SRI LANKA

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79567

COLOMBO, 1 August 2008 (IRIN) - Resurgent clashes between Sri Lankan government forces and the Tamil Tigers have hampered tsunami reconstruction in the north and east and affected the livelihoods of 2.5 million people, according to an assessment by the UN Economic and Social Council.

"The most significant challenge to the recovery process in Sri Lanka is ongoing civil conflict. Escalating violence over the past few years has set back reconstruction efforts in the north and east of the country, though it continues largely apace in the south," stated the reportof the Secretary-General, Strengthening emergency relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction, recovery and prevention in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster. 

The assessment identified serious obstacles to reconstruction: "Security concerns have posed operational hurdles across a range of sectors, making it difficult or impossible for international aid partners to move or deliver assistance and supplies. Restrictions on transportation of certain construction materials, such as cement and steel, as well as difficulties in accessing certain areas have hampered recovery."

...

More security fears

"Security has remained a problem, sometimes even after completion of projects and people have returned to their normal jobs," Thomingo George, assistant director for fisheries for the eastern Batticaloa District, told IRIN. The fisheries industry has faced serious challenges trying to recover from the tsunami given the security situation.

He said that in Batticaloa District 4,000 boats of varying sizes had been distributed among fishermen after the tsunami and most of the 22,000 fishermen affected had returned to work. But now they faced problems distributing their catch to other parts of the country due to security restrictions.

...

Too far and too scared

Some of the fishermen who relocated inland after the tsunami following the government imposition of a no-build buffer zone along the coast told IRIN the distance to the coast and security fears prevented them from fishing as often as they wanted, cutting their incomes significantly.

"When there are incidents on the road, we are afraid to travel on them very early in the morning or late at night," Sinnathamby Arulananthan, a fishermen who relocated to the Thiraymadhu tsunami housing project in Batticaloa District, about 5km from the shore, told IRIN. "There is no transport on the road to the beach so we cycle or take a motorbike."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79548

NAIROBI, 31 July 2008 (IRIN) - Recurrent droughts, in addition to rising food and kerosene prices, have exacerbated food insecurity in the Horn of Africa country of Djibouti, according to a senior UN official.

"The people have been struggling since 2003 because of drought, which has reduced pasture and increased population migration," Marcus Prior, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman for East and Central Africa, told IRIN on 31 July.

...

The country has a high population of nomadic pastoralists. Food insecurity had, however, forced the nomadic people to cut the number of meals they ate per day and reduced the quality of the food, the spokesman added.

Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) in the country averaged 17 percent, rising to 25 in the northwest. A rate of 15 percent is regarded as the threshold for emergency.

Successive droughts had also increased migration from rural to urban areas as the population moved in search of jobs. As a result, unemployment in Djibouti City stood at 60 percent, according to a July report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net).

...

Djibouti imports most of its food requirements. In addition to increased obstacles to food access, Djibouti City was facing critical water shortages, with rationing being initiated by the government.

"In the worst case, a total of 341,000 people [54 percent of the population] are expected to need emergency food and water supplies by August," stated the FEWS Net report. 

Source: Nature

http://www.scidev.net/en/features/tibetan-plateau-melts-in-the-face-of-climate-chang.html?utm_source=link&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=en_features 

30 July 2008 |

The Tibetan plateau

Flickr/logjaye
Climate change is affecting the Tibetan plateau, threatening regional water supplies and altering atmospheric circulation for half the planet.

The plateau is the world's third largest store of ice. But its temperature has risen by up to 0.3 degrees Celsius every ten years over the last fifty years — approximately three times the global warming rate.

As a result, 82 per cent of the plateau's glaciers have retreated while ten per cent of its permafrost has degraded.

Among the causes is dust blowing from regional deserts during summertime, which changes radiation levels reaching the plateau by both reflecting and absorbing sunlight.

Black carbon emissions, caused by burning biomass, are also causing the plateau's melting season to start early and last longer.

The changes could have major effects. Glacial lakes increase the risk of floods, the shrinkage of glaciers will affect water supplies in the surrounding area and the loss of permafrost will endanger local ecosystems and render structures of the Qinghai­-Tibet railway vulnerable.

And the effects may be felt further afield. Some climate models show that a rise in the plateau's surface temperature over the oceans can alter the intensity of the Indian monsoon, whilst convection over the plateau may also carry pollutants in water vapour globally.

DILI, 31 July 2008 (IRIN) - Since it was built in 1983, residents of Dili have watched the retaining wall of the Pantai Kelapa road along Timor-Leste's coastline slowly erode.

Some say it is because of the effects of climate change - increasing numbers of ferocious storms have caused waves to batter the edges of the road.

But it is impossible to be certain because of a 25-year gap in environmental data.

"There is data starting from the 1950s but it's not complete because of the Indonesian occupation," Adao Soares, Timor-Leste's national focal point for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told IRIN.

"So starting from 1975 there is no climate data for Timor-Leste until 2000."

A lack of data is not the only challenge. Limited human resources make it difficult to undertake impact, vulnerability and adaptation studies. The fledgling nation is seeking funding to tackle climate change from various places - including the Global Environment Facility, but it is unlikely to come through before 2010.

...

Farmers and food security

Farmers too are noticing changes in the environment. Despite the lack of data, agricultural experts cite farmers who say traditional practices and planting cycles no longer fit with the changing weather patterns.
 

By Javier Blas in London

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/debdb184-5f3f-11dd-91c0-000077b07658.html 

Published: July 31 2008 23:31 | Last updated: July 31 2008 23:31

Russia plans to form a state grain trading company to control up to half of the country's cereal exports, intensifying fears that Moscow wants to use food exports as a diplomatic weapon in the same way as Gazprom has manipulated natural gas sales.

The move by Moscow, the world's fifth-biggest exporter of cereals, has been sharply criticised by US agriculture diplomats as a "giant step back" to the Soviet era.

The decision to control food exports is the latest sign of how soaring food prices are reshaping the agriculture industry. The recreation of Soviet-style state trading will aggravate anxieties of food-importing countries about their dependence on the international market, which has been severely disrupted this year after exporters, including Russia, imposed prohibitive foreign sales duties or export bans.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79578 

TOLIARA, 1 August 2008 (IRIN) - Madagascar is entering uncharted waters in its bid to implement ambitious projects in partnership with poor local communities that will more than triple existing conservation areas.

The Indian Ocean island is renowned for its unique and abundant terrestrial biodiversity, but its marine environment, which includes extensive coral reefs, mangroves and sea grass beds, has remained relatively unknown.

In the arid southwest, the fragile coastal marine resources are coming under severe pressure from over-exploitation by people living in the area, who are seen as integral to managing the island's natural resources.

"You simply cannot conserve marine resources successfully without talking to local communities," Volanirina Ramahery, marine project co-ordinator in southwest Madagascar for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), told IRIN.

...

"Now, with a push towards creating so many more protected areas, they are increasingly going to be in places where they affect far greater numbers of people; this calls for a whole new approach to the management of protected areas," he said.

According to the WWF, the concept of community-based natural resource management means that the people who live on the land and depend on its natural resources should manage them.

The benefits of such an approach are clear. "The people who live and work in an area feel it is their territory," Samba Roger, president of the Velondriake protected marine area, told IRIN. "They do not - they cannot - be told by others what to do. Using a top-down approach just creates problems; it is better to start from the bottom and work upwards."

...

 Alternative livelihoods

Perhaps the biggest challenge is finding alternative livelihoods for resource-dependent fishermen. Madagascar has over 5,000 kilometres of coastline, and an estimated 60 percent of the population live along it, most of whom catch fish for a living. Most of the people on the southwest coast belong to the Vezo ethnic group, which means 'to struggle with the sea'.

Sahra News Briefs:

Govt launches farmer climate change training program

Posted Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:00pm AEST

The Federal Government has launched a $26 million scheme to give farmers access to training programs to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Under the scheme, primary producers will receive grants to attend courses to help them understand the implications of climate change and train them to use new technology.

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke says it is important farmers are equipped to deal with the changing environment.

"FarmReady is about how you deal with climate change itself," he said.

"How do you adapt to the challenges that you are facing, as well as looking at methods as to how you can responsibly reduce your emissions.

"[It will] look at methods as to how you can financially manage your farm business in a way that deals with droughts that are going to come along more often than they used to."

Côte d'Ivoire: Lutte contre la pollution - Une unité de police annoncée

(Abidjan)
30 Juillet 2008
Publié sur le web le 31 Juillet 2008

Bruno Kouadio

Sept agents des affaires maritimes qui constituent les premiers éléments de l'Unité de police anti-pollution (Unipol) ont prêté serment, vendredi dernier, au Palais de justice Plateau.

Ces agents qui seront plus tard rejoints par six gendarmes, six policiers et six éléments des eaux et forêts ont été investis de la mission de lutter contre la pollution dans les milieux récepteurs eau, sol et air.

English:
Cote d'Ivoire: Fight against pollution -- A police unit announced

Cote d'Ivoire - The Cote d'Ivoire has created a new Anti-Pollution Police Unit (UNIPOL) consisting of two dozen maritime experts, policemen, and staff from the Department of Waters and Forests. Colonel Bohoussou Alexandre, the director, announced that their mission was to help safeguard the seas, rivers, soil, and air from pollution by inspecting discharges from vessels, fining motorists for messy exhausts, and other specific enforcement duties.
  - summary by Louise Shaler
Source: allAfrica.com by Bruno Kouadio
 

Palestinians call on Israel to rethink water deal

07/29/2008

Palestinian Authority - Palestinians in the West Bank are suffering from a severe drought that's reducing an already meager supply of water, said Shada Ateli, the head of the Palestinian Water Authority. He reported that since mid-May, many Palestinians have been going without water for days at a time and urged Israel, which controls 90% of the region's water sources, to renegotiate an interim water agreement. Under the agreement, signed in 1995, the Palestinians receive a fixed allocation. West Bank residents use around 15 gallons of water per person per day, in contrast to the 60 gallons used in Israeli cities. A recent report by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem described the inequity as unfair. Uri Shani of Israel's Water Authority retorted that Palestinians were actually receiving more water than their agreed share and that the Palestinian Authority was not cracking down on herders who stole water or making any attempt to recycle wastewater for irrigation.
  - summary by Louise Shaler
Source: Tehran Times
Original Language: English

'India's water crisis can incite more conflicts'

07/28/2008

India - In India, a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM) warned that India's water crisis could get more complex and lead to more interstate conflicts if prompt measures are not taken to tackle the problem. The study said that although India has made progress in supplying safe water, there remains a gross disparity in coverage across the country. Secretary-General D.S. Rawat of ASSOCHAM blamed extremely poor management, unclear laws, government corruption, a lack of incentives to promote water conservation, and pollution by industrial and human wastes for the water shortage. Rawat also said that a rapidly growing economy and large farm sector were contributing to the crisis.
  - summary by MB
Source: Yahoo News
Original Language: English
 

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79613

ZIGUINCHOR, 4 August 2008 (IRIN) - The soaring price of cashew nuts in Senegal's restive southern region Casamance is lining the pockets of armed rebels according to Ismaïla Diédhiou, an agricultural expert who works at the local development association ASPRODEB.

"Insecurity has also risen in the forests where cashews are grown towards the Guinea-Bissau border, which has benefited the rebels who collect the nuts themselves to sell them on in Ziguinchor and Guinea-Bissau," Diédhiou said.

...

"Some say [selling] cashews or cannabis enables us to buy weapons. This is false... it is only our leaders who buy our weapons."

Manga blamed violence near cashew orchards on the Senegalese military which has a heavy presence in the break-away region, claiming they too profit from the cashew trade.

Lieutenant Malamine Camara, Senegalese military spokesperson in Ziguinchor, denied the allegation.

"Our mission is to ensure the safety of people and goods in this region. We never engage in profit-making activities, and we execute our mission by the rules," he said.
 

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79634

BULAWAYO, 5 August 2008 (IRIN) - Political violence, routine power cuts and fertiliser shortages are all but putting paid to any chance of Zimbabwe harvesting a winter wheat crop that will ease its chronic food shortages.

Once the bread basket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe has become dependent on donor food in a few short years. A recent UN report estimates that by early 2009 more than 5 million of Zimbabwe's estimated 12 million people will require food assistance, with the winter wheat harvest unlikely to make any significant difference.

One of the few remaining white farmers in the prime Nyamandlovu farming area, in Matabeleland North Province, who declined to be identified, told IRIN: "The crop that I planted was severely damaged after war veterans ordered my workers off the land as they campaigned for President [Robert] Mugabe in the June presidential elections, and the little that survived is still facing many challenges, which include persistent power cuts and shortages of fertiliser."

In 2000 Mugabe's ZANU-PF government launched the fast-track land reform programme, expropriating, often violently, nearly 4,500 white-owned farms to be distributed amongst landless blacks. The government failed to provide agricultural inputs to the new farmers, while in other cases the farms were handed out to government ministers, party members and army and intelligence officers, who often left their land fallow.

The white farmer, who planted 60 hectares of wheat and 10 hectares of barley, said outside events disrupted agricultural planning in the period leading up to the second round of presidential voting on 27 June. 

http://allafrica.com/stories/200808070442.html

7 August 2008
Posted to the web 7 August 2008

Golu Timothy

Africa yesterday woke up to the damning news of another unconstitutional change of government when the government of Prime Minister Yahia Ould Ahmed El-Ouakef was swept out of power via a coup de'etat led by senior military officers in Mauritania, the West African country that just struck oil in commercial quantity.

The putsch was led by the former head of the Mauritanian presidential guard, General Mohamed Ould Abdelazeez.

The coup took place after the president and prime minister fired the country's top four military officers in an announcement early yesterday.

No official reason was given for firing the officials.

...

"We cannot afford turning back the hand of the clock anywhere in the sub-region", he said.

The President noted that no nation in the sub-region can achieve meaningful socio-economic development without peace and political stability.

He said Nigeria would continue to lead the efforts to maintain peace and political stability in West Africa in particular and the whole of Africa in general.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/science/earth/07climate.html?ref=us\\

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: August 6, 2008
The National Center for Atmospheric Research, an important hub for work on the causes and consequences of climate change, has shut down a program focused on strengthening poor countries' ability to forecast and withstand droughts, floods and other climate-related hazards.

The move, which center officials say resulted from the shrinking of federal science budgets, is being denounced by many experts on environmental risk, who say such research is more crucial than ever in a world with rising populations exposed to climate threats.

In e-mail exchanges, these experts said the eliminated program, the Center for Capacity Building, was unique in its blend of research and training in struggling countries.

The Center for Capacity Building (still online at ccb.ucar.edu) was created in 2004. It built on decades of work by its director, Michael Glantz, a political scientist who has focused on the societal effects of natural climate extremes and any shifts related to accumulating greenhouse gases.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200808080580.html

Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)

8 August 2008
Posted to the web 8 August 2008

Michael Deibert
New York

While conflict diamonds or blood diamonds, as they are known, have gained attention the world over in terms of the role illicit gems play in fuelling warfare, the role that the timber trade has played in abetting conflict has received considerably less consideration. That may be beginning to change
The world over, though particularly in West Africa, both legal and illegal commerce in timber has played a substantial role in the enabling of conflicts in countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The ruin globally wreaked on forests is having wide-ranging consequences

According to the 2007 World Bank report "At Loggerheads: Agricultural Expansion, Poverty Reduction, and Environment in the Tropical Forests", nearly 70 million people-many from an indigenous background -live in remote areas of closed tropical forests, while an additional 735 million live in or near trop¬ical forests and savannas. Both groups rely heavily on forested areas for fuel, food and income.

...

Stepping into this contentious landscape, Helveta, a firm based in the United Kingdom, is marketing software that it says will help regularise the fragmented supply chain for timber. It should also lessen the risk for companies of purchasing wood that has been illegally procured.

"The best way to improve transparency is to make sure that everyone has the same view of the same data at the same time," says Patrick Newton, Helveta's CEO. "Our focus has been very much to engage with nation states on governance issues, but also with local communities to make sure that transparency is embedded in our process."

Helveta works in tandem with such bodies as the Liberian Forestry Development Agency and the International Tropical Timber Organisation in Côte d'Ivoire. Using its control intelligence system (CIS), trees are catalogued and tagged with numbers entered into a computer system hosted in the UK.

"It gives (local residents) a tool to prove their occupation of the forest," says Jerome Lewis, a professor of social anthropology at University College London and a consultant working with Helveta to develop the software. Lewis has worked with Mbendjele Pygmies in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) since 1994.

"They can prove to outsiders that they live and use and depend on the forest," Lewis explains.

...

United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Liberian timber industry were finally lifted in 2006. Under the government of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Africa's first elected female head of state - the nation has begun to emerge from more than a decade of civil war.

"Timber has played an important role in fuelling the conflict here and the government is keen to implement a system where timber can help aid the reconstruction of the country," according to Thomas Pichet, Liberia country manager with SGS, a verification, testing and certification company that is overseeing the implementation of the CIS.

Despite the progress, though, some observers contend that much remains to be done.

 ...

 The potential for these kinds of IT-based timber tracking systems is good, but the humans that push the buttons are the same humans that fill in the paper-based forms or stand at the roadblocks now," says David Young, who oversees the independent forest monitoring project at Global Witness.

"There is a risk that they might be very good on the technical side but don't put the same effort towards political problems, which won't necessarily produce the right results."

Aug 8th 2008
From Economist.com

A war between Russia and Georgia appears to be under way

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11909324&fsrc=RSS 

GEORGIAN soldiers, tanks and fighter-planes struck Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway (Russian-backed) region of South Ossetia, on Friday August 8th. Parts of the city were reported to be burning as Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, declared that his forces had "freed" much of the area from separatist control.

The immediate cause of the fighting is unclear as claim and counterclaim abound. But what is clear is that a conflict which has been simmering for years, has at last erupted. What happens next will depend almost entirely on Russia's response: 150 Russian tanks were reported to be entering South Ossetia on Friday. Georgia's government says that Russian planes have dropped bombs outside of South Ossetia including on the edge of Tblisi, the Georgian capital. Alexander Lomaia, the secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, told The Economist on Friday that "this is an open military aggression and we are now at the state of undeclared war with Russia. What else could you call it?". He also said that Georgia had announced a ceasefire in South Ossetia from 3pm on Friday.

... 

Mr Putin may also want to deal with Georgia in good time before Russia hosts 2014 winter Olympic games in Sochi, a Black-sea resort town only few miles from the Abkhaz border. A military conflict in Georgia will also derail for a long time Georgia's aspiration to join NATO---something that Russian finds deeply unpalatable.

Russia's broader aim may be to try to roll back the advance of pro-Western forces in its "near abroad" by highlighting the West's inability to help Georgia. The hotting up of Georgia's conflicts coincided with Kosovo's declaration of independence, recognised by much of the West, and American pressure for the expansion of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. That move has been stymied, mainly by Germany; Georgia was promised eventual NATO membership but no firm plan. Though Georgia has become a vital corridor for oil and gas exports to Europe, this has not brought the support that its leaders had expected. A lame-duck American administration has been able to do little, though Georgians hope a presidential-election victory by John McCain, an ardent supporter, may change their fortunes. The country's strong-willed and idiosyncratic president, Mr Saakashvili, is not seen by all European leaders as quite the paragon of legality, freedom and reform that he claims to be. Georgia's image was severely dented in November last year by a crackdown against the opposition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703305.html

By Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 8, 2008; Page A01

ALONG THE SAN MIGUEL RIVER, Ecuador -- The captain held a finger to his lips, and his soldiers crouched on either the side of the jungle path. He saw the pair of footprints pressed into the mud behind a tree, which he recognized as marks from the rubber boots preferred by the Colombian guerrillas he was after.

... 

The Ecuadoran soldiers who pursue the guerrillas operate along a 366-mile-long border, most of it marked by rivers that can be crossed at any point by canoe. In this remote jungle, they have found weapons dumps, cocaine labs and hundreds of guerrilla camps linked by footpaths that ribbon for miles through the undergrowth.

Of the few people who live here, many are Colombian settlers, some of them refugees fleeing the guerrilla war or toxic fumigants sprayed over the coca fields of southern Colombia, some of them farmers conspiring with the guerrillas. Some are guerrillas themselves. The soldiers can rarely tell who is who.

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/37890

WASHINGTON/Nairobi, 8 August 2008 — A new project worth $26.45 million has been launched by the Global Environment Facility to better protect bees, bats and birds that are essential to the world's crop production.

The unique five-year project "Conservation & Management of Pollinators for Sustainable Agriculture through an Ecosystem Approach", which will be implemented through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), will help ensure food security through the protection of the key pollinator species.

The project is coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization on United  Nations and  will be executed  through partnerships with the Governments of Brazil, Ghana, India, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan and South Africa in collaboration with stakeholders from different environment and agricultural communities at national and international level, including ministries, research institutions, agencies, academia,  NGOs, private sector and farming communities.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79760

KARACHI, 12 August 2008 (IRIN) - The sight of humanitarian assessment teams moving through calamity-hit villages and punching data into small, hand-held computers as they interview villagers may soon become routine in Pakistan.

An innovative new survey methodology, the Multi-cluster Rapid Assessment Mechanism (McRAM), assesses the immediate relief needs of communities affected by humanitarian emergencies.

An integrated questionnaire is used, with trained enumerators entering the results into hand-held computers, known as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).

Separate groups of men and women in a village complete the questionnaires. Once this process is completed, it is hoped the data - which is instantly transferred to a centralised computer using email or a mobile phone, and analysed - will enable the immediate needs of a specific community (eg resulting from sickness in a village hit by floods) to be identified.

"When a disaster strikes a community, the McRAM envisions pre-trained teams of enumerators dispatched as soon as possible to collect the information necessary to plan an initial response," Sandie Walton-Ellery, the McRAM project coordinator, told IRIN.

"Since data is collected electronically on PDAs, it can be analysed within days, so UN agencies and their partners can quickly begin the work of bringing relief to affected people," Walton-Ellery said.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79742

HEBRON, 10 August 2008 (IRIN) - The toughest part of the West Bank just got a bit sweeter, with an influx of beehives, helping farmers cope with the decline in their economic situation.

Stuck between two Israeli settlements, the Palestinian residents of Wadi al-Ghrous in Hebron are surrounded by military bases and fences, their movements are restricted, and over the past 25 years they have been affected by Israeli land expropriations.
 
Sami Gheit, a 62-year-old farmer, said he lost 50 dunams (five hectares) of his land to a "buffer zone" created by the Israeli military between his home and the nearby settlement of Qiryat Arba. However, the fence surrounds the Palestinians and not the settlements, thereby annexing, de-facto, Gheit's land, the farmer said.

"I had grapes, plums, apricots, almonds on the other side of the fence," he told IRIN. "They took it away about five years ago. They said it was for security."

He said he was promised adequate access to the land, but this was not granted.

...

ICRC handouts

Not being able to sell his fruits meant his financial condition deteriorated and Gheit now depends on handouts from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 

The ICRC gave him five beehives to help him get back on his feet.

"I got the beehives about five months ago and this is the first batch," he said holding up a jar of honey. "I spend my time with the bees. I have no land but I have something," he said optimistically.

The ICRC said it gave five beehives each to 74 West Bank families. 

...

No movement restrictions for bees

For Samir Jaber, another Palestinian farmer in the enclave, the proximity to the settlement has a small irony: because the settlers have abundant access to water they are able to grow many flowers which his bees use for gathering nectar.

"There are lots of rosemary bushes in the settlements and this is good for the honey," Jaber said. "In the winter, I want to plant my own rosemary." 

...

Jaber complains bitterly about the Palestinians' water crisis.

"We have [had] lots of water problems in the last three years. It wiped us out," he said, adding that because of the restrictions on movement it was hard to tanker in water. Refuse trucks and ambulances cannot access this area either.

Jaber said it takes him over an hour to reach his cousin's house, about 200 metres away and visible from his window, because of an Israeli military base planted in the middle of what was the family's land.

Water

But this summer, water was the main issue.
 

http://allafrica.com/stories/200808120869.html

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

12 August 2008
Posted to the web 12 August 2008

Nairobi

Drought and recent fighting around the town of Beletweyne, in central Somalia's Hiiraan region, have aggravated the plight of at least 1,000 Ethiopian refugee families, who were already facing acute food shortages, local sources told IRIN.

Most of these refugees, living in camps for the displaced in Bilis-did and Bulo-korah (on the outskirts of Beletweyne), are Somalis from Ogaden in Ethiopia's Somali region. They fled in 1977 during the war between Ethiopia and Somalia.

 http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79824

NAIROBI, 14 August 2008 (IRIN) - Access to food in Djibouti has been cut by more than 50 percent because of reduced availability and rising prices, according to a humanitarian official.

"The price of rice [the main staple] had gone up by 28 percent since January and by 88 percent from [the average price] in 2007," Nancy Balfour, the disaster management coordinator for the Zonal Office of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told IRIN.

Djibouti imports 80 percent of its food, most of it traditionally from Ethiopia, which is suffering food insecurity of its own and has banned the export of several cereal crops.

...

The urban and peri-urban populations that have not been covered in past humanitarian interventions are the most affected, she said. Other hard-hit areas include Obock in the northwest and Ali Sabieh in the southeast.

The peri-urban areas also had limited water supply. "The pastoralists are concerned with trying to keep livestock alive," she said.

Low rainfall and subsequent drought over the past few years have caused massive livestock deaths in the mainly pastoralist country and also led to a decline in pastoralist trade and income.

The global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate among children between six months and five years averages 16.8 percent, reaching 25 percent in the northwest region, according to a Joint Appeal and Response Plan for Drought, Food and Nutrition Crisis released by Djibouti's government and the UN in late-July. 

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79823 

NAIROBI, 14 August 2008 (IRIN) - Food insecurity compounded by inflation and recent fighting between insurgents and government forces around the town of Beletweyne in central Somalia's Hiran region has led to a sharp increase in the number of street children.

"More and more children are taking to the streets; some to engage in petty trade while others are just there in search of food," a journalist based in Beletweyne, who declined to be named, told IRIN.

The journalist said children, numbering at least 100, had resorted to Beletweyne streets in recent months as access to food dwindled for many families.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ONIN-7HJP8H?OpenDocument&RSS20=18-P

Afghanistan is experiencing its most severe drought in eight years, with farming communities in the northern provinces being the hardest hit. In these areas where crops and livestock are dependent on rainfall rather than irrigation, an Afghan minister reported that 1.5 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian relief.

Droughts are a long-term rather than new phenomenon in Afghanistan, but there has been a marked increase in their frequency over recent years that officials have blamed on global warming. The accumulative effect of these cyclical droughts coupled with abnormally high summer temperatures have made 2008 an exceptionally bad year. Food shortages have further been exacerbated by the global rise in food prices and ongoing conflict.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), prices of basic foods like meat, cereals and dairy products rose by an average of 53 per cent from 2007 to 2008.

"Families are now finding themselves increasingly vulnerable to chronic malnutrition as the struggle to find affordable food becomes harder," said Neva Khan, programme manager for Afghanistan.

...

Lack of clean drinking water is also having direct implications on people's health. With temperatures reaching over 40ºC, many springs and wells have dried up. Some families are having to walk for hours to find water, or in some cases drink dirty water from rivers, making them vulnerable to water borne diarrhoeal diseases.

Merlin is currently training community health workers to recognise and manage diseases caused by malnutrition and the lack of safe drinking water. We are also planning to work with the Ministry of Health to improve community water supplies and provide clean water to 38 local health facilities which do not have a clean water supply.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79883

NAIROBI, 19 August 2008 (IRIN) - Pastoralists in East Africa's arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) need to be empowered to adapt to, and survive, climate change, a report by a humanitarian organisation says.

"Pastoralists across East Africa are starting to learn to live with the reality of climate change, adapting as they can to its impact," Oxfam International says in a report launched on 18 August in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. 

... 

According to an August 18 field mission report, Pastoralists Living on the Edge in Kenya, released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, climate change also plays a crucial role in inter-ethnic conflicts among the pastoralist communities in northern Kenya. Thousands of environmental refugees flee from drought, which results in pasture and water shortages for livestock.

The report says pastoralists living in the ASAL areas are bearing the brunt of adverse consequences, particularly food insecurity due to droughts, floods and livestock diseases.

"There is a humanitarian crisis looming in Northern Kenya as pastoralists have resorted to eating wild fruits and gum arabica to contain hunger. This is a community which has been self-reliant on food as the majority of them were farmers," the OCHA report said, adding: "It is about time donors and government reconsider their strategies and empower pastoralist communities by directing funding support to pastoralists' institutions."

In its report, Oxfam recommended that governments within East Africa should protect the land and resource rights of pastoralists, eliminate inappropriate development policies and provide support to the pastoralist communities through cash payments in place of food aid.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0815/p06s01-wosc.html

Kabul, Afghanistan - A Wednesday attack that killed three Western aid workers in Afghanistan raises concerns that the Taliban is attempting to force the expulsion of all foreign humanitarian workers from the troubled country.

"This was the worst attack in many years and is a major escalation of hostilities," says Sayed Rahim Satar, vice chairman of the Afghan NGO Coordinating Bureau.

The assault signals a shift in the Taliban's strategy toward a policy of direct confrontation with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), says Waliullah Rahmani of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies.

"This appears to be the beginning of a new approach," he says, "to surround Kabul and eliminate any foreign or government presence in the area."

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79881 

KABUL, 19 August 2008 (IRIN) - Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan Kai Eide has called on donors to respond quickly to a US$404 million appeal made a month ago to ease the impact of drought and high food prices.

About five million vulnerable Afghans have been pushed into high-risk food insecurity over the past few months, according to aid agencies.

...

The Afghan government and UN agencies on 19 July launched a joint appealfor over $404 million to provide emergency food aid to millions of vulnerable Afghans affected by drought and high food prices, support agriculture and animal husbandry, and deliver live-saving medical assistance.

The appeal includes $185 million for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) to procure and distribute 100,000 tonnes of food aid to five million most needy people. 

...

UNAMA's capacity to be boosted

According to UNAMA, 35 percent of Afghanistan's estimated 26.6 million population cannot meet their minimum daily food requirements and most households spend about 85 percent of their income on food, compared to 65 percent in 2005.

UN officials and aid workers say a "deteriorating humanitarian situation" has been in evidence over the past few years as a result of the insurgency, drought, and aid ineffectiveness.

In a bid to respond to the growing needs, Eide said UNAMA's humanitarian capacity would be strengthened (both in terms of personnel and resources) to effectively "forecast, analyse and coordinate" relief activities.

"Crime" of aid convoy attacks

Meanwhile, insurgents and other armed groups have continued attacking and looting commercial trucks carrying WFP food aid.

Eide called such attacks a "crime against the poorest" and accused the attackers of "stealing from the poorest" and "attacking the poorest" people. 

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=79900

HERAT, 20 August 2008 (IRIN) - Unusually strong winds carrying dust from the parched land have increased respiratory and eye diseases in western Afghanistan, according to health and environmental officials.

The winds - known locally as "the 120-day winds" - usually begin in early July and go on until late September in Herat Province, the provincial department of agriculture said. This year's winds have been unusually strong, destructive and dust-laden.

"Because of drought, climate change, environmental degradation and lack of vegetation, the wind is extremely strong and dusty this time - unprecedented in several decades," Akhtar Mohammad Mahboob, an official at the provincial department of environmental protection, told IRIN.

"Serious" air pollution has been caused in Herat Province by the swirling dust and there has been a significant increase in reported cases of respiratory and eye diseases, public health officials said.

...

Damage to agricultural land

Herat agricultural officials said the winds were a mixture of gales and whirlwinds and had caused extensive damage to agriculture.

"Usually these winds damage 2-3cm of topsoil, but this year preliminary assessments indicate that damage has been caused up to 12cm down," said Abdullah Khawari, an official in the department of agriculture. He said soil fertility and agricultural production had been affected.

"The wind has also moved piles of sand onto agricultural land, damaging its fertility," Khawari said.

Afghanistan has lost over 70 percent of its forests and vegetation in the past three decades, leading to desertification and environmental degradation particularly in the south, east and west, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ASAZ-7HRG5C?OpenDocument&RSS20=18-P 

India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Indonesia are among the pivotal states identified as climate change "hotspots" countries particularly vulnerable to the increase in extreme drought, flooding, and cyclones expected in the coming decade according to a new reportcommissioned by humanitarian relief agency CARE International and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). "Leaders and communities in these pivotal states and in other States at risk in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and in South East Asia are already facing enormous political, social, demographic, economic and security challenges. Climate change will greatly complicate and could undermine efforts to manage these challenges," said Dr. Charles Ehrhart, Climate Change Coordinator for CARE International and one of the report's author

...

According to the authors, the purpose of mapping these 'hotspots' is to help policymakers grasp the extent of challenge the world faces, and encourage humanitarian actors to adapt their response strategies to the realities of the increased and, in some cases, novel risks emanating from climate change.

"Climate change is a wake up call for all of us," says Dr. Robert Glasser, CARE International's Secretary General. "We must avoid relying exclusively on quick fixes like food aid that are necessary but do not address the underlying causes of the emergency and, most importantly, we ought to help people get back on their feet as soon as possible after the disaster has been tackled."

The launch of this study coincides with the start of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting that is being held in Accra, Ghana from 21-27 August. Participants attending the International Disaster and Risk Conference in Davos, Switzerland during the last week of this month will also appreciate the findings of the joint CARE International and UNOCHA report.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0827/p12s01-woaf.html

By Alex Halperin and Jina Moore| Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the August 27, 2008 edition

Warring militias are stealing cows to perpetuate a conflict sparked by spillover from the 1994 Rwandan genocide.By Alex Halperin and Jina Moore| Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the August 27, 2008 edition

Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo - For years, African militias have used proceeds from precious natural resources to fund conflicts - a practice dramatized in the 2006 Hollywood film "Blood Diamond." Now, there's a new twist: blood cows.

Warring rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo are stealing and selling livestock to finance a conflict sparked by spillover from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 were killed.

Vast and volatile, the Democratic Republic of Congo has long suffered from conflicts fought over its reserves of gold, copper, uranium, and coltan, a mineral needed in cellphones and other electronics. For years, armed groups have sought control over mines and forests, their acquisitions of wealth fueling cycles of violence. Cattle may sound less glamorous than precious metals, but they're accessible.

...

In January, the Congolese Army and two major rebel factions agreed to a cease-fire and opened peace talks. As MONUC redeployed to help pave the way for peace, both factions moved quickly to establish or strengthen their grip on territories across North Kivu province. Fighting resumed and cattle thievery soared.

...

In the past year, the price of beef has doubled, fueled in part by the black-market trade in cattle. "PARECO has stolen all of the cows," says Antoine Nzovu, a manager at a slaughterhouse on the shores of Lake Kivu. "The thieves go with the cows to Walikale," a market in rebel-controlled territory to the west.

While the trade in blood cows finances rebel activity here, but it's also a form of psychological warfare. Another major rebel group in the region, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), is a predominantly Tutsi movement which sees itself as protecting its people. It also defends their traditional livelihood; For centuries, the pastoral Tutsi have measured a man's wealth by counting his cattle.

http://www.careclimatechange.org/careclimatechange.org/events__activities/new_report

Human-induced climate change is affecting patterns of extreme weather across the globe, resulting in higher risk of humanitarian disasters. This is especially true in areas where there already are high levels of human vulnerability concludes a new report entitled Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change: Mapping emerging trends and risk hotspots, which was carried out by CARE International, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Maplecroft.

Climate Change

The Earth is warming. Evidence includes a well-documented increase in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising sea levels. This is triggering a shift in seasons, changes in when/how much rain falls in different parts of the world, and changes in extreme weather.

As such, climate change is blurring the distinction between "natural" and "manmade" hazards. Although weather-related hazards, such as droughts and floods, would occur regardless of whether or not we add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, our actions have consequences.

In fact, an increase in temperature extremes, the area affected by drought and the frequency of heavy precipitation events, as well as changes in wind patterns and storm tracks, have already been measured - and the consensus amongst experts is that we are to blame.

When hazards hit areas where people have limited capacity to reduce their level of risk, manage or deal with the aftermath of extreme weather, the results can be truly "disastrous." This is especially so in areas where population density is high and growing too quickly for good planning.

Mapping the Hazards of Climate Change for Humanitarians

This study uses a Geographical Information Systems (GIS) mapping approach to attempt to understand how the projected impacts of climate change will intersect with existing patterns of human vulnerability or so called disaster risk hotspots.

This allows the identification of current and future hotspots of climate change risk. The results illustrate the implications of climate change for humanitarian assistance so that policymakers can grasp the nature and scale of the challenge we face and humanitarian actors can begin adapting their response strategies to the realities of climate change.

The study builds on recent publications and data relating to trends in natural hazards and their relationship with climate change, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, the World Bank's Natural Disasters Hotspots: a Global Risk Analysis, the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change and the Human Development Report 2007/8._It complements the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' (OCHA) recent work to improve risk analysis and mapping which combines historical data with forward looking climate model projections. Technical details of the methodology used for this study, as well as its limitations, are presented in a _Technical Annex.

International Journal: Canadian Institute of International Affairs

Vol. 62 No. 1 Winter 2006/2007

 Natural Resources and Conflict

www.igloo.org/ciia/publications/intern~1

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80048

KINSHASA, 28 August 2008 (IRIN) - Human rights and local government officials in Democratic Republic of Congo's Katanga province have expressed concern about rising tension between different communities in a mining town there.

Clashes broke out on the night of 26 August between residents of Kolwezi and people from neighbouring provinces who work in the town's copper, cobalt, tin and manganese mines.

"There was some material damage, 45 bicycles were burnt," Jean-Marie Dikanga Kazadi, the provincial interior minister, told IRIN.

"Residents decided to avenge a man who had been beaten up [earlier the same day] and set upon the miners, deeming them responsible," the minister said, adding that police helped to restore calm by midnight.

"Anything could happen and not much is being done about it," said Golden Misabiko, president of the Katanga branch of the African Human Rights Association.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79891

NYANZALAC, 19 August 2008 (IRIN) - Although he looks frail, Cossan Ntabwigwa, in his late 60s, is a determined man. He recently returned from Tanzania, where he had been a refugee since 1972, and is seeking to resettle on a piece of land he left years ago.

Despite finding someone else occupying the land, Ntabwigwa is determined to reclaim it, and he says sharing it with the current occupant is out of the question.

"I left two other brothers there [in Tanzania] who are married and with children and who must also get a share of this land," he said.

When he repatriated from Gatumba settlement in Tanzania at the beginning of August, Ntabwigwa, who heads a 10-member family, spent three days at the commune headquarters in Nyanzalac, Makamba province, waiting to go home.

Like most Burundians, Ntabwigwa's strong attachment to land means he is unwilling to share his piece of land with the current occupant, whom he considers an outsider since he is not a family member.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=80044

RAMALLAH/STOCKHOLM, 28 August 2008 (IRIN) - The occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) continues to suffer from drought, but the head of the Water Authority told IRIN there was a limit to what he could do to help.

"Crisis management is the only strategy that I am able to apply," Shaddad Attili, the head of the Palestinian Water Authority, told IRIN while attending World Water Week in Stockholm (13-23 August).

He said he did not have the power to plan properly for his constituents, the 3.5 million Palestinians in the oPt, as the Oslo Accords left too much control in Israeli hands.

...

According to an agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, details of the current talks are kept under wraps so as not to impede progress, but water resources are one of the key final status issues being discussed.