R137m to adapt to climate change
Adaptation Fund projects to help the vulnerable
DEBATE about whether climate change is a myth or real may continue, but many believe already experiencing the effects of a changing climate through unpredictable flash floods and droughts seen across the country.
This is why the global Adaptation Fund has invested $10 million (R137m), to be officiated by SA National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) into projects to help vulnerable people across South Africa cope with the impact of climate change.
Sanbi hosted a celebration of South Africa’s Adaptation Fund Projects last night, where the first two projects were revealed: “Building resilience in the greater Mngeni catchment, South Africa” and “Taking adaptation to the ground: a small grants facility for enabling local level responses to climate change in South Africa”.
The first project is valued at $7.5m and is led by the uMgungundlovu District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), with support from the University of KwaZulu-Natal who are leading innovative agricultural work in the area.
The project will see local funders and beneficiaries from KZN and rural areas work on different agricultural methods to adopt during climate change and build on local agricultural practices to adapt to the effects of global warming.
The project will also focus on developing better disaster risk management protocols in areas so that communities are prepared for flash floods or weather abnormalities.
“The adaptation fund is a global fund set up to help vulnerable people adapt to climate change.
“We often speak about mitigation, which is what we do to slow down climate change, but the climate is already changing and many people’s lives are already adversely impacted, like farmers who find rain falls at different times,” said Sanbi climate change leader Mandy Barnett.
“Sanbi channels funding from the Adaptation Fund to South African projects to help people cope. We’re about two-anda-half years into implementation of the SA-funded projects.”
Barnett said the second project would support 13 other smaller community-based organisations in the Northern Cape and Limpopo, to create projects such as vegetable gardens with climate-resilient irrigation systems or gardens with crops that could better withstand climate changes.
Barnett said each project would be contracted with about a R1m to empower community organisations to create what they thought they needed to adapt to climate change.
Barnett said ideas from communities included building mobile shelters for goats so they had shelter when they moved around.
“There is a whole variety of interventions. It’s significant because it’s responding to what local people want and is not simple a voice of a scientist saying what’s needed,” said Barnett.
IDEAS FROM COMMUNITIES INCLUDED BUILDING MOBILE SHELTERS FOR GOATS