The following article is written by professional photojournalist Jakob Dall from Denmark. He is currently making a project called "Climate Change Documentary" with reportages from around the world. This article is from Jakob Dall's journey to Mozambique.
World out of kilter
Rain or no rain, that's the question. The areas around the Zambezi River in central Mozambique that have been overwhelmed by floods are now ravaged by drought. Sudden local deluges can mean huge destruction, spread of life-threatening diseases, and worst of all death.More rain on fewer days. More extreme drought in already dry areas. Twenty per cent more extreme heat by the end of this century is one of three IPCC predictions for south-east Africa. But millions of people are already experiencing these climate related problems today, in their daily lives.
The memory of the field
Suddenly he stood there. Appeared out of nothingness. His body is tanned as deeply as the Gravballe man's, and he is just as thin. 89 year-old Vasco Rambik has been occupied since sunrise with tidying his maize patch, just as on every other day of his life, when he hears voices from the next field to where we are standing. He is the memory of the place. ”From 1983 until 1999 we could just about survive, but since 2003 we have had particular problems with drought. This year is the worst,” he relates, continuing with deep irony, ”Now we are here only because we are made of flesh”.
Drought
All the rivers we drove past were completely dry. Not a drop of water in the Nhazana, the Fuzda, the Zangue, the Dera, the Tissadie or the Zingue. A stretch of around 200 km. of central Mozambique. And in the rainy season, mind you. In 2009, in the Sofala province of central Mozambique, there is drought. We set out, the photographer and I, to investigate the rumours of floods near the Zambezi River, and came home with a story of failed rains and maize and other subsistence crops that are so shrivelled by drought that neither wild boar, rats, hippos nor humans can eat them.
Floods
When we came to Caia on the banks of the Zambezi and were amazed to see that it was still flowing in the usual channels on its way to the Indian Ocean, we headed straight up to the crisis centre to get an explanation. The centre, with the impressive name Instituto Nacional de Gestao de Calamidates Naturales, was set up after the great floods of 2001, when thousands of people had to be evacuated. The authorities report that an estimated 95,000 people have been re-housed. First they were housed in Red Cross tents, and then moved from them to the 52 new settlements a safe distance from the Zambezi. The centre is organised totally professionally. Everything is ready if a catastrophe occurs again. The air-conditioned command centre is modelled on a military pattern with a logistics unit, a communications unit, a supplies unit and a canteen. Big maps on the walls. A leadership group is in place and can be summoned at short notice, but its members work in other places in Mozambique on a daily basis. Just now the centre is manned by a leader and an information officer, and practical personnel. There is an inflatable boat ready on a trailer outside, with portable water tanks. A unit of soldiers is stationed 200 metres away, and the WFP (World Food Programme) has placed a camp in front.
Rescue operations
”I stood together with my family on top of an old termite mound. There was water on every side. When the rescue helicopter came some of the children jumped in the water. Only their heads could be seen. They thought it was war.” In this way Vasque Joa Cadoso Gonda told of the day that changed the lives of his family. It was the 17th of January 2001. In the three or four months up to that day it had rained constantly over the whole area. But what was worse, the hydro-electric dams higher up the Zambezi River could not continue to hold the enormous amount of water that came from the interior of the continent – from Zimbabwe and Zambia. Huge areas along the Zambezi were overwhelmed, among them the island where Vasque Gonda and his family lived and ran their little farm.
Figueredo Araujo is information officer at the crisis centre, where he has been employed since 2007. Before that Figueredo worked for the Red Cross rehousing the many environmental refugees, some of whom came from a series of small islands out in the Zambezi near Caia. Some of the rescue operations were very dramatic. People were rescued with boats, canoes and some with helicopters. There are still people on the small islands. People who have either refused to be evacuated or have gone back again. It is still necessary to cultivate the ground where there is water, which means close to the Zambezi. But several thousand have established themselves permanently in the 52 new settlements.
Alarm system
There are several hydro-electric stations higher up the Zambezi River, of which one is Cahora Bassa dam. That means there are ideal opportunities for warning if the river is about to burst its banks. If a flood is on the way the people are notified by telephone, radio and megaphone. There are drills every year, when the worst conceivable situations are simulated. ”In 2001 the early warning was definitely not good enough, but it is now,” Figueredo affirms, guaranteeing that an early warning will reach everyone in a maximum of two hours.
Right now Figueredo is clad in orange vest and cap. The crew that mans the crisis centre every day wear vest and cap according to the alert level that is in place. There are three stages: green, orange and red. Normally the crew wear orange vests from October to April and green vests from April to October. The last time the crew wore red vests was from December 2007 to April 2008. At noon on the 17th of January 2008 the water level was 7.83 metres higher than normal.
However this is nothing compared with the situation in 2001 when the water level was too higher for all the metering instruments, that can only measure up to 8 metres.
Fourth longest river
A large part of Saofala Province is located in a ”downstream area”. That is to say that those in the area must live with the climate effects taking place in some of the central parts of Africa. The Zambezi River, Africa's fourth longest at 2.574 km, has its source in Zambia and forms part of the borders of Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ”This year there is almost no rain,” says Figueredo but emphasises that there are enormous regional differences. The drought is thus combined with local rain problems.
Malaria and other waterborne diseases
Dr. Mohammed R. Mobaracaly has only been in charge of the hospital in Caia for one year, but has been to the hospital before and knows the sate of health in the area. He does not reckon malaria to be the worst waterborne disease there. In his opinion the worst are skin infections, diarrhoea, eye infections and malnutrition, together with roundworm. ”Malaria has gone down in the last three years”, says Mohammed, as we stand beside the sickbed of a 10 year-old girl. ”She has been sick for a week, but is now improving with quinine treatment,” says her father. The girl is the only malaria case at the moment.” Normally there are 10-12 malaria patients,” says Mohammed, who doesn't dare say if there is a link with the drought. Instead he draws attention to the contribution of using DDT in doorways, insect-proofed mosquito nets, and quicker testing as recommended by the WHO. But everything else being equal, the drought gives the malaria mosquito poor living conditions and with them less opportunity for spreading the malaria parasite.
So the reduction in the total of malaria cases is much more noteworthy, given that the total population of Caia increased from 2007 to 2008.
Latest
Vasco looks up at the clouds sceptically. Having sown maize three times since December, which the drought has taken, he will start again for the fourth time tomorrow to get a crop he can harvest. His immediate problem is that it hasn't rained since the 5th of December. But there is also a more general change. While in many parts the rain in the rainy season fell daily almost by the clock, the natural conditions have become a lot more unstable. It has become almost impossible for Vasco to plan his planting times. But this year there is absolutely no rain. In that case the only thing to do is to keep trying. Unless rain comes in March, it will be necessary to open the WFP´s food stores in Caia.UN's office for the coordination of emergency help in the area (IRIN) warned that in the neighbouring province of Tete ”up to 100,000 people will need emergency help in the form of food.” Weather forecast: dry and sunny.
Beira under water
Two children and a policeman drowned last week in a flash flood that followed a torrential downpour in Soweto, in the neighbouring land of South Africa. A taxi driver is missing. Parts of Beira – Mozambique´s second largest city – are frequently under water for the same reason.It rained the whole night on Thursday. When we drove out of Beira early in the morning, many of the approach roads were blocked by water. To get to work, go shopping or attend school people wade through enormous puddles. Some places through long stretches of metre-deep water.But they are apparently used to that in Mozambique´s second city, Beira. With bicycles, school books and baskets people wade calmly through the usual highways and byways, temporarily turned to rivers. Daily life in Beira.What is worse: drains and their contents also overflow. The same happens with the wells. All water is mixed together. Diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases are an obvious risk.
While more than 2/3 of Africa's population live in a state of water shortage, there are periods like this in Beira with much too much water – flash flooding, as it is called.
Sand and swamp
Beira is in the wrong place. The town was founded in 1890 as disembarkation port for goods from Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia. Beira is terminus for the transport corridor carrying both railway and road that runs through the provinces of Manica and Sofala. The river – for Beira like many other towns is built on a river – forms a delta, where from time to time sediments make marshy areas. It is by the book – the geography book. Precisely like the Nile delta, New Orleans where the Mississippi flows out into the Gulf of Mexico, even in principle like every single sandbank on the Danish coast. The marsh areas are at sea level, and sometimes even lower. It is therefore obvious that it is difficult to get wastewater from the town, rainwater from the night's downpours and drainage from the marshy areas of the town channelled out to sea. And given that the river silts up the whole time and therefore changes direction, it is no surprise that Beira is one of the most expensive towns to maintain.
There are presently two enormous sand pumps permanently engaged with dredging the harbour and shifting the sand around, so the sea does not break through the dunes with the next storm. Just behind the dunes is the beach promenade, that with its long rows of palm trees can cause tourism bosses the world over to turn green with envy. Coastal protection is a must in Beira, not least because 3-4 tropical cyclones from the Indian Ocean ravage it every year.
Golf course or paddy field
Beira golf course is a chapter in itself. While there were previously 18 holes to play with, now there are only nine. One half of the area has been so swamped that it has been given up as a golf course and changed into a paddy field. This very day only two or three of the remaining nine holes are accessible. Tuesday's downpour has turned the golf course into a reserve for swimming and wading birds. Right now a Grey Heron and a Sacred Ibis are both trying to nest in hole number four!
Since 1988, the Swede Stig Larsen has trained with the available holes at Beira's golf club. ”I don't know if it has anything to do with climate change, but it is difficult to get water to drain away from the golf course” he says, and states in one sentence an explanation of the golf club's problems. ”When the saltwater breaks in, the grass that cannot tolerate salt dies. And when freshwater floods the golf course, the grass that has adapted to saltwater dies.”
Maybe it is this true story about the golf course that became a paddy field that has given rise to the rumour that Beira is sinking. But Beira is not. The town is simply in the wrong place.
Drinking water and water shortage
Just like many places on the coasts, the saltwater permeates the groundwater and makes it unusable for drinking water. That happens in Beira too, where a great deal of the drinking water is brought from 50 km away from the town. Freshwater pipes have just been extended by 5 km to secure the water supply.
IPCC
So Beira has water problems from both sides. Over the last ten years rainfall has been greater than before (according to Mozambique's meteorological institute). And, more important, the rain falls harder and typically in a shorter period.
The anticipated rise in sea level by the end of this century will ”affect the low-lying coastal areas with large concentrations of people,” as it says in the conclusions of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes).
Both issues focus on Beira.
On the other hand, it is uncertain how future cyclones will track across the Indian Ocean, and therefore what effect the cyclones will have on the coastal areas of Mozambique.
Extremes
It will become drier in this already dry area. The predictions of the IPCC are that there will be a larger reduction in the number of days with rain in the drought areas than in the rest of Mozambique. On the other hand, it will rain more when it finally rains. More rain on fewer days.
As regards extremely hot, extremely wet and extremely dry seasons the IPCC forecasts that all seasons will be extremely hot by the end of the century. At the same time, the total of extremely wet seasons will increase. One in five seasons will be extremely wet, in contrast to now when one in twenty seasons are extremely dry.
Solutions
What can be done locally to halt the world slide? One possibility is to save up for a solar panel that can among other things power a radio. Then one can at least hear what the weather forecast says the about the ever more unpredictable cyclones. Another possibility is to plant trees. Partly trees that can re-establish the mangrove, where it has been used for building material or fuel. The mangrove that exactly like a tough carpet stops the tropical cyclones eating their way into the coastal stretches out by the Indian Ocean. And partly trees to replace those that go up in smoke after being turned into charcoal. As it is now, the charcoal for domestic use has to be collected further and further away. Some of the charcoal used for daily food preparation in the capital Maputo is collected up to 1200 km away. A large part of the transport of the charcoal is by cycle on barely passable roads. A system where planting of trees equals production of fuel and charcoal would reduce the need to fetch the charcoal from ever further away.
At the same time, more effective stoves can reduce the waste of energy that is often found in the individual kitchen. Two NGO groups have developed a project where around 75% of the energy used for daily food preparation can be saved. These two groups are Mozambique's ADEL and Denmark's Organisation for Sustainable Energy (OVE).
On the one side more effective production of timber and charcoal and on the other side improved energy consumption – these pincer movements at least make a contribution to improvement of daily life for Vasco, Figueredo, Feliciana, Mohammed and Laurinda.
World imbalance can be altered.
The journey to Mozambique was financed by the Danish Foreign Ministry's COP15 education fund.
Jakob
Jakob Dall Photography
www.jakobdall.com
photo@jakobdall.com
+45 22115165