From Brazil to New Zealand, Local Solutions to Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019
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- Authors: ASHLIN MATHEW, DAPHNE EWING CHOW, ANNA JAQUIERY, DENISE MARIN, David Smith
- Published: December 1, 2019
Waterman of India — Rajendra Singh (Tarun Bharat Sangh)
- Context and scale:
- India: 17 percent of the world’s population but just 4 percent of its freshwater resources.
- Actions and approach:
- Quit civil service in 1983; built first johad in 1985 (15 feet deep and covers one acre).
- Enlisted villagers, overcoming caste divisions; used initial funds from selling belongings and donations (truckloads of grain) to pay workers.
- Outcomes and impact:
- Built more than 11,800 johads.
- Helped make 1,200 villages water sufficient.
- Organization staffing: 62 full-time employees, 3,000 part-time employees, and more than 10,000 volunteers.
- Current project: adaptation to climate change through water management in 30 villages in a district of Rajasthan.
- Key beliefs and lessons:
- Recharging underground water aquifers helps mitigate climate change by restoring tree growth in drought-stricken regions.
- Community-based water-harvesting projects are preferred to large infrastructure projects; “People should take ownership of their water bodies.”
Saving the Kiokio — Anaa, French Polynesia (Pa‘umotu community, Island Initiative, Raphael Ravieno, Alex Filous)
- Context and scale:
- Anaa island population: plummeted from 2,000 to 500 after a hurricane in the 1980s.
- Problems addressed:
- Warming climate encouraging pest populations that threaten copra (coconut) industry.
- Overfishing and indiscriminate fishing practices decimating fish stocks; unpredictable spawning seasons due to climate variability.
- Actions and approach:
- Rejected major hotel development; opted for community-driven, sustainable development.
- Established a protected marine educational area.
- Retrained fishers for a catch-and-release fly-fishing tourism industry centered on bonefish (kiokio).
- Restored the rāhui (traditional ban on fishing during kiokio spawning season) and compensated fisherfolk for income lost during rāhui periods.
- Provided guaranteed income to local craftspeople and fly makers via package agreements with foreign tourism providers.
- Community outreach: recruited schoolchildren to persuade adults to adopt conservation measures.
- Research and evidence:
- Fisheries biologist Alex Filous determined spawning stock produced too few viable offspring; female kiokio were being caught in large numbers during spawning season.
- Outcomes and rationale:
- Approach aligns with Pa‘umotu traditions and brings ecotourism income.
- Belief that fly-fishing tourism can resuscitate the small-island economy: “This entire atoll is one giant bonefish paradise.”
From Sheep to Trees — Marlene and Patrick Anderson (Shannon, New Zealand)
- Context and scale:
- Property size: 884 hectares.
- Location: about an hour and half’s drive northeast of Wellington.
- Patrick’s age cited as 80.
- Timeline and policy context:
- Bought land in 1987; initially used for sheep farming.
- From 2001 leased land out for grazing to generate income.
- 2007: then–Prime Minister Helen Clark introduced an emission-trading system.
- 2008: forestry included in the emission-trading program, allowing landowners to generate revenue from carbon dioxide absorbed by trees planted since 1989.
- Actions and approach:
- Transitioned from sheep farming to tree planting to regenerate native forest.
- Planted a wide range of native trees including kamahi, red beech, and tawa.
- Removed cattle from areas to protect stream habitat.
- Environmental outcomes:
- Stream supports native fish species: banded and short-jawed kokopu (whitebait species), koaro, torrent fish, and red-finned bullies.
- Social outcomes:
- Family involvement: children engaged in environmental projects; son Luke working on a documentary about rivers; Monique runs a microenterprise producing jams, chutneys, and pickles.
Fighter for Forests — Clelia Maria Rossi (Juquitiba, Brazil)
- Context and scale:
- Atlantic Forest historical extent: 1.3 million square kilometers five centuries ago.
- Current remaining: only 12 percent.
- Juquitiba distance: 80 kilometers to the south of São Paulo.
- Rossi bought six hectares of native forest.
- Biodiversity on the forested lands: 1,711 vertebrate species, 20,000 varieties of plants, and seven watersheds.
- Actions and approach:
- Left São Paulo and teaching career five years ago to focus on conservation in Juquitiba.
- Fenced property using old fire hoses rather than barbed wire to avoid harming wildlife.
- Education and community outreach in rural communities and public schools: activities on garbage separation and treatment, cleaning river banks, planting native seedlings, and non-burning land preparation techniques.
- Participated in a citizens group that successfully stopped plans to divert the Juquiá River.
- Outcomes and beliefs:
- Uses school programs and recreational competitions to instill environmental stewardship in children: “people who learn to love nature as children will grow up to be environmentally friendly adults.”
A Voice for Lake Chad — Moussa Ali Mouta (Radio Ndarason Internationale, RNI)
- Context and scale:
- Lake Chad region: environmentally distressed, conflict-ridden (Boko Haram), high illiteracy, high population growth, high unemployment, shrinking lake due to advancing Sahara, rising temperatures, and diminishing rainfall.
- RNI launch year: 2016.
- Mouta’s age cited as 29.
- RNI operations: began in Maiduguri (Nigeria) and N’Djamena (Chad).
- Staffing and reach: about 50 mainly Nigerian and Chadian staff and correspondents in Cameroon and Niger.
- Problems addressed:
- Lack of a regional radio station targeting Lake Chad populations; reliance on foreign-language shortwave broadcasts prior to RNI.
- Need to reach local populations in their languages (example: Kanembu).
- Actions and approach:
- Broadcast news and practical programming in Kanembu and other local languages.
- Engaged local audience via telephone, social media, and fieldwork; interviews with local fishers and farmers to share best practices.
- Brought agricultural specialists, veterinarians, and UN humanitarian experts into the studio.
- Works in partnership with the Lake Chad Basin Commission and with political support of the African Union.
- Transmitters located off the Atlantic coast to protect them from attack; shortwave radio remains key given weak infrastructure and instability.
- Outcomes and rationale:
- RNI provides humanitarian partners an effective regional-radio channel in local languages.
- With buy-in from the region’s four national governments and support from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and other donors, radio is being used to stimulate dialogue and promote grassroots solutions: “taking care of our environment is taking care of our future, including the future of our children.”
From Brazil to New Zealand, local activists show that small-scale initiatives can make a difference in the fight against climate change — F&D Magazine, December 2019.
Content in this bundle
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- El poder de la comunidad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Diciembre de 2019
- Initiatives locales
- From Brazil to New Zealand, Local Solutions to Climate Change – IMF F&D | DECEMBER 2019
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