Cameroon, Nigeria cooperate on flood prevention plan

By Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

YAOUNDE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - As this year’s rainy season gathers momentum, authorities in Cameroon and Nigeria fear a repeat of the 2012 crisis when waterways burst their banks and devastated entire villages, killing some 180 people across the north of both countries.

As a result of last year’s disaster, the two West African nations have resolved to cooperate on building new flood-control structures, sharing weather information and relocating people from flood-prone areas in an effort to avoid further losses.

Radio helps Tanzania farmers fight climate change

By Kizito Makoye

 As thousands of farmers in northeastern Tanzania grapple with long spells of dry weather and erratic rainfall, a Canadian charity has collaborated with local partners on a radio programme to help onion and rice growers adapt to the effects of climate change.

Farm Radio International and private radio station MoshiFM started the programme, tailored to help farmers in remote Ruvu village and the surrounding areas of Same district find ways to maintain their harvests as well as seeking better markets for their produce.

Launched last year, Heka-Heka Vijijini (which means “upbeat mood in the village” in Kiswahili) airs twice a week for one hour, teaching farmers to embrace crop diversification and irrigation to boost soil fertility.

Did you know that you can earn money from your forest without cutting the trees? GERALD TENYWA recently went to Bushenyi district in Uganda and narrates how local farmers are earning handsomely by contributing to a global effort to reduce carbondioxide

Her life began to change for the better about a decade ago, when she built a school. Beatrice Ahimbisibwe, a resident of Bitereko in Bushenyi district, says she built the school with her partner, brick by brick. She attributes her success to planting trees, which has been overlooked as a money-maker for many decades.

DEFORESTATION, CHARCOAL BURNING AND LIVELIHOOD: ZAMBIA’S DILEMMA

By Friday Phiri-Lusaka, Zambia

Zambia is regarded as one of the highly forested countries whose forests cover accounts for about 60% of the total land area estimated at 64 million hectares. The total area of indigenous forest in Zambia is estimated at 44.6 million hectares, covering 60 % of the total land area.

Opportunity for young bloggers

Dear journalists,

Since 2009, the Adopt a Negotiator project has brought dedicated young people at almost all UNFCCC sessions to contribute to continuously hold governments accountable and provide opportunities for outreach on the need for urgent international climate actions. 

Here is an announcement for 2013 campaign...

Climate change Adaptation: Reporting the Lake Chad River Basin.

Aaron Kaah- Yancho

aaronkah@yahoo.co.uk

The Chad Lake basin has a surface area of 1 million square miles around it, including the far north regions of Cameroon. 

The Chad Lake basin

Since this once might inland sea shrunk by 90% in the 1970’s this region has become one of the world’s poorest. Yet even as the Lake Chad shrunk, the population of the region expanded.

An estimated 42 million people now live in this region, many of whom migrated from the Sahel region in  the north where arid land is turning into  desert sand dunes every year. 

CLIMATE CHANGE WEAKENS FOOD SECURITY EFFORTS TO MALNURISHED CHILDREN IN NORTHERN CAMEROON

By Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

[Garoua- Cameroon] Ongoing efforts against extreme food crisis and increasing child malnutrition in the north of Cameroon and other parts of the Sahel region in Africa are being weakened by the effects of climate change among others.  Compounding existing food insecurity, experts say is a combination of prolonged drought, failed crops, soaring food prices, ignorance and regional instability that has left millions of people in the region hungry with the more vulnerable group, children and mothers taking the biggest hit.

“Northern Cameroon is part of the Sahel region that is prone to drought and suffering from poor food production supply of portable water. The situation is increasingly so with climate change. Rains are shorter and less frequent; pasture land is turning into desert. This is changing the way of life for the people in this region and many cannot feed themselves and their children, reason why they need support to adapt and increase their resilience," Dr NJackoi Henry former country director Heifer Project International Cameroon told Thomson Reuters in Yaounde.

African Leaders Close Ranks To Protect Threatened Forest and Maritime Resources in the Congo Basin and Gulf of Guinea

By Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

YAOUNDE, Cameroon - African leaders who met at the Maritime security meeting in the Gulf of Guinea in Yaounde Cameroon recently, were not only worried at the increasing pirate attacks in the region costing lives and property but also the disturbing threats in one of the richest biodiversity and forest cover in the globe, the Congo Basin Forest, leaving countries in the region increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Meeting at the Summit of Heads of State and Government of ECCAS, ECOWAS, and the Gulf of Guinea Commission on June 24-25 in Yaounde, the leaders agreed to put in place a joint and results oriented security system to protect their common heritage.