Communication training course for NGo's in Africa

http://www.ngopulse.org/event/africanscribe-media-communications-toolkit-grassroots-ngos

Africanscribe Media 2010

Africanscribe Media Power Pressed

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'No-till' farming the answer?

Worldwide, there are 923 million people who go hungry. The FAO estimates that 75 million of those are suffering as a result of high food prices. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, the number of people who cannot afford to eat is 24 million.

While food costs continue to spiral, the environmental cost of growing food is also mounting as the world struggles with another less tangible but far more imminent challenge to food security. All across the region of Southern Africa, the effects of climate change are already being felt as droughts intensify, rainfall patterns shift and biodiversity is lost as agricultural refugees seek out new potential farm land. In a region that is classified as arid and is already grappling with the challenges of conflict or political instability or a lack of skills among new emerging farmers, food security in these developing countries is under severe threat.

As food prices climb, it is imperative that agricultural output of these developing nations does not fall further so as to make them net importers of food and add to the already high cost burden of meeting development needs. While emergency food aid has its place in so far as addressing a short term crisis, it remains an expensive and unsustainable intervention.

With virtually no resources available to these regions for increased spending on infrastructure, mechanical equipment, pesticides or fertilizers, a grassroots approach that draws on the available capacity and resources of local communities is needed.

The UN's agency for food and agriculture is advocating a return to traditional farming techniques. Could Conservation agriculture be the answer?

Conservation agriculture (CA) is not a new concept to farming. It is governed by three major principles which have been employed in small scale subsistence or permaculture for centuries that calls for farming in harmony with nature.

1. No-tillage
Mechanical disturbance of the soil has not only shown to increase soil erosion and water runoff, but also to inhibit the natural activity of micro-organisms in the soil – essential for strengthening the soil profile.

In Southern Africa, where the agricultural workforce is facing a deepening health crisis as a result of HIV / Aids, the no-tillage approach means less energy and labour can be spent preparing the soil and more time planting and reaping. In rural areas, where communities are experiencing a demographic collapse as the men abandon their post as head of household to seek migrant labour in cities, women and in particularly the elderly have been left to tend to community food gardens.

The overwhelming environmental benefits of no-tillage as has begun to be practiced around the world showed a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 10 million metric tons in 2004 and 14.8 million metric tons in 2006 as tractors and fuel were set aside in favour of the no-tillage approach.

2. Mulching
Covering the soil with organic plant matter has shown to not only protect the soil from exposure to the elements but also to slow down evaporation of water and rainfall.
As the organic matter breaks down it returns nutrients to the soil and stimulates micro-organism activity, so reducing the need for costly fertilizers. Working hand in hand with the no-tillage approach, planting is implemented through the soil cover, further reducing labour and time costs.

3. Crop-rotation
As is the key to the success of biodiversity in nature, diversity in cropping is imperative to reducing soil degradation and maintaining the natural balance of potential pests.
Crop homogenisation over large tracts of land has shown to strengthen certain pests that have had time to adapt and strengthen to its surroundings.
In regions such as China or the United States, where rice or maize and wheat have replaced crop diversity with homogenised fields, a single disease could trigger a food crisis of epic proportion.

In East Africa, where forests were cleared to make way for coffee planting, the coffee borer beetle has had a devastating impact on the coffee crops of Kenya and Tanzania. Farmers are since returning to shade-grown coffee where natural predators like birds are re-introduced through the preservation of forest habitat.
Employing crop-rotation and cross planting techniques encourages natural predators and reduces the need for herbicides and pesticides that ultimately damage natural resources.
As ground water quality comes under increasing pressure from drought and contamination from human settlements, conservation agriculture has the potential to halt the demise of one of our most precious and shrinking resources that until now has been subjected to contamination from leeched chemicals.

Conservation Agriculture seems to be what communities are practicing already with permaculture and small scale agriculture, but is this method really able to work for commercial scale farming?

Tourism building our schools

The island of conservation in Africa

I just had a really exciting conversation with IUCN about conservation. They asked me what I thought the greatest challenges facing our continent were and whilst I managed a few off the cuff responses, sometimes great ideas need a little time to percolate, a bit like good coffee.

So my answer IUCN is as follows:

Transfrontier Conservation Areas!

This is not a new concept. We've had experts mapping areas of ecological importance and linking of biodiversity corridors for more than a decade. The potential to conserve and protect Africa's precious wildlife resources are possible and available, but the foundation of TFCA's or peace parks rely on cross-border co-operation between different governments to acknowledge the importance of collectively conserved land and to commit to preserving it.

Nature does not obey political boundaries. The ancient migration routes of herd animals continue despite borders and fences with increasing casualty and conflict, yet despite ecotourism proving its economic worth, the borders persist.

In artificially managed ecosystems that exist behind fences, limited access to resources such as grazing and water and the emergence of stagnant gene pools can be addressed through increased conserved territory. Not to mention the threat of fire or homogenisation of vegetation as a result of these artificial forces.

When I read about how rhinos are being poached on the Kruger fence line, I feel angry over the lack of comment from stakeholders like Peace Parks. Instead of continuing with community stakeholder engagement on the Mozambique side of the park to encourage the community towards conservation, SanParks is spending R2 million rand on employing more patrols.

Critics will say that the dream of Kruger - Ghaza - Ghonerazou failed because Zimbabwe pulled out and all the elephants that were relocated to Mozambique came back. But little effort has been made to engage the communities in Mozambique and show them how ecotourism can help them feed their families over poaching. Consider for a moment why the Great Migration across the Serengeti and the Masai Mara is the most successful drawcard for ecotourism - because it is given space to exist!

Returning to the question of the impending Kruger peace park, the 100 metres of fence line dropped for the unveiling press conference ( 10 years ago) has yet to widen and remains nothing more than a hollow gesture.

Our biggest challenge is the lack of communication to local communities living along the hemlines of national parks that their livelihoods can be improved as a result of conservation. The creation of peace parks should not be seen as competition to food security, as these areas have already been identified and in many cases are established conservation areas that generally enjoy some level of protection as conserved land, but what has happened in the last ten years to drop fences and deliver results has been precious little.

I seem to recall Peace Parks Foundation being set up with this specific mandate and also to have received considerable funding to execute this.

So IUCN, my answer is we need to re-engage governments that gave their commitment to the vision of TFCA's and challenge the NGO's who have already been bankrolled to get the programme moving. There is no need to spend additional resources re-inventing the wheel when enough studies, road maps, policies and frameworks have been done to set us on a sustainable path. Can we just get on with rolling up our sleeves, already?

Lifesaver water purification bottle

Water crisis in KwaZulu Natal

I just got back from a field trip where I explored several rural communities that currently do not have access to clean drinking water.

Situated on the hemline of a collection of conserved land such as Phinda Private Game Reserve, Mkuze Game Reserve and the IsiManguliso ( St Lucia) Wetland - now a World Heritage Site, I visited, Makhasa, Mnqobokasi, Kwajobe and Kwangwenya. The first two villages have very recently been hooked up to the Hluhluwe Dam delivery scheme, but the latter two rely on rivers and rain tanks assembled under their roof gutters for water.

If you were an environmental purest - you could argue that their rain harvesting techniques are the most sustainable solution for a continent that is constantly battling water shortages, but as weather patterns change, the rainfall in this area has proved increasingly elusive and drought cycles have increased.

Much of the positive development that has been initiated in these communities is through the support of &Beyond Foundation - that works closely with Phinda Private Reserve. What I love about their development model is that it is community-led, rather than donor dictated and so has spawned real grassroots success by empowering the local leadership.

On assignment for Water For All, I was tasked with finding 5 rural schools in the province that currently do not have access to clean drinking water. This NGO works in several countries across Southern and East Africa and is making a real difference in helping to reduce the number of deaths that occur daily as a result of water borne disease.

Water For All, target mainly schools as beneficiaries, as children are traditionally tasked with collecting water from far away sources - often preventing them from attending school. Water in schools, therefore has a multiple, positive impact in addressing health, education and children rights issues.

In addition, Water For All's new direction embraces renewable technology options that generate no carbon emissions and have no running cost implications to the school or community. The NGO also provides free maintenance of the pump. In short - I'm a huge fan of Water For All, but what concerned me about this last trip were the number of collapsed boreholes in the area that could suggest a serious depletion of ground water.

Ground water quality and quantity can be very area-specific. Drilling for water does not always yield positive results and what I have experienced in recent years is that South Africa's ground water resources are under severe pressure.

Apparently there are all sorts of sophisticated studies that have been commissioned to map all the boreholes across the country and register their abstraction rates. The agricultural industry is responsible for 50% of the country's water resources through irrigation, but this figure is over 5 years old and as the new democratic government has increasingly supplied more of its previously disadvantaged citizens with access to water, either in their residential communities or as emerging farmers, the numbers must have changed.

Before I left for my trip I contacted the regional offices for both the Department of Education and the Department of Water Affairs. Neither could tell me with any kind of certainty which schools used boreholes and how much.

Seems to be yet another case of an a very expensive study sitting in someone's bottom drawer - unread.