The first impulse from the global South for the initial workshop in 2016 was given from the experiences from a journey made by Monika Treber and Ute Wannig to visit long-time project partners of CIL in Guatemala and Costa Rica in June 2016. The theme „Climate Change in Everyday Life – what do we know and how does it affect our actions?“ played a major role in the discussions with agents of civil society and the local population.
In general our focus in the various locations of the visit was on the question of the face of „climate change“ in the everyday lives of our hosts.
L like the topic “climate change in the everyday lives” , l think that it is an interesting one. In Cameroon for example,the dry and the rainy seasons are increasingly tough with climate change.Today during the dry season, the climate is warmer and drier than in the previous years , especially in the northern Cameroon which already knew a dry season of eight months and where populations are currently fearful of the drought and the desertification that would affect crops and would expose people to starvation.In the western part of the country,it is a completely different story.There, the crops are made on the flanks of the mountains and what is feared is the high rainfall that would destroy the crops and cause the decline of agricultural productions.Which will have the consequence of reducing the purchasing power of populations who mostly depend of the agriculture.
With climate change and the irresponsible attitudes of some people towards the natural environment ( such as pollution ), there is a decline of arable lands which is not specific to Cameroon but which is observed all over the world.But added to this the recent appeal launched by the president of the republic to Cameroonians , urging them to return to the agriculture has accentuated the “race to land” in my country, race in which the less privileged are still the losers.The reduction of arable lands due to climate change has implications over some social strata such as women. Women who were already having difficulties to acquire the land in Cameroon , saw their chances decrease day by day , but the are not the only losers in this “race to land”.
In Cameroon the “race to land” is not without consequences and often leads to land disputes in which the richest always win.In fact, some indigenous people have been deposited of their land sometimes by unconventional mechanisms and without real compensation to the benefit of the richest.
All this to say that climate change at the sight of its impacts on our lives , challenges us at the political, economic and social level.And with the scarcity of natural resources and arable land resulting from climate change, states need more than ever to put in place equitable policies for the sharing of natural resources if they want to preserve order and social peace.In addition, we must all wherever we are and whatever our social position be engaged in the fight against climate change, because it affects all of us , in one way or another , whether directly or indirectly.
July 3rd, 2015 Cameronians struck by the urban floods Carryforward from IRIN Published one July 3rd, 2015 — Original View © Sylvestre Tetchiada /IRIN the torrential rains which fell down on Douala, in Cameron, during the week of June 20th caused floods in the streets, the buildings and the houses of the city. © Sylvestre Tetchiada /IRIN Douala, July 3rd, 2015 (IRIN) – More than one week after the floods caused by the torrential rains which fell down on the economic capital of Cameroon, Douala, the city remains disaster victim. At least four people died and approximately 2,000 others were moved; thousands of residences and trade were destroyed. More than 30,000 inhabitants were directly affected. The electric poles laid down by ground are a dark recall which the city is always private of electricity; the muddy streets are strewn with carcasses of turned over cars, motorcycles, refuse and other remains. According to the ministry for the Habitat and urban Development (MINHDU) and the Delegation of the urban community of Douala, the amount of the damage rises to “several million dollars”. “Our life is broken”, said Arlette Mbappe, nurse a 39 years old. “I do not have any more a house. It is with me to occupy me of the repair of the damage, but to find food for my children became difficult. I would seek another housing well, but it became very difficult to find”. The tropical rains of monsoon and the floods which are followed from there are increasingly frequent in the south-west of Cameroon and the other countries located on the gulf of Guinea. The torrential rains claim more and more lives and damage each year. “The floods, as those which devastated our city, are increasingly current because of climate warming and they are taken into account like other factors such as the urbanisation and husbandries”, said Philippe Edimo, an engineer town planner who works at the Management of the French Central Meteorological Office (DMN) with Douala. Annual precipitations vary from one year to another, but Douala, for example, received 3,000 millimetres of rains on average a year between 1906 and 1965. They reached 3,200 mm in 1989 and 3 8 00 mm in 2010 before going down again to 3.080mm in 2014, according to the DMN. Between 1998 and 2006.4 200 people were assigned by the floods to Cameroon, according to the furnished information by the Database on the emergencies (Emergency Database Events, EM-DAT) of the Research centre on the epidemiology of the catastrophes. In 2007, more than 10,000 people were touched by the floods, against 25,000 in 2008 and approximately 52,000 in 2012. Town planning the experts allot this rise to the explosion of constructions and the growth of the urban population in the coastal regions. “The fast urbanisation and the insufficiency of the policies of the city contributed to the aggravation of socio-economic and environmental imbalances”, IRIN Mr. Edimo said. “And it is probable that the rise of the temperatures in the region will intensify the hydrological cycle [rains] which will result in more important and more frequent floods”. The results of national climatic simulations show that average annual precipitations in Cameroon could increase up to 35 percent between 2010 and 2050, and that the temperatures could increase at least two degrees. In spite of the warnings launched by the authorities and the adoption in 2004 of a law of town planning which prohibits constructions on unsuitable grounds “with the dwelling”, a good amount of buildings of the capital were built in floodplains. “People build buildings in zones at the risk because of their site of choice”, Christophe Edzimbi said, who works in the national geographical Center (CGN) of Yaounde. He added that the deforestation and the dredging of the sediments in the coastal regions contribute to the floods. Preventive measures Since long years, the government calls with the respect of the code of construction like to an improvement of the maintenance of the banks of the rivers and systems of drainage of the city. But the regulation is seldom applied and maintenance is irregular. “Taking into account the climate change, it is necessary to prohibit constructions and to better define the zones of construction”, said Joseph Beti Assomo, the governor of the littoral region of Cameroon. “We must also reduce the vulnerability of the existing buildings and carry out hydraulic and geological studies to draw up a map of the zones at the risk of flood”. Following the floods of last month, the government allocated 185 million dollars at the bottoms of the emergency Programme of rehabilitation and construction of the infrastructures of Douala. The government also announced the launching of a two month campaign to clean the gullies and the channels of drainage of Douala, and to demolish the slums built in the marshy zones, according to Fritz Ntone, representative of the delegation of the State for the Urban community of Douala. But a good amount of people think that these actions, if they are put in work, arrive too late. “At one moment, we thought that it was [rainwater which ran in the streets] the ocean which was going to submerge the city”, Jean Nouadjeu, 50 years said, which lost its housing and its trade. “My house is uninhabitable. I will have to rebuild it… Where will I find the money to do it, since all the goods stored in my store were destroyed? I was obliged to close shop. I am ruined”. st/jl/am-mg/amz Primary Ongoing country Cameroon Topic: Content recovery and Reconstruction format: News and Close Release Language: Standard French Disaster: Flood
Good evening UTE, I excuse myself for the delay but it is quite simply because I wanted to join to the text the videos but, it is today that one made me understand that I wasted time for nothing; that the site is conceived for the comments. I wish you good assizes ADELINE.