Before 2012, Ituri in the DRC, the temperature was moderately favorable but since 2013 until today global warming has a major impact on the population. The photo was taken in July 2021 in DELE / BUNIA / ITURI / DRC.
Climatelinks Photo Gallery
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The photo was taken during plantain transplantation work in the fight against global warming and hunger.
During our agricultural supervision and awareness-raising activity on the impacts of climatic effects with farmers in their fields.
During our agricultural supervision and awareness-raising activity on the impacts of climatic effects with a farming couple in his field.
With a grant from the MCHF Clean Cooking Fund, Kawandama Hills Plantation will scale up the production of sustainably produced legal, licensed charcoal. KHP is a pioneer in sustainable charcoal and obtained a license in 2015. KHP’s 6,500-hectare parcel of land, located in the Viphya Plantation in Northern Malawi, will increase annual production from 300 MT to 1,000 MT of legal charcoal. Currently, KHP produces and supplies approximately 1,000 bags of legal, licensed charcoal every week through its two points of sale in Lilongwe and markets charcoal through a network of distributors. KHP and its distributors consistently undercut the illegal charcoal market prices by 20-30 percent. In Malawi, wood fuels—charcoal and firewood—are the primary source of cooking energy for the vast majority of the population. Three of four urban households use illegal and unsustainably produced charcoal as their primary source of cooking energy. This paradigm, triggered by the lack of a reliable energy source and widespread poverty, has resulted in massive deforestation across Malawi and exacerbates issues related to food security, economic growth, and health.
As Malawi’s deforestation crisis looms, the government has squarely placed the charcoal question at the center of national debate. In 2017, the government leveraged USAID support and launched the National Charcoal Strategy—a framework to address charcoal-related issues with short, mid, and long-term actions. The strategy aligns with national policies, ranging from the National Forestry Policy to the National Energy Policy. With a proper roadmap, in 2020, the Charcoal Regulations and the amended Forestry Policy tightened regulations around the production of charcoal. Central to the strategy is the promotion of sustainably produced charcoal from trees grown on plantations as well as the promotion of alternative cooking fuels like electricity, liquified natural gas, and biogas.
“In the beginning, there were people who wanted to avoid the subject of charcoal altogether, that since people have to cook, it would be impossible to change. We know it is a slow movement, but charcoal must also be part of the solution,” explains Dr. Clement Chilima Department of Forestry. “And it must be regulated with licenses.” For the first time in Malawi’s history, the government has shifted its policy of seeing charcoal production as a necessary evil to acknowledging it as a part of the solution that must be incorporated into policies. In addition to licensing the production of legal charcoal, Malawi’s strategy prioritizes the promotion of efficient cookstoves, the enhancement of rural livelihoods for those who rely on charcoal burning, and nationwide awareness campaigns. “We cannot simply deprive people of charcoal without looking at how they will cook and survive without it.
Thanks to donor-funded programs like Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests, the people living in the cities now have options. We need to see more people using legal charcoal and cooking with LPG gas, and it needs to start with everybody working in government,” says Kamoto, Department of Forestry Deputy Director Kamoto. Even before the charcoal strategy was an official policy, the government was testing charcoal licensing. In 2015, Kawandama Hills Plantation applied for and obtained the Government’s first charcoal production license. KHP’s 6,500-hectare parcel of land is located in the Viphya Plantation in Northern Malawi. KHP cultivates the Corymbia citriodora tree and uses the leaves to distill an essential oil that it exports. With the wood product waste, they produce wood charcoal. KHP produces and supplies approximately 1,000 bags of legal, licensed charcoal every week. KHP has two points of sale in Lilongwe and also markets charcoal through a network of distributors. KHP and its distributors consistently undercut the illegal charcoal market prices by 20-30 percent.
Due to heavy floods, river erosion is constantly taking place on the banks of the Padma river. A boy is seen climbing the only coconut tree that has survived the effects of river erosion at the banks of the Padma in Manikganj, Dhaka on August 23, 2021. Bangladesh sits on a massive river delta and erosion has long been a part of life here. The rushing water of the Padma river is shifted constantly and transforming the river share and eroded its bank.
Shell Gatherers in Busuanga, Phillipines
Fish Right is helping communities rehabilitate mangrove forests
Fisherfolk in Panay, Capiz
The 300 hectares of heavily degraded forest in the Dzalanyama Reserve, Lilongwe's main watershed, is considered a hotspot. Here, MCHF is developing the community’s capacity in forest management. This approach to reforestation, known as assisted natural regeneration, relies on the people’s self-interest in having a healthy forest and enjoying the benefits of the ecosystem services they provide. MCHF is currently targeting 15 communities living in forest reserve buffer zones in central and northern Malawi and provides each of them with forest management tool kits, including shovels, pruning shears, and machetes. Field staff helps each community to create an action plan, and then works side-by-side with community members in the forest to weed, thin tree shoots, and construct effective firebreaks.
Alifani Bicent, 37 (pictured in yellow) remembers why he started making charcoal in the first place: to pay his school fees. He learned the practice from a neighbor and relied on charcoal to keep him in school. On some days, he found himself cutting down more than 10 trees. “My family was not happy because it is a hard job, and nothing about it is healthy,” he says. Now, Bicent is married and sits on the village natural resources committee, and is busy proving that communities can play a role in protecting Malawi’s forests. Using consensus building and cooperation among neighbors, today he is regenerating the same forests that he once plundered. In this shot, Bicent has stopped a transporter of illegal charcoal to talk about the deforestation that charcoal is causing in the adjacent forest reserve.
Sandra Domicó (center) leading a community meeting.
Argelia Bailarín with a cacao pod.