Re-Focus on the Environment
While reading the book State of the World, which is a culmination of many articles written by many different people, I learned some very interesting new things. The articles in this book mainly focus on third world countries in Africa. A major focus in pages 71 through 98 of this book is on agriculture. Agriculture is suffering from climate change because of droughts, floods, extreme heat and other extreme weather. There are many technologies that are being introduced in Africa to help with agriculture and its sustainability.
Many communities, like Guinea, are now focusing on agriculture to export and are relying on other countries for imports, instead of growing agriculture for local economies. For example, Guinea used to grow an abundance of many varieties of rice for their community, but they have decreased those efforts and now grow tons of cashews to export. It has become cheaper for them to import rice and export cashews. Just like many other countries, including the Unites States, Africans sell many imported products rather than make and grow their own products to sell. Citizens end up consuming mostly processed foods that end up causing health problems. African citizens are being encouraged to grow and sell food locally. We, in the United States, also need to make and grow things locally and sell at farmers’ markets and other local stores.
There are, however, African communities that heavily rely on their local agriculture for consumption. One of these communities is Ethiopia. There are nongovernmental organizations that are working with farmers in Ethiopia to teach them how to protect wild coffee plants. They learn when to pick the plants, how to dry them to get the most out of them when selling. Unfortunately, the forest there is getting smaller, so they are not sure how long the wild coffee plants will be around. Communities everywhere need diversification so they have a variety of products all year and have enough for themselves and extra to export. It also makes them less susceptible to devastation caused by “climate change, predators, and epidemics of diseases that attack crops” (page 74).
Farmers in Africa have been trying different approaches to better their crops and profits, such as purchasing drought-tolerant seeds, installing drip-irrigation systems, or even purchasing weather-based insurance. Governments and businesses are trying to determine different ways to help the farmers with their agriculture that will withstand climate changes. I’m curious to find out the results of the experiments to know what methods work best in which environment.
There are also efforts being made in the Sahara desert. The Sahara desert is slowly becoming larger by growing southward. There are plans to plant billions of trees in the Sahara and create a Great Green Wall. This is a wonderful idea, but as Chris Reij writes in Investing in Trees to Mitigate Climate Change, “the harsh reality is that only 10-20 percent of planted trees survive more than two or three years, particularly in dryland conditions” (page 86). It will take a lot of research and work to have good soil and the right kinds of trees that will thrive and promote more growth.
There are already projects in Africa to re-green areas, which includes regeneration of woody species, regeneration of deforested land, enhancing soil fertility, and having farmers learn from each other the best techniques to pruning, planting, and tree management. These projects have had much success in places such as Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. This is a great motivator to get others to re-green. Others see that it works and all the benefits and want to make changes in their communities as well.
The articles in this book also touched on some other subjects that involves problems in Africa. One of those problems is with the fish population. “After exhausting most of the fish stock in their own seas, fishing fleets from Europe, China, Japan, and Russia have found ideal conditions on the African coasts” (page 73). That is making it more difficult for the local African fishers to make a living, and governments are granting them fishing licenses for money.
I also learned some other interesting information about fish. Fish used to live in rice paddies, which controlled the insects (including mosquitoes that spread diseases) and provided protein. However, insecticides are used now instead of fish, which causes environmental problems and less diversity, but some farmers have gone back to using fish.
Another problem that people are having is that more than one million people die every year from inhaling smoke from cooking fires. There are organizations teaching people how to use solar cookers instead of fires, which is saving people from respiratory problems, saving them time on collecting wood for fires, and helping the environment. I personally made my own solar cooker about 2 years ago and have seen other solar cookers in action. They work great.
From planting trees to putting fish in rice paddies, there is so much that people around the world can do the help the environment.
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