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!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.