Ruth Muriuki in the greenhouse she built with the help of a microloan. / Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu

EMUHAYA, Kenya (AlertNet) – In Essong’olo village, some 32 km west of Kenya’s Kisumu city, Japheth Olukune Akhati and his neighbours are busy tilling their small plots of land in preparation for planting. It hasn’t rained for a few months here, and the skies are still azure blue. But thanks to traditional knowledge, the farmers know it might rain in three weeks’ time, and they want to be ready.

Kenyan farmers like these have relied on indigenous forecasting methods through the generations. Some fear these methods will be made redundant by more extreme and unpredictable weather linked with climate change. Others say they remain valuable tools – especially when used in conjunction with modern science.

The Kenya Meteorological Department is one organisation that thinks ancient practices have something to offer. Based on the findings of a study released in April 2010, it now blends traditional forecasts with science-based predictions to produce more accurate – and more well-received – weather and climate data at the local level in western Kenya.

The met office employs satellite technology and other modern methods to produce forecasts, while the ordained rainmakers from the region’s Nganyi family are asked to make their traditional predictions.

The results are then analysed and synthesised, translated into the Luhya language and disseminated to the public through a vernacular radio channel called Mulembe FM. Social gatherings, word of mouth and chief’s meetings spread the message further.

Farmers say the combined forecasts, added to their own observations, give them added confidence about what to do in the face of changing climatic conditions.

“From last week, the wind has been blowing from west to east, and that is a real sign it is going to rain in the next three or four weeks,” said Akhati, the Essong’olo  farmer who produces maize and horticultural crops on a three-acre piece of land.

As the rain approaches, local farmers sharpen their predictions of when it will arrive, down to a matter of hours. They say they can tell if the rainfall will be accompanied by hailstones just by observing the colour of clouds.

“When ants begin moulding (structures) on decaying matter, that means it is likely to rain in the next three to four days,” explained Akhati.  “As well, when we wake up in the morning and find no dew on the grass, then it is an indication it will rain on that very day. It is also important to note that, on the night before a rainy day, the temperatures usually rise beyond normal.”

Combining natural observation with modern science can build up climate change intelligence and help make the data accessible to subsistence farming communities, according to the 2010 study on using indigenous knowledge to manage climate risks.

The two-year research project was carried out by scientists from the Kenya Meteorological Department, the University of Nairobi and Maseno University, and funded by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Climate Prediction and Applications Centre, the British government and the International Development Research Centre.

RESPECTED RAINMAKERS

The scientists approached traditional rainmakers from the Nganyi family in western Kenya’s Emuhaya County. Here it is widely believed that the Nganyi of the Abasiekwe community can make or stop rains, lightning or hailstorms.

“We respect their word. When they predict something, it usually comes to pass,” said Josephat Atieli, a smallholder farmer from Mumboha village in Emuhaya. “We actually depend on their word, especially at the beginning of the planting season.”

In return, the villagers pay the Nganyi family in kind with produce from their farms.

“We have a belief that if we do not appreciate the work of the rainmakers, then they could cause hailstones to destroy our crops in the next season. We also believe that they have magic powers they can use to bring drought,” said Atieli.

While most Luhya community members have some general knowledge about predicting weather conditions, the Nganyi family is revered for its superior insight because it has shrines said to possess natural indicators that can give a more accurate forecast.

The shrines consist of huge and rare indigenous trees, which form a canopy and are regarded as sacred. The small patches of forested land attract reptiles, birds and insect whose behaviour is monitored to indicate upcoming weather.

“We have been able to study these shrines, and we can authoritatively say that they provide realistic information that can assist in predicting weather conditions in the local environment,” said Gilbert Ouma, who heads the Kenya Meteorological Department’s project to integrate indigenous knowledge with scientific forecasts.

Researchers at the Great Lakes University of Kisumu have developed a climate risk management curriculum that draws on the Nganyi’s knowledge, which could extend the reach of the project beyond Western Kenya.

“We plan to use the Nganyi shrines and our new resource centre as laboratories for students pursuing graduate degrees, so that the knowledge can benefit the rest of the country and the entire continent,” said Ouma.

In return for the rainmaking clan’s participation in the project, training and micro-credit opportunities are being provided for Nganyi women and youth, aimed at conserving indigenous trees and diversifying livelihoods.  The project is also producing a book that will preserve the community’s experiences, traditions and lessons from the collaboration.

Met officials say traditional knowledge is particularly useful in turning broad science-based weather predictions into useful local forecasts.

“While the meteorological department can forecast (weather) for a wider region, the Nganyi rainmakers can narrow their forecast to more specific areas,” said Ouma. “Blending these two techniques makes it more accurate and appropriate for small-scale farmers, especially now that the climatic conditions have changed.”

SHIFTING RAINFALL

Western Kenya is one of the East African nation’s most important agricultural areas, especially for maize production. But in the recent past it has experienced severe droughts followed by heavy rains, and rain patterns have shifted significantly, making it hard for farmers to time their activities.

“Traditionally, we used to receive rains in the month of April. But today, this is not guaranteed. We have seen seasons where rains come as early as March, or as late as May. This has a huge impact on timing for planting,” said Atieli.

Indigenous knowledge is proving to be very useful in helping local communities adapt to shifting climate patterns, believes Ouma of the Kenya Meteorological Department.

“In this community, it means a lot when a particular tree sheds its leaves early or late in the season. Formation of clouds on a particular side of the hill, as well, has a deeper meaning to them than what modern science says at that particular moment,” he said.

Other natural indicators include the call of the Laughing Dove bird, the behaviour of ants, the croaking of frogs and toads, and bee migration.

Perhaps mindful of the power of their knowledge, the rainmakers are not keen to disclose all their techniques, preferring that some things remain a mystery to the men with the machines.

“One of the tools they use is a tree locally known as ‘shibelenge’. But they are not willing to say what they observe in the tree,” Ouma explained.

It seems as if those governments who are the most responsible for the climate crisis have given up any consideration for the people who have become victims of the crisis, those who are affected or seriously threatened by climate change, especially poor women in Africa and other developing countries.

But, we know and have seen how those developed states do have a lot of consideration for their own interests, their wealth, for their transnational firms and financial institutions.

They continue denying their historical responsibility for climate change, and continue polluting, even more than before, but point their fingers at countries like China, India and Brazil, recently more significant polluters.

The peoples, both in the North as well as in the South, and even many mainly developing states, are just observers at the conferences. They are not consulted, while the consequences will be huge for the majority of the world population that live in developing countries and that has an insignificant responsibility for the climate crisis.

The next international meeting point for governments to discuss climate and the environment will be the Rio+20 Conference, 20 years after the 1992 conference in the same city like I alluded to in my last instalment last week.

In 1992, the environmental crisis was given a more central place in the international debate. After 20 years, the climate issue, and in broader terms, the environmental issue, has definitely lost priority for developed countries.

It seems to be only of interest to them if it can benefit their companies, their banks, their economic growth, including offsetting their pollution through REDD+ projects, falsely supposed to conserve forests.

Not surprisingly, Rio+20 actually put the word economy not environment, climate, nature or people at the centre of the debate. And to make it sound good, and not like business as usual, they call it not just economy but green economy argues World Rainforest Movement .

To demonstrate this, Chinese were allowed to build one of the biggest edifices on a wetland near the National Sports Stadium, and curiously, the Environmental Management Agency (Ema) has backed off after initially censuring the firm, ordering it to stop building until it complies with environmental impact assessments.

Ema also censured Harare City Council for allocating businesses and approving multi-million-dollar projects on wetlands in and around the capital.

It is curious because, wetlands are crucial and must be protected. But, Zimbabwe like many governments elsewhere, is putting profits ahead of the protection of the environment.

In December last year, one could hear civil society groups and social movements commenting: It is time that we build and decide on our own agenda, instead of following the agenda of the governments and their conferences, which do not lead to solutions, only to more frustrations, besides corporate profits.

Maybe this idea of an own agenda could be a way of dealing with and even influencing in a more fruitful way the conferences and governments.

Maybe such a co-ordinated effort in many countries all over the world, in the North and in the South, before, during and after the conferences, could make governments more willing to consider listening to the people and their demands.

And more concretely for Rio+20 and for the participating organisations, instead of going to the conferences and organising their often interesting but mostly fragmented and separated agenda of activities, they should work more together towards a joint agenda, which should include concrete support for the struggles of people in Africa and its Latin American counterparts, among other developing countries, against destructive projects, to put pressure on our governments for real solutions for the climate and related crises.

Developing nations need to be creative, to find ways of more effectively challenging unequal power relations, including unequal gender relations, in the world.

Social movements teach us that to change unequal power relations, movement building, with women and men, is an essential tool.

And it is possible to build a strong and powerful movement, especially if one realises that women and men all over the world are affected, although in different ways, by the profit-driven practices of corporations and other actors including states, backed by financial institutions and governments.

With a stronger and more common voice, it will become less and less easy for the government not to consider or not to listen to the people.

However, the buy-in for the process has been weak so far, and even the most optimistic assessments warn us not to expect any quantum leaps in commitments to a sustainable future.

Even worse, the concept of a “Green Economy” in the context of Rio+20, does not have a criteria, or rule out certain high risk technologies such as nuclear energy, large dams, unsustainable biofuels or genetically engineered organisms agriculture.

Therefore, it holds both the risk of “greenwashing” and moving the world toward a “green”, but inequitable future – despite laudable efforts by the United Nations Environment Programme to push the topic onto the international agenda.

For many, there is the risk of further enclosure of the commons by putting a price on nature and natural resources such as forests, land, and biodiversity and, in the process jeopardising potential gains for the climate and the environment.

Rio will thus not be the “big bang” for a sustainable future and is definitely not a back-up option since governments failed to deliver at the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — Durban Cop 17 last December.

Similarly, the Mexico meeting of the G20 shortly before Rio 2012 will not be the place to make up for whatever outcome emerges in Rio.

Zimbabwe has in the past attended successive world sustainable summits, and with vast tracks of land, abundant wildlife, and natural resources – gold, diamonds etc, like many other African countries endowed with immeasurable resources, sustainable distribution of resources should be at the core of development programmes.

So, political engagement in this changing climate requires entirely new thinking about strategies and alliances that should be built on certain factors.

Climate equity or climate justice has been a political catch phrase for many civil society networks in the UNFCCC context for the last couple of years.

And rightly so. But, with new developments underway and our core demands at risk, Zimbabwe, and Africa in particular, needs to redefine what we mean by climate equity and translate it into our strategies, projects and actions, for example indigenisation; wildlife-based land reform and mining among others.

In a fight that Africa is close to losing due to lack of finances, it is important to be clear about what it is that our “Motherland” wants for her people.

Yes, the financial crisis bedevilling the world is a terrible threat to the wellbeing of our economies and many people will indirectly die in this crisis if it is not managed well.

But, it is still a crisis of the rich, of those who have. The have-nots of this world might indirectly also be affected through volatile commodity prices.

Still, the overwhelming threat that millions of small-scale farmers in Rushinga, Muzarabani, Masvingo, Gokwe, Sanyati, Kezi, Beitbridge or Plumtree, fishermen in Kariba, Chivero, Manyame, women, children and slum dwellers face, is climate change in all its facets.

Already hundreds of big game such as elephants, rhino, leopard, lion, buffalo and other flora and fauna has succumbed to shortage of water and food in some of Zimbabwe’s wildlife sanctuaries.

Authorities are also failing to protect these game species either through provision of water or food due to reported lack of finances.

Thus, we must emphasise adaptation, adaptation finance, loss and damage, and climate governance in the poorest and most vulnerable areas or communities such as in Zambezi Valley, Dande, Binga, Maphisa, Gwayi Valley, Tuli Circle, Chiadzwa, Hwange to name, but a few, where abundant resources have not benefited locals.

It must be clear that civil society has played a key role in moving international agenda on environmental issues, trade and investment, economics, and finance forward in the last 20 years. Its campaigns have made climate change an issue that governments ignore at their own peril.

The public now understands that the plight of the poor and our fragile environment is not just another disaster, but a catastrophe created by human excess and irresponsibility.

Civil society does play a crucial role in a dysfunctional democracy system, where governments are failing and vested corporate interests are pulling us in the wrong direction.

Zimbabwe especially, needs to rebuild coalitions and develop a clear division of labour. We do not have to agree on everything to fight for the same big objective – that of sustainable distribution of natural resources.

Yet, it will be worth the effort to rebuild coalitions of civil society — bringing together those fighting on the inside of the process with those fighting the “system” — in light of the magnitude of the problem and the real powerful spoilers at the next Rio+20 summit.

Not everyone will draw the same red lines, not even other African countries.

Nevertheless, it will allow us to create powerful new alliances across a very wide spectrum of civil society working on various international for a — UNFCCC, G20, Rio+20 and through that lay the groundwork for more transparency, synergy and lasting impact.