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Malawi

Winds of Change: Climate change, poverty and envrionment in Malawi

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Executive Summary

A wind of climate change is blowing through the southern African nation of Malawi, bringing confusion to fisherfolk and farmers alike

"Previously water would flood mainly at the peak of the rainfall season and mainly along the river banks. These days, floods occur anytime during the rainy season. Previously people would relocate to higher grounds but these days even people settled in areas once considered safe are affected by floods" Ebbie Mwakasungula, Village Headman, Karonga

"We expect rains and they don't come, or we get heavy rains, which only destroy and don't help our crop production" Peter Chapasi, Thomasi village, Thyolo

"Heavy winds blow away our houses". Enless Nakhuba, Thomasi village, Thyolo

In Malawi the winds shape the lives and livelihoods of farmers and fisherfolk. They know each wind by name, when it comes, how it behaves, its effects, and therefore, what they should do in response. But now they say that the winds that once brought rain to make the crops grow and fish to their nets no longer blow as and when they should. Instead there is a muddle of contradictory currents, both in the air and in the waters of Lake Malawi. Sometimes the winds are so strong, and rains so heavy, that they destroy houses, crops and boats.

Furthermore, people report that the main rainy season is becoming ever-more unpredictable. In general over the last 40 years they say temperatures are hotter and the rains are arriving later and becoming more intense and concentrated, which reduces the length of the growing season and triggers both more droughts and more floods.

Climate change interacts with environmental degradation, notably deforestation, and it is women who suffer most. Women have multiple roles as farmers and bringers of water and firewood and so depend very directly on natural resources. At the same time their position in society means that generally they have less access to income and credit and little or no voice in decision making.

That resulting increased vulnerability feeds the spread of HIV and AIDS, for example if women resort to selling sex for food during the hungry months before the harvest. The spread of HIV in turn weakens people's ability to respond to the changing climate. It saps both individual strength and institutional capacity to respond to the twin challenges of climate change and HIV and AIDS.

People's observations of winds, rain and temperatures are consistent with what scientists say are the likely climatic changes resulting from man-made global warming, caused primarily by the emissions of carbon dioxide and other socalled "greenhouse gases" through the burning of coal, oil and gas by today's industrial powers.

In Malawi, though, people connect these alterations in winds and rainfall patterns not to pollution from industry in the global North, but to environmental changes closer to home: notably deforestation. Malawi has one of the highest rates of deforestation in southern Africa, primarily because the rapidly rising population has almost no access to any other form of fuel and so depends upon charcoal for cooking. As a result, people have also lost access to forest foods that once helped them through hungry times.

Now there is a big drive to plant more trees. But as one village woman asked Oxfam researchers, "if we plant all these trees, will that solve the problem?". Planting trees in Malawi will not stop global warming which is primarily due to carbon dioxide emissions from industry and transport. But, up to a point, and as part of a suite of adaptation practices, it will certainly help people to cope with climate change impacts by shading the soil, acting as wind breaks, cutting soil erosion and smoothing water flows thereby reducing sudden flooding.

Other essential adaptation measures must be to boost agricultural productivity and diversify crops. In Malawi people say "maize is life" - "chimanga ndi moyo". Maize is the staple crop upon which virtually everyone depends. But traditional varieties no longer have time to ripen before the rains stop - or floods rot the plants before they can be harvested. The result has been hunger on a regular basis, and sometimes, the horrors of starvation.

Yet in spite of this, Malawi is also beginning to demonstrate that with the right support, farmers can succeed and overcome some of the limitations of both poverty and a fickle climate. Crucially 2006 and 2007 were years of generally good rain and just as crucially, improved government policies and support, meant two record-breaking national maize harvests in a row. The record-breaking harvests give hope for the future, albeit fragile. Malawi is dangerously over-dependent on maize. Building resilience to climate change means seizing this moment to diversify crops and diversify rural livelihoods ready for the next time that the rains are poor.

Good adaptation and good development are intimately linked. For farmers it starts with being able to get access to improved seeds - faster maturing and higher yielding - but to fulfil the potential of such seeds requires much more, including training in innovative farming methods - and sometimes the revival of old methods. The use of irrigation and compost, and growing a wider range of crops, are particularly crucial in the south, where population is high and land shortages are exacerbated by the presence of huge tea estates.

But good adaptation and good development need to go further than good farming, especially for women. Women interviewed for this report see adaptation in a holistic way. Women want better services and help to diversify livelihoods, ranging from assistance in looking after HIV and AIDS orphans to free up some of their time and energy, to access to credit and loans to start small businesses.

The government of Malawi has developed a list of priority activities that it wants to implement in order to start adaptation to climate change. Malawi's National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) aim to improve community resilience, restore forests, improve agricultural production, and improve preparedness for floods and droughts and boost climate monitoring. To fund Malawi's NAPAs requires US$ 22.43 million. To date, however, no money has been forthcoming from the international community that asked Malawi to develop its plan. Oxfam says the ongoing failure to fund the NAPAs drawn up by Least Developed Countries is unacceptable. However, Civil Society Organisations in Malawi also say lack of donor funding must not become an excuse for inaction: the government can and should do more even if the NAPAs remain unfunded.

Whatever Malawi does to adapt to continuing climate change - and there is much it can do - it is in the context of still-rising global temperatures. If temperatures cross the threshold of an average 2 degrees Centigrade higher than in pre-industrial times, then scientists fear that the Earth's climate will change in sudden and radical ways. It is unlikely that any society, anywhere, will be able to adapt effectively to such an increase, especially one as poor as Malawi. To prevent such dangerous temperature increase Oxfam is among thousands of Civil Society Organisations campaigning for industrialised countries to act urgently to massively reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. However, even if the necessary actions are taken to slash greenhouse gas emissions, heat that has built up in the oceans and atmosphere means temperatures will rise further before levelling off. So Malawi, and other African countries, will have to do more to adapt, both to the vicissitudes of current climate and to future climatic uncertainty. Good adaptation will have a double benefit, in the present as well as the future.

As well as the right policies, the right support from the international community is equally essential. Such support is only right and just; Malawi's own greenhouse gas emissions are miniscule compared to the gases that the now-wealthy industrialised countries have put into the atmosphere to fuel their industrial revolutions, yet through no fault of their own it is poor countries like Malawi where the consequences of climate change will be most damaging.

Yet so far support from the international community, even for urgent and immediate adaptation needs that Malawi and other Least Developed Countries were asked to identify, has not been sufficiently forthcoming. Oxfam is therefore also campaigning to see that poor countries receive the funds they need in order to adapt and survive. The report concludes with a series of recommendations: