The most vulnerable groups in Nigerian society that are clashing with
climate change are the rural poor as they often depend on natural resources for
their livelihoods, for instance from agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
Now man-made climate change poses an
additional challenge, increasing the vulnerability of rural communities; the
impacts of climate change currently predicted for rural communities in Nigeria
is in the rise and rain-fed grain crops, and a rising number of extreme weather
events, such as droughts, floods and desertification is the uppermost of
climate vulnerability.
These impacts will vary strongly in their extent and form around the
country. To cope with the risks, therefore, interventions will have to be
specially tailored to suit the different states and regions especially the villagers
of Gutsura located in Zamfara State, North-West of Nigeria.
To prepare for the impacts of climate change, the community calls on the
Federal, State and Local government to help them construct concrete dams for
them.
During raining season, “You cannot get in the village, only if you use
canoes, because the whole village is surrounded by water” said Alhagie Omar
Nasarawe [village elder] sharing his experience with Earth Hour Nigeria during
a community participatory live mapping.
According to him, the natural event [floods] since 2010 to date, have made
most them to be homeless and as a result the Federal government of Nigeria has
allocated them a new site to relocate [empty land] without given them financial
support to build houses.
“The Federal government only gives us empty land for us to relocate with no
single “Koboo” in Nigerian local language meaning Naira.”
January, 20, 2014 Earth Hour Nigeria started live
mapping of places of interest [camps, roads,
schools, health centers, water pumps] and facilitating of vulnerability maps
for the local communities.
Nasarawe noted that the new site that the government
located to them, none of the village is in position to construct houses because
they loss millions of Naira as result of flooding.
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| Mansabanko Blo Publisher posed with villager elders |
Community
outreach [Education] in local communities to distribute communication materials
on promoting the culture of peace and provision of 2,800 solar lamps and 1,000
clean cookstoves – are all part of WalktoMali project with no financial support
from the Nigerian government, international organisations or humantatian
organisations says Community outreach [Education] in local communities to
distribute communication materials on promoting the culture of peace and
provision of 2,800 solar lamps and 1,000 clean cookstoves – are all part of
WalktoMali project with no financial support from the Nigerian government,
international organisations or humantatian organisations says Oludotun
Babayemi, Country
Director Earth Hour Nigeria.
“We the rural poor often have just limited access to financial products
which could help to reduce the impacts of climate change on our livelihood,”
Takur Muhammed said,
He informed Earth Hour Nigeria champions
that villagers have little awareness and expert knowledge regarding adaptation
to climate change, particularly at the local level.
For this reason, he said focus of projects
like communicating relevant approaches, technologies and lessons learnt and through
their participation in an information and knowledge management system, will help
them to enhance their knowledge and raise the resilience of the communities.
As a society, “we have structured our day-to-day lives around historical and
current climate conditions. We are accustomed to a normal range of conditions
and may be sensitive to extremes that fall outside of this range and climate
change may threaten people’s jobs and livelihoods says Mansabanko blog
publisher cum Social Secretary Biodiversity Action Journalists-The Gambia
(BAJ-Gambia) Mamadou Edrisa Njie.
Njie pointed out that climate change
will affect certain groups more than others, particularly groups located in
vulnerable areas and the poor, young, old, or sick adding that cities are
sensitive to many impacts, especially extreme weather impacts.
 |
| [In red shirt] Mike in action Earth Hour Nigeria |
Etta
Micheal Bisong journalists Blueprint Newspapers Nigeria said that climate
change could affect our society through impacts on a number of different
social, cultural, and natural resources.
Given
examples, he stated that climate change could affect human health,
infrastructure, and transportation systems, as well as energy, food, and water
supplies.
He continued, some groups of people
will likely face greater challenges than others. Climate change may especially
impact people who live in areas that are vulnerable to coastal storms, drought,
and sea level rise or people who are poor.
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