Wisdom from the Past, Resilience for the Future

Wisdom from the Past, Resilience for the Future

Wisdom from the Past, Resilience for the Future - the story of Sheka
Forest, one of Ethiopia's largest and last remaining tropical forests.
Together with our partner Melca Ethiopia, the clan leaders, the local
community and local government have come together to help secure the
future of the forest and its rich bio-cultural diversity, to find
sustainable livelihood options and to strengthen community ecological
governance. Produced by Melca Ethiopia, the African Biodiversity
Network (ABN) and The Gaia Foundation.

More at:

http://www.gaiafoundation.org/content/wisdom-past-resilience-future

2011 Goldman Environmental Prize Honors Six Grassroots Heroes

2011 Goldman Environmental Prize Honors Six Grassroots Heroes
SAN FRANCISCO, California, April 11, 2011 (ENS)

- The Goldman Environmental Foundation today announced the six recipients of the 2011 Goldman Environmental Prize - a group of grassroots leaders who are taking on tough challenges to protect the environment and their communities, often at great personal risk.

The 2011 Goldman Prize recipients come from El Salvador, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, the United States and Zimbabwe and their work is as diverse as their homelands.

More at:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2011/2011-04-11-02.html

Civil Society Perspectives on 'Aforestation' and mining in Southern Africa

Civil Society Perspectives on 'Aforestation' and mining in Southern
Africa

Relevant Presentations and Interviews online at:
http://www.geasphere.co.za/video.htm
These video clips and presentations provide valuable insight regarding
perspectives on 'Industrial Development" (including 'aforestation') as
experienced in Southern Africa.
Richard Spoor "Development for the sake of Development - Quantifying
the
Benefits and Calculating the Costs"
Presentation delivered at the GeaSphere 'Changing Climate' meeting in
Nelspruit, 25 July, 2009.
Sandile Zwane (GeaSphere Swaziland)
Short introduction to GeaSphere in Swaziland
Vera Ribeiro (GeaSphere Mozambique)
Short introduction to GeaSphere in Mozambique
Thelma Nkosi (GeaSphere S.A.)
Interview in Mthatha regarding plantation impacts.
Owen Ndidi (Eastern Cape Environmental Network)
Interview regarding plantations expansion in the Eastern Cape
December Ndhlovu (GeaSphere S.A.)
Interview in Mthatha regarding plantation impacts.
Thabang Nqozela (EMG - Environmental Monitoring Group)
Interview in Mthatha - Communities and Development
Enjoy!
GeaSpherewww.geasphere.co.za
Special thanks to Roy MacGregor and EcoDoc Africa for capturing these
perspectives. .

Drought resistant crops to fight famine in Ukambani .

Drought resistant crops to fight famine in Ukambani .

Farmers in Ukambani will benefit from a new farming initiative focusing on drought resistant horticultural crops. The programme, funded by United States Agency for International Development and Kenya Horticulture Competitiveness Project, will cover Machakos, Kitui and Makueni districts.

KHCP field manager David Ojwang’ said the project targets over 10,000 farmers in the region who will be encouraged to grow crops like green-grams, cow peas, pepper and fruits such as pawpaws and watermelon.He said that such crops are drought resistant and have ready market both locally and unternationally.

Speaking yesterday at Nzakame in Kitui West district, Ojwang’ said the aim of the project is to change the community’s reliance on maize which performs poorly due to erratic rains.“Farmers in this region are faced with perennial famine because they rely on maize and other crops that need plenty of rain. You need to change your farming activities to alleviate poverty,” Ojwang’ said.

Ukamba Christian Community Service will be the implementing agency in giving technical advice to farmers as well as linking them to international markets. Urbanus Mutua, the UCCS agronomist said 200 self-help groups have been identified through which 2,500 farmers will benefit from the project.

Mutua said selected farmers will be trained and will be expected to train other farmers on how to venture into horticulture farming.“We need these skills to trickle down to other farmers in the grassroots,” he said.

District agricultural officer James Wagarangu appealed to farmers who have benefitted from the Njaa Marufuku Fund to pay back so that other farmers can benefit.

He said only a handful of farmers who received Sh120,000 from the fund have fully repaid the money. The revolving kitty was started to improve farming among small-scale farmers in the area and to boost food security.

http://www.nairobistar.com/local/northeastern/19261-drought-resistant-crops-to-fight-famine-in-ukambani

Hundreds of groups join in protest against Ethiopia’s mega-dam

Hundreds of groups join in protest against Ethiopia’s mega-dam
http://www.sudantribune.com/Hundreds-of-groups-join-in-protest,38456


Some 400 organisations from across the world have signed a petition against the construction of Ethiopia’s multi-billion dollar Gibe III Dam project, Survival International has told Sudan Tribune. In an e-mail exchange Sarah Shenker, researcher at Survival International, said that the petition had been delivered to Ethiopian embassies across Europe and the United States on World Water Day. “We have delivered the petition on 22 March, to Ethiopian embassies or representatives in France, Germany,Italy, Belgium, the UK and the USA,” she said on Wednesday.
Survival International says construction of the dam will devastate the fragile ecosystem of the area by altering the seasonal flooding of theOmo River and reducing its downstream volume, resulting in the drying out of the land endangering the lives of 500,000 people along the lower Omo Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana. For these reasons, the group strongly argues construction of the dam must be halted and funds must stop. “The Ethiopian government claims that 40% of the dam has been built - and yet they still have not consulted the Omo Valley tribes - this is against international standards and in violation of Ethiopian law. If the Ethiopian government applied its own laws and respected its own citizens, construction could halt tomorrow”, Shenker said. “Moreover the government needs to find funding to carry on with the dam The European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank have decided against funding the dam.”
Currently, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Exim Bank of China are both funding aspects of the project but Ethiopia still needs to find more money. The Italian government is still considering whether to fund the dam. Despite growing outrage from environmental groups, the Ethiopian government however disagrees on the claims and insists it will continue the project with or without foreign funds. Addis Ababa says that the hydroelectric dam will not damage the environment and the water is only needed to generate electricity and will not affect its flow. According to Ethiopian officials, the power generated out of it will be used for its population and to sell power to neighboring countries, including Kenya. Campaigners also argue that the dam could trigger a resource-based conflict between communities living around the Kenya-Sudan-Ethiopia border.
Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopia to receive significant amounts of electricity to be generated by Gibe 3. However, following sustained campaigning from Kenyan organizations, the Kenyan government has begun to investigate more carefully the likely impacts of the dam on Kenyan communities living around Lake Turkana. Part of the problem with Gibe 3 is that construction began well before any real studies on the human impact of the dam were carried out - good information on this is still hard to come by. ‘‘We have received reports that there are some people in the Kenyan government who are very concerned about Gibe 3 dam and especially the impacts it will have on Lake Turkana and the peoples in that region. Last year it announced that it would commission an independent EISA on the impact of the dam on Lake Turkana”, the researcher said. “We hope that the Ethiopian government will uphold its own constitution and hold proper and meaningful consultations with all the tribal people who will be affected by Gibe 3, as well as heed a growing body of experts and funders who believe the social and environmental impacts of Gibe 3 dam outweightoutweigh whatever benefits it may bring to the nation’’.
According to Shenker , Survival International is not against industrialization, nor against dams. But she said that such projects must only happen with the full, free, and prior consent of the people who will be most affected. Survival International’s director Stephen Corry said in an email: ‘If the government dams the Omo Valley tribes’ water and parcels off their land to outsiders, these peoples may not survive. The government is pushing industrialization at the ultimate expense of the country’s most vulnerable peoples.’
Gibe III is located 450km southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa, near the border with Kenya. It is the largest project of its sort ever to be implemented in Ethiopia and will be Africa’s tallest and second largest hydroelectric dam after the Kariba dam on the Zambesi River between Zambia and Zimbabwe. Construction of the massive dam was started in 2006 by Italian company, Salini Costruttori. Some 3,000 Ethiopians and foreigners are currently engaged in the project. When it goes operational it will have power generating capacity of 1900MW annually rising the current power supply in the country to 95%.