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Climate change and the potential effects on maternal and pregnancy outcomes: an assessment of the most vulnerable - the mother, fetus, and newborn child
No full textThis article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v6i0.19538In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) presented a large amount of evidence
about global warming and the impact of human activities on global climate change. The Lancet Commission
have identified a number of ways in which climate change can influence human health: lack of food and safe
drinking water, poor sanitation, population migration, changing disease patterns and morbidity, more
frequent extreme weather events, and lack of shelter. Pregnant women, the developing fetus, and young
children are considered the most vulnerable members of our species and are already marginalized in many
countries. Therefore, they may have increased sensitivity to the effects of climate change. Published literature
in the fields of climate change, human health, tropical diseases, and direct heat exposure were assessed
through the regular search engines. This article demonstrates that climate change will increase the risk of
infant and maternal mortality, birth complications, and poorer reproductive health, especially in tropical,
developing countries. Thus, climate change will have a substantial impact on the health and survival of the
next generation among already challenged populations. There is limited knowledge regarding which regions
will be most heavily affected. Research efforts are therefore required to identify the most vulnerable
populations, fill knowledge gaps, and coordinate efforts to reduce negative health consequences. The effects
of malnutrition, infectious diseases, environmental problems, and direct heat exposure on maternal health
outcomes will lead to severe health risks for mothers and children. Increased focus on antenatal care
is recommended to prevent worsening maternal health and perinatal mortality and morbidity. Interventions
to reduce the negative health impacts caused by climate change are also crucial. Every effort should be
made to develop and maintain good antenatal care during extreme life conditions as a result of climate
change
Climate change in Africa: a guide book for Journalists
No full textAvailable in both print and electronic formatClimate change poses a clear danger to lives and livelihoods across Africa. Journalists there have critical roles to play in explaining the cause and effects of climate change, in describing what countries and communities can do to adapt to the impacts ahead, and in reporting on what governments and companies do, or do not do, to respond to these threats. Yet research on public understanding of climate change such as the BBC Media Actions’ Africa Talks Climate Project-and surveys of journalists reveal that across Africa the media can and should do more to tell the story of climate change. UNESCO produced this book to help fill this important gap.
The authors of this guide represent two organizations that have trained hundreds of journalists around the world to report more effectively on climate change, and have set up the climate change media partnership to increase the quantity and quality of climate change coverage in the media. For this book, they also consulted African journalists and climate change specialists. 44 journalists from 17 countries-Botswana; Cameroon; Democratic Republic of Congo; Ethiopia; Ghana; Kenya; Liberia; Madagascar; Malawi; Nigeria; Senegal; South Africa; South Sudan; Tanzania; Uganda; Zambia and Zimbabwe-completed a survey to identify their knowledge gaps and explain what they thought this book should contain. 38 African climate change specialists completed a separate survey to provide their insights into what was missing from African media coverage and how this book should help to fill those gaps.
In October, 2013, UNESCO gathered a panel of African experts to review the draft text and suggest ways to improve it. The meeting, which took place from 22-23 October, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya, brought together experts from Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This group and another panel of reviewers validated the text before UNESCO published it
Can adaptation to climate variability and change be combined with mitigation of emissions at the local level?
No full textThis research investigated how community forest user groups at two sites in Nepal adapt with local weather events and climate variability, and the major factors that affected adaptive capacity of local people. Besides, this research identified to what extent the community forests could help in managing climate variability that impact on sustainable livelihood by improving the adaptive capacity of local people. This study also quantified the total above ground carbon sequestrated by two community forests (CFs) situated in different altitudes. On the basis of this analysis, the implications were drawn out how carbon sequestration and adaptation to climate variability and change could be best combined at local level. The main weather events and climatic variability found in the study sites were increase in dry periods, changes in rainfall pattern and increase in temperature. It was found many households in the study area were engaged in several adaptation activities, such as changing in cropping patterns, choice of crop species, local trade like selling of fishes, alcohol, vegetables, wooden and bamboo products, livestock farming, adding chemical fertilizers in farm land to increase productivity, collection of community welfare funds, involvement in seasonal jobs and out-migration. The CF situated at lower altitude (Jalbire Mahila CF) sequestrated 131.54 t ha -1 above ground carbon pool and the CF situated at higher altitude (Laxmi Mahila CF) sequestered 52.90 t ha-1 above ground carbon pool even though both CFs were in the same ecological zone (mid-hill) of Nepal. The species Shorea robusta was found sequestrating more carbon pool on both CFs and the larger amount of carbon pool was found in stem of all the species. There were some minor conflicts and quarrels between higher castes people and lower castes people regarding CF boundary encroachment, illegal collection of CF products, forest products distribution, loan distribution and fund transparency in the study area. The establishment of CF was not the major solution for managing climate variability and improving the livelihoods of poor and marginalised people in the study area. The main constraint of CF establishment was that the local people could not access to the forest products at any time on their own will
Socio-ecological resilience of people evicted for establishment of Uluguru Nature Reserve in Morogoro Region, Tanzania
No full textThis is a per-print of the article published in Forests, Trees and Livelihoods by Taylor & Francis. It is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14728028.2013.810405Eviction of people for establishment of protected areas is often accompanied with negative
consequences to the livelihoods of the evicted. This study assessed the eviction process
and its effects on the socio-ecological resilience of the evicted, examined coping strategies
for the evicted and analysed socio-economic factors that affected socio-ecological
resilience of people evicted for establishment of Uluguru Nature Reserve in Morogoro,
Tanzania. The results show that most of the evicted did not receive eviction notice prior to
eviction nor proper training on how to cope with the eviction. There was also low
involvement of the evicted in planning the eviction. Most of the evicted had low ability to
reorganize themselves after the eviction. Provision of casual labour was mostly adopted by
the evicted as a coping strategy after the eviction because they could not adopt other coping
strategies. This resulted in reduced income and certainty of livelihood. Male respondents
were better informed and better able to reorganise than female respondents. It is
recommended that eviction planning should be participatory and include provision of
appropriate prior information to the to-be evicted in a gender-considerate manner in order
to enhance their socio-ecological resilience in the face of eviction
Integrated assessment of forest cover change and above-ground carbon stock in Pugu and Kazimzubwi forest reserves, Tanzania
No full textThis article is also available at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/arsA study was conducted to estimate the forest cover change, quantify and map tree above-ground carbon stock using Re- mote sensing and GIS techniques together with forest inventory. Landsat images of 1980, 1995 and 2010 acquired dur- ing dry season were used in the estimation of cover changes. Supervised image classification using Maximum Likeli- hood Classifier was performed in ERDAS Imagine software to analyze the images and further analysis was performed in Arc GIS 9.3 software. Stratified sampling procedure was used to select concentric inventory plots in Pugu Forest Re- serve (PFR) and Kazimzumbwi Forest Reserve (KFR). Plots were laid according to NAFORMA, and the tree parame- ters in each sampling plot were collected. A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet was used to compute the above-ground bio- mass for each plot using an empirical equation relating wood basic density and tree height. The above-ground carbon was calculated using a conversion factor of 0.49. Geostatistical method in ArcGIS was used to analyze and map carbon. Results revealed that for the periods 1980-1995 and 1995-2010, Closed Forest in PFR decreased by 4.5% and 25.3% respectively, while for KFR, Closed Forest decreased by 11.9% and 31.3% respectively. The mean carbon density for PFR and KFR were respectively 5.72 tC/ha and 0.98 tC/ha while carbon stocks were 14 730.41 tC and 7 206.46 tC re- spectively. The revealed low carbon densities were attributable to decline in area under Closed Forest in the two Forest Reserves. The study recommends concerted efforts to enhance proper management of the forests so that the two forest reserves may contribute to REDD initiativesUnited Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC
Water resources and climate
No full textThe document is in print formMajor water resources in the country include rivers, lakes, wetlands, springs, reservoirs and groundwater aquifers and many water bodies are shared with neighbouring countries. In Tanzania water management is divided into nine water basins namely Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Rukwa, Rufiji, Lake Nyasa, Ruvuma and Southern Coast, Wami-Ruvu, Pangani and Internal drainage basins. Water is an important resource to all sectors; such as agriculture, health, manufacturing, energy, mining, livestock and tourism. It also supports livelihoods by sustaining both rainfed and irrigatedtraditional farming systems, fishing as well as environment (terrestrial and aquatic systems) including provision of ecosystem services such as climate regulation and water purification (UK AID, 2011, Stacey, 2011). More than half of the country receives on the average less than 800mm of rain per year (URT, 2007). The seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with unequal heating of land and sea that exist in the country, accounts for extreme temporal variability in rainfall and even more extreme variability in river flows. Tanzania's annual renewable water resources are 89 cubic kilometres or 2,700 cubic meters of water per person per year (World Resources Institute 2000- 2001 ).The current amount is 2,020 cubic meters per person per year and will continue to drop over time as population increases and it is anticipated in 2015 population will reach 52 million people, if current rate of population growth from previous censuses are put into perspective i.e. 10 million in 1960 and 44.8 million in 2012 (URI, 2012) making country's per capita water resources to fall below 1,700 cubic meters per person, making Tanzania one of the water stressed country. With climate change, there will always be stresses on most nations' water resources particularly their hydrological systems and also economic/social consequences to arisedue to inadequate storage infrastructure to cope with climate variability.United Nations Development Programm
Human health and climate change:Mainstreaming environment and climate change adaptation in the implementation of national development policies and plans
No full textPrintThe long-term good health of a population depends on the continued stability and functioning of the ecological and physical systems. Climate change, therefore, is a significant and emerging threat to public health. Effects of climate change on human health are largely based on impacts of climatic events on the physical environment. Climate change (CC) has a number of immediate and long-term impacts on the fundamental determinants of human health.
Climate Change: Is a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (i.e. through statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period typically decades or longer.
Climate Change-related impacts on the ecosystems, for example, are likely to affect population by creating favourable conditions for disease vectors or disease pathogens as well as placing the communities at high risk of malnutrition, diarrhoeal diseases and other environmental health effects attributable to Climate Change (Ebi et al., 2007). Changes in the occurrence and spread of infectious diseases are some of the most widely documented potential effects of Climate Change, which have significant consequences for human health as well as economic and societal impacts (Chan et aI., 1999).
In Tanzania the impact of climatic change on health is evident in many parts of the country. Currently malaria which was not common in many places is now wide spread inmate, Arusha, Mbeya, Njombe, Makete, Mbinga etc because of the changes in humidity and temperature which favours Mosquito breeding and the development of parasite causing malaria to complete the cycle of man-mosquito-man (Yanda et. al.'2006)
Other diseases related to climatic change are like Rift Valley Fever, Bilharzia, Plague, Yellow fever, Dengue haemorrhagic fever, Filariasis and Water-borne diseases. Physical displacement of people due to Climate Change related calamities have also impacts on human health.United Nation Development Programm
What influences farmers’ choice of indigenous adaptation strategies for agrobiodiversity loss in Northern Ghana?
No full textHeavy dependence on the natural environment for agricultural production in northern
Ghana adversely affects the availability of agrobiodiversity and in turn household
livelihoods. Farmers have over the years developed strategies for adapting to reduction in
agrobiodiversity but the extent of adoption varies among farmers. This study used the
multinomial logit model to determine the factors influencing farmers’ choice of indigenous
adaptation strategies in response to agrobiodiversity loss in northern Ghana. The analysis
is based on a sample of 310 farmers drawn from 31 communities in northern Ghana. The
factors that positively influence the choice include household head’s sex, farming
experience, radio ownership, household size, borrowing credit and awareness of
reduction in crop diversity. On the other hand, age, education, farm size, awareness of
climate change, farm cash income and existence of market in community, negatively
influence choice of strategies. Furthermore, farmer to farmer extension and off-farm
income influence adoption either positively or negatively with respect to the adoption
option in question. Thus, to encourage adaptation and conservation mechanisms, policies
should strengthen farmer based organizations and promote education on the sustainable
use of the natural environment. Government policies must also enhance access to offfarm
income generating activities
Agroforestry solutions to address food security and climate change challenges in Africa
No full textThis article is available at www.sciencedirect.comTrees inside and outside forests contribute to food security in
Africa in the face of climate variability and change. They also
provide environmental and social benefits as part of farming
livelihoods. Varied ecological and socio-economic conditions
have given rise to specific forms of agroforestry in different
parts of Africa. Policies that institutionally segregate forest from
agriculture miss opportunities for synergy at landscape scale.
More explicit inclusion of agroforestry and the integration of
agriculture and forestry agendas in global initiatives on climate
change adaptation and mitigation can increase their
effectiveness. We identify research gaps and overarching
research questions for the contributions in this special issue
that may help shape current opinion in environmental
sustainability.CGIA
Public Understanding of Climate Change as a Social Dilemma
No full textThis article is available at www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainabilityClimate change is often referred to as one of the most complicated challenges facing humanity, characterised in various literatures as a social dilemma operating at multiple scales (individual, national, international). The present study considers the ways in which members of the public interpret climate change in these terms, drawing on data from multiple datasets, both qualitative and quantitative, from 1997 to 2011. As well as drawing out the nuances in participants‘ perspectives on the social and societal dilemmas inherent to climate change, the present study also highlights the rejoinders and resolutions proposed by people to these dilemmas. It is suggested that recognition of the ways people find to navigate these difficult issues offers some cause for optimism regarding the public‘s conceptualisation of, and response to, climate change