NAIROBI, Kenyya (PAMACC News) - Kenny Matampash, a crop and livestock farmer and an agricultural solutions expert in Kajiado County says African Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) are crucial to addressing effects climate change in Kenya. Matampash says his knowledge in irrigation has helped him grow crops in a dry land for commercial use. “From October this year, I have lost 130 heads of cattle. This shows how urgently Government should engage us to get our views on how to incorporate our indigenous system in improving agriculture,” he says. The farmer who keeps livestock, rabbits, bees and grows various crops says indigenous knowledge can help in the use of storage of animal feeds and water for irrigation.“I use my indigenous knowledge prepare land for pasture conservation. Here, I can conserve Napier grass and beetroots. I have also drilled two boreholes at a cost of Sh4.5 million. I use the water to irrigate crops like maize, vegetables, water melon and yellow beans,” Matampash says.He reveals that he has trained farmers locally and internationally to adopt diversification and adaptation of innovative techniques for sustainable agriculture.Together with his wife Phylis Nadupoi, the couple now sells their products in Elangata-Wuas, Ilbissil and other markets in Kajiado.“My knowledge has created a miracle in this arid and semi-arid area. This can be replicated in all ASAL regions when water availability and storage is made a priority,” Matampash says.Mary Kiminza, a farmer in the arid area of Makueni in Eastern Kenya says farmers in the region have used IKS to devise innovative ways of water storage to help them plant crops even during droughts.The farmers have come together to build a traditional rock catchment system to harvest rainwater, and despite dry weather, the village still has plenty of water.“Apart from the gift of life from God, this is the other biggest blessing that has come to us,” says Mrs Kiminza, a mother of five and a member of the village's Ithine Self Help Group.Rock catchment systems use naturally occurring rock outcrops to divert rainwater to a central collection area. A concrete wall is built to direct the water that trickles down the rock surface into sand and gravel filter, then down pipes into covered storage tanks to be used for irrigation.“We use our knowledge to build resilience to climate extremes among the worst-hit areas, using locally acceptable techniques and making them as sustainable as possible,” Mrs Kiminza says.“Residents here in the dry-land regions face an acute water shortage. But with innovative traditional water harvesting techniques, most of them have become food secure and not dependent on food aid any longer,” Mrs Kiminza says.In Mbeere region, another dry land, farmers have abandoned growing traditional crops like maize, sweet and white potatoes and have found a way to stay afloat as water becomes scarcer.The farmers are now breeding catfish in “home dams” that capture rainwater, to help them cope with water scarcity.“This is my new source of income,” said Sylvester Kinyori, 32, who operates a kiosk in Isiolo town where…

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - Citizens of Africa have been urged to take advantage of investment opportunities that accompany climate action to earn some money and lift their people from poverty. Secretary-General of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), Mithika Mwenda, has noted that the renewable energy revolution currently being witnessed in the world provides affordable access to energy to people who would otherwise not have access. He noted that renewable energy has also aided in the reduction of emissions, thus contributing to the attainment of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) ambitions of countries. “We are witnessing renewable energy revolution and in Africa and the rest of the world, this is an explosive sector,” observed Mithika. “We need to take advantage of the investment opportunities coming with climate action; there are a lot of resources in this to help address poverty”. At the COP21 climate talks which produced the Paris Agreement, the G7 committed to allocate US$10 billion into the African Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI). Though there are concerns with delivering the promise, the Initiative, in its current design, will help cure chronic energy poverty by supporting decentralized, modern, off-grid and people-owned energy systems not only for lighting, but also cooking, driving smallholder agribusiness and charging mobile phones. Mithika added that green energy has helped save lives by reducing indoor pollution. Fossil fuel vs. renewable energy economies Mithika Mwenda was addressing an event on low-carbon and climate-resilient development, held on the sidelines of the 2018 African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Most African countries do not contribute any significant amount of greenhouse gases but there are commitments in their NDCs to ensure that their development pathways are carbon neutral. In a climate-constrained world, investment in fossil fuel-based energy sources no longer makes sense. But Africa faces the dilemma of whether to rapidly revert to renewable energy, have a mix of both fossil fuels and renewables, or ignore the global call and continue in the unsustainable model of development pursued by industrialized countries which brought the climate crisis. What is evident, though, is the fact that the global community has shifted. This shift should make African countries re-think their priority energy sources and investment in oil and in some instances coal, as it may not make economic sense in the long-run. The Addis Ababa side-event, attended by climate actors from across the continent, is organized strategically to get African leaders to focus attention on climate change issues. As the first Pan African convention after the COP23, the event offered an opportunity to exchange ideas and reflect on Africa’s victories during the Bonn Climate Change Conference, with a view of charting a collective path towards subsequent Global Dialogue processes on the subject. “This gives us the platform to develop common African narratives that will have impact on the global stage,” said James Murombedzi, Officer-in-Charge of the African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Moving along the development pathway Climate change is no longer…

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PAMACC News) - The government of Ethiopia through the country’s National programme to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+) office will now support the efforts by the World Bank to create awareness on the subject among rural communities through the civil society. Addressing delegates at an event alongside the Africa Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa, Dr. Yitebitu Moges Abebe, the Country’s National REDD+ Coordinator said that his office will soon call for proposals from civil society organisations to support REDD+ Preparedness, which is an ongoing project with funding from the World Bank through the Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA). “The government is committed to spreading the knowledge of REDD+ to rural communities so that they can understand the meaning of conserving forests for the long term benefit of the entire country,” said Abebe. So far, the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD), which is a PACJA sub-grantee on the project has already trained 35 experts from four different civil societies as REDD+ trainers, who are now supposed to spread the same knowledge to many other experts on the ground who always interact with local communities. “Training communities especially on a complicated issue such as REDD+ is not like a lecture in class. It calls for practical action, and this comes with a cost,” said Asrat Mangesha, the ISD Administration and Finance Manager. According to estimates by the government of Ethiopia, greenhouse gas emissions from forestry will increase from 53 MT CO2e in 2010 to 88 Mt CO2e in 2030, and therefore, there is need for urgent action, according to Abebe. PACJA is currently implementing a two-year project supported by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership facility (FCPF) which is aimed at building the capacity of African Civil Society and Local Communities on REDD+. The beneficiaries of the project are Southern Civil Society Organisation networks and organisations from18 FCPF eligible countries in Africa. PACJA is therefore the CSOs Intermediary and implementing agency, and is focusing on national level activities on five countries namely that include Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Mozambique and Madagascar. In Ivory Coast, through ‘Actions en faveur de l'homme et de la nature Ivory Coast (AFHON)’ targeted students from the Faculty of Local Languages to train them on REDD+ modules. “We mobilised them during the module session to bring their academic knowledge in local languages to facilitate awareness information, then caravan campaign,” said Coulibaly Davy Wohary, AFHON’s Coordinator of FCPF REDD+ Project. According to Obed Koringo from the PACJA Secretariat, the main objective of the project is to strengthen knowledge of CSOs and local communities in Africa on REDD+ Readiness at the national level and as well to strengthen knowledge ‎exchange at the regional level. “We also target to provide CSOs and local communities in Africa with information, knowledge and awareness on REDD+ in order to enhance their understanding of REDD+, and to engage more meaningfully in the implementation of REDD+ Readiness activities,” he told PAMACC News. The project is…

NAIROBI, Kenya (PAMACC News) - Eleven environmental organisations from across the world have called on the Finnish government to suspend a €9.5 million fund to the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) because of escalating human rights abuses of the country’s indigenous Sengwer people. In a joint letter addressed to the President of the Republic Mr. Sauli Niinistö, with copy to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister of Foreign Trade and Development, the organisations, most of them international NGOs noted that KFS bases its approach to forest conservation on evicting forest communities from their ancestral lands. “These are the very communities who have the knowledge and commitment to protect their forests,” reads part of the letter. The letter was handed to the Finnish government on 24th January 2016 - the day the Sengwer community members of Embobut Forest gathered for the funeral of Robert Kirotich, a 41-year-old man who was allegedly shot dead by a KFS solder on 16th January while out herding cattle on the Sengwer’s ancestral land. So far, the European Union has already suspended the funding of a €31 million project to the Kenyan government and KFS in response to such killings. A delegation from the EU is planning to conduct a site visit, with Amnesty International and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR). The Finnish Government has been the main supporter of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) over many years, and the organisations feel that it too shares significant responsibility for funding what they refer to as human rights abuses. In a statement, Justin Kenrick, a senior policy advisor at Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) pointed out that the Finnish government has been a major funder of KFS over many years, and that it needs to learn from KFS's history of illegally logging the forests they are supposed to protect. “Conservation science is clear that securing the collective land rights of such indigenous forest communities, communities who have cared for their lands for centuries, is the surest way of securing such forests and the flow of water from them to Kenya,” said Kenrick. “The Finnish government should (instead) support forest indigenous communities to secure their constitutionally recognised land rights, rather than fund KFS which violently evicts them," he added. On January 22, the Eldoret High Court in Kenya issued a court order stopping the police from evicting members of the Sengwer community from the Embobut Forest. However, according to the environment conservation organisations, a community member Mr Yator Kiptum had reported of continued evictions with KFS guards allegedly burning down more Sengwer homes in Kapkok glade, Embobut forest. Another Sengwer community member Milka Chepkorir Kuto told delegates at the Investing in Human Rights Defenders event in Brussels that human rights abuses have been ongoing for decades, though it was now intensifying. She said: “Today Kirotich, one of my own community members, is being buried. He leaves behind a family that looked up to him. He was killed by KFS in Embobut forest during their violent forceful…