Climate Change Resilience Building In Mandera County proposal

ADVANCING CLIMATE CHANGE RESILEINCING BUILDING IN MANDERA COUNTY PROJECT

BACKGROUND

Kenya’s vulnerability to climate change has manifested itself through prolonged droughts; frost in some of the productive agricultural areas; hailstorms; extreme flooding; receding lake levels; drying of rivers and other wetlands; among others leading to large economic losses and adversely impacting food security. Many of these extreme climate events have led to displacement of communities and migration of pastoralists into and out of the country resulting in conflicts over natural resources. Slow-onset events associated with climate change also lead to competition over scarce resources resulting in human-wildlife conflicts. Other climate change impacts include widespread disease epidemics, sea-level rise, and depletion of glaciers on Mount Kenya[1].

Mandera County in which the project will take place is located in Northern Kenya which is part of the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands of Kenya that have been prone to climate change impacts largely droughts and floods. The notable droughts in the past three decades that impacted negatively on pastoralism in northern Kenya include those in the years 1971, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983-84, 1995-96, 1999-2000 and 2004 -2006; while floods with adverse effects occurred in 1982, 1985, 1998, 2003 and 2006-2007 and 2010[2]. A study conducted on vulnerability of the county to climate change shows that From the data collected, over 80% respondents noted a reduction in drought occurrence cycle from 10 years to 3 years or less in Mandera.

The counties socio economic activities include Quarry Mining, Tourist Attractions such as Malka Mari Fort, National Park and Game Reserve and the Main Economic Activities include pastoralism, trade across the borders, quarrying, bee keeping and agriculture-sorghum, maize, cowpeas, onions & mangoes along river Daua[3].

Some of the coping options aimed at reducing vulnerability that was observed in the study include adaptive livelihood options such as small scale trading, irrigation, firewood and charcoal burning. It was observed in the study areas that pastoralism is changing from nomadism to agro-pastoralism or semi-permanent settlements. There is also a general change in herd composition with a leaning towards browsers (goats and camels) and a move away from grazers (Cattle).

Furthermore given the county government dispensation in Kenya, there is need to have all sectoral plans, spatial planning and CIDP  and the accompanying policy and legislation tools be integrated with climate change adaptation and potential mitigation actions. This has been the area of identification between Kenya Young Greens and the Communities, through the community based organisation called Rural Agency for Development. The project will be implemented in Mandera county through joint collaboration between the county government and the people of Mandera, particularly the following areas Lafey, Banisa, Elwak, Takaba, Daua valley, and Mandera town.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Kenya Young Greens seeks to enhance climate change resilience building in Mandera County through the following objectives: (1) To promote community and public participation in mainstreaming climate change in county planning and programmes; (2) To encourage integration of climate change in the county sectoral planning, development of the county integrated development plans and county legislations; (3) To promote climate change mitigation through arid land forestry; (4) To promote ecosystem based climate change resilience through dry lands economic plants silviculture.

The activities that will be carried out to implement the above objectives include:

a)      Consensus building forum with the main county development partners and stakeholders

b)      Training workshops for community groups on climate change, advocacy and lobbying of county government.

c)      Mandera climate change screening and risk assessment through public barazas and workshops

d)     Social marketing of a range of ecosystem based technological adaptation to climate change and livelihood enhancements

e)      Training workshops on climate change mainstreaming in sectoral planning for county government and non-state actors

f)       Participation in CSG and wescoord meetings

The project directly fulfils four objectives of the CRM facility in that will build the capacity of equal numbers of men and women, drawn from household levels and leaders of self helps groups, associations and CBOs which will ensure cascading of the impacts, the average number of household population in Mandera is eight people per household in which the project will target a total of 2445 direct beneficiaries to be trained and lobbied through social marketing of sound technologies aimed at enhancing adaptation and mitigation of climate. The direct beneficiaries will in turn reach their households bringing the number to over 20000. In addition the project will target county government leadership, that county assembly and the executive committee alongside the WESCOORD and County Steering Group and others like Mandera County Devolution and Climate Change Group, In addition the progamme will conduct capacity building for both county assembly, and non-state actors on integration of climate in sectoral planning, legislations and advocacy on climate change, furthermore the proposed interventions are some of the priority actions identified in the Kenya National Climate Change Action for the ASAL areas such arid land forestry therefore it is leading into operationalization of the NCCAP, and lastly, the project is going to undertake a social market of Moringa Oloifera as an ecosystem based adaptation technology to improves the livelihoods of the people.

The project is expected to last for eight months and is projected to lead to the following results and presented in the table below.

Activity	Output	Impacts	Outcome
Consensus building forum	Forum report	The project is accepted and embraced by stakeholders	All the stakeholders are reached and implementation is successful
Training workshops for community groups on climate change, advocacy and lobbying of county government	Workshop reports	Community groups and public knowledgeable about climate change, have skills for engaging county government in climate change	Informed and empowered citizenry influencing climate change decisions in the county
Climate change screening and risk assessment	Assessment reports	Knowledge of the threats and areas at risk of climate change	Adoption of appropriate response measures to climate change risks
Social marketing of a range of ecosystem based technological adaptation to climate change and livelihood enhancements	Training reports	Adaptation of the technology by the communities	Improved livelihoods hence increased resilience to climate change
Training workshops on climate change mainstreaming in sectoral planning for county government and non-state actors	Training reports	Integration of climate change in county sectoral plans and laws	Increased resilience to climate change Low carbon development in the county
Participation in CSG and wescoord	Minutes	Awareness of activities of other stakeholders programmes and	Increased synergies and cooperation and knowledge management

In implementation of the project it is anticipated that there shall be some risks involved and this are identified as followed

Risk	Level	Proposed remedy
High way banditry	high	Flight from Nairobi to Mandera and personnel insurance
Terrorism	low	Coordination with county administration and facility owners
Bad weather especially rains	high	Integrate bad weather in logistical planning
High cost of travel/transport	high	Prioritise increased vote for travel
Poor communication connectivity	high	Prioritise use of CDMA technology for communication

The county government has a constitutional and legal mandate to of ensuring development of CIDP, sectoral plans and spatial planning conferred to it by the county government act 2012,in addition it has been the practice that development partners in the ASALs have a forum of sharing and learning about their interventions in the area through for a such as county steering group and the wescoord.

Other actors in climate change in the county will be engaged at the commencement of the project through a consensus meeting in which they will be invited for a meeting in which Kenya Young Greens will share with them its proposed activities, and areas of operation the county, other avenues of engagement will be participating at the wescoord and CSG meetings and the Mandera county devolution and climate change forum.

KYG EXPERIENCE AND CAPACITY IN CLIMATE CHANGE ADVOCACY AND DEVELOPMNET INTERVENTIONS

Kenya Young Greens is a non-profit organisation founded in 2007 and registered as a society with a national mandate and focusing its work on ecological sustainability through climate change and biodiversity, participatory democracy, and promotion of peace and non -violence conflict resolution.

The organisation has majorly focused its work on climate change through advocacy, training and lobbying in pursuit of climate change policies and legislations at the national, county and international levels through taking in observer roles at the UNFCCC COPs.

Kenya Young Greens is currently implementing a climate change project in four counties namely Homa bay, Vihiga, Mombasa and Machakos with the overall objective of empowering  Kenyan youth to participate in Kenya’s climate change policy making and implementation, and share lessons learnt in the region and around the globe.

The organisation is governed by a three member’s board and a secretariat comprising of team leader, finance and administrator, three volunteers and focal points in each of the four counties. The project is also supported by two technical advisors on capacity building of the county government on climate change and policy related issues.

Kenya Young Greens has had institutional members from Mandera County since its inception in 2007. In addition, the organisation leadership has undertaken capacity building of various non-state actors in the county through consultancy.

In implementation of the propose project Kenya Young Greens will partner with Rural Agency for Development (RAD) – A community Based Organisation whose head office is in Mandera and has a presence in both Mandera and Wajir Counties. RAD will be responsible for mobilisation of communities and stakeholders in the county, day to day implementation and monitoring of the project, and will host the project’s secretariat in Mandera town.

Kenya Young Greens on the other hand will be responsible for the overall implementation of the project, technical support, coordination and supervision, and monitoring. KYG will be the contract holder on behalf of the programme and the funder (herein referred to us ACTs).

Kenya Young Greens in the year 2013 has a partnership with Heinrich Boll Foundation (HBF), German Embassy and Both Ends with funding amounting to Kshs. six million. The organisation has entered into a pre-twenty fourteen understanding with HBF that its next year partnership will be doubled as a result of the exceptional outcome of the current advocacy project in the four counties. The organisation has put in place a target of mobilisation of over twenty million shillings mainly for climate change and biodiversity conservation programmes

MONITORING AND EVALUATION FRAMEWORK

In order to realize the goal of the project; it is imperative that all the activities are monitored and the results evaluated. Kenya Young Greens in partnership with RAD will ensure that there is a local office in Mandera county and project staff tasked with day to day running of the project.

The key indicative indicators upon which success will be measured during evaluation will be developed during project inception in which a comprehensive M&E plan will be established, that defines in detail the type, frequency, sources, modalities and responsibilities for data collection.

The table below provides a simplified overview of the planned procedures and responsibilities:

Type / level of information	Responsible for data Collection	Source of information, frequency	M&E product, responsibility
Input (finance, resources, time schedule)	Team leader, Accountant & others.	Accounts, monthly reports, annual audit reports	Monthly reports, Project Officers /Accountant
Output of activities	Team leader, accountant, & others	Progress reports, training reports, study reports etc	Monthly reports, Project reports
Outcome of the activities	Evaluation teams, Project Management	Beneficiary survey and evaluation, interpretation of  progress reports and Associates’ reports	Annual reports, evaluation reports, Project Management

Evaluation will include an impact survey, assessment of lessons learnt and emerging best practices, to be communicated to external stakeholders and will be conducted by an external evaluator.

SUSTAINABILITY

The key stakeholders who are both primary and secondary beneficiaries will be engaged in the implementation as the owners of the project as equal partners in the project implementation hence the outcome of the project will be as a result of their input and with this they will be urged to ensure the outcomes are nurtured by themselves in the absence of the organisation. In addition the beneficiaries will be reached through their organized groups which will be trained on further fundraising options including membership subscription to ensure that they are able to engage in the implementation of the activities beyond the project cycle.

Kenya Young Greens has a team with project design and development and fundraising skills who will continue to vigorously pursue other sources of funding from other donors. The organisation also paid up membership structure which also support in raising funds that will go a long way raising funds that necessary to maintain the organisation so that it carries its mandate

BUDGET SUMMARY

Line Item	Descriptions	rate	QTY	Cost
Human Resource	Team leader ( KYG)	100,000	5	500,000
	RAD director	100,000	5	500,000
	Project Manager	90,000	8	720,000
	Project officer	70,000	8	560,000
	Finance coordinator (KYG)	50,000	6	300,000
	Finance Coordinator	50,000	8	400,000
	Insurance cover	50,000	5	250,000
Travel	Staff field and Nairobi travel and accommodation	212,500	8	1,700,000
Project activity costs	Baseline study	300,000	5	1,500,000
	Consensus building forum	154,000	1	154,000
	Mandera climate change agriculture at Daua Valley  and livestock screening and risk assessment for sectoral planning	389,140	5	1,945,700
	Social marketing of a range of ecosystem based technological adaptation to climate change and livelihood enhancements in Daua valley	1,000,000	1	1,000,000
	Training workshops for community groups in climate change advocacy and public participation	800,000	1	800,000
	Training workshops on climate change mainstreaming in sectoral planning for county government and non-state actors	1,066,500	1	1,066,500
Capacity building costs	Induction workshop for the project management	198,000	1	198,000
Equipment	PC computer	35,000	1	35,000
	laptop	45,000	1	45,000
	Printer	25,000	1	25,000
	CDMA Modems	4000	3	12,000
Operating costs	rent	20,000	8	160,000
	supplies	6000	8	48,000
	maintenance	4000	8	32,000
	communication	5500	8	44,000
	Bank charges	600	8	4, 800
Subtotal
Grand Total				12,000,000

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[1] Kenya National Climate Change Action Plan

[2] Reducing vulnerability of pastoralist communities to climate change and variability  in Northern Kenya

[3] Commission on Revenue Allocation

Fifty ideas for actions on climate change

In May and June 2001, the Rising Tide Climate Chaos Tour visited 12 cities in Britain. Some 300 people came to the Tour. In the last session of each gig people broke into small groups and brainstormed ideas for action. This is a list taken from their ideas.
This list proves that no one can argue that there’s nothing we can do about climate change. Our only problem now is choosing what to do- and when has that ever been an excuse for not doing anything?!
1. Organise a Critical Mass with a climate chaos theme
2. Set up a climate change pirate radio station (there is a tape of material already prepared)
3. Find out the sea-level rise or flood level predictions for your area (Met Office, Environment Agency) and paint/chalk this level in blue around town, on council buildings, petrol stations, etc. Accompany with flyposters/leaflets explaining the line and forecasted impacts of extreme weather
4. Take action to reduce your own energy consumption- set yourself a target. Tell everyone about it- your family, friends, neighbours and get their support (like giving up smoking!)
5. Make an empowerment video focused on weather chaos and our responses to it and distribute it and show it.
6. Agit-crop! Planting or seed sowing to spell out a message, in council flowerbeds, railway embankments, open spaces
7. Target traffic jams with leaflets about greenhouse gas emissions
8. Produce local guide to help people buy ethical local produce
9. Declare a car share or green transport week, support with posters, leaflets, actions
10. Set up an info shop/ or a stall in a busy place
11. Produce posters, distribute them, flypost them all over town
12. Talk with your friends of neighbours about what you could do collectively, such as car share, setting personal targets, planning an action, organising school transport etc.
13. Grow at least some of your own food. Reclaim some space to do this with others, get an allotment, grow stuff in pots
14. Declare a car-free zone in your town and put up car-free road signs
15. Blockade or occupy a power station. Block plans for any new power stations.
16. Make "Wanted" posters in car parks for crimes against the biosphere with pictures of cars.
17. Find out council/local authority development plans, put in your own ideas, challenge anything that doesn’t take account of reducing emissions
18. Visit electricity/electrical goods retailers, note how much effort they put put energy efficiency. Set up an info shop outside (or inside!) for the day
19. Mobilise against incinerators, make the links about greenhouse gas emissions
20. Energy reduction - raise the issue in your workplace or school
21. Take your holidays in England.
22. Hassle everyone you know to change their lightbulbs
23. Subvertise-distort the messages on adverts for climate criminals, such as car adverts, all flights! (See www.subvertise.org.uk for some ideas)
24. React to events- when there the next unseasonal flooding, record drought, or unexpected storm, get out on the streets protesting and making the links for people. Prepare a local phone tree to pull people together at short notice to do this.
25. Guerilla Energy Reduction! Put a brick in the cistern, turn down heating, change heating timers to come on less, swap old lightbulbs for energy efficient ones
26. Get out there and start talking! We have detailed materials on how to structure talks and do speaker trainings. Better still, get on the road and do your own version of the Rising Tide Tour.
27. If it snows people with bad insulation have no snow on their roofs- put a leaflet through their doors about climate chaos and telling how much they can save with roof insulation (plus what grants are available)
28. Prepare materials for teachers, and do talks and activities in schools
29. Buy green electricity. For details on the best companies go to http://www.foe.co.uk
30. Start a solar water heating club
31. Shut down petrol stations and offer advice on how to kick the habit - offer alternatives to oil addiction, such as free bikes
32. Put up displays at events, public places (the library, public noticeboards), or flypost. Basic display packs from Rising Tide
33. Do a 90% for 90% action- leafleting the train.
34. Give out cartoon booklets everywhere! Photocopy and flypost them
35. Fix up some bikes (universities and stations good place to ask for leftovers) and set up a local free bike scheme, like they used to have in Amsterdam.
36. Nautical Critical Mass! Put cut-out fish in trees and on car windscreens with a message/website. (see fish in the resources section of this web site)
37. Talk with people in this country who have relatives abroad already being affected by weather chaos such as people from the Pakistan, Bangladeshi communities.
38. Create images of what future climate chaos could look like in your region/town and paste them up.
39. Paint cycle lanes, or Think Bike signs on the road.
40. Take infra-red photos of public buildings during winter and confront people with the picture of how much heat is going into the air (send photos to the newspapers)
41. Put up Climate Chaos Ahead road signs on all rush-hour approaches to town
42. Write a message on the top of your umbrella so everyone can see it when it rains
43. Hang banners from bridges over motoroways and busy roads during rush hours- thousands will see them (stay with the banner or the police will remove it and not give it back!)
44. Occupy the offices of companies not reducing emissions, or part of increasing emissions Organise benefit gigs to fund more Rising Tide resources, or to support people affected by extreme weather in the global south (survivors of last years Mozambique floods sent a donation to people whose homes were flooded in Malton, Yorkshire
45. Plough up a motorway and create a park!
46. Link up with other groups/campaigns with linked concerns - such as fuel poverty groups, local local refugee/asylum seekers support groups. Plan joint work around environmental refugees.
47. Campaign for not-for-profit public transport
48. Set hosepipes on offices of oil and airline companies and flood them!
49. Start a campaign against all air flights where people can take a train (eg England to Scotland, London to Paris)
AND.....
50. Get together with other people, work out what you want to achieve, plan your actions/campaign and DO IT!

Deal with ‘everyday disasters’ to eradicate poverty

Thursday, October 17, 2013
Small-scale disasters are so frequent that we can call them routine disasters, everyday disasters. And of course, losses from disasters are also increasing, but it is poor communities that bear the brunt of disasters, they are more likely to be affected by a disaster, and less able to recover. And we expect that climate change will continue raising the frequency and intensity of natural disasters.
These routine and everyday disasters do not attract media interest or government response though they cause major loss of livelihoods. Roads are damaged, children cannot go to school, and homes, crops and livestock are lost.
“These everyday disasters hold development back, they undermine development.To eradicate poverty there needs to be a greater emphasis on reducing disaster risks and reducing their impact on the most vulnerable. We have to improve the resilience of poor communities to disasters”, says John Nduna, General Secretary of ACT, in his message for International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.
The post 2015 development agenda needs to reduce the impact of everyday disasters as well as major disasters. This will help ending crisis-induced poverty and stop people being pushed below the resilience threshold and would enable communities to cope with shocks without being pushed into poverty, says Nduna.
In developing the post 2015 development agenda, ACT Alliance is working to ensure the participation of the people most at risk to ensure that the future development agenda represents the realities of those directly affected by disasters.

Young farmers turn to social media to adapt to climate change

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Tue, 16 Jul 2013 10:00 AM

Author: Caleb Kemboi More news from our correspondents

Farmer Julius Cheruiyot checks his smart phone for advice on adapting his farm to changing climate conditions. THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION/ Caleb Kemboi

ELDORET, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — Julius Cheruiyot has been a farmer since he was 16 years old. Forced to drop out of school because his family was unable to pay the fees, he went to work on his father’s farm in Uasin Gishu county, in Kenya’s Rift Valley region.
Today, Cheruiyot, 32, is a father of three who can afford to feed and educate his family by cultivating his own land.  But as increasingly unpredictable weather in Kenya makes life difficult for subsistence farmers, he has joined a number of younger farmers who are using social media to learn how to cope.
Standing on his 5-acre (2-hectare) plot of land, Cheruiyot pulls out his mobile phone, clicks on a Facebook tab, and logs in to the page of Young Volunteers for the Environment (YVE), a group that posts updates on the latest news about the environment and climate change.
“Social media ... has assisted us a lot,” he says. “(With) the information we receive, we can now know the right time to plant our crops, because sometimes we realise it’s a short rain not a long rain, and end up incurring losses (if we don’t take the right action).”
Changing weather patterns in recent years have affected most farmers in Kenya and other parts of eastern Africa.
Over the past 10 years, Cheruiyot says, he has seen drastic changes in the local climate, whether low rainfall during the planting season or heavy rains at harvest time, resulting in low yields or completely failed harvests.
He learned about Young Volunteers for the Environment at an agricultural exhibition.
“I decided to join the group and since then I have learned (about) various aspects of climate change and how to cope with it as a young farmer,” he explains.
YVE is the Kenyan chapter of a pan-African organisation founded in Togo in 2011. The group is concerned about declining agricultural production, which contributes to food insecurity and poverty in the region. Its goal is to help young farmers understand the best way to practise sustainable farming and increase their productivity.
“(YVE) engages youth across the country in environment and climate change issues that make a positive impact in the life of the community by enabling communities to effectively adapt to the effects of the rapidly changing climate,” according to Emmanuel Serem, the organisation’s president.
ADAPTING TO RISING TEMPERATURES
YVE’s 10 members in the Rift Valley aim to raise public awareness about climate change and how to adapt to rising temperatures in the region, which is known as the country’s bread basket. They educated themselves by attending workshops and conferences organised by environmental organizations.
The group has more than 900 followers on Facebook who access the information shared on the site and have online discussions about farming.
Use of social media networks among young Kenyans is growing rapidly. Most use them for socialising, but YVE sees them as a means to reach young farmers.
Recent changes in weather patterns have affected cereal farmers in parts of the Rift Valley, yet most of them don’t understand what is going on, said Ken Ruto, leader of the North Rift Theatre Ambassadors, another organisation that uses social media to sensitise young people about conservation issues.
“Through social media we have managed to inform young farmers to plant more trees in their farms as a best way to cope with climate change,” said Ruto, whose group is based in Eldoret, in Uasin Gishu county.
The Rift Valley is known for maize and dairy farming. But planting maize every year is an increasing challenge because of irregular rainfall, as well as outbreaks of pest-borne diseases such as maize lethal necrosis, which affected crops in the valley in September 2012 and spread across the country.
YVE advises farmers on the kinds of crops suitable for planting according to changes in weather patterns. Among those it recommends to cope with the weather changes are millet, wheat, potatoes and sorghum. The group explains that rotating crops helps rebalance the acidity and alkalinity of the soil and improve its fertility.
“We have been planting maize since colonial time and this has really affected the production,” said farmer Cosmas Biwott. Following YVE’s advice, he switched to potatoes, and is delighted with the result. “It’s doing good and I am expecting a bumper harvest,” he said, laughing.
According to Serem, the president of YVE, farmers are in dire need of good information about changing weather patterns. Some farmers, he said, believe that poor harvests are divine retribution for the violence that wracked parts of the country, including the Rift Valley region, after Kenya’s 2007 general elections.
Serem said he is pleased with the response from farmers to the organisation’s efforts.
PROBLEMS OF ILLITERACY, ACCESS
 “Young farmers (are) commenting and asking more questions,” he said. But he acknowledges that YVE’s services are not available to everyone. Most farmers who access the service use internet-enabled phones. But farmers in remote areas have difficulty accessing the internet, and not all are well versed in social media.
Cosmas Biwott, one young Rift Valley farmer who has used the social media service, warned that the level of illiteracy among many young rural farmers is high.
“The social sites have really assisted us ... to get more information concerning adaptation (to) climate change, but most of the farmers don’t know to use phones or even read the information,” he said. “That’s a big challenge.”
Biwott thinks that farmers in the region would benefit from an information centre equipped with computers and internet access.
Serem said YVE hopes to open offices in every county in the Rift Valley region to reach farmers through forums, field days and exhibitions.
“Eight out of ten people (in the region) are farmers,” he said. “Therefore we need to embrace togetherness for the good of food security in the country.”
Caleb Kemboi is an environmental and climate change reporter based in Eldoret, in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

conservation.

LETS CONSERVE THE ENVIRONMENT!

  No settled family or community has ever called its home place an “environment.” None has ever called its feeling for its home place “biocentric” or “anthropocentric.” None has ever thought of its connection to its home place as “ecological,” deep or shallow. The concepts and insights of the ecologists are of great usefulness in our predicament, and we can hardly escape the need to speak of “ecology” and “ecosystems.” But the terms themselves are culturally sterile. They come from the juiceless, abstract intellectuality of the universities which was invented to disconnect, displace, and disembody the mind. The real names of the environment are the names of rivers and river valleys; creeks, ridges, and mountains; towns and cities; lakes, woodlands, lanes roads, creatures, and people.

And the real name of our connection to this everywhere different and differently named earth is “work.” We are connected by work even to the places where we don’t work, for all places are connected; it is clear by now that we cannot exempt one place from our ruin of another. The name of our proper connection to the earth is “good work,” for good work involves much giving of honor. It honors the source of its materials; it honors the place where it is done; it honors the art by which it is done; it honors the thing that it makes and the user of the made thing. Good work is always modestly scaled, for it cannot ignore either the nature of individual places or the differences between places, and it always involves a sort of religious humility, for not everything is known. Good work can be defined only in particularity, for it must be defined a little differently for every one of the places and every one of the workers on the earth.

The name of our present society’s connection to the earth is “bad work” – work that is only generally and crudely defined, that enacts a dependence that is ill understood, that enacts no affection and gives no honor. Every one of us is to some extent guilty of this bad work. This guilt does not mean that we must indulge in a lot of breast-beating and confession; it means only that there is much good work to be done by every one of us and that we must begin to do it.”
― Wendell Berry



 “When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country... Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature I am conversing with? As if I were to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all it's warriors...I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, The Journal, 1837-1861

 “In every remote corner of the world there are people like Carl Jones and Don Merton who have devoted their lives to saving threatened species. Very often, their determination is all that stands between an endangered species and extinction.
But why do they bother? Does it really matter if the Yangtze river dolphin, or the kakapo, or the northern white rhino, or any other species live on only in scientists' notebooks?
Well, yes, it does. Every animal and plant is an integral part of its environment: even Komodo dragons have a major role to play in maintaining the ecological stability of their delicate island homes. If they disappear, so could many other species. And conservation is very much in tune with our survival. Animals and plants provide us with life-saving drugs and food, they pollinate crops and provide important ingredients or many industrial processes. Ironically, it is often not the big and beautiful creatures, but the ugly and less dramatic ones, that we need most.
Even so, the loss of a few species may seem irrelevant compared to major environmental problems such as global warming or the destruction of the ozone layer. But while nature has considerable resilience, there is a limit to how far that resilience can be stretched. No one knows how close to the limit we are getting. The darker it gets, the faster we're driving.
There is one last reason for caring, and I believe that no other is necessary. It is certainly the reason why so many people have devoted their lives to protecting the likes of rhinos, parakeets, kakapos, and dolphins. And it is simply this: the world would be a poorer, darker, lonelier place without them.”
― Mark Carwardine, Last Chance to See
 

Do not tell me you are not a pig!

Your skin is rough and thick

Densed by the subcutaneous you have accumulated

When you gulped what belonged to others

Making them destitute for decades to come

Yet you say you are not a pig!

Your tails is short and twisted

Characteristic of your shrewd and cunning ways

That gave you victory over the weak and poor

Who you oppressed as you made your bounty

Yet you say you are not a pig!

Your nose is an odd snout

Dead to the filth you have submerged yourself in

As you waded the murky waters of corruption and impunity

And caused untold pain to young and old

Yet you say you are not a pig!

Your teeth are rusty and crooked

One wonders how they can even bite

Yet the injury they leave is fatal

Leaving gloom and doom in the land

Yet you say you are not a pig!

When the dance of the people begin

Remember your pig ways are not wanted

No matter how much you try to conceal

You still walk talk and act like a pig

Yet you say you are not a pig!

Your skin is pig and your tail is pig

Your nose is pig and your teeth are pig

Your walk is pig and your talk is pig

I’d be a bigger pig if I continued to listen to you

Don’t you tell me you are not a pig!

RIO GAP

RIO GAP

One of the key obstacles to achieving sustainable development is agreeing who will carry the burden. Stopping environmental degradation requires resources. Some argue those resources could be needed somewhere else, such as eradicating poverty. So it could appear that the need to eradicate poverty and the need to stop environmental degradation are in conflict.

ECO does not buy into this argument.  At all.  Environmental degradation is fast becoming the biggest contributor to increased poverty. If we want to eradicate poverty, then we need to invest also in what is leading to more poverty, which includes fighting environmental degradation.

The more scarce resources become, the more sustainability must be at the center of poverty alleviation. The world has no choice but to choose a path that would combine them.  In fact, many developed and developing countries are already providing a lot of good examples on the national and subnational levels, such as developing efficient public transport that reduces CO2 emissions and at the same time increase mobility and affordability, which is needed for economic development.

Now that governments have agreed as little as they have, given the existing and rather pathetic political will now available, the question is what will they do when they go back home. The current conference document, with all its weaknesses, has nonetheless indicated many potential opportunities for further action. There are no hard numerical commitments and actions in the text, but it provides processes for governments to develop these commitments and actions. Such processes include:

•  establishing an intergovernmental high level political forum that will follow up on the implementation of the sustainable development commitments contained in Agenda 21,
• committing to promote an integrated approach to planning and building sustainable cities and urban settlements,
• committing to maintain and restore marine resources to sustainable levels with the aim of achieving these goals for depleted stocks on an urgent basis by 2015,
• adopting the 10-Year Framework of Programmes (10YFP) on sustainable consumption and production (SCP),
• resolving to establish an inclusive and transparent intergovernmental process on SDGs that is open to all stakeholders.

There are many other opportunities highlighted within the existing text for governments to take us forward. Nevertheless, this will not happen unless political reality on the ground changes.

The failure of the international process is not because multilateralism is wrong. The process is good. What we lack is political will. The international process can only work within existing political will. If there is no new political will to capture, the process will not do anything.

Political will is not created at international venues, it is created back at home, and on the streets. It is up to the youth and civil society movements to take it forward.

But reality can change, and we saw it in the Arab Spring. What is needed is persistence, and continued action.  Civil society campaigned for years in Egypt to achieve political change against harsh suppression, but they never gave up. Then a tipping point was reached, and everything changed in only one day.

Civil society must use all the anger that exists as a result of the Rio+20 reality check, and then alter that reality.  After all, we are running out of time.

So ECO is going home for now.  We are angry, but that will focus our energy, and we will organize. Because as Nelson Mandela so wisely said: “it always seems impossible, until it is done.” 

  By Ivy rono

communications KYG.