Khuong farms on two small plots of rice paddies, a total of 10 sao (nearly an acre) in Dong Dat commune of Thai Nguyen’s Phu Luong district. She attributes the good harvest to the System of Rice Intensification (SRI), a package of good agricultural practices for hand-planted rice that increase yields while using less seeds, water, and fertilizers.
Today more than 1.3 million farmers in Vietnam have embraced this innovative farming method, producing more rice and earning extra income for their families. Oxfam has been helping promote SRI in Vietnam for nearly six years, and has made possible the ongoing training of farmers in the methods.
“It’s a smart investment needed to lift people out of poverty and to boost the national economy,” says Ngo Tien Dung, Deputy Director General of the Plant Protection Department in Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture.
SRI practices involve five simple steps including soil preparation, plant and water management. Farmers who use SRI transplant seedlings earlier and space them individually and in square patterns farther apart to reduce competition for light, water, and nutrients.
“I save quite a lot on seeds and fertilizers,” Khuong says. “Before I used almost 50 kg (110 pounds) of seeds for the two paddy fields, but now I use only 4 or 5 kg because with SRI, I transplant only one and sometimes two seedlings per hill instead of bunches of them.”
Robust root systems, bigger and healthier plants grow more grains of rice. Khuong now produces 2.7 metric tons of rice from her two paddy fields, as compared to just 1.8 tons grown with conventional methods, a 50 percent increase.
“I’m very pleased with the results, and I’ve stop worrying now,” she says.
According to the Plant Protection Department, farmers who use SRI significantly reduce the use of chemicals, thus growing healthier food, improving soil quality, and protecting farm biodiversity. On average, SRI farmers increase their yield by 500 kilograms (1,110 pounds), and earn extra income of $130 per hectare in just one cropping season (a hectare is just under 2.5 acres). This is a significant sum in a country where average income is around $1,200.
SRI was recently honored with the National Golden Rice Award for making positive changes in the life of over a million Vietnamese farmers.
The award is an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to honor major contributions to sustainable agriculture and rural development. Fifty-six winners were selected from across Vietnam for the first biennial Golden Rice Awards, which took place in November.
SRI was the first recipient at the Golden Rice Awards ceremony, and was recognized as an innovation that helped to revitalize sustainable food production, improving food and income security for small-scale farmers in Vietnam.
“We need to build the momentum for SRI extension over the coming years,” says Ngo Tien Dung of the Plant Protection Department, who received the award for the Department’s outstanding work in promoting the farming method.
The benefits of SRI go beyond increasing yield and reducing input costs. According to a report by Africare, Oxfam, and World Wildlife Fund, SRI practices have contributed to the reduction of greenhouse gases released from agricultural activities.
By improving nutrient use efficiency, farmers reduce the use of water, fertilizers, herbicide and pesticide, resulting in reduced emissions of methane, one of the most prevalent and dangerous greenhouse gases.
Farmers also reported positive change in community relations as a result of using these techniques. SRI farmers—most of them are women—learn together and help each other in the fields. This practice has created a culture of mutual support in rural communities.
Oxfam has been supporting organizations promoting SRI in Vietnam since 2006, working closely with officials of the Plant Protection Department, and recruiting local farmers to train others. These local experts formed a core of SRI proponents and formed Farmer Field Schools that grew demonstration plots and promoted the techniques.
Because farmers who try SRI see results almost immediately, the number of SRI farmers increased five-fold from 2009 to 1.3 million in 2012.
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Some 400 people representing a cross sector of society in Cambodia gathered under the hot, sunny sky at a tcktcktck campaign event in Phnom Penh this week. They were calling on world leaders to reach a fair, ambitious, and binding global climate deal at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen later this week.
“Time to Act is Running Out! It’s Time for Climate Action!,” chanted the crowd.
Many people could hear the loud chants from the Royal Palace and the Independence Monument, which stand a few hundred meters away. Some stopped by and watched while the campaigners formed an hourglass and the earth that’s trapped in the hourglass. It got more exciting when the campaigners ran down from the top to the bottom of the hourglass to demonstrate that the earth is dissolving like sand.
“World leaders are going halfway through the UN climate negotiations, but they are doing nowhere near enough to tackle the climate crisis,” said Brian Lund, East Asia regional director of Oxfam America. “So, we are calling on world leaders, especially leaders of rich countries who have more resources and technology, to increase their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to provide more financing for poor countries like Cambodia to adapt to climate change.”
While the UN climate conference in Copenhagen has largely centered on emissions reductions, poor countries like Cambodia are focusing more on financing that could help their communities adapt.
“We are demanding that climate negotiators in Copenhagen press countries with major greenhouse gas emissions to take their fair shares and put money on the table to tackle the crisis,” said Boonny Tep, Executive Director of Save Cambodia Wildlife, and a participant of the event. “It is a crucial moment to join this global force to demand for a climate justice, and I hope today’s event as well as events like this around the world will encourage world leaders to reach a fair and safe climate deal at the UN conference.”
At the tcktcktck campaign event, Lund said that rich countries including America, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and some European countries must meet their global climate responsibilities and provide financing for developing countries like Cambodia, so that poor communities, especially small-scale farmers can protect themselves from the unavoidable consequences of climate change.
Cambodia is striving to rebuild itself after three decades of civil wars, which left almost two million Cambodians dead. Its development efforts are often hampered by natural disasters. Cambodia has been identified as one of the most vulnerable countries in Asia to climate change due to its (currently) low adaptive capacity and limited resources to address the issue. One in three Cambodians lives on less than a dollar a day and 80 percent of the population make their living in the agricultural sector.
]]>Achieving farm resilience requires building up the resilience of vulnerable farmers by developing their skills, expertise and voice while supporting their use of agro-ecological farming practices. Building resilience depends not just on how farmers manage resources, but on how well local, national, and global institutions support farmers. Agro-ecological practices can empower vulnerable small-scale farmers, offering them both greater control over their lives and an accessible means of improving their food security, while decreasing their risk of crop failure or livestock death due to climate shocks. Vulnerable farmers can use agro-ecological practices to build resilient farms and improve their livelihoods, achieving multiple benefits: 1. improved food security; 2. adaptation to a changing climate; and 3. mitigation of climate change.
People-centred resilience consists of five principles which should guide how investments in vulnerable farming communities are designed and implemented. They are:
Following these principles ensures that investments support farmers in their efforts to become food-secure and adapt to climate change. Four institutions central to delivering people-centered resilience are: secure land rights; dynamic farmer associations; responsive agricultural advisory services; and public support for environmental services.
]]>"Resuscitating Doha is essential to right the rigged rules of trade, but what's been simmering on the WTO stove will simply not deliver for poor countries, said Oxfam America president Raymond C. Offenheiser. "The financial crisis, which started in developed countries but is taking its worst toll on developing countries, should be the impetus for a change in course."
In a new report released today called "Empty Promises," Oxfam details how the Doha Round has become an exercise in prying open developing country markets rather than an effort to rebalance decades of unfair agricultural and industrial trade rules. In the midst of a global economic crisis, a food crisis, and a climate crisis, nations with the least blame and with the least capacity to cope with the consequent effects must not have to pay even more to enable their economies to develop, according to the report.
Over 50 million people stand to lose their jobs, remittances are collapsing, and growth in sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to fall by 70 percent this year trapping 90 million more people in poverty, because of the crisis. Food prices meanwhile remain high for poor consumers: by the end of 2008 a further 109 million people had been added to the ranks of hungry, topping 1 billion people worldwide. As the world experiences the sharpest drop in trade in 80 years, a "development" trade deal—as originally promised—remains crucial, according to Oxfam.
"Now is the time for WTO members to come back to the negotiating table, recognize that the current crisis provides an opportunity to address urgent development needs, and change the course of negotiations, much as they did nearly eight years ago in Doha," said Offenheiser. "At this time of desperate need for a change of course, the Doha Round has to step up to deliver on its development promise. There is little credit left for another failure."
The welcome political commitment from the G8 could lead to a fresh start to negotiations, but it cannot be business as usual. In the past eight years, developed countries have used the talks to continue to push to open up new export markets. Developing countries have resisted, saying they were promised a deal that would give them space to protect their farmers and new industries, an end to rich country trade-distorting agricultural subsidies, and more access to rich markets for their farmers and industries.
The widespread food price crisis has shown that food and livelihood security cannot depend solely on market forces. Development, rather than liberalization, has to be the central objective of negotiations and trade rules must respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people first and foremost, according to Oxfam. It is the responsibility of WTO member states to analyze the role of trade in the recent global crises so that the Doha negotiations take into account the new global context and contribute to a solution, rather than exacerbate the problem.
"What's on the table is no silver bullet since it continues to favor the richest and biggest farmers and industrialists in the US and Europe and sidelines the needs of the poor," said Offenheiser. "We have seen what can be done when countries find the resolve to avert problems at home, and this resolve must be translated to the multilateral trade agenda so that the much-needed conclusion of the Doha Round can be achieved in a manner that addresses developing country needs first and foremost."
]]>Published just after the House of Representatives passed a landmark climate change bill and as President Obama prepares to head to the G8 Summit in Italy, "Suffering the Science — Climate Change, People and Poverty" combines the latest scientific observations on climate change and evidence from the communities Oxfam works with around the world, to reveal how the burden of climate change is already hitting poor people hard.
"Climate change is no longer a hypothetical problem, as more and more impacts are becoming evident in vulnerable communities around the world," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America. "From failed crops to dwindling reserves of clean water and displacement caused by extreme weather events, climate change is taking its toll on people who already face a daily struggle to survive."
Urgent action must be taken to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. But many scientists are now skeptical that the political will exists to make it happen, the report says.
"Many politicians remain unmoved by increasingly urgent calls for action from the scientific community, whereas others are taking action but not at the scale needed to reduce the risks of dangerous climate change," said Professor Diana Liverman, a leading contributor to three IPCC Assessment Reports, member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee and author of the Forward to the Oxfam report. "Without a serious effort to reduce warming, and in the absence of international funds for adaptation, the food, water, health and livelihoods of millions of people will be at risk."
Suffering the Science outlines how climate change is affecting every issue linked to poverty and development today, including:
HUNGER: New research based on interviews with farmers in fifteen countries across the world reveals how once distinct seasons are shifting and rains are disappearing. Farmers from Bangladesh to Uganda and Nicaragua, no longer able to rely on generations of farming experience, are facing failed harvest after failed harvest.
AGRICULTURE: Rice and maize, two of the world’s most important crops, face significant drops in yields even under mild climate change scenarios. Maize yields are forecast to drop by 15% or more by 2020 in much of sub-Saharan Africa and in most of India.
HEALTH: Diseases such as malaria and dengue fever that were once geographically bound are creeping to new areas where populations lack immunity or the knowledge and healthcare infrastructure to cope with them. It is estimated that climate change has contributed to an average of 150,000 more deaths from disease per year since the 1970s, with over half of those happening in Asia.
LABOR: Rising temperatures will make it impossible for people to work at the same rate on hot summer days without serious health impacts. The ramifications for laborers paid by the hour, and the wider economy. Tropical cities such as Delhi could see a drop of 30% in worker productivity.
WATER: Water supplies are becoming so acutely challenged that several major cities including Kathmandu and La Paz which are dependent on the Himalayan and Andes glaciers may soon be unable to function.
DISASTERS: Disasters including mega fires and storms are on the rise and could triple by 2030. The 2005 hurricane season alone caused more than $165 billion in damages and the insurance industry says that climate change will make the situation worse, particularly for poor people who have no access to insurance.
DISPLACEMENT: An estimated 26 million people have been displaced as a direct result of climate change and each year a million more are displaced by weather related events. Island communities from Vanuatu, Tuvalu and the Bay of Bengal have already been forced to move because of sea level rise.
]]>Standing on the dirt road above the paddy, Luy Pisey Rith watches the farmer as he works. A program officer in Oxfam America's East Asia office, he is skilled at observing a situation and determining the appropriate response. Rather than lecture Kea on the drawbacks of how Cambodian farmers have planted for generations, Rith simply walks around the perimeter, gathering scraps of wood. Crouching near the ground, he lashes the wood together, creating a grid. Then he demonstrates how to use the grid to mark off parallel lines for planting. Kea laughs as he watches him. But soon he's accepted the homemade tool, carrying it with him as he moves.
This is the reality of changing minds, not just practices, in Cambodia. Eight years after Oxfam's partner brought SRI to the region, some farmers are following many but not all of its 12 practices. They immediately accept the easier steps, which save them money on the front end—such as weeding, selecting fewer but higher-quality seeds, and collecting household manure to use as compost instead of buying chemical fertilizer. But when it comes to providing proper spacing for the seedlings or managing the irrigation of the paddies, they sometimes trip up.
This is where the proper balance of patience and persistence comes in.
"We try to bring them to the method slowly," Rith says. "If we asked them to follow it 100 percent from the beginning, not everyone would. They need time to change."
Time to change, and the proper motivation to do so. After just one harvest using some of SRI's methods, Cambodian farmers experience immediate benefits, producing more than they did the year before. It's the job of Oxfam and our partner, the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, or CEDAC, to educate farmers about how much more they could make. To respond to this kind of need, CEDAC started the SRI Secretariat, a permanent working group of local organizations providing training in SRI; the Secretariat is now a totally independent body housed in Cambodia's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.
Farmers who follow all of SRI's 12 steps can produce 50-150 percent more rice compared with conventional farming. They grow enough to feed their families and sell the surplus at the local market. They save money buying fewer seeds and time collecting less water. The plants are bigger, hardier, and better able to withstand some pests, droughts, and floods. At a time when the poorest 40 percent of Cambodian people struggle to deal with rising food prices, spending as much as 70 percent of their income on food, it's these promises of more stability and security that move them.
"The increased yields and decreased inputs convince the farmers," Rith says.
Created in the 1980s by a Jesuit priest in Madagascar, SRI is flourishing in places—like China and Bangladesh—where rice is the staple of every meal and farming is the main occupation. Having learned of its success, CEDAC brought the method to Cambodia in 2000, choosing a farmer named Mey Som as the first trainee.
I first met Som almost two years ago at his home in Tro Paing Raing village. We'd come during the dry season, when all the fields were yellow, the rice plants dry and stalky. Back then, Som told me that he had seen big changes with SRI just halfway through the first season; he'd noticed that his seedlings were growing bigger and stronger. The same plants that had once grown up to his knees were now growing past his head. Som was so encouraged by the results that he began traveling around the country with CEDAC, talking to other farmers about his experiences, explaining how a technique that requires less water and fewer seeds could actually produce more rice. It's all about the roots getting the right amount of water, sunlight, and nutrients, he told the farmers, a refrain I've heard from so many other farmers since then.
When Som, 68, farmed using conventional methods, he barely grew enough to feed his family. He still depended on his daughters' incomes; they were working at a garment factory in Phnom Penh, a two-hour drive from their village in Kandal province. Now, Som's farm is so productive that his daughters quit the factory to run the day-to-day operations. Their father no longer depends on their incomes; instead, he's teaching them to carry out SRI.
Earlier this morning, we watched as the sisters used strands of wire to mark off straight lines in their paddy, planting each seedling in a neat, shallow row. One of Som's daughters, So Sophal, who is 37, said that following SRI meant putting more thought into the process. But that translated into less energy in the fields. When she plants fewer seedlings, she can cover the same area in half as much time.
"We used to carry the seedlings by ox cart. Now we carry them by hand," she says. And "before, I used to hire labor from the village. Now just my relatives help."
Other farmers from Som's village admit that they struggled to convert from their traditional farming methods to all of SRI's practices in the beginning. It wasn't that they weren't interested in following the rules, Rith explains. Some steps are just harder to follow in Cambodia. For example, more developed countries like Vietnam have better infrastructure in place for irrigation and drainage. So it's easier for farmers to manage the water levels in their paddies. But the Cambodian farmers I spoke to say that they typically depend on rain for irrigation, and because of that, they keep whatever standing water that accumulates in their fields during the rainy season. It was only through their SRI training that they've learned how it's better for their rice to have shallow water soaking the roots.
This is one reason proper SRI training is so crucial; it takes these sorts of problems into account. For example, CEDAC trained Som's family and other farmers like them to build fish ponds near their rice paddies. During the wet season, farmers can use pumps to remove the excess water from the fields and use it to fill their ponds. During dry spells, they can use the water in the ponds as a backup supply to irrigate the fields.
In addition to the ponds, CEDAC teaches SRI farmers to cultivate vegetable gardens and fruit trees. By diversifying their livelihoods, farmers can eat and sell other crops when changing weather patterns or insects (like brown plant hoppers) damage their rice. But they can also use the new crops to support SRI itself. For example, Som uses the pumpkins, papayas, and mangos he grows to make natural compost. The new activities mean more to keep track of on the farm. But that can be a good problem to have, Som says.
"I'm busier, but I have more food to eat. I can sleep better because I don't worry."
Perhaps the greatest attraction of SRI, particularly in poor countries like Cambodia, is that with just a bit of training and virtually no technology, farmers can earn big returns. This approach makes it the perfect partner for another Oxfam initiative, this one a microfinance program called Saving for Change. In August 2005, Oxfam began providing funding and technical assistance to CEDAC, the same organization that trains farmers in SRI, to form savings groups in 14 provinces throughout Cambodia.
Together, the savings group members focus primarily on their financial well-being, pooling their money (a few dollars from each farmer each month) to provide loans to their neighbors. The groups set their own interest rates, with the understanding that all the interest earned goes back into the community fund. They use their monthly meetings to review the bookkeeping for financial transactions in their group and to handle any outstanding payments or collections. But when that work is done, many farmers use the meetings as an outlet to exchange information about their experiences with SRI or any other issues in the community that they want to discuss.
"We have a monthly meeting, and we talk about our experiences in agriculture and other things," says Kea, the 37-year-old farmer who, thanks to Rith, is now using the homemade wooden grid to plant in Kompong Speu province's Prey Kdai village.
In a country where 75 percent of families lack access to financial services, particularly the more than 10.5 million people who live on less than $2 a day, pairing SRI with community savings groups helps individual farmers. But because the money stays in the villages instead of going to outside lenders, the communities prosper as well.
In fact, some farmers say they don't even ask for loans for their own use. They make enough money selling rice to provide for their families, pay off their farming expenses, and leave what they've contributed within the savings group. These farmers allow their neighbors, who might not be as fortunate, to take out what they need to support their small businesses or pay for farm equipment, seeds, school fees, and medicine for their family members.
Roeun Youn, 47, a rice farmer from Som's village in Kandal province, says that, thanks to SRI, she now produces 1,600, or 50 percent, more pounds of rice per acre. She earns enough to put away 2,000 riel (50 cents) per month in her community fund.
"But I haven't borrowed any yet. I want the other villagers to be able to use the money," she says.
Oxfam is working to grow both our SRI work and our savings group work. Our partner, CEDAC, and others hope to teach the innovative agriculture method to farmers in 12,000 villages in Cambodia over the next five years. And thanks to a new, nearly $12 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—the largest single purpose grant ever received by Oxfam America—our microfinance program is slated to grow to over half a million members worldwide over the next three years, or over 180,000 new members in Cambodia alone.
Having worked together to improve their understanding of farming techniques, manage each other's finances, and respond to family emergencies, Cambodian farmers who participate in SRI and the savings groups now say they feel a greater sense of solidarity and closeness with their neighbors. This is no small feat in a country still recovering from the ravages of the Khmer Rouge.
As neighbors learn to trust neighbors, these farmers build loyalties and relationships within their communities. Last year, Sophal took out a loan for 50,000 riel (about $12) to buy fingerlings, or young fish, for her family's pond. Knowing that her neighbors depended on her to pay back the loan as soon as possible so that the savings group fund could keep gaining interest, Sophal says, "I paid back the loan within six months—including the 3 percent interest."
As one of the Cambodian farmers participating in both the SRI and the savings group, Sophal's work is totally integrated and the benefits, ever expanding. She uses the water from the pond to irrigate her rice. She uses the fruits and vegetables to create compost to nurture the rice. The fish, vegetables, fruit, and rice feed her family. And the extra profi ts from selling those crops go into the savings group.
Her father, Som, summarizes it simply: "When I did conventional farming, we didn't have enough rice all year. We didn't have vegetables to eat. We didn't have enough water to bathe. Now we have a surplus."
]]>"Several governments championed steps to tackle the crucial issues sitting on the G8 agenda, but in the end this summit did not deliver the breakthroughs that are so urgently needed. The consensus reached was shallow at best, especially on climate," said Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.
Oxfam is now calling for leadership at key UN meetings on poverty in September and on climate in December.
]]>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."
]]>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."