Human beings are a mean lot when it comes to preserving nature.
The economically powerful nations, who rule the roost, are polluting the earth with impunity through carbon emissions and other associated pollutants.
A cursory look at a research conducted by Adaptation at Scale in Semi-arid regions (ASSAR) in Botswana, Namibia and Malawi has revealed that both climate and human induced activities have contributed in the impacts of climate change.
The research particularly focused on three regions of Bobonong(Bobirwa) and the surrounding areas, Onesi Community region(Namibia) and Thyobo municipalities(Malawi) respectively.
Interestingly, some lessons have been learnt and adaptation has been considered.
A video documentary on the Bobirwa research highlights that the area’s research by ASSAR was undertaken on three key areas of: past trends on climate change; Impacts of the trends on various sectors and the livelihood, as well as projections- what the future would be like after such trends.
Principal Investigator from the University of Botswana, Professor Hillary Masundire explains that their five year project focused on status of the key ecosystem services in the area. This covered water, timber, Phane Caterpillars, palm trees that are used by women for basket weaving and for brewing alcohol as well as availability of farming land.
The project started with consultation for community engagement which led to identification of key stakeholders.
Through house to house surveys researchers could identify different stakeholders. It was evident that the rural dwellers, which are more vulnerable to climate change than urban dwellers had a lot to share with various stakeholders on their experiences.
Farmers proved to be aware of climate change and how people contribute on the situation. For instance, Peter Mavena, a farmer in the area underscored that, “As Babirwa and even Batswana as a whole we misuse land. There are many Batswana, who need land, yet there are others who have lot of land, but it is lying bare, underutilized! We used to believe before the ASSAR research that land in the Thuli Block area- large scale farms -was more fertile than ours. That the land is discriminately awarded! The research has since revealed that the fertility of the land is just the same as ours. Those farmers know how to effectively utilize land.” He added that livestock farmers practice overgrazing. This has led to frequent droughts in the area even when in the past years it rained above average.
Nelly Raditloaneng, a member of the ASSAR team highlighted that ecosystem was found to be declining as demand for land led to decline in mopane caterpillars. Cases of gender specific incidences were noted. Sometimes women dependency on natural resources were to be higher than men’s and sometimes men’s demand for land, especially for farming was higher than women’s.
The research also seeks to establish whether policies by the government provide resilience or they just provide temporary solutions.
An article titled: Building transformative capacity in southern Africa: Surfacing knowledge and challenging structures through participatory Vulnerability and Risk Assessments (VRA) indicate that in Botswana, the good results of the VRA exercise in Bobirwa, together with strategic efforts by the University of Botswana, caught the attention of national level government officials, who proposed running a national level training in Mahalapye in August 2018.
The ASSR focused on the following under livelihoods: Commercial and small-scale and subsistence livestock and crop farming; Mophane caterpillars; vegetable trading; handicrafts and social grants.
The research engaged stakeholders that include Policy makers; local and district government officials; NGOs, community leaders; farmers and mopane caterpillar harvesters; church groups; community-based organizations and unemployed youth.
Under selected vulnerabilities and some of the impacts of climate change the research covered drought, reduction in water, crop yields, fodder, mopane caterpillars and wildlife species as well as inadequate alternatives to agriculture-based livelihoods, which create fewer options for income generation.
For Malawi Tea industry ASSAR focused on Smallholder (small scale) tea growing and commercial or estate tea growing; community entrepreneurs; skilled and unskilled labour. Also covered are Tea estate managers; international and domestic tea traders and retailers; national and district government; local police force; civil society organisations; union representatives; community members as well as NGOs.
Furthermore it focused on reduced quantity and quality of tea produced, income, food security, access to water. Secondly, low wages, harsh treatment and sexual harassment of tea workers.
For Namibia focus was on Commercial and small-scale and subsistence livestock and crop farming; non-timber forest products; like the Mopane caterpillars and Morula fruits; fish harvesting; handicrafts; social grant.
Under ASSAR engaged stakeholders like Onesi community, the traditional authority, Red Cross, the SCORE project, the Onesi Constituency Development Committee, the Onesi Constituency Office, Olushandja Horticulture Association, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry and Omusati Regional Council.
And for selected vulnerabilities, ASSAR focused on drought; reduced crop yields, fodder, water and grass, non-timber forest products; as well as increased livestock mortality and loss of wildlife.
In addition to developing new relationships, stakeholders who do not usually speak to one another were exposed to each other’s views in a safe and informal space for dialogue.
This helped not only in conveying information from the bottom up, but also from powerful stakeholders to those with less power.
In Botswana, a series of engagements emerged from the VRA. The sub- district’s economic planner attended the initial workshop and asked the team from the ASSAR project to consider convening another VRA workshop within the sub-district. He wanted staff to gain competence in running a VRA process so that the sub-district council could use the methodology for future planning, with the intention of undertaking genuinely bottom-up development planning processes.
“This ‘adoption’ of VRA as a planning tool by the sub-district management can be a significant contribution towards transformation, which crystallized in a national-level event where economic and planning officers from all districts of the country were trained on VRA in August 2018; with co-funding provided by the Government of Botswana. Subsequently, a national newspaper featured a speech by the Acting Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration who endorsed the VRA, saying that it made development planning participatory, representative and inclusive, ” states the article.
This indicates high-level buy-in to the process, which is essential for transformation. Separately, the ASSAR team was also invited to contribute to the District Development Plan (DDP) by adding a chapter on climate change.
Through the different workshop processes, new light was shed on how different hazards and risks play out in the three landscapes studied, how the impacts of these hazards manifest to affect social groups differently, and some of the underlying factors making people vulnerable. Because of the nature of the VRA process, adaptation responses were explored in the context of the larger developmental challenge in the Southern Africa region, and from a diverse range of perspectives. In so doing, the process allowed a shift in understanding climate change as a biophysical challenge alone, to understanding it as a social issue, largely determined by existing power and governance arrangements. It also emphasized the need to include a spectrum of knowledge sources to reach an optimal understanding of the problems at hand.
Discussions were promoted wherein stakeholders with the least power would have a safe and welcoming environment to speak, as well as enough time to do so. Scientific jargon was avoided and participants were encouraged speaking in mother tongue and using vernacular language among stakeholders. Translators were available to assist when language was an obstacle, and in cases where less powerful groups seemed more comfortable discussing their ideas in small groups and voicing their consensus through a neutral translator, rather than a group representative, this was done. This bottom-up, participatory approach is fundamental to the VRA process.
Thus, the ambition behind conducting the VRA in Botswana, Malawi and Namibia has not just been to understand vulnerability in a social-ecological landscape that faces both high impacts from climate and environmental change and considerable challenges around marginalization and governance.
