WWF - Stories of climate change & climate action

Climate Witness: Gail Zawacki, USA

2009-11-02

My name is Gail Zawacki, and for almost 30 years I have lived in western, rural New Jersey, USA. In that time I have planted many gardens, as well as hundreds of saplings in the woods surrounding my little farm.

Until the summer of 2008, I was one of those lucky, oblivious people who believed that though climate change was going to occur, it meant a gradual, linear warming, and that the worst effects would occur far in the future, at some distant, exotic place, losing biodiversity, like maybe in Madagascar. I expected my paradise to remain a protected niche, where a spring-fed creek provided clean cold water, excellent soil had accumulated, and I was no where near the shore where wild storms and rising seas could disturb the inhabitants of the village where I have been so fortunate to live.

Not in my home, in New Jersey! In fact though, from my journey to learn what is happening to trees, I have read enough to know that the terrible results of burning greenhouse gases are going to bring about change that is abrupt, violent, and sooner rather than later - just what is already happening in my own back yard, now.

All my life, I have admired the majesty of trees, and made countless visits to arboretums, and hikes in parks, to seek out the oldest and most venerable specimens that have been spared the widespread clear-cutting of the past three centuries in North America.

As an adult I have planted hundreds of seedlings on my farm and in the woods surrounding. Because I care about them, and also of course have invested quite a bit of time and money and effort, I monitor their growth carefully.

Thus it was I became quite alarmed last summer (2008), when I noticed the leaves of trees becoming wilted, droopy, scorched at the edges, and falling off prematurely. The phenomena was so widespread that out of concern I began to do research, and learned about tree decline, what causes it, and the fact that it is irreversible once such extreme symptoms are visibly apparent.

Around October of fall 2008, the coniferous trees abruptly began dropping needles, and were sprouting ridiculous numbers of cones weighting their branches, in what I learned was a desperate attempt to put all their energy into reproduction under the spectre of demise. By fall 2009 many are bare, and it's now impossible to locate a single specimen that doesn't have yellowing needles. Many have bizarre fountains of sap oozing from split bark.

Witnessing the wholesale degradation of every species of tree, of every age and habitat, convinced me that there had to be an over-riding agent at work. I am not a scientist, and so I am not qualified to diagnose the chemical and biological processes that are occurring. But it is only logical to infer that no particular insect or disease or fungus could be responsible for such universal impact that is readily obvious to the naked eye.

In my ignorance I speculated that perhaps long-term drought, acid rain, decreased snow-pack and/or warmer temperatures leading to an inability to go dormant, might underlie the phenomena.
I considered many causes and still don't have the precise mechanisms because, as I said, I'm neither a botanist nor atmospheric physicist. I know enough to know that I know nothing - the complexities of the interactions of so many agents are a challenge for even the experts. Soil nutrient depletion, invasive species, droughts, and many other factors are muddled together.

I wrote about my concerns to many climatologists, biologists, atmospheric physicists, and foresters. In May I began a blog, www.witsendnj.blogspot.com, to document the symptoms of decline with photos, and post links to scientific research.

This past summer, the symptoms appeared not just on trees but all shrubs, perennials, and even annuals. It became apparent to me that the composition of the atmosphere was the only explanation that fits the empirical facts, when I discovered that aquatic plants such as lotus and water lilies had the same foliar damage, a characteristic stippling from closed stomata, a loss of chlorophyll as the plant loses the ability to photosynthesize, the normal colouration fading as veins become prominent. This is inevitably followed by singed edges, larger brown spots and holes that eventually consume the leaf until it is frayed, or falls off the branch.

Another aspect is the rampant spread of lichens, which are known to thrive in polluted air. As I write now in mid-October, many trees never turned their beautiful fall colours, their leaves just either turned brown or fell off early. Many have no leaves whatsoever, weeks before they should be bare, and are blanketed by the lichen that appears to grow in direct proportion to the loss of tree mass.

It is well documented that ozone from gasoline emissions is toxic to vegetation. But ozone has been around for decades and may even have decreased lately due to the economic downturn.

It is less well known that burning ethanol emits acetaldehyde, which when exposed to UV radiation, creates peroxyacetyl nitrates, PANs, which are even more poisonous than ozone. The EPA, in a rush to remove lead, to move away from dependence on foreign oil, and to satisfy the corn lobby, appears to have ignored harmful consequences of burning ethanol and mandated its addition to gasoline. In fact they now seem to want to increase the proportion! That is why I think the “other” greenhouse gases, as described in this paper are so important to investigate.

If it turns out that ethanol is the primary culprit that is massacring our ecosystem, that would actually be a good thing, because all we have to do is stop burning it and and we could then return to a more leisurely, but just as certain, climaticide from elevated CO2.

It will take a scientist to prove there is a connection between the composition of the atmosphere, and the death of trees. I am just a witness.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Apa Sherpa, Nepal

2009-10-15

My name is Apa Sherpa. I am 49 years old and I live in Thame, a village in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal, right on the Everest trail. I’m a mountaineer by profession.

I was born and brought up in Thame and have climbed the mountains in this area for more then twenty years. My parents were yak-herders and farmers, but I went into mountaineering. I started by carrying loads for a few expeditions, then slowly became a professional mountaineer. Now, I hold the world record for climbing Mt. Everest for the most times – 19. I also lead many expeditions in this area.

During the past decades, I have observed many changes in the climate in this area. And when I also talk to the people living here I can hear about many such signs of changes. At first we didn’t realize that the changes were so severe, but then, we also did not know about anything called climate change.

Now, the changes in weather patterns are drastic. It didn’t snow at all during December, January and February, when it should snow heavily, and it finally snowed massively in May, when usually it’s dry. The numbers of hot days are also increasing. We saw mosquitoes in Namche Bazaar (altitude- 3440 m) for the first time in 2008 and we also saw a housefly at Everest Base Camp (altitude – 5360 m) which is unheard of. And, of course, the rapid melting of the snow in the mountains and glaciers. For the first time in my life, during the Eco Everest Expedition 2009, I saw running water around Camp 4 and near the summit of Mt. Everest. In fact, at Camp 2 we did not even have to melt snow for drinking, which was very rare in previous expeditions.

The melting glaciers pose an immediate threat due to the ever-increasing glacial lakes. The Imja glacial lake has slowly grown to a massive size in front of my eyes. My wife and I lost all our property and nearly lost our lives when a similar glacial lake Dig Tsho burst in 1985. I know how severe the impacts will be if a lake like Imja would burst. It would mean total devastation and not just for the people in the immediate vicinity but maybe also for people living downstream.

The people in the area are not very aware about these issues and therefore they cannot connect these changes into a single phenomenon. But these changes could have serious consequences for us. I have heard that there are 20 such glacial lakes in Nepal which are in danger of bursting. This not only poses a grave risk to all our property and infrastructure, but our lives. I have also gathered from the local people that the potato yield is not as good as before and that yak numbers are also decreasing – maybe these are the results of change in weather patterns. We have heard incidents of bushfires. And I cannot fathom what diseases mosquitoes and houseflies would bring in.

I am an uneducated person, yet I realize the seriousness of the issue. I hope our senior politicians and the government realize that climate change poses an immediate threat to the people living in the mountainous region. We need to educate the people there and we need resources so that these problems can be solved. I have dedicated my last two Everest ascents to raise awareness about Climate Change issues. This is just a small individual step. And it is definitely not enough. I think we need to work together unitedly if we are to ever find solutions to Climate Change and the problems it is creating.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Muhindo Emilda, Uganda

2009-10-06

My name is Muhindo Emilda. I am 30 years old and I have lived in Kayanja/ Katwe village in Kasese district of Uganda my whole life.

I am a small scale farmer in Kayanja/Katwe area. I have worked on my farm for 20 years now and I plant maize, sunflower, peanuts, cassava and beans. I work with my family on the farm as it the only means of livelihood we have here.

I have noticed changes over the last 20 years I have worked on the farm. My family too has observed the changes and we talk about it. We have kept records of what we harvest in the farm and year in, year out we get less yield. This season we saw the worst as all the plants dried in the farm.

We used to get long rains in by August, but it has changed now to October, while the short rains that we expect in April have changed to May. The long rains are the worst for us as we call it diseases season. We have seen diseases like cholera, dysentery, stomach problems and coughing, which claim a lot of children. The short rains come with less rain than before and it only serves to spoil the farms.

We have noticed other changes in the weather. For instance, we now get warm periods unlike before. This has resulted in an increase in mosquitoes in the area, causing higher incidences malaria. Wild animals are attacking us and we clash at community water points because the forest areas are getting drier very fast.

The consequences are loss of harvest, loss of livelihood and conflict between us and wild animals and diseases. It has changed the way I live as my husband has moved to urban area in search of job. But I still plant the farm hoping one day things will change and we will get bumper harvest like before.

The government should step in and assist us to resolve the situation and plant trees in our region of Kasese. They should educate us on the changing climate otherwise we will remain dark and continue to suffer. We need to develop alternative livelihoods so that we can continue surviving without suffering from the changes that affected our farms.

I try to adapt to changes by storing grains in a granary. I store them using ashes that stop pest and maintain its freshness. It can stay for two years.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Ann Daniels, UK

2009-09-24

My name is Ann Daniels. I am a mother of four children and live in Devon, in the South West of England. For the past twelve years I have been travelling and working in the Polar Regions, mainly in Nunavut Canada, Northern Russia and the Arctic Ocean.

Over this time I have completed 6 expeditions on the Arctic sea ice, sledge hauling over 1500 miles, and spending more than 223 days in temperatures well below zero. During my time up ‘North’ I have witnessed the change in the sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean and experienced more extreme temperatures and unexpected storms. I have worked with the children in the schools in Resolute Bay, Nunavut and the local people in Khatanga in the Taymyr Peninsula, Northern Russia. It saddens me to see how much the change in the environment has effected the indigenous people. Many have lost their traditional methods of living and face a bleak future.

I first learnt how to survive and travel on the Arctic Ocean as part of a relay expedition to the North Pole in 1997. Whilst this expedition had no scientific meaning, it was here that I first understood the nature of sea ice and became passionate about the Arctic and it’s ecosystem that is so powerful and yet so fragile. Whilst we encountered open water during this expedition, it was never necessary to swim in the ocean in order to reach the North Pole. However, just 5 years later I took part in a further expedition to the North pole. This time, whilst we hoped to break a world record to become the first all women’s team to walk to the North and South poles, we also combined this expedition with collecting scientific data and assisted an American foundation who were also working in the Arctic regions and with various universities in England. During this expedition we came across so much open water that we had to swim many times and use the sledges as canoes in order to reach our destination. The ice was also much more dynamic and constantly fractured and broke as we travelled across it’s surface. At times we could barely find enough ice to continue our journey north and zigzagged from one small floe to another. It was a frightening experience, not only from the physical difficulty of crossing the ice but also from the realisation that this majestic and beautiful ice-scape is being threatened from outside forces.

In 2005 I spent 3 weeks in Northern Russia, meeting the local people, learning from them about the changes they are facing and provided school books for the local school. After this I moved up to the Arctic sea ice in the Russian territories and encountered five polar bears. The bears were very aggressive and I can only assume that this is due to a shortage of their natural food source. One bear stalked me for five days. Again the sea ice was very thin and I spent long hours searching for a safe route through the ice and snow.

I have recently returned from The Catlin Arctic survey (2009). A scientific expedition to measure the thickness of the ice and again we witnessed a very dynamic and moving sea ice. Our scientific advisers had told us we would encounter older thicker ice but in fact the average thickness of the ice was relatively thin at just 1.77m, suggesting it was new ice formed only last autumn and not multi-year ice as expected. This was a terrifying discovery and made me even more aware of the tragedy unfolding in the Arctic region.

The Arctic sea ice could disappear in the summer sometime between 2013 and 2040 and the consequences of this will catastrophic to not only the indigenous flora and fauna but for weather patterns globally. Some Arctic species, such as narwhal, hooded and ringed seals, walrus and polar bears are very dependent on particular ice conditions. The loss of Arctic ice jeopardizes the very survival of these ice-dependent species.

As this warming cycle continues, it in turn influences global weather patterns, by changing wind and water currents. The global weather is driven by the differences in air temperature between tropical regions and the poles. As these differences are changed by a warming Arctic, global weather patterns are destabilized, creating new more unpredictable and more extreme weather events at lower latitudes.

My time in the Arctic regions both in Russia, Nunavut and on the sea ice itself has instilled in me a personal need to try and do something to clean up my own act. These regions may be at the edge of our existence but they are so valuable and unique that they deserve our care. I still drive a car when I have to but endeavour to walk and cycle whenever possible or to use public transport if I can. I reuse and recycle but more importantly try not to use packaged goods in the first place and buy local foods in season. I use less energy and water. I spend a lot of time talking to schools about the Arctic regions and the changes that are occurring there and around the world and what they can do in their own lives to make a change. I also give presentations to universities and corporate groups but I believe that our children really are the future and hope for this planet.

I would like to see more expeditions such as the Catlin Arctic survey to try and get to the bottom of what is happening to the sea ice on the Arctic Ocean, where the conditions are complex, ever changing and currently poorly understood.

Climate change is happening and it is up to all us to take an active interest and to becoming involved in trying to find a solution. To start now by taking responsibility and trying to reduce our own carbon footprint. This world is not ours and I would like not only my children but all the animals in the world to inherit a world we can be proud of. Give Mother Nature a helping hand, not a stamping foot.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Mugaaju Asman, Uganda

2009-09-16

My name is Mugaaju Asman. I am 50 years old and I live in Chayanja Village. I grow maize, beans, sorghum along the Semiliki Basin, which drains into Lake Edward in Uganda. I also go fishing in Lake Edward and Semiliki River. My family works with me on the farm.

I was born and brought up in Chayanja Village and I have lived here for 50 years now. I have noticed changes that are related to climate change for 35 years in my village and the lake. Other people, such as farmers and fishermen, have also observed these changes. We have documented the fast changing weather and declining harvest and diminishing fish stocks in the lake and the river.

The local climate has changed as we get harsh weather, erratic rains and diseases. We used to prepare our farms for long rains of August, but now we get the rains in October. When it comes, it’s accompanied by destruction, strong winds that blow away plants and houses, and flooding. The short rain that comes in April have also changed and now comes in May.

The weather has changed and we get nights with temperatures so high that people sleep outside their houses. Other times the weather is so cold that we've see a rise in health problems like pneumonia. The areas around the Semiliki Basin have acted as breeding ground for mosquitoes and malaria cases has increased. The long rains leave pools of water behind, and with that comes with bilharzia and cholera.

The forest cover of Semiliki River that use to give us rain has been depleted by human activities like charcoal burning, collecting building materials, while vegetation in the forest is diminishing due to changing weather.

The main consequence for me has been less harvest from farms. I adapt by fishing in the lake and the river though the fish stocks has declined in recent past. There has also been loss of vegetation covers along the Basin and lake and high temperatures in the lake and river during the night, when fishermen go to fish. The water in Lake Edward is also diminishing slowly.

The government should educate us the farmers and fishermen on climate change and why it is happening. They should assist us in planting trees around the lake and river basin so that we can get rains at normal seasons.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Toemon Sano, Japan

2009-08-28

My name is Toemon Sano. I operate a landscape gardening business in Yamagoe, a place in the Ukyo district of Kyoto. I succeeded my name “Toemon” when my father died. In my family, it has long been the custom for the person succeeding to the headship to take the name of Toemon. I am the 16th generation Toemon. My ancestors took care of the Imperial grounds of the Ninnaji temple domain in Kyoto.

English | 日本語
In the old days, cherry blossoms were used as a yardstick for rice planting and fishing. That shows how close cherry trees were to people’s lives. Having interacted with cherry trees for a long time, I feel it is us human beings that need to change our lives and restore harmony with nature.

As a cherry blossom guardian

It was in my grandfather’s days that my family started to take care of cherry trees. They are living things so they eventually wither and die. There are several well-known cherry trees known for their beautiful blossoms around the country, but they too will eventually die. My grandfather wanted to ensure that those splendid trees would remain and tried to make successors for them. Whenever he heard about a large or splendid cherry tree somewhere around the country, he would go to see it and took grafts and grew saplings. I heard that he went even to the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. So it was tremendous work. In the end, he raised 100,000 saplings.

Following in his footsteps, I learned about the bounties of nature unconsciously. It was after my father died that I started to work earnestly with cherry trees. It is possible, to a degree, for us to make flowers bloom on trees that already have buds. But unless the buds come out, there is nothing one can do. It was after I started to interact with cherry trees that I began to be conscious about the life of trees and how to let them live.

Cherry blossoms differ according to the weather

The number and color of cherry blossoms differ from year to year. This is mostly due to the weather of the preceding summer.

For cherry trees, summer is a season of growth. The trees absorb nutrients through the roots and carry them to the branches to promote photosynthesis. When this process settles down, the nutrients are sent to the trunk. It is after the Buddhist Bon season in August (the hottest season in midsummer), that the trunk begins to grow in earnest. Around this time, the buds that will become next spring’s blossoms begin to form.

We call them “zero buds.” In other words, the preparation for blossoms has begun.

The physiology of cherry trees is that these zero buds accumulate energy during the winter time. At some point in the spring, they suddenly start to grow, and when the temperature reaches a steady 15 to 20 degrees Celsius, they open. Lately, we don’t have cold winters, and the cherry blossoms have completely changed. First of all, the color has changed. It used to be darker.

This year, the temperature had already risen to 15 degrees Celsius by the end of February. So when the buds were still small, they were surprised and opened up. Then it got cold again in March. Thus, the buds remained open in an incomplete way.

So the blossoms cling to the branches in a half open situation, and cannot go on to the next stage. That situation has continued for two weeks. If the blossoms bloom and fall quickly as usual, the leaf-buds come out immediately. When those leaf-buds come out, another year for cheery trees starts. But this year, the leaf-buds are not coming out yet, which worries me a lot.

Somei Yoshino cherries suffer from climate change

There are three kind of cherry trees that grow naturally in Japan; Yama-zakura (prunus jamasakura), Higan-zakura (Prunus subhirtella), and Oshima-zakura (Prunus lannesiana var. speciosa). Their origin can be traced back to the Himalayas. It is said that there was once a Himalayan cherry, which was carried eastward little by little by birds and insects, reaching Japan after a long period of time. Japan’s climate with four seasons and bountiful water, resulted in favorable impact to cheery trees. Thus, cheery trees become common trees in Japan.

There are more than 300 kinds of cherry trees including gardening varieties. The Somei Yoshino cherry, which is the dominating cherry trees in Japan because of its popularity, is cultivated by human beings. The biggest reason why it has spread throughout the country is that they are easy to graft. And they grow quite rapidly. Furthermore, they blossom wherever they are planted.

The only difficulty is that since the Somei Yoshino cherry is produced by human beings, they have no seeds. They are also short lived and cannot bear offsprings. They do not have real trunks, as they are actually branches coming directly out of the soil. As a result, they cannot withstand harsh weather conditions such as rain and heat. They are destined to depend on human beings until their end.

Lately, there are more heavy rains in summer time. Somei Yoshino cherry trees are vulnerable to heavy rain because their roots get easily rotten. If the climate continues to change, Somei Yoshino cherry trees planted around the country will face a crisis.

It was just recently, more than 100 years after they are created, that it became apparent that Somei Yoshino cherry trees are short-lived. In the world of plants, the truth is often understood only after a century has passed. Plants cannot move. Since they just stand there, they think hard how to survive by trying to keep a balance. Because human beings are destroying the nature, the number of cherry trees is decreasing too. When a famous cherry tree faces its extinction, people try to protect that tree. But I think only trying to save the plants in front of us is meaningless. It’s not that there is something wrong with nature, but the problem lies with our way of livings. Isn’t it the life of human beings, with our unquestioning consumption and throwaway lifestyle, that must change?

Scientific review

As Mr. Sano explains, the Somei Yoshino is a man-made cherry tree. The Somei Yoshino breed that has spread throughout Japan is actually a clone, and this is the reason why all of them bloom at the same time. Temperature has a strong influence when these trees bloom. As the average temperature increases over the years, the blossom of cherry trees are becoming earlier and earlier. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the cherry blossom season across all of Japan has advanced an average of 4.2 days over the past 52 years. In big cities, the impact of the heat island phenomenon has accelerated this trend, resulting in an advance of 6.1 days over a 50 year period in average. In mid-sized cities, the advance is 2.8 days in average.1 (The study in question measured temperatures at 11 cherry blossom observation sites from among a total of six large cities and 17 medium cities in Japan.)

The blooming of cherry trees, however, depends not only on the warmth of the early spring, but also on winter temperature. Cherry trees enter a dormant state in autumn, and for them to come out of this state, there must be a prolonged period of low temperatures. Once they do come out of this state, another prolonged period of warmth is required before they actually start to bloom. In warm regions where the winter temperature has risen, this period of cold temperatures has become too short, and this impacted the cherry tree ecology. In some regions, the very survival of cherry tree is facing threat.2

According to the June,2008 report, “Kikohendo eno kashikoi tekio (Clever Adaptation to Climate Change)” issued by the Ministry of the Environment, by the period between 2082 and 2100, the average bloom date in the east and north of Japan is expected to advance a further 14.5 days over the average date as measured between 1981 and 2000. There is also the possibility of larger fluctuations in the cherry blossom period.3

Historically, the blooming of cherry trees has always been deeply intertwined with Japanese life, employed in virtually everything from agriculture to tourism. The shift in the cherry blossom season could alter the very way that Japanese people feel about the seasons.

Japan Meteorological Agency, “Ijokisho report 2005 (Abnormal Weather Report 2005),” Chapter 2, Section 2.1.3: Seibutsu kisetsu gensho no henka (Changes in Biophenology). http://www.data.kishou.go.jp/climｃate/cpdinfo/climate_change/
Keiko Masuda, “Kyushu chiho niokeru ondanka niyoru sakura no kaika to kaede no koyo eno eikyo (Influence of Warming Temperature in Kyushu region on Blooming of Cherry Trees and Color Changing of Autumn Maple Leaves),” Ryukoku Journal 26 (2): 65-76, 2005.
Ministry of the Environment, “Kikohendo eno kashikoi tekio (Clever Adaptation to Climate Change),” Chapter 4, Section 4.3 (7): Shorai yosoku sareru eikyo “seibutsu kisetsu” (Predicted Future Impact on “Phenology”). http://www.env.go.jp/earth/ondanka/rc_eff-adp/index.html

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Wyn Evans, UK

2009-07-21

My name is Wyn Evans and I am a third generation farmer on 80 acres of farmland in Carfai Bay, Pembrokeshire, West Wales. I also rent 88 acres, and produce milk, cheese, potatoes and some corn which are sold in our farm shop. We run a popular camp-site as the farm is situated off the beautiful coastline of Pembrokeshire. Since the 1990 I have been farming organically and I have installed a range of renewable energy technologies to reduce the farm’s carbon footprint to tackle climate change.

My family have farmed here since 1929, and I started farming in 1967 – over 40 years ago. So I’ve seen many changes in the seasons and climatic conditions in this part of Wales.

Snow blizzards used to be a real problem in this area. I can remember when my third daughter was born in February 1978 and the blizzard was that bad that there was no way of getting my wife to the hospital in Haverfordwest, so there was no choice but to have a home birth. In contrast, last February we had our four grandchildren here all with their shirts off and paddling in the padding pool and down on the beach – that was how warm it was. That’s just happened in the last 30 years.

I used to be the snow co-ordinator for the old Milk Marketing Board (MMB) and I had around six to eight dairy farms in my area. During October/November, snow co-ordinators with the MMB would make sure we got an emergency milk transport tanker available so that we could put it on a trailer and meet by a lay-by. But in January 1982 the snow was that bad that there was no way a tanker could get to any of the farms in the area. Of course I had to do the milking and needed to sell the milk so I filled my own 400-500 litre container, put it in the back of my Land Rover and followed a digger to Haverfordwest. As I was one of the few people who’d made it to the town by road the local shopkeeper asked me to bring a load of vegetables back from St David’s too! However, my wife and I haven’t experienced a snow blizzard like that in at least 15 years.

An increase in drought conditions was one of the main reasons I decided to go organic in 1991. In dry seasons, such as 1976 and 1984, there was no grass, it was absolutely bare. This was the time I was buying a lot of high nitrogen fertiliser to boost the grass growth. But when you’re using a lot of soluble nitrogen and other soluble fertilisers you’re feeding just the top 2-3 inches of soil. The grass has no need to put down deeper roots, so when you come to a drought situation they are going to wilt a lot quicker. Since then I’ve discovered that when you put a kilogram of nitrogen on your crop you’re pushing out 6kg of Co2 through its production.

For this reason, I don’t use fertiliser on my grass and as a result it’s generally resistant to climatic fluctuation as it is in old seed variety with a broad genetic makeup. This makes it less vulnerable to extreme conditions than modern varieties.

Last year’s summer rainfall caused the camp-site to be inundated with water. There was so much intense rain that the land couldn’t cope with it. It was the first time since we opened the camp-site in the 1970s that we’ve had campers asking for a shovel to dig around their tents! It’s also not just the campers that struggle with the increased rain fall; the land can’t cope with it either. I’ve had to improve the drainage on the land because parts have been getting waterlogged, hindering my work.

With the increased rain fall I decided I needed to protect the soil from being washed away in heavy rains. So I set about installing an anaerobic digester using the cow slurry. As a result I not only get useful biogas, but the slurry goes back on the land and locks onto the clay, producing less pollution in run-off. This improves the quality of the soil, making it less likely to be washed away in heavy rain. Farmers close to Carfai have experienced much of their precious soil resource being washed away in heavy rains over the last few years. I can recall one morning seeing what seemed like a river running down the fields and then it collects on the road making it difficult for people to drive through.

In the last seven years the increase wind speeds have caused damage to my potato crops. Six or seven years ago, we had winds reaching 60mph without rain which brought a lot of salt from the seawater onto the potatoes. It’s alright putting salt on a cooked potato but not a growing one because it knocks the foliage back. And again this year the wind speed reached 72mph, I know this because I monitor the wind speed via my wind turbine, I don’t keep a record every day but on high winds I do. The slat damage makes the leaves all crinkly and wrinkly.
Over the years I’ve noticed that the growing season is longer than it used to be. Thinking back to the 1940s/50s there were more definite changes between the season. Now we can have spring in the winter and winter in the spring! It sounds daft to say that but the seasons aren’t as ’marked’ as they used to be. The other thing I’ve noticed is changes in temperature from day to day and from morning to afternoons. It can alter by as much as 10oC both ways. For me it means taking layers of clothes off and then putting them back on, but the poor old cows don’t know what’s happening do they? Shall we keep our winter hair on for a few more days or shall we trigger to moult?

I’ve become very concerned about how our lifestyles are affecting the planet. It doesn’t matter where you live on the planet, we all share the same atmosphere so even if I save a bit here it’s going to help save somebody in the Pacific Islands or Bangladesh from going under water, and the irony is that they have a far smaller footprint then me.

My concern began I guess in the 1999 when there was a lot on the news about climate change especially in the Pacific and how these islands won’t be there in 100 years time. Then, my first grandchild came along in 2001 and I starting to think about what their grandchildren would think if they thought that their great-grandfather hadn’t taken action to help stop climate change, even though the signs were clear that something needed to be done.

So to begin with I installed the digester – it was all my own design. It’s managed to stand the test of time it produces energy to provide hot water for the house, the camp-site and tops up the solar water heating to sterilise the milking machine. Since then I’ve installed a wind turbine to produce electricity for the camp-site, a ground source heat pump is buried underground to produce heat for the anaerobic digester and a home built cool room to store produce. The whey from the cheese making is fed into the anaerobic digester, and this waste product increases the efficiency of the digester within 2 hours and lasts 24 hours. 100 litres of whey is equivalent to using 3 litres of oil.

The way the farm operates relies upon renewable sources and using the by-product from one thing to provide energy for another. For example when I’m making cheese the whey goes into the digester and if there’s too much there’s enough gas coming to make the next batch of cheese and sterilise the plant. Then you’ve got good fertiliser coming from the digester and the wind plays its part and solar too. With renewables you’ve got to have a real mix of everything that is appropriate to your position. There will be farmers where they’d have a stream or something else they can use... that’s all brilliant.

There’s been a great deal of satisfaction and frustration at times in reducing our footprint. It’s probably because of these things that I’ve carried on farming. I enjoy spreading the word and testing new approaches. But I haven’t got much longer to go, and I can’t keep up the rate I’m working now, but you know what the old saying is, “live as if to die tomorrow, farmers have to live forever.”

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Clive Walmsley, Countryside Council for Wales, UK

The contrasting winter weather events that Wyn describes illustrate the trend towards much milder winters with less snowfall that has been recorded in Welsh climate data over the last 30 years. All seasons have become warmer resulting in a significant extension to the growing season in Wales as Wyn has observed on his farm. Evidence suggests that this will increase agricultural productivity in Wales and more widely across northern Europe.

Wyn's experiences of both severe summer drought and intense rainfall events resulting in flash flooding illustrate the potential impacts of these events. It is projected that summer drought will become more frequent in future with consequential impacts on agricultural productivity while heavy precipitation events have become more frequent in winter in Wales, and this trend is projected to continue. Wyn's perception that daily fluctuations in temperature may be greater is not reflected in climatic data, as greater increases in minimum temperature have on average reduced the daily temperature range.

Wyn's use of a mix of renewable energy technologies provides an excellent model of how farms can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and utilise waste to improve farm productivity.

Further information on the climatic trends can be found in Jenkins, G.J., Perry, M.C. and Prior, M.J. 2007. The climate of the United Kingdom and recent trends. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK.

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Chris Kong, Malaysia

2009-03-27

My name is Christopher Kong. I am 56 years old and I live in Kudat town, Sabah – a state in Malaysia. I was born on Labuan Island and have lived in Kudat since the year 2000. As owner of a crab company, I have boats that harvest blue swimmer crabs during the south-west monsoon season.

When the monsoon blows from mid August to November, the strong winds and currents bring the blue swimmer crabs from the South China Sea to Kudat. It is only during this period that adult-sized crabs are present in our waters. As my business relies solely on these crabs, and they arrive only with the monsoon, I have become very observant of the seasons.

Changes in the seasons

The dry season has become extremely dry leading to drought that is causing water shortages for the Kudat community. I have also noticed that we use the air-conditioning more as a result of the hotter days.

Now when the winds and rains do come during the monsoon, the rainfall is a lot stronger and more intense. The most recent monsoon brought heavy rainfalls from November to December 2008, and caused flooding in Kudat. This coincided with the floods in Miri, a city in the neighbouring state of Sarawak, in which a number of people were killed.

About four years ago I started noticing changes in the length of time that the monsoon blew. I have observed that it arrives later and for a shorter season. It used to be that December is the low season for fishing. Now the low season is mid January to February. Before and during 2005, the monsoon was regular from mid August to November. The blue crab harvest was plentiful at 200-300 grams per crab trap.

In 2006, the monsoon was only from November to December and crab harvest dropped to 100 grams per trap. In 2007, the monsoon winds only blew for three weeks in November, and the harvest was only 30 grams per trap. I believe that because of changes in the monsoon season and the short period that it blows, not as many blue crabs swim to Kudat from the South China Sea. There is also the possibility however that the declining yields may in part be due to the increasing land-based pollution coming into Marudu Bay.

The Kudat-Marudu Bay is trawled daily by shrimp boats using small nets, so if there are local crabs existing in Kudat waters, they would be caught by the trawlers year round but there are none. The season for adult-sized blue crabs is only at the end of the year when the monsoon blows them to Kudat. Hence, the blue crab’s decline should not due to over-harvesting and is mostly due to the erratic and shorter south-west monsoon season or from land pollution.

My crab business has been affected by the low harvest. With less crab to catch and unpredictable harvest volumes, I couldn’t keep up with the crab demand and in December 2008 I lost a contract to supply crabs to a crabmeat picking factory which supplies to the U.S. market.

Extensive Coastal Erosion

In Tanjung Agong area, the Bak-bak beach used to be 30 feet from the main road. In the last 10 years, the beach has come right up to the side of the road. The sea tides are getting higher. Sea level used to be 2.2 meters high at maximum. It has been rising since 2006 and now it is 2.4 meters at maximum. The fish landing Seng Heng Jetty gets flooded by the sea now. Floating rubbish gets deposited on the jetty after the high tides recede. When it was built in the 1990s, the sea level was lower than the jetty. High tides have caused coastal homes to collapse and get washed away.

Future Sustainability

Apart from the blue crab and other fisheries, I also notice that forest products are harvested too fast in Kudat and Sabah. Too many licenses have been approved for oil palm plantations. The chemical fertilizer and weed killers that run-off from these plantations are polluting the rivers and seas in Sabah. When it rains heavily, Marudu Bay waters turn brown from sediment run-off and erosion.

The government should enforce forest and fishing industries better to ensure sustainability. For a tree, it takes about 30-40 years to grow. The natural marine resources take only 1-2 years to rebound. With enforcement, such as using the proper trawler net size, the fisheries would not be in such a bad state. The ban on dynamite and cyanide fishing, which are destructive fishing methods, should also be better enforced.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Poh Poh Wong, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore

The observations by Kong on the erratic nature of the Southwest Monsoon are consistent with detectable and measurable signs of climate change in Malaysia and Sabah.These signs include the late arrival of the Southwest Monsoon and the occurrence of droughts.

The observations on declining yields of swimmer blue crabs are interesting as climate change may influence the population dynamics such as spawning events, juvenile mortality and recruitment. However, there is no independent study in the area to support this trend and also the possibility that the declining yields can be due to the increasing pollution problem caused by insecticides, fertilisers and sediments coming into Marudu Bay.

The flooding of the Seng Heng jetty is more likely to be the result of its subsidence and not the rise of the sea level of 0.2 m.

References:

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness Update: Dario Schwoerer

2009-03-20

Since my Climate Witness testimony appeared on this site in August 2008, I have been participating in the TOPtoTOP expedition. Since 2002 we have been collecting good examples how we can protect our climate and share these hopes with school children in all nations we visit.

English | हिन्दी
Today we are a team of young people from 33 nations running the program. On our tour we decided to cover all climate zones. The climate is changing in latitude but also in altitude. In response, we have embarked on a world record; an attempt to reach the TOP of each continent only by human power and nature’s force (wind and solar) and show that great achievements can be done in balance with nature. Along the expedition we show examples of nature’s beauty and promote innovations for a green planet and specially to protect our climate, in class rooms all over the world.

All this was only possible thanks to the patronage of UN Environment Programme. The patronage letter from UNEP was crucial to the success of this unique project and was the key to operate efficiently even on a small budget. Thanks to the recommendation of UNEP we have recieved support in each nation we visited.

So far we visited 40,000 students in more than 40 nations. The feedback from our presentations and workshops were just great and many students were participating in our Climate Solution Drawing Contest.

Most recently we were just south of Cyclone Hamish in our expedition boat and experienced all the oil on Morton Island!

Kind regards,

Dario Schwörer
Main Coordinator of TOPtoTOP Global Climate Expedition

Climate Witness: Jerome Robles, Malaysia

2009-03-03

My name is Mohammad Jerome Robles. I am 37 years old and married with 2 young boys. I am a tour guide and operations manager, and have been working and living in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia for the last 7 years. I have been in the tourism industry for 14 years. I spend most of my time outdoors—around towns, villages, islands and forests.

For the past 5 years I have witnessed changes in the local weather pattern. In the last 2 months, rain has been creating havoc around the country. The monsoon with heavy rains usually starts early November and ends by February. In 2008, it came later towards the end of December. As I write this, the rainy season is still here and we are well into February 2009. In October and November 2008, there were scattered and intense rainfalls. There does not seem to be a distinct monsoon season anymore. The rain is more frequently, random and certainly more intense. I wonder whether the more intense rains could be a result of global warming.

There have been a few deaths as a result of landslides and floods accompanying the recent heavy rains around Miri. Houses were destroyed and many people have had to take shelter and evacuate. I was in Brunei Darul Salam on 23 January 2009 and there was no electricity in most parts of the country because one of the main power outputs was underwater. Many businesses were affected.

In the first week of February there was continuous rain for 3 days which caused bad floods in many areas of Beaufort, Sipitang, Lawas and Miri. Roads got cut off and food supply was interrupted for people affected by floods. People in the city were also impacted. Prices of vegetables and fish increased because farmers were affected, as well as fishermen. This year will be a bad year for rice farmers as harvest will yield less owing to the floods. My brother in-law had to be evacuated from his longhouse together with the rest of the longhouse people, and all their rice fields were damaged.

I do a lot of driving from Miri to Kota Kinabalu, my hometown in Sabah, passing through Brunei. Most of the drive is along Miri’s coastal roads. It is alarming to see an elevated sea level, especially along the road leading to Kuala Baram (Photo 1) whenever there is heavy rain, king tide or strong winds. There is now a long concrete wall built to prevent the sea water from getting onto the road. I suppose it is also to slow down the erosion process. Apart from the concrete wall, a row of big boulders are also piled up along the coastal road to Kuala Baram.

There is a public park with a children’s playground and small eateries at Brighton Beach (Tanjong Lobang - see Photo 2), where the erosion is so serious that one can see trees uprooted and sea water washing onto the grass. Even the concrete wall is in bad shape because of the erosion.

Near where I live is a recreational beach called Luak Bay Esplanade. I can see the tide is higher than it was before. During high tide people only have a narrow strip of beach to walk along as compared to 3 to 5 years ago, when the sandy beach area was very wide. Now we have to wait for low tide to be able to enjoy a walk on the beach.

At home, I remain awake during nights when it rains and try to listen to the waves and be alert since we live near the beach. We don’t spend much time outdoors anymore. If it is not raining, the temperature and humidity is a bit too much for my boys to be running around the playground or cycling. When it rains, it usually is a very heavy downpour. Long gone are the days when children are able to play in the rain like I used to. Now we are afraid of flash floods and strong winds which normally accompany the intense rains. I find myself constantly worried about my family and now when I go for official work trips I bring my family with me.

This is my story; only one story. There are many other people whose lives are impacted by what is happening. National Parks are being closed due to floods. People cannot go to the parks. People cannot go on organized tours at the parks. That means the people will not be spending on tourism, which will result in tourism-dependent wage earners like me earning less. People are afraid to travel. Hence, people in tourism like me are again affected.

Actions should be taken to prevent this from getting worse in the future. I am not talking about the need to relocate to higher places or to develop other places. We need to be aware of climate impacts and be educated on what to do to protect ourselves, to protect our livelihoods.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Poh Poh Wong, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore

The observations on the weather as described by Robles are consistent with detectable and measurable signs of climate change in Malaysia and Sarawak. These signs include the increase in annual and seasonal rainfall and the intensification of the monsoons and storms. The heavy rainfall has subsequently caused coastal flooding and also coastal erosion. The strong monsoon winds and extreme high tides at the end of the year and the beginning of the year contribute further to the coastal erosion.

Based on the information provided, my conclusion is that the observations in coastal Sarawak are generally consistent with peer-reviewed and other official information on climate change impacts in that area.

References:
http://eprints.utm.my/7863/
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=60736

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Marc Bormans, Belgium

2009-02-27

I am Marc Bormans from Fexhe-le-Haut-Clocher in the province of Liège. I am a vet, specialised in cattle breeding and I also work as a farmer. I have been doing both jobs for almost 20 years.

English | Français | Dutch
I have noticed that the average temperature has increased over the years. Because of global warming, ruminants can graze for longer; the grass starts to grow earlier and is also available for longer in the autumn. This is also beneficial for crops that require a lot of warmth, such as maize. However, there are also disadvantages that arise from this situation.

Since the 1990s there have been more heat waves accompanied by periods of drought. These heat waves have serious consequences for crops such as peas, beans and carrots. We have had years when the yield of these vegetables has dropped by more than 50%. I fear that we will see more of this sort of weather pattern in the future, causing our harvest to suffer even more.

On the other hand, we don’t often get a lot of snow. Long periods of frost are also increasingly seldom. The winter of 2008-2009 was an exception in this respect. Farmers are not happy with this trend as hard frosts have positive effects on the soil; frost repairs the structure of the soil, making the soil more aerated, more fertile and easier to work in the following summer. Frost also kills a whole variety of parasites.

Bluetongue disease

I was really surprised by the appearance of the ‘bluetongue’ disease in the cattle of several breeders and also in my own sheep at the end of the summer of 2007. We hadn’t ever seen this African disease here before the summer of 2007. Officially, this disease first appeared in Belgium and the Netherlands in August 2006.

Bluetongue disease (or catarrhal sheep fever) is caused by a virus that only affects ruminants such as cattle or sheep and not humans. The virus arrived here by coincidence, probably through infected imported livestock or through midges (small mosquitoes from the culicoid species) that carried the virus. The midge lives as a parasite on ruminants, enabling it to transmit the virus to cows or sheep.

Midges reproduce quickly in a favourable climate, for example when the winters are mild. The virus is then able to survive in our regions and infect a large number of animals.

The term 'bluetongue' refers to the blue tongue that sheep can get through a lack of oxygen.

The sheep were the first to fall victim to the disease. At the end of the summer of 2007 I had twelve ewes and about twenty lambs. I lost half of the lambs and two mothers over a period of three weeks.

There were fewer casualties among the cattle, but there were some serious economic losses; the cows found it difficult to eat and became weak. They were less fertile and the risk of miscarriage was higher. The animals suffered from swallowing difficulties, limping and ulcers.

I think that there were 25% fewer calves born in 2007-2008 and the whole herd has been affected. From the forty bulls that were examined, 95% were seropositive. The seropositive animals that had still not built up immunity were not used for insemination. The disease did not spread any further in 2008; the majority of the animals had developed a natural immunity against the virus and preventative vaccinations increased this number still further.

It is alarming that an exotic disease is able to spread like this in our country. This leads to suspicions that climate change has a significant influence. A new disease could unexpectedly emerge again.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Professor Annick Linden, Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases at the University of Liège, Belgium

Marc Bormans’ experiences relating to changes in temperature, frost, heat waves and snow have been confirmed by recent analyses by the RMI (Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium) in the publication “Keep an eye on our climate”. According to this publication, there is actually no indication that periods of drought have become more intense up to this point in time.

According to Dr. Annick Linden, the changes in the climate generally do have an affect on the evolution of certain diseases in animals and humans, particularly diseases transmitted by mosquitoes or other arthropdals. However it is too early to make any conclusions about the link between climate change and the thriving of catarrhal sheep fever in our regions.

“Vigilance climatique”, RMI of Belgium. Can be consulted at: http://www.belgium.be/fr/publications/publ_vigilance_climatique.jsp
“Impacts des changements climatiques en Belgique”, (under the leadership of) J-P. Van Ypersele and Ph Marbaix, Greenpeace, Brussels, 2004, 44 p. Can be consulted at: http://www.greenpeace.org/belgium/fr/press/reports/impacts-des-changements-climat2

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Marlene Rocha, Brazil

2009-02-18

My name is Marlene Rêgo Rocha. I was born and raised in the village of Igarapé do Costa. With around 80 families, the village is located near the margins of the Amazonas River and sees only two seasons throughout the year: winter, when it pours and summer, the dry season.

English | Română | Dutch

In the winter, the river rises almost three meters high, leaving everyone separated by the water. The only means of transportation is by canoe or boat. During the summer, things are quite different and we must walk up to three kilometers to reach the waters of the Amazonas. There are two extremes.

I am 51 years old and I work for the local government as an auxiliary nurse. I take care of everyone’s health around the village. I am one of the few villagers who does not depend on the river’s resources for my livelihood. There are few professions in the village apart from fisherman. We have a school, a health clinic and a few churches. Those who do not work for one of these institutions fish for their livelihood.

Planting crops is our way of life

Growing foodstuff here has become very difficult since the wet season strikes the region too early and evermore strongly. There is not enough time to plant and harvest anything.

It was not always like this. When I was young, I used to work in the fields with my mother. We used to plant cassava and jute. With the cassava, we used to make flour and with the jute, packaging. We used to sell all products right here in the community. Our family and many others lived on these products.

With time, growing crops proved to be more and more difficult until it became impossible to grow either cassava or jute. The river’s waters rise too early and much faster than in the past.

Because of this, in order to enjoy fresh foodstuff, I have to plant in the soil during the summer and, when winter comes, transfer everything to a Styrofoam container in a suspended field in the back of my house. I have in my containers tomatoes, onions, wild mustard and various medicinal plants such as chamomile and lemon grass. Other necessary produce is imported from Santarém.

Animals have to find higher ground as the water rises

Our livestock also became accustomed to life according to the rhythm of the floods. In the summer, the animals stay on the ground, many free to roam around. When winter comes, we put them in wooden pens and raise the wooden floor depending to the river’s rise. The chickens have already grown accustomed to this and make their home around the trees. My husband throws them corn on a wooden floor constructed below the trees’ canopy. Only when they come down to eat do we realize that there are chickens living there.

Until the year 2000, my mother had cattle and my brother worked with her. But it became too expensive. If we were to maintain it all year round in the Igarapé, we would have to construct a barn in which the floor would have to be constantly raised to follow the river’s movement. That would mean we would have to feed it, which is much too expensive. It is much cheaper to leave the cattle in the nearest pastures: the colonies. There, the animals are free to roam around. Many families in our community have lands in the colonies while others pay rent during the winter. My family used to pay rent for a piece of land, but the price became too steep for us and we had to sell our cattle.

This year I tried to raise pigs, but I also had to sell them. It was too expensive to keep them. I only kept the chicken and the ducks. Nonetheless, it is very important to be careful with the rhythm of the floods. Last night, it rained more than we expected and three ducklings died because we couldn’t raise the scaffold on time. They were still very young.

Crafts as a source of income

I remember clearly when I was young my mother worked with cuias alongside other women of the village. During that time, while the men were away fishing, they would harvest the cuias, clean, dry, paint and then sell them. In this region, the cuia is used frequently to eat tacacá, a typical northern dish. The cuieiras, once frequent in Igarapé do Costa are nowadays very rare. They were all taken by the force of the floods. When we want a new cuia, we need to buy it in Santarém.

Winds damage homes

Another change we have felt is an increase in the strength of the waves caused by the wind. When I was young, I didn’t remember my mother worrying about the possibility of a wave tearing down the floor or the roof of our house. We slept assured. Also, there were a lot of trees then and I believe that helped to reduce the winds.

In 2006, when a large flood hit our village, the water rose thirty centimeters inside our house. My floor is the highest here, its supporting beams reaching a height of 2,82 meters. It was in that same year that a big wave tore down various floor boards. My husband and I had noticed in previous years that the waves were getting stronger each year.

Adaptation to the waves

That is why in 2005 we decided to plant tall grass called canarana to try to absorb the strength of the wind. In 2006, after we had our boards torn down, we decided to enlarge the planted area. Now, I believe the waves are much less intense around our house. At least, it doesn’t bother as much. I believe that our idea is working. We haven’t suffered any damage since then.

I don’t want to leave the village. That is why I’m doing this work around the house and preparing for a better future for myself and my sons. I find life to be very tranquil here. It is good to be near nature and my family.

I hope our village can stay here for ever, in this exact place. That is why we have to do everything possible to be able to live here. I am very happy here with my family.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Carlos Nobre

The methodological proposal of the Climate Witness Project is an important tool to capture and register climate changes perceived at riverine communities scale. The identification and capacity building of the riverine dwellers to follow – for decades – the effects of environmental changes can offer valuable information to refine the prediction models for climate change.

An important aspect to highlight in this analysis is that the biological systems, many times, respond much faster to climate change than demonstrated in the most common climate variables itself. Therefore, it’s important that climate witnesses are alert to permanent changes in biological systems of any nature.

To imply a cause for a change is a complicated factor in many areas of the Amazon Forest. A permanent change in a biological system (at the limit, i.e. the extinction of species) is due to climate change, deforestation or other causes? This is an analysis very difficult to be made and should be studied in future researches. Although, obviously, the climate witnesses are not the people who are going to explain the changes, only register them consciously.

Summarizing, the climate witnesses shouldn’t register only the physical level (i.e. river levels, river flows, rain or drought). This kind of information is more adequately measured through measurement tools. However, climate witnesses can offer important information about the subtle permanent changes in biological systems.

Some study references to future refinements of Climate Witnesses Project work:

MARENGO, J. A.; NOBRE, C. A.; TOMASELLA, J.; CARDOSO, M. F.; OUAMA, M. D. (2008); Hydro-climatic and ecological behaviour of the drought of Amazonia. Philosophical Transactions Of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences; Volume 363; Number 1498; Pages 1773-1778.
BORMA, L.S., ROCHA, H.R., CABRAL, O.M., RANDOW, C. von, COLLICCHIO, E., KURZATKOWSKI, D., BRUGGER, P., FREITAS, H.C., TANNUS, R., OLIVEIRA L., RENNO, C. and ARTAXO, P. (2008). Atmospheric and Hydrological Controls of the Evapotranspiration over a Floodplain Forest in the Bananal Island Region, Amazonia. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2007JG000641, in press.
ROCHA, A.V., POTTS, D.L. and GOULDEN, M.L. (2008). Standing litter as a driver of interannual CO2 exchange variability in a freshwater marsh. J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2008JG000713, in press.
NEILL, C.; ELSENBEER, H.; KRUSCHE, A.V.; LEHMANN, J.; MARKEWITZ, D.; FIGUEIREDO, R.O. (2006). Hydrological and biogeochemical processes in a changing Amazon: results from small watershed studies and the large-scale biosphere-atmosphere experiment. Hydrological process, John Wiley & Sons (p 2467-2476).
MORAES, B.C.; da COSTA, J.M.N.; sé Maria Nogueira da Costa; da COSTA, A.C.L.; COSTA, M.H. (2004). Variação espacial e temporal da precipitação no estado do Pará. Acta Amazônica, 35 (2)
NOVO, E.M.L.M.; FERREIRA, L.G.; BARBOSA, C.; CARVALHO, C.; SANO, E.E.; SHIMABUKURO, Y.; HUETE, A.; POTTER, C.; ROBERTS, A.; HESS, L.; MELACK, J.J.; YOSHIOKA, H.; KLOOSTER, S.; KUMAR, V.; MYNEMI, R.; RATANA, P.; DIDAN, K.; MIURA, T. (2004). Técnicas avançadas de sensoriamento remoto aplicadas ao estudo de mudanças climáticas e ao funcionamento dos ecossistemas amazônicos. Amazônica, 35 (2).

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Carlton Young Jr., Belize

2009-01-27

My name is Carlton Young Junior I am 37 years old and I live in Placencia, Belize. I am a dive master and also a musician but right now I manage my own small tour operating business.

English | Română | Dutch | Deutsch Dying coral

We have seen tremendous changes in the temperature in recent times and because I have been diving a lot I have seen the impacts under the water. In 1998 just before Hurricane Mitch, the water temperature was extremely high and I noticed a lot of coral bleaching at the time.

Even now, although we have cold fronts coming through, the water doesn’t get as cold as it used to. The last couple of years it has started to become alarming for me as it is getting a lot warmer. That’s one of the big changes that I am seeing.

After Hurricane Mitch in 1998 and Hurricane Iris in 2001 destroyed much of the coral, what is left seems to be experiencing a lot of discoloration. Coral starts losing its colors when under stress, and then if the water temperature doesn’t cool off eventually they die. I am concerned that if the temperature keeps increasing, we won’t have any living coral to take tourists to see and our industry will be in trouble.

Future of the tourism industry in Placencia

The main industry in Placencia has always been fishing. We used to be top producer of whole seafood but after a period of time we realized we weren’t able to catch as many fish or lobster so people started turning to tourism as the main way to earn an income. However in my opinion if tourism keeps growing without any regulations as it is now, it is going to have a negative impact on the environment. We need to minimize the impact in some of the areas these tourists are visiting.

For example, tourists who come here to see the coral reefs can have a negative impact on the coral that is already under stress from sea temperature rises and more frequent severe weather. If you get a lot of tourists in one area, the guides may not always be able to direct tourists appropriately and this could put more stress on the coral.

And when there is no more coral, will we still have a tourism industry?

Changed weather events and sea level rise

One thing I do notice is that when I was a kid growing up cold fronts used to last 13 days whereas now the cold fronts never last longer than five days. They do not come as frequently nor do they last as long.

One thing I know for sure, it is getting a lot hotter, particularly in the summer. We have noticed an increase in skin diseases and rashes which I think is related to hotter climate. For example we have seen more cases of Prickle Heat recently that lasts for months.

The other thing I notice is that the water level is much higher than where it used to be 20 years ago. It has risen quite significantly. There is an island not far from Placencia where we have seen serious erosion and I think that is due to sea levels rising. And even here in Placencia I have noticed coastal erosion.

Fish species

Ten years ago when I was still fishing with my dad there were more fish than there are today. I don’t know if that is because of climate change or overfishing but it is noticeable.

Development and mangroves

Due to the growth of the tourism industry there is a lot of development taking place and not enough emphasis placed on the environment by the Government. Since this peninsula is mostly covered in mangroves, the developers are cutting down the mangroves to develop the land. They are cutting them down like there is no tomorrow as well as doing a lot of dredging in the lagoons.

I have a property on the lagoon where there is a big development being built. I have seen a lot of changes in that area over the last couple of months particularly with the increase of algae growing in the mangroves.

The mangroves are important to the structure that holds the land together. The development that is destroying the mangroves is making us more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. With sea levels rising, these mangroves are really important in stopping erosion and if we don’t take some drastic measures to protect them we are going to be in trouble in the future.

I fear that this whole peninsula could be washed away if we keep cutting down the mangroves.

Mangroves are also essential for the reproduction of marine animals. The mangroves are where 90% of juvenile sea creatures live. These animals will have no where to hide from predators if we cut the mangroves down. We won’t have any fish, lobsters, crabs and what is left of the fishing industry could collapse.

Action for the future

I think that the ministry of environment should put more emphasis on protecting the environment. There are laws but they are not enforced and that is the problem.
It is very detrimental that we have some intervention from our leaders at the government level.

One of the ways we can make a difference is to have more access to our leaders and show them the problems and be able to talk to them about it. They need to have first hand experience of the damage being done.

We also need to educate local people about the effects of climate change and some of the things we can do to minimise the impacts.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Willy Versluys, Belgium

2009-01-23

“I’m Willy Versluys from Ostend. I am 60 years old and have been working for thirty years now as a ship-owner. At present, my fleet consists of five fishing boats on which about 25 fishermen are employed. Of these, three vessels are being used for coastal fishing. But the bigger boats sail further out: from the Gulf of Biscay in France, along the east coast of Ireland to the southern border of Norway. Owing to these widely dispersed fishing grounds, my fishermen have a good overview of the goings on in a large part of the North Sea.

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We hear a great deal about climate change on TV and in the newspapers, but in the fishing nets and in the fish market we see the change with our own eyes.

The changes in climate are already noticeable in the North Sea.

The waters of the North Sea are becoming warmer and therefore we are seeing many species of warm water fishes extending their natural habitat from the Atlantic Ocean to the south into the North Sea. The fishermen are now catching species which they never or very rarely caught ten years ago. Examples of species of fish being caught more and more are: various species of cephalopods (octopus, squid, cuttlefish), bass, lesser weever, anchovy, large quantities of mackerel and carangids.

However, the warmer North Sea is not only attracting new species of fish, but also increasing numbers of jellyfish. The problem with jellyfish is that they get entangled in the nets and this can cause an enormous hindrance to coastal fishing, even making it unsafe.

The Japanese oysters lodge themselves in the sluice gates, as a result of which they can be no longer closed properly.

In addition, exotic species of fish are getting the opportunity to establish themselves permanently in the North Sea. A spectacular example of this is the Japanese oyster which was imported during the sixties to various places in Europe under the name “creuse” . At first, it was thought that this species would not be able to breed here because the temperature is too low for the development of the larva. Although initially this appeared to be true, now the Japanese oysters are a real plague. I hear from the captains of the harbour services that their population is growing continuously in the harbours. They even lodge themselves between the sluice gates, as a result of which these can no longer be closed properly.

It is true that the growth of new species could be advantageous for us fishermen. But despite this, we do not have a very rosy view of the future. Studies predict that jellyfish will increase in even greater numbers over the coming years and this can make coastal fishing more difficult. The rise in the number of storms could also increasingly interfere with coastal fishing, such as the shrimp catch in autumn. Fishermen can now go out to sea for about 150 days a year. If there are more storms, they will have to either remain on land or take more risks.

The increased number of storms can hamper shrimp fishing.

The possibility of fishing different, newly appearing varieties of fish requires different techniques and different approaches, which need to be less energy-consuming than the trawling technique we currently use. Conserving energy is possible in our sector through the use of less energy-intensive fishing techniques, energy-saving vessels and renewable sources of energy. Vessels must, in that sense, be adapted and fishermen must be trained in the new techniques and learn to fish new and existing species of fish in a sustainable way. We must be ready for this.

Moreover, constantly anticipating and responding to a change of mentality amongst the captains is of great importance. They must be convinced that they can save a significant amount of energy by using the current techniques with some basic modifications and that they will still be able to carry out fishing operations in a profitable and sustainable way.

At present, climate change is very clearly noticeable in the fishing sector. As a result of the fishing quota and the high fuel prices, we already have to start adapting our ways by investing in economical engines and specifically adapted, sustainable fishing techniques. But far too extreme changes in our climate can, in the long run, be catastrophic for sea life in the North Sea and the fishing sector.

That is why I, on behalf of the fisheries sector, would like to call everyone to accept their responsibility in drastically reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. We are not just the requesting party, we will also actively cooperate in this process.”

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Jan Seys, Flemish Institute for the Sea (VLIZ), Belgium

The observations described by Willy Versluys are consistent with the scientific literature on climate change. The average temperature of the North Sea has risen by 0.6 to 1°C in the period 1950-2000 and the trend continues.(1)

Marine biologists observe a shift in the distribution of the mentioned fish species(2) and a significant rise in the population of the Japanese oyster(1) and jellyfish(3) in the North Sea.

At present, there is still no significant change in the number or intensity of the storms in the North Sea. However, climate models predict more extreme wind speeds(4) and surges(5) and more storms(6) along the coast.

References:
1. Perry, A.L., J.P. Low, J.R. Ellis & J.D. Reynolds, 2005. Climate change and distribution shifts in marine fishes. Science 308: 1912-1915.
2. Kerckhof, F. & J. Seys, 2006. Fauna en flora in een opwarmende Noordzee. Grote Rede 13, infomagazine Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee (VLIZ). http://www.vliz.be/docs/groterede/GR13_fauna.pdf
3. Edwards, M., A.W.G. John, & D.G. Johns, 2007. Annual Report 2006, Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS). http://www.sahfos.ac.uk/annual_reports/annual%20report%202006>/2006_ann_report_final_all_sections.pdf
4. Rockel, B. & K. Woth, 2007. Extremes of near-surface wind speed over Europe and their future changes as estimated from an ensemble of RCM simulations. Climatic Change, 81, S267-S280.
5. - Hulme, M., G. Jenkins, X. Lu, J.R. Turnpenny, T.D. Mitchell, R.G. Jones, J. Lowe, J.M. Murphy, D. Hassell, P. Boorman, R. McDonald & S. Hill, 2002. Climate Change Scenarios for the United Kingdom: The UKCIP02 Scientific Report, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich,120 pp.
- Meier, H.E.M., B. Broman & E. Kjellström 2004. Simulated sea level in past and future climates of the Baltic Sea. Clim. Res., 27, 59-75.
- Lowe, J. A. & J.M. Gregory, 2005: The effects of climate change on storm surges around the United Kingdom. Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 363, 1313-1328.
6. Woth, K., R. Weisse & H. von Storch, 2005. Climate change and North Sea storm surge extremes: an ensemble study of storm surge extremes expected in a changed climate projected by four different regional climate models. OceanDyn., doi: 10.1007/s10236-005-0024-3.

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Maya Radeva, Bulgaria

2009-01-19

My name is Maya Radeva and I am the director of Balgarka Nature Park, in Gabrovo, Bulgaria.

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Imagine the wood in July – instead of being green and fresh, it was like a frostbitten wood in November. The leaves were brown, dry and falling from the trees. The grass, which has always been green at this time, was dry and brittle under our feet. The forest was simply crying.

For the last 15 years there has been an episodic increase of temperatures, but the summer of 2007 was simply unique. The leaves were dry and started falling as early as the end of June and beginning of July. In the beech forests there were lots of empty acorns. Apparently the high temperatures did not help the trees to fill the seeds.

Water level in river extremely low

The source of Yantra River, which we had never seen with so low water level, now completely dried out. There was no water coming from the source itself, it flowed out further down and had very weak discharge.

Mediterranean plants at high altitudes in Bulgaria

Last year our colleague - a biodiversity expert – discovered a species of wild onion at a height of 1,300 m in the Uzana area. A study showed that the habitats of the plant are in Greece and Southern Italy. If Mediterranean plants that love a warm climate come to 1,300 m above sea level that is an indicator of climate warming and of changes expected to take place in nature.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Prof. Piotr Tryjanowski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland

Maya’s Climate Witness story is mostly consistent with current peer reviewed literature however we should be very cautious when comparing only two time periods. Other factors, like habitat changes, may also have an influence over the same time period.

Rosenzweig C., Karoly D., Vicarelli M., Neofotis P., Wu Q., Casassa G., Menzel A., Root T.L., Estrella N., Seguin B., Tryjanowski P. , Liu C., Rawlins S., Imeson A. (2008) Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change. Nature 453: 353-358.

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Boyan Petrov, Bulgaria

2009-01-14

My name is Boyan Petrov, and I am a zoologist from National Natural History Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria. I am also a mountaineer.

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For the 34 years since I was born, every year has become increasingly drier. The seasons have disappeared. What we see is only something like summer. The autumn is kind of mild and then suddenly winter comes, which I wouldn’t call winter. There is a slight cooling, and little snow. More like winter in the Mediterranean.

Climbing in the Himalayas

Two years ago I was on a tough expedition to K2, the second highest peak after Everest. There is a spot where glaciers merge. A Polish member of the expedition had been there 35 years ago. It turned out that the place where we were sitting and eating our sandwiches used to be 35 m higher – there was a clear mark on the rock above.

What we see happening at a much faster rate in the Alps, also happened in the Himalayas in just the last 35 years. Imagine - the height there is of over 4,000 metres and conditions are much tougher.

Children can no longer sleigh like they used to

I’ve loved sleighing since I was young. Just right next to our place there’s a very steep street. From 1977 to 1989 it was covered by snow for two months each winter. Now the snow cover lasts surprisingly short. This winter I noticed that the snow cover only stayed for a week. It melted quickly. There were abrupt warmings, abrupt coolings. Rain, snow, rain, snow. Generally, these things are typical for winter in the countries south of Bulgaria. My son will never sleigh all winter like I used to.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Dan Cox, USA

2008-12-05

My name is Daniel J. Cox. I’m 48 years old and live in Gallatin county outside the town of Bozeman, Montana. USA. I earn my living as a photojournalist documenting nature and wildlife and have been doing so for the past 28 years.

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It has been through my travels to the arctic and Churchill, Manitoba to photograph the annual polar bear congregation, that I’ve seen the most changes due to climate warming. I’ve been traveling to this area for nearly twenty consecutive years. As I write this, I’m winging my way to this same little town on the shores of Hudson Bay for another bear viewing season.

My observations of how the climate has changed is based mostly on my travels north. I first started visiting Churchill back in 1988. On my way to this exciting, subarctic community I always stop for the night in Winnipeg. On arrival in 1988, the weather was cold and blustery. There was already 1-2 feet of snow on the ground and I can recall it vividly due to my nightly adventures that took me from the hotel to find a place to eat. This was common for the first ten to twelve years. However, its no longer like this. Last year the sun was shining, there was not a trace of snow on the ground and the temperatures were well above freezing. It was a beautiful fall day.

My first realization of how things were beginning to change came sometime in the late 90’s but it became really obvious in 2003 or 2004. First was a change in the dates we were able to get out to Cape Churchill to see the polar bears. Our trips used to start November 3. This year, 2008, that same trip isn’t starting until November 17th. Our vehicle to get out and see the bears needs frozen coastline to travel over. It’s no longer freezing hard enough to get to Cape Churchill in early November.

In years past, at the end of the of our adventure to Cape Churchill, the bears have always been gone. The ice has frozen, the temperatures are typically well below zero F and the bay is mostly covered with ice. This season when we departed from Cape on November 26, 2008 the bears were still there, the bay was mostly still open and many individual mothers with cubs looked tired, hungry and more skinny than I can ever remember.

This change in temperature is more comfortable for me as I travel but it dramatically effects the polar bears I’m going to photograph. Each additional week they can’t get out onto the ice to hunt means less body fat and less healthy body conditions. Today, polar bears of the western hudson bay region are getting smaller and lighter as witnessed by the scientists studying them. If the trends continue it is predicted that this population of polar bears will die out and polar bears on Hudson Bay will be a thing of the past within the next 20-30 years.

My work as a photojournalist gives me the opportunity to document the arctic and the many changes it’s currently going through. It’s my goal to spend the next several years recording these changes and the effects the warming climate will have on the wildlife and people of the far north. All of this work will be under the umbrella of the conservation group Polar Bears International. You can find out more about this hard working and effective organization organization by visiting their web site at www.polarbearsinternational.org or visiting my web site at www.naturalexposures.com. I’m confident that my work through PBI will help encourage people around the world to begin making the changes needed to stop the human contribution of Co2 into the atmosphere.

All PBI scientists are adamant that there is still time to change the outcome of a warming planet. Hope is within reach by way individually doing our part to use less electricity, less carbon fuels, conserve more and recycle virtually everything. The green economy of a new world could provide many jobs and cleans the planet at the same time. I look at it this way. Most all of us insure almost everything. We insure our life, we insure our car, we insure our home, our health and lots of other worldly things. Why not take an insurance policy out on the mother earth? What do we have to loose by doing so? In the end we’ll have cleaner water, more breathable air, purer rain and a better quality of life. These things, along with our governments encouragement of new, green technologies are the key to a sustainable existence on this beautiful planet. Our time is short for making these changes if they are to be effective. The results of not doing so will be nothing short of catastrophic for the species once known as homo-sapiens.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Henry Huntington, Independent Researcher, USA

Dan’s description of the changes around Churchill, both to weather and to polar bears, are consistent with scientific observations in the area and with what we would expect from a changing climate in the region. Southern Hudson Bay is in many respects a marginal habitat for polar bears, being at the southern end of their range and in a zone where sea ice is becoming less and less reliable and consistent in timing and thickness.

Some of the same stresses are becoming more common in northern Alaska. George Divoky, who has studied guillemots on Cooper Island near Barrow, Alaska, for a few decades, has observed more and more bears on land in the summer, to the point where they can no longer do their field work the way they used to. In Alaska, as in Hudson Bay, the ice has changed dramatically, reducing the bears’ preferred habitat and forcing them to adopt new behaviors and spend more time ashore.

What this means for the future of polar bears is unfortunately all too clear. They may be able to adapt in some ways, such as learning to forage and hunt on land in summer. A few polar bears have also interbred with brown bears. It’s too soon to tell whether that will become a trend, but if polar bears are on land more often, they will encounter more brown bears. What kinds of adaptations that will lead to remains to be seen.

I’m pleased that Dan remains optimistic about the future of polar bears. They are a symbol of the Arctic, of unspoiled nature, and they enrich our lives. As Dan says, there is still time, but only if we are willing to act soon.

References: “Ecological Applications”: the implications of climate change for Arctic marine mammals. . This collection of papers puts Dan’s observations in a broader context, though it is important to note that the climate projections used are now out of date. The real decline in sea ice is much faster, making the problem all the more urgent.

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

Climate Witness: Alex Bocage de Almeida, Brazil

2008-12-02

My name is Alex Bocage de Almeida. I am 28 years old and I live in Neuchâtel Switzerland. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil and lived there for 23 years.

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I never really imagined how the increase of 1C in the Earth’s atmosphere could affect my life. For me it does not change if my house heats more than 1C, if the coffee or if the shower is 1C warmer but I am sharing something unusual that I witnessed that and I think was caused by the fact that the Malvinas currents got +1C warmer. For us humans at the moment +1C may not be so much but for our planet it seems quite a lot.

I have always had close contact with nature, either through diving, swimming, sailing or just being at the beach and relaxing. One of my biggest passions in life is sailing and that is why I decided to make it part of my work, travelling the world doing the communications for the majors sailing events.

Penguins in São Paulo

In july this year I was in Ilhabela, São Paulo, Brazil for a sailing event. On my day off I had the chance to witness what many of the sailors had been talking about the whole week. Standing on my windsurf board in the middle of Ilhabela channel I saw a penguin. After a few minutes the one black and white spot turned into 20. I stopped sailing, sat on my board and stared at them. They were not afraid. It was amazing, there I was without any wetsuit with penguins around me, a really a unique experience but at the same time frighting to think that I was sharing the same waters with birds that are usually found in Antarctica.

I have seen penguins before in Brazil, I believed it was normal, but just a few and only on beaches in the south of Brazil where the water is colder, not 20 in Ilhabela, an island located in the São Paulo coast. Having been sailing in Ilhabela regularly I knew that this experience was unusual.

Speaking with some locals from the area I realized that in fact the number of peguins in Ilhabela has increased significantly in recent years. A local from Ilhabela and Kitesurf School coordinator, Renato Spiritus said this year was certainly the record for the number of penguins he had ever seen in these waters. “There were around 30 or more together in October when usually just a couple may be seen from July until Septmeber. This year I saw some tourist trying to help a few penguins by calling an organization to help relocate them.”

Thousands of penguins appear in northern Brazil for the first time

When I searched for information I found an article in a Brazilian newspaper which said that this year was a record for the number of penguins found on the Brazilian beaches. Two thousand penguins were counted this year in the state of Rio de Janeiro, 1600 in Salvador, Bahia in the north of Brazil, but half of them were dead already from starvation.

The penguins are called Magellanic penguins and are from the Falklands Islands in Argentina which means they swam almost the whole coast of South America to end up in northern Brazil.

According to Valéria Ruoppolo, the emergency relief officer for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, finding penguins on Brazilian beaches means that something is wrong in the natural order. Their studies proved that the Malvinas currents were +1C warmer in the winter of 2008 causing sardines to swim deeper and making the Magellanic penguins to go further north to find more food.

Ruoppolo also mentioned that all the Magellanic penguins found in the Brazilian coast were young and most of them were starving and with oil on their feathers. From 800 penguins captured in São Paulo only 93 were healthy enough to be taken by plane to South of Brazil so they could find their way home and migrate back to the Falklands Islands. Even after surviving this quest for food they have to face another problem as they are now late for their reproduction cycle.

The situation is apparently very critical with overfishing, ocean contamination and climate change all contributing to what I have witnessed.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Juan Carlos Villagran, Guatemala

2008-11-19

My name is Juan Carlos Villagran, I’m a retailer from Isabel living in Puerto Barrios, in God’s land. We’ve been living here for 39 years and for 20 years we’ve been involved in tourism, transporting people on land and water.

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In Puerta Barrios we used to have rain at least 3 or 4 days a week. Nowadays it rains here only once or twice a month, so it is not as wet as before in the places where animals reproduce and our environment can regenerate. People used to say that we had to wait until May in order to seed, but now you can seed at anytime because there is no defined rain time and this causes excessive drying.

Unfortunately progress comes with destruction in the ecosystem, the forests are reduced and so is the life quality in the port. In the past I could just throw a fishing line in front of my house and catch a fish for us to eat but now it is impossible as the water is quite contaminated.

Disappearing Flora and Fauna

Some plant species are dying, such as the plant we call “dormilona” which closes its leaves as soon as you touch it. The “hierba del cancer” which was a species we used for medical purposes, is not often seen anymore. The same happened to a plant we used to cure burns.

Some animal species have disappeared too. One example is the catfish. In the past I used to be very careful before going in the beach because this fish tried to hang on your leg. The catfish is an animal that cleans the beach, but fishers started catching them without control to sell it during “semana santa” (holy week) or to take it to the capital. Now we don’t see catfish in the ocean anymore and this has caused a lot of silt to build up on the beaches.

Flooding

When it does rain now we have more floods. The last flood we had was due to the overflow of Rio Escondido, a river that had never overflowed before; this flood took a big area of the port.

We have more erosion now due to human activities. On the coast of Punta de Palma people used to take out the sand to the city to produce ceramic and glass objects and that caused significant erosion and more and more water reaches more areas of sand. Chalet owners who have their houses on the border now have to bring sand in to build up the area.

Warmer Waters

The temperature of the ocean has increased by 2 degrees from what I remember. The rains in the past and the regular life cycles of the planet used to keep the water colder. The water takes longer to balance the temperature so it remains warmer than usual.

This will make the fish species go away. As we do when our house is hot, we look for a cooler place to be. In order to subsist, fish and other mammals that will go deeper to find cooler waters.

“Viento Bajo” was a period of 3 or 4 days of strong winds, and we had to keep the boats safe. We no longer have these winds and, though it is good for us, the strong winds used to create ocean currents which would distribute the food throughout the area. Now the food stays in just one place of the bay of Matiqe, so not every other mammal can eat as they used to.

Preserving the ecosystem

The responsibility rests with us, the population, and also with the authorities that do not encourage people to respect the regulations that are here to preserve sea life.
There are enough resources as long as we understand that we need to manage these resources properly. If we respect the system we can sell a better quality product for a higher price. We have to learn how to preserve our environment; if we cut down two trees we must learn to seed 2 new trees somewhere else.

My company El Chato Transport is committed to doing something for the conservation of the environment. All of our engines are “4 tiempos” which have a lower impact on the environment and are approved by the EPA and the CAR. These engines don’t throw too much oil in the water while the “2 tiempos” engines do. Additionally, these engines consume less fuel so even if they are more expensive at the end it is better for us as we spend less money on fuel. If the government would implement a sort of help for boat owners to buy these engines it would be much better for them and for the environment as well, the impact on the rivers of Rio Dulce, Matique Bay would be very low, and work for these people would be more efficient and profitable.

We congratulate the government for its efforts in restoring the Amastistlan Lake. It is a great effort and it is something that needs to be done here in Matique bay too.

Scientific review

A scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel is pending.

Climate Witness: Marush Narankhuu, Mongolia

2008-11-08

My name is Marush Narankhuu and I am 67 years old. This is my homeland- Tsagaan gol (White river) at the Chandmani soum of Khovd aimag. My ancestors lived here as herdsmen for long time.

English | हिन्दी
I have been a herdsman almost from my birth and I did not attend school. I gave birth to 14 children, four of whom became herdsmen while the others live in the cities.

There used to be a lot of flies and mosquitoes around the Khar Us (Black water) lake so we used to spend the summers at the mountains.

This place was really beautiful, when I was young. There was grass everywhere and we had great and rich summers, winters, spring and fall. The herdsmen used to come from the nearest soum, Mankhan, Chandmani and Zereg for the pasture. We had had a peaceful life all around the lake.

Dramatic Evaporation

The water used to reach the straw around this part of the lake. This grass used to be all water and the lake used to be start from where the straw is. But the water level declined severely and now even the cattle cannot drink from here.

Khar Us Lake has evaporated dramatically within the last four to five years. Even small hand-wells have dried up. There were many small ponds around the lake. None of them exist now. This land used to be all water, now ger (traditional Mongolian nomadic round houses) are built on it. When there was a plenty of water, there was no mud around. Previously mud was not a problem for us in this area but now cattle fall into it and die.

The permanent ice at the summit of the Jargalant Khairkhan (Jargalant Mountain) has been melting for the last two or three years. Fortunately this year, only a small amount of ice disappeared this summer, but still we are not sure if this is permanent. There used to be permanent ice at the Rashant Am (Rashant walley) and now it is melting.

Increasing Temperatures

The temperature is also increasing in the winter. There is less snow in the winter now and nature gives us less and less moisture. For the last two years, no grass has grown at the Jargalant Khairkhan.

I think that any place and land will be beautiful if there is enough water. As per my observation, the number of cattle has not increased or decreased but still it has been difficult for last four and five years. The cattle are weak under these circumstances of nature and weather. Since there is no vegetation, we are heavily dependent from the nature. As the dryness is everywhere, the roots of the grass are crumbled to the end. So it comes out and dries out on the surface after the storm.

Since the cattle are eating grass around the bank of lake, which is the only vegetated place left, it is obvious that this small place cannot meet everyone’s needs. Even though we pasture the cattle here, it is impossible to water them here. There is no spring and ponds around here. There is no water in the lake, only mud. There were some cases that cattle died in the mud.

This year we have less vegetation and the cattle are very weak. Generally the situation is not on our side. Our wellbeing is completely dependent on nature and the weather. Herdsmen are trying to live closer to the lake and some have settled on the island on the lake. It shows how badly we are dependent on the water of lake.

Reducing Pasture

There was a time that there was enough pasture and water and we never got so close to the lake island so early. The cattle do not eat the straws around the lake, so there is no other way than moving to the island. Most families move to the island before October. As a rule, it is not permitted to move to the island from June to October. It seems like people are becoming heartless, thinking to be on top of all and trying to expel those whose cattle are better.

I am getting older. I think we have reached the boundary whether it is possible for us and the community to keep our cattle or not and I believe that the Government should take a great measures and provisions now to fix the situation.

I am not sure how they can increase the moisture or stop the dryness but nevertheless there are a lot of things they could be done within the international framework and also local projects to help us to overcome these difficulties and find the peace.

Summit Jargalant

There is an environmental conservation community called ‘Summit Jargalant’ at the Tsagaan River. The people are no longer pursuing the greatest number of cattle, but instead making nice products from the wool of the cattle. “Summit Jargalant” (Jargalant Orgil) is one of the most successful communities in generating alternative income by using the natural resources sustainably. They make and sell handmade products like felt bed coverings and carpets. At the moment they have NGO partners who provide a bridge to customers.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Batimaa Punsalmaa, Water Authority, Ministry of Nature and Environment, Mongolia

The description of the changes in both pasture and water resources around the Khar-Us lake are consistant with scientific findings in the region and with that we would expect from a changing climate in the future. The same water and pasture stresses are becoming more common in not only in the region but also in other regions of Mongolia.

The Khar-Us lake was designated in 1998 as one of the Ramsar sites. Also the region falls within the Altai-Sayan Ecoregion. The region was identified as most vulnerable region to climate change. The Khar-Us Lake is largely responsibe for the prosperity of the human inhabitants and for the health of the environment.

References:

Vulnerability of Mongolia’s pastoralists to climate extremes and change. in Climate change and Vulnerability. N.Leary, C.Conde, J.Kulkarni, A.Nyong and J.Pulhin eds., Climate change and Vulnerability. Earthscan. London. The international START Secretariat, 2008:67-87pp

Adapting to drought, zud and climate change in Mongolia. in Climate change and Adaptation. N.Leary, J.Adejuwon, V.Barros, I.Burton, J.Kulkarni, and R.Lasco eds., London. Earthscan. The international START Secretariat, 2008:196-210pp

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.