The audience of conference delegates and reporters applauded as the curtains parted to reveal a collection of 17 drawings and paintings. Some were lifelike and elaborate; others used bold colors and simple lines. But all were created by children and young adults from Bangladesh, Mozambique, or Uganda—and all depict the effects of climate change on vulnerable communities.
After the applause died away, Mutagamba pointed to a drawing by Buyongo Niccolus, a 16-year-old from her home country. "What we see here is a mother and her children," Mutugamba said. "They are frustrated, with no food, and they are malnourished. And they are in the middle of nowhere because everything has been exposed to drought."
Mutagamba and her fellow delegates had a long road ahead of them when they came together at the Bali climate conference last month. Representatives from over 180 countries were tasked with updating the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which expire in 2012. Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, members of Congress also spent last month grappling with the implications of a changing climate. It has been a busy few weeks for people who care about the human consequences of climate change—a period marked by both encouraging progress and lingering challenges.
Millions of people worldwide are already deeply affected by climate crises like drought, floods, severe weather, and increased disease. Even if the world stopped polluting today, climate change would continue to have negative impacts on the world's poorest people. To tackle this problem, Oxfam is campaigning for rich countries to stop harming by dramatically cutting their carbon emissions and start helping by providing the necessary financing so that people in the most vulnerable countries can adapt to a changing climate.
While Oxfam's "Children's Voices" art exhibit was a success, overall progress at the Bali conference was not always smooth. The US and other wealthy countries often resisted setting clear negotiating terms, and many representatives from developing countries grew frustrated with what they saw as an avoidance of making real commitments on the issue.
After two weeks of negotiations, the Bali delegates agreed to an action plan, or "roadmap," for international negotiations over the next two years. The roadmap hints at new resources and innovative funding for adaptation in developing countries, and finalizes an unresolved plan to implement an international Adaptation Fund. The amount generated for this fund will be far less than what is needed for poor countries to adapt to climate impacts—about $200-$300 million, compared to Oxfam's estimate of over $50 billion—but it is a beginning.
The Bali roadmap outlines how nations can work together to implement these adaptation plans, and provides opportunities for transfer of clean energy technology to developing countries.
Precisely where the roadmap will lead, and how fast countries will work to get there, remains uncertain. But as the UN makes progress toward a final agreement, Oxfam will work to ensure that opportunities created in the Bali roadmap become a reality.
As world leaders in Bali put together a roadmap for global climate change negotiations, US leaders in Washington, DC were also making progress on climate-related legislation.
On December 5, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Climate Security Act of 2007, also known as the "Lieberman-Warner bill" after the lead Senate sponsors of the legislation. While far from providing a complete solution, the bill sets an important precedent by allocating funds for adaptation to climate change impacts.
On specific issues related to developing countries, the Lieberman-Warner bill calls for an "International Climate Change Adaptation and National Security Program" to set aside a portion of the revenues from a government auction of greenhouse gas emission permits. These funds would be used for creating and implementing adaptation plans in poor countries, supporting investments to reduce people's vulnerability to climate impacts, and identifying ways for developing countries to use low-carbon and energy-efficient technologies.
Later in the month, Congress and the president signed off on the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, a massive funding bill that outlines US spending in the year ahead. Within this bill was another landmark for adaptation funding: a requirement that the State Department convene a committee to evaluate and report on developing country adaptation needs and to define a strategy for the US to meet those needs.
Both bills represent forward progress on the need for adaptation funds, but the Lieberman-Warner bill has yet to become law--though it may be considered by the full US Senate this year. Like-minded legislators may also introduce similar laws in the US House of Representatives. Oxfam will continue to follow and strengthen this legislation to make sure adaptation remains a priority.
Not long after unveiling "Children's Voices" at the Bali climate conference, Minister Mutagamba of Uganda met one-on-one with US Senator John Kerry, the only member of Congress in attendance.
After their meeting, Mutagamba presented Kerry with Buyongo Niccolus's drawing from the exhibit. Smiling, the senator held up the drawing for the media's cameras, revealing its rich colors in the bright sunlight. The picture was clear, and so was its message: climate change is a reality, and many vulnerable people are already feeling its effects.
As Mutugamba told the Bali audience earlier in the week, global leaders must take action on behalf of the world's poorest people. "They have no hope. We must restore their hope as a global community."
]]>"When a cyclone hits, it means you can lose everything," said Khan, Oxfam America's humanitarian response officer in East Asia. "Rich and poor alike."
The entire coastal zone is prone to violent storms and tropical cyclones between April and May—before the monsoon season starts—and again in October and November, when the monsoon has ended. Khan estimates that cyclones have killed nearly one million Bangladeshis since 1820. In 1970, one event alone took about half those lives. With a storm surge topping 30 feet, that November 12th cyclone killed 500,000 people and more than one million heads of cattle.
The disaster pushed the United Nations to ask the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to develop an early warning system for the country, said Khan. The result was the establishment of the Cyclone Preparedness Program, a community-based volunteer organization that provides early warning to people, and then helps with relief work and first aid after the storms hit.
But 21 years after the deadliest storm in Bangladesh's history, another devastating cyclone struck the country in late April, 1991, killing 138,000 people. It was at that point, said Khan, that Bangladesh began to look seriously at the steps it could take to help people prepare for the inevitable.
At the urging of aid groups and the donor community, the government of Bangladesh began to shift its emergency response programs to focus more heavily on preparedness. When Cyclone Sidr struck a few weeks ago in mid-November, evacuation planning, early warning systems, and the establishment of cyclone shelters helped to save about 100,000 lives.
Nevertheless, the physical devastation left in the storm's wake was stunning: Sidr damaged or destroyed 1.4 million homes, hurt more than two million acres of crops, and wiped out more than four million trees. What all of that means is that people have nowhere to live, many of them have lost their means for making a living, and food reserves have been wiped out.
While aid groups like Oxfam are responding with programs to provide clean water and sanitation to prevent the spread of waterborne disease and to supplement food in the months ahead, there is a great deal more that can be done to help people stay safe—and recover quickly—from storms like these.
Khan points to the need for more research on how to build low-cost but cyclone-tolerant housing in coastal areas. And then work needs to be done on developing programs with commercial banks to finance the construction of those homes. Additionally, aid groups need to help communities explore alternative ways for people to earn their livings, so that storms like Sidr don't wipe out all their options.
For these disaster risk reduction programs to be successful, added Khan, they need to be based at the community level—where local people will know best what the particular dangers are and what steps are needed to grapple with them. But there is an international component to this too: Donors need to support the preparedness work that local governments and aid groups are undertaking. It's a smart investment. Typically, each dollar spent on reducing a community's risk to disaster is worth about $8 in emergency relief.
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Tahmina clung to a tree throughout the night.
"The wind sounded like a killer, and the waves ate too high," she said. "I was on a coconut tree. The wave took me there. I had no clothes on me when the sea was gone."
When dawn broke, Tahmina discovered that her sons Masum, 17, and Monir, 13, were both dead. In her village in the southern Barguna region of Bangladesh many people lost their lives.
The people of Bangladesh are still picking up the pieces after their country was battered by Sidr. The intense storm killed more than 3,000 people, wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes, and caused massive loss and damage to crops. In total the storm is thought to have affected more than eight million people.
In another village, a boy named Rahim and his family have started rebuilding their home, which was destroyed in the cyclone. But great uncertainty lies ahead.
"Father can't go to the sea now," Rahim said, "because the boat he works in is lost and the nets are on top of the tree, tangled and torn. Some people are giving us cooked lunch every day in the cyclone shelter."
Oxfam has created cash for work programs in cyclone-affected villages so that people can earn a living while they recover from the storm. To support her family, Rahim's mother has taken a job in one of these programs, clearing the village pond for 100 taka a day, or about $1.50.
Women and men in the cash for work programs clear ponds of trees, branches, and other debris tossed there by the cyclone's winds. Since salinity is high on the coastal area, these ponds are often only source of drinking water for an entire village. The workers also remove trees from roads that were blocked by the storm.
Bangladesh is one of the world's most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change. This is both because its population is so poor and because its low-lying geography on the Bay of Bengal makes it especially vulnerable to ocean-borne weather events.
Climate scientists forecast global warming will cause storms of increased intensity like Sidr, and that rainfall patterns will become more variable, leading to more floods and droughts. The sea level rise associated with global warming is also predicted to cause increasing salt content in the soil. These effects present a devastating challenge for a country where 70 percent of people rely on farming for their livelihoods.
]]>The Carterets are six small islands that surround an atoll made of sand; their highest point lies just 5 feet above sea level. The Islanders have fought for more than twenty years against the intruding Pacific Ocean, building sea walls and planting mangroves. But within the space of a generation, the islands' shoreline has receded over 60 feet. During storm surges, salt water washes away homes, destroys vegetable gardens, and contaminates fresh water supplies. For a population of 2,500, largely dependent on subsistence agriculture, the impact has been devastating.
"For the Carteret Islanders, we cannot wait any longer because the islands are shrinking," says Ursula Rakova, who owns land on Huene Island, now divided into two smaller islands and disappearing fast. "When it's high tide, we can see salt water bubbling out of the land. We can no longer make gardens."
"We are one of those who are going to be displaced very soon," she said.
Rakova leads a group lobbying for the islanders' plight to be given more attention. Oxfam has supported a speaking tour for them to publicize their predicament.
In November 2005, the Papua New Guinea government authorized the evacuation of the islands, ten families at a time, to the nearest large island, Bougainville, which is located over 80 miles away. The evacuation stalled, but new funding promised by the Autonomous Bougainville Government in November this year could see Islanders re-commence the relocation in 2008. The Islanders believe that their home could be largely submerged by 2015.
A plantation has been secured where the Islanders can relocate. But there is no basic infrastructure on this land. The Carteret Islanders need somewhere that they can settle together as a community with a shared set of values and cultural identity. They urgently need 3,000 new homes, schools, health care and other basic social services.
Their story illustrates how vulnerable small island states and coastal communities are to rising sea levels caused by climate change. The Carteret Islanders, with a carbon footprint among the lowest in the world, will be among the first to have to abandon their islands because of rising seas caused by emissions from other nations.
So far, neither the Papua New Guinea government nor the Autonomous Bougainville Government have developed climate change adaptation plans. Both have been criticized by their citizens for this.
The Carteret Islanders' story repeats itself elsewhere in the Pacific. In Tuvalu, lowlands are flooded by seawater at high tide and coastal erosion eats away at the remaining land. As a result, saltwater intrusion is badly affecting drinking water and food production. Similar problems are occurring in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, where at least two islets have already disappeared.
]]>Lovethom, a small village in Cambodia's northern province of Kratie, is home to a Muslim ethnic group called the Cham. The Cham are descendants of the ancient kingdom of Champa, who migrated to Cambodia from Vietnam after the fall of their kingdom in 17th century.
For centuries, the Cham in Lovethom have benefited from living on the fertile Mekong river flood plains. The seasonal flooding each year provides fish and just enough water for rice cultivation. However, the delicate balance of nature is changing, affecting the livelihoods of the people and altering the structure of this centuries-old Muslim community.
"In the last three years we have experienced unpredictable floods. We plant but we can't harvest; it has never happened like this before," said Mom Mayas, a 47-year-old mother of six. Mom owns a small plot of land where her family has been cultivating rice for over a century.
"The flood plain normally overflows from July until September, then the water starts to recede and that is when we start planting. But in the past three years there has been heavy rain, and after the water level receded in September, it just started to rise again, destroying everything in its path, " she said.
Taking this experience into account, this year Mom did not plant immediately after the flood waters receded. But her efforts were in vain because the water level fluctuated three times in the space of two months.
"I have lost most of my early rice crops because of the unpredictable floods and have only started planting rice seedlings in November—the last month of the wet season," she said.
Because of the recent changes in weather patterns, Mom has sent her two oldest sons to Thailand to work as laborers. She now has no men to help her in the fields—her husband fell victim to the civil war in 1995.
"The boys cannot afford to send money back from Thailand," she said. "At the moment they have only got money to support themselves, while my two girls work on a bean plantation up north. I don't really want everyone to split up like this and be far apart from family and friends as well as the community, but if this is what we have to do, then so be it."
Far from being defeated, Mom says she is doing the best she can to support her two younger sons and 95 year-old mother by pressing palm leaves to sell as thatch walls and roofs as well as selling porridge and banana leaves.
"After being hit three years in a row I have no money left to buy seeds to plant next year, " she said. "I have very little hope now, but I am doing whatever I can so the rest of my children can go to school and maybe have a better life."
Tin Ponlok, National Project Manager for the formulation of Cambodia's National Adaptation Program of Action to Climate Change (NAPA), explained that climate change affects an agrarian country like Cambodia in the form of floods and droughts. "The rural poor with limited resources rely solely on agricultural products," he said, "and climate change is costing them dearly."
Tin explained that people living in lowland areas, such as Lovethom, are the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change because of increased flooding and soil erosion. Research conducted by the Climate Change Office of the Cambodian Ministry of Environment has proven that agricultural productivity has gone down during the past five years because of increased flooding, drought and sea water intrusions.
The eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed that least developed countries are most vulnerable to climate change. A decision was made to allocate money to countries which submitted successful National Adaptation Plans.
Tin explained that Cambodia's NAPA identified 39 projects in water resources, agriculture, human health and coastal zone management as urgent priorities. Examples include introducing integrated farming such as cattle raising and vegetable planting so that rice is not the only dependent source of income, and improving irrigation systems.
"Because least developed countries suffer from problems that are caused by somebody else, we think it's fair that we get funding to support our adaptation projects," he said. "We want better commitments towards adaptation from developed countries."
For villagers in Mindanao, once known as the food basket of the Philippines, extreme heat, droughts and flash flooding are now annual occurrences. They used to enjoy three planting seasons a year, generating bountiful crops from their fertile soil. Now, villagers are battling regular pest infestations and unpredictable weather, malnutrition is rising, and some villagers are forced to survive on bananas.
The worst crisis so far was the 1997 El Niño, which lasted for nine months. The temperature soared, plants dried, land cracked, and clean water sources were threatened. People left their villages.
In the village of Sepaka, last year's drought lasted for six months. All the crops failed and some farmers only managed to produce one sack of rice. In a good season, one hectare yields an average of 70 sacks of rice.
This year the farmers face an added crisis: many of the rice fields have turned black and dried up because of an infestation of black rice bugs. Nobody knows where the bugs come from, or why. All the villagers know is that they face food shortages again within the next six months. The people of Sepaka are desperate because they do not have staple foods.
One villager has decided to find a new way to survive in the face of a changing climate. He is Rasid Naim, 28 years old, from a family of farmers of rice and corn. In 2004, Rasid started to volunteer for Oxfam's operational project and received training in organic farming techniques. He applied these techniques to his father's hectare of land and soon found he was making huge savings by mixing his own pesticides and fertilizers instead of buying synthetic ones. He was able to pay his previous debts to traders and buy an additional 1.5 hectares of land, which is now an organic farm too.
At first, Rasid's fellow farmers teased him that his new approaches would not withstand the threats from insects and pests. But they did, and his success in organic farming has convinced 18 more farmers to shift from chemical-dependent to natural and organic practices. His experience proves that his own rice field withstood not only rice farm pests, but also intense flash floods and recurring droughts. Now Rasid is experimenting with an organic pesticide against the deadly black bugs.
It is still early days, but Rasid's work is just one of a myriad of grassroots adaptations to climate change that are already happening across the developing world. Rasid hopes for more support from the government for this kind of project.
"Organic farming frees us from poisonous substance from the chemicals found in the synthetic fertilisers and pesticides," says Rasid. "Our land is more fertile, our bodies are healthier, and we are happier that even the next generation, our children and grandchildren, can benefit from it."
Women's groups have also been created to generate income. One of their activities is making organic soap. They sell it to their neighbors and use their income to buy ingredients needed to make organic fertilizers.
"We need to save mother Earth," says Nor-aisa Iskak, one of the women fundraising to make organic fertilizers and pesticides.
]]>Once rich and fertile and capable of producing bountiful crops, the soil is now bone dry. Without water, the community's crops and gardens won't grow. Without these vital fruits, vegetables and grains, people aren't able to get the nutritious foods they need to stay healthy. And in a community affected by HIV and AIDS, this has devastating consequences.
"The ground used to be soft and easy to dig by hand; water was freely available just under the surface and food was plentiful; there was a lake nearby that provided fish for us to eat," Thandi says. "But now the land is dry and hard and there is no water under the surface; even the lake has dried up."
Thandi says rainfall has become more erratic over the last few decades, occurring less frequently and for shorter periods. Other members of the community concur. The seasons are not the same as they used to be; winter is not as cold now and summer rains are more erratic. People here have experienced droughts and floods for as long as they can remember, but since the mid-1990s they have noticed a gradual drying of the land. Even the rainwater tanks that were installed as a solution to the problem now stand dry.
Although Hluhluwe's people know the climate is changing, they have not heard about global warming, nor do they have any knowledge about the current global debates on these issues.
For the men and women of Hluhluwe, one thing is clear?they desperately want to learn how to adapt to the changes in climate in the longer term. At the moment they are simply trying deal with the prolonged drought conditions as best they can, by doing what they have always done but on a reduced scale. They make their gardens smaller, grow different types of crops and walk further to collect water?but these are short-term coping mechanisms, not long-term solutions.
If current trends continue, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says, sub-Saharan Africa will be 2-4 degrees warmer by 2050, and have 10 percent less rainfall. There will be more extreme events such as drought and floods and the length of the growing season will shorten even further.
"We need water pipes," Thandi says. "We need to learn how to look after the land and adapt to the drier conditions; we need to grow more drought-tolerant crops and vegetables. We need to learn more about climate change, and we need training in how we can speak up on these issues."
]]>"I feel bad; I have a very high temperature but I have no money to buy more medicine," he says.
Sen contracted malaria from mosquitoes, after entering the forest to collect firewood to sell because he lost all of his assets after floods leveled his rice paddy.
"I own a very small plot of land, which normally is not enough for my family's consumption, but this year the irregular flooding destroyed almost everything and I had no choice but to enter the forest," he says.
Since last year, there has been an increase of malaria patients in Cambodia's Kratie province, where Sen's village, Lovethom, is located. According to statistics from the Kratie Provincial Health Department, malaria cases increased dramatically last year and again this year after the numbers went down in 2005.
"There were more than 709 registered cases with 24 deaths last year, compared to less than 200 cases in 2005. Dengue fever cases have also increased from 65 cases in 2006 to 145 cases so far this year," says Dr. Cheam Saem, Director of the Provincial Health Department, Kratie Province.
A recent survey conducted by Cambodia's Climate Change Office found that the recent increase of malaria and dengue fever cases is connected to the change in climate conditions, explains Tin Ponlok, National Project Manager for the formulation of Cambodia's National Adaptation Program of Action to Climate Change (NAPA).
"This year especially, there has been a significant rise in dengue fever, and specialists in the country believe that climate change is the cause," he says.
Vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever are most sensitive to long-term climate change. The incubation period of mosquitoes shortens at higher temperatures, while off-season rainfall enhances mosquito breeding and survival.
"The highland areas are becoming perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes because of the humidity in the forest," Tin says.
Tin added that the geographical structure of the forest is also changing because of excessive logging and mosquitoes are also now moving to the villages.
Lovethom village, where Sen's family of five lives, borders the Mekong River and has been experiencing irregular rainfall patterns for the past three years, causing recurring floods up to four times in one year. Apart from destroying rice crops and forcing people to invade the forest, the flood is also leaving behind pools of stagnant water, a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.
El Hop Sos, a mother of eight, says all of her children either have malaria or dengue, while her husband has also contracted malaria from working in the forest.
"There has been a lot more rain and a lot more mosquitoes in the past two years, and we just don't have the money to take the children to the district hospital," she says.
Dr. Cheam Saem agrees. "This year it has been difficult because there are more loggers, and there has been more rain, and, as a consequence, more mosquitoes," he said. He added that the department has a limited budget and Lovethom village is not categorized as a malaria risk zone, and therefore does not qualify for free medication.
Dr. Cheam Saem explains that his department has been distributing mosquito nets and providing education to those living in remote areas on how to keep themselves safe from vector-borne diseases.
Showing her torn mosquito nets, El Hop says she is very worried about her children. She is trying to find extra income to pay for the medication by working on a cassava plantation, while her husband catches fish to sell in the local market because they do not own a rice field, but it is still far from enough. With global warming forecast to disrupt weather patterns to a much greater extent over coming decades, the health crisis faced by the people of Lovethom is just a foretaste of what is to come.
]]>In the past few years they have no longer been able to predict the seasons, so they don't know when to plant. Traditional signs found in nature—white cranes, flowering avocado plants, silver fish, and flashes of lightning—are no longer heralding the rains.
"The summer now is winter," says Howard Fernández, a farmer in the remote San Andrés de Bocay community in northeastern Nicaragua. "April used to be summer, but it rained the entire month. In May—wintertime—it doesn't rain. We listen to the thunder, we see the lightning that should let us know that the rain is coming, but it is not coming. Because of this climate change we are suffering the decrease of our farm's production."
The changing climate is having a devastating effect on the Miskito people, who live in wooden huts and subsist on crops planted on a few hectares of land and food hunted from the jungle and rivers. Already among the poorest and most marginalized groups in the country, they are now on the front lines of this new threat, which is hitting them practically and psychologically. As well as badly reducing their rice crop, this year's drought meant the river levels were much lower than usual, affecting the communities' vital transport artery. And then, after the drought, Hurricane Felix hit the Miskitos in September.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported decreasing rainfall patterns in Nicaragua. The panel's report also shows how the remote areas where these Native Americans live are becoming increasingly vulnerable from the impact of hurricanes, predicted to increase as a result of climate change. Oxfam is working with communities on a hurricane early warning system, which involves measuring river water levels and predicting possible flooding, to help them cope with these changes in weather.
]]>Other problems are emerging too, such as malaria, which was never seen in the Highlands, but has migrated there due to warmer temperatures. Memories of surviving by eating ferns during the severe El Niño drought in 1997-98 are also still sharp. El Niño is expected again in four or five years; next time, the drought that comes with it could be worse.
Oxfam and its partners are teaching communities to grow diverse crops that are more tolerant to weather extremes and helping people to be able to store food during scarce times. Oxfam also works with communities on emergency preparedness, to help people get through the more severe cyclones, floods, droughts and crises that will inevitably come.
Harry Gubala, Disaster Management Officer for Oxfam's Papua New Guinea Program, explains, "Climate change will affect everybody in the country. There will be nowhere you can go to get away from it. What we need is to provide people with adaptive techniques and skills and policies."
]]>The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world's population, around four billion people, live. The latest global scientific consensus from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that all of Asia is very likely to warm during this century. Warming will be accompanied by less predictable and more extreme patterns of rainfall. Tropical cyclones are projected to increase in magnitude and frequency, while monsoons, around which farming systems are designed, are expected to become more temperamental in their strength and time of onset. This report asks, will global warming send Asia and the Pacific 'up in smoke'?
]]>In a place where there is no electricity to run a pump, where llamas instead of trucks transport many of the goods, and where most people rely on a local spiky grass for their cooking fuel, gravity is the free and super-abundant energy source that is now powering Simon Ccalachua's sprinkler. And beneath the arc of water it sprays, a new growth of hardy rye grass is now sprouting—the guarantee that Ccalachua's alpacas will have the nourishment they need.
Here in Jachaña, a small hamlet in the district of Caylloma, Oxfam America and its local partner, Asociación Proyección, have launched a pilot project aimed at helping poor herders find ways to improve their resources so they can better withstand the hardships of mountain living—the cold, the snow, the remoteness. The sprinkler systems—there are now three scattered around the district—are part of a larger program that has helped 355 families in the area with everything from veterinary services to the production of high-altitude barley for their animals. The effort is part of Oxfam America's strategy to help Andean communities adapt to climate change, some signs of which are already apparent.
"They used to rely on nature and now they know how to work on channels and sprinkling," said a translator, summarizing the benefits for Ccalachua. "Before this project, the mortality of the animals (was very high). Now the mortality is 3 to 10 percent".
Using the resources at hand—a mountain spring and the pull of gravity—the agencies worked with Ccalachu to irrigate about two-and-a-half acres of his sloped, rocky land. Well-watered and well-fertilized (naturally, with alpaca droppings), a pasture that size is big enough to keep 20 alpacas happily nourished, said Arturo Rivera Vigil, the field coordinator for Proyección. The trick is to fence off portions of the pasture after the animals have grazed, allowing the grasses to recover. By the time the herd completes a full rotation, the grass where they started will be ready to eat again.
The system has a number of benefits, said Rivera. The robust diet the animals get encourages them to produce more wool. Instead of one or two pounds of wool, each alpaca can produce between two and four pounds—which in turn means more income for herding families. Keeping watch over the animals in a fenced pasture is a great deal easier for a herder than following them high and low as they roam freely looking for natural grasses, added Rivera. And the mechanism is easy fairly easy to construct: A small reservoir above the field, lined with plastic, is connected it to a pipe running down the hill. With the twist of a valve, the reservoir opens and the water gushes down through a pipe, shooting through slow-spinning sprinklers set in a line across the field.
The only stumbling block is cost. The price tag on each of these sprinkler systems is $1,625, and that doesn't include the cost of the machinery used to help dig the small reservoir.
"That's why (Caylloma) City Hall has to get involved," said Angel Chavez, an Oxfam America humanitarian officer who has worked on the project. Using tax dollars, local government needs to help support these kinds of projects, he added.
That's what the people of Jachaña want too—more sprinklers like the one Ccalachua has. A few pipes hooked to a few small reservoirs could go a long way toward improving the resilience of these mountain families. And though life at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level can be hard, there is no other place some herders can imagine living.
"There is no pollution. The water is nicer. And we have open fields," said Timoteo Ccalahua Quispe.
This activity is part of Oxfam America's adaptation strategy on climate change in Andean communities where already there are some signals of the climate change effects.
]]>It’s the kind of place Oxfam America and its partner, Asociación Proyección, are working in now—at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level in air so thin that newcomers lose their breath and no other aid agencies have the fortitude to venture.
The place is the district of Caylloma, and the people who live here are alpaca herders. Oxfam’s mission is to make sure that when trouble does come—as it has in the past and surely will again because of the changing weather patterns families in these Andean hamlets are already grappling with—they will be prepared to cope.
Three years ago, after a severe cold snap wiped out tens of thousands of llamas and alpacas across Peru’s southern highlands, Oxfam and Proyección joined forces to find a way to prevent a repeat of the suffering people experienced then. Their proposal—a form of disaster risk reduction—included a range of self-help ideas, a smattering of technology, and the most important tool of all: planning.
Today, acres of barley now grow on the slopes—a buffer against food shortages for livestock. New adobe sheds with metal roofs stand in some of the coldest mountain pockets, offering critical shelter for alpacas that had none before. Gravity-fed sprinklers irrigate enclosed pastures of rye grass, guaranteeing a steady source of nourishment for animals. And a handful of radio towers dot the district, connecting far-flung hamlets with the world at large.
Simon Ccalachua, who lives in the little village of Jachaña, put it this way. Without this project, nothing would have changed for him and his family. They had no choice but to accept what nature brought, good or bad. If the cold came, their animals died. But now, armed with new ways of growing the grasses their alpacas need and a way to shelter them, families like Ccalachua’s can overcome the troubles nature brings—on their own.
For Arturo Rivera Vigil, a field coordinator for Proyección, the importance of equipping people with tools to solve their own problems was a lesson he learned the hard way, and one he vowed to share with Caylloma.
Working in another region of Peru during a different emergency, Proyección decided that the best approach would be to provide direct aid to the families in need. So the agency purchased vast quantities of dried alfalfa to help feed the livestock on which those families depended. But that commodity was in short supply because of the emergency, and instantly, its price nearly tripled. Nevertheless, Proyección moved ahead with its plan, delivering tons of alfalfa to the troubled communities. But when the supplies arrived, Proyección learned there was no place in which to store it all.
“We realized we weren’t teaching anything to the communities,” Rivera said. When the cold snap paralyzed Caylloma, Proyección and Oxfam decided to take a longer-term approach—and find sustainable solutions to the problems rather than offer a temporary fix.
But that decision required a new way of looking at the situation: Could there possibly be things communities could do to prepare for disasters at such high altitudes?
“The typical thinking was people living up so high were so remote and had their own culture and own system of raising animals,” said Rivera. “No one thought they could help them, and no one thought anything could grow up that high.”
Proyección and Oxfam proved them wrong.
“We came here because the local government asked us to come, and when we suggested planting barley, everyone said we were crazy,” Rivera told a crowd during a recent ceremony at the Caylloma town hall honoring the project’s high-altitude accomplishments for 355 families. “Three years later, here we are.”
Oxfam and Proyección have helped Caylloma take solid first steps towards addressing a problem that is all too familiar to poor people living in precarious places around the world: When something goes wrong in their environment, they suffer the most.
Cataclysmic events—deep freezes, drought, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions—only turn into disasters when people get caught in them and have few means for managing the consequences. That has been the case in the Caylloma district.
From the hamlet of Chinosiri, for instance, it’s an all-day walk down to the town of Caylloma for help. When the storm hit, assistance didn’t arrive for a week. In sturdy, four-wheel trucks, it’s a three-hour drive from Caylloma to Chinosiri along a rutted track that snakes in hairpin turns up the sides of ridges and back down through streams.
Even at the end of the summer the weather at this height is harsh. Thunder rolls over the mountain plains as hail ricochets off the stony ground. At higher elevations, snow blankets the thin pastures.
Far from one another stand tiny dwellings, made of stone or adobe with thatched roofs. Inside, small fires burn. There is not a tree or bush in sight for fuel, so families make do with dung and Ichu, a spiky grass that livestock will only eat when it’s young and tender.
Widespread poverty across the region means that beyond elementary school, there are few opportunities for learning. Students determined enough to attend one of only two high schools in the province wrestle with a good deal of hardship in pursuit of that dream. The son of Jose Gonzalez Condo, now in his second year of high school, walks four hours to get there in the morning, and another four to return home at the end of the day.
For Gonzalez, the effort his son is making is worth every step: An education will give the boy the tools he needs to live a better life—not necessarily far away in a city, but right here in Chinosiri, perhaps.
With the uncertainty that lies ahead for herding families in Caylloma, education is an important asset and it has been a component of Oxfam’s and Proyección’s disaster risk reduction program. For example, the agencies have produced a series of colorful guides on storm alert systems, the construction of livestock sheds, and improving the use of water resources.
Lately, families have begun to worry about shifting patterns of rain that are affecting the growth rate of the grasses on which their animals feed. The rains are supposed to fall in November, but for the past two or three years, they haven’t come until January, stunting the progress of the grasses. That in turn prevents them from dropping their seeds to start a new round of growth before the May ice season arrives.
Having the means to cope with the consequences of those changes—stores of barley, irrigated pastures—will go a long way toward easing the hardships people would otherwise face. And that explains the enthusiasm with which the mayor of Caylloma has embraced this disaster risk reduction project.
“A project like this can be applied to the whole province,” said Simón Quispe Chipa, the mayor. “This project has been a real motivation for the whole town.”
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