Browse by Theme: Resilience
As one of the estimated 30,000-40,000 people who took to the streets of London yesterday (as well as one of an estimated 570,000 people who protested across 161 countries) I am calling on governments of the world to take action on climate change URGENTLY. We cannot tackle poverty without tackling climate change – we have an urgent moral responsibility to stop the causes of climate change, and to help the most vulnerable to adapt to the impacts that are already locked into our climate system. This is not an environmental issue – this is a human rights issues.
Read more...
When I first worked in Kenya, 20 years ago, I saw how farming practices could provide a good life for men and women in rural villages even with little rainfall and where basic services, such as water and electricity were almost non-existent. Farmers and livestock keepers in the dry areas of Kenya have been, by necessity, resilient to difficult conditions. But this is at the cost of hard physical work over long hours on the farm alongside a constant search for additional income sources such as from small business activities just to feed the family and send children to school.
20 years on, rural communities are still dependent on the land but are now facing new challenges from the effects of climate change. Perhaps the biggest impact is the increased uncertainty of the weather patterns. Farmers are no longer sure when to plant, where to take animals for good grazing or when they will be affected by the increasing frequency of droughts and floods. This places a new demand on already vulnerable people. How can they adapt to climate change in the face of all this uncertainty?
Read more...