SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
madagascar
UN Expert Demands Full Legal Protection for Climate Refugees
"The human rights implications of climate change displacement, in particular across international borders, are significant and truly disturbing," said the special rapporteur.
Jun 27, 2023
The top expert on the climate crisis at the United Nations human rights office said Tuesday that the international community must recognize that climate-related disasters including drought and sea level rise have become one the biggest drivers of displacement and ensure that the rights of people forced to leave their homes for these reasons are protected.
With 30.7 million people displaced in 2020 due to events related to weather and the climate—primarily drought, which was blamed for a famine in Madagascar and forced more than 1 million people to leave their homes in Somalia in 2021 and 2022—the global community "must realize its responsibility to protect people displaced across borders by climate change impacts," said Ian Fry, special rapporteur on human rights in the context of climate change.
Fry presented his findings about climate refugees and human rights in a thematic report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
People who are displaced due to climate-related events are at risk of violations related to their human rights to food, water, sanitation, housing, and education, and in some cases, "their basic right to life," said Fry.
Between 2014 and 2022, more than 50,000 people died while migrating, and more than half of those deaths occurred when they were traveling to or within Europe, including people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea.
Fry presented his report less than two weeks after hundreds of refugees drowned after attempting to travel to Italy via the Mediterranean in an overcrowded fishing boat. The vessel, in which about 300 of 750 passengers were from Pakistan, capsized in front of a Greek Coast Guard ship. Greek officials are now facing questions about their response to the ship when it was in crisis.
A study of migration trends by researchers in New Zealand in 2019 found that the effects of the climate crisis, including flooding and temperature extremes, are now causing migration at a higher rate than poverty or a lack of political freedom.
"The effects of climate change are becoming more severe, and the number of people displaced across international borders is rapidly increasing," said Fry in his report.
The special rapporteur called on the Human Rights Council to submit a resolution to the U.N. General Assembly to "address displacement and legal protection for people all over the world affected by the climate crisis" by developing an optional prorocol under the 1951 Refugee Convention.
"Until then," Fry said, "I urge all nations to develop national legislation to provide humanitarian visas for persons displaced across international borders due to climate change, as an interim measure."
"The human rights implications of climate change displacement, in particular across international borders, are significant and truly disturbing," he added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
In Urgent Appeal, UN Hunger Agency Warns Millions of People Facing Starvation
"There are now more than 45 million people marching towards the brink of starvation."
Nov 08, 2021
Warning that more than 45 million people around the globe--but most acutely in Afghanistan, Africa, and the Middle East--are in imminent danger of starvation, the head of the United Nations World Food Program on Monday urgently appealed to political leaders, the superrich, and people in the Global North for help.
"When there's $400 trillion worth of wealth on the Earth today, shame on us that we let any child die of hunger."
"Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss," WFP Executive Director David Beasley said in a statement. "We've got conflict, climate change, and Covid-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry, and the latest data show there are now more than 45 million people marching towards the brink of starvation."
Beasley--who traveled to Afghanistan, where the WFP is increasing efforts to provide aid to 23 million people--added that "fuel costs are up, food prices are soaring, fertilizer is more expensive, and all of this feeds into new crises like the one unfolding now in Afghanistan, as well as long-standing emergencies like Yemen and Syria."
In addition to Afghanistan, the WFP identified Yemen--where a six-year, U.S.-backed Saudi-led intervention in a civil war has caused widespread hunger--as well as war-torn Syria, Congo, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Madagascar as the hardest-hit among 43 countries suffering food crises.
In a BBC interview Monday, Beasley--a former Republican governor of South Carolina--said that the situation in Afghanistan "is as bad as you can possibly imagine. Ninety-five percent of the people don't have enough food."
The BBC also interviewed desperate Afghans, who are bracing for an especially cold winter and who are receiving less food aid since the Taliban retook control of the country earlier this year.
"I've got nothing to give the children," said Fatema, a single mother of seven from Bamiyan in central Afghanistan. "Soon I'll have to go out and beg."
The WFP says families facing acute food shortages are being forced to make "devastating choices to cope with the rising hunger."
"In Madagascar, where pockets of famine are already a reality, some are being forced to eat locusts, wild leaves, or cactus to survive," the agency reports.
According to WFP, the cost of averting famine globally is $7 billion. Beasley recently noted that the 400 wealthiest Americans collectively got $1.8 trillion richer during the Covid-19 pandemic and that it would require less than 0.4% of that amount to prevent worldwide famine.
"Imagine that this was your little girl or your little boy or your grandchild about to starve to death, you would do everything you possibly could," he told BBC. "And when there's $400 trillion worth of wealth on the Earth today, shame on us that we let any child die of hunger."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Unprecedented': Madagascar on Verge of World's First Climate-Fueled Famine
"These people have done nothing to contribute to climate change," said one U.N. official. "They don't burn fossil fuels... and yet they are bearing the brunt of climate change."
Aug 25, 2021
Climate experts are warning the current extreme food shortage in southern Madagascar, following a dearth of rain for the last four years, has driven the country to the brink of the world's first famine driven almost entirely by the climate emergency.
"Everyone should have a safe place to live. Wealthy countries must step up and cut emissions now."
--Environmental Justice Foundation
The United Nations estimates that 30,000 people in the country are facing "level five" food insecurity, defined as a "catastrophe or famine" according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. With Madagascar's regular pre-harvest "lean season" looming, many more are expected to face catastrophic hunger in the coming months.
"These are famine-like conditions and they're being driven by climate, not conflict," Shelley Thakral, senior communications specialist for the World Food Program, told the BBC.
"This is unprecedented," Thakal added. "These people have done nothing to contribute to climate change. They don't burn fossil fuels... and yet they are bearing the brunt of climate change."
In interviews with the press, families in farming communities across the southern part of the country have described foraging for cactus leaves and insects including locusts in order to avoid starvation as they struggle to grow crops.
"I clean the insects as best I can but there's almost no water," a mother of four named Tamaria, in the village of Fandiova, told the BBC.
Madagascar was identified in the latest report (pdf) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a country that was expected to face an increase in agricultural and ecological drought, particularly if global policymakers fail to rapidly work to eliminate fossil fuel extraction and reduce the heating of the planet.
Dr. Rondro Barimalala, a scientist from Madagascar who works at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said the current crisis in his home country is clearly linked to the climate emergency.
"With the latest IPCC report we saw that Madagascar has observed an increase in aridity. And that is expected to increase if climate change continues," Barimalala told the BBC. "In many ways this can be seen as a very powerful argument for people to change their ways."
The U.N.'s most senior official in the country, resident coordinator Issa Sanogo, recently described traveling through southern Madagascar and witnessing the crisis:
In the town of Amboasary Atsimo, about 75 per cent of the population is facing severe hunger and 14,000 people are on the brink of famine.This is what the real consequences of climate change look like, and the people here have done nothing to deserve this. Nevertheless, I have seen that they are ready to take up the challenge, with our immediate and medium-term support, and get back on their feet.[...]
[T]hese people have been significantly affected by sandstorms; all of their croplands are silted up, and they cannot produce anything.
"We are in danger of seeing people who have endured the prolonged drought enter the lean season without the means to eat, without money to pay for health services, or to send their children to school, to get clean water, and even to get seeds to plant for the next agricultural season," Sanogo said. "If we don't act soon, we will face a much more severe humanitarian crisis."
Considering Madagasans' "negligible contribution to the climate crisis," tweeted the Environmental Justice Foundation, the current catastrophe represents "an appalling climate injustice."
"Everyone should have a safe place to live," the group said. "Wealthy countries must step up and cut emissions now."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Young Madagascar Farmers Find New Ways to Help Lemurs, Rainforests--and Themselves
"The local community living near these protected areas can be the source of the lemurs' conservation problems but is also the solution to those same problems."
Feb 20, 2021
To the detriment of the forests surrounding his village, Safidiharinjaka Emmanuel Tolojanahary knew only traditional farming methods. Like most residents of his village, located in eastern Madagascar, he cleared forest and burned what remained of the felled trees to open up a plot to grow rice. Locals call this slash-and-burn technique tavy.
"Initiatives like the Madagasikara Voakajy project that enhance the participation of the local community are essential to tackling the root of the challenges relating to lemur protection."
--Zoavina Randriana,
The Mad Dog Initiative
In September 2019, when Tolojanahary was 23 years old, his desire to be more responsible for a better future and to learn new techniques pushed him to join a project that taught alternative agricultural methods with the aim of protecting the forests. Today he is the head of one of 16 groups of rural young people from the municipality of Lakato, in the Moramanga district of the Alaotra-Mangoro region, whom the Madagascan NGO Madagasikara Voakajy is training. His group, in the village of Ambodivarongy, is called Vintsiala, the vernacular name of the Madagascan pygmy kingfisher (Corythornis madagascariensis). The orange-and-white birds with outsized beaks live in the neighboring forest.
Tolojanahary and his team consider themselves ambassadors for the farming methods they have learned. "In my group, we want to unite those who live with us around our cause," he said.
People's subsistence needs are among the pressures weighing on Madagascan forests and on the extraordinary fauna that live in them. Protecting the forests therefore requires the participation of these populations. Confronted with the degradation of the Mangabe-Ranomena-Sahasarotra reserve, Madagasikara Voakajy launched the project for young farmers to find a balance between the needs of nearby communities and the survival of the reserve, which is home to critically endangered endemic species such as lemurs and the golden mantella frog (Mantella aurantiaca).
Targeting young people between 14 and 30 years old, the project provides training in sustainable farming techniques to improve the villagers' means of subsistence, reduce pressure on the forest, and raise their awareness of lemur protection. The project also encourages them to carry out forest restoration activities such as reforestation.
"It's thanks to the young people's project that we knew that we are not obliged to carry out tavy in order to obtain a good rice yield," Tolojanahary said.
Pressure on forests threatens lemurs
The project highlights the protection of two lemur species that live in the Mangabe-Ranomena-Sahasarotra reserve. Classed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, the indri (Indri indri) and the diademed sifaka (Propithecus diadema) are threatened by the loss of habitat and by hunting.
According to Madagasikara Voakajy and the IUCN, scientists predict the population of these two lemur species will fall by at least 80% over a period of 30 to 33 years. In fact, the IUCN considers 103 of the 107 lemur species -- the island's iconic and endemic primates -- to be threatened, of which 33 are critically endangered.
The Mangabe-Ranomena-Sahasarotra protected area extends over 27,100 hectares (67,000 acres). Every year between 2001 and 2019 the area has lost approximately 611 ha (1,510 acres) of forest, according to Global Forest Watch. This corresponds to a loss of 45% of its forest cover since the year 2000.
The indri and the diademed sifaka are among the largest lemur species and need a great deal of space to survive. Studies in the forests of Mantadia, close to the Mangabe-Ranomena-Sahasarotra protected area, have shown that on average the indri occupies territories of 13 ha (32 acres) in fragmented forests and up to 40 ha (99 acres) in primary forests.
Lemurs are the most visible of the protected area's inhabitants. But the young farmers' project should also help less-famous animals, such as the golden mantella, a frog species endemic to the region, and the Madagascan grebe (Tachybaptus pelzelnii), an endangered endemic bird.
"By highlighting the protection of lemurs, which require large spaces, we will also be able to encompass other, smaller species within the loop of our protection objectives," said Voahirana Claudia Randriamamonjy, leader of the Mangabe young farmers' project.
The loss of forest and fauna in the Moramanga area is due to tavy, among other factors that include small-scale logging, mining and hunting. People fell trees for construction, firewood, medicine and slash-and-burn farming. They hunt animals, such as lemurs and wild ducks, to eat or to sell for food at markets.
Facing poverty, the local population does not have many alternatives for subsistence but to turn toward the forests.
"People want to protect the indris but cannot, because they have to cut down the forests in order to be able to grow rice," Tolojanahary said. "Unfortunately and fortunately, the local community living near these protected areas can be the source of the lemurs' conservation problems but is also the solution to those same problems," said Zoavina Randriana, country director of The Mad Dog Initiative (MDI).
Thanks to her expertise in the forests of Andasibe-Mantadia, in the same region, every year Randriana and her team carry out campaigns to limit the stray dog and cat populations in the vicinity of the forests. The goal is to help protected wildlife by trying to limit their competition with stray domestic animals. MDI tries to raise local communities' awareness of the need to limit the strays' populations to protect both public health and wild animals.
According to Randriana, it is important to educate local people about conservation problems, but above all it is essential to empower them to make informed decisions and to act accordingly.
Sustainable farming techniques
Financed by the IUCN, the Madagasikara Voakajy project around Mangabe-Ranomena-Sahasarotra began in 2016. Its second phase will last from 2019 until 2021. Most of the young participants have not received much education and will have little choice but to become farmers. The project maintains that sustainable farming techniques will offer them more promising opportunities than hunting or the destruction of forests.
During the first phase of the project, Madagasikara Voakajy trained seven groups with 45 participants. At the launch of the second phase, the project counted 16 groups spread among 16 villages with 158 young participants. Each group can choose to learn sustainable techniques for growing rice, beans or ginger, or for beekeeping.
The rice-growing teams carried out their first harvest in May 2020. They obtained yields of up to 2.9 tons per hectare (about 1.2 tons per acre), compared to 1 ton with the traditional growing method. The results for beans and ginger were not yet available when this story was originally published in French in November 2020.
Madagasikara Voakajy says it intends to involve the private sector to support these young people, notably by helping them find new markets for their products.
The approach of improving people's means of subsistence to reduce pressure on the environment is common among conservation programs worldwide. Madagasikara Voakajy says it expects that over the long term the young people will become true ambassadors for lemur conservation, that their farming practices will improve forest habitats, and that they will no longer hunt the endangered primates.
"I think one of the greatest challenges for lemur conservation in Madagascar is to correctly balance the conservation of these species with economic and social development, especially in those localities near protected areas," Randriana said. "Initiatives like the Madagasikara Voakajy project that enhance the participation of the local community are essential to tackling the root of the challenges relating to lemur protection."
Furthermore, recently problems linked to COVID-19 are reducing the field of action for conservationists. Due to the health state of emergency from March 21 to Oct. 18 and the lockdown that lasted until mid-August, Madagasikara Voakajy had to postpone a planned fish-farming program. Additionally, the villagers' situation has become very fragile. They are obliged to make use of whatever means of subsistence they can find. This precariousness increases the risk that people will infringe on protected areas, especially since monitoring has been reduced due to the pandemic.
Nevertheless, one young participant in the program, contacted by telephone in September during the government-mandated health state of emergency, expressed optimism. Daumiriry Rajaofelina, a resident of the village of Avolo, said he still believes in the success of the project and regularly contacts the NGO for advice on his bean plots, as well as information about the pandemic.
"After the trainings that I have had with Madagasikara Voakajy, I have seen that farming techniques have progressed a lot and that the harvests will be good," said Laurent Randrianirina, a member of Fiaka, the Malagasy name for both the crowned lemur (Eulemur coronatus) and one of the groups trained by Madagasikara Voakajy. "The project is really effective and personally I plan to start growing ginger from now on, and I am going to leave behind the bad methods of the past."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy