Forest cover loss is a headache for many African countries where logging by big companies and clearing (for biomass energy or small-scale agriculture) continues to grow. Malawi for examples has been losing about 33,000 hectares of forest every year since 2001. According to Global Forest Watch, Malawi lost 14.7kha of natural forest, equivalent to 5.30Mt of CO₂ emissions in 2001. This is not big by global standards, but it is still a big concern. Some people are trying to change that.

Cheick Fadel Wade has been a very busy man these last few weeks. The co-founder and President of Solidarité Ci Sutura (Solidarity and respect) in Bargny, Senegal has been working hard to amplify messages about the importance of an urgent just transition to low carbon economies at home and abroad to a number of different audiences. For him, protecting the environment for present and future generations is not a choice - it is his destiny.

When the inhabitants of Macaneta beach in Mozambique suddenly found themselves with thousands of bottles that they could not get rid of, they decide to do something radical which had never been tried in the area before: build a house! The result was a property that now serves as a local library, a pilgrimage site for people looking change their relationship with nature and a tourism attraction for influencers who just want to flex for the 'gram.

“Our government is busy replicating the apartheid regime in support of neocolonial trends. Big mining companies like Recon Africa have more rights than the indigenous people in the Kavango. Why are they putting our natural resources and wildlife at risk? Who is fighting for the people being evicted from their lands? What happened to the liberation movement? This cannot continue!”

The climate crisis touches all areas of our lives. It is the role of climate journalism to explain this crisis and to show the causes, consequences, and solutions. In this podcast, journalists from the Global South meet interviewees from the Global North. Together they address the most important question for journalists at the moment: How can critical journalism help tackle the climate crisis?

In this episode, journalists Malembo Simbano from Tanzania and Mercy Malikwa from Malawi chat with Shirin Choudhary from India, who is an international climate protection fellow at Gender CC (Women for Climate Justice) in Berlin (Germany), on the connection between gender and climate change.

Professor Markus Wissen, who co-authored a book titled, “The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism”, visits the YAJAP podcast studios to speak with the programme’s fellows Onke Ngcuka and Alexandre Nhampossa.

Tafadzwa Ufumeli, a visual storyteller from Zimbabwe, and Lerato Mutsila, a journalist from South Africa sat down with Nina Treu, co-founder and coordinator of the Laboratory for New Economic Ideas in Leipzig, Germany to unpack the concept of Degrowth and uncover what place such a movement has in an increasingly globalised world. Can shrinking the economy save the planet or will it only benefit a few in the global North?

We speak to Professor Birgit Schneider from the University of Potsdam about the history and importance of maps in communicating climate change as well as climate change politics and denialism in Germany.

In this episode, African journalists Tumelo from Botswana and Florence from Malawi tag team to get an insight on the work of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in their combat against climate change and their fight for climate justice.

Southern African journalists' Teneal Koorts and Lemuel Chekai discuss the role of climate journalism with Theresa Leisgang- journalist, campaigner and co-founder of the Climate Journalism Network based in Germany.

Zimbabwe’s metropolitan areas are growing at an exponential pace as rural-urban migration accelerates and demographic growth continues. Suburbs are popping up everywhere. However, expansion of the reticulation network is not keeping pace with urban growth. The daily struggle to find water is becoming almost a complete side culture in itself. Photojournalist Tafadzwa Ufumeli has shot images of some Harareans’ daily water struggles.

For a country of 14.9 million, Zimbabwe’s energy needs are much greater than installed capacity - 1700MW - can cover. In comparison, neighbouring South Africa produces over 60,000 MW of power for a population of 59 million people. Zimbabwe’s electricity penetration rate of 44% leaves nearly three-quarters of the country's population in the dark. Now, climate change is making this already difficult situation even worse.

To rethink the living through new imaginaries for and with the living, climate justice is essential. This requires a reimagination of humanity’s ontology vis-a-vis the natural world. To rethink the living through a socioecological transformation, we must transform our conceptualisation of humans in nature.

The repeated underwhelming results of successive Conference of the Parties (COP) have left many people in the Global South wondering if there is still a point to these gatherings. Civil society networks feel that the corporate capture of the event is in fact complete and total, and countering that hegemony to allow for real change may eventually mean ditching the COP for more radical alternative spaces. We spoke to Aïssatou Keita, an activist from Senegal about this subject.

Magdalena Mwapinga farms fruits and vegetables. She had always looked forward to farming and began as soon as she completed her university degree. When she started farming at Mlandizi in the Pwani region (Indian coast) side of Tanzania, she never imagined that she would have to deal with the impacts of drought because the River Ruvu has always had a lot of water.

Residents of eThekwini municipality (which encompasses Durban and surrounding areas) in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa shall remember the month of April 2022 for a long time. Starting on Saturday April 9, heavy rain pummeled the city and, a few days later, on the night of Sunday 10 April 2022, eThekwini received over 300 millimeters (30cm) of rainfall in the space of 24 hours. In other words, it received more than a month’s worth of rain in one day.

In line with the current pace of global warming and rate at which glaciers are melting, the United Nations’ (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adjusted sea-level predictions to a new high-end risk scenario where global sea-level rise is projected to hit 2m by 2100 and 5m by 2150. What does it mean for a city like Cape Town?

In March 2019, the eastern parts of Zimbabwe were pummeled by heavy downpours and strong wind gusts as Cyclone Idai made landfall. The cyclone tore down thousands of homes and schools, caused many fatalities and led to loss of infrastructure and livelihoods. The damage was unprecedented. Two years later, survivors are still struggling to rebuild their lives.

An architect shares her experience and the challenges of being a part of the design team of Africa’s first 'Living Building Challenge Certified Green School in Paarl, South Africa. The school is the third to be established in a network of Green Schools around the globe. 

Unlike traditional schools where issues of climate change and the environment only come up in a handful of lessons, Lynedoch is unique as it prides itself in implementing a Montessori-led curriculum which focuses on imparting learners with knowledge on sustainability practices.

In the past six years, the Western Cape in South Africa has been experiencing droughts and water shortages, which have affected people and particularly farmers. Angus McIntosh, whose farm is situated on 126 hectares of irrigated pasture at Spier Wine Estate near Stellenbosch, is using sensitive smart-agricultural practices to cope with these climate change catastrophes.

The effects of climate change are now more visible than ever, but nowhere more so than in Malawi where many know little to nothing about it. Questions are now being raised on why the country is being hit on so many fronts by drought, lower crop yields and cyclones, and what the authorities are doing for mitigation and adaptation.

Their organic farming and water conservation measures help in climate change mitigation and adaptation, but they are not receiving support from the government and investors.

From samples of an organism that grows to just over two millimeters in length, zooplankton scientists in Namibia have, over two decades, collected evidence which confirms that waters within this part of the southeast Atlantic Ocean had been warming since the 2000s. Yokany Oliveira spoke to a local zooplankton scientist about these microscopic organisms and the breakthrough research on ocean warming.

Between October 31 and November 12 2021, world leaders, civil society and climate activists met in Glasgow, Scotland for the 2021 United Nations Conference of the Parties Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26. Mercy Malikwa recently caught up with Julius Ng’oma, National Coordinator for Civil Society Network for Climate Change in Malawi, to get his take on the much-hyped conference.

Namibia is known for searing heat, punishing droughts and sand dunes. Despite this harsh reality and a growing salinisation problem, some people are determined to start a food sovereignty movement in the country.

Namibia is one of the most arid countries in the world, with a high rainfall variability that makes it no stranger to drought. As the climate changes, the planet becomes warmer and drier, making arid countries even more susceptible to drought. The year 2013 was declared the driest year of the last three decades.

Dorah Marema has been working on climate issues for decades. She started one of the first grassroots environmental movements in South Africa and today, she advises local government authorities on how to adopt climate-smart policies. She believes that Africa in general and South Africa in particular need to be doing more right now, including in international negotiation processes like the Conference of the Parties, in order to mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.

An initiative of the RLS West African office called Delta climate school took place in both regions of Senegal (Kaolack and Dakar) between the 3rd and the 8th November 2021. The concept brought together stakeholders working in the environmental space for a number of days (mostly one week) to consolidate the efforts put in place by the climate justice focal points set up in five Senegalese counties (Casamance, Delta Saloum, Bargny, Mboro and Saint Louis) earlier this year.

The encroaching sea has wiped out many communities along the Senegalese Atlantic coast. Salinisation is also making it impossible for rural communities to grow rice, a staple food in the area. Some people are fighting back. They are planting trees, changing diets and alerting the world to the changes that are already happening right now in Senegal.

Residents of the small town of Hammanskraal have been angry with their government for a long time. The cause of their anger: lack of clean water - in fact, lack of any water. For a very long time, they have been spending a big chunk of their earnings buying water from supermarkets. Now, they are ready to ditch their government and vote for anyone who will finally resolve their water headaches.

Scientists, indigenous people and activists have long warned about the devastating consequences of the hyperconsumerist logic that mankind has adopted in a world of finite resources. Now, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2019) we are currently living the effects of a human-induced 1.1o increase in global temperatures with an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

Subron Ashok of Mauritius’ Centre for Alternative Research and Studies is feeling buoyant on the one-year anniversary of the MV Wakashio accident, a major oil spill in Mauritian waters that led to an unprecedented demonstration of popular ecology – a term coined after the clean-up campaign launched to deal with the oil spill. Since the spill, Ashok has seen hundreds of thousands of Mauritians rise up to demand better environmental protections, something that gives him hope for the future.

Ayanda Kota and his Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) have grown tired of fighting a raft of service delivery issues from the sidelines - water shortages, drought, sewerage problems, unemployment, waste disposal, etc and so, for the first time ever, the UPM is joining forces with other Makana residents and civil organisations in a coalition known as the Makana Citizen's Front (MCF) to contest the next municipal elections.

Southern Madagascar is reeling from a prolonged drought and nowhere is this more apparent than in Ambovombe-Androy, the administrative capital of Androy, the most southerly region of the country where almost the entire population is suffering acute hunger and famine, known locally as Kere.

Cattle may be the last act for some of humanity’s first people, the Ju|’hoansi. This picture essay tells the story of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy. Located in remote northeastern Namibia, close to the Botswana border, the 9000km2 Nyae Nyae Conservancy is one of the last two remaining San lands. Because of this land, the Ju|’hoansi San still practice hunting with bow and arrows and are able to maintain their culture. But the world’s oldest culture is now under threat from pastoralists.

Ayanda Kota is a very busy man these days. He has become a household name ever since his Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM) joined forces with other local businesses and activists to take his city’s municipality to court for dereliction of duty.

As people around the world recognised and celebrated World Environment Day 2021 we wondered why efforts to address the climate crisis are not yielding any major victories. We believe that the missing link in ongoing climate actions is the non-recognition that climate change is a social issue.

As dam levels drop in Botswana, dam outflow has been reduced to a minimum due to weather extremes caused by climate change. The country’s dams are no longer able to generate enough water for consumption, leading to the trucking of water and posing health risks to the residents of Molepolole. At the same time residents are battling a water and wastewater tariff increase forecasted for June 1st, 2021.

Between 2008 and 2019, Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, lost 784 hectares of wetlands to structural development, representing a loss of almost half of the city's total wetland hectare. For a city predominantly relying on underground water, the statistics are a major blow when considering that the water sources are recharged from these delicate spaces. However, the process of reclaiming these fragile spaces has seen the poor facing punishment while the rich were spared.

The Namibian government introduced a three-year fishing ban on sardines and pilchards in 2017 to save these fish from becoming extinct. While the damage has been done from overfishing, there are also concerns over how economically unstable the sector has become for workers over the years, as fishermen and factory jobs at the country’s coasts remain in question.

Harare City authorities often run out of water treatment chemicals. But their solution to this problem could worsen an already dire water situation in another suburb and destroy the environment.

Dr. Victor Munnik is an associate researcher at the South African-based environmental justice NGO “Groundwork“. He has worked on their reports, covering coal issues and South Africa’s greenhouse gases emission hotspot, Mpumalanga. As a political ecologist, Dr. Munnik specialises in water quality. The researcher and academic also collaborates with the Water Research Commission, mostly on civil society issues. He works directly with activists and communities, many of them in Mpumalanga Highveld.

A deep democracy Agriculture Green New Deal (AGND) in South Africa is long overdue. It is time to prioritise the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the land question.

It is time for an Agriculture Green New Deal (AGND) in South Africa. It is time for a great transformation, one that factors the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the land question and not just market considerations.

Would you be okay with your government auctioning your country’s wildlife to save it from drought? And would you be okay with them doing so without consulting you?

Many communities in South Africa use coal as a source of energy. Daveyton, a township East of Johannesburg, is amongst one of the communities that rely on coal for personal and private use by local businesses and  street vendors.

Clean drinking water is an inalienable human right and easy access to it has resulted in many communities taking it for granted. For the residents of the Temba township (South Africa), however, access to the precious resource remains elusive. This is because Apies river, the main water source which is meant to sustain the communities water needs, has been degraded to the point where the water is not fit for human consumption.

It’s been over six months since the world turned to the coast of Namibia where more than 7000 starved cape fur seals were discovered dead. But it’s not just seals that are dying, whales and dolphins have also been spotted dead or emancipated along the country’s coast probing scientists to look further into climate and human-related factors that are threatening marine life.

In Malawi the government is failing to fund proper climate change mitigation and adaptation activities. This is worsening environmental degradation in Mulanje District where charcoal and timber business is thriving among poor people who do not have alternative sources of livelihoods.

Climate change is an increasing reality for the rooibos-dependent town of Wupperthal in South Africa’s midwest. The slightest increase in temperatures means a great loss of income for rooibos farmers who are the descendants of the Khoisan community in the remote town. For one local farmer, climate change has been an ongoing and evident phenomena over his lifetime.

Tanzania has been facing climate change affected weather abnormalities for more than ten years now. And it is the ordinary people that are most vulnerable to these extreme weather conditions, especially children. This is the story of Faidha, a sixteen-year young girl from Dar e Salaam whose house is washed away yearly by heavy floods, making it difficult for her to follow her dream to become a pharmacist.

Experts say climate change requires farmers to innovate around production techniques, so they can sustain their livelihoods. Zimbabwean smallholder farmers turn to drought-resilient crops to counter the effects of climate change.

Namibia is one of the countries in Africa that are most severely affected by climate change, resulting in the already dry country becoming warmer and dryer. This leads to decreasing rangeland productivity and farmers being more vulnerable because droughts are more frequent and severe every year. That being said, if farmers change their mind-sets towards adopting sustainable practices, like regenerative agriculture, they can create resilience to the ever-accelerating effects of climate change.

Every year Malawi experiences devastating weather induced by climate change with some districts receiving little to no rain at all. For a country that relies on rain-fed agriculture, the impact is substantial. In the southern region district of Nsanje, drought during the rainy season negatively affects a majority of subsistence farmers in the area.

Since 1987, the waters of the Saloum Delta in Senegal’s Atlantic Ocean front have been rising rapidly, with severe consequences for communities along the shoreline. Up to one kilometre of shoreline has disappeared under water, taking with it many villages, forests and vegetable patches. In many instances, people who lose their homes are forced to leave at very short notice. The Senegalese government has been offering very little support to victims of coastal erosion.

Senegal, like most African countries south of the Sahara, is struggling with an unprecedented crisis caused mainly by persistent climate change. The effects of this phenomenon can be seen in increased temperatures, rising sea levels, growing greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystems degradation and drop in agricultural production which threaten the livelihoods of communities that are dependent on agriculture and fishery. The ocean front is also changing dramatically.

In March 2019, tropical cyclone Idai hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Being one of the worst tropical cyclones on the record, Idai leaft more than 1.300 people dead and thousands of people homeless. Less than two years later, in early 2021, another cyclone hit Beira again, killing six people and leaving the city destroyed. The cyclones are a warning about the seriousness of climate change effects in the region.

Missing electrification abridges economic development in rural areas in Zimbabwe. With the country’s energy company also struggling to pay its debts, 15 to 18 hour daily load shedding schedules are also affecting areas that are already electrified. In Gwanda South District, decentral solar mini-grids supply electricity to irrigation schemes, a clinic, a school and business centres – promoting productivity, more exposure to new technologies and job opportunities.

Ashok Subron is a political and social work activist from Mauritius and the President of the Centre for Alternative Research Studies. Subron was recently part of a group of local Mauritian activists who volunteered to clean up the Mauritian coastal area affected by the MV Wakashio oil spill in July 2020.

On Tuesday, 16th March 2021, Vishwas Satgar, Professor for International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa who is also co-founder of the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign, delivered a lecture on climate justice as well as his climate activism work in South Africa to participants of the Young African Journalists’ Accelerator Program 2021/22 Cycle. Here are the excerpts.

James Goodman is a Professor in Social and Political Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). In 2017 he initiated the Climate Justice Research Centre which focuses on the socio-political drivers for climate justice and define a new research agenda on the centrality of justice concerns for climate action. In this interview, he talks about his career in focusing on climate justice and what he thinks it will need to enable an energy transition in Africa.

Adenike Oladosu, Nigerian climate activist, eco-feminist and eco-reporter, was initially thrust into the world of climate activism after witnessing first-hand how climate change induced shocks negatively impacted the lives of the communities of the Lake Chad region. Lerato Mutsila and Sharon Munjenjema spoke to Adenike Oladuso about her work and her views on the climate justice agenda in Africa.

In the Lake Chilwa Basin in Malawi, the drying up of the lake has become more frequent than usual. The livelihoods of fishermen and many others are affected. Environmental experts attribute the drought to climate change, though some of the affected people do not think so.

In March 2019, tropical Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Being one of the worst tropical cyclones on the record, Idai left more than 1.300 people dead and thousands of people homeless. With the city of Beira destroyed, the second largest city of the country, Mozambique shouldered the worst consequences. Has Idai changed the way that the country perceives climate change today?

Across Zimbabwe, the impact of a severe El Niño-induced drought continues to drastically affect families in urban and rural areas. Hwange, located in the very Northeast of Zimbabwe, is one such place where loot of natural resources has caused untold suffering and loss of life.

South Africa is Africa’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, largely due to coal mining and coal-fired energy production. Twelve out of 19 coal-powered stations in the country are in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, some 300 kilometres from the city of Johannesburg. The cost of that is everywhere to see; the province’s air and water are heavily polluted, the land is degraded, and its people unhealthy and impoverished.

The entire Southern African Development Community (SADC) is reeling from the effects of multi-year droughts and accelerated heating, exacerbated by the adverse effects of a particularly strong El Niño. An overview.

South Africa has been plagued by persistent drought conditions since 2010. Although international media coverage has largely focused on the “Day Zero” campaign in Cape Town, the country is currently being devastated by two water crises, one of them nature-induced and the other, manmade.