IGIHE

Category: Environment

  • MINIRENA to reach 30% of the National forest cover by 2017

    MINIRENA to reach 30% of the National forest cover by 2017

    The ministry of natural resources (MINIRENA) has announced the plan to increase forest dominated landscape from current figure which stands at 28.3% to 30% in the year 2017.

    Currently, over 32 million trees are being planted all over the country.

    In a press conference with the Minister of Natural resources, Stanislas Kamanzi “work on extending the landscape where the trees are being planted on a large scale has already resumed.

    Bamboo trees are being planted around swampy areas in order to reduce soil erosion as the program goes on.

    This program will facilitate the protection of our Natural resources from future natural disasters.

  • Rare solar eclipse in America, Europe and Africa

    Rare solar eclipse in America, Europe and Africa

    { {{A rare solar eclipse allowing a view of the Sun that is totally or partially blocked by the Moon has taken place.}} }

    It was first visible in the southern United States, before sweeping east across the Atlantic Ocean and the African continent.

    The US space agency, Nasa, said the greatest total eclipse occurred over the Atlantic Ocean.

    One of the best views was in northern Kenya, where tour companies organised trips to view a total blackout.

    Local myths there attribute the event to the Moon eating the Sun.
    Partial views were available in eastern North America and southern Europe.

    {{Halo}}

    This solar eclipse was a rare occurrence in that it was “hybrid” – switching between an annular and total eclipse. In a total eclipse, the Moon completely covers the sun, while an annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is at its farthest from the Earth and does not block out the Sun completely, leaving a halo of sunlight still visible around the Moon.

    The eclipse event began about 1,000km (620 miles) east of Jacksonville, Florida with an annular eclipse visible for four seconds at sunrise.
    As the Moon’s shadow raced east the eclipse switched from annular to total along a narrow corridor.

    The greatest total eclipse occurred in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 330km south-west of Liberia, and lasted for more than one minute. The eclipse continued across Africa through the Congos until it passed through northern Uganda and northern Kenya, ending in southern Ethiopia and Somalia.

    Either side, a partial eclipse was seen within a much broader path including eastern North America, northern South America, southern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

    Experts warned that no-one should attempt to view the Sun with the naked eye.
    A safe view of eclipses can be obtained by using special welder’s glasses or a pinhole camera.

    Source: BBC

  • Nile water issue is not a ‘zero-sum game’: Fahmy

    Nile water issue is not a ‘zero-sum game’: Fahmy

    {{Interim foreign minister says Egypt respects the aspirations of the Nile Basin countries and their people}}

    There is no alternative to cooperation between Nile Basin countries, interim Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmhy said on Thursday according to state-run MENA news agency.

    Fahmy said Cairo respects the aspirations for development of the countries of the Nile Basin and their people, including the Ethiopian people.

    Tensions had run high between Egypt and Ethiopia earlier this year over Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

    “I think the Ethiopian side is aware of the extreme importance Egypt attaches to the issue of water security as it completely relies on Nile River water and that we are seeking to increase Egypt’s water resources, not just maintain the annual share…”

    Every party wants more than what they have whether that is water, energy or economic development, he said. “There is no room to meet these aspirations without joint action and cooperation,” he said.

    Fahmy added that the Nile River should be reason for cooperation and integration, rather than conflict and dispute.

    Fahmy addressed the importance of not dealing with the water issue as a “zero-sum game” where one party wins at the expense of another party’s loss, especially regarding relations with Ethiopia.

    He reiterated that Egypt does not oppose Ethiopia making use of its natural resources for development, provided it does not harm Egypt’s “water interests and rights.” He stressed that there is continuous contact with the Ethiopian side.

    Fahmy had discussed water security with his Ethiopian counterpart Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus when they met last month in New York on the sidelines of the 68th UN General Assembly.

    On Wednesday, Egypt’s Supreme Committee for Nile Water discussed the most recent developments in the Nile water issue and relations with Nile Basin countries in a meeting headed by Interim Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi. The meeting comes a few days ahead of a scheduled meeting in Khartoum, Sudan next Monday between the water resources ministers of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, where they will discuss the findings of an international tripartite report released in June on the effects of the Ethiopian dam.

    Egypt fears that the Ethiopian dam will affect its lion’s share of the Nile water. Agreements signed in 1929 and 1959 guaranteed Egypt 55.5bn cubic metres of the estimated total of 84bn cubic metres of Nile water produced each year.

    Fahmy also said on Thursday that the strategy Egypt currently follows with Nile Basin countries represents, among other things, an aspect of Egypt’s new orientation towards the continent. Fahmy had said in Burundi earlier this month that Egypt is re-positioning Egypt in its “rightful place as a country of Arab identity and African roots.”

    Fahmy was part of a ministerial delegation that was set to visit three Nile Basin countries but only managed to reach Uganda and Burundi, choosing not to visit Congo in response to Congolese talks over the country’s east, where a militant group of rebels is involved in an armed conflict with the government.

    Fahmy said he plans to embark on a tour of African countries once every two months for the next six months, saying, “We must prove to ourselves and others that we are serious in our commitment towards Africa.”

    Daily News Egypt

  • Jay Ghartey releases new single ‘African Money’

    Jay Ghartey releases new single ‘African Money’

    {Cruising along in good shape, Jay Ghartey continues to receive massive support not only in his music career but also on his GH Brothers Youth Foundation from Africa and across the world.}

    Numerous artistes from Ghana and other parts of the world have recognized and supported the Ghanaian-American rapper, singer, songwriter, producer and philanthropist’s effort in creating a comfortable school for school dropouts and underprivileged youth in Ghana.

    As the first and only Ghanaian artiste with a school foundation, the GH Brothers co-founder vows to do more to provide an excellent quality education for the children. After a splendid performance on his blockbuster hit singles, ‘Papa’, ‘Love You Better’ and ‘Somebody’, he has never relaxed.

    He’s out with another exquisite well talented single titled ‘African Money’ featuring two of Ghana’s finest artistes, EL and AJ Omo Alajah. This track completely produced by Jay Ghartey is an up-tempo African anthem.

    EL decided to donate all proceeds from his first ever feature with Jay Ghartey to GH Brothers Youth Foundation. Jay Ghartey has fully immersed himself into the Azonto rhythm with his latest hits ‘Buga’, ‘Somebody’ and now ‘African Money.’

    He joined the hard core trend after observing that his fans in Ghana, Africa and elsewhere are immensely enjoying the current genre Azonto.

    BBC’s DJ Edu, Ghana’s DJ Black, Efya and a host of other DJs and international musicians who have had the opportunity to listen to his latest single have voted a massive thumbs up and have marked it to hit the streets and every corner of Ghana and beyond.

    With his attempt to unite Africa, he surprisingly combined 4 strong African dialects on African money namely, Yoruba, Twi, Ga, Hausa plus Pidgin and Slangs. This makes him the first artiste in Ghana to use 6 languages on a single track.

    Jay Ghartey is looking forward to shoot a video for African money in the future and almost done with ‘Love You Better’ video which features Ugandan songstress, Juliana Kanyomozi.

    ghanaweb.com

  • China Smog Eemergency Shuts city of 11M People

    China Smog Eemergency Shuts city of 11M People

    {{Choking smog all but shut down one of northeastern China’s largest cities on Monday, forcing schools to suspended classes, snarling traffic and closing the airport, in the country’s first major air pollution crisis of the winter.}}

    An index measuring PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5), reached a reading of 1,000 in some parts of Harbin, the gritty capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province and home to some 11 million people.

    A level above 300 is considered hazardous, while the World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

    The smog not only forced all primary and middle schools to suspend classes, but shut the airport and some public bus routes, the official Xinhua news agency reported, blaming the emergency on the first day of the heating being turned on in the city for winter. Visibility was reportedly reduced to 10 meters.

    The smog is expected to continue for the next 24 hours.

    Air quality in Chinese cities is of increasing concern to China’s stability-obsessed leadership because it plays into popular resentment over political privilege and rising inequality in the world’s second-largest economy.

    Domestic media have run stories describing the expensive air purifiers government officials enjoy in their homes and offices, alongside reports of special organic farms so cadres need not risk suffering from recurring food safety scandals.

    The government has announced plans over the years to tackle the pollution problem but has made little apparent progress.

    Users of China’s popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging site reacted with both anger and bitter sarcasm over Harbin’s air pollution.

    agencies

  • Conflicts Over Water Rise in Tanzania

    Conflicts Over Water Rise in Tanzania

    {{Conflicts over water are increasing in the sprawling Pangani River Basin in northeastern Tanzania as farmers and herders jostle for dwindling water resources in the face of climate change.}}

    Over the past decade, Maasai pastoralists from the northern areas of Moshi and Arusha have been streaming towards the basin with tens of thousands of their cattle in search of water and grazing pasture.

    Hafsa Mtasiwa, the Pangani District Commissioner, told IPS that the Maasais’ traditional land was strained by overuse of water resources and overgrazing. She said in the last three years 2,987 herders with 87,1321 cows and 98,341 goats moved into the basin’s low land, destroying arable land.

    She said that although the government of this East African nation was trying to control the influx into the basin, a lack of policy coordination between relevant regional authorities made this difficult.

    “This is a very complex issue whose solution requires a general consensus between the fighting groups. You don’t simply chase away cattle keepers. We must educate them on the need to respect the rights of the others,” she said.

    The Pangani River Basin, which sprawls across 48,000 square kilometres, is already stressed as it faces continued demands on its water resources and ecosystems.

    According to the Water and Nature Initiative of the International Union of Conservation of Nature, the basin has a population of 3.4 million people, “80 per cent of whom rely on small-scale farming.

    Ecosystems are in decline and, with aquatic resources supplying up to 25 per cent of household income in parts of the basin, the poorest are those most affected by declining water levels.”

    Statistics from the Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) show rainfall patterns across many parts of the Pangani River Basin have drastically dropped in the past 10 years. Some areas that recorded 990 mm of rainfall a decade ago receive almost half of this now.

    “The impacts of climate change are very difficult to foresee, they keep changing from time to time. It could start with drought then abruptly switch to floods, the important thing is for the people to adapt,” TMA’s director general Agnes Kijazi told IPS by phone.

    {{Irrigation}}

    What little water there is, is mostly used for irrigation and electricity generation. The Clim-A-Net project, which aims to develop scientific knowledge on climate change, states on its website that “almost 90 percent of the surface flow in the Pangani Basin is used for irrigation and hydropower generation.”

    “We are spending sleepless nights just finding water, the little we get we feed our cattle. We have lost so many cows … The people here should also understand the situation we are in,” Vincent Ole Saidim, a Maasai youth living in Pangani, told IPS.

    But farmers here complain about the number of cattle that enter their fields, destroying crops and irrigation structures in the process.

    “These Maasai are very selfish people, they think they are always right, even when they destroy other people’s lives. I can’t bear them, they should go back to where they belong,” Mwasiti, Isinika a farmer in Pangani, told IPS.

    Residents from the region told IPS that over the last six months tensions between farmers and herders have been ongoing and many feel that there is no end in sight.

    The most recent incident that IPS noted occurred in August in Makenya village, a community of 600 people located about 19 km from the basin’s Pangani Town.

    According to residents, a scuffle involving farmers and pastoralists ensued when 24 herders attempted to take over the village’s central water source in order to feed their animals. The villagers managed to remove them and no deaths were reported.

    However, two years ago in Mbuguni village, which is about 18 km from Pangani Town, four farmers were hacked to death by angry Maasai morans (warriors) as they tried to stop a group of cattle from trampling on their maize seedlings.

    {{Reduced rainfall}}

    Omar Kibwana, a local government official from Mbuguni village, told IPS that conflict was rife because the government was reluctant to create borders separating farmers from pastoralists.

    “This issue should have been resolved a long time ago had there been clear demarcation,” he said.

    The Pangani Basin Water Board said it was aware of the challenges here.

    Arafa Maggidi, an engineer from Pangani Basin Water Authority, told IPS that while climate change was the main reason for the reduced water supply here, other factors such as deforestation, increasing number of livestock, and an expansion of farming activities contributed.

    “The threat of climate change and the need to adapt cannot be over emphasised. We are trying our very best to educate the people to change their life styles, they must understand by destroying environment they are preparing for their own suffering,” Maggidi said.

    “We strongly believe that successful management of the water resources has to integrate all environmental, economic and social demands,” he said.

    Going forward, scientists predict increasing temperatures, reduced rainfall and ultimately less water.

    According to Pius Yanda, a professor at the University of Dar es Salaam who is also a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a rise of between 1.8 and 3.6 degrees Celsius, decreasing rainfall and increased evaporation in the river basin can be expected before the end of the century.

    But as they face an uncertain future, people here recall better times when the river was full and its flow was guaranteed throughout the year.

    “The river has lost all its old glory, some of the fish species have also disappeared, how disgusting,” Fundi Mhegema, a villager at Buyuni village in Pangani, told IPS.

    -IPS-

  • Australia Declares Emergency over Bushfires

    Australia Declares Emergency over Bushfires

    The premier of Australia’s New South Wales has declared a state of emergency for the next 30 days to give emergency services the authority to force evacuations in areas hit by the worst bushfires in several decades.

    Premier Barry O’Farrell told local media that the measure would be implemented across the state on Sunday, as hotter and drier than expected weather conditions fanned huge fires in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

    Australian fire crews stepped up containment efforts around several major bushfires with the weather forecast to deteriorate and officials warning of “unparallelled” danger from the worst conditions in 40 years.

    More than 200 homes have already been destroyed and another 120 damaged by the fires which broke out across New South Wales state earlier this week, fanned by extremely high winds.

    The worst of the fires, in the Blue Mountains, plunged Sydney into an eerie midday darkness as plumes of smoke and ash filled the sky.

    One man has died so far trying to protect his property.

    Firefighters had a reprieve on Friday and Saturday with an easing in the weather, but containment and property protection efforts were ramped up on Sunday ahead of a forecast deterioration in conditions set to include warmer temperatures and 100kph winds.

    ‘Unprecedented conditions’

    NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said there would be several extremely difficult days ahead for fire crews, with conditions unprecedented in their danger to property and life.

    “We’ve got what would be unparallelled in terms of risk and exposure for the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury communities throughout this week,” Fitzsimmons told reporters.

    “If you are to draw a parallel, and it’s always dangerous to draw a parallel, at best you’d be going back to time periods in the late 60s.”

    “The reality is, however, these conditions that we’re looking at are a whole new ball-game and in a league of their own.

    An emergency warning was issued for the Blue Mountains village of Bell on Sunday morning, with residents urged to evacuate if they were able or “take shelter in a solid structure when the fire front arrives”.

    A total fire ban was in place in the Greater Sydney and three other regions across the state until further notice.

    Assistant police commissioner Alan Clarke said mandatory evacuation orders would be enforced in some areas, describing the risk as “far more extreme” than in past fires.

    aljazeera

  • Pacific man in bid to Become First Climate Refugee

    Pacific man in bid to Become First Climate Refugee

    {{A Pacific islander has made a bid to become the world’s first climate change refugee, asking a New Zealand court on Wednesday to allow him to stay in the country due to the risks to his homeland posed by the effects of global warming.}}

    Ioane Teitiota, from Kiribati in the central Pacific, launched an appeal at New Zealand’s High Court in Auckland to overturn a decision by immigration authorities to refuse him refugee status, made on the grounds his claim fell short of the legal criteria, such as fear of persecution or threats to his life.

    Teitiota, 37, who came to New Zealand in 2007 and has three children born there, said he and his family would suffer serious harm if forced to return to Kiribati because rising sea levels caused by climate change meant there was no land to which he could safely return.

    His claim for refugee status spelled out how high tides breached seawalls and rising ocean levels were contaminating drinking water, killing crops and flooding homes.

    “There’s no future for us when we go back to Kiribati,” he told the appeal tribunal, adding that a return would pose a risk to his children’s health.

    {{‘Basic human right’}}

    Teitiota’s lawyer Michael Kidd acknowledged that his client’s New Zealand visa had expired but said he should not face deportation because of the difficulties he would encounter in Kiribati – a nation consisting of more than 30 coral atolls, most only a few metres (feet) above sea level.

    “Fresh water is a basic human right … the Kiribati government is unable, and perhaps unwilling, to guarantee these things because it’s completely beyond their control,” Kidd told Radio New Zealand.

    He said Teitiota’s case had the potential to set an international precedent, not only for Kiribati’s 100,000 residents but for all populations threatened by man-made climate change.

    If his appeal is successful Teitiota would become the world’s first climate refugee, Kidd said.

    Kiribati is among a number of island states – including Tuvalu, Tokelau and the Maldives – the UN Human Rights Commission is concerned could become “stateless” due to climate change.

    Kiribati government’s has raised the prospect of relocating the entire population or building man-made islands to re-house them if predictions the sea will rise by one metre (3.25 feet) by the end of the century prove accurate.

    It has also moved to buy 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of land in Fiji to act as a farm for Kiribati if salt-water pollution means the islands in the former British colony can no longer produce crops.

    Last month, leading climate change scientists said in a report that they are now 95 percent certain that human activity is the main cause of climate change and warned that the world is set to experience more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels that could swamp coasts and low-lying islands as greenhouse gases build up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

    france24

  • Typhoon Wipha kills 17 in Japan

    Typhoon Wipha kills 17 in Japan

    {{At least 17 people have been killed after a powerful typhoon lashed Japan’s eastern coast.}}

    An island south of Tokyo, Izu Oshima, was worst hit by Typhoon Wipha, suffering landslides and flooding.

    Many people died when houses collapsed or were buried in mudslides. At least 50 people remain unaccounted for.

    Work to protect the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant was carried out but the operators say it appears to have escaped the worst of the storm.

    In Tokyo, flights were cancelled, bullet train services suspended and schools closed.

    “It is the strongest typhoon in 10 years to pass the Kanto [Tokyo area] region,” Hiroyuki Uchida, the Japan Meteorological Agency’s chief forecaster, told journalists on Tuesday.

    Typhoon Wipha has now been downgraded to a tropical storm as it moves north-east.

    ‘Crackling sound’
    The storm brought strong winds and record rainfall on Wednesday morning.

    Nearly 5 inches (12cm) of rainfall fell in just one hour on Izu Oshima island, some 120km (75 miles) south of Tokyo.

    The storm sent large volumes of earth down mountainsides and caused rivers to burst their banks.

    Television footage showed the remains of wooden homes buried in mud and covered in debris.

  • UN ‘95% Sure’ Humans Cause Warming

    UN ‘95% Sure’ Humans Cause Warming

    {{A landmark report says scientists are 95% certain that humans are the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s.}}

    The report by the UN’s climate panel details the physical evidence behind climate change.

    On the ground, in the air, in the oceans, global warming is “unequivocal”, it explained.

    It adds that a pause in warming over the past 15 years is too short to reflect long-term trends.

    The panel warns that continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all aspects of the climate system.

    To contain these changes will require “substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions”.

    Projections are based on assumptions about how much greenhouse gases might be released.

    After a week of intense negotiations in the Swedish capital, the summary for policymakers on the physical science of global warming has finally been released.

    The first part of an IPCC trilogy, due over the next 12 months, this dense, 36-page document is considered the most comprehensive statement on our understanding of the mechanics of a warming planet.

    It states baldly that, since the 1950s, many of the observed changes in the climate system are “unprecedented over decades to millennia”.

    Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface, and warmer than any period since 1850, and probably warmer than any time in the past 1,400 years.

    “Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and that concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased,” said Qin Dahe, co-chair of IPCC working group one, who produced the report.

    Speaking at a news conference in the Swedish capital, Prof Thomas Stocker, another co-chair, said that climate change “challenges the two primary resources of humans and ecosystems, land and water. In short, it threatens our planet, our only home”.

    Since 1950, the report’s authors say, humanity is clearly responsible for more than half of the observed increase in temperatures.

    But a so-called pause in the increase in temperatures in the period since 1998 is downplayed in the report. The scientists point out that this period began with a very hot El Nino year.

    “Trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends,” the report says.

    Prof Stocker, added: “I’m afraid there is not a lot of public literature that allows us to delve deeper at the required depth of this emerging scientific question.

    “For example, there are not sufficient observations of the uptake of heat, particularly into the deep ocean, that would be one of the possible mechanisms to explain this warming hiatus.”

    “Likewise we have insufficient data to adequately assess the forcing over the last 10-15 years to establish a relationship between the causes of the warming.”

    However, the report does alter a key figure from the 2007 study. The temperature range given for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere, called equilibrium climate sensitivity, was 2.0C to 4.5C in that report.

    In the latest document, the range has been changed to 1.5C to 4.5C. The scientists say this reflects improved understanding, better temperature records and new estimates for the factors driving up temperatures.
    BBC