SUSTAINABILITY - The African Mirror

Mar

30

2023

In Egypt’s ‘Garbage City’, a charity teaches children to recycle

SUSTAINABILITY

AS a child growing up in Cairo's Manshiyat Nasser, a shanty town also known as "Garbage City," Teresa Saeed spent her free time rummaging through the piles of rubbish strewn everywhere to find paper and materials to indulge her love of drawing and painting. Now 34, she runs a charity that encourages children in the area to make creative and positive use of their environment by exploring the space and recycling. In Manshiyat Nasser, a neighbourhood of unpainted brick buildings east of central Cairo, many streets and buildings are piled high with rubbish collected from across the metropolis AND processed…

Mar

31

2023

By The African Mirror

Kenya drought: Pastoralists suffer despite millions of dollars used to protect them – what went wrong?

SUSTAINABILITY

ACROSS the arid landscape of northern Kenya, roadside signs proclaim projects aimed at creating “resilience” among pastoralist communities. This is a region where frequent droughts, animal disease, insecurity and structural exclusion all affect pastoral livelihoods. Authors TAHIRA SHARIFF MOHAMED, PhD candidate, Institute of Development Studies IAN SCOONES, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies Resilience – the capacity to transform or to recover quickly from challenges – is the idea behind the many externally funded projects and hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the past few decades. Resilience projects across the drylands often encourage pastoralists – usually working together in…

Jan

21

2023

By The African Mirror

Climate change is threatening Madagascar’s famous forests – our study shows how serious it is

SUSTAINABILITY

GLOBAL climate change doesn’t only cause the melting of polar ice caps, rising sea levels and extreme weather events. It also has a direct effect on many tropical habitats and the animals and plants that inhabit them. As fossil fuel emissions continue to drive climate change, large areas of land are forecast to become much hotter and drier by the end of this century. Authors DANIEL HENDING, Postdoctoral Research Assistant Animal Vibration Lab, University of Oxford MARC HOLDERIED, Professor in Sensory Biology, University of Bristol Many ecosystems, including tropical forests, wetlands, swamps and mangroves, will be unable to cope with…

Jan

10

2023

By The African Mirror

Climate change is leaving African elephants desperate for water

SUSTAINABILITY

RACHAEL GROSS and ROB HEINSOHN AFRICAN elephant numbers have dropped from about 26 million in the 1800s to 415,000 today. While this is largely due to European colonisation, poaching and habitat loss, these majestic animals now face another grave challenge. Climate change is causing droughts in much of Africa to become longer and more severe. This damages elephant habitats and denies them the water they need. Due to their unique physiology, African elephants need hundreds of litres of water each day to survive. The African savanna elephant is listed as endangered. If the situation doesn’t change, Africa – indeed, the…

Nov

29

2022

By The African Mirror

VIDEO: In conversation with Kenyan environmentalist Wanjira Mathai

SUSTAINABILITY

WANJIRA Mathai is the vice president and regional director for Africa at the World Resources Institute and the daughter of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai. /bird story agency

Nov

22

2022

By The African Mirror

COP27 key outcomes: progress on compensation for developing countries, but more needed on climate justice and equity

SUSTAINABILITY

THERE were high expectations for COP27, the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP conferences broadly provide a platform for the negotiation of international climate change agreements. This was to be the first COP held in Africa since 2016. It was also framed as the implementation of COP, which would lead to action. Authors IMRAAN VALODIA, Pro Vice-Chancellor: Climate, Sustainability and Inequality and Director Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, University of the Witwatersrand JULIA TAYLOR, Researcher: Climate and Inequality, University of the Witwatersrand COP27 was expected to make progress on “loss and damage”.…

Nov

19

2022

By The African Mirror

African mountains are feeling the heat of climate change

SUSTAINABILITY

MOUNTAINS are special places. They have distinctive climates that are generally cooler and wetter than surrounding lowlands, and they host plants, animals and landscapes that are uniquely found in these environments. However, mountains are under threat because of climate change, and this has an impact on every single property of mountains, including their climate, weathering and erosion processes, soils, ecosystems, water resources, geological hazards, regional economies, and cultural practices. My work on the impacts of ongoing climate change in mountains highlights the sensitivity of mountain properties and processes to changes in temperature and precipitation – mainly expressed in mountains as…

Nov

18

2022

By The African Mirror

‘What am I supposed to do about all this really bad stuff?’ Young people identify 7 ‘superpowers’ to fight climate change

SUSTAINABILITY

PHOEBE QUINN and KATITZA MARINKOVIC CHAVEZ MANY young people feel anxious, powerless, sad and angry about climate change. Although there are some great resources on children’s eco-anxiety and climate distress, the vast majority are designed for and by adults. So, what resources do children and young people themselves want, to support them in facing climate change? And what strengths do they have when it comes to learning about, coping with and acting on this vast and complex problem? Our study involved young people To find out, we ran a series of workshops with 31 young people aged 12 to 25…

Nov

16

2022

By The African Mirror

Saving the world, one coconut tree at a time

SUSTAINABILITY

LAYMAH KOLLIE, BIRD STORY AGENCY WHEN Eleazer Barclay, 22, started climate activism in 2018, he visited six schools in Grand Bassa County, Liberia and asked the students to come with coconut seeds. "My objective was to educate the students and teachers to champion environmental conservation by planting trees. To start off, I asked the participants to come along with a symbolic plant, a coconut seedling, and on that first day, we planted 150 coconut trees on six campuses," said Barclay. "The most important thing was that the young students saw themselves as problem solvers. They also learned that trees provide…

Nov

16

2022

By The African Mirror

Burning waste must end: African leaders look to recycling for better health and value

SUSTAINABILITY

WHEN African environment ministers met in Senegal in mid-September, they made one of the most important decisions in the history of waste management in Africa. The ministers laid the foundation to end the open dumping and burning of waste. Putting this decision into action will have multiple economic, environmental and social implications. It could save millions of lives on the continent. Author DESTA MEBRATU, Professor and United Nations High Level Champions (UNHLC) Lead on Waste, Stellenbosch University One hundred and eighty million tons of waste, about 9% of the global total, was generated in sub-Saharan Africa in 2016. Only about…