed, we will have a situation similar to our current economic systems; we'll have policies, laws and structures that do not work for us. Already, many multi-lateral companies get away with polluting our countries without so much as a slap on the hand for this. That's where our concern should be: strengthening our legal structures to protect our environment and consequently, our population.

A great roundup of Ghanaian blog posts on Blog Action day is done by Mac-Jordan of Accra Conscious.

We end with the voice of ‘cuppatea' on the blog A colourful life of a Gay Kenyan:

So in summary, stop polluting, plant trees and be nature friendly! It will save mother nature and planet earth and you'll make nature fans like me globally happy! The future generation depends on nature. Positive action today, Better tomorrow for future generations.

Note: For previous Global Voices posts, kindly see these links.
- Reading the world on Blog Action Day
- Israel: Blog Action Day for the Environment

- Rising Voices summarizes blog posts from its grantees.

The United Nations Environment Program, which is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya launched the atlas earlier this week. A description from the UNEP site states

Kenya: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, produced at the request of the Kenya Government, provides visual and compelling evidence of the rapid changes taking place in the country's critical ecosystems due to pressures from human activities. The side-by-side display of historical and current remote-sensing images highlight forest degradation, wetland drainage, and shrinking lakes to the impacts of refugees on fragile ecosystems and signs of coastal degradation. The Atlas provides a good evidence base for strategic intervention by the government and communities.

Phil of Kenya Environment news blog points out the key conclusions from the 168-page Atlas, summarizes the key findings, and relates it to the UN's Millenium Development Goals, and Kenya's own Vision 2030. He writes…

One key finding of the Atlas is that achieving environmental sustainability is fundamental to achieving all the MDGs. Environmental resources and conditions have a significant impact on many aspects of poverty and development.
“One of the most powerful ways to help achieve the first MDG - eradicate extreme poverty and hunger - is to ensure that environmental quality and quantity is maintained in the long term,” the authors say.
For instance, poor people often depend on natural resources and ecosystems for income; time spent collecting water and fuelwood by children can reduce the time at school; and environment-related diseases such as diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection, leukemia and childhood cancer are primary causes of child mortality.
“Vision 2030, with its ambitious development blueprint, is a key opportunity for the Kenyan Government to address environmental challenges as a key element underpinning the country’s sustainability and development,” concludes the Atlas.

The Rafiki Kenya blog takes a closer look and asks ‘New Kenyan Atlas a waste of resources?', amongst other questions about the report's accessibility to the regular Kenyan. The blogger admits that the report looks nice and is very well done with some interesting information, but…

… if you dig into the atlas a bit deeper, there is really nothing new in there. Nothing we didn't know already, I would say. Even the video that comes with it is a bit disappointing: mostly things you can also see through Google Earth, and with a non-Kenyan voice-over.

Should the production of this atlas really have been such a priority for UNEP? Does it make sense to do more tests on a sick patient when you already know which disease s/he is suffering from? Instead of spending more money on doing more tests and producing additional test reports, you would start treating the patient, right? So I think that is what UNEP should have done now: start treating the sick patient. Start treating our threatened environment by promoting and facilitating practical interventions for example. Kenyans were not really waiting for yet another nice report to gather dust on the shelves.

Also, the report is not very accessible to the average Kenyan. OK, you can download and/or buy the report here. But which Kenyan is really able to download a file of 63 MB? Or which Kenyan can afford US$80 for the hardcopy? And this is without shipping charges from the UK by the way. Why a report which is about Kenya and which has been produced by an organization (UNEP) based in Kenya needs to shipped from the UK is still a mystery to me. Is this another case of hypocrisy at UNEP? The use of SUVs by UN staff in Nairobi has been rankling some bloggers for some time now.

This brings us to the next topic causing much rancor. The SUVs that the President and other dignitaries drove in to attend the high level meeting at the UNEP headquarters in Gigiri, at which the Atlas mentioned above was unveiled amidst talks on a ‘new green economy'. Dipesh of Sukuma Kenya blog writes…

“Low Carbon Economy”
What sort of vehicles do you think these 140 important people rocked up to the meeting in? Perhaps one of these?

No, doubt our Very Important People's Government of Kenyan wanted to make sure they can live up to the very high standards set by the United Nations. And of course we all know that there is no shortage of fancy cars donated by Kenyan citizens the GoK. Between January 2003 and September 2004, President Mwai Kibaki's government spent at least Kshs 878 million in the purchase of luxury cars that were largely for the personal use of senior government officials such as ministers, assistant ministers and permanent secretaries.

Dipesh recounts the experience had with UNEP officials when he tried to make them aware of how their messages urging others to reduce their carbon footprint while UNEP cars are largely SUVs with high CO2 emmissions. He also ties the misallocation of resources and corruption to the current food crisis in Kenya.

A comment left on the post gives a suggestion, with which we end this post:

Perhaps such meetings should have a shuttle service for all who attend, that way you reduce the number of individual vehicles that need to be used for transport. I wonder how that would go down. If GK and UNEP want to preach about creating a greener Kenya the logical 1st step would be to take the initiative and set an example? But i guess things don't work logically here in Kenya. I still don't understand why the government thinks it is above the civil society, my understanding of governments was that they were around to serve the people not the other way around.

Below is a trailer of the project, click to watch.

The site includes many more videos, interviews and interactive slideshows that depict changes in the glaciers of Mt. Everest.

We start with South Africa where the blog Urbansprout highlights the suspension Dr. Anthony Turton . Dr Turton is a researcher who was set to deliver a presentation at the conference “Science Real and Relevant” in Pretoria. He was barred from delivering the presentation, and later suspended by The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The blogger includes the presumed reason for his suspension as communicated by the CSIR, but also looks at the content of Dr. Turton's paper[pdf on environment.co.za], noting…

Taking a brief look at Dr Turton's paper, he argues that a lack of investment in science, engineering and technology (SET) since the early 1990's, the termination of important research projects and the shift to a contract driven income model has had a “catastrophic effect” on our national scientific capacity to deal with the technical challenges our water quality is facing.

There is also the question of academic freedom of scientists to present their findings. Urbansprout quotes a science journalist reacting to news of Dr. Turton's suspension.

Science journalist and former Journalism head of department of the University of Stellenbosch, Dr George Claassen asserted that the withdrawal of the presentation by the CSIR was an “absolute disgrace”. “This is a very serious encroachment on academic freedom and the right of scientists to announce their results, no matter how bad those results are for our view of things,” he commented. Claassen noted that academic and research freedom was protected under Section 16 of the constitution, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.

Urbansprout provides the link for an online petition in support of Dr. Turton and concludes:

Turton's report highlighted that South Africa could be headed for a water supply and water quality crisis that could negatively impact on the economic growth and development of the country, as well as lead to social unrest. The findings conflicted starkly with recent government assurances that South Africa was not facing a water crisis similar to the one prevailing in the electricity-supply sector.

A previous post on Urbansprout gives more information about the water crisis in South Africa, which is characterized by sewage seeping from municipal treatment works to rivers. The water from the rivers feeds into the local tap water system.

A WaterMill is described on the BLDG blog as a device that “uses the electricity of about three light bulbs to condense moisture from the air and purify it into clean drinking water.” Rory of The Carbon Smart blog links to the BLDG post, and considers ‘micro devices' like the WaterMill, and whether this could be a source of clean drinking water for urban areas. He writes:

Discussion about the WaterMill — a small-scale dehumidifier that collects and cleans water from the air — leads to conjecture not only about how much of our drinking water could come from the air, but also about whether the urban microclimate could be significantly altered by installing thousands of these low-energy devices. Could we do away with a significant number of energy-sapping air conditioners by making our environment more comfortable through a combination of better building design, appropriate clothing, vegetating the landscape and reducing the ambient humidity with thousands of WaterMills?

In East Africa, the Kenyan blog Kenvironews highlights a piece by Namhla Matshanda of the African Security Analysis Programme. The piece looks at the conflict over Migingo island in Lake Victoria, which is claimed by both Uganda and Kenya. The piece warns:

The so-called ‘scramble for fish’ in Lake Victoria is turning out to be a source of conflict between nations bordering the lake and could potentially threaten regional stability. In the past month alone there have been several incidents around the lake that have heightened tensions between Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. It is now apparent that the main source of these incidents is the lack of a clearly delimited and demarcated border between the three countries sharing Lake Victoria.

Since 2003, a number of Kenyan fishermen have been arrested and their boats and equipment confiscated by either Tanzanian or Ugandan authorities for “illegally crossing the common borders.” The latest incident happened when about 400 Kenyan fishermen were kicked out of Migingo island by Ugandan authorities. Migingo is claimed by both Uganda and Kenya. This incident has exacerbated the already strained relations between the two countries. The Kenyan fishermen have appealed to their political leaders to intervene, some even threatening violence.

Omar Basawad of Safari Notes says: Save The Mau Forest! He asks pointed questions about the future, and includes pertinent statistics given in reports from United Nations Environment Programme.

Will the Mau Forest be saved? Kenyan leaders and politicians, in a bid for votes, have always failed in reaching an agreement on the Forest; most have always put their political interests first, than the Forests. And that's what they continue to do now.

They do this, while an environmental disaster lies in waiting. ‘Effort should be made to save the forest because it is the source of lakes and rivers. Scientific reports say Lake Nakuru will be the first to dry,' recently said the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. Most Kenyan leaders and politicians know the dangers of not protecting the Mau Forest; but fearing in losing votes, they have always failed to act to save the Forest.

He concludes his post by saying

Isn't it about time for real action? It could be already too late; but better late, than wait for the disaster that would be.

The KenyaImagine blog provides an update of the political back and forth between members of parliament regarding the Mau Forest.

This one is heating up again. Over the weekend, a section of Rift Valley MPs endorsed the burning of questionnaires sent in from the Prime Minister's office, a task force that has been set up, and which sent the questionnaires (which questionnaires MPs declared illegal for not bearing the government's coat of arms). Today, the Minister for Culture and Heritage William ole Ntimama was at it, against his Agriculture counterpart and namesake and in support of the Prime Minister. He asked the Eldoret North MP not to think the Kalenjin of greater significance than other Kenyan communities and insisted that there ought to be no compensation for the evictions from the Mau, which evictions he heartily supported.

On the Kenya Environmental and Political news blog, Phil posts an article by Jenny Curtain that looks at forest management (and reclamation as is needed in Mau forest) as an investment opportunity. He writes,

News on Kenya’s forests were recently dominated by the eviction of squatters from the Mau forest. This may change as the country moves towards sustainable forestry. Jenny Curtain analyses the investment potential created by changes in Kenya’s forestry management and developments in the international carbon credit markets.

Part of Jenny Curtain's analysis makes the point that the key to sustainable forestry would be creating linkages between the carbon credit market and forest management. She writes that this can be accomplished by the tendering system of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS), which can take advantage of the carbon trading schemes as provided by the Kyoto protocol

If through the protection of existing forests via the new tender initiatives KFS can corner even a small piece of the voluntary carbon market, the financial and environmental rewards could potentially be enormous. This money would sustain Kenya’s forests into the future. With sensible management, the flow on benefits would be untold for both the protection of the forests and the surrounding communities. Income generated could then be used to upgrade infrastructure, replant degraded areas, fund clean energy schemes within the forests e.g. hydro electric, solar power etc. that in turn would generate more credits. Funds could also be used to resettle illegal forest dwellers within areas such as Kakamega and the Maasai Mau forests and to provide them with sustainable employment on the reforestation and other initiatives.

In another post that is marginally related to the Mau Forest, Kenvironews posts about Balancing Environmental Protection and the Community’s Socio-Economic Needs. The writer Donald Anthony Mwiturubani sees a disconnect between environmental policy makers and local communities. He advocates involving local communities in the decision making process.

Traditionally, policy and legislation formulation have been carried out at the national level without necessarily involving or holding consultations with key stakeholders including the local communities. Policy makers perceive local communities as lacking expertise to make informed decisions. This top-down approach leaves some key stakeholders unrepresented in the development agendas.

He proposes a solution to this disconnect:

There is, therefore, a need to strike a balance between the socio-economic needs of the local people and environmental protective objectives. To achieve this, full and active participation of key environmental related stakeholders, including local people at different levels of decision-making is one of the essential steps. This could be achieved through community awareness and outreach programmes in relation to environmental policies, laws and environmental protection and management in general. Thus, environmental protection and management issues need to be translated into understandable concepts for an ordinary person who often views environmental resources as gifts from God and hence her or she has the “birthright” to use them. Some crimes the local people commit against the environment may be due to lack of awareness.

Picture by Vagawi on flickr

UrbanSprout points to a report in Mail Online article that indicates lower fertility in mice fed on GM (Genetically Modified) maize

Dr Jurgen Zentek, Professor for Veterinary Medicine at the University of Vienna and lead author of the study, said a GM diet effected the fertility of mice.
One of the studies was a reproductive assessment by continuous breeding (RACB) trial, in which the same parent generation gave birth to several litters of baby mice. The parents were fed either with a diet containing 33per cent of GM maize, a hybrid of Monsanto's MON 810 and another variety, and a normal feed mix.
The team found changes that were 'statistically significant' in the third and fourth litters produced by the mice given a GM diet. There were fewer offspring, while the young mice were smaller.

Prof Zentek said there was a direct link between the changes seen and the GM diet.

Regarding Monsanto (a major producer of GMO seed) UrbanSprout deadpans…

Perhaps this is the environmentally friendly benefit of using GM seed that Monsanto has been touting - they're unwittingly helping to reduce population growth!

On Relax with Dax, the blogger contemplates the topic of GM foods as a solution to world hunger. He is very careful to see all sides of the issue. He says:

We all suffer from confirmation bias to some degree, but being aware of it can help us to avoid it at least partly. I actively try to expose myself to both sides of the story, especially topics which I feel strongly about. I feel very strongly that GM foods are a danger to our future, but I try to expose myself to the other point of view. For this reason I attended a presentation at the UCT Graduate School of Business which was pro GM. It was an interesting presentation and those who attended were enthusiastic in their support (except me).

Dax gives more information about the presentation he attended, and directly challenges Prof Chassy's assertions.

Prof. Chassy himself made the point strongly that all people who are against GM foods are just uneducated rabble who have no idea what is going on and those who are pro GM foods are very intelligent scientists. Not only is this an appeal to authority, it is also completely and utterly untrue. There are more scientists than I can count who are anti GM foods. Remember, we are not talking about research into genetic modification, we are talking about allowing GM foods to be released into the environment and eaten.

Prof Chassy spent some consideral time explaining to us that we will in the future be unable to grow enough food to feed the world’s population, a fact I can agree with. However, his proposal that GM foods will allow us to grow enough food, I do not agree with. In fact this is what this post is about. I want to show that contrary to Prof. Chassy’s comment that no scientists are anti GM, it is actually scientists who are saying that GM is not a solution to the impending food crisis and that in fact, organic and sustainable farming methods are a better option.

He lists links to reports by other scientists, and concludes by saying:

If one takes the time to do some research, it becomes evident that there are many scientists which do not see GMOs as the solution to our food problems. Activists are just the people who have taken on the task of informing the public.

UrbanSprout posts an in-depth documentary review of the film ‘World According to Monsanto'

I have watched a lot of documentaries on GM foods and Monsanto and although they each have their own style and there is always some new information, they generally cover a lot of the same material. This recently released documentary is not like that. It takes a very different angle, looking at the history of Monsanto and the way it operates, rather than focusing specifically on GM foods.

The blogger asks some pertinent questions and posts a link for others to watch the film online.

So after seeing all this evidence of Monsanto's lying and test fiddling, one has to ask the question: When they say GM foods are thoroughly tested (which they are not), does that actually mean anything? Even relying on social concience would be dangerous. Surely they wouldn't let GMOs be released if they knew there were harmful effects? Well, if they can watch people dying from exposure to PCBs outside their factory, while they continue to manufacture and pollute, then they are capable of doing anything.

The very interesting thing is this, when it comes out that GM foods are responsible for environmental problems, and human health issues, guess who is going to pay to fix it? The taxpayers, that's who. Monsanto will just carry on making money while we pay to clean up their mess.

How does this make you feel?
Watch online here.