AlertNet Climate in Translation: Recent Episodes
AlertNet Climate in Translation
AlertNet Climate in Translation explores – in languages from Kiswahili to Urdu - how climate change is impacting the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.
Stories are created by contributors from more than 50 developing countries and edited to exacting Reuters standards by our team at the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Support for the project comes from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network.
These audio stories may be reproduced or aired free of charge by radio and television stations, educational groups and other users, with credit given to AlertNet Climate.
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"Pakistan must tap these unutilised vast underground reserves of 175 billion tonnes of coal, adequate to meet the country's energy needs for several decades," Pakistani Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal says.
coal #dirtyenergy #dirtyfuel #Pakistan #cleanenergy #renewable energy
Many farmers are adopting drip irrigation and laser levelling to conserve water, but costs for these technologies are out of reach for poor farmers
Climatechange #climatesmartfarming #adaptation #agriculture #Pakistan #water
Safety net of cash transfer payments helps persuade families that are investing in girls education and making good economic sense
Schools in #Pakistan normally reopen on Jan. 1, but this year many parents, particularly in central and northern Pakistan, were reluctant to send their children as temperatures remain unusually low.
Some parents and teachers have urged the government to extend the normal two-week winter holiday to protect the health of both children and teachers – a measure some schools have already taken.
Climatechange #globalwarming #heatwave #children #weatherpatterns #schools #adaptation
A herders' borehole is helping protect the lives of thousands of children and animals as a new drought hits #drought #climatechange #Kenya #water
Traders are using camels to clear food waste in Kenya. #foodwaste #Kenya #climatechange
A reliable green power supply for lighting, rides and irrigation is bringing visitors back to the park, at a time when Pakistan's grid suffers frequent outages #Pakistan #solar #Urdu#climatechange
Cyclists are taking to the streets of the Pakistani capital, after the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation officially opened dedicated bike lanes for the first time, aiming to promote a greener environment and better public health. #cycling #Pakistan #climatechange
In late October, the Pakistan Meteorological Department informed Khan and other farmers that no rain was forecast for the crucial wheat-growing months of November and December in parts of northern Pakistan that rely solely on rain-fed agriculture.
The warning was one of the first of its kind from Pakistan's weather service, aimed at helping farmers look ahead months, rather than just days, and plan for crops more likely to survive drought.
Pakistan #Drought #Rainfall #climatechagne #adaptation #agriculture #water #wheat
Pakistan's new national plan, set to be put into action next year, aims to reduce the risk schools, teachers and students face by improving construction standards for schools, creating disaster management plans, holding evacuation drills, and raising awareness of the risks through things like speaking competitions and painting exhibitions.
An effort to boost large-scale solar energy production in Pakistan has hit a roadblock after the government cut the rate it pays for solar electricity, frustrating investors. #solar #energy #Pakistan http://news.trust.org/item/20160919141421-tluna
The urban poor in Kigali are adopting rural communal system to survive environmental pressures in the city.
Pakistan will invest $8.5 million to expand a network of glacier monitoring stations tracking the pace of glacial melt in the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalayan mountain ranges, in an effort to strengthen early warning systems and reduce the impact of flooding in the South Asian country.
First locally bred hybrid varieties are yielding more than expected, and could boost food security in Africa
Farmers in Kenya's eastern and northern drylands have found a way to stay afloat as water becomes scarcer: cultivating catfish.
Efforts to store water have been so successful families are now using extra water to grow crops for export
Politically linked logging is putting pressure on Mt. Kenya forest due to land controversy.
After nearly 1,300 people died in extreme heat last year, the city is stepping up preparations for this summer #HeatWave #Pakistan
Pumping irrigation water using biogas rather than diesel is bringing economic and health gains in Punjab
Building companies are trying out polystyrene construction which offers good insulation, and uses less water and wood
Pakistan is spending $4 billion a year on cotton imports to support its ailing textile industry, after erratic rainfall and drought in the country's cotton fields slammed growers and the country's economy, officials say. #Drought #Cotton #Textile
Religious leaders have the moral standing to call on people and businesses to consider the environmental impact of their activities and take a bigger role in reducing their own carbon footprints and finding ways to cope with the growing impacts of climate change, experts said at a multi-faith meeting in Islamabad.
High fuel prices are driving poor Kenyans to adopt biogas generation as an alternative energy source.
Wheat farmer Nasir Tauqeer Khan would rather be home working in his fields. But since January, with Pakistan's rains failing, he has labored instead at a construction site in Islamabad.
The village's community-run micro hydropower station - built in 2008 by the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme - produces about 190 kilowatts of electricity an hour.
That's enough to supply power to 144 homes in Ahmedabad and nearly 110 in the nearby villages of Sultanabad and Faizabad.
Robina Gul has swapped her needle for a trowel. Until recently, the villager from northern Pakistan got by making clothes for family weddings and religious festivals, but now she is encouraging other women to set up tree nurseries like hers that can earn them a handsome monthly income. #Pakistan #Forest #PTI
The four-year, $7.6 million project, which focuses on Bagrot valley in Gilgit-Baltistan and Bindo Gol valley in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, has since 2011 built flood diversion walls around more than 10 vulnerable villages.
Some of the barriers are made up of concrete steps, while others use stone-filled wire-mesh cages to divert floodwater, debris and ice away from buildings and land and instead direct it into the rivers flowing through the valleys.
glof #climatechange #Gilgit #Chitral #Pakistan
When flood waters four feet deep inundated this village in southern Pakistan for a month this summer, 80 percent of the 251 thatched houses remained safely above water.
For years, residents of this remote village in the highly flood-prone Layyah district, had seen their homes repeatedly inundated.
Fed up, they finally took matters into their own hands and rebuilt their homes on raised dirt platforms five to six feet (1.5-1.8 metres) high, shored up with eucalyptus trees planted around the edges.
Fisherman Muhammad Yusuf's family has been living on the island of Hajamaro, just over three miles off the coast of southern Pakistan, for generations. But the island that was once a happy home has now become a prison. #migration #climatechange #island
For rice farmers in Pakistan, learning how to plant seed directly in his fields - rather than transplanting seedlings, as they have for centuries in parched Punjab province - is helping him manage scarce water better and get a decent crop.
Mir Muhammad's family had reason to celebrate: after the harvest of their rice crop, they were planning to throw a wedding. But then flash floods hit their three-hectare farm, washing away the family's sole source of income and their dreams of the big day. #ClimateChange #Theatre #Pakistan #Agriculture http://www.trust.org/item/20151020052826-3wr3s/?source=search
Pakistani researchers have developed a portable, solar-powered mobile phone network for use in disasters like floods and earthquakes when regular communications are often disrupted. #Solar #Disaster #Communication
Roof-top solar water heaters are gaining popularity as a cheap, easy, and green alternative to wood and kerosene
As the sun sets and darkness falls over a village outside Bahawalpur, Shama Bibi switches on her solar lantern and starts sewing clothes for an upcoming family wedding. #Solar #Energy #Pakistan
Pakistan has reinforced its weather forecasting services since massive floods struck five years ago, but government agencies are struggling to act on the information, with extreme weather continuing to bring new disasters.
Northern Kenya takes advantage of erratic weather to take education to marginalized girls.
Sabir Majeed, 59, had been fasting for Ramadan amid Karachi's 45-degree Celsius heat wave when he became dehydrated and fainted Monday afternoon. http://www.trust.org/item/20150625150249-n8sar/?source=jtDontmiss
At the Marsabit-Lake Turkana Cultural Festival in Kenya's Marsabit County, Mariam Lemuska is not listening to the drums or the music. Instead, she is learning to make injera, an Ethiopian sourdough flatbread.
Lemuska, 39, comes from a pastoralist community that survives mainly on meat, milk and animal blood. But worsening drought is increasingly leading to more animal deaths, and Lemuska, of El Molo, is ready to look for new ways to feed her family.
When the government of Kenya began giving cash instead of food aid to poor people in Kenya's drought-stricken northern region, the aim was to help them buy food more efficiently and conveniently.
But the cash-transfer programme has had an unexpected effect: Most of the recipients of the cash have used it to start small businesses, which they see as the best way of adapting to increasingly tough climatic conditions.
Until recently, Ghulam Mustafa made a living growing sugarcane, rice, barley and wheat on his 10-acre farm in Punjab province. But these days he is struggling. http://www.trust.org/item/20150610104123-4e301
Agriculture #Pakistan #Water #Farmers #Water
Farmers all over Pakistan are suffering the same heartbreak, as a season of unusually heavy rain and cold weather continues to destroy crops across the country.
climate #rainfall #mitigation #adaptation #water #wheat #Pakistan
Punjab province is set to launch an innovation for water-short Pakistan: Solar-powered ATMs that dispense clean water when a smart card is scanned. http://www.trust.org/item/20150514094355-62gat/?source=search
Under an agreement reached at the first meeting of the National Climate Change Policy Implementation Committee in late April, climate change sections will be established within the federal Planning Commission and the five provincial governments as well as Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu & Kashmir, to coordinate climate change policy and funding.
climate
It is the top of the hour at ten o'clock in the morning and, broadcasting from the top of Esibila hill in Western Kenya, Moses Ombogo is telling farmers to prepare for early rains.
Fresh produce farming among the Samburu of Kenya is changing their fortunes and enriching their children's nutrition.
For decades, illegal loggers have been hacking away at the forests of Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan while facing few penalties, but that's changing now. #Forests #Deforestation #Pakistan http://www.trust.org/item/20150323104159-omv2e/?source=search
In response to the mounting threat, hazard watch groups have been set up in each village in Bagrot under a $7.6 million project launched in 2011 to address the risk of glacial lake outburst floods.
Financed by the U.N. Adaptation Fund and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme and the Pakistani government, the project aims to reduce the vulnerability of mountain communities to glacial lake floods.
disaster #climatechange #glacier
For Nadir Shah, potatoes have been a blessing - and also a curse. http://www.trust.org/item/20150313063316-63cuy/
Potato #Food #Adaptation #ClimateChange
Pakistan's northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province plans to supply solar power to 5,800 off-grid households in 200 villages, promoting clean energy amid conventional electricity shortages. #Solar #Energy #KP #PTI http://www.trust.org/item/20150218094340-yj7hs/?source=search
A water harvesting technology cushions a rural community in Kenya from erratic rainfall.
Worsening drought has led to over 80 percent of water resources in Pakistan's southern Tharparker district becoming unfit for people to drink, a new study says.
That has led to plans by the Sindh provincial government to invest 5.4 billion Pakistani rupees ($53 million) in installing 750 solar-powered reverse osmosis water purification plants across the sprawling desert district, to help get safe drinking water to the region's over 1.5 million people.
Vifo vya kuku vyachangia mfugaji kuku kujitoza kwenye biashara ya nishati endelevu nchini Kenya
Pakistani farmers have dismissed a government-backed electricity subsidy for agricultural consumers as a political stunt, calling instead for a financial assistance package for fertilisers, seeds and pesticides. http://www.trust.org/item/20150108092536-2r1kx/
The approval of net-metering - which allows solar panel purchasers to sell power they produce to the national grid - is a major breakthrough that could spur use of solar energy and help Pakistan's government cut power shortages in the long run, said Asjad Imtiaz Ali, chief executive officer of the Alternative Energy Development Board, a public organisation. http://www.trust.org/item/20150106103012-w8hy3/?source=search
A surge in illegal logging is devastating native forests in coastal Tanzania's Rufiji district, despite efforts by authorities to curb forest losses, officials say
Hay bailing is an innovation that is gaining following among pastoralists communities to cut their livestock losses when drought sets in. The hay is used to feed the livestock during these harsh times.
PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf, a governing party in Pakistan's northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa plans to build as many as 356 micro-hydroelectric power projects in the province's mountain villages.
Former state minister for the environment, Malik Amin Aslam Khan, is the brain behind the ambitious plan, which is part of the PTI's Green Growth Initiative (GGI), launched earlier this year. The GGI aims to boost the province's socio-economic development by efficiently using natural resources without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Pakistan has launched a state-of-the-art system to help farmers calculate their crop losses to extreme weather more accurately and support the government in tackling hunger and malnutrition.
The National Nutrition Survey 2013 showed that some 60 percent of Pakistan's population is food-insecure - lacking access to adequate supplies of nutritious food - and half of women and children in these households are malnourished.
An estimated 35 percent of child deaths under the age of five in Pakistan are linked to malnutrition.
http://www.trust.org/item/20141128083628-mk8y3/?source=fiOtherNews3
Since India’s Jammu and Kashmir state was hit in September by its worst-ever floods, which also affected people on Pakistan’s side of the disputed border, the two rival nations are under growing pressure to put aside their differences to protect Kashmiris from rising disaster threats. #DRR
Groundwater resources, used to supply Pakistan's growing population with water for agriculture, drinking and sanitation, are depleting rapidly. Such underground reserves usually are replenished naturally by rain and melting snow.
But experts warn that the short, intense rainfall that is becoming common during Pakistan's monsoon season between June and September results in more runoff, giving the water less time to percolate into the ground.
Scientists at the Pakistan Meteorological Department say weak and moderate rainfall provides the most groundwater recharge - but unfortunately that type of weather is becoming a rarity, they say.
According to a 2011 report published by the International Energy Agency, 38 percent of Pakistan's population lacks access to electricity.
Failure of staple crop farming is forcing Ethiopia's peasants to migrate to ranches to look for work. But they are exposed to emerging health challenges there.
Farmers join the push for a referendum to rally for more grassroots funding on climate chnage
In Zimbabwe, billion dollar Chinese-financed thermal project are seen providing long-term solution to a long-running energy crisis
Zimbabwe #thermal #energy
Pakistan has yet to implement a national plan to deal with natural disasters, experts say, leaving the country struggling to cope with its fourth major floods in five years.
Hammered out at a meeting of the National Disaster Management Commission (NDMC) in 2012, the ambitious 10-year blueprint for tackling disasters has yet to be approved because the commission has not met since.
disaster #floods #Pakistan #NDMA #NDMC
“Along with my family, I would have been dead for sure had the military helicopter not arrived,” said Zulfiqar Ali, one of those rescued in Jhelum.
Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change is being made worse by poor governance and the degradation of its natural resources, jeopardising the food security, health and livelihoods of its poorest citizens, climate change experts claim.
A multi-million-rupee initiative is protecting sloped land around Ayubia National Park, using techniques such as erecting brushwood , building check dams and restoring vegetation and tree cover.
A forest monitoring system that uses text messaging on mobile phones has helped the Ugandan government to intercept six cartels involved in forest crimes, within just four months of its launch.
As farmers move toward growing crops designed to meet growing world demand for food and stand up to tougher climate conditions, they may inadvertently be worsening malnutrition, scientists say.
Worsening energy shortages in Pakistan are driving politicians in Punjab, the largest and most energy-hungry state, to back a surge in spending on renewable energy, the latest budget figures show.
In Pakistan, experts worry that a large-scale shift to rice in southern Pakistan could ultimately be a failed adaptation to worsening climate impacts. The levels of underground aquifers that feed agricultural irrigation are dropping, as is the flow of the Indus River, a lifeline for Pakistan’s agriculture.
All over Islamabad, tall trees are being felled as part of a planned expansion of the Metro Bus Service. That's drawn the anger of experts and citizens who say the project goes against Islamabad's policy for climate-resilient development.
Plans announced by the Pakistani government to more than double the country’s power output by building upwards of 15 coal-based power plants have drawn strong criticism from environmentalists who fear the consequences for the environment.
Due to pressure from the international community to adopt a green economy, Kenya embarks on creating climate villages to feed its renewable energy needs.
In a country still recovering from the genocide that led to the deaths of a fifth of its population 20 years ago, smallholder farmers have found hope in a new wave of cooperatives that are already improving living standards in Rwanda.
Kenya is in the final stage of enacting a new climate change law, expected to be approved in the coming months. At the same time, the private sector is preparing to tap significant oil reserves in the north. Will the hunt for fossil fuels thwart Kenya’s efforts to go green and curb its carbon emissions?
Experts at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) and senior weather observers posted at stations in Pakistan's Upper Indus Basin (UIB) say last winter's snowfall in most of the valleys of the Gilgit-Balistan province was as much as 70 percent below that of previous years.
A Kenyan government plan to increase the country's forest cover by giving local people incentives to plant and preserve trees is paying off, resulting in more productive farmers and a landscape better able to cope with the changing climate.
Pakistan needs a minimum storage capacity of 40 percent of the 115 million acre-feet of water available in the Indus River system throughout the year. But the country’s storage capacity is only 7 percent and is decreasing due to sediment build-up in reservoirs.
Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa, who farm some of the least fertile land on the continent, have developed a training manual to encourage more sustainable farming practices among millions of African Muslims facing a threat to their food security from climate change
After years of struggling to make their living growing coffee, smallholder farmers around the Mt. Kenya region are shifting their focus to bananas and investing in irrigation in the hopes of taking the thirsty crop to the export market.
A political party led by former cricketer Imran Kahn has launched an ambitious effort to bring economic growth while using forest and other resources sustainably in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
A prolonged drought – the third in the region since 2011 – is pushing a growing number of families to flee parched Tharparker district with their surviving cattle to water storage barrage areas in the north of Sindh province, where water and grazing is available.
An entrepreneurial Kenyan engineer has produced a machine that enables farmers to defy changing weather conditions and earn good profits by switching from traditional food crops to sisal, which thrives in semi-arid regions and needs no fertilizer.
Ukadiriaji wa viwango vya gesi chafuzi shambani huenda ukawa na manufaa, wanasayansi wasema. A project to measure greenhouse gas emissions by smallholder farmers is underway in Kenya. It will help come up with data that has been lacking on emissions by these farmers, which in turn will assist in formulating appropriate policies in the face of climate change.
In an effort to improve food security in the face of climate change, the government of Kenya has embarked on an ambitious irrigation farming project on one million acres of land, a move that will see the country double its maize production in five years time.
Faced with a chronic power shortage that is curbing economic growth, Pakistan is tapping some of its enormous potential for hydropower in the country's north
“I don’t think any conservation efforts will really save Pakistan’s rapidly shrinking forests as long as the government does not with the timber mafia with an iron fist,” said environmentalist Ghulam Ali, who lives in Chilas, 211 km (132 miles) north of Islamabad.
“It is really heartening to see that the lack of (electric) power is driving innovation that might not otherwise have come about,” said Arif Allahudin, former head of the government-owned Alternative Energy Development Board in Islamabad.
Although Pakistan produces enough rice to meet both its domestic and export needs, the country’s longer-term food security is at risk, as demand for the staple crop continues to grow and increasingly extreme weather threatens yields.
Parliamentarians from South Asian countries at a December conference in Islamabad have agreed to on climate change adaptation and mitigation programmes, and to generate national and regional policy recommendations for climate action.
Rural Kenya develops appetite for GMOs as climate change continues to cause uncertainties.
Flood-prone streams that until recently threatened the lives, incomes and properties of mountain communities in Pakistan’s Hunza-Nagar valley are now much less dangerous
Pakistan has drawn national and global attention for a record-breaking number of mangrove trees to conserve its coastal environment, but experts are raising doubts about the country’s ability to keep the saplings alive
Pakistan's climate-resilient plan calls for reviewing existing building and energy codes
Expanding the use of climate-smart farming techniques could help reduce the difference between the amount of greenhouse gases the world can emit by 2020 if it wants to avoid dangerous climate change and the larger quantity likely to be produced without tougher steps
An innovative Kenyan scheme enables small farmers to store their produce in certified warehouses and use it to obtain credit from banks
Wheat farmers in East Africa are benefiting from new varieties developed to be resistant to a devastating wheat disease
Utafiti kuhusu mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa na utoaji mafunzo zakumbwa na changamoto nchini Kenya
Appetite for modern homes is putting a lot of pressure on the environment in Kenya, but there are a few who reckon they have a green solution.
Mango farming convinces struggling Kenyans they can still make ends meet without destructive activities such as charcoal burning.
In the mountains of northern Pakistan, some farmers say rising temperatures are giving them bumper harvests, even as climate and agricultural experts worry about the consequences of warming for the glaciers that are vital for the country’s irrigation.
Farmers in Gilgit-Baltistan, a mountain province in northern Pakistan, say owing to erratic weather patterns, the area under the staple crops in most of Gilgit-Baltistan province in UIB has shrunk alarmingly, and vegetables are now being grown as cash crops.
Sacred forests, which have mainly been protected by indigenous communities following traditional beliefs, are among the few remaining forest ecosystems that have been spared by loggers, but they are increasingly under threat, scientists warn.
Sacredforests #India #Thailand #Kenya #Conservation #Climate
Kenyans discover new ways of solving the water problem while ensuring the continued conservation of natural resources.
“When traffic signals shut down during load-shedding hours, it is the wardens who have to handle vehicular traffic congestation for hours, said Bilal Raza, a 45-year-old traffic warden, standing beneath the solar-powered traffic signal at the Aabpara roundabout.
The solar-powered signals are “helping us manage traffic jams that are a nightmare for us,” he said.
Ayesha Fatima, a 29-year-old widow with two small children, burst into tears of delight when she was handed the key and ownership papers for her new home, a two-room, single-storey, disaster-resilient brick building.
Her former home, a mud-brick house, was washed away by devastating floods in 2010, forcing the family to flee for their lives, abandoning everything they owned except two goats.
While living in a makeshift tent outside a nearby primary school, Fatima’s husband died of pneumonia and she was reduced to begging to survive, she told Thomson Reuters Foundation in muted tones.
The village where Fatima now lives - ‘Basti Hote Lashari’ in Taunsa town in Dera Ghazi Khan district, 405 km (250 miles) from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad - is one of 22 model villages built to replace homes washed away by the floods.
As the monsoon brings seasonal downpours and floods across Pakistan, Sialkot - 192 km (122 miles) from Islamabad – is the worst-hit district in Punjab province, in terms of fatalities and property damage.
An estimated 200 villages in Sialkot are waist-deep in floodwater, which has damaged homes and public infrastructure, as well as rice, cotton and vegetable crops on thousands of acres, according to local disaster officials.
A local radio show targeted at farmers in northern Tanzania is helping onion and rice growers adapt to shifting weather patterns, Kizito Makoye reports.
climate #climatechange #adaptation #farming #radio #media
Africa faces significant governance challenges in managing funds for climate change projects, but civil society can play a part in making sure the money is used properly, reports Madalitso Mwando.
climate #finance #governance #civil society
With funding from the Climate Investment Funds, the government of Kenya is taking advantage of a volcanic opening near the Rift Valley town of Nakuru to generate electricity using hot steam from the earth’s crust to run turbines. Isaiah Esipisu reports.
Menengai, Geothermal energy, climate fund, climate change, Kenya, World Bank, Africa Development Bank
Residents of some rural communities in Western Kenya can now access clean piped water at their doorsteps, thanks to solar-powered engines that pump it from borehole wells. Isaiah Esipisu reports from Kakamega.
Solar energy, Kenya, Water
The above-normal monsoon rains in Punjab’s northeastern districts have taken weather experts by surprise.
“Last month, we predicted that this year monsoon rains across the country would remain normal with no possibility of flooding. But unexpected heavy rains in the northeastern districts are startling for us,” said Ghulam Rasul, a senior weather scientist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) in Islamabad. “This shows how monsoon rains have become erratic and unpredictable in timing, volume and intensity.”
A sharp cut in government funds for Pakistan’s main climate change agency may mean little to thousands of people in homes perched along a flood-prone river in the city of Rawalpindi. But it could tip them into crisis during the monsoon season that has just begun.
Falling yields forced rice farmer Shamsuddin Bin Rus to consider abandoning his land and moving to the city to find work as a labourer.
But his 41-year-old wife, Kaswati, came to the rescue by participating in a loan programme that enabled her to start her own small business selling jackfruit snacks.
For Hira Pulami, seeing the charred trunks of the precious pine trees he grew up with is a cause of lingering pain. But he is hopeful that Nepal’s new forest-fire detection system will help avoid a repeat of the recent catastrophe that struck his Seti Devi village - 6 km southwest of Kathmandu.
Pakistan in recent weeks has suffered its most severe heat wave in decades, with temperatures reaching as high as 51 degrees Celsius (124 Farenheit) on May 19 in Larkana, a city of two million people in southern Sindh province. This was the highest temperature for that month recorded there since 1998, when the mercury had peaked at almost 53 Celsius (127 Fahrenheit).
Newar and her fellow residents of Jhirpu Phulpingkatti, a village some 112 km (70 miles) northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, live perched on the bank of the Bhote Koshi River. The river is prone to sudden, devastating floods that can swamp fields, carry away livestock and even kill those who do not manage to flee to higher ground. But they now enjoy a sense of safety thanks to an early warning system for floods installed by the Bhote Koshi Power Company (BKPC) at its hydropower plant on the river.
Experts warn of diseases passed from animals to people are on the rise due to climate change and decline in arable land.
Earth dams prove to be a simple water harvesting technology in arid Kenya, but illegal sand harvesting remains a challenge.
A new telephone hotline in Bangladesh that gives advance warning of bad weather could be put to the test in coming days as a tropical storm threatens to reach hurricane strength over the country.
The availability of safe drinking water, particularly in Bangladesh's “hard-to-reach areas,” is expected to worsen as the country continues to suffer the effects of climate change, experts say.
Islamabad is enjoying abundant water supplies for the first time in a dozen years after record winter rainfall. But experts warn that reforestation and better water management are needed in the long term for the Pakistani capital’s growing population.
Pakistan’s government has boosted the funding of a state institution that researches the impacts of climate change, and granted it autonomy, in an effort to increase the quality of its recommendations on climate resilience for government policy and programmes.
The Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) will focus on research aimed at helping sectors such as water, agriculture, forestry and health become more resilient to climate change. The centre will collaborate with countries in South Asia, the Asia Pacific region and other developed nations to exchange scientific know-how, research and technology, said Syed Muhammad Ali Gardezi, secretary of the federal Ministry of Climate Change.
Qadeer, who farms land in Gujar Khan, approximately 55 km (35 miles) southeast of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, vividly recalls the unexpected volley of pebble-sized hailstones that lashed his 15-acre (6-hectare) field for about 15 minutes one day in the last week of March.
Declining wheat yields in Kenya lure farmers to grow legumes, reports Kagondu Njagi #kenya #agriculture #climate
Self-help groups along Kenya's Kaiti River have found a way to trap and store the river's water in its own sandy riverbed, keeping water available for months after the river has disappeared. #kenya #climate #water
Bandit-hit Kenyan pastoralists are giving up herding for agriculture and fish farming, looking for a safer lifestyle. #kenya #pastoralist #drought #climate #crime
Faced with pressure on supplies of irrigation water due to climate shifts and an increasing population, rice farmers in four Kenyan irrigation schemes have adopted a new crop management system that allows them to grow their crops without flooding their paddies throughout the season - an innovation successfully adopted from Asia. #rice #agriculture #climate #drought #water #adaptation #kenya #asia
A ameaça crescente das enchentes e deslizamentos leva autoridades em São Paulo e Rio, os dois Estados mais ricos do Brasil, a procurar soluções para evitar as perdas de vidas.
Razia Yousaf is one of the brightest students in Bahawalpur, but she struggles to study in her darkened home when frequent power cuts strike.
Now the 10th-grade student has been awarded a solar-powered lamp by the Punjab provincial government in recognition of her outstanding academic performance in examinations last year. Yousaf hopes the new lamp will light the way to her goal of becoming a journalist.
Pakistan #Solar #Ujala #Renewable #Power #Energy #Climate #Mitigation #Adaptation #Fossil
For farmer Sarswati Bhetwal, investing in crop insurance paid off in the very first year, enabling her to survive a severe frost in January that ruined her potato crop just a fortnight before harvest.
“Had my crop not been insured, I would have suffered financial losses, plunging into a possible debt trap and unable to prepare for the next crop,” said Bhetwal, a 47-year-old farmer in the scenic mountain village of Lamdihe, near Dhulikhel town, some 30 km (18.6 miles) southeast of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
Rainfall #Crop #Insurance #Climate #Adaptation #Mitigation #Frost #Weather #Nepal #Lamdihe #ICIMOD
For most of his adult life, Bidur Basnet has planted paddy rice each monsoon season on his five hectares of mountain land. But in the last five years, as monsoon rains have grown increasingly unreliable, he has had to abandon the country’s staple crop.
Urdu #Rice #Nepal #Paddy #Mountain
Researchers in #Colombia claim that a policy of charging hefty fees for #climatedata keeps most information locked up, affections decision-making processes and may even be placing lives at risk.
In less than two years, #Curacao may be using its ocean as an #OTEC power plant. The island in the southern #Caribbean could use seawater to generate and save power, taking a major step toward innovation in clean energy. #climate #greenenergy
As #glaciers melt in the Andes, western areas of South America can expect a period of repeated, extreme flooding that will later give way to drought conditions, creating new challenges for millions of people, researchers warn. #climatechange #climate #latinamerica
A government project to control worsening perennial floods in western Kenya has involved local communities in rehabilitating two major dykes that confine the Nzoia River to a straight course. #Kenya #floods #climate
One of Africa’s food waste hotspots is the Dandora rubbish dump on the outskirts of Nairobi. #food #unep #climate #hunger
Some communities have decided to give peace a fresh lease of life through the formation of resource sharing groups.
Aid agencies collaborate with Pakistani state government to get local volunteers ready to deal with floods, landslides and quakes
urdu
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Bangladesh’s women are disproportionately affected by climate change, but so far are getting too little help, experts say
A scheme to provide Bangladeshi fishermen with cheap life insurance offers the fishing community more security at a time of worsening and more frequent storms
As heavy rainfall drives away Lake Nakuru’s famed flamingos and worsening droughts hit other wildlife, scientists work on answers (Kenya, Lake Nakuru, Flamingo, Utalii, Tourism, Climate Chenge, Mabadiliko ya Tabianchi)
KWIHARA, Tanzania (AlertNet) –Cutting of trees for firewood to cure tobacco over the last few decades has been a major driver of deforestation and worsening extreme weather in Tanzania’s central western Tabora region, experts say.
But efforts to persuade tobacco farmers to adopt other crops is proving an uphill battle, not least because tobacco remains profitable and a major source of income in the region.
Kenya, Shule za msingi, Alertnet, Ukame, Mvua, Hali ya hewa, climate,agriculture,adaptation,drought,water
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AlertNet) — Changing weather patterns in Tanzania have caused a rising wave of migration from rural to urban areas, with thousands of youths flocking into Dar es Salaam, the largest city, in search of work.
Rice created to tolerate droughts and salt will help keep production up but not ensure food needs are met, scientists say
Subsidies, payment plans and rising incomes help 55,000 rural families a month adopt clean energy
With the water table dropping as the city grows, water conservation and harvesting will be key
Bangladesh steps up its already innovative efforts to reduce disaster risk as extreme weather threats grow
Asian Development Bank says government-backed scheme will help farmers adapt to changing climate
A pilot programme for the country’s poorest is seen as a first step toward universal coverage.
As rainfall extremes become an increasingly severe problem, Pakistan is seeking new technology to help it cope
Farmers in Pakistan unable to repay high-interest loans are being forced into worsening debt and migration
“We are helpless before nature. We can’t fight nature,” admits the head of Pakistani-administered Kashmir’s agriculture department #roshandinshadalertnetmuzaffarabad
Abamabhizimusi bakhuthaza uhulumende ukuthi aqale ukulima ukudla okusebenzisa ama GMO ngoba kulentengo ephansi njalo kungadingi izulu elinengi.
The Zimbabwean government remains opposed to local production of genetically modified food though the population prefers it because of low prices.
tags:climate change, genetically modified food, food shortages,
Most herders welcome the government scheme, but some worry that handing out animals is a short-term fix for climate problems. Kizito Makoye reports from Arusha. #climate #livestock #tanzania #drought #pastoralist
Farmers in southern Pakistan have seen their irrigation water dry up as cold weather in the mountains delays glacier melting.
Indus River #Glaciers #ClimateChange #Heatwave #NorthernAreas #Irrigation #Pakistan #Sindh #Agriculture #Irrigationwater #agriculture #climatechange #heatwave #irrigation #pakistan #sindh #indus #glaciers #northernareas #irrigationwater
Coastal areas of rural north Vietnam are cutting their disaster risk and finding new sources of income by building up mangrove plantations.
ClimateChange #cyclone #disaster #environment #Hanoi #Vietnam #storms #typhone @Damrey #MitigationAndAdaptation #cdkn #SNV #Care International #CoastalAreas #care #climatechange #hanoi #vietnam #mitigationandadaptation #snv #coastalareas
Ties to land are curbing migration and improving access to everything from loans to compensation for crop losses. Manipadma Jena reports from the eastern Indian state of Odisha.
As drought worsens in Tanzania, a switch to cassava is reversing crop losses and even building profits. Kizito Makoye reports in Kiswahili from Tongwe, Tanzania.
Slum dwellers in Bulawayo are having to turn to borehole water – and the rural lifestyle of carrying it home – as declining rainfall dries up the city’s water supply dams and leaves pipes dry. (Abahlala amalokitshini sebesebenzisa amanzi esibhorani - sebewathwala amakhanda njengezakhamizi zemaphandleni ngemva kokusilela kwezulu khona osokubangele ukusilela kwamanzi emadamu)
"Pakistan could lessen the impact of disasters by carrying out vulnerability assessments at district and sub-district levels, and training local people to handle pre- and post-emergency situations."
Residents and environmental experts in Muzaffarabad, Pakistani-administrated Kashmir’s main city, fear the diversion of a major river to generate hydroelectric power will deprive local people of water for drinking and waste disposal, and could alter the region’s climate.
Deadly conflicts are erupting in Tanzania’s southeastern Rufiji valley, as farmers clash with pastoralists who are being pushed into the area by drought, seeking land and water for their animals.
Ukame wasababisha migogoro baina ya wafugaji wa Tanzania na wakulima
Coastal Adarsha Gram villagers now have elevated, strengthened houses as part of a disaster risk reduction effort. Syful Islam reports from Bangladesh
As Pakistan's forests disappear, combining tree plantations with crop farming could pay a range of benefits
Northern Cameroon’s reputation as the bread basket of West and Central Africa is fading fast following a sharp drop in agricultural production due to harsh weather conditions. Elias Ntungwe Ngalame reports from Maroua.
In an unusual switch, farmers are giving up sorghum, millet and legumes to grow new resilient varieties of maize. Kizito Makoye reports from Makutupora in Tanzania.
Paddy farmers in Tanzania's Rufiji Delta invade a national mango-forest reserve in search of arable land. Kizito Makoye reports from Rufiji.
Trend for displaced families to have more children – in part to deal with uncertainties - is a worry with climate displacement expected to surge. Syful Islam reports from Dhaka, Bangladesh
Government, under pressure to come up with a comprehensive climate policy, admits it has not done enough to mitigate growing problems. Madalitso Mwando reports from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
Uhulumende sebhekane lodubo lokuzama ukuthola indlela zokumelana lokuguquka komumo womkhathi. UMadalitso Mwando usipha loludaba ekoBulawayo, eZimbabwe.
As rainfall vanishes, animals are selling at less than half their usual cost and dairy industries are suffering. Madalitso Mwando reports from Filabusi, Zimbabwe.
Ukusilela kwezulu sokubangele ukuthi abalimi bathengise inkomo zabo ngentengo ephansi. UMadalitso Mwando usipha loludaba eseFilabusi, eZimbabwe.
Smallholder farmers have turned to traditional farming methods to beat problems associated with low rainfall. Madalitso Mwando reports from Esigodini, Zimbabwe.
Abalimi sebebuyele kundlela zokulima zekadeni ukwenqabela indlala edalwa yikusweleka kwezulu. UMadalitso Mwando usipha loludaba eseEsigodini eZimbabwe.
The government plans to install some 19,000 solar-powered pumps in a bid to boost food production and limit reliance on fossil fuels. Syful Islam reports from Dhaka.
Local dialect broadcasts are also helping communities adapt effectively to climate change impacts. Syful Islam reports from Dhaka.
If Indonesians switched to eating palm starch “rice”, it could be a cheaper source of food than paddy rice and help save forests - but will people eat it? Veby Mega Indah reports from Jakarta.
Homes, lives, drinking water supplies and the country’s tourism infrastructure are at risk, experts warn. Kizito Makoye reports from Tanzania.
“When a drought comes, we move our animals to where there is water and pasture; there is no way we can move our farms to where there is water,” explains a Maasai herder. Pius Sawa reports from Arusha in Tanzania.
Wafugaji Eneo la Africa Mashariki wabuni mbinu za kukabiliana na kiangazi.
Local dialect broadcasts are helping communities prepare for disasters and adapt effectively to climate change impacts, reports Syful Islam from Dhaka for AlertNet Climate and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network. Story read by Megan Rowling